The First Few Years

Five year old Sam screamed as the large monster behind him and his mommy roared and its claws tore into his father's flesh. His mother's horrified scream filled his ears as they ran and she cried his father's name while running. They couldn't run far enough or fast enough. The monster was right on their heels, its glowing red eyes cutting into their very hearts and souls. Sam stumbled and fell as his mother's hand was pulled from his, and she was lifted into the air by the monster that had haunted Sam in his dream and waking world for weeks.

"RUN SAMMY RUN!" his mother shouted as the great metal beast asked her something he couldn't exactly hear, something about glasses maybe. And run Sam did even as the world around him began flashing like it always did when he dreamed while awake. The dark street he was on was being replaced by a busy city street that had been turned into a war zone. There were more of the large metal monsters around him now, though he knew that some of them were good.

For a brief second, he was looking into the blue eyes of one of his most dreamed beings. Something about the bright yellow paint made him feel safe. Then a second later he was running in between two of the other beings. One large and black with two cannons attached to his arms and the other slightly smaller with yellow-green paint. Then after the scene had finished came the voices.

"You're a soldier now."

"Sam we'll protect you."

"Sam get to the building."

Then as fast as it had before, the scene changed. Now he was looking at the forms of the beings he dreamed about the most often. The large red and blue being and the silver clawed monster. No sound came with them, and more often than not the dreams with them were silent. He had only heard the red and blue being talk once and that had been when he asked Sam who he was.

Then, almost as soon as it had started, it had stopped, and he was running down that dark street again with his father's car burning far behind him and the monster holding his screaming and dying mother in its hands. Sam started crying as his mother let out one last heart-stopping scream, and the monster was after him again.

--The next morning--

Sam frowned as he forced his body to sit up. His whole body hurt, it made him think of that time he and Miles had played all day and had gotten into a fairly good fight before his mom had come to get him. His hands and knees were all scratched and red and he had a few cuts on his face. The place that hurt worse though was his elbow, which had dried blood on it and hurt really badly.

All he wanted now was to find his mommy and have her kiss his booboos and put band-aids on them and tell him he'd be just fine. Then she'd give him something to eat and a big cup of milk, hopefully chocolate, or some Kool-aid and then he get to watch cartoons till daddy came home and watched the news while he played in his room till supper. With a sort whimper, Sam crawled out from under the pile of old scrap metal that was being held up by the thing his daddy called a horse no matter how unhorse like it looked to him.

With a sort of caution he couldn't remember ever using, Sam made his way back to where his parents had been the night before. Hopefully they'd be up by now too, and then they could go home and he could tell Miles about the monster when he went over to his house tomorrow for his play date while mommy went shopping. He wasn't sure how far he actually walked but it seemed like a long way and his booboos hurt even worse than they had before. He found his mommy first which was fine with him because he wanted her more than daddy. She was better at making him feel better than daddy was.

Though by the looks of it mommy was still asleep and she had gotten sick after he had ran away. At least she might have. He could remember the last time he had gotten sick and had coughed up the same red stuff that his mommy was covered in. They had taken him to the hospital because of it and the mean nurse that had been working had given him a shot and yelled at him when he had cried. So mommy had gotten sick now all; he needed was a doctor to make her better and then they'd get daddy up and go home. With bright hopeful eyes, Sam looked around hoping to see a house near by. There were no houses but there was a store or at least the back of a store. With fierce determination, for a five year old at least, Sam started running toward the store.

-- Later that day--

To say Sam was confused was an understatement. He didn't have a clue what the hell was going on. He had went to the store and gotten one of the ladies that worked there to come help his mommy, after she had cleaned and covered his booboos. When they had gotten back to his mommy, she had screamed, picked him up, ran back inside the store, and called the police. So now he was sitting on the hood of a police car with a kind faced lady holding his hand while the people who worked for the doctor loaded his mommy and daddy into the large cars mommy had said were ambulances.

A man had asked him his name and if he had any family and had walked away after he had answered. There were so many people around doing so many different things that Sam didn't really know what to think at the moment or what to do. A minute or two later, the man from before walked up to the car and dismissed the lady standing next to him. Bending down a bit, he offered the child a kind smile; the poor boy didn't seem to realize that his parents were dead.

"Sam, my name is Ruban Goddard. I'm a policeman and I'm goanna take you down to the station to wait for your uncle, is that okay?" Sam eyed the man for a second, trying to decide if he should go. The man did have a badge like the man in his coloring book, and daddy had always said that he could trust them.

"If I go with you, will I be able to see my mommy and daddy after Uncle Charles comes and gets me?" The name Charles came out sounding more like Arles. Then again, for a five year old he spoke pretty well.

"You'll have to ask your uncle about that one, Sam." Sam worried his lower lip for a moment before nodding. Ruban smiled as he picked the boy up and proceeded to load him in his car.

-- A Few weeks later--

Sam screamed as his uncle ran into his room. It had been a few weeks since his parents' death, and his uncle was just starting to figure out how hard it was to raise a child when you were single. It was even more difficult when said child only slept about three hours a night and had reoccurring nightmares about giant metal monsters that attacked him and other people that the boy didn't know.

After a few minutes of mumbling comforting words and rocking his nephew back and forth, Sam had stopped crying and now sat hiccuping in his uncle's arms. Now though the boy wouldn't go back to sleep, and that meant that his night was just beginning. The psychiatrist at the hospital had warned him that something like this might happen, but he had been so distraught over his sister's death he didn't really care.

He did know one thing though and that was that he was beginning to get tired of his nephew's constant jabber about giant metal monster or men or what the fuck they were. He been told about so many different ones that looked so many different ways he really didn't care anymore. And apparently he didn't just see them in his dreams; oh no, he saw them when he was awake too.

Not only had he told him about it but it was also what he told everyone that had asked him about his parents' death too. The metal monster from his dreams did it. Not five minutes later, Charles walked out of his nephew's room and toward his phone. He had a friend to call. It was time his nephew learned the truth. There are no such things as metal monsters.

-- One month later--

Sam gulped as the nurses strapped him to the bed. The mattress was soft and the pillow oddly comfy, but the straps going around his wrists and ankles weren't. Sam whimpered as another one of the nurses stuck a needle in his arm. He hated needles, didn't they know that? One of the nurses he saw most often shushed him and ran a soft skinned hand through his hair, trying to soothe him. Frightened brown eyes scanned the ceiling and eyed what he could see of the machines lining the wall on the left side of the room.

"Open your mouth please." The order was polite but it was an order still, and Uncle Charles had said if he was good and did as he was told then he'd be able to go home soon and Uncle Charles would take him to the park to see Miles and then they'd go see his parents. Sam couldn't see what the lady placed in his mouth but it tasted kinda rubbery.

A man's voice entered the room as his doctor came in and smiled down at him. He didn't like his doctor, his smile seemed to tease him and promised pain and that he'd never get out of the place his uncle had sent him too.

"Are you ready, Sammy-boy?" Sam shook his head, seeing how he couldn't talk. The doctor grinned and laughed a little.

"Well too bad." Sam squeezed his eyes shut as tight as they would go, and a minute later it felt like his body was on fire. Sam's body jerked without him telling it to and it got very hard to think about why he was where he was and what was going on. This would be his first of many treatments yet to come.

--A few years later--

Sam sighed as he sat in the open room waiting for his doctor to come and talk to him again. And he'd tell him the same thing he always told him again. Then he'd bring up his uncle again. It had been like this for as long as Sam could remember. By now, Sam knew that his uncle didn't care if he stayed in the asylum or not, because if he did he'd come visit him. And he hadn't visited since Sam turned six. The sound of an opening door alerted Sam of Dr. Lynch's arrival. Not that Sam ever said much of anything anymore. He'd almost stopped talking altogether and only spoke when he needed too.

"Good morning Sam. How are you this fine day?" Sam sat in silence, knowing damn well that the doctor in question didn't really care. Dr Lynch scowled as he turned his back to the boy in front of him. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of five, and they hadn't gotten it through the boy's thick head that giant alien robots didn't exist. The fact that the boy seemed to believe he could see into the future didn't help at all. Then again his great grandfather had suffered from almost the exact same thing when he was alive, so it was possible that he was the cause of the boy's problem.

"So Sammy-boy, when are your large intergalactic friends going to show up? Oh or better yet can you tell me this week's lottery numbers? I need a vacation." Sam looked up from the patch of carpet he'd been focusing on, he'd been trying to trace one of the colored swirls back to its beginning, and blinked at Dr. Lynch. He thought about the doctors question for a moment. His most recent vision of the giant robots, he'd finally figured out what they were when a nurse had told him to describe them to her, had been about a month and a half ago.

He supposed that, from what he could see, they were still on their way and the one that would arrive first was still a year or two away. That was just his guess of course. He'd never actually seen himself in his visions so he couldn't guess at how old he'd be, but he did have a feeling when he saw the one lone traveler.

"It'll be awhile yet, doc." Sam said as he went back to tracing lines on the carpet.

--Some time later--

Sam smiled as he watched the fake world in front of him. He had learned that if he concentrated, he could watch his memories. This had been learned through long hours of meditation, which he was told about by one of the nurses that had used to work at the asylum. She, like he himself, was able to do something others couldn't. She had been able to sense emotions, and had helped him get a bit more control over his powers.

She hadn't stayed long. Dr. Lynch had fired her for filling his head with nonsense. But what she had taught him helped a great deal. After years of practice, he had learned to focus his mind. He still couldn't control when he saw the future or what he saw, but being able to watch memories was one of the few things that kept him sane.

The smiling face of his mother as they baked cookies stared back at him. He had long ago forgotten what they had said during the event but that was okay, just having her face was enough. Sam blinked as his vision of his mother was replaced with one of what looked like an asteroid falling to earth. Sam's smile widened. It wouldn't be much longer. It would be a while more until the others arrived, but he could wait.

--Two years later--

Sam's body jolted upward as a strong current of electricity passed through his body. Over the years, the voltage of the electricity and the length of his treatments had been increased. Dr. Lynch seemed determined to cure him of an illness he didn't have, and Sam hated the man enough to put up one hell of a fight whenever he was taken to one of the ECT rooms.

He had long ago gotten used to the feeling of the shock treatments and even the shots they gave him before the treatments started. Though, Lynch himself had added a new bit of cruelty to them. Sam hissed in pain as the sharp plastic of the old restraints cut into his wrists, and as the weak conducting metal that was hidden, but uncovered enough to touch his skin, burned the top layer of flesh.

This was also one of the things he had gotten used to over the past nine years. He knew that his uncle no longer cared about what happened to him, and probably wouldn't care if he died in this place. Not that Dr. Lynch would let him, he loved his guinea pig too much to let him go willingly. Another hiss passed his lips as the current continued running through his body.

--Half a year later--

Sam all but screamed as one of the guards pulled his arm behind his back none too gently. Body jerking wildly in the guard's grip and vision going black, Sam prayed that this fit would end soon. The only thing he could do now was listen to Dr. Lynch telling the guard to put him in his room. He would learn to stop acting up soon enough. Sam knew that he had never faked a fit before, though he did have quite a few different kinds.

They tended happened on the days he didn't have ECT treatments - that or every great once in a while, they'd hit while on the way to the treatment room. More often than not though, it happened when they stopped his treatments for more than three or four days.

The guard in question literally dragged him down the hall to his room. The sound of the door opening filled his ears and he was moving again. Then, without so much as a warning, the guard threw him on his bed and strapped his wrists to the posts at the head.

--A year and a half later--

Sam sighed as he watched the other patients walk around the rec room or sit in front of the large windows in the sun. It had been almost a year since his last vision of the yellow robot. As of late, his visions had been occupied by a military group in some desert on the other side of the world and some weird government group at Hover Damn.

Instinct told him that the time had almost come for the yellow robot to appear again. He had learned through half-spoken sentences what he would need to find. He knew that he needed his great grandpa's glasses, and to his luck, he had a very faint memory of where they were. With any luck, his great grandpa's house was still standing.

--

The sound of sirens filled his ears as he ran from the cop car. The words "to punish and enslave" written on the side.

A man in a black suit flashed a badge in his and a girl's face before they were forced from a house and handcuffed.

A group of men in army clothes fought against a large metal scorpion.

The large yellow-green robot held him in his large hand and inspected the burns on his wrists.

The bright yellow robot stood protectively in front of him and the girl he didn't know.

Large cannons charged as the black robot introduced him self.

Silver flashed as a robot roughly the same size as the yellow one pulled the guns out of the strange group's hands.

The largest robot held out his hand for him and his companion to climb onto.

--

Sam gasped as he shot up in bed, and a smile crossed his face. It'll be any day now. Soon he'd be out of this place.