Ch. 14: Story so far...

KimLuster on May 14, 2016

This is a fairly long (but not too long) synopsis of everything that’s occurred in the story up to this point. This is for anyone who doesn’t have time or energy to read my backlog, or for anyone who just wants to refresh themselves on this convoluted tale. But it’s by no means necessary – feel free to skip it all!!

Story so far (in rough chronological order, not necessarily how it appears in the comic)…

Kimber Lee Luster is a promising graduate student who is a team-member in Synprovision’s secretive cutting-edge dream experiments, which involves bathing the brain in entangled quantum particles. This somehow induces incredibly realistic lucid dreams that seem much like the real world, save the dreamer has matrix-like superhuman abilities and senses. To the team of scientists’ surprise, she soon develops the ability to have the lucid dreams on her own, without needing the tech. Unfortunately, she is also diagnosed with brain cancer. Chemotherapy treatments ravage her body but do little to alleviate the tumors. She comes to believe the experiments caused her cancer, but also may be the only way to heal.

Kimber Lee agrees to undergo ‘dream therapy’, where in her dream she is to encounter ‘something’: a person, beast perhaps, that’s meant to symbolically represent her cancer, then combat and defeat it. As the dream sessions were already showing the promise of minor healing in other test subjects, the hope is that this will induce a sort of supercharged placebo effect, perhaps putting her cancer into remission. In the first dream session, she encounters a dream version of Eli Hoff, her uncle, who sexually abused her as a young girl. Believing him to be this symbol, she is unable to ‘kill’ him due to the incredible realism of the dream, and so she judges the dream session to be a failure.

Nevertheless, the session seems to have some benefit, as Kimber Lee’s cancer does indeed go into remission, and her health gets better. But then she begins to have certain side-effects, such as being unable to fall asleep at all, along with characteristics that normally only occurred in her dreams, such as her senses amplifying to superhuman levels. She then theorizes that her cancer was actually caused by her mind, amplified by the power of the lucid dreams, all due to the repressed memories of molestation at the hands of her uncle. Mental cancer caused real cancer, and she decides to undergo dream therapy once more with the intent on finding the ‘dream’ Eli, ‘finishing the job’, and healing herself for good.

The new dreams start bizarrely, with her seeing inside her own body and encountering an alien presence, a small glowing ball of energy, within her. The dream then shifts and she finds herself in a morgue, naked, on an autopsy table. Using her superhuman dream abilities, she evades the doctors and guards, escapes the building and goes looking for Dream Eli. Unable to find him, she destroys his apartment, scuffles with the police, and is shot. During the surgery to remove the bullet, she again sees inside her own body, encounters the alien entity again, and it heals her body, ejecting the bullet.

The dream shifts once more and Kimber Lee finds herself held captive by Jack Caleb (head of Synprovision) and the other scientists. They try to convince she’s not dreaming at all, that somehow she has made her dreams real; that she actually died and resurrected and now has superhuman abilities for real. Since being able to do superhuman deeds was how she determined if she’s dreaming, she doesn’t believe them, considering them all just dream apparitions. Jack Caleb invites her to dinner and he muses on what it must be like to do as she can do. She says she wishes he could be as she is and gives him a small kiss. This act seems to pass a copy of the alien entity into Jack and he enters a catatonic state. Panicking, Kimber Lee moves to escape.

Outside in the darkness Kimber Lee evades the guards, but then her super-senses indicate a familiar presence nearby. After accidently killing a guard, she finds Eli Hoff, held captive. Seizing her opportunity, she makes to kill him, but is interrupted by more guards and soldiers. Fighting them off, she is dismayed to find that Eli is killed by a stray bullet. Since she didn’t kill him directly, she feels that she didn’t truly defeat him. At that moment, Jack Caleb shows up. He tells her that he now also has an alien presence inside him, and it has given him the same abilities as she. He tries to convince her that she truly isn’t dreaming anymore – this is real. While they talk, Eli Hoff comes back to life, zombie-like! Apparently, by slapping his corpse in frustration, she’d inadvertently passed the Entity to him as well, bringing him back to life.

Terrified, Kimber Lee flees. Jack and his soldiers shoot at her, trying to stop her but she escapes into the dark woods. Grievously wounded by bullets and severe falls, she collapses and pleads for the entity to heal her – and it does. Gathering herself, she begins to give credence to the possibility she isn’t reaming after all, that she really has undergone some sort of miraculous transformation. This is further bolstered by her resurrecting a wolf she accidently killed when trying to free it from a trap. Encountering the wolf-hunters, she steals their clothes and vehicle and makes her way back to civilization. She realizes that if she isn’t dreaming, then her family is being torn apart by everything that’s happening. She cleans up, buys some clothes, and goes to make things right with them.

At a baseball game, just before Kimber Lee meets up with her family, a strange lady intervenes and tries to convince her she still is dreaming. Thinking that now Synprovision is playing games with her, she dismisses the lady and is then shot in the head by a sniper. But her superhuman abilities are increasing in potency and within seconds she shrugs off the wound and takes out the sniper. Jack Caleb, via mobile phone, tries to convince her to surrender, suggesting that it’s not just she who is in danger, but her family is as well. Realizing the truth of this, she decides to go into hiding, leaving her family behind.

Kimber Lee makes her way to the ranch home of an old friend, Socorro Saavedra. Socorro and Kimber Lee are no longer on good terms, as Kimber Lee’s husband, Emilio Viarez, used to be Socorro’s lover, nevertheless Socorro and her family agree to let her go into hiding at their ranch. Kimber Lee experiences relative peace for a while. She secretly experiments with and hones her abilities, and eventually she and Socorro make amends with each other. Socorro, in what she believes to a be a gesture of good will and friendship, arranges for Kimber Lee’s husband and children to secretly be brought to the ranch to reunite with her. Kimber Lee feels betrayed at first (thinking this dangerous) but then is elated to be back with her family. It seems she finally has a measure of peace.

After a love-making session with Emilio, Kimber Lee casually uses her super-senses to peer inside his body, and she discovers what appears to be an implanted tracking device. Sure enough, heavily armed soldiers and helicopters descend on the ranch. Kimber Lee tries to fight them off and nearly succeeds, but one soldier severely injures her with armor-piercing rounds. She begs the entity to help her save her family and friends, whatever the cost, and the entity responds, by seeming to take over her body.

During the battle, Socorro had taken a lethal gunshot and is near death. Using cold logic, the entity, controlling Kimber Lee’s body, follows her wishes fully and saves Socorro by passing itself on to her as well, healing her instantly. ‘Possessed’ Kimber Lee then approaches the soldiers, led by Jack Caleb, and negotiates terms of surrender, deeming this the best way to keep everyone alive. Kimber Lee, her family, the Saavedras and all their help and ranch hands are rounded up and taken to a secret facility in the desert.

At the base, scientists and military personnel discuss what’s going on with Kimber Lee, how her dreams could have caused this, and what sort of threat she may be. They conclude that whatever is triggering this in her, and others, is not unlike a virus and they dub it ‘the Godstrain’. Using her super-senses, Kimber Lee, still controlled by the entity, overhears them discussing a being called ‘Subject One’ and she offers to work with them if they will take her to this being. This they agree to and Kimber Lee is taken to a deep underground vault where a gigantic monstrous humanoid is being held captive.

‘Possessed’ Kimber Lee seems fascinated by him and moves to touch him, but the real Kimber Lee, repulsed by the idea of touching this monstrosity, fights back and is able to take back control of her body. It’s then revealed that the mutated giant is actually Eli Hoff. Not only did Eli come back from death, but he also transformed into a huge imposing colossus. The scientists’ theory is that this is how Kimber Lee (as a child) saw Eli, and so not only is Kimber Lee herself being transformed, but others as well, based on her subconscious impression of them. This, the scientists say, is what the Godstrain does, and it’s why it was so imperative they captured Kimber Lee, to keep her away from others until they figure out what to do.

Meanwhile, Jack Caleb keeps the fact that he is also ‘infected’ by the Godstrain secret from everyone, and has blackmailed Kimber Lee into helping him maintain it. She calls him out on this, noting his unfairness and hypocrisy. Playing on his guilt, she convinces him to let her see her family. The family reunion is a strained one, as Kimber Lee’s husband and children, her parents, and the Saavedras have all suffered from their incarceration. Before more can be said, however, a giant explosion diverts everyone’s attention. Somehow, Monstrous Eli created a large blast and breaks free from his vault.

Easily three stories tall, Eli tears into the soldiers, causing heavy damage and loss of life. Their weapons injure him somewhat but not nearly enough. Eli turns his attention toward the building Kimber Lee and family are in. Smashing through, he tries to grab various individuals. Kimber Lee, going into protective mode, attacks Eli and manages to distract him long enough for the military to train their heavier weapons on him. Seeing that the troops are finally doing some serious damage to Eli, Kimber Lee flees the battlefield and goes to her family and the Saavedras, who have retreated to a secure vault. Getting mixed signals from them (there is fear and blame directed at her), Kimber Lee tries to explain that she can learn to control this, but they are again interrupted. Eli has somehow already defeated the military units and is trying to break into the vault. The reason now seems obvious – he wants her!

Realizing that he will eventually break in and endanger her loved ones, Kimber Lee determines to leave the vault and engage Eli once more. As she tries to sneak out via building ductwork, he senses her and begins a terrible assault against her. She fights back and seems to have some success, but he finally catches her. His strength is overwhelming and she is unable to break free, seemingly helpless to his next move. The soldiers use this moment of distraction to renew their attack, enabling Kimber Lee to break free. She flees the base, with Eli in pursuit. She manages to evade him, and he purposefully injures a family. Threatening deadly harm upon a child, Eli forces Kimber Lee to stop running, to stand and face him.

Kimber Lee gives it her all, and actually manages to hurt Eli, but he is able to snatch her once more, crushing her in his hand. To her confusion, Eli tries to communicate with her. Unable to comprehend his garbled speech, Kimber Lee offers to try to help undo his mutation. At that moment, a tendril of energy sprouts from her forehead and connects to Eli. She feels that the Godstrain is trying to enter Eli completely, and leave her. Tempted to allow it, she realizes what Eli could do to the world with even more power and she wills the Godstrain to cut off the energy flow. Eli, in maddened frustration, furiously beats and tortures her to near death.

Airstrikes manage to drive Eli away, and Kimber Lee is brought in. At the limit of her endurance, both physically and mentally, Kimber Lee forces herself to believe that all the horror is a dream, and she passes into a coma. When she awakens, her body is skeletal thin and her hair is gone, just as she was when she started the last dream experiment, when she was still riddled with cancer. Now more convinced than ever that all the recent terrible events must have been a dream, she's refuses to believe the scientists and officials when they try to convince her she's not dreaming. Even worse, she starts to believe even this scenario might be a dream, and she falls into another coma, and another dream, this one a pleasant and flower-filled.

Kimber Lee's family say their goodbyes to her comatose body. Somehow able to sense them, her dream melds their actions in with her dream - her son's pinch on her cheek becomes a sting from a bee hidden in a flower. Still cancer-afflicted, she tries to escape, displaying superhuman strength, but her fractured mind is stronger still, and she falls to the floor, succumbing to what she believes is weakness due to the cancer. At that moment, Colonel Hauser and a group of soldiers enter, escorting a mysterious hooded woman. The woman places a hand on Kimber Lee and utters ominous words, suggesting that, for Kimber Lee, there's no difference between dreams and reality.

The mystery woman turns out to be Socorro, who is now an empowered being like Kimber Lee, and she’s actively working with the science and military teams. After a long intervention-style argument, they convince Kimber Lee she needs to reach deep into own her mind, via dream, confront the Godstrain and master it. With nothing else to lose, Kimber Lee agrees. As she sleeps, her ‘dream world’ takes on a bizarre Greek Myth quality, with erotic overtones! After the initial shock, Kimber Lee spies a nearby mountain with a gold cylinder of light at the top and concludes that is the likely place she will encounter the Godstrain.

As Kimber Lee moves toward it, she encounters a pack of large wolves. The pack pursues her and viciously attacks her. She holds her own long enough to leap across a chasm to escape, but that nearly results in a deadly fall. Hanging precariously from the cliff, Kimber Lee is shocked to see Socorro at the top. Socorro throws her a rope and helps her up and then tends to wounds received from the wolves. After a bit of discussion concerning how both of them could really be in the same dream, or where one was dreaming the other, Socorro challenges Kimber Lee to a staff-duel. During the fight, Socorro relates how the Godstrain has been calling out to her, and claims the victor of this duel will become the bearer of the Godstrain.

Socorro presses hard, takes the upper hand and batters Kimber Lee to her knees, but then in a surge of will Kimber Lee rises and dispatches Socorro nearly effortlessly! Socorro, defeated, tries to apologize and explain she was only doing what needed to be done, and now that Kimber Lee has shown she has the will to master the Godstrain, Socorro will gladly help her. Kimber Lee accepts Socorro’s apology, but then knocks her out. Gathering herself, Kimber Lee moves toward the path that will lead her up the mountain.

And the story goes on…