By: Spooks
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It started with darkness.
An ominous silence pressed down on the boy like a heavy mantle. A cool breeze stirred the messy bangs that partially obscured his dark blue eyes. The slender but strong boy shivered in his light boxers and tank top, bare toes curling involuntarily against the cold chill of the hard floor.
Heero mentally groaned as he surveyed the dreamscape. Once again, he was trapped. The beginning of a recurring nightmare he had been having for weeks, they had intensified with every night since they had arrived in their current safe house, only a week hence. Never really the same dream, they varied slightly, but the theme was always the same terrible play.
The first time he had the nightmares since arriving at their secluded safe house, the dream had transcended the normal fuzzy barriers of semiconscious vision and had appeared before his eyes in startling clarity, smell, sounds, and color all vivid. It had been so tangible in his confused mind that he woken up from the fear and pain inspired by the dark images. Panting silently and soaked in a cold sweat as he jolted from the dark vision, it was a wonder he didn’t wake Duo from all the way across the room.
The way the nightmares were influencing his emotions was not as unsettling as the fact that they disturbed his rigid control of his rest patterns. Never before had something so seemingly trivial affect his status of readiness. After the first few times he experienced the dreams, though, he began to become aware that they were, in fact, only nightmares. He was able to keep in mind that none of the horrors he was witnessing were real, and thus helped him marginally. However, the experiences were far from pleasant.
As the murky blackness began to give way to a faint light, Heero felt his body turn, his eyes searching for something in the fading twilight. Despite his awareness, he was by the controlling force of the dream, unable to change anything that it deemed for him to do or see. He spied a movement out of the corner of his eye, and felt his body react as it should in the startling non-reality. Whirling to face the figure emerging from the gloom, Heero was shocked to discover it was not the same dark visitor from the previous dreams of blood and gore.
This figure was a strangely familiar little girl, followed by a tiny puppy. Heero blinked in confusion as he tried to place her countenance in his mind. As she advanced towards him, tiny clicks from miniature heels echoed on the hard floor, giving the impression of a vast room as the sounds finally came back to Heero's straining ears. The girl halted her innocent march when she was only six feet away from where the confused dreaming boy stood. The puppy settled down on its little haunches at her feet and looked up at Heero with wide eyes, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth.
"Hello," The child said in a calm, serious voice that contrasted sharply with her youthful face. A dense fog crept into the edges of the light. "I am here to warn you. You and your friends will suffer if you do not leave this secluded safe house immediately. The nightmare will destroy you. Wake up and go now. Leave. Opportunity for vengeance is ripe here, and there are better ways than this for the progression of self. Do you understand?"
For the first time in the series of dreams, Heero was able to do something of his own free will. "No I don’t. What do you mean, how can a dream hurt me? How can it hurt the others? Opportunity? I do not understand. How is it possible for the dream to hurt us?"
"I cannot say. You must contemplate my words," the girl said quietly. The puppy by her side stood up and turned around. "I must leave now. It was hard enough to get permission for the short time I’ve been here." The girl turned and followed the puppy into the surrounding fog.
Heero tried to follow her, but his feet were rooted to the ground. The fog receded, leaving him alone in a circle of light, the floor hard ice beneath his bare feet. Another figure stepped into visibility, but not enough that it was clearly visible. Without warning Heero felt his body being held by an invisible iron grip. He could not turn his head or move to try to get a clear view of his tormentor. The nightmare was taking control of his mind. He would not be able to escape.
And so the dream ended, and the nightmare began. It was different this time, but horrible in so many new and different ways. The others were involved this time. Instead of him, it was them who experienced the torture. All he could do was watch helplessly. Them who were in the place of the countless faceless casualties, identity given to the multitude of the dead.
Then it was over; the obscured enemy speaking for the first time in the series of tormenting nightmares.
"Next time, we play for keeps."
Heero woke up screaming
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