Nightmare Voyage
He awoke from another nightmare filled with pain and blood. He remembered savage teeth closing around his head and grating against his skull. He had struggled to breathe in spite of the odor of putrid flesh filling the saber-tooth tiger's maw. A dagger-sharp fang pierced his eye reddening his vision with a bloom of blood. Its mouth engulfed his head, increasing the pressure on his skull. In seconds, the fangs would pierce his brain. He knew he was dying. He had screamed then and woke to the sound of his pounding heart, as coolant flushed his lungs and machinery whirred. He could not move or open his eyes.
The facts drifted back to him like liquid droplets in zero-G—tremulous and easily scattered. His name was Boyd Dawson. He was the chief xenobiologist and mission physician in cryogenic sleep aboard the galactic exploration ship TRAVELER. ExplorCorp had promised total unconsciousness for the starship's entire two hundred-year mission. He and the other scientists would arrive at their destination planet as young and vital as the day they left the staging station at the edge of the galaxy. His mind should be in stasis like his plugged-in body. He shouldn't be able to remember any of this. Nor should he be dreaming.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard the tick of a servomechanism then felt the mind clouding effects of the sleep-inducer take hold. He began to spiral down into dreams again. This time the monster was a large reptile. Its jagged teeth pulled at his left arm while its foot stood heavily on his chest crushing his ribs. The sharp taste of blood filled his mouth with a clotted moan. The skin on his arm was flayed, bones snapped, and his shoulder ripped from its socket. He screamed. The dinosaur turned yellow eyes toward his face and focused on Dawson's exposed neck. Its scaly head dipped down and tore at his throat. There were no more screams after that.
Awake again but not awake. His eyes were closed, his breathing was regular, his heart rate was controlled with medication to keep it steady but his mind was working. The truth would have sent him staggering if he hadn't already been floating in stasis gel. Memories flooded back filled with visions of agony and death. Awakening then sleeping but always returning to that part of his mind where unspeakable monsters ripped at his dreamer's flesh. He understood the horror of living through two centuries of blood and pain and terror.
Dawson’s mind began the silent screams his mouth could not generate, as he plummeted into the endlessly repetitive nightmare. Insanity awaited him with gleaming teeth.