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Even in the calmest of waters, danger is ever present. Beneath the ocean surface’s tranquility lies chaos that only life can create. Unfeeling predators looking for their next victim, opportunistic parasites that latch on to their unsuspecting hosts to drain them of life, the occasional snake that strikes you when you least expect to see them, and the unlucky mammals that roam pointlessly until they become something else’s next meal… These are merely some of the denizens of the sea. However, you could make the case that these were the types of people one would meet in their miserable experience of a traumatic childhood. 

At least that was the case for David, still dreaming of that stupid boat and trying to interpret what it all means when he wakes up. At first, he didn’t mind since he just wrote it off as a quirky nightmare. The next time it happened, he had realized that he was entirely lucid during the sequence but couldn’t do much to change the landscape or even conjure props to liven the dull room. By dream number three, it had gotten stale and was actively causing anxiety episodes. It doesn’t even make sense! He flew to London and hasn’t set foot on a dock for years!

It always ended the same though. The odd caricature of a man would state some mumbo jumbo and then he woke up, much like now. It took a couple of seconds but David got his bearings and found himself in one of Thames’ Edge University’s computer labs. Yes, he now recalled that he was doing some extra course work after his morning classes. It seems that he dozed off for quite a bit though as no one else was in the room and the only light source turned on was the PC terminal he had logged in to. 

[b]5:30 PM[/b], it would state on the corner of the screen.

Grumbling to himself, David would quickly shutoff the computer and make his way to the exit. While signing out on the lab’s logbook, he had noticed from the windows that a fog had crept up on the campus. While London weather was famously gloomy, he didn’t expect such a heavy visibility hazard to show up out of nowhere. As he left the lab and gone out to the misty grounds, David noticed that the usually bustling school was empty. In fact, this was the first time he had experienced the university in a state of quiet.

Too quiet. Something was wrong and his heart began to race. As he walked aimlessly inside the fog, his heart started pounding louder and had drowned out the silence. A horrible thought had invaded his mind: was his heart giving out from the stress and his misuse of pharmaceuticals? Was he going to die just like his mom?!

[color=a691fc]“No, that’s stupid. They’re over the counter…”[/color] He reasoned to himself. Before he could continue in this descent of paranoia, David had started to hear distant mumblings. Someone, or something, was out there.

[color=a691fc]“Hey! Anyone out there lookin’ to help a lost bruce out!”[/color] he shouted with bravado, trying to mask the fear that was slowly overtaking him.