Good evening everyone, I am looking for your help. My name is Thomas, I'm French and I'm 37. Or at least, that's what I think I'm meant to believe... but I have no idea whether all this is true. I have a feeling that this isn't my actual birth name. I can't remember where I've been born, nor even when. Until five years ago, my memories are just plain blank.
Well... They've been. Until a few weeks ago.
On that full moon night, I couldn't sleep. I began having very weird dreams, that look so realistic. I can relate to them fucking much, like I'm not even sure they're not actual memories. Since that night, they've come back from time to time, and these recent days, even at day. And as time goes, they make more sense, I can begin feeling a timeline between them. I really feel like it's something tied to my former self, and I'm looking everywhere for help to understand them better, find some evidence. I'll try to describe my dreams here as well as I can remember them, and in their tentative order...
It all begins with an horror scene in a street. I have no recollections of anything before, my childhood, school, family... nothing. In that street, several bloody corpses. Sirens, blue lights. A dirty, dimly lit concrete cell with just one metal door. Another cell, with a small barred window. Feel like I stayed for a while there, I have several recollections of this one, with different shades of lighting and temperature. Then four guys in it, and some pain in my leg. A van with no windows, on that chair where your limbs are cuffed, thirst, and wet pants.
Then, another cell. Concrete. Again, just a metal door. Sparkling clean there. Always. I wonder how it could remain that way. A weird loo, a bit the Japanese kind, but more basic. Just the flush and the water jet. And a sink where the water tank usually is. No TP. Very high glass ceiling too, I'm 6ft 2in tall but I couldn't reach it. Beyond the glass ceiling there's still some room with a ceiling light. I think I remember one day the light blew, it got changed almost in a flash by a drone. I guess there were service tunnels for drones up there. There also was a bunch of CCTVs. Guess there were also mics in the room.
And speakers. THOSE FUCKING SPEAKERS. Feel like they were driving me nuts. In every flash, the speakers were on. Either with what sounds like an altered human voice. Called me number 12. All the time. Like, began every single sentence with "number 12". "Number 12, good morning! Time for your shower!" Oh, the shower. The door opened, I had to get into a kind of electric cart. Spartan as well. Don't think there was someone driving it. After some  time, the door opens and I'm in the shower. Had to put my cheap white clothes in a tray, and to walk over a kind of button, and the water flew. With soap? Not sure. Prolly. Then, was given another set of clothes and had to go to another room. I'm surprised I remember that so well actually. Got to sit on another of these chairs with cuffs. Then a kind of torture machine shaves my head and my face. Not like there seems to be much to shave, anyway. And I feel something like a needle in my wrist. Wait. I guess that's when "they" cleaned the rooms. When I was under the shower. Makes sense.
So, the speakers. The voice sometimes said things like "Number 12, good morning. Happy anniversary, it's been (2? 3? For some reason, I can't get the number) years you've been with us. This year, you behaved well. We'll remove one extra year to what's left." I can also recall that when something wasn't pleasing to "them", it said "Number 12, this is insubordination. Stop now or you'll stay longer." And I feel pain in my leg, again.
But the worst part with the speakers is, the constant prerecorded stuff. Night, whispering, and day, hecking loud. Can't remember well what it was talking about. I can just think of some words, like God, faith, imagination, fantasies, mental illness, family, citizen, faults, and so on. Too many single words but can't combine  them to get an overall meaning, not even one single sentence. I also can think of myself yelling at this recording. It just went louder and louder as I got yelling louder. And the lights going brighter too. And thirst again. And the other voice saying "insubordination", "more years", etc.
I think I just lost almost all my senses there. Nothing to see but my cell, the kart, the shower. Nothing to touch but concrete and metal. Nothing to smell, nothing to taste, it seems. Can't remember of anything from these senses. Just have that feeling of constant hunger and boredom. And a sparse meal tray with indistinct food and plastic cutlery. But the hearing. The hearing though. Those flashes are so painful just for that. Now I even need to take medication for my headaches and tinnitus.
I have a few of these dreams, all different, but so similar. I feel like they've been from different epochs, although there indeed are no time markers I can cling to. But I can sense different levels of boredom, exhaustion, and lack of will to live. The worst being that feeling when you just want to leave this world, but there's just nothing you can use for that. And so you wake up, go to the shower, and spend the day on the concrete ground until the light switches off with just nothing to do, nothing to look at, nothing to keep you busy, nothing to make you expect for a better tomorrow.
And then, another dram, another flash, another scene. All clean in the electric kart, but when the door opens, it's not my cell. It's a kind of garage, with a van in it. With its door, featuring an opaque glass, wide open. I make one step, two, three. The voice talks to me. "Number 12, congratulations. We now know we can trust you. We'll drive you to your new living place, where you'll relearn how to live in community and in the outside world. Oh, and by the way, your name now is Thomas. Please get on the van." I say something. I don't know what, I can't hear my voice. But a second later, my body is just pain. A blink. Darkness. A second blink. Back into my cell.
"We're disappointed, Number 12. We thought we could trust you. But it seems we can't. You'll spend a few more years here. Needless to say we've added a few extra ones to your count, too. Expect us to be testing you even harder." And the recorded shit resumes, louder than ever. I have no idea what those tests used to be. I can't remember anything about it. I guess that was hidden in the chit-chat the voice sometimes had with me.
Although, it seems there's been a actual test. I was in the same van, thirsty and painful from having remained seated for a long time. Totally opaque black glasses, even in front of me, separating me from the people in the front raw. And a hatch in it. The hatch opens, a tray gets out of it with a paper cup. The voice tells me to drink it, which I do. Then we stop, they open the opaque glass. There's another transparent one behind. I can see one of these buildings, I think that's what they call a "mosque". It asks me what I'm thinking of it. "Nothing", I say. It keeps questioning me a bit, then claims that I passed the test. Or, actually, that's what it feels, but the decision isn't up to it, but to some people at the top. And it keeps questioning me, more casually. And then, suddenly, it stops. It won't reply anymore.
In another dream, I can see the van again while I step off the kart. The voice tells me again that I did well, that I can be trusted, keeps calling me Thomas, I seem to comply. Get on the van, the engine turns on, a short trip, I get off to another garage. The voice tells me to walk toward the door, open it and sit on the restraint chair. When the cuffs are locked, a guy appears. Says the restraints are necessary because he's the first human I saw in years, and that after a while I'll be able to ask for any hair cut and beard trim within "the limits", but for now he'll give me the standard cut.
After his work, he leaves, a doctor enters, and then a psychologist. She explains me that I'll have a room with a bed, a window, then after a few days, I'll be able to go out of it, gain access to more and more rooms and meet more and more other "residents" and personnel. As my "permissions" get higher, I'll get an access to the library, to the computers. All the contents being strictly filtered and monitors, though. That I'll still be under close surveillance, continuously tested. And when my permissions are high enough, I'll have access to the other half of the residence. That if I behave well, I'll be out in no time, no matter how much time I'm still supposed to stay. But that if I make mistakes... Back to the dark cell.
I don't have any significant flashes from that epoch. Just a few flashes of daily life there. Speaking to people on trivial topics. Being checked up by the doctor, by the psych. My room is more or less comfy. Sometimes I see myself looking on a tablet a series of durations, dates, ranks... The linen on my bed never is the same. Sometimes there are plants. Sometimes I can even hear music. And there are two different views from the window, too. One seems to be a forest, the other one a small grass field enclosed by hedges. In one occurrence, I am in the garden. It's warm and sunny, there's a smell of flowers and freshly mown grass, I hear the birds chirping. And suddenly, loud motors, men yelling, gunshots, explosions, smoke, and the smell of gunpowder coming from afar by the other side of the hedge. And that makes me feel nauseous more than it should.
Every time I hear about explosions, on the news for example, it makes me feel like that. Also, I don't know if it's related, but... I have an insane feeling of rejection every time I'm hearing about religions, especially Islam. I'm afraid of young girls, too. I... have no idea why, but all these things that sound so unrelated, I feel that they actually are.
And... I guess that's all. I think I mentioned all the different dreams/memories I've had so far. I'm serious here, I really need to understand, I feel it's driving me crazy. If any of you may have the smallest hint on what could have been going on there... Please let me know of it. Any clue would be so precious to me. I really want all these elements to make sense. I beg you... Thank you...
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Follow up: okay, I kept this as a draft for a few days, but now it's getting really serious. This morning I overheard two of my coworkers talking about dreams they've been having these days and they're just totally similar to mines. The same few places, the same voices, the same van... And before the end of the day, all of my coworkers (who, by the way, look all quite like me, now that I think of it. Similar age, similar dark hair and eyes...) in the workshop figured out that we all were having that same kind of dreams. When our foreman heard about it, he dashed to his office, pulling his phone from his pocket, and he wouldn't get out of it until we all left. I even feel like I've been followed on my way back home. That's getting too creepy out here. I don't know what I'm caught inside, but I feel like I am. Now I need to know, and I need your help. Thank you....