Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: You end where you begen.
Okay this is just a little somehting I came up with so I hope it's not that bad. It's somebodies dream. Let me know who you think it is.
Full Circle
"Beka," He yelled running down the corridor. He paused at and intersection listening. Footsteps and laughter echoed all around him bouncing off the bulkheads confusing him. They seemed loudest to his left so that's the way he went. Left, and then right, then straight, right again. The echoes were louder now, closer. He called out again and his voice bounced off the metal surrounding him. One last turn should make it. Right, the echoes suddenly stopped. There was no sound; he couldn't even hear his own breathing.
It was silent as a tomb, and as cold. Something unnerving hung in the air surrounding him and pressing against him so that he felt like he couldn't move. The light around him started to dim. Shadows crept up the metal wall. They stretched and twisted warping out of their original shapes. Grotesque images now covered everything but kept growing. They morphed with other shadows forming shapes that were even more grotesque.
He walked a little faster fighting the impulse to break into a run. He knew if he ran that he would never escape the shadows. They would catch him. As soon as he gave in and ran they would overpower him. He could feel them pulling at him. Threatening to engulf and pull him into their world. Just like quicksand pulled an unsuspecting being into its depths these shadows would engulf and smother him. There would be no escape. Once they touched him he was dead. Nothing would be able to save him.
The soft thud-thud-thud of his boots on the metal deck changed to the crunch of walking through dry leaves. That crunch faded to the even softer thump of walking on packed dirt. It got colder, darker, quieter, and even quieter. He called again almost afraid of what the reply would be. In the still air his voice died before it left his lips. He rubbed his arms fighting off the deadly chill that threatened to engulf him. The shadows had grown now and seemed to have joined the chill. Both hammered at him searching for the smallest crack in his defense.
He picked up his pace again still rubbing his arms. He had to find her.
A laugh broke through the silence. Just hearing it seemed to push back the shadows. It also warmed him helping to drive back the cold. With a small grin he started through the darkness toward the sound. A piercing scream cut through the laugh blotting its sound out. He froze as the cold and shadows slammed down on him again almost driving him to his knees. The scream sounded again.
He started to run. He didn't care if the shadows engulfed him. He had to get to her. A deep merciless laugh joined the scream. He ran faster than he thought was possible. The scream drove all thoughts of the cold and the shadows from his head.
Each scream was a white hot knife slicing through him. The laugh served to shove each knife deeper. Each breath was anther knife slicing through his lungs. His legs were on fire. The shadows crept closer with each step. The cold started slamming into him again. He stumbled and the shadows engulfed him as he struggled to keep from falling. The cold continued to slam against his taxed body. The screams grew louder, more frightened.
He tried to run and fight through the shadows but he couldn't do both. The shadows had too much control and he fell. Dry grass and rocks rammed into his face. One rock caught his bottom lip splitting it open. His nose splintered with the impact. A last rock dug its point deep into his forehead just over his right eye. White spots flashed in front of his eyes and the scream. It sounded again and through the pain and shadows he heard the laugh that joined it. It was deeper now, filled with more mirth. He had to go on, there was no choice.
With what felt like the last of his strength, He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled on. The shadows surrounded him trying to force him to his knees. He could no longer walk standing straight as they kept trying to invade that last spot. That last gleam of hope in the darkness.
The screams continued but were farther and farther apart, as if the person was losing all strength and will to keep going. All he knew was that he had to get to her. He had to stop that laugh that sliced through all the parts of his body that had not been destroyed by the earlier screams and laughing.
He stumbled again and put his hand out. Something cold and hard pressed back against it, a wall. He pressed his other hand against it, or he tried to. It wasn't there and his hand fell a little farther to rest on a stone slab. A solid stone stood there about waist height.
Feeling himself shaking from the weight of the shadows and the cold he finally fell to his knees. His cheek came to a rest on the cool stone as the chill that had threatened to envelop him earlier retreated a little from its attack. Silence filled the air once again. There was no scream, no laughter, or footsteps. Only the beating of his heart and his hot fast breath on his arms said that a living thing was in that dark, almost tomb like, place.
It took a while but the fire in his lungs faded. The struggle to push away the shadows raged. He would gain a little space but then the shadows and cold would slam down on him again. He barely clung to his defenses trying his hardest to shove the shadows away like he would an annoying person. Then he made. He shoved the shadows far enough away that some more light seeped in.
This brief victory was short lived though. Because when the shadows let even that little bit of light he was brought to reality abruptly. The stench of death hung in the still air. It joined the shadows and cold in attacking him with vigor. It felt as if every part of him was being beaten. His senses were on fire.
He barely won that fight as he came to his senses again still on his knees with his head resting inside his arms on the stone slab. Something hard pressed into his arm. Tiredly with one hand, he groped through the darkness hoping to find more light. He grabbed something then immediately jerked his hand back. He knew what that was. A bone. A bone out of someone's leg. He shoved himself away from the stone landing on his butt. Bits of dirt ground into his hand. He scrambled back desperate from the stone and its contents.
There was another laugh. Once again it cut across all his senses slicing what little had not already been sliced. He clapped his hands over his ears trying to block out the sound. Something like nails on a sheet of metal ripped through the dead air. Along with the sound, the shadows seemed to fall back and the light grew. He couldn't see where it came from though. Then the sound started to fade and disappear but not before letting out one final violent shriek that paralyzed him.
After a few minutes of bone numbing silence, He uncovered his ears and looked around. He was now in a dimly lighted stone room. The shadows had pulled back to the walls giving him plenty of light to see the rectangular box that took up most of the room. Dirt and small rocks littered the floor while there seemed to be no visible exit.
Stealing himself, He looked up at the stone. He couldn't see anything from his position on the floor so after a couple breaths he pushed himself to his feet. What he saw was diffidently not a human skeleton. Laid out carefully in recess in the stone with thin wires holding each bone to the others was what looked like a mix between a human and a bird. They were more reddish brown than white though and didn't seem as if they were a skeleton.
He approached it and made to pick up a piece of paper that was lying next to what had to be the skull. Just touching it brought the cold slamming down on him again and he jerked back. The shadows suddenly pulled back even farther letting in more light. With the change in light, the bones seemed to change to a more bluish color. The words on the paper also became clearer.
Go Home
You can do NOTHING
For Her
The shriek returned breaking David's concentration. It was quieter now and seemed to have a different source. It seemed to be coming from the stone. He jumped back once more but was brought up abruptly by a wall. While he had been staring at the paper the walls had closed in until they surrounded the stone block and left only a foot on each side. The cold returned slamming into him harder than ever. This time it drove him to his knees. His hands trailed down the side of the stone trying to break his fall. He found no resistance though and his body continued its trek downward. He expected the stone to stop him but instead felt the fluidness of falling through something like water. Something like that joined the cold in slamming against him as he flipped over falling to whatever end.
Suddenly the jolt of making contact with a metal deck stopped his descent. It took a few seconds for him to catch his breath. It was then that He knew he was back on the ship. He could feel it in the subtle vibrations of the metal platting that pressed against his back and hear it in the way the air rushed out of the ventilators. He also knew that he wasn't in a corridor. The lights were too bright and a security camera was clearly visible on the corner where the walls and ceiling met. He had landed in the brig.
A groan sounded off to his left as He rolled over to stare at a pie of rags. It wasn't a pile of rags though, it was Beka. Her hair was so dirty that it had one from its usual blond to black with a few white streaks. Her face was crisscrossed with scars and streaked with blood, filth, and tears. Her eyes that had once been a deep brown and so full of life were now duller and filled with anger and pain. That look froze him as he lay on the deck more than the cold or the shadows. This time though he was frozen in fear of what that looked said she would do. He scrambled to sit up and back away from her, from that look, until the bulkhead stopped him. She stood up slowly using a nearby bench fro support. Her lips were cracked and bloody. Her clothes that had once been form fitting now hung lose form her body. The fabric was thin and torn in several places. One leg of her pants was torn and ragged just bellow her right knee. The other continued a little lower but ended in the same ragged state. A ragged blood crusted scar protruded from her pants on her left leg and continued down across her bare foot.
"You came back," Her voice was cracked ad horse. "It took you long enough."
"Beka," He gasped.
"What I'm not beautiful enough for you?" She gave a hallow laugh that ended quickly as she began to cough. Her whole body shuddered and she fell to her knees using one hand to brace herself against the floor.
Event though his fear told him to stay away from her the sight of blood dropping out of her mouth and onto the floor brought He to his feet. He made his way to her side dropping to his knees. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he let her lean against him and the coughs subsided. She looked up at him with look that told of pain and lost memories.
"Twelve years. You took twelve years but you came back. You're too late. Their all gone." Her body stared to shake again and a fit of violent coughs raked her body so that more blood joined that on the floor. As suddenly as they began the coughs stopped and so did everything else.
He woke up sweating and reached for Beka.
Would they survive the coming war?
NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP PRAY THE LORD MYSOUL TO KEEEP AND IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE, FEED JAKE HE'S BEEN A GOOD DOG, MY BEST FRIEND, RIGHT THROUGH IT ALL IT I DIE BEFORE I WAKE, FEED JAKE.
Okay here it is. I am no psyso and unlike the popular opinion of those who have read this I do not need to see a shrink. So let me now what you think.