4

~ "What was that thing?" Eames asked. The Forger was looking nervous. The Point Man looking confused and more then a little angry.

"Just one of Ariadne's projections." Arthur said. Reason always winning out.
"Never seen a projection like that." Eames said. "She didn't care about us at all. Did you notice that? Also, that she's the only projection we've seen?"

Cobb was going to the bank elevators.

"Where are you going, Cobb?" Arthur asked. His tone cold and professional.

"Upstairs." Cobb said pressing the up button. It dinged merrily opening it's doors to a safe and empty lift.

"Why?" Eames asked. Worriedly.

"You heard the little girl. She's upstairs." Cobb said.

"She also said the Red Queen was holding her." Arthur said. Putting a sarcastic emphasis on the title.

"Yeah, the Red Queen is always bad." Eames said nodding. Hanging onto the ready excuse not to go upstairs.

"You two can stay here." Cobb said. His tone calling them cowards.

Challenged, Arthur and Eames joined the Extractor on the elevator.

~ The ride upwards was slow. Full of jerking and stalling. The lift seemed to know where it was going because there were no other buttons to other floors.

They arrived at an impossibly large floor. Too big for the building. It seemed like it could not decide if it wanted to be inside or outside. So it was a strange mixture of both. Real grass and trees were growing out of the floor. Brick walls were overgrown with ivy. Windows outside showing the twisted landscape.

"Gentlemen." Arthur said. Warning them that something was not right. The subtle sound of the Point Man reading his weapon. Disengaging the safety. The other men followed suit. There was something moving around them. Hiding.

"Hello?" Cobb called out.

It seemed a foolish thing to say. It gave away their position, but the Extractor could think of nothing else to do. The strange garden looked empty. Yet, they could feel things were scurrying around them. Just out of sight. Their eyes not fast enough to catch them.

"Cobb." Arthur said pointing to something with his weapon.

Just like the girl downstairs, the vision appeared before them now. The woman was magnificent. There was no other word for it. Like a goddess. Tall and lean. Her frame almost willowy. Like a story book creature. She didn't have to tell them who and what she was. They knew her by sight alone. Her blood red dress, her long dark hair, her pale white skin.

This was the Red Queen.

All around her was a humming. A far away little tune. The kind of song that was vaguely familiar in the way that it was old. Perhaps their great grandmothers knew the words. But on the lips of the Red Queen, the song was broken and unnerving.

~ "Why have you come here?" She said. Her voice strange and disjointed. Like many people were saying the exact same thing. Giving her one voice by using many.

They were unaccountably afraid. As afraid as all mortal creatures are to such a great and terrible beauty. A frightening thing that they were enraptured by, and terrified of.

"Were... we came for our friend... Ariadne." Cobb said. His eyes never leaving the creature as she stalked on long legs towards them.

She was tall. Taller then all of them. Her figure pleasingly famine. Her red dress, sewn to her body. Fashionable and careless.
"We know who she is." The Red Queen said. "Why have you come for her?"

"She has to wake up." Arthur said. "She needs to wake up. This world isn't real."

The Red Queens movements were fast. So fast that Cobb and Eames only saw the flutter of sheer red fabric as her hand waved at the Point Man. They turned and saw Arthur was gone. Just like the Child, he had vanished.

"Arthur?" Cobb's eyes raked over where he had last seen his friend. No evidence of him was left.

"Did he wake up?" Eames asked breathing hard. Afraid to raise his weapon to the Red Queen.

"No." The Red Queen said. "He did not wake up."

The Extractor and Forger turned to her. There was something frighteningly familiar about the Red Queen. She resembled no other person they had ever known, and yet, there was something.

Her left eye was dead. It was glazed over with a hazed gray. Milky and blind. Her pristine face was marred by the ghost eye. It's unseeing depths, seeming to see everything.

The Red Queen was beautiful. With full red lips, clear pale skin. Her one good eye was large and doe like.

"Ariadne?" Cobb breathed. Now that the Extractor invoked the Red Queen's name, Eames could see it too. See the sweet face to the Architect, molded onto the body of this impressive creature.

Her pleasing figure was marred and stretched out of proportion. She had gone from being delightfully petite to obscene and distorted. He body too thin. Legs too long. Hips too narrow. Breasts too full.

Her decimated ghost eye coming in through the real world.

Cobb breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ariadne..." He said. Feeling a smile come over him.

Finding her was not as hard as they thought.

"You need to listen to me. You were in a car accident. Your laying in a hospital bed right now. You've been in a coma for over a day now. The doctors all tell us that if you don't wake up soon, you'll die."

He was pleading with her. Talking in his most gentle tone. Like trying to woo a flighty red bird to come to him.

"We came here, to try and wake you up." He finished confidently. Giving her a shy smile. One he knew always won a girls heart.

The Red Queen was imperturbable and not impressed.

"I'm afraid not." She said with a nasty smile. Her voice like ice.

Hands were suddenly around their ankles. Pulling them downward. Eames was shouting. Both of the men pulling at the grass. Struggling to slow themselves from being pulled underground.

Horrible images of zombies pulling them into the grave with them, ran through Cobb's mind. He tried to kick himself free as the hands pulled him underground. The last thing he saw before the earth swallowed them whole was the Red Queen. That obscene animal with Ariadne's beautiful face, smiling maliciously down at them.

~ Arthur was in darkness. Cold and lonely. He could hear crying. Sorrowful moaning.

"Hello?" He called out. He was searching the floor for his weapon. His instincts kicking in. The sobbing was louder. He couldn't find his gun. It had vanished.

Curious, and with no clear way out, he followed the sounds of crying. He wandered through tunnels that were endless. A light was far in the distance. Getting brighter and brighter. He saw her then. A petite woman in a bright red jacket. Her body wrapped up tightly into a ball on the floor. Her long dark hair covering her face as she cried into her knees.

He would know her anywhere.

"Ariadne!" He shouted racing to her. The light seemed to glow brighter as he approached.

"Arthur?" She cried out hopefully. Her head snapping up at hearing his voice.
"Ariadne!" He laughed freeing himself from the darkness and racing to her. Her face was tear stained and dirty. The light in the room reveled that they were in a cave.

"Arthur! Oh my God!" She cried "I'm so scared! What's happening?" She cried openly as he embraced her.

"It's alright." He breathed. Relief flooding over him as her body made contact with his. The feel of her small frame with his was comforting. It feel good to finally hold her.

"What's happening?" She asked again.

"You were in a car accident." He said brushing her dark hair away from her face. Noticing a gray ghost eye. Her left eye was blind. Maybe the accident had reverberated all the way into her dream. An echo of the destruction that caused her eye to be blind in the dream as well.

He had to smile at her. A wash of sympathy for her running over him.

"Your in a coma." He told her gently. Her face upturned to him. Trusting him completely. "Your laying unconscious in a hospital bed right now."

"I don't understand." She cried. Her head returning to his chest. Sobbing.

A beautiful protectiveness filled him. A basic male need to be a comfort to her. To shelter her. Arthur was not terribly nurturing, yet he found himself soothing and comforting her.

Ariadne had never shown this side of herself before. This frightened, weak side. He had always defined her character as being very brave. Still, this was a strange world she was trapped in.

"If we can't wake up on our own, we can ride the wake up music when the dream times out." He whispered. Talking to her like a delicate child. Running his hands over her hair.

"If I'm just asleep, what are you doing here?" She asked finally.

"We came into the dream to get you." He whispered. The moment feeling particularly intimate. His breath on her hair. Her body closer to his then it had ever been before.

"You came for me?" She asked. Her voice hopeful. Surprised.

"Of course." He whispered. Running a hand over her red jacket. Pulling her closer to him. She gave a contented sigh. Relaxing.

"Can you stay with me for a while?" She asked. "Just stay here for awhile?" Her voice worried that he would leave.

"I'm not going anywhere." He said happily.

The two of them held each other as the light melded into a pleasing candle light. Casting strange little shadows that danced along the walls.

Arthur never looked to see the things hiding in the shadows.