"Come on Ariadne! You've got to learn this!" Eames urgently said.
We were training for our first job since the Inception. Or should I say Eames was training me. Our job was to extract the deepest, most personal secrets from an American politician, Joseph Strauss. Alex Hamilton, his opponent, wanted Strauss's secrets to blackmail him into changing his political views. They were running against each other to get elected as governor of New York. I didn't particularly like what we were doing, but a job was a job.
Eames, Arthur, Yusuf, and I were currently in my dream. We stood in the middle of a city park, with trees surrounding us and a small pond nearby. Arthur sat on a park bench with his usual three piece suit on, over-seeing our training. Yusuf stood near Eames and me by some beautiful rose bushes that lined the bike path we were training on. He wore some denim jeans with a beige jacket over a dark green t-shirt. Eames was wearing some light denim jeans with a blue and white thin stripped polo shirt with a white jacket on. He stood directly in front of me, pistol in hand.
"Ariadne, you need to be ready if this happens. We were extremely lucky that this didn't happen to you during Inception, but you need to be ready if this happens during any job!" Eames stressed.
Eames was teaching me how to pull someone out of a dream, which included killing them. I wasn't comfortable with that. At all. How could he expect me to kill one of my co-workers? Did he not understand that this might be hard for me to just shoot somebody? Even if it was a dream, even if it didn't actually harm them, just the thought of it made me shiver.
"I know Eames! Don't you think I know that? You've practically burned it into my brain!" I said in frustration, "Don't you know this is hard for me? Wasn't it hard for you? Or are you just so cold blooded that you don't feel anything when you shoot someone?" I asked. I knew that last part was a low blow. I knew I shouldn't have asked that.
Eames stared at me with genuine hurt in his eyes. I started to stammer an apology but he cut me off. Whatever hurt had been in his eyes flickered away to be replaced by his best poker face. No emotion showed, just a blank look in his eyes, like he was bored with what we were doing.
"Yusuf, can you come here for a second?" Eames asked politely and Yusuf walked over and stood by Eames, "Now, Ariadne, I want you to wake Yusuf up." Eames said commandingly.
"Y-You mean shoot him?" I asked, terrified and shocked.
"That's how you do it, love," he said, more relaxed, almost nonchalant.
"No. I don't think I can," I whispered.
"Well then, I guess I have to do this the hard way, Ariadne. I'm sorry." Eames said with a glimmer of regret in his eyes.
He turned toward me; gun raised, and pulled the trigger. The bullet went into my left upper thigh and I screamed out in pain, clutching my leg. My leg was searing and burning with pain and the bullet was lodged deep in my thigh; it looked gruesome. I leaned my weight on my right leg to lessen the pain, but it barely did anything. My crimson blood now slowly leaked through my dark skinny jeans, trickling down my leg.
As I whimpered and gasped in pain Eames said, "This is how it feels when you get injured in a dream. Killing someone is quite different. You only feel a flash of pain, and then you're awake, safe and sound. So what is worse, having one of your teammates suffer with pain like you are? Or put them out of their misery by shooting them, thus having them wake up from the dream?"
"Eames! Wake me up! Please!" I gasped out. I looked toward Arthur pleadingly, but he shook his head, signaling that he didn't have control over the lesson, but he had a pained look in his eyes. The result was the same when I looked toward Yusuf.
"I am truly sorry you had to learn this the hard way, but you had to learn it. So what I am going to do is kill you now so you can wake up, but immediately after you wake up I need you to return to this dream because our lesson is not over yet. Promise?" Eames asked as pity and discomfort filled his gaze at the sight of me in so much pain.
"I promise!" I yelled out painfully.
Without another word, Eames shot me again and everything went black as I slowly fell. Before I hit the ground, I woke up.
Break
My eyes shot open. I was sitting in an old lawn chair, bolt upright from the kick. I looked around the warehouse only to find Eames, Yusuf, and Arthur still sound asleep in the dim morning light that was streaming in from the warehouse window. I looked down at my leg, no blood on my jeans or my turquoise t-shirt, no pain, no bullet wound. It was just a dream.
I started to remember what Eames said, so I hooked myself back up to the PASIV and hit the white button, setting the timer for five minutes, and felt the heavy liquid course through my veins. I felt my eyelids droop and then I was asleep once more.
Break
I was back in the park, but now it was midday. Birds chirped happily and squirrels ran up and down trees quickly. More flowers were present, some in the most breath-taking oranges, pinks, and yellows. I peered around, but I didn't see any of the men in sight. I strode along the bike path until I reached the end of the park were I saw the men standing about four hundred feet away. They were about two hundred feet away from a river embankment. I ran toward them, dodging traffic as car horns honked and tires squealed. Yusuf was the first to see me coming and waved at me. I waved back, a small smile tugging at the corner of my lips.
"Good you're here," Eames said nonchalantly, "Now to continue our lesson."
I let out a sigh as I walked to the men, stopping at an arms length away from Eames. I turned toward Arthur and asked, "Why does he have to teach me this? Why can't you just teach me?"
Arthur let out a heavy sigh and said, "I've already taught you the ways of dreaming. You already know about paradoxes and how to create off of your imagination. I've done all that I can to help you. Eames is the best one for helping you learn how to get people out of dreams. And maybe, at a later point in time, he can teach you how to have a keen eye for detail so you can improve your architecture skills. But what he is teaching you now is what you need to do in an emergency," he finished as he held my inquisitive gaze for quite awhile before turning to Eames and nodding his head for the lesson to continue.
"Right then, Ariadne, here's my gun. I want you to wake Yusuf up. The quicker you do it, the quicker it's over. That's all the advice I can give you," Eames explained, his hard gaze softened as he handed me the cold, heavy gun.
Yusuf walked over and squeezed my shoulder comfortingly and whispered, "I'll be fine. You don't need to worry about me," he gave my shoulder one last squeeze before he stepped back and closed his eyes, waiting to be woken up.
I raised the gun slowly, like my body was almost trying to resist what my mind told it to do. I pointed the gun at the middle of Yusuf's forehead. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, something possessed me and my arm suddenly swung towards Eames. I pulled the trigger, the shot rang in my ears, and I saw a small trickle of blood leave the bullet wound in Eames's forehead. He fell to the ground with a thud, and then left the dream.
My breath quickened, almost to the point were I was hyperventilating. Oh my God. I shot Eames.
AN: The actual plot of the story will come in later chapters, but this chapter will definitely tie into the story later. So I hope you like it! I just made up the politicians, so they are not actual people. Tell me what you like, dislike, and things I should improve on! I know that Eames and the others aren't in their characters, but Eames in this chapter needed to be written as more serious. But I promise that he will get back into character. Reviews make everyone happy :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Inception or any of it's characters. Christopher Nolan does.