Author’s Note: These Dream Sequence stories each start with an actual vivid dream I had. After I finish writing the details of each dream, I use Sudowrite artificial intelligence as a collaborator to continue the story in an attempt to connect all of the dream sequences somehow. Each story is a mix of human dreams, artificial intelligence, and conscious storytelling.
Previous dream sequence: Into the Storm
“4:13. We have five minutes!” Danny shouted.
“I’m in front of the door,” Xenia replied from below.
Danny carefully rappelled down the ancient stone edifice, its surface covered with faded pictograms. They would have a brief window of time to enter the treasure room.
A beam of bright light appeared near the top of the crevice. It slowly moved down toward the bottom, where the door waited for its light to unlock it, for the first time in nearly two thousand years.
As Xenia waited for Danny to make his way down, she examined the door. It was a rectangle of gleaming metal, smooth and clean like polished marble, except for the etchings of ancient pictograms. Embedded at the top was a red gemstone, the keyhole to open the door. On past trips to the crevice, they had tried shining light into the gemstone, but nothing happened. They could only partially translate the pictograms, and they seemed to state that a beam of light would open the door at precisely 4:18PM on December 21.
Xenia looked at her watch. 4:15. She looked up at Danny, just in time to see him fall to the ground on the final ten feet of his decent. She rushed toward him. “What happened?”
“Ow,” Danny said as he sat up. “My rope snapped.”
Xenia glanced up the wall. The beam of light was brighter now, and it had just crossed paths with their ropes… both of them, and burned them in half. Her heart seemed to skip a beat. “The ropes! They’re both broken!”
“No way!” Danny exclaimed.
“We can’t get back out!”
Danny looked past Xenia toward the door. “That’s the only way now.”
They both watched the door as the beam of light, strengthening in intensity with each passing second, moved relentlessly toward the gemstone at the top of the door. As the light hit the stone, it reflected off of it with such intensity that the entire crevice immersed in bright red light. The light was so intense that they had to close their eyes as the beam passed over the gem. They heard a loud screech of metal scraping against metal, then a loud bang. When they opened their eyes again, the light was gone, the portal was open, and it was pitch black inside.
“No,” Xenia said. She stood up and ran her hands along the walls. “Maybe we can climb back up,” she said half-heartedly as she realized that the walls were smooth and sloped inward like the inside of a vase.
Danny sighed. “It’s no use. All we can do is see if there’s a way out on the inside.” He motioned his head toward the dark open doorway.
“Ever the stoic, Danny,” Xenia said sarcastically. “There can’t be any way out from in there! This is the only door in there!” She paced around the chamber, shaking with fear and anxiety.
Danny stood up and stepped toward her, palms in the air facing outward to show that he was only trying to be supportive. “We’ve come this far and we’re stuck. Let’s at least take a look inside and maybe we’ll think of a way out.”
Xenia looked up at him with a concerned look on her face. She looked as if she were about to cry, as she walked to Danny and hugged him tight.
“Who knows? There might be grappling hooks in there,” Danny said to break the tenseness of the situation.
“Okay. Let’s go look,” Xenia said, wiping a tear from her cheek.
They turned on their flashlights and made their way toward the entrance to the tomb.
***
As Danny and Xenia passed the threshold and through the dark passageway, the light from their flashlights became distorted. Xenia held her flashlight straight out in front of her face. “Whoa! What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Danny said, his own flashlight beam equally distorted. The beams of light weren’t straight anymore. They could barely see if they were pointing their flashlights at any surface more than a foot or two away.
“Maybe we just have to get used to it,” Xenia said.
Danny took a step forward. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, his voice softening.
“Why not?”
Danny didn’t answer.
“Dan?”
“The air is warmer in here and it feels thick,” Danny said in voice barely above a whisper.
Xenia sniffed and took a deep breath. “You’re right. The air is warm and the torch-smell is gone.” She looked up at objects protruding from the ceiling and realized they were roots. “And look, there’s light up ahead.”
“We’re going back up now,” Danny said, sounding hopeful this time. They continued walking, moving higher with each step, and the light in front of them getting brighter as they walked. After a few minutes, they stepped out into the light.
“Where are we?” Xenia said in amazement. They stood back in the jungle, but this jungle looked unfamiliar. Something was different about it, as if it was not the same jungle deep in the greater Petén Basin region of Mexico that they had explored for the past two weeks.
Danny turned around and stepped back, turning his gaze upward. “Wow. Will you look at that?”
Xenia spun around to take a look. “It’s amazing.” They had just stepped out of the mouth of a massive face carved into a stone boulder. It was colorful, with green jade and accented by dark red paint.
“But something’s not right,” Danny said. “The paint looks fresh… if that even is paint…” his voice trailed off.
“Is that blood?” Xenia said.
Then they heard rustling and crashing coming from the jungle behind them. Someone was coming.
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