This is one of two one-shots that I've done in my free time. I should have been doing my stories, but… I don't know when the other will come up. This takes place after SR. I do not own Alex Rider.
Alex Rider sighed as he turned the corner of his school, leaving his sister, Sabina Pleasure. Ever since her family had adopted him, she had worried about him. While she was completely justified, what with his nightmares every night, that didn't mean he like it. She should be going to the mall with her friends, not hovering over him.
Sighing again, Alex shook himself out of his thoughts just in time to avoid introducing his face to the wooden door of his Language Arts room.
Settling down in his seat, the ex-teenage spy resigned himself to another of Mr. Donald's lectures that involved the class.
Alex was proven right when the fifty-something year old man announced, "Close your books. Today, we will be covering a well-known poem. Who can recite 'Ring Around A Rosie'?"
Simultaneously, every child in the room groaned, with the exception of one boy. "Excellent! We have ourselves a volunteer. Alex? If you will please."
Alex groaned, knowing he had no choice. "Ring around a rosie, a pocketful of posies. Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!"
"Excellent! Only, could you sing it for us?"
"No," Alex stated firmly. Just saying it was enough.
"Are you sure?" Mr. Donald wheedled.
"Positive," came his answer.
The teacher sighed, but said, "Very well. Now, can anyone tell me what some believe it to mean? … No? Fine, that it fine. Some say that it talks of the Black Death. Round, red rashes were one the symptoms. Thus, roses. Posies of herbs were said to be used for many things. One was to take away the smell, another for protection. Some say people were buried with them. Ashes symbolize three things. Natalie, David, and Emma, name one each."
The blond-haired girl in front of Alex stated, "Actual ashes from the burned houses of the victims."
"Very good, Natalie, David?"
Grunting, one of the bullies said, "Uh… burned bodies?"
"Cremations, but yes. Emma?"
"Sick persons' skin often turned black from the disease."
"Excellent! And then, we all fall down is obvious. They all died. Now, who can present me with good arguments for both…"
Alex Rider stared in horror at the sight before him. A group of school children holding hands, blackened by death, and singing with pale lips, "Ring around the rosie…"
"No!" Alex gasped, scrambling away from the approaching corpses.
"You didn't stop Sayle in time, Alex…" One of the boys moaned, breaking away from the others and reaching for Alex.
"No! I did stop him! I did! I swear it, Tom! I stopped him!" Alex backed away from his red-faced friend, gasping for from the horror and disbelief that Tom's words brought.
Alex tripped over a curb that hadn't been there before, falling into bushes filled with flowers. He looked up, and immediately started scrambling again.
"A pocket full of posies…" Myra Bennett sang. "You are to be shot and killed for your crimes against the crown."
"What?" Alex gasped. "What did I do?"
"You failed to stop me, of course!" The woman screeched.
"No…" Alex moaned, shaking his head in shock while catching a glimpse of the greenhouse wall. "I did!"
"In denial, are we? Oh well. That's just too bad for you. Now, come. You must stand before your flower sprinkled grave so that I don't have to carry you when you are dead."
"Never!" Alex screamed, backing away from the mad woman, only to cry out when the walkway collapsed beneath him, sending him crashing through burning wooden boards until he came to a stop on a basement floor.
The ex-spy drew in a shuddering breath, regaining the ones that had been knocked from him. Glancing around, he barely had time to scream when a crumbling figure of a boy grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into the wall.
"You doomed me…" the burning Alex moaned. "You and your curiosity, your heroism. From the moment you stepped out that hospital door and pretended to be tat brat until when the thugs threatened to cut off my pinky and decided to burn me alive. You, and only you, are responsible. This is what I have become, because of you. Ashes! Ashes!"
"No!" Alex screamed, cutting his other self off. "I made it out! Alive! I was only burned a little!"
"Is this what you call little?" The crumbling Alex roared.
"Yes," a new, female voice rasped. "Compared to me."
Alex's heart thudded in his chest as a blackened, burnt hand swept through the other. In its place was a face he thought he would never see again. "Jack?" He whispered.
"Alex…" the woman sighed, looking at him with pity. "You never learn, do you?"
"Learn what?" Said boy questioned.
Her red hair waving in the wind, for the walls had disappeared, Jack stated, "People always leave. Your parents-"
"Stop!" Alex gasped, feeling a hole in his heart rip open.
"Ian," Jack continued, ignoring his plea. "Your friends, though they weren't to death-"
"Stop!"
"-some of your partners, and finally me. And you know what they all shared? Every single one was your fault."
"No…" Alex moaned, shaking his head.
"Your parents were trying to protect you. Ian could have retired long before the Stormbreaker mission, but he had to support you."
"Why are you doing this?"
"You gave in to MI6, causing rumors to be spread about you. You caused more trouble and worry for your partners."
"Stop…"
"And then me. If you had never gotten mixed up with SO, then I would still be alive! I wouldn't have been blown up! And you know what else?"
Alex shook his head. He didn't want to know.
"We all fall down!"
Alex noted, confusingly, that it sounded like more than one person. Glancing up, he saw why. Hundreds of people had materialized behind Jack. And they were all shouting one word, over and over again. "Alex! Alex! Alex! ALEX!"
After the last shout, louder than the others, Alex's eyes flew open as he shot upright in bed, getting tangled in his sheets. "Wha-?" He gasped, disoriented.
Sabina and her parents sighed, shaking their heads. "Another nightmare," the youngest Pleasure stated. "We've been shouting your name for a while now."
"Oh," Alex said, then turned over, pulling his covers about him. "Thank you for waking me. Now, I'm going to sleep. Good night."
He knew that he was being short with them, and that they knew it too, even though they said good night in return and left. But he couldn't help it. Every night, the terrors got worse. And every night, he was woken up, and he pretended that he would go back to sleep so that they didn't worry more. Every night, he never did. Especially when they were like this last Black Death nightmare.
So, this was more dark than I first intended it to be. Although, that isn't what scared me. What did was how easy it was to write it. Anyways, all the facts are true. I learned it all in school. (Although some are from Google. Go Kindle wifi!) Anyways, I hope you enjoyed. Please review!