A Destined Meeting of Chance

         “I’m alive!” He thought as he awoke from the hellish nightmare. Cold sweat was dripping off his face only to be halted by the wooden floor upon which he laid. He felt something heavy around his wrist. He was chained to the floor! Upon looking around the room, he noticed many other men and women, unconscious and strapped to the floor as if these iron tentacles were draining the life from them. He could not make out most of the faces. Some seemed dead, others close to it. It appeared to be a one-room building with only two doors not far from each other. All of the windows seemed to be covered so there was no way to see where he was. He was afraid to sit up. He didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself in case the machines were watching.
         “What’s your name?” a deep, unfamiliar voice called from behind him. He half rolled over and saw a man off in the corner with much of his face hidden in shadow. The stranger was sitting up unlike the others. In this position, he seemed to tower over everyone else, giving off a very commanding presence. He asked again, “What’s your name? Do you speak English?” “Yes!” the young man replied “Reese. My name is Reese. Who are you?” “Connor, John Connor. You gotta first name Reese?” “Kyle. How long have you been here?” “Just got dropped in.” Connor answered. “What about you?” Reese thought. “A day or two I believe. Any idea what goes on here?” Connor shook his head. “Some have guessed interrogation, others medical experiments. I can’t say for sure.”
         Something flew over the building that had become their prison. The roar of its engine seemed to vibrate the entire structure. “HK’s have been making rounds every ten minutes. I guess they’re expecting us to escape.” Connor exclaimed. “HK’s? You mean the planes?” Reese asked. “It means HunterKillers. That’s what I call the Tanks and Air Units the machines control. They’re nothing like the Terminators.” “I know what they are. They brought me here…” Connor interrupts, “Can I ask what you were dreaming about?” Reese hesitates. He looks around than sits up to Connor’s level.
          “My brother and I were searching for food. We looked everywhere, old ruins, half destroyed cars, any place we thought we could find food and even some places we didn’t. Then the machines came. First the HK’s, as you call them, then the Terminators. All we had to defend ourselves were shotguns but very few shells. One of the Terminators got a hold of Derek, my brother, snapped his neck and threw him back towards me. I lost all rational thought and started unloading everything I had on them. When I ran out of ammo, I tried beating them with the butt of the weapon. The machines started to back off. I saw a figure coming toward me. I couldn’t make it out at first but then I saw whom it was. It was my little sister. I knew it had to be a trick because she died when the bombs hit. What if she was real, I thought. That’s when she grabbed me. As she was strangling me, her eyes lit up with a bright red glow. The next thing I saw was all the people here. How could I have remembered what she looked like? I haven’t seen her in so many years. I don’t even have a picture, not of anyone.”
          “I only have one picture,” Connor said, “of my mother. It was taken a few months before I was born.” He pulled the picture out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Reese. The picture was old and dirty. A corner was torn and it felt like thin, brittle paper. It had to have been taken at least twenty years ago. The woman in the picture was very young, perhaps younger than Reese himself, and had a sad, cold look on her face as if she knew something unpleasant was about to happen. Reese examined the photo for a long duration. He seemed mesmerized by it. “She’s very pretty. What was her name?” he asked. With a small smirk on his face, Connor replied. “Sarah. She died a few years before Judgment day.” Reese looked puzzled. “What’s Judgment Day?” “The day the bombs hit and killed three million people. The day the human race was almost exterminated. The day the machines declared war on us.” Connor seemed to be saying this to himself more than answering Reese’s question. Neither spoke for a short while. Reese started to return the picture but Connor stopped him. “Hold onto it a while for me.” “You sure?” Reese asked bewildered. “Yeah! It gave me good luck in the past but…” He trailed off examining the bar code recently burned onto his right forearm. “…it doesn’t seem to work anymore. Maybe you’ll have better luck with it.”
         Another HK began to fly overhead and explosions could be heard in the distance. Connor looked over to Reese. “You should get some sleep. You’ll need all your strength tomorrow.” “What happens tomorrow?” Reese asked with a slight tremble in his voice. “This is a work camp.” Connor answered nonchalantly. “If they think you can’t work they kill you.” “I thought you didn’t know what went on here!” Reese exclaimed. “I don’t know what they do at night, but during the day, they use the humans as slave labor. Cleaning up the bodies from the most recent raids, and from the number of explosions, I’d say there will be lots to clean up.”
         With a new terror in his mind, Reese laid back down staring at the picture his new friend had just given him. Why did he want me to have it? He thought. Whatever the reason, he hoped it would give him good luck. He could use quite a bit of that right now. It was hard to sleep with explosions, HK’s and the blood curdling screams of the unfortunate souls he would be picking up in just a few hours penetrating the walls of the wooden structure. After listening to every sound from outside, Reese finally dozed into a light sleep. Nothing could compare to the nightmares he dreamt that night. Not even all he had just heard. The horrors in one’s own mind can sometimes be far more disturbing than anything they witness.