Shun

Sometime after I retreated to the bunker's sleeping quarters, I had fallen asleep, and almost immediately drifted off into a dream. It started off like any other dream; I was walking down the streets of Vestal, the sky shining a peaceful, light blue. The air was crisp and clean, making it feel like a perfect day to be out and enjoying the weather.

Then, why can't I shake the feeling that something's wrong here? It was just a nice day; nothing strange about that, right? I looked around the city, and began to realize that there was nobody else outside with me. Usually, the streets and sky above were filled with people and flying cars.

But everything was desolate and empty. Still not knowing what was going on, I quickened up my pace and hurried to the house that I lived in with Alice. If she was in there, then maybe she knew what was going on. As I ran, I kept looking up and into the windows of buildings, hoping to catch a glimpse of any signs of life.

In one window, I caught sight of a curtain move, and a dark figure run by it inside. I stopped for a moment, then continued on my way. The further I got into the city, the once air-borne cars started to litter the streets, fire blazing wildly around them from where the fuel combusted.

What was going on? Did everyone just disappear off the face of the planet? I reached my house and turned the knob, surprised to find it locked. Alice hardly ever locks the door, I thought to myself and furrowed my brows in aggravation.

Realizing that I'd need a key, I ran my hand across the top of the door, feeling for the key; it wasn't up there. Annoyed now, I started to knock on the door. "Alice! Are you in there? Open the door! It's me!" I shouted loud enough for here to hear if she was inside.

Nobody came to the door, and I knocked again, repeating what I had just shouted a moment ago. I waited for a moment to see if she'd answer this time. In the surrounding silence of the abandoned streets, I heard something from the other side of the door.

It was a soft sound, soft enough that there would have been no way for me to even hear it over my own thoughts, much less the knocking on the door and shouting I was doing. I pressed my ear against the door, straining my hearing to the best extent to hear what the sound was.

Quickly, I recognized it as Alice, and it sounded like she was whimpering. Thoughts raced through my mind. Was she hurt? With that scenario in my thoughts, I grabbed the doorknob and rammed my shoulder into the door, breaking the lock and causing the door to fly open.

"Alice?" I asked and started to look around. The entire first floor of the house was empty, but it wasn't left how it was. Tables and chairs were thrown around in a disorganized mess; the clear signs of a struggle. My heart began to speed up, and I was growing my worried by the minute.

Had somebody broken into the house and tried to hurt her? Her whimpering brought me out of my paranoid thoughts. The sounds were coming from upstairs, and I quickly ran up them, two at a time. "Alice?" I asked and started to look in each room I passed.

She wasn't in any of them I checked, and the only one that was left was our room. The door was slightly ajar, and as I neared it, the whimpering grew louder. With a shaky hand, I cautiously pushed open the door, creaking a bit as I did so. With the site before me, my eyes widened.

Alice was pinned down on the floor, blood covering every possible place on her. Kneeling beside her with its face buried into her side, was a grotesque man. His skin was ashen black, blood matting his hair and portions of his flesh missing. It then occurred to me that this man was eating Alice.

A gasp was all that could escape my lips, and with that, the man looked up at me. His eyes were puffy and solid white. He tilted his head side to side, as if examining me, while Alice's blood dripped down from his lips and chin. It then snarled, showing its discolored teeth, and charged at me.

I snapped out of my daze and pulled the door closed, then began to run back down the hall to get away. Behind me, the creature barreled through the door, sending shards of wood splinters flying through the air. I was at the base of the staircase when my pursuer started to descend after me, growling and snarling as he stumbled down the steps.

In my panic, I had slipped into the kitchen and hid underneath the sink, a knife held in my hands as a means of defense if the time ever came. Outside of the cabinet I was hidden in, I heard the thing's feet shuffling around on the tile floor.

They then stopped, and I heard something like him sniffing the air. Cautiously and with trembling hands, I pushed the cabinet open just enough for me to see through the sliver of the opening. He was nowhere to be seen. "Huh?" I said quietly under my breath with confusion.

That was all that the creature needed to hear, cause the cabinet door was slammed into, taking away my only window into the world that I had made. I could hear the thing clawing at the small door, trying with all his might to get to me inside. I pressed myself against the back of the cabinet, trembling and holding the knife tightly in my hands.

In the center of the door, the only thing that stood between me at that monster, a saw a small circle of light pop up; he had almost clawed his entire way through the door. I shut my eyes tightly and turned my head away. How could this be happening?

A hand then burst through the tiny hole that had been made, sending an explosion of wood splinters like that of the bedroom door upstairs. The arm of the creature then began to feel around for me. There wasn't much room for me to move around, so I was unable to put reasonable distance between and my attacker.

I then felt its hand latch onto my ankle, and it dug its nails into my flesh, all the way down to the bone. I screamed out in pain and fear, then kicked my leg, causing it to let go. He retracted his arm out of the opening he had made.

The creature then peered into the hole, its eyes sparkling at the sight of another meal, and drool leaking from its mouth with the thought of fresh meat. I stared at it in horror as it tried to bit its way through the destroyed cabinet door. I braced myself for the same fate that befell Alice, then remembered that I still had the knife in my hand.

I tightened my grip on the handle, and when the creature finally stuck his head through the opening he had made, I rammed the blade into its skull. Black blood gurgled up out of the wood like oil that had been struck underground, then, the monster went still. I released my grip on the knife, allowing it to stay stuck in the monster's skull.

I then leaned back against the cabinet wall, and started to recompose myself. I had to find help. Using my foot to dislodge the creature's head from the small door, I pushed the cabinet open and carefully stepped out of my hiding place.

My attacker still laid on the floor, not even so much as moans leaving its body. The initial shock started to wear off, and I remember Alice was still upstairs. Wanting to know whether she was still alive or not, I ran back up to the second floor of the house and to the bedroom.

Wooden splinters from the door cracked underneath my feet as I walked into the bedroom. Alice was nowhere to be seen in the room, and the only proof of her being there, was the blood-stained carpet where she had been laying. Had she been able to get up and go searching for help?

I left out of the bedroom and walked back downstairs, feeling completely used up now. I wasn't sure what I should have been feeling. Fear? Sorrow? There was so much running through my mind, that my brain couldn't register anything. I sat down on the last step of the staircase, and ran my shaky hands through my hair.

As I was taking in deep breaths to try and calm myself, I heard a vase break somewhere in the house. I looked in the direction of the sound. "Alice?" I asked wearily as I stood up and craned my neck to look around the corner. I then saw Alice standing there, staring down at the broken vase as if she had no clue what it was.

Her skin had turned from its gossamer color to that of gray and black ash; just like that thing that had been eating her and attacked me a moment ago. Her eyes were also cloudy over, and the bite wounds on her body bubbled with dark, sickly blood. I stared at her with horror.

"Alice?" Saying something was a mistake. She looked up at me, the same big eyes that had once been so innocent, now turned into anything but. She started to shuffle towards me, and I found myself unable to move. I was grief-stricken to a point of no return.

This wasn't the person that I had once known. No. This was something entirely different, a creature that should have never been a reality in any world. I should have put her out of her misery, but I was unable to do anything except gawk at her.

Her eyes fell down to my ankle that was pouring blood from where the other creature had grabbed onto me. She licked her lips at the sight, almost like it was enticing her. "Alice…..," I whispered. "Don't do this." I could see it clearly in her eyes that she wanted to get a hold of me just like that other monstrosity that I had killed in the kitchen.

But my pleas had fallen on deaf ears, and Alice charged at me. Instincts brought me out of my daze, and I jumped to the side to get out of the way. I knew there was no way that I could bring myself to kill Alice like I had done the other creature.

So, instead of staying and ending her life, I ran out of the house and into the empty streets of Vestal. Or, once empty streets. Now, they were filled with more of those monsters. Their dead, white eyes locked on me, and decaying arms reached out to latch onto my body.

I threw my arms at them, knocking away their hands, but it wasn't doing any good. They had me surrounded and were closing in on me. It got to the point when I could feel almost feel their rotten breath on me.

As they continued to surround me, I dropped down onto the ground and shut my eyes tightly, bracing myself for what was about to come. I felt a hand touch my back, and I screamed out of fear. "Shun! Shun! Wake up!" The voice was familiar, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Alice staring down at me, completely normal and alive.

Alice

I had gone into the sleeping quarters to check in on Shun, along with straighten my sleeping cot up for the night. He had been sound asleep in the cot next to mine, so I went about my business as quietly as I could so I wouldn't wake him. He did deserve some rest, after all.

As I straightened the blankets on my cot, Shun made a small noise and moved in his sleep. I looked down at him, and noticed that he continued to move. He must be having a nightmare, I thought to myself, not really thinking much of it.

Shun had had plenty of nightmares before, and he didn't really like to be woken from his sleep; even if he was being tormented by his unconscious mind. I went back to making my bed, trying to ignore the muffled sounds of distress coming from him.

Once I had finished making my bed for the night, I started out of the sleeping quarters to return to the others, who were still sitting around on the couches and talking. The moment I sat down, I heard Shun screaming.

Realizing that this was probably worse than most of the nightmares he had had before, I quickly ran back to the sleeping quarters, the other tailing behind me. Shun kept moving around in the cot, fighting off an invisible enemy that was hurting him in his sleep.

I placed a hand on him and tried to shake him awake. "Shun! Shun! Wake up!" I shouted. Baron and the rest of the Vestals stood behind me, staring as the scene unfolded before them. Shun's eyes opened, and he sat straight up in the cot, holding the sides of his head with trembling hands. I had never seen one of these nightmares get to him this badly.

"Could you guys give me a moment to try and calm him down?" I asked the four people standing behind me. They nodded and left out of the sleeping quarters without so much as a word. Although, I knew they were probably saying something about it the moment they reached the main room.

How must it have been to see Shun, somebody who had been one of the sturdiest of their previous group during their time on New Vestroia, now reduced to somebody that was trembling over a dream? I sat down next to Shun and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay, Shun. It was just a dream," I said in a gentle tone like he had done for me so many times after my nightmares. He want panting, almost gasping for air. I looked at him and said calmly, "I'll be right back, Shun." He nodded to let me know that my words were true, and I stepped halfway out of the sleeping quarters.

"Baron, could you maybe bring Shun some water?" I asked from down the hallway. I saw Baron jump up and vanish for a moment, before reappearing shortly after with a plastic cup filled with the slightly discolored water from the bunker's underground well. I thanked him and returned back to Shun.

He was still trembling, but nowhere near as bad as when he first woke from his nightmare. I handed him the water and told him, "Drink some. It might help and calm you down a little bit." He took the water and sipped on it. I noticed his eyes were a bit glazed over, but I figured it was from being so out of it, thanks to that nightmare of his.

I stayed in the room with him for a bit longer, still trying to console him. But with every time I even grazed his arms with my fingers, he flinched back until he realized it was me. I sat there, wondering what had happened in his dream, but knew Shun wasn't about to say a single word about it now.

I started to grow tired, and laid down on my cot next to Shun. "You go on to sleep. I'll be fine," he told me in a tired voice. They were the first words he had said since he woke up, and they weren't all that reassuring to me. But I saw no point in arguing with him, and closed my eyes. Lucky for me, my sleep wasn't filled with nightmares, but with nothingness.

i was able to get this out before i had to leave for marching contest by about an hour. woo! well, now i must depart. read, review, and other things. ~Copperpelt~