Alpacca bites: Just a little something that popped into my deranged noggin while I was washing an endless supply of dishes. Blame the detergent's sweet, bubbly, lemony goodness. It smelled too good not to give it a sip.

Night Terrors: Daria

Pull the Plug

The thick, round black glasses slipped down the brunette's slim nose as she studied her boots. Shy excitement rouged pale cheeks as she chanced a furtive glance at the object of her apprehension and a guilty thrill went through her when he caught her eyes. He smiled in his lazy way and leaned as close as his position would allow; his warm, spicy scent wafted over her in a way that almost seemed calculated to drive her to distraction.

"C'mon, Daria," Trent Lane cajoled gently as he took her hand, once again using his influence over the younger girl in an attempt, he thought, to convince her to engage in a much-needed act of rebellion. "You only live once." Just as he planned, the unexpected contact had the desired affect and Daria gave a tiny nod. Under Trent's expert tutelage, the reserved Miss Morgendorffer managed to climb aboard the 1988 Harley Davidson without incident. Before she could begin to grapple with the concept of gripping Trent's waist, when the mere thought of touching him in even the most innocent way petrified her, Trent was pressing something smooth and hard into her small, nervous hands.

"You should get the helmet." She stared. "Cuz, you know, you're a girl and everything." Daria gave one of her rare smiles and slipped the scuffed black helmet over her hair.

"A true gentleman." she quipped playfully and Trent's chuckle was lost as he stomped down on the throttle and the Harley roared to life. Daria barely had time to throw her arms around her best friend's brother's abdomen before they were shooting down the street, thick blue smoke trailing behind them like an ethereal tail.

As the pair raced down crowded streets and then over the highway with reckless abandon, Daria was shocked to find she was enjoying herself. The feel of the wind on her face, they way it blew her hair out behind her and pulled at her skirt, the hum of the machine beneath her... it was all very freeing. As they rode, all of the high schooler's troubles seemed to slip away. A blush infused the creamy color of the girl's skin as she admitted to herself that the warm, firm feel of the man in front of her and the scent which drifted back to her from their close proximity had a large hand in her unaccustomed langour, and was in fact the true cause of her enjoyment. And although that admission brought with it a great flood of anxiety and embarrassment, she for once did not allow it to overpower the simple pleasure she felt in being close to him.

Trent's smile was the vision of utter contentment as he piloted his borrowed black rocket for two across the cracked blacktop. The horizon was a perfect line stretching to infinity to either side beneath a flawless azure sky and the wind was dry and crisp as only on a summer afternoon. And nothing made a good experience a great experience like the feel of a girl pressed against you. A quick glance over his thin shoulder and Trent's smile grew. Daria's eyes were bright, vivid brown behind the thick lenses of her glasses and her face was flushed with a mixture of wind burn and excitement. A small smile stretched her full lips and a curious shiver tickled the musician's spine as he felt Daria's chest heave against him in her elated laughter.

Twenty minutes later the duo had turned back in the direction of town, to their shared sorrow. Trent had eased their frantic speed to an easy sixty miles per hour in his reluctance to surrender their impromptu excursion to the past. Despite his best, most practiced efforts of procrastination Lawndale was soon in their sights and in the span of a matter of minutes, the despondent pair were once again within the oppressive confinement of civilization.

The truck came out of nowhere.

One moment the intersection was clear, the next a blue pickup was roaring and swerving straight toward them. Trent managed to get out of the way before the truck could hit them, but he overbalanced in the process and as the crunch of metal on metal screamed from behind them, Trent and Daria crashed to the ground and everything went black.

Daria opened her eyes on a bizarre scene: She lay in a hospital bed, tubes and wires leading from her bruised and bandaged body to a multitude of beeping, blipping, buzzing machines which stood sentinel around her unconscious form in the otherwise empty room. A heart monitor beeped a steady rhythm to the right and it was obvious that she was on life support. An oxygen mask hid her face, but Daria could still see the friction burns peeking out from under the plastic and tape from her vantage point above herself, seemingly stuck to the ceiling of the hospital room. Before she could begin to contemplate her dual position, the door creaked open.

Quinn Morgendorffer crept quietly into the room and eased the door closed behind her, as though mindful of her sister's slumber and unwilling to wake her. When satisfied they were alone, Quinn slowly turned and strode to Daria's bedside. For several long minutes the younger Morgendorffer seemed to consider her sister, to study her closely for her eyes never left the still form. Then Quinn moved up by Daria's head and gazed straight down into her face; her eyes were completely void of emotion as she spoke. Five words slipped from 'tween those pouty pink lips, and Daria's heart turned to ice.

"Suppose I should say goodbye."

And with one smooth, savage motion Quinn pulled the plug. The shrill flatline of the heart monitor was Daria's only scream.

Daria bolted upright with a horrified gasp and was immediately aware of three things: a dull, thudding ache behind her eyes, a sharp pain in her arm and a rapid, rhythmic beeping to her left. A quick inspection found a thick bandage wrapped around disheveled hair, cognitive of a head injury. An IV was plugged into Daria's thin right arm, and a heart monitor amplified her triphammer heartbeat to the other side of the stiff hospital bed on which she sat. A jumble of images tumbled through her normally coordinated mind, and the bewildered writer could make heads nor tails of any one memory, thought, whatever they were. Save one.

Quinn's words and the action which accompanied them stood stark in Daria's mind. The knowledge that it had been a mere dream did nothing to comfort her; Quinn's actions had seemed all too natural, her words far too real.

The door burst open and Helen Morgendorffer rushed to her daughter's side, face slicked with mascara and tears. For a moment it seemed she was going to crush Daria to herself in an intense embrace, but she caught herself at the last second and clasped Daria's hand in stead. She was soon forced to relinquish her hold as a man in a white coat made his way to Daria's bedside. She soon recognized him as the doctor who had treated her the last time she was here; when she tried to recall his name, the dull ache behind her eyes spiked to a sharp pain and she soon gave up the ghost.

Daria sat patiently as her pupils were checked, then tested with a small pen light. The doctor scribbled something on the chart which had been hanging from the bar at the foot of the bed, and Daria surprised herself by speaking.

"What am I doing here?" The words had barely died on her lips before a veritable stampede rushed from the hall and crashed into the room, each with the intention to be first to Daria's side. Jake Morgendorffer, the siblings Lane, Jesse Moreno and lastly, the petite Quinn managed to squirt into the room simultaneously just as the doctor made his reply.

"There was an accident, Daria. Nothing serious, but you did sustain a mild concussion. You've got a couple bumps and bruises, nothing to worry about, but you have been unconscious for the past four and a half hours."

Jesse and Trent stood by the door, the latter's face a mask of absolute misery. A gash marred the flesh of his forehead and ran into the hair at his right temple, the blood clotted but the wound obviously untreated. A few bruises and one friction burn were scattered here and there across his arms and face and suddenly, some of the images assembled themselves into a chain of events in Daria's mind. Her eyes widened in understanding and recollection.

"What about the driver? In the truck? Is he alive?"

The doctor nodded, his handsome features twisted into an expression of disgust.

"He'll live." was his terse reply.

Jane smiled at her best friend and partner-in-crime from her place beside her brother, the helmet that saved Daria's life cradled in her hands. As Jake moved to sit at his daughter's side, curiously calm, Jane went on to inform Daria of her plan to turn the helmet into a sculpture using pieces of the broken asphalt and telephone pole from the accident, something about Daria's "triumphant return from the afterlife." Jesse, the owner of the Harley Trent had been piloting when the drunken road hazard had come careening out of nowhere, had been informed of the accident by Jane when he showed up for practice only to find Trent still missing. His concern, while appreciated, was the farthest thing from Daria's mind.

Quinn had taken a chair at the opposite end of the room, directly across from Daria's bed. Her skin's awful pallor and the obvious puffiness of her face were indicative of crying, but it was her eyes that turned the elder Morgendorffer's soul to lead. There was something there, a flash in those bloodshot orbs that sent tremors through Daria's body and both Jake and Helen's eyes widened in alarm as the heart monitor again began to race as Daria's hands shook. A small smile lifted Quinn's lips, the same bubble gum pink of her sweater, but her eyes were unreadable. Her lips parted to reveal her perfect, straight teeth as she mouthed something Daria couldn't quite make out. Quinn's smile widened.

"If you should die before you wake."

It took everything Daria had not to scream.

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Which is reality, which is nightmare? You decide.

11/16/07