Come with me now - A Dragonball Fanfic

Chapter Zero: Prologue


Have you ever just known, before you even open your eyes that you were going to have a bad day? I could sometimes, and I could just tell today was not going to be good. I guess you could call it a woman's intuition, or a college kid realizing their procrastination finally caught up to them during final's week. I shifted around to try to wake up my muscles and take note that I had fallen asleep sitting up. I groan, irritated by this factoid, as my stiff limbs ache in pain whenever they are moved or flexed. I try to recall what class I was studying for to more accurately gauge just how screwed I am, but I cannot. I completely blank on what class I have finals for today. I can't even remember what day of the week it is.

I groan once more and rub the sleep from my eyes. I didn't have my glasses on, so how the heck could I have been studying? I hope they didn't fall off my face and break. With more annoyances to add to the fire, I groggily stretched my noodle arms to the desk in front of me to hopefully fine the nerd frame glasses I've been using for the past two years. However, my arms only waved around in the air, never making contact with my glasses, or even a desk for that matter. I rub more sleep from my eye before finally giving in and opening them.

What I saw, was almost complete darkness with only a blurry red dot in front of me. The first thing that jumps to my mind is a light from one the consoles in my room, but just one light? I blink once or twice, allowing some of the blur to go away. It wasn't a dot in front of me, the blur of unused eyes and the cloud of sleep had warped my perception. What I saw in the darkness was a red window allowing only small amounts of light through.

This was unfamiliar to me. What I saw in front of me shouldn't be there. My heart began to race in my chest as panic set in. The only thing I wanted at that moment was out. I squirm with aching limbs to get closer to the window and hit it with all my might. The window didn't even crack, but some seem around it budged with the hit. A hope glimmered inside me. I hit the window again, push on it, do anything I can to get it to open.

Tears soon began to prick my eyes when little progress had been made. I didn't want to be trapped in here. I never had a problem with small spaces before, but this felt almost like I had been buried alive, a cause of death that had always unnerved me. I push at the window more, throwing my shoulder into it with as much force as I could manage. I cried and prayed for this thing to open up and let me out, and with the sound of shattering rock, my prayers where answered.

Though being sent tumbling out onto pebble filled puddle isn't exactly the most graceful of exits I could have hoped for, I was ecstatic to be out of that thing. Smiling over my accomplishment I run my hands through my hair in an attempt to calm my nerves a bit. My hair felt grimy but that was only a minor gripe I had, what bugged me was that my hair was shorter than it was supposed to be. I was growing my hair out, it shouldn't be chin length.

So many questions buzzed around in my mind, stringing theories together with half-baked thoughts. Confusion swirled in my head, and sitting around isn't going to clear anything up for me. I pick myself off of it the ground only to freeze upon noticing my reflection in the puddle. What I saw reflected in the water wasn't me. I am a young woman not even old enough to drink yet. What I saw in the shallow pool of water was a stunned girl with an odd sense of fashion. I move my hand to touch the reflection, hoping that it somehow wouldn't mirror me. It did, and I see that on my wrists are the same odd bands shown in the water. When the ripples subsided I hesitantly bring my hand to my face and examine the features of face in the water.

The face was somewhat rounded and extremely youthful, perhaps a middle school student at the cusp of childhood, with dark hair in a short choppy style and with bangs that stop just above equally dark eyes. These features seemed so alien to me, the only thing in the reflection I saw that held any familiarity where the dark circles under the eyes.

I sit in the puddle, staring down at an image that can't be me, and yet it mirrors me perfectly. I look down at the armor clad body that I now control, my mind hallow. This must be a dream. That has to be it, I'm in some weird dream where I'm some little warrior girl. I'll wake up in my bedroom and it will just be another normal day with my family. I nod to the girl in the water with a small smile, that had to be it.

I try to get up off the ground, but once again become frozen, this time from pain. I scream in agony and I reach behind me to swat at whatever hurt me. To my disgust it was a relatively large spider that I sent flying. Upon realizing where it had bitten me, my eyes grew wide. A brown furred tail sat behind me with a developing bug bite near the end. I feel a long it and sure enough it connected to my lower back.

In slight disbelief, I muttered out loud asking myself if I was actually a saiyan. Most the time my dreams were either extremely bizarre or completely mundane, never this middle ground. Than again, I don't ever recall being aware of when I'm dreaming before now. I let out a weak laugh and finally get to my feet. This had to all be a dream. There is no other explanation. Maybe I fell asleep watching Dragonball, that would explain why I had a tail, kinda.

No mater how many times I said it though, the idea of this all just being some dream didn't sit right with me. Taking a shaky breath I try to calm myself. If this isn't a dream than what else could this possibly be? Some kind of coma induced fantasy land? My blood ran cold at that thought. What if I was comatose? How can I get back to my family? How did I even end up like that!?

Taking in shallow breathes, I attempt to be rational and mental retrace my steps up until I found myself trapped in... I look to where I had originally tumbled from and spot a moss covered saiyan pod with the door down and rubble under it. It was then I note the large hole in a cave ceiling with early daylight pouring through to illuminate the room. This is pretty elaborate for a normal dream environment, which only gave more doubt to the dream theory I came up with.

Okay, enough distractions, I have to retrace my steps. I steady my breathing and remember. Sunday, I went to work and after I got off that night I worked a bit on one of my finals. Monday, I went to the campus, attended that carnival thing the college had before going to class. Tuesday, I went to campus... and I don't remember much after that. Tuesday was art so I must have presented. So then, this must be early Wednesday morning.

Once again the only idea I can come up with doesn't seem to be right, I don't know why but it just feels like that's wrong. I growl in frustration, why can't this be a dream that I can wake up from! I want to be home, be with my family and friends. I scream in anger, the emotion just over powered me. All this confusion, doubt, and uncertainty, it infuriated me. Then a small memory came to the forefront of my mind, one from the carnival. I don't know why it did, I don't know why anything is the way it is right now. All I know for sure is that in that instant I remembered the silly fortune I got before class that day. "Endings will always be sad but do not grieve, instead look to the future for new paths to take in a familiar place"

I was as still as a statue for what felt like eons as I let the words sink into my head. And just as time will wither a statue, I too eventually crumbled. Tears flooded from my eyes. My reality was breaking down. Every thing I know, every one I know. As much as I tried to deny everything, I knew in my heart that all the theories I came up with were dead wrong. Dead... That's... I grip my head and shake the thought away, no. That can't seriously be what "endings" meant. It's the end of the semester! That was just some stupid thing that lady said to cheer me up and get me exited for fall semester.

This isn't real. This can't be real. I am Catherine Jane Steele. I am a college student at South Haines University. I am a twenty year old Caucasian female with brown hair and and muddy green eyes. I am not a saiyan child! I am a human being. I'm... I'm...

I went over those facts and many others in a fruitless attempt to give myself comfort. I ended up just bawling my eyes out. Time passed, though I'm not sure how much, and I eventually ran out of tears to shed, leaving me to sit and sulk in self-pity. I rubbed the tears from my no doubt reddened eyes and spot the bracer bound to my wrist. I narrow my eyes at the armor and remove it, along with the other bracer and chest piece, leaving me in only short sleeved leotard. Armor is for warriors, soldiers, killers, I want no part in that senseless violence and blood shed. I cast all the pieces away and am awestruck for a moment when I see the items shrink in size to fit an infant.

My amazement over the armor's elasticity turned to more sorrows. Is it true that I am now a saiyan, far away from my loved ones and happy life back home? Am I really stuck here? A new wave of tears poured down my face. I cried out in vain for my mother and father, like the child I now was. I cried and begged for them but knew they would never come. I sobbed to the stones around me, I told them how much I loved my parent, my siblings, all of my family and friends. I told the cool breezes flowing through the cave how much my family and friends meant to me. I begged them to tell my loved ones how much I cared for them and miss them. I don't want to be alone, but more so I don't want my loved ones to suffer because of my absence.

I kept praying for my loved ones and didn't move for quiet some time. It was the growl of my stomach that knocked me from my trance. My face started to burn as I whipped away the last of the tears. With a deep calming breath I get up and look around the cave for a way out. I glance up at the hole in the ceiling, the sky was still bright and blue but the hole was way to high up to reach. Luck for me however, I could see distant daylight down one of the cave's tunnels.

I walk towards it at first, but once fresh air hit my lungs and I could see green trees outside, I ran. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. Fresh air, daylight, green trees, that's what I needed to lighten my mood a little. I was only a couple strides away from the mouth of the cave when I fell flat on my face. On the bright side, I had no glasses that would have broke from that fall.

Something rolling caught my ear. I dust myself off after a minute and look back to find what made me trip in the first place. I saw a little orange orb on the ground and my eyes grew wide. Cautiously I go to pick it up, and study it intently. What was in my hands was a bright orange orb with five beautiful stars in it. I marvel at the orb, it had such a simple beauty to it. Is this a real dragonball? The idea of holding the genuine thing, it almost frightened me.

What actually startled me however, was when the orb began to glow. I stare dumbfounded that it actually glowed, and felt my heart stop when I heard approaching footstep. I scurry quietly to the wall of the cave tunnel and chance a peek outside. Out there I see a familiar looking blue haired teen girl messing with something in her hand.


A/N: So here's a prologue to a story I had bugging me. I didn't want the idea to completely die so I typed up the prologue to get some opinions on it and see if anyone would want to read it. These kinds of stories are a (not super secret) guilty pleasure of mine, and if you don't like it, I'm not making you read it. To each his own. I'll be posting this on both deviantArt under the name DorkyLittleDemon, and FanFiction with the pen name Unrenowned-Writer

Dragonball © Akira Toriyama