The Spark Before the Flame, The history of Burn (A matrix story)

OK here it is, the first part of my matrix story. This is going to be a semi-comprehensive history of my kick-ass roleplaying character Burn.
And to all other RPers who are writing or planning on writing their own stories: Hah, I posted mine first so now your's has to fit into mine or else it won't make sence! 😛 hehehehe

Any way, without further ado,

The Spark Before The Flame
Chapter/section 1

He was in a dark room, but it was pink. It felt Like he was submerged in Jell-O. Floating. Suddenly, a strange buzzing and he felt like static electricity was passing over his entire body. He began to raise his hand and.
*Beeeeep! Beeeeeeeeeeep!* The ringing of the alarm abruptly ended Sean Johnson's sleep. "Dammit, Just a bit further." Sean sat on the edge of his bed, if you could even call the saggy cot where he slept a bed. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the time. "Oh shit, I’m late”. He gonna kill me!" With that Sean jerked out of bed. With a quick stop at the bathroom, Sean glanced in the mirror. Looking back at him was a sharp face, accented with an overnight beard. His dark brown, almost black eyes seems sunken in, showing the lack of sleep he was familiar with. A quick comb and toothbrush later Sean was rushing out of his dingy apartment.

“Your late. Again. I can’t put up with this. I’m sorry, you’re fired.” Sean’s boss lectured as he got to work at 10:52. Almost 2 hours late.
“But Mr. Sampson. I need this job, It won’t happen again, I swear”
“Sorry but no. It’s the end. You’re a great worker but I can’t have this.” With that he handed Sean his last pay check and escorted him out the door.

*BLAM, BLAM* “Fire me will you!” Sean yelled. He was at his second home, the firing range just a few blocks from his home. *BLAM, BLAM, BLAM* *click*
Breathing heavily he pressed the button to real the target back to him for inspection. A small cluster of holes around the chest region and the head area were present on the paper target.
“That’s some Nice shootin’ there boy” A strange Texan accent wafted from the stall next to him. Sean leaned over to see a tall sturdy Texan with a large ten-gallon hat other than that he was dressed all in black with a large trench coat on. But his appearance didn’t shake Sean, there were many types at the range. But what was peculiar was how this man said it, It was almost if he had seen the shots before himself, before he even had a good look at the paper. Something was mysterious about this man. Something he couldn’t quite place. Suddenly the man’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“So I hear you outta a job, boy.”
“You do you know that?” Sean spun and questioned the man.
“ I know a lot of things. I know that when your not here, which you are a lot, at least 3 times a week, or at your entry level programming job, you home. On your computer. Hacking. I know a lot about you Sean, or should I call you…Burn. I also know about your dreams.”
“How the hell do you know that? How do you know all that stuff? This is messed up? What are you?” Sean spun and pointed his Glock at the strange man.
“Your outta bullets son, and even if you weren’t it wouldn’t do any good. Pha, a coppertop shooting me, that’s a laugh.”
Sean was intrigued “What did you call me?”
“Nothing, never mind.” With that the man’s phone rang. “Yea, OK…..Yea yea yea. I know be right back.” He then turned back to Sean “ Burn listen, I might have a job for you, it requires a lot of commitment, but it might just answer some of those dream. Ya know what? Here take this.” He handed Sean the phone he just hung up. “Think about what I told you. I’ll call you tomorrow.” With that, he turned, tipped his hat, and walked out the door.

Later in his apartment Sean’s head swarmed. “How did he know all that stuff? How did he know so damn mush about me?” It felt like he had drank too much, too fast. His head swarmed. He needed sleep. He needed a strong drink. The drink wasn’t gonna happen so he fell onto his bed and was promptly asleep.

Sean awoke with a start. He was in a white room. Completely white. Nothing anywhere. He looked down, he was wearing a black trench coat like that mysterious man. But that was impossible he didn’t own a black coat. All of a sudden he was jerked backwards. He was back in that Jell-o thingy. He raised his hand and tried to sit up.

Bam, Sean woke in a cold sweat. “Damn that same dream again” He sat up in bed. “Wait! That man said he could help me! That’s it! But I gotta wait for his call.”
With that he got up. We walked over to his makeshift kitchen and threw a “Cup Of Noodles” into the microwave.
After they were finished cooking, Sean sat in front of his computer slurping on his noodles. He Brought up the browser and began his daily search of the internet for something related to those damn dreams of his. He was halfway through his noodles when his screen when black.
“What the heck?” He ran through all the computer crash checks he knew. But to no avail. All of a sudden green writing came scrawled across his screen. It read, “You were given a phone, do you still have it?”
Hesitantly Sean typed back “yes”
“Good, have you thought about what he told you?” the reply came scrawled back.
“Yes”
“Good, now pick up your phone”
Sean wondered aloud “What?”
With that the cell phone the strange man gave him rang from where he had left in on his desk. Even more hesitantly Sean picked up the phone and answered it,”Yes?”
The familiar Texan drawl answered him back,”Have you come to a decision?”
Sean paused.” You can explain my dreams?”
“Ah yes, you had another one tonight didn’t you? Yes, yes if you come with me, those dreams will be answered.”
That was all Sean needed to hear. “Yes I will come, what do I need to do?”
“Meet me outside the shooting range.”
“When”
“Now”
With that, the strange man hung up, and left Sean listening to a dial tone. Heaving a huge sigh, Sean got up, grabbed his jacket and walked out the door.

Arriving at the shooting range, Sean saw the strange man with the large hat standing next to a Black Suburban with the windows tinted. As Sean Approached him he said “Burn, Nice to see that you came, get in.”
Figuring he had nothing to lose Sean climbed into the backseat of the car. The man climbed into the passenger seat and the man behind the wheel drove off.
A short trip later they arrive at what seemed to be the most run-down apartment that Sean had ever seen.
“Get out son, we got a lot to do.” The man’s voice came from outside of the car. Sean opened the door and climbed out, then followed the man inside the apartment building and into the elevator.
Inside the elevator Burn stood in the middle with the man in the hat on his right and the other on his left. As they traveled up the elevator, Sean snuck a look at the man to his left, He was tough and grizzled but his eyes showed great pain in the past.

When the elevator arrived the man with the hat left first, and motioned for Sean to follow him. He was flanked by the driver of the car.
The man with the hat opened a door to what was a very well finished apartment. There was a roaring fire in the fireplace and various animal trophies around the room. In the center there were two over stuffed chairs with a small table in between them. On the table sat a glass of water and a small canister. But the peculiar thing was that behind the chair was a huge computer system, some of the things Sean recognized, but most was completely foreign to him. Manning the computers were two more men. Both were wearing the trench coats that the man with the hat wore.
“Sit down Burn.” The man with the hat motioned to the chair directly in front of the computer and equipment. Sean sat down. The man with the hat sat facing him. After a pause he spoke.
“Burn, you don’t know me, but I know you, we’ve been watching you for quite a while. We’ve decided its time to give you the choice.”
This intrigued Sean, “What choice? What am I choosing?”
The man answered “Well, see. It’s like your dreams are living, or something. Damn Morpheous is so much better at doing this than I am…Well Burn, The dreams you’ve been having aren’t really dreams, there glimpses of reality. I am here to see if you want to turn the dreams into the reality that you seek. We know that you’ve been searching for answers, and I’d be lying to you if I told you that we could give you answers. But if you come with us we could help you find the answers for yourself.” With that he took the container form the table and opened it, producing two pills, a red one and a blue one, he placed these on the table and said, “Take the blue pill, and you forget all this happened, we don’t exist, you go back to doin’ whatever you wanna be doin’. But take the red pill, and we’ll show you the difference between your dreams and the reality that they show.”
Sean mulled over the options in his head for a while. But after some deliberations and quite a few, what the hell’s. He reached for the red pill.
“Remember, no turning back after this.” The man said to him as he was reaching. But Sean kept going, he grabbed the red pill and swallowed it in one quick gulp.

He had barley swallowed the pill when the man jumped up, “Ok get a move on boys, we don’t have much time!”
His head still reeling, Sean asked, “Why? What’s going on?”
The man answered, “You swallowed a tracking device son, it’s gonna help us find you.”
Sean wanted to answer, to ask another question, but something strange happened. It seemed like the chair was swallowing him. He was looked down to see the fabric coming around his midsection and gripping him. It hurt, he couldn’t breath. Just as he was about to lose consciousness he heard a voice in the background, “Got him!”
And with that he felt a huge pain in the back of his neck, a pain like he had never felt before. He tried to scream but it seemed as if he was being sucked into his own mouth and couldn’t make a sound.

Sean opened his eyes to see pink, pink Jell-O. This was way too familiar. He reached out, upward, half expecting the dream to end. But it didn’t. His hand broke the surface, and Sean tried to sit up. He barley succeeded. But as soon as his head was out of the Jell-o-y goop, he gagged; something was shoved down his throat. He grasped it and started to pull it out. Finally after about 5 dry heaves, he succeeded in pulling the thing out of his throat. Breathing heavily he looked down at his arm. “What the hell?” he had thick wires growing out of his skin. What the heck was going on? He didn’t understand a bit. And then he remembered his encounter with the man in the hat. This must have been what he was talking about! Just as he was thinking that a huge bug like machine rose up out of seemingly nowhere and grabbed him. Instinctively Sean grabbed the claws and tried to pull them off his neck. But as he was struggling to breath, he looked down, rows upon rows of the pink goop pod thingys, that he had just come out of, just as he was beginning to speculate about what they were he felt a huge pain, like his skin was ripping off, he looked down as best he could and saw the cords being violently ripped from his skin. With that the machine dropped him and he fell limply back into the Jell-O. Just as he was starting to relax, he heard a distant flushing sound, and before he had time to wonder, he was whisked down a tube and spat into a large pool of water in what appeared to be a sewer or something. As he landed in the water, he tried to swim but his arms wouldn’t work, he sank, further and further until he blacked out.

WHOA! this is a cool Matrix story. keep going 😄

thanks,
I will need more time and less summer reading though.