Which nightmare do you prefer?

The day before Christmas night, an event was being organized. The lights dimmed, and a man came out to the stage to start it all.

“Thank you all for coming to this year’s Christmas charity event. We particularly want to thank the eagle scouts, who volunteered their help to the organization, and without which all of this would not have been possible.”

I was in the backstage, holding a clipboard, sweeping away the sweat in my forehead. The sun had come down a while ago, but it still was higher than thirty degrees in the building, especially backstage.

Organizing the event itself was hell. The problem is that every time I complained about not wanting to take part on this people always said:

“But Oliver Rast has worked in events like this before, right?”

Like hell he did. Well, he did, but I was not there when he did. Those kinds of abilities and knowledge do not necessarily translate from generation to generation. I would know, my parents tried and they were also disappointed by the fact that I got absolutely nothing from the genetic lottery.

Still, that didn’t prevent them from getting me into every aspect of the production of the play they could, even when I asked them not to do so repeatedly. I swear, I did everything short of actually abandoning the scout group but I could not dissuade them at all.

Organizing the play itself was hell too.

“But Oliver Rast is an actor, isn’t he?” They also repeated again and again.

Yes. Not only has he helped in these events before, he even acted himself in them. How kind of him, how charming. The donations soared through the clouds when people saw him on stage!

It was very kind of him, I won’t say it was not. But why did they expect me to know how to act too? Do they think that talent is a genetic variable that all kids will always receive?

…

I guess sometimes it is. But not in my case. Before trying to get me into logistics, they did try to get me into acting. They didn’t say it in my face, but I did overhear the director say that they had seen wet cardboards with more actoral range than I had.

Quite a harsh statement to say about a child. Not that they were wrong, but they should have said that after I left, at the very least. Even now, that stings every time I think about it.

First they tried to make me the protagonist in the play, but I did manage to avoid that by threatening to abandon the scouts if they dared to force me into the role. When they offered me a minor one, I repeated my threat, and thankfully, they folded again.

When they put me in logistics I tried it a third time, but at that point the chief simply raised an eyebrow and said “If you want to leave so much, why are you even here in the first place?”.

I kicked a box, just thinking about the response. I could not follow through with the threat, and stayed helping here. At the very least, outside of the stage.

The hell inside here was still better than the hell out there. I saw the presenter reading the teleprompter in the back, feigning an happiness and cheer that I could not even begin to muster. That’s a professional alright.

Soon the curtain was going to rise and my partner Kolin was gonna take over from there, presenting the name of the play and who was gonna play each character. I started to walk away from the scenario, but soon enough…

“Pole!”

I turned around and I saw the chief running towards me, he seemed very agitated.

“Kolin is nowhere to be found. We need someone to present the start of the play right now.” He said, grabbing me from the shoulders.

I could feel the bile rising into my throat.

“Can’t you present it yourself?” I managed to say, already bracing for the answer.

“I need to prepare the other kids for the start. I already asked and there’s no one else available, I need you to do this.” He said, more and more agitated. “You only need to read the teleprompter, please.”

“And with that, we can finally start the play!” Said the presenter with a higher tone of voice, a clear indication for the one behind the curtain that their time to come out had come.

“Please, I trust you.” Said the chief before exiting the stage.

I grabbed him from his clothes and tried to follow him, but he forcefully made me release him and abandoned me on the stage as the curtain rose.

I turned around and I felt like a deer in highlights. I kind of was, as the two lights of the scenario were pointing toward me, awkwardly staying in a side of the scenario.

All the eyes, all of them, were looking at me. Expecting me to do something. Most of them had seen me now for the first time, but I already knew what they wanted from me and I already knew I could not deliver.

And in the front row, there was my father. Looking at me completely expressionless.

This was a true nightmare.

What once were nerves, now became a splitting headache, as the nightmare of the past returned to whence it came and I was now thrust headfirst into the new one that my current reality is.

And it started, just like it did once a long time ago, with a head-splitting headache.

My view was completely hazy, but I could not try to focus at all while my forehead throbbed at the same beat of my heart. The first time, it was completely self inflicted, but this one?

I’ll split that scarred guy's head, let’s see if he likes how it feels.

I sat up and laid against the wall. I raised my index finger in front of me, moving it from side to side, following it. I think doctors do that sometimes, but I don’t know what they are looking for when they do, so it is quite an useless exercise.

At the very least, it gave me something to focus on until I recovered again. Strangely, there seemed to be a black something in the corners of my eyes that I could not identify and did not fade.

My eyes quite soon got used to the darkness, as it seemed to be the only state this world was ever in. I could see the ropes I had been tied with, one for each limb. All of them thick, made of countless fibers that would never snap, not even if I were ten times bigger and stronger than I am.

Behind me was a sturdy rock wall. Somehow, as rough as it was, the touch of stone felt new to me. Except for the pyramid, every single building of the village was built with dry materials from the forest.

How I miss the solid, even walls back home. At the very least it didn’t hurt to rest upon them when I was tired. I didn’t think a wall could be taken for granted, but somehow, I did.

I rose up and slowly walked towards the only source of light around. A window that was just slightly above my view. I tiptoed, and with all the force I could muster, I grabbed the windowsill and tried to lift me up to see outside.

My thoughts when I saw the village was that it was otherworldly, but at the same time, like going a thousand years to the past.

Now, I felt as if I was seeing that past move in front of me.

This was not a village, this was a whole city. The village I could walk from extreme to extreme in 15 minutes, or at least that’s how long I think it took me when I did. This was not a metropolis by any means, but it felt like I had landed in the capital city of an ancient tribe, the kind that would use the multiple pyramid-like structures to perform rituals for the future of their people and strike fear in the hearts of their enemies.

And now, those people were the ones that now would decide my fate, which made the new reality I had now landed myself in truly start to settle in.