Author's note: PLEASE READ! So the last chapter was the prequel in order to give you an understanding for the concept I'm going for. This is the first chapter and will revisit some of the things mentioned in the prequel except with more detail. Hope you all enjoy! Thanks for the review and follows!
Chapter 1
"Emma wake up…Emma love you need to get up." She could feel his five o'clock shadow rub against her cheek as he tried to wake her with a kiss.
Groaning she gave in turning around but holding the covers closer to her, trying to conserve the warmth the bed had to give her.
He smiled down at her as she squinted, looking up at him.
"I don't want to get up, can't we just stay in bed all day."
He let out a laugh, she loved hearing him laugh, it always made her smile.
"As tempting as that sounds love, you have an election you have to go to. David head out to the polls an hour ago, he came by to see if you wanted to go together but I told him you needed your beauty rest, told him you had a tough night last night." And with a wink he stood up and began to walk towards where they kept their clothes.
Hmm. Tough night indeed. All Emma could hope for was that Killian didn't use and hinting gestures like the wink when David asked. The last thing she needed was another lecture from David about her relationship with a pirate.
She let out a sigh and forced herself out of bed and she began to find the most professional pieces of clothing she owned. Once she had picked out the old pair of jeans, blue top and red leather jacket, which had seen better days, she began to undress.
Killian was ready in his black pants and loose white shirt, which looked like it could have been from the middle ages. He put on his black leather vest, and once he had tied his boots, he looked up to Emma and gave her the smirk that always made her melt.
"I've got some business to do before the election love, you don't mind me meeting you there do you?"
"Since when do you ask me my permission to do anything?" She turned giving him a knowing expression.
He let out another laugh. "Since the last time I went to do some business I came back to a frantic blonde about ready to chop my head off."
"dealings with the east end has never gone well for anyone, and if I remember correctly the only reason you got out of there alive is because their leading lady thought you'd be fun to have around."
Talking about this made Emma cringe as she thought about that little pixies hands touching him.
"Yes, well my good charm and wit will get me anywhere, besides, I was able to break loose and get back to you wasn't I."
The smile Emma gave wasn't one of joy, more like try it again and see where you sleep for the next week kind of smile.
"I'm sorry love, today is not going to concern anything that could be dangerous, I just need to go out and speak to an old friend of mine and then I'll meet you at the polls and celebrate your victory over the Narcissus."
He always knew how to bring Emma back into a good mood. "His name is Sydney, and he is respected by many people in the city, there's a chance I could lose to him in this."
Killian gave a look of pure disgust. "He looks in a mirror every chance he gets, there is no way that you would lose to the likes of him. He may hold some respect in these parts but you hold more, or are you forgetting that you led the rebellion that freed the people from the Crusaders?"
She didn't feel like continuing the conversation from there, she began to dress. The times of the Crusaders had been tough, they were a cult that believed in a false god, one who had been a man she had known years ago. They worshipped him and were able to brainwash many scared people into becoming followers, and anyone who refused to accept their cause were taken as slaves, some even killed. It had only been a few months since their final defeat, the fact that they were no longer a threat and that rebels had won still felt too good to be true.
"I have to leave now love, I'll see you at the victory party. His kiss brought her back to reality and she watched him walk out the door. Her life had come so far since it had been crushed by the virus three years ago. There had been times where she believed that she was damned, that life would never be good again, yet here she was, she had come so far, and so had the world around her.
"Ahhh" She let out a cry and reached for her temple, a searing pain in her head began to intensify.
She hadn't had a pain like this in years, not since the virus had hit. The familiar pain only brought back the memory of other pains she had witnessed.
The first time this pain had come she had woken up with it, fallen out of bed and tried to reach her door to call for help, someone to take her to the hospital. It felt as if her entire brain was being fried, it was almost as her head was being burnt.
She once again fell to the floor, not being able to cope with the pain in her head, her vision began to blurr, things began to spin, she felt as if she would vomit.
It was as if it was all happening again. She saw it like it was yesterday.
Her parent's running into her room, trying to help her up, they dropped her and both began a fit of coughing. Her vision had been blurred at that point but she could see the blood running from their noses, splashing from their mouths as they coughed. They too fell to the floor, crumbling while reaching out to her, tears of blood falling from their eyes. Their faces held such fear, their bodies were in fits, they weren't able to breath. They had been reaching for her in their last moments, she who could do nothing but sit through her own pain and hell. She had sat their paralyzed for what felt like days, only able to stare into their cold dead eyes, the same image which continued to haunt her to this day.
The pain became worse; it was exactly the same as before. Her only thought was that the virus was back, it was hitting again, maybe this time, those who were immune before won't be so lucky this time around.
Her last thought before the world around her went black was of that gentle, suggestive smirk she had grown so used to waking up to. Killian.
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The pain in her head had dulled and turned into a slight ache. She could feel sheets surrounding her body, a soft pillow behind her head.
Someone must have found her and brought her back to bed.
Her mouth felt so dry, she tried to swallow, only to find something lodged in her throat blocking her gulp.
She began to panic, and reach for her mouth to take whatever it was out. She still didn't have enough strength to open her eyes but the panic of not being able to swallow made it where she could barely breathe.
She was too weak to bring her arm all the way up to pull at the object. There was another pair of hands holding hers down, while she felt the object being taken out of her mouth.
She gasped, still not knowing what was going on, still too weak to move.
There was a moment she could have sworn she had heard her mother's voice, calling out to her, calming her and felt her father's strong welcoming hands smoothing down her hair. But that wasn't possible, they had died years ago.
There was a beeping sound that wouldn't rest which brought her out of her sleep. She had always been a light sleeper; even the smallest sounds would wake her.
She felt a little bit more energized. She tried to lift her arm in order to bring it up to her head, but it seemed she was still too weak to move, her eyelids began to lift slowly. There was a bright light above her, so bright it reminded her of when they had electric lights. All the electricity had gone out after the virus hit, there weren't enough people left who knew how to keep it going.
She let out a gasp as she felt a stab to her arm, trying to bring her surrounding into focus, she turned her head to the side only to see a woman dressed as an old world nurse with a needle halfway sticking in her arm, blood being drawn out.
What was going on, Emma's mind went any and every direction, she began to fight, hoping to find some strength left in her to fight whatever was being done to her, she tried to lift her arm again, once again not able to lift it, she looked down to find that it wasn't her being too weak, she had straps around her wrists, binding her to the bed.
Her breathing became short and fast, the nurse grabbed her arm, extracting the needle, and tried to smooth the top of her arm as to calm her.
Emma's eyes remained wide with fright; the nurse let her go and ran to the hallway calling on somebody.
A man ran in, he wore blue scrubs and a white lab coat, just like an old world doctor would, this had to be a dream, this all had to be a dream.
He brought a mask to her mouth and spoke to her. Emma's mind was still fuzzy but she could make out the words breath, and so she did. Her breathing began to slow and she felt herself calming a bit.
She was still disoriented as she saw to figures running into the room. Looking to them, she saw her mother and father, both very much alive.
The doctor turned to them and began to speak, she could only make out a few words, but none that were able to make much sense to her especially in the state she was in.
Once again she let the darkness take her over.
It was a burning sensation to her temple that woke her this time. She once again tried to reach for her head. She remembered the bindings she had seen before, not knowing if it was a dream or not she tried to pull her arm up.
She was still bound. Though this time, she felt a hand reaching for hers and felt the bindings come loose, She lifted her hand to touch the spot that burned. There was a small hole in the flesh of her temple, no bigger than the end of a ball point pen, but the skin around it felt chard, as if it had literally been burned.
She opened her eyes and saw her father standing over her.
"I'm I dead?" the words came out weak, on the other side of the bed her mother brought a Styrofoam cup full of water to her lips. She accepted it, and laid her head back down, squeezing her eyes shut trying to make sense of what was going on.
"Emma, sweetie, how do feel?" Her mother's voice was a sweet a she remembered, so comforting.
"Mom? How…" She felt tears forming from her eyes as she looked at the two people she had lost all those years ago.
"Mrs. Swan, may I please talk to your daughter, others have awoken and been telling us some things, I think it best we explain to her and you what it is she's been going through these past three years."
Emma looked to the doctor who she remembered seeing earlier, all the stuff she had thought to be a dream, somehow it had all been real.
"Miss Swan, what I'm about to say is going to be very difficult to take in and accept. My name is Dr. Whale, I've been looking after you since you were rescued." He stood looking like the words he wanted to say were difficult to conjure.
"You and a number of others, have been the victims of a terrorist attack." He took a moment, allowing this small piece to sink in.
"Three years ago, many civilians were kidnapped by a terrorist group, you were all thought to be dead, thousands of people had just vanished in one night. Recently our government had discovered a terrorist nest and infiltrated it. They expected to find weapons of mass destruction, instead they found you. You and the other thousands who had been missing since what we call Mourners day three years ago. You were hooked up to machines, unconscious, it seems some kind of psychological experiments were conducted on you. From reports, it appears that you have all been, in consciousness, living in a virtual reality, at first we thought it was a different reality for each person, today we discovered that you all have been together, somehow, they were able to bring your consciousness together with other in this world. Some of the people you may remember meeting, were like you, victims."
He was right, this was going to be difficult to take in.
Authors note: Ok so hopefully this wasn't too confusing for you guys. If it was please just let me know, I'll try and do better. The next few chapters will be about Emma and others trying to adjust to the world they thought had disappeared long ago, and it will have flashbacks of their virtual reality starting from the beginning of how they found each other. Please review and let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!
