Dream Level One

1.
In the very near future

On a picturesque autumn day a light breeze blew over the Potomac River scattering brightly colored red, yellow, gold and brown hued leaves along the gently sloping banks in a spectacular array of natural beauty. Tourists were out in record numbers for the late season and long lines prevailed at almost every point of interest in the city.
The atmosphere, made so enjoyable by the gloriously pleasant weather, seemed to take the tension out of the kind-of-waiting that normally would send tempers soaring over the edge.
The sun shown with a magical brightness through such a clear-blue cloudless sky that only God's palette could ever be credited with the magnificence of color to produce such exquisite beauty.
Songbirds sang their repertoire of love songs back-and forth to one another like a heavenly chorus orchestrated by a choir of angels. A second later the city morphed and became the epitome of hell.
The nuclear blast at the very heart of the nation's capitol spread hellfire and damnation so quickly that buildings generations old were disintegrated instantly in a blinding flash of fiery fury. Men, women and children of every age and description vanished from whence they stood, their flesh vaporized from unsuspecting bodies before the utterance of a single scream; gone before even the realization of death could register on their extinguished minds.
As the familiar mushroom cloud formed above ground-zero, a stillness fell over the city that punctuated the devastation like the first shovelful of dirt thrown over the coffin in a lonely grave.
Allakheem nodded his approval with a wry smile as the dream-disk slid quietly from the digital viewing module's insertion port. He placed the media carefully into a plain-wrapped case marked simply: Abu.