Sam dreams she is an armour-clad knight. Steel kisses her skin, sweat drips down her face, stinging her eyes. She tightens her grip on her lance, it's weight heavy in her hand. Through her visor, she squints at her challenger, a dazzling steel-clad figure. His helmet, burning white under the fierce sun, blinds her eyes. He breaks into a run.

Sam urges her horse forward. Their lances clash, the loud ring of steel-upon steel deafens her ears. Head ringing, she feels her bones melt, her tendons scream, her muscles shriek in agony. Yet she clings, desperate, to her seat, barely staying upright, as her opponent, dazed, tumbles into the dust.

She has won.

Sam dreams. Of a spider, crouching in the shadows, edging slowly towards her, it's black, pincer-like limbs reaching for her. Stunned, she is still for a moment, until the hideous, enormous, black appendage brushes her skin. The spider's touch is rough, like sandpaper, coarse hair prickling her arm.

The spider hovers above her, it's huge, cavernous mouth just above her, saliva trailing from it's jaw.

Sam shudders and awakens. She stares at a blinking white computer screen before, letters dancing before her eyes, a slow dance that is killing her mind.

She shudders again. She remembers the arm-wrenching joust, the enormous spider. She yearns for something else - for pain, excitement and adventures.

Anything. But not the hypnosis of the computer screen, seeping past her skull, crawling through her neural pathways, infecting her brain cells with boredom, slowly, indidiously. Anything else.

Even death.