Disclaimers

As per usual, don't own characters or series but writing and content are my own.

Background

Woke up to a weird dream on May 24, 2010 and it was quite as unsettling as the Usagi in the story feels hers is. It felt like something that needed to be written down, so here you have it. Must be all the heat. (Yes! Finally summer!) Of course, I added a few things for the story.

Author's Note

Apologies for the shortness. I fully intend to merge chapters later on.

Still thinking of a way to reconcile the world she dreamt about with the world we live in but make no mistake she will go there eventually and meet you know who. I'm trying to avoid all the typical things that we know so well: alien invasions, video games worlds, time travel wells, alternate timelines and dimensions, places only accessed through dreams.

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CHAPTER 1

Prophetic

It was just another day at the lab and yet there was something unsettling in her heart that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

What am I doing here? The room felt familiar but she couldn't quite place how she had gotten there. Floor to ceiling glass doors sparkled in all their crystallized glory. She had to wonder how they were able to set them into the tanned rock in the first place. Wait, lab? I've never visited a lab for a school trip before . . . she saw what she knew to be her hands moving in front of her, preparing a kit or a tray of some sort. Its shape and material felt foreign to her. Try as she might she couldn't look down further to see what she was wearing but white sleeves graced her wrist and she figured she must be wearing a lab coat. Her non-physical eyebrows knit in concentration as she tried to identify what she was holding but she was suddenly whipped to another scene.

" . . . mind. You are . . . spacey self . . . odd about him . . . something in just now . . . bluish sting ray-looking thing. Don't . . ." She couldn't help feeling more and more irritated the longer the man spoke. Who was he anyway? Why can't I turn my goddamn head? It was like she wasn't in control of her body . . . was this a dream? Still, the air was tinged in a way that made her feel like iya na koto ga sugu okiteiru.

This bizarro place with the cave-like walls and high-tech scientific equipment made her feel like sci-fi had been mixed with CSI or something. A steamy image of her having sex with the man appeared in her mind and her eyebrows—well, if she had control of her body, they would have—shot up in shock. Whoa! Okay, totally not something that I have ever experienced in my short eighteen years of life. More than that even was the overwhelming feelings of love she felt. So deep and consuming she might have cried.

She didn't have much time to think on it more. There was a tray with an impression that seemed molded for the dark blue animal seated in it. It was speaking, thinking to itself, and she heard the words but could not make out what they were. The container was being carried by someone that was not her, though she only saw the person's hands and the white sleeves.

Sitting with another man, she was now in a brightly lit chamber. The floor glowed as if fluorescent lights had been installed underneath a semi-opaque glass surface. For some reason, she knew that she had prepared her basket differently today. She was feeling something akin to hope and warmth for this being. She knew he was not a "man" in the human sense. Today's creeping shiver of dread increased around this person and she wondered why that was so. He is not evil and yet I feel scared of him, because of him.

He was dressed in a flannel button-up shirt with a blue / green checkered pattern and a plain white tee. She got up and waved to some other woman, who replaced her, so that she could try to give some coherency to the mess that littered the shelves. He sat there diligently putting something into pot-like containers and she stared at their backs from across the room. Against the tan-swirled walls, the white lab coat and his white jeans stuck out. Sadness passed through her.

Instantly, she was seated by his side again but now he was done with the project. He got up, taking the tray full of what he had been working on previously. An urgency filled her as she watched him walk away to put them where they were supposed to go. An image of another cave, by water, shot through her mind. Don't go there. It was a weak flicker and she wasn't able to fully grasp what it looked like beyond the corner because as soon as she turned it, she was back in her seat. She couldn't understand why that place was bad.

Flashes of events occurred quickly and she had no time to interpret, only feel, as they glided past her rapidly. Nothing was ever clear either. Multiples of the same scene overlaid each other and vibrated sometimes. It was like she was on an acid trip or had a little too much to drink.

The 'sting ray' was flopping as if it was in agony. Left side, then right side. Squish. Squish. Back and forth. It was hard to see it clearly. She thought her body twitched in the waking world, like she was unconsciously trying to help her escape.

The haze that had been ever-present, distorting faces and fuzzing out objects, seemed to intensify and all she could see were her hands shoving plastic bottles of varying degrees of grossness into a plastic bag. Why was she cleaning now? Something terrible was about to happen. The man at the beginning of her dream flickered into her view briefly.

The 'sting ray' was flopping again but more fervently. Her own body might have been thrashing in its sleep.

A large dark shadow loomed in the hallway, its sharp teeth clearly projected against the wall. One second the corridors were brimming with people, the next they were achingly empty. Everyone just faded from in front of her eyes. Then everything went black. She could feel the darkness gripping her but though she knew her ears were working, there was no sound.

Although she had not been in control before, she was now watching from an aerial view in total out-of-body experience.

From murky dark waters, non-humanoid figures appeared one at a time to pick up some round object from an indent in the mud shore. At first she couldn't make out the faces but they began to look more and more like girls with dark hair and pearlescent skin. When she tried to see the details, the gaze was drawn to their hands. Each would scoop out the object in a circular motion. Then disappear back into the water to be replaced quickly by another girl. For some reason, the number of objects increased by one every time but she only saw up to the third girl before she was looking down on a half-submerged city. She had been thinking just before the change in scenery that she had to warn the world but she knew once she saw the island that it was already too late.

The view was like a camera angle that would put a movie to shame as it slightly circled and then went up a little higher. A video game. Really made the most sense given the fantastical land. Stone like the same tan rock she had seen in the lab rose up in varying heights across the island in the shapes of buildings circling out from the center in grid formation. The water beyond the shores was also dotted with these rocks. Shorter buildings that had gone under were now being slapped by waves upon black waves. Foam bubbled around the outer ring on one side. A shame what's left of Washington, D.C.

Her head turned restlessly to the left, face gliding along her sheets as she realized with a jolt, Washington DC! What? Her brows furled. In no way was that what it looked like and it was definitely not an island.

Her eyes opened of their own accord and she was awake. Weird. Definitely weird. Feeling as though she had only closed her eyes but not fallen asleep, Usagi disliked the odd sensation she was left with since her dream did not disappear. That place at the end. The girls and the shore. I think it must be the place where I didn't want him to go. She actually recalled a good amount of it quite clearly and that hardly ever happened. Nightmares often left her heart racing too. There was none of that though. Instead something heavy had settled in her chest.

Frowning, she yawned. Her room was so bright it was making her eyes ache. "Huahh . . ." A back-cracking stretch and two groans later, she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth and staring at herself through bleary eyes. Why are my pores so big?

Shingo, bookbag in tow, walked past and snapped his gum. "You're gonna be late."

His sing-song voice had Usagi grinding her teeth and she entertained the idea of giving her snotty younger brother a well-placed kick that would send him tumbling down the stairs. Ah! No time! Squeezing her eyes and shaking her head in disapproval, she opted to rush through her morning routine and literally tripped out of the house, hopping on one leg as she tried to jam her shoe on, eat the piece of toast hanging from her teeth, and grab the bag lunch that her mother was pushing into her chest.

Once at her desk, Usagi sprawled across the surface in relief. Somehow she had gotten there five minutes early, though a little sweaty. Maybe if I took off my coat that would help. The heating was on full blast. I swear they are trying to cook us. She could stick it in her locker later.

A voice rang out loud and clear in the hallway despite all the chatter from the thousands of students that went to their high school and she recognized instantly that it belonged to her best friend, Naru. She could almost hear her saying—

"What a surprise!"

Usagi stifled a groan and pouted at her. "Could you not say that every time I show up even a little early? Honestly."

Naru smirked rather unrepentantly as she slung around Usagi's shoulders and they walked to their seats. "I can count on one hand the number of times you are here by the time class starts. Besides, what are best friends for?"

Rolling eyes answered her but they shared a smile anyway. A smile that didn't last long once Usagi's mind jumped ahead. "Naru, what am I going to do without you?"

Naru's eyes warmed a little even as she teased, "You know, you keep talking like that and your boyfriend will think that you would rather date me."

"You know what I mean."

Naru studied Usagi's face before replying. "Why are you so worried about college? February just started. We'll have months and months before either of us have to go anywhere. You've been like this since we got our acceptance letters."

"I—" The bell ringing cut her off.

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iya na koto ga sugu okiteiru – something bad will soon be happening