I'm a little pressed for time, but I promised you guys another chapter and I try to keep promises!

Guide for the chapter:

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this is a dream this is a dream this is a dream this is a dream this is a dream

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That's about it.

-…

Transformers: The Eye of Icarus

Chapter Eight: Fragments

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I have listened to him when he whispered into my ear; he told me of many things when he had the chance to speak.

Her nails dug into the wood of the doorframe, trying to think how this could have happened: she had parked the car outside and had left if locked to go inside. She might have had a shoddy memory at times, but not THAT bad at remembering where she put things, definitely not something as large as a car. There was no way that someone could have gotten into the car, let alone be kind enough to drive it into the garage for her. They would have gotten into the house to open the garage door and she had already gone through the house and found no one. Nothing about this was making sense. What if her car was possessed? Ghost stories and anything involving spirits was something she avoided like the plague, but right now that was only thing that was making sense in the event she was wrapped up in now.

"That isn't possible! You're just a car." Fumbling to comfort herself, her mind was running but no explanation could click into place. Sitting down on the steps beneath her, she rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on while she kept an eye on the silent car. "Should I even attempt to understand Sideswipe? I feel like I shouldn't bother and just play this off as a bad memory. What do you think?"

Silence (of course) from the car, but she definitely could feel the mood.

"All right, I won't tell if you don't tell anyone if I went through my uncle's study. Deal?"

Silence, but the mood had changed to a lighter, less oppressive in feeling.

"I'm going back inside and taking a nap because you gave me a headache."

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Dreams were always strange to Gloria. They could flow along smoothly like they were going down a river. The next moment they could shatter into a thousand pieces like delicate porcelain without a single warning on her end. It could open a whole world to her with the pieces falling down to her like large flakes of snow and snuff it out like a blown-out candle. This time the world came to her like smoke curling upwards from that same candle, bringing soft grays to paint the world before her. A ship. Not one from the ocean, but a space ship. It seemed abandoned from what was visible. There was no noise in the dream as she moved around the large main deck she was at, putting her on alert. For some reason, something had been done to one of the walls beforehand, but she couldn't quite remember why and for what. Alarmingly, the ship lurched to the side, being shaken from the outside to send her to her knees. Vaguely, softer shaking of the ground announced that someone was coming to her. She lifted her head to look down the hall, but was thrown to the ground again. A hand wrapped around her upper arm, pulling her up to her feet. She turned to look at who had done helped her up-

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Her eye shot open, revealing the darkness of the guest room. Slowly, she sat up in her bed and looked at the alarm clock placed on the bedside table- 02:55 in the morning. Groaning, she allowed herself to fall back into her pillow. Of all the times to wake up! Why did it always happen when something interesting was about to go down? Yet, something didn't feel right. To be precise, she didn't feel that well. She felt ill. How she even made it to the bathroom before she threw up was a true miracle.

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The shaking of the ship was worse now that she was walking, heading to the heart of the ship. There was no one with her again, but she needed no direction. Pulled by something unseen, her eyes fell on a small emergency latch that was on the floor. Hovering over it, she kneeled down and turned it, opening it to the outside. Taking one look at the surrounds, she stepped through the hole and began to free-fall. The stars glittered agains the black velvet of space, distracting her from her goal momentarily. Why couldn't the stars fight instead of her? Seeing another ship enter her vision, she turned towards it and somehow began to make her way over, pushed by something unseen. An object dropped from the enemy ship, approaching her as well. Her mouth moved silently, desperate to finish something. Before she had to worry about the enemy, she reached up with her hand and went for her eye, determined to tear it out as a final piece of hope that somehow, someday the ship would-

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"Oh, my poor niece. You need to stay home today, and I don't care if you have any previous engagements today; you need to rest after last night in case it flares again. I hope you aren't going to have to spend the rest of your week being ill." Her aunt fluttered by her beside, feeling her forehead to see if it was warm again. Gloria kept her eyes closed, trying to keep the light at bay so her head wouldn't start pounding again. She had been ill for about four hours last night, throwing up and suffering from a high fever. In the early morning her fever broke and her vomiting subsided enough to let her crawl back into bed to deal with the sudden headache. Her aunt was diligent to attend her beside, ready to provide comfort when possible to her niece. It was two hours later and she had to leave for work, but she was trying to make sure that Gloria had everything she needed for the day by herself. "Will you be okay if I leave you?" Aunt Katherine asked for the final time: Gloria remained silent but gave her a diver's 'okay' hand signal to express herself. Gently patting her niece's shoulder, she slipped from the room and left the house to leave her.

Stuffing a pillow over her face, Gloria spent the next few hours in between being wide awake and asleep, exhausted from her illness that had left her. She drank and ate very little that her aunt had left her, but it did seem to help her. Her headache was an entirely different matter though. It seemed that it would go away when she was on her back with the pillow over her head, but sitting up or taking the pillow off of her face was what caused the pain to spike and have the hammer strike against the back of her head. Sometime during the afternoon, the headache disappeared. Slowly coming out of her sick daze, she sat up in bed and walked to the window of her room, peering outside to see rain falling from dark clouds overhead. I guess the weather gave me the headache… Sighing, the blinds fell over the window as she retreated back to her bed to get out of her pajamas and into regular clothes. Crouching down to pick up her discarded socks, her attention was drawn to something hidden under the bed. Reaching under, she pulled out what she found to be her spare notebook that was used to keep her thoughts in check before going to bed or remembering something. Frowning, her eye examined the pages carefully as she flipped through the notebook. What is this? She silently asked, horrified at what was before her. Her hands began to feel around under the bed once more, trying to find something else to connect the pages inside it to reality. Fingers grasped at string and a stubby stick that was thrown farther under the bed. Examining the two newest objects in her hand, she felt like she was going to be sick. She needed to tell someone, but whom?

…..

"Okay, so let me establish this first before I go any further," Gloria pointed to her car while she stuffed the other hand in her jacket to stay warm in the garage, "I am not insane, alright? I am just talking to you Sideswipe, and you can't judge whether I am crazy or not. After all, you aren't the one who judges me on the outside world where insanity is frowned upon." From under her arm she pulled out the notebook and held it before him. "You see this? I usually keep this around with me because I sometimes need to write something down in the middle of the night before I forget in the morning. Whatever, that isn't important. The important thing is this: I wrote something down in this book last night. The whole book from cover to cover. Let's see, I think the cover says how many pages- no, I can't read it because I covered it." She showed the cover to the car, smeared symbols scrawled all over it. "I don't remember doing this last night, but get this." She rummaged through her pockets and pulled out a pile of string. "See this? This is what remains of a china marker. Er, it's a grease pencil, whatever. Writes on almost any surface. Pull the string, the pencil provides more to write with. I used a whole one of these last night. And a half." She pulled out the remaining stub and showed it to the car. "See? But it doesn't make sense, how could I have written this much in fours hours when I was sick the rest of the night? I mean, my aunt watched over me the rest of the night and would have seen it happening."

She started flipping through the pages, each one filled with the symbols. She kept pacing in front of the car, nerves on edge. "I can tell that this has to be some kind of word because there are six symbols that keep repeating themselves. I think… I mean, I can write them just fine it seems like. I can't read them, but I also can't write them now. I've tried and I'm glad you weren't there to see the failing. I think this might have happened another night too because the first page has the symbols written in blue pen. Oh, what do I do?" She finally stopped and sat down, leaning against the tire of the car and looked up. She flipped through the pages carefully. "I think… this is because of the eye Sideswipe. I didn't have a problem before the eye or when I had it in. Isn't something like this supposed to happen in sci-fi flicks that I watch with Alexei?"

The car said nothing of course, but its presence eased her psyche. "Maybe you're right… maybe there is something about that eye. Like a residual signal that still lets me somehow write those symbols but not see them. But that's crazy, something like that can't happen. Oh God, what if this happens again tonight? I guess I should buy more notebooks in case it happens again tonight." Despite the stern warnings she had received earlier that her aunt had given, she went out to town to purchase more notebooks and chinese markers.

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So there she was once more, floating in the nothing of space. The enemy was gone, destroyed from the encounter with her. She watched the remains fall into the atmosphere of the world below her, burning to ashes in its state. The ship that had attacked had fallen shortly after into what seemed to be an ocean. Her own ship had fallen as well, gracefully plunging into the atmosphere and puncturing collections of precipitation as it made its way to the snow-covered north in a mountainous area. Now she was alone, allowed to dwell on things past, present, and future. There were a lot of 'hopes' running around in her mind. Hope that the ship of hers would be found. That the eye made it into the atmosphere alright. Hope that her crew members had survived the impact after ordering them into stasis. The silence was still here, but it was peaceful now. The stars offered their company to her, twinkling like the purest of crystals to her. Vaguely, a smile came to her fading existence. There, in the brief stasis procedure, she began to feel the planet's pull, dragging her down. The black of space and white of stars faded to color. Yellow. Orange. Red. White. Blue. Violet. It didn't hurt, no, not in the least. Sound and pain were gone from her, and sight would be too with her conscious. The colors faded as she continued to fall to her destination, wherever it was to be-

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Gloria woke up the next morning with her right arm stuck to her sheets, thick with dried blood. Painfully, she went to work peeling the sheets off of her skin, knowing that she would have to hurry to try and salvage the sheets. It took her a moment to realize what was wrong with her room and gasped in horror. The walls. The walls were scrawled with the same six symbols over and over again. Even the ceiling was scrawled with it. The two notebooks she had purchased had the papers ripped out of the spine lay scattered on the floor, filled as well.

"What's happening to me?" She murmured, getting out of bed and walking over scattered pencils and pens that were on the carpeted floor. Hyperaware, she heard the door start to open that announced her aunt's arrival. Flying over debris and crayons, she slammed it shut. "Hey!," Aunt Katherine shouted, "just what the hell was that Gloria?" Gloria suddenly felt sick. "Um," she stammered to try and think of a lie, "sorry, I'm naked right now." The door opened a crack and they made eye contact.

"Gloria, you're wearing a shirt-"

"I have no pants on." She inserted, trying to get her to go away.

"Gloria." Her aunt warned.

"Aunt Katherine." She pleaded.

"Move away from this door or I will break it down in five seconds." Gloria looked down and conceded. Her aunt barged in, but stopped short when she saw the walls. Her aunt was gaping as she looked around, head turning to see each wall on her own terms. Gloria kept her head down, trying to avoid seeing her aunt's expression. "Well," her aunt stiffened, stranding straight and turned to Gloria. "You've given me the right excuse to finally re-paint the walls of the this room. It was getting a bit stuffy." She walked over the curtains and pulled them back to let the sunlight in, symbols were scrawled on the glass as well. "Look, the sun is out today." Musing over her observation, her eyes turned back to her niece. "Well, I don't know about you, but I have a rather busy day ahead of me. I'll let you work on your own errands." She walked up to her niece and put her hands on her shoulders. "Maybe there is someone you need to call someone." She gave her a knowing look and walked out and down the hall.

Gloria ran to the bathroom and ran her arm under the water, flinching at her exposed nerves hit warm water and soap. Only when the blood was washed away did she see that she had carved the symbols into her forearm.

Ta-dah! Another chapter as promised. I hope this gives you guys enough of a cliffhanger to try and make you wanting more chapters! As I said before, I'll most likely be off of the Internet for the next week, so there won't be any more updates until the following weekend. BUT I WILL WRITE YES TO KEEP THIS GOING.

Now, if you excuse me, I need to pack. R & R!

-Mika