The young boy's eyes snapped open as a horrible cacophony of noise assaulted his eardrums. The noise had pulled him from a state of unconsciousness, but there was no indication as to what in the world was causing such an awful noise. That was shoved to the back of his mind, however, as his surroundings began to roll. He screamed out in terror as he struggled to keep up with the rotating room, wondering just what was going on. As his feet moved over his head for the third time in a minute, though, Luke Triton realized that there had been someone else with him.
Professor Layton. It hit him like the piece of flying debris that met his abdomen, and both the pain and the epiphany winded him. The professor had been with him, though he had woken up alone. The world suddenly felt cold, dark, and lonely. The professor had been with him, but why did he suddenly feel such a sense of dread? As the fear settled into his stomach, he found that the world had stopped spinning, and Luke immediately set out to find the other man.
"P-professor!" Luke cried out, frantically scrambling on his hands and knees to find his mentor in the darkness. He turned in every direction, searching helplessly, all to no avail; the professor was nowhere to be seen.
Just as Luke had given up all hope of ever seeing his mentor again, he heard the professor's strong voice calling out: "Hold on! I'm coming!"
"Professor!" Luke shouted, a second wind coursing through him and he pushed himself up. He set off running to meet the voice's owner, eyes blurring with tears of joy. He still didn't know what had happened to them, but something in his gut told him that he had come very, very close to losing the older man forever. Suddenly, the professor appeared before him, running towards Luke with a determined look on his face. Instinctively, Luke reached out his arms – finally, the professor was here, and they were both safe – but without warning the professor's body passed through his own. With a startled shout, Luke lost his balance and fell to his knees, scraping them badly against the coarse metal ground. When he recovered from the momentary shock, he turned back to see whoever his mentor had actually been running to.
Suddenly, his whole world rolled once more, and Luke was startled to find himself abruptly looking down on a scene: his own broken and battered body, lying not three hundred feet from where Professor Layton cradled Flora Reinhold's perfect, flawless body; there wasn't a scratch on her. "Flora, dear," Layton begged, trying to keep his voice from cracking as he tenderly brushed a piece of hair off of the woman's face. "Can you hear me?" Luke was both fascinated and horrified by the appearance of a glistening tear on the older man's cheek – the professor didn't cry! It was a horribly ungentlemanly thing to do!
Flora began to stir slightly in his arms, opening her large brown eyes and smiling sweetly up at the professor. "O-oh, P...professor," her bell-like voice quavered (though it sounded as if she was forcing the tremor more than anything). "You're alright..." Her tiny hand weakly reached up to touch the professor's cheek. A relieved look crossed Layton's face as he placed his own large hand over Flora's, watching her lovingly for a moment.
"Oh, thank goodness," Layton murmured after a long, borderline-uncomfortable moment, pulling Flora tightly to his own body. "I was afraid that you had been harmed, my dear..."
"What?!" Luke shouted, trying to run to the professor, but finding his body stuck to the ceiling, forcing him to watch the scene play out. "Flora's fine! Professor, I—I'm the one who needs you..." He darted a glance down at his body, watching the color fade from it with horror. "Professor, I'm dying!" he screamed, voice rising to a hysterical pitch. "I'm dying and you don't even know it!"
Suddenly, the scene faded away, and Luke watched with some horror as Layton faded away before his very eyes. His attention was drawn away from the melting background as Flora carefully pushed herself up to her knees and stood, the world rolling once more to bring them down to the same level; he moved while she remained eerily frozen in place. Once he could see her properly, she slowly began approaching Luke. He was once more stuck, unable to move away from her as she stepped closer. The young woman smiled demurely as she stopped in front of him, stroking a hand down his cheek and leaning in to whisper into his ear.
"Oh, Luke," she murmured, "I am the one who needs the professor. Don't you understand?" She pulled back and her sweet little smile morphed into an evil smirk. "He doesn't need you...all of his attentions are focused on me, tending to my every little whim..." She laughed at this, her melodic voice sounding so lovely despite the evil laugh tearing from deep within her throat. "After all, Luke…isn't that what a gentleman does?"
...
A/N: Hello again, everyone! Man, it's been a long time since I wrote anything for the Layton fandom. Thank you to everyone who reads, and I hope you enjoy this!
For those interested, there may be a second piece coming for "Beautiful Nightmare". I hope to update this story soon, but I wanted to post the prologue and get some feelers out to see what's going on around here.
Hope to see you all again soon!
Thanks,
Banj