(A/N) Before anybody says anything, this is in response to a suggestion by Zim'sMostLoyalServant. If you're tired of this topic (that is, I mean, tired of this topic as opposed to tired of fics in which Gaz beats the shit out of Dib as if this was okay or even admirable ) I suggest you read "Dib's Luck." You'll be much happier.
Gaz's Nightmare
It had returned, just as she had known it would. It had returned.
That sound would not stop. The foul, slurping sound it made would never stop.
The creature was close enough that she could actually feel its hot, disgusting breath, but she could not move. She strained, how desperately she strained to move, but she could not budge a muscle.
Unspeakable horror, a horror beyond anything even she could endure, was unfolding right in front of her, but she simply could not move. The harder she tried to move, the more paralyzed she felt.
The chomping wouldn't stop. That obscene, monstrous chomping, that vulgar drooling and lip-smacking chomping would not stop. That mouth relentlessly bit again and again into the warm desirable essence of what belonged only to her. She KNEW the sadistic pleasure it was taking in eating into her very soul; she herself took so much sadistic pleasure in doing similar things to others that she KNEW!
By this time, as always, she was frantic. She now thought of running away so she wouldn't be forced to witness this... but still she could not move, could not even scream, not a threat, not even a plea, nothing...
That slurping sloppy mouth opened wide to show her its vile tongue before closing on the final bite; this was her last chance to end it, she could endure no more...
and with a scream Gaz woke up. Twisted by her tortured tossing, her sheets were soaked with sweat; her pillow, punched and pounded. That nightmare had come back again; that made it four nights in a row now! Each time, unable to either endure or stop the ongoing horror, she had awakened in a cold sweat. From repeats of this she knew that if she went back to sleep she would only fall back into the same nightmare!
Anything in real life had more sense than to bother her TWICE, but she didn't know how much more of this she could stand. She knew that people sometimes went to doctors if their nightmares bothered them too much, but that option was only for psychos like her brother and she was no psycho, she was the furthest thing away from being psycho! She grabbed her wastepaper basket and pounded it flat against the wall for emphasis.
She could have gotten out of bed but she did not. She could have gone downstairs to the living room or the kitchen, but she refused to. She was going to stay and fight this nightmare on its own grounds. She was not going to retreat. Why should she? If she wouldn't surrender her bed for a real person (and she wouldn't) she certainly wasn't going to surrender it for a stupid nightmare. She was going to show it who was the boss!
Determined not to fall asleep again, Gaz turned on her light, reached for her game and turned it on.
The bed was warm and comfortable, and playing her game was always so comforting, that... that...
She was once again in the same room. Although the room was small, claustrophobic in fact, she could not clearly see its walls. A small table stood in the middle of the room, and she began staring at it in rapt anticipation. She told people to do things, and people did what she told them to do. That was the way it was supposed to be.
As she had before, she now noticed that Dib approaching, then placing a pizza box on the table in front of her.
Dib opened the box, with the opening facing her. That was the way she had carefully and painstakingly trained him to open all pizza boxes. Then he looked at her as if inviting her to take the first piece; she had trained him to do that too, but to her bottomless, aghast horror, she was unable to move. She was completely unable to move!
Dib waited a little longer, but Gaz still couldn't move. This time she managed to open her mouth to warn him not to dare touch it or else, but she couldn't even imagine anything worse than this paralysis with which to threaten him. On top of that, nothing would come out. She couldn't speak! She breathed hard and heavily into her mouth, willing herself to at least croak, but not one sound came out.
"If you don't want any pizza, Gaz, can I take the first slice then?"
Even if Gaz had been able to move before, this would have frozen her with sheer disbelief. With no word otherwise, Dib shrugged before reaching into the box to TAKE a SLICE... right in front of her!
His jaws clamped on her pizza and tore it apart right in front of her. Again came that chomping, slurping sound, so obscene to her ears, but Gaz was unable to move, unable to scream.
As those chewing jaws continued to chomp and slurp, that scary, unfamiliar feeling Gaz never experienced outside the dream world once again onto her chest. It weighed more and more heavily until she felt like she was suffocating. Not to move, not to speak, not to even breathe...
Dib reached for the last piece of pizza and as he smugly swallowed the last of it Gaz shot bolt awake with an earthshattering scream...
She could never remember exactly what had so horrified her. But whatever it was, she could only hope that the dream wouldn't come back after she went back to sleep. If it did she would have to find some way to doom it, her first reaction whenever anything bugged her, be it large or small.
Gaz wasn't getting much sleep tonight, so she turned her pillow over and propped it against the headboard and leaned against it to play her GameSlave. Her nice warm comfortable pillow... z z z...
The End!
(A/N) Thanks to ZimsMostLoyalServant for suggesting this!
For a while I wasn't sure what would be appropriate, but inspiration finally came from this passage toward the end of George Orwell's 1984.
"'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual to individual. It may be... some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.'"