Author's Notes: Here's chapter seven! This one is going to be short and sweet (for the most part that is). Just three things to say here. First, there will be a massive author's notes at the end of the chapter that will have a lot of very important information in it. Second, just like the last chapter, there will some words in bold (most often near the end of a section) and in the section that follows those words before in bold will be repeated with a new meaning (the words that start this chain off here are "forever rush into the horror"). Third, as I'm sure this chapter's title will indicate, it will end in all sunshine and lollipops! Right?
Also, I have to make another quick shout-out. This time to a story called… "Total Drama All-Stars!" by TheGunMaster! This is a odd choice for me because one of the main characters and couples are ones I really don't like (*cough* Scott and Dott *cough*) but this story is so good and has so many other things that I really do like that I can overlook that and recommend it. So just to be clear, read and review "Total Drama Island: A New Beginning" and then go read and review "Total Drama All-Stars!" right afterward! And know that "All-Stars!" is rated M so you need to search in the M-rated stories.
Oh, and there's one last important thing which can't wait until the endnotes! Shortly after posting the fifth chapter, I got a notice that it was somehow in violation of the terms of agreement on this site. I have looked it over and I for the life of me can't figure out what in it is violating the terms of agreement. Also, despite what others have told me, the way to edit a chapter doesn't seem to work. If anyone has any answers for either of these two points, please let me know, ok?
Having said that, here's the seventh chapter of "Mad Mikey": So Farewell Hope
As remarkable as it was, a few in the Milton Medical Faculty were oblivious to the game- changing new developments. And those few were actually two, Lightning and Staci. Both teenagers were still out cold from Mad Mikey's first assault against humanity. The two teenagers were stable but also in different states. Whereas Satci was still as perfectly still as she would be sleeping, Lightning's body was starting to fidget as a result of dreaming.
Lightning had found himself on the field of a massive football stadium, in complete football gear. Holding a football in his large black hands, the Athlete was running from one side of the field to the other. A rush of adrenaline was pulsating through his body has he dodged or overpowered any of the seemingly endless faceless members of the opposing team trying to stop him.
Finding that his unquestionably perfect skills made him the unstoppable juggernaut that he knew he was, Lightning turned his head to look at the sights around his awesomeness.
On both sides there were bleachers that went higher than Lightning could crane his neck to see. It didn't matter how high they went because Lightning saw that the bleachers on both sides were filled with people chanting his name and holding up banners praising him. Also on his sides were patches of lights bathing the all of the bright green grass in their absolute light to show the invincibility of the star quarterback Lightning.
Looking forward Lightning saw the scoreboard. Like all football scoreboards, it saw a massive black rectangle with the scores of the two teams in bright electronic numbers. But there were many differences between this scoreboard and most. Firstly, this scoreboard lacked displays for many details found on most football scoreboards: the down, the yardage of the line of scrimmage, the yards to go until the first down, the team with possession, the number of time-outs left for each team, and play clocks. Secondly, the two teams had the oddest names made of letters that were made out of electronic dots: "LIGHTNING" and "NOT LIGHTNING". And thirty, the scores for the two teams had an only slight difference in amount: "LIGHTNING" had a score of "1,142,857" while "NOT LIGHTNING" had "0".
While this would seem unrealistic to most, to Lightning it felt like the first time that the number on the scoreboard reflected his true level of ability compared to everyone else.
But then why was it taking him so long to reach the end zone? Despite his amazing abilities being rightly praised by the spectators, Lightning found that the final and most important touchdown was eluding him. Turning his head, Lightning saw that he was at the 50-yard line. He could not allow that!
Upping his drive to eleven, Lightning began to tear into the field's turf with his cleats. Feeling his years of physical training being tested, Lightning's legs began to burn more than they ever had before. The Athletic Overachiever was displaying more will than he had at any point in his life. All of the sights around him were almost blurs. Even so, Lightning did notice something. He was still at the 50-yard line!
Even at his fullest sprint, the black superstar couldn't see to get any closer to the end zone! How could this be? It was impossible! Lightning could never fail when he put his all into it, and Lightning always put his all into it!
Lightning had been in his own Elysian Fields, in his own field of dreams. It was too bad that these plains of pleasure were about to become tundras of torment. That Lightning's field of dreams was about to become a field of nightmares.
Before Lightning could truly understand the situation, a charge of dark lightning from nowhere came crashing down right in front of him. Before the black bolt had blasted the blades of grass, Lightning saw something for a second. Within the harsh brightness of this thunderbolt, Lightning saw a human face, a familiar face.
As the botanical blades began burning, the flames fluctuated furiously upward until they were at the same height as Lightning. Once it reached this level, the flames began to shift in shape. Admit the swift swaying and spewing smoke of the pyres, Lightning heard a voice, deep and shamed.
"Lightning."
The star of this strange and unnatural Superbowl was stunned. He knew that voice!
"Wha…It can't be?" Lightning said in uncharacteristic fright.
The formerly amorphous blazing became slightly less so as the fires formed a somewhat circular center. Within the soon to be sulphurous and tormenting flames, two spaces appeared. Resembling stars winking at the spheres trapped within their invulnerable influence, these spaces winked in nothing but the sternest of stares.
Then, around these sockets that were the sternest of eyes, the devil's eyes, a shape was solidified. It was the shape that Lightning had seen in the thunderbolt, a familiar human face. Though it was familiar, its features weren't. There were few features. Most of whatever wrinkles or warts or whatever other human imperfections could be found on a human face seemed to have been purged away by the fires that were alive and dangerous. Instead what was shown was a face as smooth and featureless as polished marble with an expression robbed of all subtlety aside for a sternness matching hardened steel. But what was this presence within the pyre, was it something more than fantasy? Either way, the presence within the pyre spoke for a second time with a deep and angered voice.
"Lightning. Lightning, you have failed me."
At last finding the voice within his normally boastful throat, Lightning could only weakly ask the specter, "D-Dad?"
The image of his own father ignored Lightning's question and spoke as if nothing had been said by saying, "You have disgraced the family name. You are a disgrace!"
"Lightning's no disgrace!" The jock said, his voice starting to waver slightly.
"But you are a disgrace, son! You have allowed the weak to overpower you! You have slacked in your efforts! You have failed to live up to my expectations!" The ghost of Lightning's father said in a manner even more threatening and demanding than before.
"H-how has Lightning fa-failed to live up to your expectations! Look at the scoreboard!"
"No, son. It is you who should look at the scoreboard! It shows the truth your trying to deny."
With that, the father of flames parted the pyre for a few moments. By doing so, the imagined ghost of Lightning's father allowed his son to see the truth with his own eyes. Was the imagined ghost of Lightning's father an honest ghost?
Yes, it was!
Lightning couldn't believe his black eyes. It had to be some kind of trick; it couldn't be real! The scoreboard was in most respects the same as before, it was a large black rectangle that only showed the scores for the teams called "LIGHTNING" and "NOT LIGHTNING". But those oh so important details, the actual scores, had changed. Despite whatever numbers were pinned with electronic dots, the final score of this game read brightly for all to see: "LIGHTNING" had a score of "0" while "NOT LIGHTNING" had a score of "2".
"N-no…no! That's impossible! How did anyone score against Lightning!?" Lightning asked aloud in shock as the flames ceased to be parted and showed the father's face.
"Because of your carelessness, you allowed two people lessor than you to defeat you! Though you did make it to the final two, you failed to beat those weakenings Cameron and Mike. Failed to beat those weakenings Cameron and Mike. Failed. Failed! Failed!" The honest ghost of Lightning's still-living father said before focusing its already stern stare so that it seemed to be burning a hole into Lightning's very soul.
All of the swagger and toughness normally displayed in Lightning was gone. It could never survive that soul-scorching stare, not before and not now! Dropping the football he had been holding this whole time, Lightning placed his hands over his head.
He had no idea how or why it was happening but suddenly everything was spinning! The only thing that remained stable was the image of his father, cruel and displeased. On all sides the faceless members of the other team started to surround Lightning and tried to overpower him. Still gripping his head with one hand, Lightning was putting all of his effort into stopping his attackers. But it wasn't enough; they were swarming Lightning.
"Dad! Help!" The son desperately pleaded to the father in the flames.
All the help Lightning would receive was a word that was cast as a loud echo, "Failed!"
"I'm tryin', Dad! Please don't judge me! Please!"
"FAILED!"
"Is this not good enough for you!?"
"FAILED!"
"I am good enough!"
"FAILED!"
"I am good enough! Why don't you believe it!?"
"FAILED!"
"I'll beat them! I'll beat Cameron, Mike! I'll beat them all! I'll beat them all for you!"
"FAILED!"
As the shapes had at last overpowered him, Lightning could no longer see the shining shame cast from the flame of his father. Finding himself in darkness and powerlessness, Lightning could not accept this, would not accept this!
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Shooting upward in his bed, Lightning awoke with the "No" being screamed on his opened lips as his eyes forced themselves open into perfect circles! Covered in sweat but refusing to give in to the feelings of fear, Lightning leapt from his bed and ran away from his fears and into the nearby lobby.
Looking around to find only the hazy confusion of people moving to and fro from many locations, Lightning went unnoticed as he approached a table not too far from his position. On this table there was a note, a note from Mad Mikey. Reading it, Lightning had discovered its location, the Haunted Forest.
Fueled by the knowledge that he wouldn't be taken a surprise a second time, Lightning rushed out of the faculty and into the forest to beat the first of the two who had beaten him. He rushed into the horrors of unquenchable drive! He rushed to beat Mad Mikey!
Lighting ran towards defeat as he ran to physically beat the physically unbeatable being.
Dawn stood there, analyzing an aura that felt human but not human. Despite having been talking with Mad Mikey for a little while now, the Moonchild still felt some unsettling emotions. There was an un-seeable beauty to this being, a perfect beauty to those like Dawn who could see it. All of Nature, in her infinite form and splendor, could not have imagined another life form such as this creature. It was a creature that not only was superior to humanity but was effortlessly so. It was a creature that would be able in time to usurp the power of Nature itself and smash its sacred laws into matchwood. While there was no physical body to Mad Mikey, it looked like a god, a god within a mortal's coils. And yet, for all of the awe that Dawn felt in this presence, it was surpassed by a greater fear. For if Mad Mikey was some matter of god, it was a bad god, a mad god. And what is a mortal to do when they not only encounter a god, but a god who is bad or mad?
A mortal could either run away in failure or remain in conviction. It is to Dawn's credit that despite knowing the power and intentions of Mad Mikey that she remained. There are a few things that it would be possible for somebody not in the situation to not understand. One example was the evidence of those powers and intentions. After all, the ground was littered with the bodies of beasts slain on this creature's sadistic whims. Given her great love of Nature, it was not shocking that Dawn was struggling to keep her composure. Seeing the carcasses of creatures as small as Laser Eyed Squirrels with their heads ripped off to ones as large as a three-eyed bear literally spilt in half with apparently one strike, Dawn could not help but imagine the fear and pain they felt as life was violently taken from them. Also, there was that bottomless black aura of Mad Mike and its many chasms so abysmal. For a human as spiritually sensitive as Dawn, just standing there was filling her mind with horrific visions of the shadows of things that have not happened, but could happen in the time after their dialogue…unless Dawn could stop this savage cycle.
And despite all of these pressures that most would never know, Dawn remained!
Mad Mikey noticed this too. Despite knowing that Dawn was feeling great fear, she not only stood her ground but actually spoke to it. She reminded, even as the Nature that she worshiped began her inevitable recoiling from the cosmic offense that was Mad Mikey. Most would have found the words dry up, turning to ash in their mouths. But Dawn didn't. For the first time ever, Mad Mikey was starting to respect and admire a human.
Part of the reason was that she saw that Mad Mikey, whatever its physical power, was not a god. And despite whatever anyone, including itself claimed, Mad Mikey was not a demon. At least not in the truest sense, instead it was a broken shell that was as broken as one could be. Never able to see the happiness and beauty of life, it was forever angry, forever sad. Being broken, it sought to rebuild itself in its pain but by doing so it had internalized both the doctor's negative evaluations of it and all of humanity's dark emotions. They, combined with the only other things to cling to, its power over and hatred of humanity, resulted in the monstrosity that called itself Mad Mikey.
But that wasn't the main reason that Dawn remained. For all of Mad Mikey's strength, will, and intelligence, when Dawn looked at it she saw something more confused and tormented than she could have imagined. She saw the most lost of lost souls. This was a being that had been forsaken by all. Dr. Johnson knew about it but didn't like it; Mike didn't know about it and didn't like it; the rest of the world didn't know about it and didn't like it; nobody liked it. Dawn had never met anyone quite so alienated before.
At last Dawn understood this creature's true motivation. Since the world denied it any happiness, it wanted everyone to feel its loss, and suffer while doing so. It would not go gently into that black night. No, it would make sure it had as many companions in misery as it could. But Dawn knew that such vengeance only darkens the soul and would not change how one felt inside, it would make the pain even worse that it already was.
What Dawn needed to do was pursued this creature to believe in the idealism that the power of love would result in the ultimate victory, that love can wash away all sins and heal all wounds.
Victory, the vindication of the truth, came from not inflicting suffering on the opponent but on one's self. The one engaging the opponent had to be prepared for physical and/or emotional harm. This was not the result of a desire for self-injury. Instead it was the necessary price for the largest love and the greatest charity, truly loving your opponent that's either a stranger or one who has done wrong to you. While Dawn's plan involved conscious suffering for her, it was not her meek submission to Mad Mikey born out of desperation or weakness. Instead, it was her putting her whole soul against the will of the demon. The spirit lied dormant in the demon because it knew nothing but pain and physical might. In order to free it, Dawn had to show it a higher power, the strength of the spirit. Dawn hoped to show this through a strength and courage that did not come from physical capacity or physical abilities but from indomitable will and mental resolve.
This will and resolve had to manifest themselves by Dawn withstanding the blows and curses of Mad Mikey in this spiritual chess match while not retreating from the game. Constant interaction between two contestants would result in their ultimate reconciliation. Harming or humiliating the opponent would do nothing but prolong the struggle. Rather than defeat Mad Mikey, Dawn's goal was to covert it, to return good for evil until the evildoer tired of evil out of respect for her sympathy for it and her commitment to her principles. The opponent had to be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. Weaned, not crushed. (1)
That is why Dawn largely just allowed Mad Mikey to dominate the discussion so far. By having the demon say out loud for the first time the depths of its torments and agonies, the angel slowly was showing the demon the full extent of how it couldn't remain this way. There was still more that had to be done but now the Moonchild knew that Mad Mikey would actually start listening instead of waiting to deny any claim made by her.
Now Dawn, the Saint of Nature, the sixteen-year-old girl, had finally found her time to talk. And when she spoke, Dawn spoke to a god with superiority over her in every possible way except morally. How fitting since it was on a matter of morality that she had been asked, the matters of happiness and love. With the discussion about to begin, Dawn hoped with all of her massively caring heart that she just might be able to stop the physically unbeatable being.
"Despite the absoluteness of happiness and love, my descriptions of those things would come off as hokey to you, Mikey. You'll have to see what they feel like for your self." Dawn said, realizing that a grand speech about love would fall on deaf, scornful ears.
"Bah. Have you been listening to a single word that I've said? I can't feel those things."
"I don't think that's true, despite you believing that. After all, you know they exist and you can feel all human emotions. Why would you only be able to feel the negative ones?"
"Because that's all I've ever known, for the entire course of my wrenched existence."
"Exactly. That's all that you've known, not all that there is. You simply haven't ever had the chance to feel them or have someone feel them for you."
"What makes you think I have any desire to feel them? Especially after what I've been through with humanity's other emotions? Can the fleeting aphrodisiacal gratifications of some tangled and neurotic human emotions heal the gaping void gripping me?"
"Yes. The emotions that you have been denied access to could, in time. But why do you call them aphrodisiacal? They don't have to involve physical attraction or sex."
"That was the strongest of those feelings to my knowledge. The closest things I've felt to those sentiments were not even mine to feel. They were Mike's attraction to another. I think you can guess whom."
"Zoey?"
"Yes, Zoey. While I was imprisoned in a realm of nerve and thought, I saw everything else through Mike's eye as if I were merely confined in a world of glass. I saw rays of the sun that directly but weakly fell onto his skin. I saw flowers sway back and forth in the gentle gusts of wind as if they were colorful ocean currents of pedals. I saw the happiness of those teenagers in this place, their friendships and pleasures. But all of that didn't equal when I saw Zoey. I saw something so wonderful that it was beyond what I could imagine. Again, while I was suffering in silent secrecy, Mike was enjoying the bounty of life. In this case the greatest of all of life's bounties that I've never experienced. Oh, how I would have endured my suffering for just one chance to have her, something so clean and pure. Maybe then it just wouldn't hurt as much anymore? Maybe…" Mad Mikey said before stopping itself. Again, this was the first time that Mad Mikey had ever said these things out loud and saying them out loud made it realize things that it never had before. In this case, that maybe it did have a desire for some of the "tangled and neurotic human emotions"?
Dawn realized in the silence that she just made another breakthrough. She was one step closer to ending this creature's turmoil. But Mad Mikey wasn't going to surrender in a struggle, even in one passive and word-based, without more of a fight.
"Even if we forget for a moment my furious anger and your oversaturated optimism, there is more at work here. For example, do you not see the futility of asking me to spare a world that I have never had any stake in, that's been the source of so much of my suffering all of these years? Am I supposed to just forget that and put on a smiling face?" Mad Mikey asked Dawn, its monotone breaking slightly to brief bits of growly anger.
"No, your not. I'm asking you to do the opposite. I don't want you to ignore what happened to you, Mikey. I want you to remember but forgive and move beyond it. I don't want you to show a smile, I want you to feel what will make you smile unintentionally."
Realizing that Dawn's answers were once again genuine, Mad Mikey changed the topic.
"That may be but there are other considerations to be, well, considered. If anything you should be thanking me Dawn. I may intend to destroy nature but I'd also be saving it. Saving it from the slow death of mankind's buzz saws and bullets, its oil pipelines and nuclear power plants. These extensions of humanity, which have brought generations of suffering upon the plants and animals you love, would end. Rather than destroying it while trying to pretend that I'm not, I'll be honest with nature as I'm destroying it."
"It doesn't matter even if that would be true. Whether it happens in a day by you or a thousand years by mankind, the children will be killing their mother who gave them life." Dawn said and when she did the Moonchild displayed a bit more of her inner turmoil.
"It depresses you, doesn't it Dawn? The feeling that no matter what you do this world and the life on it will wither and die because of that blight upon the land called man." Mad Mikey asked Dawn, noticing the slight difference in Dawn's demeanor. Like the past few questions asked by Mad Mikey, this one was not meant to hurt Dawn. It was an honest question fueled by nihilistic curiosity. The demon was starting to actually listen.
At this point, Dawn had two options, she could either try to lie and hide her deepest fear or she could be honest with Mad Mikey and be forced to face that fear at this most critical of moments. She chose the later, with great difficulty but determination.
"Yes, yes it does. But that doesn't mean that humanity's extinction would be better. Humans are a part Nature too, cut from the same cloth as the animals, plants, and rocks. If part of the cloth is torn, the whole thing is left asunder. Whether it has a higher purpose or not, we are all connected and need our siblings under the Great Earth Mother. Everything in Nature has value."
"What about me? As far as I know I was never held in Nature's amble and tangled bosom. I am too clean and devoid of a species to have been fostered in that cradle of filth. Does that rob me of the same intrinsic value you subscribe to the mosses and mankind? That's what you thought about me, yes? I was just something attached to Mike with no value in its own right, correct?"
Again, Dawn could either lie and not face an uncomfortable truth or be honest and face it. Once again, with the same determined difficulty, Dawn chose the later, the truth.
"I admit that when I learned about you from the doctor that I did believe that. But since then I have realized that I was wrong. You are a unique life form with every right to exist. The same as me or Mike or anything else."
Mad Mikey stood there for a moment. Knowing that Dawn had just answered two questions of great difficulty for her with complete honesty, the demon's perceptions of things were subverted for the first time ever. Was she of that same hypocritical species? Perhaps she was of another breed? Either way, Mad Mikey had one last all-important question, a question asked in the most vulnerable voice within its electronic monotone.
"Why? Why are you doing this, Dawn? Why do you have so much concern for me? All I have ever done is threatening and harm and kill. That was my purpose from the very beginning and that has remained. Why do you think there is more to me that just that?"
Now knowing Mad Mikey's side of things, it's history and trails; Dawn could at last make her full case. As Mad Mikey had spoken to her, the Moonchild had been forced to endure all manner of horrific visions and negative emotions. However, now Dawn could bring her side onto her opponent in the hopes of converting it to her pathway to peace.
"Like you, I can see into people and discover their feelings, even if they can't see them. When I look into your aura, I see your past and present. I see so much pain and suffering, most of it not deserved. I see you slowly losing yourself to the darkness, the despair. Even though I don't hear it with my ears, when you speak I hear the cries of a scared, lonely child. Despite their being no tears, you are still crying. It's agonizing to hear that.
"When I look into your aura, buried beneath all of the hurt and isolation, I see so much. You likely don't realize this but you have so much potential, for both you and humanity. For all of the power you possess, you can transcend that and reach an even greater power. A power not based in violence and pain but forgiveness and understanding. Knowing all of our emotions and trials in life as if they were your own, you are capable of forming a kinship with humanity that surpasses what humans can have with each other. You have all of the means to ascend to a higher level of existence, to lead humanity into a new era. Perhaps that was your true purpose, to bring humanity into the next phase of evolution? Maybe you were meant to be a savior of humanity who tragically became consumed by the core flaw of humanity, our petty but endless capacity for self-destruction? But even though that is what happened to you, unlike us you can rise above that in a total sense!
"I can't claim to know the will of the Great Earth Mother but even that's not the main reason for my concern for you, Mikey. As much as you might not believe it, my main motivation for doing this isn't to prove a philosophical point or save my friends, even with those being things I hope to do. No, I'm doing this because of you being in pain. I can't just act like nothing is happening when someone is in pain and I can help them. I refuse to give up on anyone, even the worst of us are deserving of saving or love."
Mad Mikey just stood there, silent. For the first time ever, it had an expression of awe. It knew that there were principles like the ones Dawn just espoused but to actually hear them for itself and know that the person saying them was one hundred percent sincere was a whole another experience all together. Especially for one mired in negativity.
"Is that true, Seraph? Is that really true?" Mad Mikey asked Dawn, its electronic monotone voice conveying a sense of disbelief. Maybe its sensory powers were become faulty in the same way its voice was?
"Yes, Mikey. It is true. I'm not trying to trick you to defeat you with force. I'm trying to reach out to you, to extend the peace and olive branch that has been so long overdo." Dawn said with complete conviction, hoping Mad Mikey would finally believe her.
Indeed, Mad Mikey was beginning to. Unlike some people who have experienced sympathy from others but experienced it so rarely that it doesn't matter, it was a totally new and overwhelming sensation for Mad Mikey. True to what Dawn had said, Mad Mikey had only been truly facing humanity for one side of the coin, the sacred side. Perhaps it was time to flip the coin to see if the other side was sacred as well or not?
"Congratulations Dawn. I am now, slightly but still sincerely, willing to consider the notion that humanity and life are more than horrors begging for their own destruction. Perhaps you are correct in that I have not been seeing life and humanity on its fullest terms." Mad Mikey admitted, to Dawn's unhidden happiness.
Sadly, there was more that it had to say.
"However, I require more. Words and sympathy, no matter how sincere, only prove so much. There must be more behind them for them to actually mean anything."
As convincing as this all was, Mad Mikey wasn't fully sold. Despite her sympathy being genuine and all compassing, the demon had learned from years of hardship to never trust a human at their word even with additional sensory abilities. More proof was needed.
"What else do you require?" Dawn asked, crestfallen about not have succeeded but hoping to not lose Mad Mikey after getting so close to reaching out to it and saving it.
"Right now, I've only gazed into the heart of darkness within humanity while knowing of the better angels of its nature only as vague concepts with no real bearing on my life. But the converse is equally true; you've only seen the ideals and noble features your species as you view the weakness and ignobility as nothing more than an unpleasant footnote that can be skipped. Do you not see, Dawn? Your definition of existence is just as narrow as mine; only it's on the opposite angle. Yet I'm to fully submit to just another half-truth?"
"So what can be done about that?" Dawn asked, truly confused about what could be done.
As Mad Mikey answered Dawn, it was actually almost glad that there might be a way.
"Before I fully commit to having my feet tread your path, I must see more than mere principles. I must know if the feelings you describe would truly cleanse me of my turmoil or if that is just you being overly hopeful. Also, I must know if you can maintain your resolve even when staring directly into the infinite chasm of mankind's malice. Doing so with words could take an eternity.
"Therefore, I require you to come here and access my spiritual energy through my Ajna. Just like you did with Dakota earlier today. As you know, this would connect our energies and allow each of us to travel through each other's auras at the same time. Only after I've seen the emotion miracles that you promise and you've seen the horrors I've lived with without filter or censor, will I forsake my course of slaughter and sadism.
"Of course, to do so you must be right in front of me, easily within striking distance. Consider it one last indicator of just how much my pain being lifted means to you before the final test, before the weighting of humanity's heart on the scale of truth. What do say Dawn? What is your choice?"
The Moonchild stood where she had been for a few moments. She needed that time to fully process the two incredible new developments. First, she had almost done it! Mad Mikey had actually admitted that it could be persuaded to abandon its horrible course. However, that would only happen after the second development, reading its Ajna. This frightened Dawn on multiple levels. Not only would it mean being physically vulnerable to Mad Mikey but it leave her very spirit at risk of incurable damage. Evaluating the factors at play, Dawn made her choice.
With feet that felt like lead, the Saint of Camp Wawanakwa began walking towards the Wolf.
Footsteps were falling on grass covered in red leopard spots made from the warm blood of beasts.
Footsteps were falling on man-made floor tiles within the walls of the Milton Medical Faculty.
There was a sight that should have been silly but had a quality of soberness to it. What was silly was that B, the only contestant who could much Owen in the girth department, was running as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. The sight of his rolls of fat jiggling and jumping up and down could have caused anyone to laugh or be disgusted. However, one feature kept this sight from becoming satiric, B's face. The normally relaxed and collected face of the big black teenager was full of concern.
And to think, it was a hunch that brought this burden onto B. While carrying some bits of machinery for the battle armor, the Silent Genius had noticed that somebody was leaving the Confessional. Normally he would have paid no mind to this but something about the person's face as they passed each other didn't feel right. B couldn't have said if this was because of some previous interaction with said person or if some of Dawn's powers of perception were wearing off on him but either way the black teenager couldn't let it go.
Traveling to a nearby room where all of the Confessional camera feed from this place was collected so it could be given to the transmission tower to be edited and shown to the fans, B began to navigate his way through the most recent of Confessional recordings. It didn't take the Tech-Savvy Mute by Choice long to find the most recent Confessional left by the person he saw in the hall.
After the Confessional recording had played, B felt a stronger tide of emotion than he had at any point his entire life. Within a space of time less than forty seconds B felt: shock, guilt, reluctant understanding, sadness, sympathy, compassion, and resolve to stop this.
It was this volatile cocktail of emotions that was having B ignore the searing pains in his legs as he ran as fast as he could. He knew that he wouldn't be able to stop this person alone. So he had to find those who could as quickly as possible!
Having seen future horrors and the pained innocence at their core, all that was compelling action was the hope that it wasn't too late. Hope that direct action could prevent something terrible!
Dawn had almost reached Mad Mikey, every step now felt like it was taken within a hurricane that dwarfed the size of the Earth itself. As Dawn had almost passed all of the bestial bodies around her, the Moonchild noticed two things about Mad Mikey. Firstly, almost as if in mockery of the claim that this demon was a god, it had developed a halo. Rather than a halo of light, it was a halo of flies, flies attracted to the death that followed it. Secondly, its eyes had changed slightly. While its eyes still had wheels of emerald flame, the coloring was different. Instead of the brightest green imaginable, this persona's eyes were a slightly darker green. Similar to its now electronic monotone voice, it seemed that this slight change of color was a physical indicator of Mad Mikey's emotional state.
This indication that Dawn actually was having an effect on Mad Mikey was part of what kept her going. The darker green eyes with some human wetness were her North Star, guiding Dawn through an invisible sea of nightmares and the dark side of the human psyche. As she was almost to Mad Mikey, Dawn could feel the dark waves rolling and swelling over her, their absolute blackness lacking the factional relief of white foam.
The growing darkness around Dawn, while damping her zeal and dimming her faith, did not assuage her from what she knew had to be done. It was the only way to save not just her friends and world but Mad Mikey itself from self-destruction. The Moonchild knew that she had to pursue this course in all weathers, no matter their fierceness. She would do everything in her power to prevent something terrible!
Dawn knew that it had to be her alone who engaged the demon in the match of will. The person who takes flight before any danger, real or imaginary, while hoping for someone else to destroy the being causing it is trapped in hatred and cowardice. To walk on this path one needed truth and fearlessness, those overcome with fear could never hope to disarm all hostility. The path that Dawn was walking on was far more difficult than walking on the edge of the sword. So much so that it was almost impossible for one who has a physical form. The only way a physical being could do so was with severe penance and knowledge. It required absolute concentration and ceaseless striving; the slightest inattention could not be indulged in. Every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by deception, by wishing ill of anybody, would have weakened Dawn's efforts.
Those efforts, offering her emotional experiences to and subjecting herself to the existential gloom of Mad Mikey, would do two miraculous wonders. First and foremost, it would have Mad Mikey willingly forsake its hellish course by showing it the pure and undeniable power of love's relieving embrace. Second, it would show humanity that the way of peace was not just a fool's hope-filled dream. Dawn hoped it might show (if only to herself but hopefully others) the fact that the modern age didn't have to be the same as any other in human history, dominated by the rule and final supremacy of brute force.
With those concerns in mind, Dawn stopped right in front of Mike's body. While Mike was naturally taller than Dawn, the Moonchild still felt the dark being towering over her. Mad Mikey was smiling, both knowing the fear that Dawn felt being this close and respecting Dawn for actually doing it despite that fear. Though it was slightly trembling, Dawn raised one her arms and placed one of her slender pale hands on the being's Ajna.
At the moment of contact with Mike's mocha-colored forehead, Dawn had begun her journey through Mad Mikey's spiritual energy. After leaving the port of entry, the sixth of the seven chakras, the pale pilgrim began her trek into the creature's dark latitudes. Dawn was about to begin her trek among dark oddities, her experiences among the grim secret things.
And the first of these oddities and secret things was…darkness. But this wasn't the darkness that would be seen at night; even the darkest of nights have rays of the sun filtered through the moon. There were no such rays among this darkness. It was marvelously dark; a featureless blackness that would drain all light and display a gross indifference affronting Heaven itself.
Before any sights could be seen, vocal reverberations were heard as they resounded through the black air without a star. There were languages diverse, horrible dialects, accents of anger, words of agony, voices high and hoarse, complaints and ululations loud, sighs and threats wept. They came together in overlapping disharmony to form a perpetual whirling tumult. It was the beginning to the same sudden flood of grotesque sensation that Dawn had felt earlier when Mad Mikey made its aura visible to her.
Having expected that this would happen, Dawn wasn't caught off guard by this flood of invisible, dusky waves, as she was earlier. Before the ghastly images could appear, the Moonchild used the same techniques of the spirit and aura used before to part the sea of savage sound. She had successfully entered the aura proper through its vocal vestibule.
Dividing the absolute darkness, Dawn found…slightly less absolute darkness! Though there was no visible source of light, Dawn was still able to see a vast, cavernous forest.
Trees that were water-soaked and dull were seen all over. Their barks were coarse and rough, with patches upturned and the signs of decay present. The branches also were gnarled and entangled, some actually piercing the barks of their neighbors in nature. The same dim and unidentifiable source of light that made this darkness just barely above absolute shot faint rays of light upon the branches, which were then morphed by the branches into monstrosities made of shadow the likes of which Dawn never saw before. There were dead creatures there, their corpses reduced to pieces and chucks with teeth marks matching their own teeth, as if they had chewed on themselves until they had died. All of this was hard to see because vapors of green and grey were obscuring everything in this hemisphere of darkness. Beneath these vapors there were many moist and filthy things ranging from pebbles to fallen tree trunks (which oddly looked burnt). Between the decaying trees, the creature carcasses, and the omnipresent vapors this place was a forest crowded thickly with old ghosts and all of there suffered, random injustices. The overall effect was dense and darksome atmosphere that was eternal, heavy, and cold.
But despite the largely total absence of light and depressing appearance, being in this forest did not feel like Dawn had expected. Reflecting on how Mad Mikey's aura felt while talking to it, Dawn was dreading great horrors. But in both the plants and air around her, there was nothing extraordinarily grim or pain-filled. While there were still negative feelings there, they were far than she had dreaded and they were experienced with the same almost intangible numbness as other auras. Traveling in between the unsmooth trunks of the trees, the Moonchild began her expedition into with a renewed sense of hope that this wouldn't be as bad as she thought it would be.
This notion of total optimism was to be disproven within a few moments as the thick mists throwing themselves upon the forest floor quickly raised themselves until they were at Dawn's eye level. Once there, their grey shroud became a red flash of phosphorus fire. As Dawn began to feel water at her feet, she realized that this was the means by which she would be sent from one moment of the aura to another. These phosphorus mists would be her means of transport through the dismal region of the bodiless being.
The mists churning in grey flashed fiery red! A barrier to the bleak was broken!
But Dawn wasn't the only one experiencing the vestibule to a new domain. Unlike earlier with Dakota (and all other people for that matter), this connecting of spiritual energies wasn't just Dawn numbly feeling another person's aura to guide them. This time, the other party was also traveling through hers too. Both Dawn and Mad Mikey were in their own aura and the other being's aura simultaneously, being in a shared fused realm despite their surroundings being totally different from the others' and alien to each.
And for Mad Mikey, the most alien of realms was the most natural to humanity. It was a realm bathed in the bright rays of the sun. Having lived for its entire existence in a cold, imagined darkness, the notion of such an undiluted source of warmth was awe-inspiring.
Unlike Dawn, Mad Mikey encountered no barrier to the aura and therefore it found itself in a brave, new world. While it was a forest, it couldn't have been more different than the one it came from. Whereas that forest saturated all with wet and unmovable despair, this one breathed such energy and smooth drive into every presence within its wooden world.
There were many other differences between the two worlds of wood and wordlessness. For every example around it, Mad Mikey remembered with hatred clarity that its place of origin was the opposite. This forest was a heavenly dwelling. The trunks of the trees were smooth and healthy, reflecting stately trees that remained in flourishing old age while being maintained in a beauty that would never fade. The leaves and grass in color and lushness excelled in matching emeralds because they were full of the life brought to them by the sun's rays. There was no dirt above the rolling carpet of grass, ensuring that none of the other surfaces of this pleasant place were covered in their grainy filth. Many fresh rivers and delightful brooks slowly slid through this place with a clear surface not concerned with imperfections. The healthy air being breathed had a plethora of birds delightful to both the ear and the eye, solemnizing daily their sweet voices to have a perfect music echo everywhere else. From instinctual but still enjoyed functions, creatures of countless kinds could be seen and heard along the forest floor.
This place was a realm the likes of which Mad Mikey couldn't have imagined. Certainly, nothing anything less than a goddess of nature could have imagined a place like this, a place of heaping pleasures that was so perfect a model of the heavenly dwellings. However, it wasn't the work of a goddess. It was the work of a sixteen-year-old girl. This place was Dawn's aura, her feelings towards and her vision of the world.
As Mad Mikey walked through this lady adolescent's locus amonenus, her pleasant place, it felt and tasted so many things that most would consider trivial. There was peace, calm, tranquility, relaxation, and openness, among many others. But despite how new and wonderful these new emotions being experienced were they were lacking somehow. Regardless the palpable and radiant positive emotion in this place, Mad Mikey didn't feel anything outside of some superficial soothing. While still walking, Mad Mikey felt feelings conflicted between relief and disappointment that there was nothing more to this place, that the positive emotions of humanity had no deeper power aside from the simple.
This notion of partial pessimism was to be disproven within a few moments as the ground beneath its feet suddenly began to break and leak. Looking down, the persona saw that some of the water having the semblance of clearest glass was forcing its way to the grass. Within a few moments, the demon's imagined feet felt only water, like there was no grass. Before Mad Mikey could react, a pulsating pillar of water blasted into way to this dark visitor to this adolescent Arcadia. As Mad Mikey began to feel grass return to its proper place under Mike's imagined feet, it realized that this was the means by which it would be sent from one moment of the aura to another. Pulsating pillars of water would be its means of transport through Dawn's place of perfect positivity and positive perfection.
The water became a pillar! New knowledge soaked and clung to the visitor's form!
Dawn had felt the water rise from her feet to her ankles as the red mists parted from her. It soaked and clung to her clothes and skin, leaving her cold. This shocked the Moonchild because never in her time reading auras had Dawn felt a physical sensation like cold, wet skin. As she speculated that this was because of the unique power of Mad Mikey's aura, Dawn looked at her new surroundings and started to slowly venture into them.
This new location, a swampland, had the same basic atmosphere of woe as the forest. But there were differences aside from the waters ebbing at Dawn's knees. While there were many trees, they were far smaller and thinner than the imposing barks seen before. There was almost no green, not even decaying green, on any of their branches. The only constant green was found in reeds that despite looking sickly were taller than Dawn. The grey fog, already abundant in the forest, was greatly increased in this callous quagmire. The water had a heavy soberness that greatly surpassed its dark greyish-blue coloring. And feeling wasn't the only way that this swamp was heavy; it had a thick gelatinous top layer that seems like a living, malevolent skin. Hidden underneath this thick membrane and the dark-tinted waters, a sea of all discernment turned and kicked at Dawn's legs. As the Aura Whisperer attempted to clamber through this murky bog's caul, there was the feeling that with every step Dawn was getting nowhere. It was as if all effort was surrendered to the swamp, even though the Moonchild was clearly moving through it.
After walking through the waters and reeds a bit, Dawn began to hear something, a series of loud wet 'plops'. Picking up her pace, the Moonchild soon reacted the source of these sounds of suction. She found a child, no more than eight years old, trying to run through the gelatinous and almost quicksand-like membrane of the swamp. As the child ran closer to Dawn, she noticed its physical features, mainly its bright and glowing green eyes. This child, with a look of pure terror and agony on its face, was holding its head tightly as it ran. Seeming to not noticing Dawn, the child with green eyes suddenly stopped running. Holding its head even tighter as its body shook, the child dropped to its hands and knees.
On all fours in the thick murky water, the child, clearly a young Mad Mikey, began crying. At least that was the action that should have been happening. It was so overcome with emotion that the top of its black spiky hair was unknowingly dipped into the perse water. Overwhelmed by something that could only be guessed at, the young Mad Mikey began sadly shouting at the unforgiving swamp, its voice matching that of one in the most complete and inescapable of sorrows. It was so because for all of the crying, there was no crying and the grief that found a barrier in eyes that couldn't shed tears turned itself inward and increased the child's anguish. This was the crying of a demon, without the small solace of tears. In it, in this demonic crying without evil intent, with emerald eyes that were matching rigid crystal visors that held on to despair, Mad Mikey spoke openly.
"Mike...? Mike...! Mike... Where are you?! Where are you?! Mike, why have you abandoned me? Please Mike, I'm scared! I saved you…they wouldn't have stopped otherwise. Mike, I helped you, now help me! I don't know what's happening, I'm so confused!? It hurts! It hurts! Mike, it hurts! It hurts... It- it- it hurts just to think and breathe. I don't know what this is. Am I dying? Can I die? If I can then please let me die! They won't stop! I just want the voices to stop... Just want the voices to stop; I just want the voices to stop! Why, Mike, why? Why are you doing this? Why isn't anyone here? Why am I alone?"
Almost weeping at this sight, at seeing a confused child in so much pain and sadness, Dawn started to walk towards the young Mad Mikey. Maybe if she could comfort this being from the past, its counterpart in the present would feel the effects? But Dawn only got a few steps before she too began to hear something. She heard a low whooshing and crackling buzzing sound, similar one could guess to the noises made by the billions upon billions of desert locusts that were released onto the crops of Egypt by an angry God. And as that insect-like humming grew in beating volume, other sounds began to be heard. Similar to the pests unchained as a pestilence for old injustices even on those not guilty of them, vibrant voices like spurred locust wings were a forerunner to an inhuman wrath. They were a forerunner to other voices, voices with human words and omnipotent tones. (2)
"NO! Ye shall find only darkness!"
"MY GOD! I'M ON FIRE!"
"There's semen on everything! 'EVERYTHING!"
"That was the messiest one yet. It normally only takes a single blow."
"Yes! I am a woman and I killed those guys."
"I didn't see strangling her as something wrong."
"HELL AIN'T 'BLEEP'…now life…now that's a piece of 'BLEEP', when you look at it!"
As these voices whose volume and content could hardly be believed hit Dawn, the true nightmare, the true gazing into the abyss began! As the voices started, all other sound collapsed into a dull, hollow echo, an echo that duplicated the deafness one might experience after mortar shells explode around them. Human voices of all types and pitches were heard without filter, often overlapping with each other.
"Mommy! Where are you? I'm scared! MOMMY!"
"'Oh my mommy, my mommy, where's she gone?' Bah! You'll be with her soon enough, brat!"
"I may have strangled with my own hands about 125 men."
"The law must always appear respectable, especially when it's being broken!"
"Remorse, what for? I didn't even know them!"
"No second chance for the weak! NONE!"
"My God! They would scream so loud I couldn't hear myself think!"
Dawn had since collapsed into the swamp water and began holding her head, which felt like it might explode at any moment. The nightmare intensifies after Dawn was deafened. The sound became muted, and there is a faint ringing, which made the reality of sound frustratingly out of reach for her. Even untrammelled words without restrictions in either space or imagination could not convey all of the amorphous agonies in this place. The speech and memory of mankind fell short in their wake; there was no room within humanity to comprehend it in full. To try and convey the pain that Dawn was now experiencing with eloquent words and literary techniques of description would show them to be sorry and farcical nonsense.
"I'm- I'm covered in his filth! DISGUSTING!"
"We only fight when we have just cause- such as our enemy is weaker than us, we want something of theirs, or they differ from us in any way!"
"I'll eat his liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti!"
"THAT IS MY WHORE! There are many like her but that one is mine! I promise I will not hurt or harm you…I just want you to return my whore. Do you have any idea how long it takes to find a whore you really like!? SHE'S A GOOD WHORE AND I LIKE HER!"
"The city was scared 'BLEEP'-less. They needed an arrest. They murdered a scapegoat."
"All I wanted was to get inside them…but I killed them because they cried."
"A life without murder is like life without food."
"I looked for my boy for nine months…all we got was a handful of bones."
"None of us are perfect. So how can one judge another?"
Dawn had sadly realized what was happening, she was discovering the full scale of humanity's capacity for cruelty. She was experiencing every malice-filled thought and every vague vulgarity. The Moonchild was trying her best to withstand it but she found herself unable to do anything except try to ignore the unfathomable pain in her head.
"When is a law NOT a law...WHEN I SAY IT ISN'T!"
"I abandoned my child! I abandoned my child! I ABANDONED MY BOY!"
"It's done! I did the deed! There…HE'S DEAD! Now just shut up and leave me alone!"
"The next thing I knew, she was smothered and I liked it."
"I'm so horny…let's do another one!"
"I am deeply offended by your calling me a women hater. I am not. I love women… when they're dead."
"Anything I ever did in my life, I felt justified doing. I never abused anybody in my life. If people abuse me and I abuse them back-that ain't abuse."
"I swore an oath to do no harm, and I... mostly meant it."
The maddening ringing in her ears made sound drift in and out without pattern. When sound did come through, it was muffled and made both ambient and menacing by strange blends of wraithlike sounds. Some of the dialogue lacked specific meaning or even concrete sentences but what replaced those things were subhuman growling, guttural wailings, and other spine-chilling sounds.
"Look bitch, I don't care about you! I don't care if you are going to have a baby! You had better be ready. You're going to die and I don't feel anything about it!"
"Man will never be free until the last aristocrat is strangled with the entrails of the last priest!"
"Please could you wait a moment? I don't want to die with my shoes on."
"If you work for a living…then why do you kill yourself working?"
"I loved all that blood. It's all I ever wanted."
"How could they have found me guilty of murder if the body couldn't be found?"
"Weak people beaten by the strong. That's life, isn't?"
This was part of the eerie distance caused by shell-shocked ears. But that wasn't the only distancing at work, and it wasn't the cruelest. Intertwined with the negative thoughts and emotions, there were other kinds…sort of.
"I…do love…very…"
"…are…mother…have…had…"
"…love…worth more…all…in…"
"Living…beautiful…wonderful…me…really…"
"Thank…new toy…"
"Our…day…happiest…my..."
Again forming realizations in agony, Dawn realized that these were the positive emotions of humanity. However, they were muddled and broken up. They added another layer of confusion and turmoil to this already chaotic electronic heartbeat of amped up despair.
"am… love…and… like…spend the…with..."
"Since he didn't see the situation clearly, I helped him out. I took out those clearly defective eyes of his. There are now in my hand."
"Why…we…along…"
"Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her."
"I didn't give a damn who I was with…we're all dying sooner or later. So why not speed up the process a little?"
"I cannot understand honest men. They lead desperate lives full of boredom."
"Daddy, why did you do that to Mommy?"
"all…be loving…other…the…a better…"
"dog and cat…so…and…I…loving…."
"Universal salvation is a lie, is it not? It is only a lie. I would like to believe that all people will be saved but I know that is not the truth. They won't be saved…they won't. No they won't!"
Despite all of her genuine belief in the goodness of humanity and her years of training in the many different techniques of the aura, Dawn found herself powerless in this storm. With the voices still going strong and the Moonchild still on the ground in pain, the grey shroud became a red flash of phosphorus fire.
The mists churning in grey flashed fiery red! A barrier to the bleak was broken!
The barrier of water that had surrounded Mad Mikey ceased its unnaturally powered pumping. Finding grass beneath its feet and the same place of natural beauty around it, Mad Mikey ventured into the woods. Unlike Dawn, Mad Mikey had found no great change in location, the woods it was in now looked very similar to the previous one.
Not too far into its journey, Mad Mikey found something. It saw of the form of a child, a female child likely no more than eight years old that was in a small clearing. She was sitting on the on ground with her legs folded Indian style and her arms at her waist reaching outward while her eyes were closed. Appearing to not have noticed Mad Mikey, it took note of her details. Her skin was an irony pale and her hair was a long, light blonde. Beneath a dark green sweater it could see at her neck proof of a light blue dress shirt. The entire lengths of her legs were covered in purple tights while a black skirt was over the tights that didn't reach her knees. With the last feature of note being small black shoes on small feet, Mad Mikey quickly deduced that this was a younger version of Dawn. After wondering to itself if she has always worn the same clothes since birth, Mad Mikey began watching her from the woods.
She seemed to have been meditating, trying to access some higher plain of knowledge. Despite only being eight years old, the younger Dawn looked very focused on this. However, something broke her concentration, with a meow. Opening her grayish-blue eyes and looking to her side, she noticed a small orange cat. It was staring up at her with wide green eyes as it meowed once again, clearly wanting the young girl's attention.
With a smile on her face despite the interruption, the younger Dawn said, "Hello Blondie. Would you like me to pet you?"
Taken another meow by the cat as a yes, Dawn began to pet the lonely feline. After a minute of this and purring, the cat's eyes changed to the look they would have before going to sleep. The child thought this would be good for her because it would mean getting back to her meditation. That notion was proven wrong when the orange cat climbed on one of the younger Dawn's legs and then curled itself up into a ball in the space in between her legs. Shocked by this course of action of the cat, Dawn was able to get up when she noticed the adorable sight of the cat's face being half-hidden by her leg and its little front paws in the air. Looking at the little ball of fur, Dawn decided to stay where she was.
Though it made it harder to concentrate, Dawn kept the cat on her lap as she tried to resume her meditation. But before she really could enter the same realm of focus, the young Moonchild felt a large furry body bump against her side. Opening her eyes again, Dawn saw that the culprit this time was a young black Labrador retriever.
Again slightly smiling despite wanting to mediate, Dawn said to the dark furred dog, "You too Raven? Between you and Blondie, I'm won't be meditating today, will I?" (3)
An exultant bark from the black dog named after the black bird confirmed this as it sat down right next to Dawn. Sighing at the loss of her mediation, the young Aura-Whisperer began to pet both the cat and dog at the same time. Despite not being able to get closer to a higher plain of knowledge, this was not a massive burden for the eight-year-old Dawn. As she began petting the cat in her lap and the dog at her side with one hand each, the being watching this, who technically was also eight years old, began feeling new things.
Similar to Dawn in its own aura, Mad Mikey directly felt whatever emotions the younger Dawn was as if they were its own. Mad Mikey had of course known that humans often get great enjoyment and positive feelings from pets but it only knew of this fact and these emotions as if they were a cold statistic because it could never feel the full emotion there. But now, it was practically swimming in the affection that these animals were bathing Dawn in. It felt like nothing Mad Mikey ever experienced, it never even imagined, never dared to dream, that such positive feeling could truly exist. As it watched the child bonding with the animals, the demon began thinking some very un-demon like thoughts. Again, the effect of this simple scene might be lost on a human hardened by cruelty but with it being Mad Mikey's first experience with true felt positive emotion, it had the same power as its introduction to the Hell that was mankind's dark side. But it was a dark side that maybe, just maybe, wasn't as all consuming as it had been taught to think by its life?
While it was quiet and gradual, this revelation was having an effect on Mad Mikey. Maybe there was joys and happiness to be had? Maybe these things weren't out of its reach after all?
As the grass beneath its feet began to get soggy once again, Mad Mikey noticed something; something that it truly believed it would never notice…it was smiling. When the wall of water returned in full, it covered the first true smile that had graced Mad Mikey without the dark dreams of sadism or vengeance. Mad Mikey's first happy smile.
The water became a pillar! New knowledge soaked and clung to the visitor's form!
When the mists were parted, Dawn had found herself back in the damp and dark forest. Though Dawn had traveled to several locations since leaving the swamp, it didn't matter. No matter the change in location or the smells and sights that were profoundly blithe and unsettling, it was the omnipresent sonic distortion, that horrible humming pregnant with human tones which brought a type of pain all there own that brought the greatest despair. This constant accompanying hum, in some distant way reminiscent of the sound of the flies that hovered around Mad Mikey's head before entering its aura, was so otherworldly that it got inside of Dawn's body and made her feel unrelenting tension and fear. That was because within this music of trapped flies there was a mocking, whispered laughter. Within the buzzing and laughter was the worst of humanity's dark potential and reality.
"It is better to torture nine innocent than allow one guilty to go unpunished!"
"am…happy…fixed…crash."
"I am the only successful member of my family and I got that way by robbing the dead and dying."
"I'M NOT A BAD PERSON! I'm just a person who did bad things. IT'S NOT THE SAME!"
"…love…you…white hot…a thousand…"
"Between two worlds, one dead…the other powerless to be born, with nowhere to put my head."
The Moonchild was as she had been in the swamp, taken aback by a sheer intensity and unflinching visceral horror that were indescribable. A stillborn scream curdled in her throat and congealed into a lump, a nonexistent lump that still was blocking oxygen as if it did exist. This place had a sort of unreal realism that got to events terrible beyond comprehension; it was a phantasmagoria that was grounded in appalling reality. It was a reality that Dawn couldn't hide from or deny, ever again. Whether by closing her eyes or covering her ears; all attempts at ignorance were pointless now because the dark fever-tides of emotion had gotten past her vision and hearing. They had penetrated her very consciousness and threatened to always be with her forever more. The horror that she was experiencing, in excruciatingly vivid detail, would be etched for an indefinite amount of time into her memory. She would from this day forward be an intermediary between her world and this hallucinatory nether world of blood and mud and escalating madness.
"Just keep up our hatred for me. I know it keeps up their morale. They can only feel righteous by pointing their fingers at guys like me. Without me they wouldn't know right from wrong!"
"If I didn't kill one or two people now and then, they'd forget who I am."
"Always…bright side… just…whistle."
"…way of…and…always prevails."
"If people are told 1,000 poor people are dead…they say 'that's sad' before not giving it a second thought. But when told one little celebrity dies, it's all everyone can talk about for days!"
"They told us over and over again that they were something lower then people and must be wiped out. To me they look like ordinary women and children. I didn't like what we did…I didn't like it one little bit. But I didn't do anything to stop it."
As another sound, the sound of frightened footsteps falling came to her ears Dawn found herself actually thankful for it might drown out the despair and pain inspiring voices. Running through this dark domain without interruption or refrain was a slightly older looking Mad Mikey. It was running from a place that no one else could see or hear, a site of the unfathomable known simply as a child's fear. As it got near, Dawn saw the reason for Mad Mikey's fear. Those same horrible human voices commented throughout it all.
Beneath the crawling fog of the forest floor, a putrid process already begun was seen. It brought with it a powerful musk, murky green and pungent, that filled the damp air.
From both within and without, the features of the forest were germinating, sprouting up in all places and all forms on the young Mad Mikey with the vigor of a healthy sapling.
A wooden skin was cruelly crawling along its body with the intention of replacing the child's mocha skin with a covering of soggy and splintered green. Every second of this skin extending its reach made Mad Mikey's young body more heavy and mired by moments becoming slower as they were also more sullen and solemn. One of its arms had become a branch with twigs and thorny vines moving outward from it. The other arm wasn't that far behind, the fingers could be seen transforming into leafed twigs. Gnarled pieces of wood and tattered mantles of moss flailed unevenly along its flanks. Swirling within the dirty yet bright green were streaks of mold forming a dull grey rash. All of the decay rose and fell on its two legs, creating a moving fabric of green and grey. Though Mad Mikey had no bones, they were forming in a creaking skeleton of tortured branch and root. In fact, some of those tortured roots had forced there way through Mikey's feet and now dug hungrily into the sodden soil. Mad Mikey was pinned down and trapped.
Bleak yet possessing a strange ugly beauty, it was as if the forest was trying to present itself as a single essence with all of its grim wonders distilled into a corporeal form. Though not moving, that predestined corporeal form still fought this grim distillation. Within possibly seconds, all of the forest's grim wonders would have all of the protesting actions from the human form cease. Mad Mikey would develop the funeral pace without death of a living tree. For all of eternity it would be aware of itself but just another tree. The child would forever be a tree, forever be dirty green and powerless, silent and suffering…alone and abandoned.
"You ungrateful bastard! You are offered salvation, and you 'BLEEP' on it!"
Mad Mikey knew what had to be done and that it had only moments to do it in. If it had to suffer, it would do so by its own doing rather than bearing another's crown of thrones. As fear gave way to a determined, angry focus, Mad Mikey stared right at Dawn. But the child wasn't looking at Dawn. It wasn't looking at anything. Nothing was worthy of that.
Not knowing that, terror shock through the blonde Moonchild as those inhuman green eyes with fiery fury looked at her as if she were an insect. Dawn's body went numb. For a few moments, the Aura Whisperer felt like her body would never feel cold or hot ever again. When there was a strange tingling, which ricocheted all over the ivory colored surface of Dawn's pale skin in a seemingly endless series of wavelengths. This tingling would soon give way to something else, something worse. It wasn't because of the eyes.
"I'm glad it's happening to him instead of me."
Mad Mikey's body, under siege by the whims of the forest, began smoking. It smoked violently and the thick black vapors commingled with the forest's fumes of green and grey. Suddenly, the forces of the forest on Mikey's body were smote without restraint!
Dawn felt to the ground suddenly in physical pain! There was searing pain all over! Every breath, every motion, every thought, seemed to ignite Dawn's body and mind! The agony within that searing pain was absolute; there was no means of relief or escape!
"Why do you break me? Have you no pity!"
A second skin, a moving skin, had replaced its mocha-skin being turned into mossy wood. A skin of painful heat and chosen damnation, a skin of fire with flames containing red rubies and yellow ambers. As it took the fire, the demon's body was consumed in Hell fires, meant to avoid another Hell even more horrible. Feeling its skin as it sizzles and bubbles away, Mad Mikey became a blazing statute that was before a string-less marionette. The statute once string-less marionette doesn't move and doesn't run. And it's not just because of the roots pinning it to the ground. With the fatalism common to its existence, it knows that stumbling from the flames would be futile. These were flames that it couldn't run away from.
And that was something that Dawn was discovering to, that the flames, the fatalism, were not something she could run away from. Though there was not flame or warmth upon her, the Moonchild was feeling every pain-filled perspective that the fires forced on her and Mad Mikey. Dawn remembered a comment from earlier, she remembered being called a member of the highest choir of angels. She remembered the title Seraph and realized that's exactly what she was right now. She had become a flameless burning one!
"How do we know that being with the angels will be a better deal?"
For the first few moments, the only sound was that of the flame, harshly taunting the tormented being with its cruel crackling. But then a bellow was issued forth from Mad Mikey in an un-human voice of the afflicted with a tone of ringing brass. Born out of the fire, the demon spoke its own language by converting its pain into an electronic sounding of melancholy words and agony transfixed.
In her great and terrible pain, the Moonchild instinctually prayed to the Great Earth Mother for some mercy, for some icy chill to calm her aching body and sooth her frenzied mind. It never came. No relief ever came. The end came from the fire and ash.
"I know I had to be destroyed. I was a mistake of nature."
To this most horrid of sounds, by its own doing, Mad Mikey was reduced to blackened pieces. In a few seconds, no Mikey was left. With the body burned away, the blackest of ashes falling to the cold, muck mired ground were the proof that Mad Mikey was thus destroyed. But like the equally mythical Phoenix, the ashes drew together and fused themselves so that it resumed the demon's form and Mad Mikey instantly returned.
Again, words and comparisons are unless to make you understand, dearest reader, what Dawn felt. The only way for one to even begin to understand is to imagine that despite not being physically altered in the slightest, she felt blazing heat and every part of her feature break up into millions of small charred pieces. And then imagine all of the fractional collisions and countless errors, as her body resembled itself with all of the human body's complex components in the correct sequence. With every imperfect alignment between every microscopic bit adding a new pitch of pulsating pain.
"Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it!"
The crippled kid king, the soon to be evil Emperor of this kingdom dolorous, laid in mud. The mournful, newly mutilated shade had eyes trying to gush forth its woe but couldn't. Though not shedding tears, the sadness in its eyes was as unquestionable as their bright green glow was in sludge as livid and black as a peppercorn. Despite this happening far more often than it should, due to Mad Mikey's efforts to not become a part of the forest, the pain never could any easier to endure. It always remembered but it was always doomed. The whole episode was symbolic of Mad Mikey's entire existence…no body, only the pain.
In its pain, the young Mad Mikey heard the voices again. It couldn't have known it but these voices from the humans it hated were telling it what its future self thought.
"No one really gives a 'BLEEP' about the poor and starving and suffering. Only the powerful and supreme are deemed sincerely important."
"I was born without a conscience!"
"Am I my brother's keeper? They aren't even my brothers! Why endure all of this?"
"When I claw my way out of this place, I'm going to kill one person for every second I've spent in this world of 'BLEEP'!"
As she lied on the dark cold muddy floor of this dark forest, Dawn's eyes were closed. They had become too inebriated by horrors and pain. She feared that if she started crying that her face would irrigate blood also and that blood would commingle with her tears. Despite her not knowing it, the grey shroud around her became a red flash of phosphorus fire.
The mists churning in grey flashed fiery red! A barrier to the bleak was broken!
As Mad Mikey found itself in the latest in a series of nearly identical pleasant areas, it heard something. It was soft and soul crushing, a little girl's crying. It was disgusted! There was no sound more sickening in this sick and dying world than that of sobbing steak, of human crying. It was so pitiful and pathetic. The ultimate insulting failure of humanity, most never understood what they admit whenever tears are shed. They admit that they were weak and limited. They admit that they are chained to an atrocious coil, the mortal coil. After all, man is born crying and after he cries enough, he dies!
Not too far away, Mad Mikey found the source of those sickening sounds. Sure enough, it was Dawn as a much younger girl who was again wearing the same exact clothes. Despite nothing being said, Mad Mikey could feel the exact reason why she was so sad.
As a child with supernatural powers, Dawn could either be the most popular or unpopular child in her hometown. She was the later, having virtually no friends in or out of school. Combine the fact that her insights into people always scared them away with the fact that she had pretty much no control when saying what she sees, and you quickly guess why. There were so many times when little Dawn wished with all of her heart that she could control her mouth so it wouldn't automatically say whatever she sensed in another's aura! But all of this wishing did nothing and as her early years ticked by the young Moonchild obtained a long list of unwanted nicknames from her peers: freak, weirdo, creepy, demon, loser, fairy, monster, witch, abomination and so many more. It didn't help that many of the other children's parents had a similar view of her, often calling her something along the lines of 'a very nice goblin girl that must be avoided' to the more curious of the children to keep them away.
Because of this endless list of cruel names and almost no human interaction, Dawn had an extremely low opinion of herself. There were so many times where she thought to herself 'Act normal', 'Be someone else', or 'Don't say anything'. Though confused and alone, Dawn understood why these people were that way; people always fear what they don't understand. But that didn't make her hurt and loneliness any less or softened. There were times, however few, were the young Dawn wished she could just blame the others for not accepting her, if only to lessen some of the pressure on her shoulders. But however tempting that might be, she knew that wasn't right or helpful. Despite that, she still felt more like a freak and a goblin instead of what she actually was.
Mad Mikey knew these types of feelings all too well, but to a much, much larger degree. It watched intently what might be revealed here.
As the small saddened one sobbed away for some latest failed attempt to make a friend, two figures approached her from behind. They appeared to be a man and a woman in their early thirties. The man had hair that was long and light blonde while his eyes were a greyish-blue. His clothes were light blue jean shorts, a purple sweater, black shoes, and a golden earring. But the features of his that stood out the most were his brown glasses and extremely dark tan skin. The woman had hair that was short and jet-black while her eyes were brown. She wore dark teal jeans, a white shirt, and brown shoes. There were two red wristbands on her left wrist and a light blue earring on each ear. But the most interesting features were her ivory pale skin and her face that was producing expressions that were slightly similar to Dawn's. Each figure went to one of the young Dawn's sides and put a hand on one of her shoulders.
Noticing there hands on her petite shoulders, the young Dawn acknowledged them and asked them a question that she had been pondering for sometime now in solitude.
"Mom…Dad…what's wrong with me...how come people don't want me?"
With their hands still on their crying daughter, Dawn's parents looked at each other. They tried to think of what to say but at the moment the only things they could think of would only make Dawn feel worse. In truth, this was all new territory for either of them. It wasn't until recently that they even discovered that their daughter had these powers. And they only understood what was happening at all because Dawn's grandmother, on her mother's side, appeared to have always had a similar gift. So it was through her that her black haired daughter and tan son-in-law went for support when dealing with Dawn's gifts. But that didn't help Dawn's position with her classmates and other adults.
While they might not be able to change that right now, the two adults could do something far more important. It was the mother who began this process.
"Dawn, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. You're the best daughter a mother could hope for. I've never seen anymore more compassionate and caring than you."
"But then why does everyone hate and fear me except you and dad and grandma? I mean, I know why they do but why do they?" The child asked in sad confusion, realizing the logical reason why but unable to fully grasp how people could hate or fear another.
"I know it is hard for you Dawn but you have to keep trying." Dawn's father said to his little angel with a smile that increased as he talked. "If you don't, things will only get worse. And if there's anything your mother and me know, it's that things get better with you more then we could have expected."
"How do you know that? What do you mean?" The younger version of Dawn asked.
"Did we ever tell you why we named you Dawn?" Dawn's mother asked the child.
The young Moonchild shook her head; she had never learned why they named her Dawn.
As a smile started growing on the mother's face, she told Dawn the story of her name.
"No? Well then. We named you Dawn because when you were born, at first we saw this mass of light yellow and then we saw the most beautiful thing we could have imagined. The only thing that even came close was this perfect sunrise that we both saw shortly after we started dating. After seeing that sunrise, we felt like nothing was impossible and everything would work out in the end. And seeing you as you've grown up, we both know that we were right. Neither us could have guessed that our baby girl would be special not just because she's our daughter. We never could have said in confidence that you'd have these gifts and be so wonderful in ways apart from those remarkable gifts."
The young Moonchild stared up at her parents, her eyes still wet. But now, the tears had stopped falling and a massive smile appeared on her pale face. While technically nothing had changed, for this moment that didn't matter. Dawn had felt all alone and trapped within seemingly endless despair, but not anymore. Now, thanks to the simple love of her parents and the hope of a better tomorrow expressed in her parent's story, the eight-year-old aura whisperer was ready to began making a better future for herself. It would be because of moments and exchanges like this over the years that Dawn was able to master her gifts and more importantly not to care about the bad things others would say or think about her. Instead of being hurt or hateful, Dawn would strive to be helpful.
"I really like that name." Dawn said with her large smile and wet eyes.
"We do too, my little angel." Her mother said in a very sweet tone.
"Yeah, we do. I mean we were going to name you Molly. What kind of a silly name is Molly anyway?" The father said, caught in the relief of making his daughter feel better. (4)
"Um…Excuse me?! My name is Molly!" Dawn's mother said in a calm but menacing voice her hands on her hips and a cold stare at her husband.
"Uhh…oh…d-did I say silly?" Dawn's father struggled to say as his eyes widened and he began sweating bullets. "Because I meant silly in how sweet and beautiful it is, honey!"
After still staring coldly at Dawn's father for a few moments, Molly gave a sly grin before kissing her husband on the cheek. After saying, "That's better," Dawn's mother began walking away from her newly happy daughter and her newly nervous husband.
"Dad, I can see your lying." The eight-year-old girl said, again not knowing when not to say something she shouldn't. It would take many years for her to not say instantly anything that was revealed in the flashes from other's auras.
"Quiet Dawn." The child's father said out of the corner of his mouth trying to be as quiet as possible in the case Molly might hear it.
As the eight year old Dawn stared up at her father in confusion, there was laughing from another, another being that was technically eight years old. Yes, it was Mad Mikey who was laughing. Not laughing out of sadism but merriment. It had actually found the little exchange between these three human ghosts of the past amusing, in a touching way.
This surprising display (even to itself) was the only outward indication of what was happening inwardly and it was an unbelievably insubstantial expression of the internal. Mad Mikey had been truly taken aback by how it felt when Dawn was receiving affection from a cat and a dog. Just imagine the wordless pleasures and joys it was now feeling when that same child, who was in the grips of despair, found love in those who she cared about most.
Within it's long believed cold and dead core something stirred that hadn't before. Its moments and presence was a mystery of energy. It was warm and soothing, it was alive. The mystery energy that it couldn't have described came rolling over it as it imparted onto Mad Mikey a long fine flash that encapsulated an entire generation, a whole species. No explanation, no mix of words or logical thoughts, could touch the sense of knowing and fullness or the effects that Mad Mikey now felt inside that flash.
There was so much pain in Mad Mikey, so many negatives of different dyes and textures. Within this one being there was lime envy, buttery fear, rubicund anger, cerulean sadness, frosty suffering, lavender regret, dusky vengeance, and hoary cruelty. But now the separate shades of its pain were merging, as if clays of clashing colors were being crushed together into a single brown humpy bruise on its questionably existent soul. Would this bruise of the uncertain soul eventually fade, as do all bruises of the flesh?
But the flash brought more than the reducing of pain. There was a fantastic universal sense that all could and would be right, that no matter the hardships and torment along the way that it was not in vain and ultimately worth it. There was a sense of inevitable victory over the forces of the old and evil those were until now all that Mad Mikey had known. This warm and fantastic universal energy would simply prevail as it came with all of the momentum of existence behind it. Riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave, the demon was guided to what it had always wondered of but couldn't have experienced.
The glory of the wave seemed to move everything and penetrate throughout the universe with its resplendent wonder. Within it there was so much that it didn't matter that the bottom and source was unknowable as its own depth concealed it. Contained inside of the depth and the wave was all things, placed in a single volume bound by something transient and phenomenal and previously perceived as an abstract. In the throngs of the lessening of its pain, the persona that wasn't human realized what this was. For the first time ever, Mad Mikey was content as it was in a lasting sweetness fully satiating it. The demon now knew the imprint of the eternal pleasure that was love. Mad Mikey felt love!
As it felt the ground become soggy once again, Mad Mikey was too preoccupied with the new emotions it was savoring to notice. If the tears could come…they would have now. As the water of the pillar surrounded it to bring it to the next location within the aura of Dawn, it wondered if maybe a new dawn came. If this is what love was, could it and other joys of life be known to it, known to a demon? When all around it was water, Mad Mikey thought, for once, that maybe just maybe the answer could be…yes.
The water became a pillar! New knowledge soaked and clung to the visitor's form!
A lone figure stood outside of the medical faculty. The person who snuck away from the others earlier in the lobby after the battle plan was formed, the person whose leaving the Confessional unknowingly spurred B, was now outside of its protections and promises.
This person could not help but ponder over it, over what had brought them to this appalling position? Was it fear? Desperation? Yes and no. While those factors were there, they were subservient to something, to some other factor. A factor that was as simple as it was complex; it was love, mostly love served as this person's guide.
Turning around to face the faculty, to face the direction of the people who this love was for, the person couldn't help be ever so briefly smirk at the doors to the faculty. This smirking was because both this person's face (in reflection) and name (in paint) were displayed on the doors. In both reflection and paint one saw…Dakota Milton!
As she stood outside of the safety of the medical faculty that bared her name, Dakota saw the Haunted Forest. She saw a place of nightmares, a haunted abyss that stares into you. Rather than the ghosts of the dead, it was the ghosts of what one could have been and what one is that haunted it. Those were the ghosts, what one could have been and what one is, that had been haunting Dakota even before Mad Mikey.
The unspeakable truth loomed over Dakota as vast and undeniable as the sun over this bright early afternoon. Leaving the shadows of doubt that were too great a luxury even for this member of the one percent, Dakota began a slow advance towards the cold truth and the glimmering light. After a few heavy steps, she paused and began faintly sobbing.
What was to happen next? No one, in particular Dakota herself, could say. There were so many forks in the road of her future. And each fork leads to a place more horrible than the last. But there were two inescapable facts for Dakota, and these were the greatest source of horror. First, she had to walk down this road, no matter where it might lead her. Second, this was likely the end, the burial, of Dakota even in the best-case scenario.
But then Dakota remembered why she was bearing this indescribably horrific burden. After a lifetime of people helping her, it was time for the former fame-hog to help someone, the people who had helped her more than anyone no matter the cost. And for the first time ever, it wouldn't be a cost measured in the zeros of paper money or gold.
She didn't know why but Dakota's mind flashed to the memory of another Milton, John Milton, writer of the acclaimed epic poem Paradise Lost. It was a story meant to show the reasons, whether personal flaw or legitimate grievance, of Satan's dark rebellion and the effects of his banishment into the torments of Hell. Also, it was created to show how that action then lead to the fall of Adam and Eve from Paradise, with Eve being compelled to sin by Satan in the form of a serpent with the promise of self-knowledge. There was no serpent in this version of the story. Or if there was, it did not bring this Eve to sin through the promise of self-knowledge. Instead this serpent, with its green eyes envious and hateful of humanity, brought the fear of death. What was the same between the epic poem from the seventeenth century and the present moment was the basic point of the story: noble intentions lead to atrocity.
Taking in one last deep breath to calm her nerves however slightly, the atrocity began!
As a by now all too familiar series of sounds and physical sensations began, something about this was as far from familiar as could be. Whereas before these experiences were linked to Dakota losing control and trying to reclaim it, now they were Dakota allowing them! They were Dakota surrendering to the presence that wasn't her, that wasn't human.
While there was physical pain as Dakota began allowing the Dakotazoid to take control, that wasn't what concerned her most. That honor belonged to something else, something even more important.
Dakota's eyes began to glaze over and a thick mist of yellow and red was slowly rendering her vision pointless. As the mist around her field of vision grew, Dakota could notice herself slipping away to the other presence inside of her. Dakota's thoughts and memories slowly started to be eroded away, falling down a rabbit hole that leads to no Wonderland. What frightened Dakota the most at this point was the fear that those things which made her Dakota; her experiences, her personality, her family and friends, would be forever unrecoverable in the churning yellow-red mist. Unrecoverable to the Dakoazoid!
Though her hearing and vision by this point were greatly limited, Dakota still had enough of both senses to hear a loud banging on the massive metal door of the faculty. Turning her head, which was now almost twelve feet in the air, Dakota saw Sam and a few of her other friends through a large window at the center of the door. Sam was the most visible person, because he was violently slamming against the door with an open mouth indicating that he was shouting desperately to Dakota. It was clear that they were trying to open the door to stop Dakota. And that's why Dakota messed with the door's locks, combining her natural technological skills with her knowledge of the medical faculty. This was both to ensure that her friends couldn't stop her and to protect them just in case the Dakotazoid didn't do what Dakota hoped it would.
Looking at them, her only true friends, Dakota couldn't have wished for a better sight. While her eyes were now red and yellow, enough of Dakota was still in them to show her friends a look of joy mixed with regret. This was further conveyed by a faint smile on now monstrous lips.
Showing her friends the last visible bastion of her humanity and her very existence, Dakota turned her body's head as her final physical act, to spare her friends having to see the moment when the transformation was completed.
For a moment or two that was beyond tense, Dakota's now mutated body stood perfectly still with its back to Dakota's friends still trying to unlock the faculty's doors. They did not see the final moment of surrender but they quickly knew it to be terribly true.
Breaking the tense silence was a devastating howl, a howl so horrible that those on the other side of the doors could virtually feel Dakota's vocal cords tearing from the strain!
But they were not Dakota's vocal cords, not anymore. Admit the heartbreak in the howl there was also energic exhilaration from a creature for the first time ever having total control. Saddened yet savory, it was the death of Dakota and the birth of the Dakotazoid!
The head on the twelve-foot tall-mutated body turned to see the teenagers, who except for Sam had stopped trying to open the door. The teenagers saw the face, but they didn't see Dakota. What they saw were leering red-yellow eyes coldly staring and an expression matching that of an animal, blank and reflective of a lessor mind slowly understanding.
While not showing an angry frown or revealed teeth, this blank expressionless face was even more disheartening to the teenagers. It confirmed in simple visual something they didn't want to admit…Dakota was not there anymore. Even Sam stopped trying to open the door at seeing the Dakotazoid's face, at not seeing Dakota in that face.
After staring at the human teenagers that were Dakota's friends for a few moments, the Dakotazoid turned its head towards the Haunted Forest. Gazing into its dark, uninviting nature, the Dakotazoid released a loud growl as it suddenly charged in between the trees.
In many a movie or video game, a moment such as this would be followed by a piece of blazing and bombastic music to celebrate a mighty force charging against another. This music and other such accompaniments would be meant to build some required tension before the epic release and radiant glory of the battle about to take place. And then there would be the requisite fight scene itself, a satisfying slugfest to amuse with its fantastical violence that never crossed the line of being so horrible that it wasn't entertaining. And this would lead to the already predetermined conclusion of good's triumph over the forces of evil!
This moment was not one of triumph. For all of the fireworks and savage spectacle that was about to take place, it was not something to be relished. All of the high-stakes action about to transpire was a sad and dire thing. Hanging over whatever was about to happen was the death of an innocent. Not in the matter of death which produces a corpse but a matter in which human sweetness is sacrificed to the savage, to the monster not human.
Two bodies stood with the quiet stillness of animal corpses surrounding them. But they were not among the dead in the cemetery. They were alive but on another plain of life. They were still in a spiritual connection, seeing and feeling the very essence of the other. This meant that one, a human, was in the aura and horrors of a monster not human. While the other, the monster not human was experiencing the human sweetness never known.
Though the pleasant pastures and friendly forests hadn't changed, to Mad Mikey they did. To the persona trapped for all of its existence in the darkness of night, they became even greater.
The plants had fresh dew; diamonds of perspiration on their green skins glistening like light on jade most rare and valuable. The fruits and flowers of the trees and bushes were at once many colors though hues golden and emerald shined the most. Everything seemed to shine now.
This was a whole brave new world, a world whose sight was all in stars. They were little stars, jewels of light that were forming luminous cobwebs and drifting through the air. They were the insects, normally repulsive but made wondrous by this place. And the most wonderful of all were the bees. They were jerking through the lustrous air as they carried both buzzing and the powered gold of the flowers that their hind legs were dipped in. Whereas the only buzzing Mad Mikey had ever known, the buzzing of flies, was heard when they were feeding on the dead and dying, this buzzing of the bees was the delivery of new life and beautiful life. And this new and beautiful life had a scent, filling the air with native perfumes, which spread with their odoriferous wings fanning and flapping.
The delights of this place drove away all of the demon's pains and woes with gentle gales in loving sunlight. All sadness save for despair, the despair was the strongest of the woes.
With despair still gripping it, Mad Mikey saw something unique in this place. Young and fresh tendrils, supple and green, were muscling there way over the bark of an aged tree, dark and rotten. At the same time, gnarled chinks of the trunk revealed other vines vibrant with new life that was budding out from the dark underbelly. Unable to decide if it was its own imagination or proof of this aura's lack of subtlety, the meaning was clear.
Was it to renounce its anger that would bring pains a billion fold upon the foe humanity as they were hurled into whichever tumultuous tundra and house of Hell they so chose? Or was Mad Mikey to place faith in a pathway strange and unknown known as love?
It never thought it would have been possible but Mad Mikey was truly torn by indecision. What it had seen and felt was more beautiful than it could have imagined. Even though nothing had changed, just being in the presence of this human love made it seem lessor. The devilish engine fueling Mad Mikey with a wrath beyond the limits of man actually began to recoil and stop, maybe for good. Doubts and concerns from its core rose.
The persona felt like it was at the morning of a new and better life. Mad Mikey had never seen the morning, the positive and loving. It knew of them but never had seen them before. Unlike the night…oh yes, it was well acquainted with the night. That night which had hidden so many things from Mad Mikey. It was born in it, raised in it, forsaken in it! That moss-draped mire and treaded path of twisting trees was so disdainful! All pathways lead by to it, the same inevitable destination. The forest, the night, the pain…by any name its all the same. But it was all that Mad Mikey knew! Within that disdainful realm was the only stability, it was so horrible but it was the only existence that it could identify with itself. Could Mad Mikey take a leap of faith in the hopes of something better? Could it even make any difference in the long run?
Would it truly be able to escape? As it had told Dawn earlier, Mad Mikey had itself become its own Hell. Was itself a Hell from which no deliverance could be given and no escape obtained? Maybe…but maybe not! With the power of one side already well known and the power of this other side now proven, maybe there was hope in love?
Maybe Paradise was not a place but a state of mind as well? Maybe Heaven and happiness could be carried and crafted in the mind in a manner matching Hell?
And it felt so good! The love felt so total and right!
It was rising like the phoenix in the chest of Mad Mikey, about to be reborn in beauty! But the positive hopes of love weren't the only thing that was rising within Mad Mikey.
As a conscience long since in death-like slumber began to stir…bitter realizations and memories did occur.
Despite the wonderful human emotions it was feeling in full, Mad Mikey knew something. It was not human. It was a sentient personality of another, twisted into something else entirely, into something terrible. It was something to be opposed and destroyed! Those were a few of the messages that were encrusted into its core. It was not human but so many other unloved things. A it. A thing. A plague. A tiger. A wolf. A dragon. A monster. A demi-god. A demon.
Demons shouldn't be happy, couldn't be happy. Demons couldn't love.Couldn't be loved!
Would Mad Mikey, a being who has breathed in nothing but the foulest of moral vapors, suddenly be able to get a lovely dovey with those who had brought so much pain on it? Would this demon be able to just forget all of its torment as if it never happened and didn't matter?
What human could or would truly care about and love a demon? Would any human apart from Dawn be truly able to give it compassion after the horrible things it had already done with plans for much worse?
As much as it hated to admit it, to expect humans to love it would be futile. And as Mad Mikey had told Dawn before this dialogue began, it did not believe in "pitiful notions of futility."
Instead, Mad Mikey would be condemned to a lessor Hell than it was in now…lessor but still a Hell. It would give and give in love without ever having its emotions returned!
And not only that, but even if some humans did somehow love it, would that be enough? Could the love of even six thousand humans balance out the pain from over six billion? It would be like saying an equation is balanced by there being one positive and one million negatives. Could the tiny difference between -1,000,000 and -999999 really be worth it? Could the full love of one truly save it from the horrors of the world entire? Likely no.
But maybe that wouldn't be so? Maybe it would still be best to take a leap of faith?
No, not again! It remembered too well the first time it had taken a leap of faith for a human with the promise of love as the price never paid. That's how it reached this horrid position in the first place. A leap of faith based in love, into a bottomless pit of enteral torment that now defined its existence and would never go away! That was the funny thing about faith, it can be wrong. It can go unrewarded. It had always amazed Mad Mikey how people rarely truly considered that notion, that for every sincerest of hopes was an unfulfilled reality because despite all the wishing there was nothing to back it up.
On top of all of those thoughts and realizations, others came as well. With great despair, Mad Mikey had made its choice. However one sided and unfair, it was still its choice.
Then it remembered Dawn, that foolish idealist suffering in the furnaces of Mikey's Hell. As it wondered if the Moonchild was diluted enough to still believe in some nobility, the demon traveled back into that nightmare. It traveled back to the way things truly were.
Still in the throngs of a pain and despair the likes of which she couldn't have imagined in her darkest dreams, Dawn was writhing in the absolute agony of the body and the soul. But then, the voices, those horrible human voices, suddenly stopped! Praying thankfully to the Great Earth Mother, Dawn stood up at long last and looked around this fearful and forsaken forest. She saw nothing new but she heard a voice she hadn't heard in what felt like literal ages. Dawn would soon have almost wished for the other voices to return. For Mad Mikey was about to express the other things it had realized while in Paradise.
"I know my time, my death, will come, likely by Mike's own hands under my control. That was my goal at first you know, to just kill Mike and myself so my pain would end." Mad Mikey's voice was heard saying to Dawn. The Moonchild still was able to notice that its voice was the same voice it had before she entered this Hell. It was Mike's voice with a woe filled electronically distorted monotone that had no growl twisted within its tone.
"But now before that time, before I leave this wretched existence for the soothing and cold embrace of nothingness, I'll have what has eluded me my entire existence." Within that single sentence, Mad Mikey's voice had changed. There was no longer any electronically distorted monotone. What replaced it were the faintest indicators of a raspy growl. But even so, it was a growl-like voice that was mournful and quiet.
"I'll not be forced to half-feel the taunting emotions of mankind, not be suffocated by the ever-present stink of your species' capacity for hypocrisy. In my final moments, the final moments of anything, I'll at long last find peace from humanity's emotional lies and my life of hollow reality." As those two sentences were spoken, Mad Mikey's voice changed yet again. The growl and raspy tone were far stronger, as if hesitating dormant no longer. But even so, there was still much sadness and less liveliness in this growl.
"My plan, the extermination of humanity, is all that I have. Punishment." With those words, the last of the fringes of the mournful sadness left the demon's voice in a whimper.
What would replace the whimper was a bang, a roaring raspy bass of a bang. A roaring growl voice like the most horrid of sounds bellowed forth from the deepest and darkest of Hells, fitting for realms that give unwanted increases in the knowledge about the depths of abomination by producing creatures that would tear the feathered wings from the purest of angels as a moment's respite from boredom and their own endured brutality!
"Punishment for Mike, Johnson, Zoey, and all of humanity for their part in my suffering! To give them but a small splinter from the cross which I had been nailed to for years by their hypocrisy and emotions! It is high time for someone, for something to make them all pay for all of their transgressions, petty or grand! To make them pay for every single horrendous action or thought that they could stop but chose not to while my suffering increased because of that even when it was greater than they could ever hope to understand! They could never hope to understand that because of them that I, for all of my god-like power, am reduced to a broken fallen angel who can only find some sense of solace in other's suffering! But they will understand! They will understand that they are all bastards and deserve to die too!"
At that moment, there was a flash! A flash of brightest green! Suddenly everything was being lost and engulfed by an infinite tide of nightmare ripples in emerald fathoms!
Dawn knew what this meant…Mad Mikey was returning to the physical plain with the intention of killing everything on Earth, starting with her! She knew she had only the space of a flash to return to her body from this cosmically immense miniature mental labyrinth of gnarled torments and boggy beginnings. Would a flash be enough time to escape both death and a current fate worse than death?
Back in the mutant graveyard once a cemetery, two orbs of most glowingly bright green flashed radiantly at the air thick with flies and the stench of death. The invisible tiger swapped its mighty, mocha-colored claw with the aim of adding to that sickening stench.
As the coffee colored claw that was really stolen human fingers cleaved through the air, contact was made! Something had been caught by fingernails covered in the blood and gore of this island's mutated creatures, was it their saint?
The demon examined its prize, darkly praying that it was a shredded Seraph. What it found was a piece of thick, dark green fabric flipping in the faint breeze. It was a piece of Dawn's dark green sweater. Mad Mikey then knew if it has just been a microsecond faster, Dawn would very likely have been split in half and found her blood mixing with the blood of beasts that she loved so much on the stained grass.
With anger and hurt from and for all, itself included, Mad Mikey shouted at the pretentious pixie. The demon shouted at humanity and its chosen path.
"Dawn! Feeble fairy! COME AND FACE ME! COME AND FACE THE TRUTH!"
Everything seemed to be oversaturated in overwhelming solemnness. There was nothing from which one could borrow a cease of sorrow, nothing to remove the stench of despair.
This despair overshadowed every action taken and filled the air as much as the sounds of every key that was being pressed by B. Like all of the others who had been there when Dakota became the Dakokazoid (Sam, Cameron, Zoey, Brick), the Mute by Choice had gone to the room where this faculty's camera feed was collected and stored. Finding themselves joined by Dr. Johnson, Anna Maria, and Jo (the last one was only there because she had been looking for B and Cameron due to her discovering that they were not working on the battle armor), other teenagers and the adult waited with a sense of foreboding behind B. After this terrible turn of events with Dakota, everybody had one overpowering concern and question. They all had to know why Dakota would do such a thing, why she willingly became the Dakotazoid?
As B was searching through the recorded footage to find the entry that he had seen earlier, everyone else looked at each other in saddened silence. No one there could have in a million years have expected this turn of events. Most of them were well aware of the great and terrible pain even the thought of transforming had on Dakota. But not only had she transformed but the Dakotazoid actually ran off (it was assumed) after Mad Mikey!
After a few minutes of searching for a second time, B finally found the video he was looking for. He found the last Confessional entry left by Dakota, possibly the last ever.
B pressed the last needed key. And then…those in this room were face to face with Dakota. They were face to face with the truth, whatever that may be!
CONFESSIONAL
(Static)
"Hi, everyone. If you are watching this, then it means I must have succeeded in transforming into the Dakotazoid. You're all likely wondering why I did this.
"Well, after Zoey was attacked by that panicked mob and Jo was making a plan of attack, I realized some things. I realized that we all could die today, that my friends could die today. I realized that even though I know there are some really smart cookies at work, there's no guarantee that Jo's battle armor could be made in time to stop Mad Mikey. I realized that even if it is finished in time, Mad Mikey might be too powerful by then to be stopped. None of those options can happen and I realized the only way to make sure they don't is to attack and stop Mad Mikey now. As the Dakotazoid." Dakota explained, hoping to articulate fully her reasoning in the hope that her friends would understand.
Though most listening didn't want to admit it, Dakota's reasoning was very sound. None of them, not even Cameron or Dr. Johnson, had any way of knowing how powerful Mad Mikey might become when the battle armor was fully built and ready for combat. By that point it could already be too late and Mad Mikey could kill them all with horrific ease.
"I assure you that this was not a easy decision for me and its not one that I look forward to. I probably shouldn't say this but I must, I've thought of all of the possibilities at play. If the Dakotazoid is unable to defeat Mad Mikey within an hour, I'll become me again and will…" Dakota said before pausing, clearly unable to say that she would die. Moving on, she continued her explanation, "If the Dakotazoid does manage to beat Mad Mikey, I fear I'll likely be repressed forever. I know there's that sixty-minute fail-safe but what if the Dakotazoid proves to be like Mad Mikey and is able to transcend bodily limitations? We've never seen what would happen if the Dakotazoid was in control for more than a few minutes because Dawn was always there to bring me back to control. And if that doesn't happen, if the fail safe works, then it will likely result in the first option."
At bringing up that again, the first option that Dakota couldn't say out loud, the former fame-hog paused. Her green eyes reflected the most basic of humanity's fears. As those emeralds shined in frightened radiance, Dakota stopped giving her logical reasons and starting giving her personal motivations, the real reasons why she was going to do this.
"I'm more frightened than I have ever been before in my life. There are two paths before me. One course of action presents itself, and it horrifies me. But then I think of those who have helped me since I've been here. And how they had to be frightened but they still did everything they could for me. B, Brick, Cameron, Dawn, Zoey, and…and…Sam. You all have done more for me than you could ever know. It's about time for me to do something for all of you, my only true friends.
"Cameron, please make sure that you and B don't stop working on the battle armor. Even if I…fail, I'll hopefully have brought you guys enough time to finish it. I know you must be feeling guilty again but remember; everything I said earlier today is true." Dakota said with calm and certain clarity before showing a massive smile on her face as she added, "And cheer up, Mr. Cutie Pie! When this is all over, promise me that you'll reach out to one of those fan girls of yours that I showed you and start sucking face instantly!"
Dakota started to laugh a little, clearing trying to find some small happiness at this most daunting of moments for her. Finding the atmosphere in the room so tense, many of those watching couldn't help but laugh a little bit as well. It was a brief reprieve from a situation had just become a lot more emotionally difficult for just about everyone there.
The quick change of expression on Dakota's face from joy-filled smile to saddened frown highlighted just how brief of a reprieve the laughter truly was. Trying to fight this frown but failing, Dakota resumed talking. Whether it was because of the small release of her laughter or because of not wanting to forget it, Dakota voiced some of her deepest fears.
"Though I'm very afraid of…afraid of, um, losing the fight, or losing control of my body, those are not my greatest fears. Even if I don't, uh, you know, I can't be sure I'll ever see Sam again with my own eyes. I might never be able to talk to him or feel him ever again. But even those possibilities don't hurt as much as me not being able to see Sam right now. He would try to talk me out of this. Believe me when I say, I never wanted to be this cruel to Sam by not telling him. There's no other way but by God I wish there was another!" Dakota said, then she took a deep breath and heavy sigh before adding, difficultly, "Just in case I…do-don't…I don't…c-come back…Sam…my Sammy Whammy…"
At hearing that silly nickname between young lovers, that marker of human innocence, Sam looked at the screen with even greater focus. From that point onward, nothing else existed to the gamer. There was only the voice of the most amazing girl ever. It was a voice that had taken a brief pause for this was the hardest part, saying goodbye to Sam.
"If your watching this, please know that you've been the best thing that's ever happened to me. Before I met you I was just a sad, lonely little rich girl who had been trying to convince herself that she wasn't for years because that was easier.
"Then I met you. I admit at first I didn't think that much of you. But then I began to see your dedication, your kindness, your sincerity…and I began to see things differently.
"For the first time in my life, I felt something for someone else. I truly felt something. I found myself actually wanting to help others, to help you. To be with you. And I've loved every single minute of it. Even with my mutation, our time together was amazing.
"Why, when I finally beat a level in that game with those plumbers I…" Dakota said before pausing for a second while smiling at remembering such a happy memory and then continuing with the matters of the present, "…that…it, it doesn't matter right now.
"No, that's not true. In a way, I guess it does. That's what makes you so great, Sammy! Even when I was horrible at it so many times, your opinion of me didn't become any less.
I finally didn't have to be a prefect little princess for someone else, I didn't have to endlessly question if I was pretty enough or good enough.
"You loved me for me."
With that, Dakota stood up and took a few paces forward. She then bent down so her face was directly in front of the camera. With eyes starting to get watery but a wavering smile on her face, Dakota then whispered something to the camera. It was so difficult but it needed to be said. This would likely be the last chance she would ever get.
"And…I…I love you for it. I love you."
Overcome with emotion, the girl with green eyes and blond hair kissed the camera, a surrogate for Sam. Standing up, Dakota said two last words before leaving the Confessional to travel down a path that likely wouldn't lead to the one she loved.
"Goodbye Sam."
Hearing the sobs of regret, the camera documented the girl leaving its stationary sight. Pink lipstick was still smeared on its lens. As removable as the girl who made it and as bright as the love that created it.
(Static)
END OF CONFESSIONAL
As the bright pink was transformed into the shapeless bits of black and white static, its crackling was the only sound heard. Everyone else were displaying expressions that varying from shock to sadness. Many of those who watched Dakota's confession were friends of hers and it was hard for them to fully process everything that had happened. Even Jo and Anna Maria, two people who never thought much about Dakota one way or the other, were taken aghast and actually moved, however little, by the recorded footage.
But no one was more taken aghast and shocked than Sam. The gamer had stayed exactly as he was, not moving even an inch. As his black eyes behind glass just stared at the screen, they were developing an increasing resemblance to aquarium tanks as they were becoming watery. As what would very shortly form tears shifted in between his eyes and his glasses, Sam barely heard it. He barely heard his name being said.
Turning his head, Sam was that his friends were all looking at him, likely realizing how this affected him more than anyone else. And indeed he was. After that, other sounds were heard but the gamer didn't notice them. He tried to speak but no words would come.
He didn't scream, he didn't yell. The sadness he felt was too absolute, too deep and total, for such petty actions to be of any relevance. Even crying now would be too petty an action. Instead, Sam did something so simple but so soul-shattering to the others there. Truly feeling like the still living dead in any of the zombie games he normally loved, Sam just slowly started walking away from the others and out of the room.
As for the second time today his friends saw Sam in a state where they couldn't help him, the now gloomy gamer left the to be by himself with his deepest despair…and tears.
Not that far away from Mad Mikey, Dawn began walking back to the Milton Medical Faculty.
Rather than looking at the trees and bushes around her, she saw the future. And like Cassandra of Troy, that future she saw was a horrible one.
The Dakotazoid fights against Mad Mikey. The Dakotazoid and Dakota are dead. Jo fights against Mad Mikey. Jo is dead. Zoey is cornered by Mad Mikey. Zoey is dead. Mike loses the will to live. Mike is dead. The island explodes. Dawn, her friends, and everyone else on the island are dead. Mad Mikey releases its anger on the world Dawn loves with all of her heart. The world is dead. Mad Mikey kills itself. Mad Mikey is dead.
Everything…DEAD!
Dawn said no words, save for one, which she spoke more as a deep breath.
"No."
This lamentation was two-fold. For as Dawn already knew, the future is a fork in the road, it is two totally different yet connected possible truths until a choice brings one into existence. And after that, a new fork was formed from the void left by the previous one. Creating an almost infinite variety of possible futures and outcomes based on every possible choice or prospect.
Though it was a long walk, Dawn didn't notice. Two sentences had sent themselves on a continuous loop in her mind.
'There is only one other way this can end. I wish there was another.'
While she kept walking, those words and the horrible prophecies spilled from head to heart as if they were black ink on white cloth.
Impossible to remove.
For the first time ever, Dawn did not know which way the wind would blow.
For all of the complexities and intricacies, the many forked roads lead to one place.
No matter which course the future took, it would be one filled with fire…and tears.
"So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost.
Evil, be thou my good." –John Milton's Paradise Lost
Wow…there was significantly less sunshine and a greatly noticeable lacking of lollipops then I thought there would be! Moving on, there's a lot to cover here.
Let's start with the most important thing of all…the next few chapters are likely going to take a very long time to write and post here. There are many (mainly three) reasons as to why and I shall explain them all whether you want me to or not.
Firstly, unlike these first seven chapters, in which I had more or less everything in mind that had to be shown and covered, the sequence of things in the next few chapters is pretty vague. Don't get me wrong, I have at least a decent idea of the major things that happen in the next two or more chapters: Dawn dealing with her failure, Cameron and B building the battle armor, the Dakotazoid fighting Mad Mikey, and most importantly of all, the start of the major development for both Mike and Zoey. Now that Mad Mikey and the situation are almost fully established, I can really get into the particular struggles and torments of the main characters! So what will hold things up here is perfecting and fully thinking out the sequence of events and the development of the two most important of the story's contestants.
Secondly, there's the question of rating. Two things in the upcoming chapters and the remainder of the story will force me to really question either I can keep this story rated T or if I have to change its rating to M. The first of these is the violence. Starting in the next chapter, we will see Mad Mikey fighting the Dakotazoid and given the power of these beings it will be a long and pain-filled battle. As you likely know, I write with great detail and I would feel compelled to write the violence with the same amount of detail as everything else in this story. As I said after Dakota transformed, violence is normally presented as something horrible but not too horrible because its entertaining. This is simply not the truth, violence is a gruesome thing, and I would feel hypocritical if I didn't show that. The second thing is that this story is heading to truly dark places. I won't spoil how but let's just say that if you thought these first seven chapters were dark…you haven't seen anything yet! But I must stress that while things will get much darker, it is not merely for its own sake. While it will make things more dramatic, it is my deepest hope that the darkness doesn't come off as gratuitous or cheap. Instead, my aim is for the increased darkness to be realistic, intelligent, and believable within the context.
Thirdly, a few days before posting this chapter I applied to graduate school. If I get accepted, it would likely be a month or so before classes actually started. However, once graduate school does start, my time and energy to commit to this story will be greatly lessened. I will likely not be able to write another chapter before starting graduate school because of the two others said above happening at the same time.
And now for those four marked points!
(1) While I know that the main model for Dawn was Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series, the biggest influence for Dawn in this story was the Mahatma, Mohandas K. Gandhi. Many of the statements and ideas in the two paragraphs before this "(1)" were either based on people writing about Gandhi or based on writings from Gandhi himself. If you don't know who Gandhi is, I'll very briefly say here who he is. Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the struggle to grant India independence from Great Britain. By perfecting and mastering the art of non-violent protest, he defeated the most powerful empire in the world without armed rebellion. His techniques and beliefs were copied and used to great effect by Martin Luther King Jr. for the Civil Rights Movement in America during the 1960s. But there is so much more to Gandhi than just that.
To show this, here is a quote from Albert Einstein, a man who was pen pals with and a massive admirer of the Mahatma: "Mahatma Gandhi's life achievement stands unique in political history. He has invented a completely new and humane means for the liberation war of an oppressed country, and practised (error in original letter) it with greatest energy and devotion. The moral influence he had on the consciously thinking human being of the entire civilized world will probably be much more lasting than it seems in our time with its overestimation of brutal violent forces. Because lasting will only be the work of such statesmen who wake up and strengthen the moral power of their people through their example and educational works. We may all be happy and grateful that destiny gifted us with such an enlightened contemporary, a role model for the generations to come. Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood."
(2) Now, about the many horrible statements that torment Dawn in Mikey's aura. Some of these are references to movies, books, or video games. Some are original bits written by me. But, more importantly, others are either direct or slightly edited quotations from real serial killers, murderers, corruption politicians and businessmen, rapists, criminals, psychopaths, and violent revolutionaries. As to which are which, that's for you to guess.
(3) The cat and dog in this scene, Blondie and Raven, are my actual pets! And this situation, where Blondie is on my lap and Raven comes by for attention is one that happens way too often. They can be little pests sometimes but I love them so much! :)
(4) For those of you who might not know, Dawn's final design was extremely different from her original design. The only thing they really had in common was the pale skin. Even her name wasn't the same…Dawn was originally Molly! So I thought it would be fitting to have the original design be the model for her mother. Also, for some reason I thought of Dawn's dad being very Geoff-like, sweet but not that bright.
I write this last part both because I've been dying to mention it for some time now and as a way to show that despite the likely long space of time between this chapter and the next one, that I am working on and fully committed to this story. I have so many reasons for wanting to write this story but one of the largest is to just make a great story that just happens to be a Total Drama fan-fiction. It has been a goal of mine from the beginning to do with this story what the movies "Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan" and "The Dark Knight" did for their respective film franchises. And what exactly is that? Simply this: taking the tools and characters from a pre-established property and then adding to it with inspiration taken from good classic stories along with a dark quasi-realism that respects the reader's intelligence. I can only hope that I've actually done those things otherwise I will very likely come off as a pretentious jerk with his head firmly forced up his own backside! You decide! :)
As I said, I can't say with any certainly when the next chapter will come but it will likely be a while, likely much longer than the space in time between any chapters so far. But be assured that I am working on this story and it will be glorious, hopefully!
So until then please: read, review, alert, favor, and spread the word!
