Aliens and Dreadnoughts

Occurred: 2001 Dec 06

There are 100 or so Human Beings in a small complex of rooms and corridors on a different planet. I am one of them. Everyone is melancholic and scared, because the Aliens (yes, Hr Giger's Aliens), will swarm us within a day, and we have to either survive it, or stop them.

I am walking through the corridors towards where the living quarters are; where I will feel safer with other people, rather than alone in the corridors. At the last corner I have to turn, there are alcoves in the walls housing our massive Dreadnoughts, large machines armed, and who automatically fire at bad buys. Unfortunately, we've put them on "hyper-sensitive" because we are so scared of the aliens coming down this corridor to get us, that it keeps firing single bullets at me. One of them hit me in the leg before I get around the corner.

I enter a room and talk to someone. Most people are preparing, putting up barricades, getting suited up. They will all sleep in their armour, because we don't know when the aliens will come. He lets me know how to stop the Dreadnought firing at me. I have to go back round the corner and pick up one of the London Underground tube maps, and hold it in the air as I walk down that corridor. I do it. It works.

I am in the safe corridor, the living quarters. The Dreadnoughts are twice the height of a human, their guns can kill the aliens easily. Presently all our Dreadnoughts begin firing down the corridors they are guarding... we are instantly surrounded and relying on them to protect us. The sound of the firing is deafening.

There isn't much fear yet - just melancholy, because we know we have to keep safe for much longer than possible before we can run away. A large group of us fall back to the vast storage corridor. We enter a room, it is tall like a cathedral, and is full of really big boxes and crates (each one over 3m tall, some of them 15m tall). They used to house the Dreadnoughts. We find... a sleigh.

We use the sleigh to travel to the centre room of the complex. Entering this room, we can't see the ceiling, it is so large. From beneath the floor is grown an absolutely massive tree, the trunk is at an angle you can walk up, and spirals upwards. You can run along the branches, they are very thick.

There is a panic breaking out, and the distant sound of firing stops, plummeting the dream into silence. We all run up the tree, we have to find hiding places where the fast moving and intelligent Aliens can't find us. We will hide here for a day, until it is all over.

At the very ends of the branches are pods, like sleeping bags but bigger. I climb into one... I am scared so climb into quite a low one (say only 10m up), rather than be seen walking on the branches by the aliens when they enter the room. The aliens are sniffers, like dogs, and violent, nasty.

As I enter the pod I realize it is more like a grave, that once an alien comes near, I can't escape. But I wake up before I think of any better idea.