The darkness was absolute, the temperature chilled to the bone, and oxygen was running low. Clarence became conscious in that particular way that makes dreams feel real, right in the middle of things.

He ran through the jungle. High above the canopy the gas giant of Grandor 8 hung bright, blue, and swirling in the night sky. His older brother led the way moving fast through the thicket. A group of children from school did their best to keep up. Their parents told them to hide in the hills and they traveled upland on raw knuckles.

Alien warships hovered over the village, flooding the scene with searchlights and scanners. When they began firing, the darkness of the valley erupted into flames and the troop of young gorillas stopped in their tracks looking back. The glow below outlined the trees and the furry edges of young primates.

Fear paralyzed Clarence and he felt his heartbeat in his throat. Their parents were dead, the village elders murdered, their home destroyed. The massive ships spread out in circle patterns across the surround. One headed right toward them.

"Keep moving!"

Clarence turned to see his brother lit with scanner beams waving his massive forearm at the others to follow. They all ran. Approaching engines whipped the underbrush around like a hurricane. Sonic stun weapons thundered down from the sky. Their ears rang, bodies went numb, and the earth seemed to rise up and smack them down.

Dreams have a way of jumping around in time without the dreamer being aware.

Clarence raised his rifle to his eye and took aim on the last of the enemy scrambling toward the bunker. Desensitized now to the violence of war, he mowed down three men before they could get to the steel door that slammed shut leaving their bodies outside.

"All right you stupid apes. You're gonna have to go down there and flush 'em out. Next time shoot better."

"No way, that's suicide."

The commander leveled his weapon on Clarence's brother and shot him dead where he stood.

"Anyone else have a problem with taking the bunker?"

Misdirected rage-fueled Clarence as he left his brother lying in a ditch and stormed the base killing all within. Every other gorilla in the squad died in the assault. Clarence didn't see people anymore, just odd shapes, shadowy ghosts of the lifeforms he sent into oblivion.

As he swept the dark rooms, a door with a crack of light under it came into view. He pushed it open and walked out onto a bright sand-swept desert. A camel walked over the ridge of the nearest dune.

The shock of his brother's death and all the enemy soldiers he killed sent waves of panic through him. He no longer heard the battle, a deafening silence filled his mind as he watched the strange four-legged beast walk closer and closer. The camel put its head not six inches from his face.

He looked into the animal's soft watery eyes and saw his own reflection behind long thick curly lashes. The camel grunted and spat in his face.

Clarence jerked out of sleep and slammed his head into the side of a metal box. The lid was open and he looked out into the interior of a storage hold. The others were gone and he was alone. He reached for his weapon and it was there in his holster. He climbed out of the crate and looked around the silently still room of a lifeless ship.

"Low gravity dreams freak me out."

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Check the external link for the sequel story!