Nightmares
#4 of A Long Forgotten Past
I blankly stared at the door in amazement.
"Chloe! You're awake!" Eifie exclaimed with joy.
I stared at her, not daring to believe that this was real, but at the same time, not daring not to.
"Guys! She's awake!" she yelled out the door.
Suddenly, I heard thundering footsteps outside the room, and both Krystal and Mitch ran in.
I felt weak, and went to lay my head back down, but for some reason, Krystal stopped me.
"Wait, Chloe, you can't go back to sleep. If you do, you won't be able to come back," she explained.
I was confused, and rightly so.
"Something is poisoning dreams, and it's getting worse," she continued, "We were barely able to wake Mitch up, and you've been asleep for the past week,"
"But, then, what happened before was..." I trailed off
"A nightmare, but not like any seen before in the entire recorded history of the universe," Mitch said.
"Umm," Eifie broke in, "Not strictly true. Something like this happened on my planet, before we were forced to leave it,"
As Eifie spoke, memories flooded into my mind; of pokemon lying in the street, not moving, barely breathing, even the flowers wouldn't wake up; of perpetual tiredness, un-relenting, un-resisting, un-yielding; of even the sun and the moon falling into eternal slumber;
I then noticed that Krystal and Eifie were speaking, and I re-joined the conversation.
"Hang on a sec," I said, "how're you able to stay awake for a week?"
I then noticed that Krystal was wearing a sort of high-tech space suit, covered in white armour strips. Mitch and Eifie were wearing versions of it as well.
"This is a RIG," Krystal explained, "Mitch gave it to me for my birthday, last year. Basically, it is a self-contained habitat, nothing can come in, nothing can come out,"
Mitch shrugged.
"I had a few left over after a particular deep space mission that you," he glanced at me with this, "said was probably going to be too dangerous to go on, and I brought back something to remember the trip by,"
"Wasn't that the mission with the- you know- things on it, and you nearly got killed?"
He shrugged again.
"Meh, so I left out a couple of minor details. The important thing is that nothing can get to us, while we are wearing these suits. So we can sleep,"
Eifie tugged on my arm.
"Come on, Mitch told me that you have your own RIG as well, so the sooner we get you suited up, the sooner you can get back to sleep,"
I followed her to the armoury, and I unlocked the vault that contained my RIG.
As I stepped in however, Eifie turned around, and shut the door.
"So, what was your dream about?"
"Oh," I replied, startled, "Umm, nothing in particular,"
She looked at me sadly.
"It was about me, wasn't it?"
I started to deny it, but I gave up.
"Yes," I replied.
"You falling in love with me, then me dying?"
I just stared blankly at her. How did she know?
"Just in case you're wondering, the same thing happened to me too. It seems to be this thing's favourite nightmare. Basically, we had a right old romp, ending in you falling off a cliff. But just because it was a nightmare, doesn't mean it hasn't got a grain of truth in it," She blushed slightly, "So, what about you?"
I then started to, in great detail, explain everything that happened in my nightmare.
Within minutes, my story was done, and I was also blushing.
She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then pulled me up.
"Well, we need to get you in your RIG," Eifie said.
I went over to the cabnet where I kept it, and flung it wide open.
I heard Eifie gasp behind me, and no small wonder.
My RIG was all in reds and golds, elegantly painted over the top of the armour. As I stepped into it, the vitality bar on the back flickered into life, giving me a clean bill of health.
The suit's basic design was the same as Mitch's and Krystal's, but it was more heavily armoured, but at no expense of weight. As the pnumatic seals closed around me, and the air pads inflating around my body, the status readout on the front of the suit poped out, and started relaying suit info. Almost as soon as I donned the suit, it felt like a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and the world no longer felt so daunting.
As we walked into the living room, Mitch gave a wolf whistle.
"Woah, someone looks sexy," he said, mischievously.
I gave him a quick smile, and sat down in my favourite armchair.
"So, what's the story behind these suits, anyway?" Eifie asked, "They look just like the ones off of that game, Dead Space,"
We all laughed.
"Well," Mitch said, "To tell you the truth, that is where I got the idea for this from. These are military armour suits, and it's almost impossible to get through them, with all it's armouring,"
I yawned loudly.
"Hmm, looks like someone needs to sleep," Mitch commented.
I shrugged, and curled up for a power nap.
An hour later, I was feeling fully refreshed, so I went looking for Mitch to help him with whatever it was he was doing at the moment. I found him in the workshop, and was working on something that was obviously making a lot of noise. Therefore, I was able to sneak up behind him, without him hearing me, and peek over his shoulder. I saw a gun of sorts lying on the bench, with a series of wires flowing out of a circuit.
"Hey, honey, watcha doing?"
He jumped, and looked around, obviously surprised.
"I- uh- nothing..." he said nervously, while hiding whatever it was under a cloth.
I saw the fearful expression in his eyes, and was immediately worried.
"What is it?" I asked seriously.
He sighed.
"Have you had a strange feeling lately? Like an itch, but in your head?" he asked, evasively.
I nodded.
"Well, as you know, Cerillians can open portals, not only within our universe, but to other dimensions. I teleported to wherever the itch led me, and I found something, something that no-one should have to see. You know that game, the one Eifie talked about? That's what I found there,"
I gasped.
"You mean-"
He nodded.
"And the-"
He nodded again.
"B-but that's where we need to go!"
He nodded for a third time.
"That's why I was working on this,"
He swept back the cloth, to reveal a large rifle.
"It's a little something that I managed to snag before I left. A pulse rifle," he added, seeing my confusion.
"And there's really those- things there,"
"Yep,"
"Well then, it's settled! I'm coming!"
He looked at me, with nothing but love and adoration in his eyes.
"I know you will,"
We all gathered in the lounge room.
"Now," I started, "As you all know, we'll soon be leaving, going into what is probably the closest to hell that we could possibly get, and we're not leaving until we stop whatever it is that is poisoning this universe. If any of you want to back out now, and personally, I wouldn't blame you, now is the chance to do so,"
I paused, giving them a chance to back out. None of them took it.
I gave each of them a reassuring nod.
"Ok, then, let's get this party started!" Mitch yelled.
"Yeah!" we all cheered, shaking our weapons; Mitch with his long sword and a gun strapped to his back; Eifie with her claws; Krystal with a gun given to her by Mitch; and me, with my two swords, and a whole heap of nerve.
I opened a portal, and in an instant, we were all gone. None of us, however, noticed a great swirling vortex opening in the sky. Never saw it spew evil shadows over the planet. Never saw it corrupt every thing, living and dead, man and beast, husband and wife...
* * * * * *
Hiya again! Umm, this story should explain everything that left you confused in the last chapter. This story (and the next one too) takes from a favourite game of mine, Dead Space. If you know of it, you'll agree with me (hopefully) when I say it is an AWESOME game! For those of you who haven't heard of it, google or wikipedia it. Umm, Chloe and Eifie are copyrighted to me, ChloeTheFirefox. Mitch and Krystal are copyrighted to SPAMZZKRR.
Hope you enjoy the story, Happy New Year, and please leave a comment!