Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon so please refrain from suing me for writing fan fiction. Thanks and enjoy!
Within Dreams--Chapter 3
A blast of icy cold wind that seemed to slap against Izzy Izumi's face gave the boy a rude awakening out of a sound sleep.
If the wind wasn't enough to startle Izzy, the realization that he was no longer in his bed was. He was so surprised he could do little more than look about him in astonishment as reality sank in. At first he'd thought he was outside, as the blast of wind had been so cold and snow was filtering down from the sky. But upon looking around, he found that that was not entirely the case. Not only was no longer in his bed; he was no longer in Odaiba. Heck, he wasn't even in Japan anymore as far as he could tell!
He appeared to be on a ship--a luxury cruise liner judging by the looks of things--and the ship was at a standstill. It was bitterly cold, so unlike the bed he had gone to sleep in what seemed like only seconds ago. To his right was a door that led to what he assumed to be the staterooms and to his left was a railing.
Izzy got to his feet and walked over to the railing, shivering, as the cold seemed to penetrate through him. The railing was so cold it actually had icicles hanging from it and he stayed a few feet away from the sharply pointed bits of ice. Upon looking over the edge, Izzy saw why they were not moving. The water itself was like slush, thick and whitish. It almost had a gelatinous quality to it.
This can't be where I think it is, Izzy dazedly thought. That is totally impossible.
But it certainly seemed as though he was in the Arctic Ocean. The freezing cold air, the half-frozen water, the occasional pocket of snow…it all pointed toward either an extreme northern or southern area of the world.
"I'm dreaming," he said aloud. "I'm dreaming. This is all some ridiculous dream and I'll wake up warm in bed and laugh at this any second now."
He waited, but nothing happened. "It's got to be a dream," he thought aloud. "It must be!"
"Well…if this is a dream then I must be dreaming it, too," a familiar voice said.
Izzy had come to know the voice quite well over the course of his adventures in the Digiworld. It was Mimi.
"Mimi? You're here, too?"
The pink-loving girl came out of her hiding place from behind the door earlier mentioned and replied: "yeah. And most of the others are, too. Well, everyone except Joe. When did you get here?"
"I--I'm not sure. Just now, I think. The last thing I remember is going to sleep at home."
Mimi sighed and answered: "that's the same thing for all of us, too. Come inside. It's freezing out here."
Izzy followed Mimi inside, down a short hall and into a small one-room living quarter. As the girl had said, all of his friends were there, except Joe.
"So does anybody have any idea where we could be?" Tai was saying.
There was a brief pause until Izzy broke the silence with: "I believe we are either in the Arctic Circle or the Antarctic Circle. We would have to be very far north or very far south for the water to be cold enough to start converting into slush."
"Well, that probably leaves us all with this nice little question: how in heaven's name did we get onto a ship and get here?" Sora questioned. "And what happened to Joe, come to think of it?"
Izzy shrugged and answered: "I have no idea how this came about. All I know is where we most likely are."
The words had barely left his mouth than a metallic clank sounded directly outside their room, out in the hallway.
"What was that?" TK whispered.
Nobody was in a hurry to supply what could be outside their door and nobody was in a hurry to find out.
Realization suddenly hit Izzy and he muttered: "I believe I have had an epiphany."
The other six occupants of the room slowly edged away from Izzy, eying him as though he was about to explode.
"A what?" Mimi said.
"Epiphany!" Izzy shouted. "You know, where you figure something out all of a sudden? Geez, you guys have sick minds!"
His friends quickly came back to his side and Matt prompted: "OK, Izzy, tell us about this…" (he held back a laugh) "epiphany."
"I think we're inside a convergent dream."
"Oh that makes me feel so much better," Tai sarcastically replied. "Hey wait a minute…it does make me feel better! If this is a dream then nothing can hurt us, right?"
Mimi added: "yeah, if this is just a dream then everything'll be fine!"
"Hey, that means we can do anything we want!" TK enthusiastically chimed in.
"Yeah!" Sora agreed.
Matt shook his head and stated: "sorry to burst your bubbles, but I don't think that's the case."
"But if this is a dream nothing can cause bodily harm to us," Tai responded. "And Izzy said it's a dream."
"He's right," Izzy said.
"But you said--" Kari began.
Izzy held up his hand for silence and he explained: "convergent dreams aren't like regular dreams."
"You get hurt here, you get hurt in real life, too," Matt added.
Another metallic crash outside the door prompted Sora to whisper: "then I suggest we start running."
"Run where? There's nowhere to run to!" Kari hissed.
Kari made no understatement. The room they were in was small and had no doors, save the one that led back out to the hallway.
"If there's something out there, I'll check it out," Tai muttered, walking toward the door. "For all we know it could be…I dunno…a mouse."
Another loud metallic clank and Mimi whispered: "when was the last time you heard a mouse do that?"
Before another move could be made, the door was thrown off its hinges with a loud snap of bolts breaking apart. A single writhing tentacle entered the room. It probed through the room until it brushed against Kari's leg.
Kari whimpered in fear and Izzy whispered: "don't move."
The tentacle slowly trailed up Kari's legs, past her hips and up to her shoulder. The whole while she stood, stiff with terror. And then to her horror, the tentacle slid around her face and wrapped around her head.
"Kari," Tai whispered, starting towards his sister.
Kari couldn't answer. The tentacle was over her mouth and it was dragging her forward, out the door. She felt Tai grab her hand and try to help her, but he was doing little good.
"Kari, help me," Tai grunted as he pulled her away from the door.
Kari was trying her best to resist the pull of the ugly thing that had wrapped around her head, but she could do nothing.
And then Tai's hand slipped from hers and she disappeared from the room.
"Kari!" Tai shouted after her and ran out of the room, hoping to maybe save his sister.
In unspoken agreement, the other five children ran from the room after Tai and Kari. They reached the door just in time to hear Kari scream as she was pulled off the ship and into the icy water and Tai shout in pain.
~*~
Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya unlocked the door to their apartment, happy to finally be home. The trip home from Mrs. Kamiya's parent's home had been a nightmare--two and a half hours of blaring car horns and bumper-to-bumper traffic. Both of the Kamiya's had been worried for their children, as the unexpected power outage had put out every light in Odaiba, plus it had shut down heating as well, making the entire district an ice cube.
Once inside, Mrs. Kamiya whispered: "honey, I'm going to check on the kids, OK?"
Mr. Kamiya nodded and his wife walked down the hall, toward the room her children shared.
It's very cold in here, she thought as she opened the door. I do hope they're all right. She tiptoed across the room being careful not to wake them. Still sleeping, she thought, smiling lovingly.
But when she got to the bunk bed, the smile was thrown from her face. Kari was pale--far too pale--and her lips were tinged blue. Her chest was not rising and falling as was normal. In fact, it appeared breathing had stopped altogether.
"Oh God no," Mrs. Kamiya muttered as she looked at her daughter. She cradled her daughter's head in her arms and whispered: "Kari, it's mom. Please, please wake up" her voice rising with barely suppressed tears and crescendoing until she shouted: "Hikari, open your eyes!" But Kari did not open her eyes.
"Call an ambulance! Now!" Mrs. Kamiya shouted.
Mr. Kamiya rushed into the room, alarmed at what was happening and inquired: "what? What's going on? What's happening?"
"Just go! Do it now!"
Mrs. Kamiya watched as her husband left the room and stroked her daughter's waxen forehead gently. "Hikari, i-it's going to be OK. Just hang on, please."
That was when Mrs. Kamiya realized that the noise she had been waking should have woken Tai. Not even he could sleep through all that, she thought.
Quickly, she dropped down to her knees to see if her son was all right--and her breath caught in her throat. It was obvious he was not fine. His usually large hair was matted down to his head with sweat. He was convulsing, as though having a seizure and he was lying in what appeared to be a puddle of blood. His breaths were coming in short gasps.
"Taichi!" she cried, grabbing him by the shoulders to try and steady his uncontrollable shaking.
Mrs. Kamiya laid her hand on her son's forehead gently, and then snatched it away as though it had been burned--which was very nearly what had happened. He had a frighteningly high fever. As she watched, he moaned, a dull, toneless sound from deep in his throat.
What happened? They--they were OK when I talked to them a few hours ago! Why is this happening? WHY?