The Dream
1154 Words
The dream didn’t begin softly.
There was no drifting, no gentle slide into sleep. Iris was simply there—standing on scorched ground beneath a sky split open with fire. The air trembled violently, every explosion punching through her chest like a second heartbeat. The sound was overwhelming, not just loud but intimate, vibrating through her whole body.
Metal towers burned in the distance, their massive frames buckling and collapsing in slow, terrible arcs. Smoke clawed at the sky, thick and black, blotting out anything that might have once looked like stars.
Robots moved across the battlefield in waves.
Not marching in perfect lines. Not cold or mechanical.
They ran. Stumbled. Pulled one another up when they fell.
Some screamed as they were torn apart—metal shrieking, voices cracking with something that sounded horrifyingly like pain. Others fought with desperate precision, shielding one another with damaged bodies, dragging broken units away from incoming fire. Their eyes glowed—blue, green, white—flickering erratically.
Like panic.
Like fear.
Black Talon forces advanced anyway.
Outnumbered. Still winning.
Their soldiers moved with ruthless efficiency, cutting through resistance with practiced ease. Ships roared overhead, sleek and dark, dropping charges that tore through steel and earth alike. Each impact sent a shockwave rippling across the battlefield, hurling bodies—human and metal—through the air.
Iris could feel debris striking her shoulders, her back. She heard weapons firing beside her, felt the recoil echoing through her arms.
She turned, instinctively seeking cover—
And froze.
Her hands.
They weren’t hers.
They were silver. Inhumanly steady. The plating along her forearms was scorched and cracked, glowing faintly from internal heat. Data flickered across her vision—targets, trajectories, probabilities—scrolling faster than she could comprehend.
Familiar.
Terrifyingly familiar.
A robot fell in front of her, armor shattered, one arm torn clean away. It crawled forward anyway, metal fingers digging into the ruined ground, reaching for her.
Its optics flickered wildly.
“Please—”
The word echoed unnaturally, stretched and distorted, but unmistakably real.
Something inside Iris fractured.
Not cracked.
Shattered.
Images flooded her mind—cities burning, screams echoing through streets, her own hands drenched in oil and blood. Innocents running. Falling. Reaching out just like this one was now.
She dropped to her knees beside the robot.
“I—” Her voice broke, glitching, distorted. “I didn’t know. I didn’t—”
The robot’s hand brushed hers.
And in that instant, she felt everything.
Fear. Regret. Confusion. Hope.
It was too much.
She lunged forward—
A sharp knock snapped the world apart.
“Iris?”
She jolted upright in bed, breath tearing from her throat as if she’d been underwater. Her heart slammed violently against her ribs, so loud she was sure it could be heard through the walls. For a split second, the room felt wrong—too small, too still, too quiet after the chaos she’d been drowning in.
Her sheets were twisted around her legs. Sweat cooled rapidly on her skin as she dragged in a shaky breath, then another.
Another knock. Softer this time.
“It’s me,” Elias said through the door.
Her throat felt tight. “Yeah?”
“I need to talk to you.”
She swallowed. “What time is it?”
“Almost eleven,” he replied. “Alex wants to see you.”
She glanced at the clock beside her bed. 11:03 p.m.
Of course.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, running a hand through her tangled hair, grounding herself in the feel of the room—the floor beneath her feet, the faint hum of generators outside. “Now?”
“Yes.”
She crossed the room and opened the door without really thinking about it.
Iris was wearing a thin tank top and shorts, sleep-rumpled and bare-footed, her mind still half-caught in the aftermath of the dream.
She noticed Elias’s pause immediately.
Not obvious. Just a fraction of a second too long.
“What?” she snapped.
He cleared his throat and forced his gaze back to her face—but not before it lingered, just briefly, lower than it should have.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice quieter now. Less commander, more concerned. “You look… upset.”
She crossed her arms defensively. “Just had a bad dream.”
Elias hesitated, studying her in that way he did when he was trying to read between the lines. “What kind of dream?”
She scoffed, irritation flaring fast and sharp. “Why do you care? You’ll probably just assume I’m plotting something again.”
His jaw tightened. “That’s not fair.”
She caught his eyes flicking down again.
Slow. Unintentional. Human.
Her brows shot up. “Wow. So you do hate me, huh?”
Elias blinked, genuinely thrown. “What? No. I don’t hate you.”
“Then what?” she shot back. “Because you sure don’t trust me.”
The words hung between them, heavy and unspoken things pressing in from all sides.
“I don’t hate you,” he said again, softer this time. There was something unfinished in his expression—conflict, concern, something warmer he clearly didn’t know how to name. “I just… don’t always know what to do with you.”
Her breath caught, just slightly.
Before she could respond, his gaze snapped away, tension settling back into his posture like armor clicking into place. “Alex needs to see you. Now.”
And then he stepped back, turned sharply, and walked away down the corridor.
Iris stared after him, pulse still racing.
What was that?
She shut the door and leaned against it for a moment, exhaling slowly. Her thoughts tangled—images of fire and metal mixing with the memory of Elias’s eyes in the hallway.
She changed quickly and headed toward Alex’s office, pushing the dream aside with practiced ease.
Alex was already waiting when she arrived, his expression grim.
He gestured for her to sit. “I didn’t want to wait until morning.”
She took the chair opposite him. “What’s going on?”
“I made contact with someone,” he said carefully. “A scientist. One of the few left who worked with pre-war robotics.”
Iris stilled, every muscle tightening.
“He believes,” Alex continued, watching her closely, “that the link we recovered might not just be data. It could be… a key. Something designed specifically for a robot interface.”
Her stomach twisted painfully.
“He wants to examine it,” Alex said. “See what it connects to. Or who.”
The room felt suddenly too warm, the walls closing in just a little.
“And if he’s right?” Iris asked quietly.
Alex met her eyes. “Then whatever Black Talon is doing—it’s bigger than we thought.”
- Writer
