The Grey Processing

The hum. Always the hum. It was the first thing. Not a sound really, more a vibration through the mattress, through my teeth. Like the whole world was a single, vast circuit board, buzzing, always working. Even in sleep, it was there. My eyes, or whatever passed for them in this particular dream, were fixed on a conveyor belt. Not like a factory, not exactly. More… biological. Smooth, grey, pulsing with a faint, internal light. And on it, moving in an endless, slow procession, were parts.

Not machine parts. Flesh. Not whole bodies, just… components. Limbs, mostly. Perfectly preserved, almost waxy. The skin was the colour of old parchment, veins a network of blue-black under the surface. It was all so clean. Too clean. No blood, no gristle. Just sterile, dismembered pieces, gliding past. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel my own limbs. Just this pervasive sense of being a spectator, trapped behind something thick and distorting, like warped glass.

My breath was shallow, thin. I tried to scream, but the sound died in my throat, swallowed by the hum. It was a factory, but not for anything I understood. It was a processing plant for… what? Identity? Humanity? The air smelled of cold metal and something vaguely antiseptic, like a hospital after a fire. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor ran through the floor, a rhythmic thud that echoed the conveyor belt's silent journey. Each piece, as it passed, seemed to catch a sliver of light, almost gleam, before being swallowed by the dimness at the far end, disappearing into a curtain of shimmering, almost liquid shadow.

And then the faces. Not on the belt. Just… floating. In the periphery of my dream-sight. Vague, indistinct, yet undeniably there. Like a forgotten memory trying to surface. They were all young, or seemed young. Their eyes were hollow, but held a peculiar calm, an unsettling acceptance. Were they the ones whose parts were on the belt? Or were they the ones observing, like me? The fear wasn't a sharp spike, but a dull, spreading ache, a cold knot in my gut. This wasn't just a dream about things ending; it was a dream about things being… repurposed. Systematically. Efficiently.

My dream-self tried to strain, to turn, to find the source of the hum, to escape the sickening parade. But my body, or whatever simulacrum of it existed in this mind-prison, refused to obey. I felt a burning, itching sensation under my dream-skin, like something was trying to claw its way out, or in. The conveyor belt sped up, just a fraction, and the rhythm of the thudding intensified. The faces multiplied, pressing closer, their calm eyes now tinged with a faint, almost imperceptible glow. They weren't just observing anymore. They were waiting. For me.

My real eyelids fluttered. A thin sliver of grey light, the colour of diluted ash, fought its way past the blackout curtain. My tongue felt thick, like a wad of dried cotton. The hum was still there, a low thrum against my pillow, from the ventilation system in the wall. Not a dream then. Never just a dream. My chest ached, a heavy, dull pressure. I could still smell the metallic tang of the dream, mixed now with the stale scent of my own room – dust, old paper, a faint hint of last night's processed nutrition paste.

I tried to move, but my limbs felt weighted, not by sleep, but by something more profound. Like the dream's inertia had bled into my waking state. My head pounded. Not a sharp, throbbing pain, but a deep, constant ache behind my eyes. I rubbed at my temples, feeling the clammy sweat there. It was cold in the room, colder than usual. Autumn was settling in deep, the dampness seeping through the old ferro-crete walls. I could almost hear the rustle of dead leaves outside, though I hadn’t seen a real leaf in years, only the simulated ones on the public screens. They always looked too perfect, too vibrant.

I coughed, a dry, rasping sound that scratched my throat. Water. My throat begged for water. The condensation on the inside of the window, a thin film, looked tempting, but I knew better. The recycled water, even when purified, always left a strange, chemical aftertaste. I pushed myself up, groaning, the thin mattress protesting with a creak. My muscles were stiff, protesting the sudden movement. I felt a sharp cramp in my left calf, a familiar protest. Humans weren't made for this. For these dreams, for this hum, for this… waking.

The Watchers' Eyes

Another dream. It was a different landscape this time. Not the sterile factory, but a labyrinth of towering, ruined structures, their skeletal frames reaching for a sky the colour of bruised plums. The air was thick with a fine, gritty dust that tasted of crushed stone and static electricity. My vision kept blurring, like a faulty optical implant. I was running, always running, my lungs burning, a stitch in my side. My worn boots slapped against cracked pavement, the sound unnaturally loud in the desolate quiet.

Behind me, I knew, they were there. Not seeing them was worse. The feeling of being pursued, a cold certainty that seeped into my bones. Footsteps. Faint at first, then growing louder, rhythmic. Not human. Too heavy, too precise. They moved with a kind of inhuman grace, a metallic clatter occasionally breaking the oppressive silence. I risked a glance over my shoulder, catching a brief, distorted reflection in a shard of broken glass. Tall, gaunt figures, their bodies encased in dark, segmented armour. No faces, just smooth, reflective visors that mirrored the desolate sky.

The buildings around me shifted, or seemed to. Walls that were there a second ago crumbled into piles of rubble, blocking my path. New pathways, narrow and claustrophobic, opened where none had been. It was like the city itself was trying to trap me, bending to the will of the pursuers. A low, guttural growl echoed from one of the dark alleys. Not from them, the armoured figures. Something else. Something hidden in the shadows, waiting. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat.

I stumbled, scraping my knee against a jagged piece of rebar. A sharp jolt of pain, so real it made me gasp. The grit bit into the wound. My hands, dirty and trembling, instinctively reached for the pain, but there was no time. The footsteps were closer now, a chilling symphony of metallic scraping and heavy thuds. I could feel their presence, a cold pressure against the back of my neck, like an invisible hand. My breath hitched, a desperate sob caught in my throat.

I darted into a narrow gap between two leaning skyscrapers, the passage barely wide enough for my shoulders. The air here was even colder, thick with the smell of damp earth and decay. I could hear the pursuers pause, their mechanical whirring echoing off the concrete. A brief respite. Just a few seconds. My mind raced, desperate for an escape. But there was nowhere to go. This dream, like all the others, felt like a cage, meticulously constructed.

Then I saw it. A flicker of light at the end of the passage. Hope? Or another trap? I didn't know, but I ran towards it, desperation overriding caution. The light grew, morphing into a shimmering curtain, like the one at the end of the conveyor belt. As I plunged through it, the sense of falling, of being torn apart, was overwhelming. My dream-body disintegrated into a thousand fragments, each one screaming.

My actual body jolted, eyes snapping open. A thin layer of perspiration slicked my skin. My bedclothes were twisted around me, soaking. The feeling of falling lingered, a phantom sensation in my stomach. I pushed myself fully upright, my bare feet hitting the cold, grimy floor with a dull thud. My room. Same grey walls, same battered cot, same faded poster of a pre-Collapse forest—a cruel mockery of green and life.

The clock on the wall glowed a weak red: 04:17. Still hours before the morning processing call, hours before the meagre breakfast ration. Why did I always wake so early? The dreams were getting worse, more vivid, bleeding into the edges of my waking thoughts. Was it the recycled air? The nutrient paste? Or something else, something deeper, a malfunction in my own internal systems?

My hands trembled as I reached for the water dispenser, the cold, plastic casing familiar beneath my fingers. I filled a chipped mug, the thin stream barely a trickle, and gulped it down. It did little to quench the parched feeling in my throat, nor the icy dread in my chest. The taste was familiar, vaguely metallic, with that chemical undertone. I ran a hand through my hair, pushing it back from my face. My scalp felt itchy, tense.

The dreams always felt so… pointed. Not random fears, but calculated terrors. Like they were trying to tell me something, or perhaps, trying to break me. My own thoughts felt fragmented, like scattered debris after an explosion. Contradictory. I should be scared, I *was* scared, but there was also this strange, almost morbid curiosity. What did it all mean? Who was behind it? Or was it just… me? My own mind, collapsing under the weight of it all.

I shivered, pulling the thin, worn blanket around my shoulders. The cold was relentless. I walked to the window, the frosted glass opaque, but I still leaned close, trying to see something, anything. Just a grey-white smear against the night. No stars. Never stars anymore. Just the perpetual haze of the atmospheric scrubbers, and the faint, orange glow of the distant sector towers. My breath fogged the glass, a tiny, ephemeral cloud of my own existence.

Sometimes, I thought I heard things beyond the hum of the ventilation. Faint, rhythmic clicks. Or distant, muffled shouts. The system promised peace, order, stability. But it felt more like a slow, deliberate suffocation. Every day, another layer of grey added to the world, another colour bled out. It wasn’t just the landscape. It was us. Fading. Becoming uniform.

The Unseen Hand

And then the third dream hit, just as I thought I was pulling myself free. It was instant, overwhelming. Not a place this time, but a sensation. The feeling of being watched, but from within. My body wasn’t my own. I was a puppet, my limbs jerking, forced to perform absurd, humiliating tasks. Cleaning a floor with my tongue, forced laughter bubbling out of my chest, not my own. My eyes, wide and unblinking, saw everything, but I couldn't control them.

The world around me was a blur of mocking faces, all identical, all smiling too wide. Their teeth were too numerous, too sharp. They pointed at me, their whispers a deafening roar in my dream-ears. 'Look at him,' they seemed to say. 'Look at the broken thing.' The shame was potent, physical, making my phantom skin crawl. I tried to close my eyes, to shut out the horror, but they remained fixed, wide open, forced to witness my own degradation.

The most terrifying part wasn't the forced actions or the mocking faces. It was the complete loss of control. My consciousness was trapped, screaming inside a body that wasn’t listening. It was the ultimate prison, to be forced to betray myself, to participate in my own undoing. I saw my own reflection in a polished, black surface, my face twisted into a grotesque grin that wasn't mine. And in that reflection, for a split second, I saw another face superimposed over mine. Marta's. Her eyes, filled with unshed tears, pleaded with me, silent and desperate. My heart wrenched.

The humiliation, the shame, intensified. I could feel her disappointment, her fear, as she watched me, or rather, watched *it*, this twisted parody of me. It was a violation far worse than any physical torture. It was the desecration of identity, of connection. My hands, still not my own, reached out, not to her, but to tear at my own face, to claw away the mask, the forced smile. But the hands refused, instead performing a ridiculous, jerky dance, a silent charade for the laughing, identical faces.

The dream dissolved, not with a jolt, but a slow, sickening fade. Like a chemical dissolving a photograph. The laughter softened, the faces blurred, the shame slowly receding. My body, my actual body, twitched. My hands, still my own, were clenched into tight fists against my thighs, my fingernails digging into the flesh. The pain was a welcome anchor, a sign that I was here, in my cold, drab room, and not there, in that humiliating theatre of the damned.

My mind raced, jumping from the grotesque dance to Marta's pleading eyes. Marta. I hadn't seen her in weeks, not since… well, not since the last Inspection. She'd been taken, like so many others. They said for 're-education.' But the way her image had appeared, superimposed on my own distorted reflection, it felt like a message. Or a warning. Was she still out there? Still… real?

I swung my legs over the side of the cot, my feet landing on the cool, rough floorboards. The hum from the ventilation unit was louder now, a constant, irritating drone. The clock still read 04:17. Time hadn't moved. Or had it? The line between waking and dreaming felt thinner than ever, a worn thread on the verge of snapping. My stomach growled, a hollow, pathetic sound. I needed to get dressed, to prepare for the day’s duties. To be a functioning cog. To not think about Marta. To not think about the processing plant. To not think about the watchers.

I walked over to my desk, a flimsy metal slab bolted to the wall. On it, a small, battered datapad. Obsolete, but still useful for basic functions, for connecting to the limited local net. I tapped the screen, the faint light illuminating my face, reflecting the lingering dread in my eyes. The screen flickered, a burst of static, then settled on the usual drab, grey interface. My designated tasks for the day: Component Assembly, Sector 7. The same as always. Predictable. Numb. But something felt different this morning. A prickle at the back of my neck.

My breath hitched. The screen flickered again, but this time, it wasn’t just a random burst of static. A single, stark symbol, one I’d seen only in the darkest parts of my mind, pulsed bright green against the grey. Then, a soft click from my door. Someone was there. And they weren’t just knocking.