The phantasmagoria of night abruptly shattered into a thousand fragments of consciousness as Shahn sat bolt-upright in bed. While the wisps of the night terror still lingered around the edges of his consciousness, he possessed enough self-control not to cry out in shock or surprise. Indeed, he almost never suffered nightmares and certainly not the type that would cause him such a violent reaction, now.
However, as he sat in bed, the darkness of his apartment room only broken by the digital read out of his alarm clock which read 2:22am, he found that his memories of the dream were already fading.
He could remember the savannah: the lush, amber plains of Africa where he'd gone with his parents as his graduation present nearly a decade before. He could remember stone outcroppings -similar to Ayer's Rock in Australia- but different; dark, haunting and foreboding. All across the plains he'd seen the wildlife running ... running wildly.
He couldn't remember much more, but there had been the touch of dread upon the land ... and a sense of power.
It was a power that scared him.
Shahn had a good relationship with power; he understood it, desired it and -in his capacity as a doctoral student- studied it. Force. Interraction. Measurement. Application. It was all about power. It was something he dreamed of, but usually not in a literal sense.
He was a handsome man even when wearing his glasses; his long, amber hair falling like a mane around his sweaty shoulders. His trips to the gym kept him fit, although his desire for an Atlas-like musculature or god-like masculenity eluded him. He enjoyed dreams about animals ... he often identified with their primal nature that so contrasted with his calculations, studies and intellect. How enthralling it would be to combine those elements of his being...
Enthralling...
There had been animals on the plain -yes, he definitely remembered that- but there was something else. A feeling. They had been giving him deferrence, almost as if he had been their king or apex predator. He could remember the sense of hot, dry air upon his naked skin and realized that in his dream, like in life, he had been nude.
Groaning a bit at an ache in his shoulders, Shahn slowly swung his legs out of bed and sat on its edge. He felt awake but still loggy. There was a faint tingle on his skin that he attribued to suddenness of his motion upon waking. He glanced over at his computer and contemplated going online to see if anyone was around in his circle of 'net friends with whom he could discuss his nightmare.
But he should probably get back to sleep, even if he wasn't tired, yet.
As he considered his options, Shahn failed to notice the faint, light brown downy fuzz that lay upon his shoulders and back...