Digimon: Forerunner

Chapter 1: Always a choice

"Josh! Mom says to come downstairs," Yelled an annoyingly familiar female voice.

"I know! I heard her! I'm coming!" an annoyed male voice called back.

Joshua Lawson threw on his favorite blue T-shirt and blue jeans, grabbed his weighty backpack and made his way downstairs to meet his mom and little sister. Like always his mother was dressed in her flight attendants uniform and his little sister waiting at the table with a goofy grin on her face.

"Joshua you know I don't have time to take you and Rachael to school so you'd better hurry up or you'll be late!" His mother, Karen, admonished.

"Yeah Josh hop to it! I don't want to be late because of you!"

"I know! I got all my stuff ready'" he answered. Joshua made his way past the table, gave his mom a quick hug then made his way toward the door.

"Hey wait for me!" Rachael cried.

"Hurry up or I'm leaving you behind!" Joshua called back.

"Oh Joshy! Remember I won't be home tonight so I need you to take care of Rachael and lock down the house when you get home," Their mother called out.

Joshua made his way out the door in a flourish. "Got It! Bye!"

"Wait!" pleaded Rachael as she followed him out the door. "Don't you dare leave me!"

The moist morning air greeted the two as they ran down the street toward the MARTA station. As usual people flowed into the front gate no doubt going to work or going to beg for money from the people going to work. Joshua and Rachael swiped their rail passes at the turn stiles and made their way down the stairs to wait for the train to arrive. The train terminal was simple, two tracks on both sides, a couple of benches and of course a crowd of people but this morning's crowd was quite a bit larger than normal.

"Attention passengers," the PA system rang out. "Due to damage of one of our rail lines our trains are running behind schedule. Please wait while the next available train arrives at the terminal. We are sorry for the inconvenience".

"They were talking about that on the news this morning!" said Rachael. "They said that a station downtown had its tracks torn up or something so none of trains can get through."

"Really?" Joshua asked. "Did they say how it happened?"

She shrugged. "All they said was that it happened last night and the trains are backed up because of it."

"Well if we're late at least we have an excuse." Joshua checked his cell phone for the time: 8:30, which meant he only had half an hour to get to school before the morning bell rang. He was about to put his phone back in his pants pocket when the vibrations and familiar South Park theme alerted him to an incoming call. He pressed the answer key without looking at the phone's screen.

"Must be mom," he reasoned. He leaned against one of the concrete beams in the terminal and placed his phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Jo…I…off-…deal… -wer," responded the garbled yet unmistakably deep voice on the other end.

"What?" Joshua yelled back into the receiver. "I can barely understand you! Who is this?"

But his question was met with only static that flooded his ears and then silence as the call was dropped.

"Who were you yelling at?" asked Rachael.

"I honestly don't know," he answered with a look of confusion clear on his face. "It sure wasn't mom though."

"You sure?"

"Rachael, unless mom is making phone calls through a synthesizer and in a tunnel I don't think it was her."

"It'd be just like her to check up on me by calling you though. I don't need someone watching me all the time. Especially not you."

"Rachael I don't want to go through this with you again,".

Rachael crossed her arms and sighed. "Whatever you say".

Joshua rolled his eyes and retook his position against the pillar. Luckily for them the train arrived to the delight of the impatient customers. Joshua took a moment to appreciate the subtle Doppler Effect as it passed by. Eventually the train came to a stop and the doors opened. Immediately everyone at the terminal swarmed into the passenger cars.

"Finally!," the siblings said in unison as they boarded the train and left the outside world in a blur of motion.

Joshua stared aimlessly out the window in his window seat like he always did. Mostly he just wanted to spend time with his own thoughts or catch up on some sorely missed sleep. Out of curiosity he tore his eyes away from the window and glanced at the seats ahead of him. He spotted his sister, in an aisle seat, chatting with a few girls that looked to be about her age or younger. By chance she noticed him staring at her and her new friends. He made an attempt to wave at her but she ignored him and turned away. She was always like that, she made friends easily and she was a natural at talking to people even if they were complete strangers. As a result many of the passengers treated her as an extra feature on the train. She was the center of attention and his opposite in almost every way and for that reason his sister and he didn't always see eye to eye. Joshua preferred quiet moments of solitude, not all the time, but when the opportunity arose he just found himself absorbed in some kind of book or computer screen. For him the world was something to study and understand. There was just so much to learn and so little time to do it. Or maybe he was just fooling himself and just wanted to hide from the world behind his thoughts either way it made for a rather uneventful train ride. Eventually the train came upon a tunnel and the world outside disappeared behind a wall of darkness.

"Good" Joshua thought to himself. "Makes it easier to think"

He closed his eyes and let the images and ideas buzzing his head free. Whenever he did this it almost felt like he was dreaming. He was relaxed, absorbed in his own little world and oblivious to anything else. His meditation ended harshly though as he felt the intruding vibrations of his cell phone in his pocket. He fished it out before it could finish one rendition of his favorite ringtone and answered it. Once again static crackled in his ears.

"Hello?" he said.

"Co….d" answered the static. He could barely make out the voice on the other end.

"Hello!" he said again this time louder. "Look I don't know who this is but you probably have the wrong number!"

The static answered him by getting louder but before he could end the call a voice, much louder and clearer, erupted from his cell.

"COWARD!"

Joshua fumbled with his phone at the last outburst. The voice was definitely a man's but it had a strange, inhuman quality to it. It was deep and threatening and the static that permeated the background only made it worse.

"Who is this?" he asked while trying to hide the unease in his voice.

"You will not hang up. You are alone. You will not hang up. We will talk." The distorted voice answered back.

"What the hell is this?" he asked automatically. "If you're trying to threaten me I could report this number to the police and have them use a filter on whatever voice altering program you're using to find you."

To his surprise the voice chuckled. "You are making empty threats. No one will come. You will do as I say".

Joshua tightened his grip on his phone. "Really? Why's that?"

"You are alone."

"No I'm not I'm…" Joshua stopped himself in mid-sentence as he noticed for the first time how quiet the train was. Where before there where dozens of people crammed into seats or standing up next to the poles making all kinds of noises now there was no one. He stood up and looked around the car but he saw nothing but rows of empty of seats.

"Did I miss my stop? He asked himself. "How long was I asleep?"

Joshua looked outside of the train car through the windows but all he saw was the same uniform darkness he saw before the crazy computer generated voice on the phone called him. This confused him. His sister and he had been riding the train for years and the route they took to get to school was always the same. The tunnel they pass through halfway down the line is long enough to block out outside light for maybe seven seconds, ten at the most. He looked at his phone's screen, the call was lasting three minutes and counting. How could the train have not left the tunnel by now? It was definitely moving, he could hear the swaying of the metal and plastic and feel the train as it moved along the track, so what was going on?

A terrifying thought him at that moment. He walked over to the end of the car and looked through the window hoping to see some kind of life but instead only the identical layout of the adjoining car greeted him.

"Where is everyone?" he asked the voice.

"They have been removed," answered the voice flatly. "Their presence is undesirable."

"Rachael! Rachael where are you?" he called out. "Anyone? Answer me!"

"You are wasting your time," the voice admonished. "She cannot here you were she is."

Joshua ground his teeth together in anger. Whoever was on the phone was holding Rachael and the rest of the passengers hostage somehow. "What did you to them? Why is this train empty? WHERE IS MY SISTER? TELL ME NOW!"

"YOU DO NOT MAKE DEMANDS OF ME HUMAN!"

The awful scream of his words rang in his ears. Suddenly the entire train seemed to lurch to his right. He lost his balance and hit the floor sending his phone flying from his hands and in the process causing it to slide underneath the seats. He pushed himself off the floor and headed toward the doors.

"Screw this! There has to be a way out of here!"

He pulled on the side doors and with all the strength his frightened body could muster. He doubted he could actually pry them open while the train was moving but he had to try. He strained himself until he could feel his arms pulling from his sockets then regrettably let go.

"Ok, then what about the other cars?"

He raced toward the front of his car where the door separating him from the others was. He pulled on it, kicked it, and even tackled it but he accomplished nothing but getting sore muscles.

"No…no, no, no NO! This can't be happening!" he yelled. He could feel warm tears flowing from his eyes as the fear set in. He was trapped.

"This has to be dream. All of this is impossible! It just can't happen". He sank to the floor and covered his head in his arms.

"Why can't I wake up?"

He laid there for what seemed like hours wishing he was back at home or at school or anywhere but here. Then he thought about Rachael and his heart sank even lower. Where was she? That thing on the phone said it had "removed" her along with the rest of the passengers. What did he mean by that? Did he take her off the train or had he…

"No, I can't think like that, I have to calm down, assess the situation."

He turned his eyes toward the windows. The unending darkness outside crushed any hopes that he was still on the normal rail line, all the exits were shut tight which meant that the thing on the phone had taken everyone off the train sometime after he fell asleep. He had no idea how the Voice had managed to get the train into wherever it was now or why he had bothered to keep some unimportant teenager in a train car when he could've just taken him like everyone else and demanded money or whatever it was that he wanted.

"So now what?" he asked himself. He looked toward his cell phone which was still under the seat from the fall. He didn't want to admit it but if he had any chance of making it out of here and finding his sister he had to get back on the phone. It was his only connection to the outside world. He jerked his head up as the obvious came to him.

"That's it!" Joshua scrambled over to his phone and looked at the screen. The call from The Voice was still active but what filled him with hope was the row of white bars in the upper right hand corner of his screen. He still had reception! He considered his options. He could hang up now and call the police but the Voice might get angry and do something more drastic to get his attention. Then there was the problem of explaining the situation.

"I'm being held captive by a mysterious "man" on a train that's trapped in a never ending dark tunnel and who has also managed make dozens of people vanish except for me."

It sounded ridiculous but he figured that if he could just tell them he was being held captive. That should be enough to get them here. The next problem was telling them exactly where "here" was. The train had been traveling nonstop through this darkness, he could be anywhere. He guessed that they could track his cell phone signal and find him but then…

"Whatever it is you're planning it is pointless."

Joshua's heart skipped a beat as the low, mechanical voice rumbled through his phone.

"If you are finished admiring the accommodations I suggest we continue our conversation."

How had he known that he was near his phone? It must have been half an hour since he dropped it and he hadn't heard anything from him the entire time so that meant…

"You're watching me. You've been watching me the entire time!" he accused.

Joshua swore he could hear something like a chuckle from the other end. "This entire area is under my control. All possibility of escape or rescue have been accounted for and blocked. You have no choice but to comply".

The trapped boy scanned his eyes across the train car looking for some kind of camera but all he saw were the same empty seats and dark windows he had always seen since this whole thing began. Finally he spoke.

"What do you want?" he asked sheepishly.

"I'm here for you Joshua Lawson," the Voice answered.

"You know my name," he stated.

"I know many things about you. It is for that reason why I have called this meeting of ours. In short I'm here to collect you," he said in a tone that left no doubt in his seriousness.

Joshua cocked his eyebrow in disbelief. "You want to recruit me? Why? What could I possibly have that you want?"

"Look out the window," the Voice commanded.

Joshua did what he was told then gasped in shock. The outside was still as dark as ever but if he looked below him he saw an all too familiar blue orb floating through it. It was the Earth, as impossible as it was the train had somehow gotten into low-earth orbit, years of reading about space shuttle missions and watching science fiction movies made it abundantly clear. He could scarcely count how many physical laws were being broken with this display and yet there it was.

"The world you see before you is filled with billions of your kind and yet only the slimmest fraction possesses what I require. You, Joshua Lawson, are one such specimen; with you I will accomplish miracles undreamt of in that small head of yours. Your participation would not go unrewarded; I detect in you a great desire for knowledge, an insatiable curiosity that those around you struggle to understand. You desire a world where understanding is at your fingertips, bond with me and you will have this wish granted a thousand-fold. You will have no equal, you will look down on the rest of humanity as a human does an insect."

Joshua head whirled at the Voice's generous offer. Everything he said he was true. Knowledge was power after all, and if there was one thing Joshua enjoyed above all else was learning things and proving to other' s that he knew them. When he was younger he liked to think of himself as a genius but that illusion faded as he got older and realized just how far away from that title he actually was. Now this thing had put him in an inescapable cage and held irresistible bait outside of its bars.

"How can I trust you? If I join you what will happen to Rachael and the others?" He asked.

"You misunderstand," said the Voice. "You do not have an option in the matter. I hold complete dominance over your future. Any resistance will be met with dire consequences."

Joshua was surprised at this. I can resist? Even when he has me locked up in a place I couldn't possibly escape from?

"Your family for example," he continued. "You are already aware that I have your sister. If you reject me I will kill her and the other passengers and return you and this train to its proper station".

Joshua's hear sank into his stomach at the cold, horrible voice's threat. If he was telling the truth it meant that he had no choice but to accept. He shuddered to think of what would happen if he came home without Rachael, his mother would never forgive him and neither would he.

"I….accept," He said with a voice barely above a whisper.

"Joshua your voice seems to have failed you. Please enunciate."

"I ACCEPT! Just please let my sister go!" He screamed. Warm tears stung his eyes and fell to the floor. His breaths came in gasps as the fear he been fighting to keep down welled up inside him and burst forth like a geyser.

"Very well," he answered. "As I stated before you have something very valuable to me sleeping inside you but your current psychological and emotional condition is unsuitable for my plans. Modification is necessary. Stand perfectly and still and relax your muscles, this will only last a short duration. Once it is finished I will return your sister to the station. "

Joshua closed his eyes and summoned what little willpower he had left to calm himself. He failed miserably and began shaking like a leaf in the wind. Only one other time in his life had he felt so helpless but at least this time he didn't feel quite as lonely. As the painful memories resurfaced in his mind he felt a slight tingling in his extremities that started to slowly work their way up his body. As the tingling intensified to a painful vibration, his entire body shook as if it were a tuning fork being struck over and over again on piece of metal. Slowly his vision faded and he felt his ringing body fall to the floor. He had no hope of getting up again as his muscles seized and contracted and his veins sent waves of pain through his body. Then just as suddenly as it started the vibrations stopped and in their place was a peculiar hollow feeling. He still couldn't move but now he could at least think in piece. It was funny; it almost felt like he was sinking into the floor. He knew he'd probably never see his mom or his sister again but at least they could go on living.

"Welcome to the digital world," were the words that formed in his mind as he sank beyond the veil.

Author's notes

Well this is my first story dealing with digimon that I've submitted to the site. The idea has been

Bouncing around in my head for ages and needed an outlet. I haven't been on the site very long it all and it shows but I'm more than willing to learn from whatever you guys have to throw at me. So what do you think? Any constructive criticism would be much appreciated.