Dreamers Awaken
Alex sat thinking on the edge of her bed. She had
finally been released from the hospital, but she wasn't feeling great. She found
that she was tired and when she walked, she stumbled slightly. Her thoughts were
interrupted by a soft knock at her door.
"Hey, Alex, are you ready to go?" Nick asked. Alex
nodded carefully, and he came over and held her arm.
Alex smiled at him, and said, "Thanks." She shut her
eyes momentarily, and Nick looked at her concerned.
You ok?" He asked, guiding her back down to the bed.
She nodded, and opened her eyes.
"Yes. I'm fine, thanks. Just stood up too fast, that's
all." She told him, then stood up more carefully. They walked down the hall, and
Nick pressed the button for the elevator.
The silver doors parted, and Alex watched in horror as
an old woman dressed in black lunged out at her, a knife gleaming in her
upraised hand.
"Alex?" she heard Nick's voice and felt his hand on
her shoulder. She turned, and collapsed into his arms.
*
Nick paced back and forth in front of the examining
table where Alex was laying, waiting for the doctor to come back from wherever
he had gone. He heard footsteps behind him, and spun, prepared to attack anyone
who seemed threatening. He relaxed as he recognized Derek.
"What happened?" He asked curtly.
"I don't know. We were waiting on the elevator, and
she looked really spaced out, like she was having a vision. Then she turned
around and collapsed into my arms. Frightened the hell out of me, that's for
sure. The doctor went to get something or other."
Derek nodded, as the doctor came back in. "So what's
wrong with her?" he asked the man.
"I don't know. There doesn't seem to be anything
seriously wrong with her, but we'll run some more tests." The doctor replied,
and he walked over to the bed. He pulled out a needle from his pocket, and began
to put it to her arm.
"What's that?" Nick interrupted the doctor's motion,
glaring suspiciously at the syringe.
"Relax, Mr. Boyle, it's just a sugar solution. I put a
drop of her blood on a glucosometer and it showed that her blood sugar levels
are very low. It's possible that is why she collapsed." The doctor explained
calmly. Derek nodded and the doctor injected the murky solution into her
arm.
Derek pulled Nick out to the hallway. "Nick, I know
you're worried about her, but let the doctor do his job."
Nick looked askance at the older man. "I don't know
him or his intentions. I will protect her, Derek. I would do the same for you,
Rachel, or Kat."
"I know. But sometimes you have to trust that not
everyone in the world is out to get you." Derek smiled wanly, and went back into
the room.
*
Meanwhile at the Corrigan house:
"No, Kat, you cannot go to a Halloween party next
week." Rachel told her daughter, who'd come home with an invitation to a party
at her classmate Melissa's house.
"Why not? Don't you trust me?" Kat whined, and her
mother sat down at the dining room table, pulling a chair out next to her for
Kat.
She gestured at the table, and Kat sat down. "Of
course I trust you, Kitty Kat. But how well do you know Melissa or any of the
other girls that will be at that party?"
"They're just normal kids, mom! Come on! Melissa has
been in my class for the last 2 years. Everyone's gonna be there! Come on,
please!" Kat pleaded.
Her mother sighed, "Well, are her parents going to be
there?"
"Yes. Please!" Kat reiterated.
"Ok, but under one condition. You have to clean your
bedroom back up. It looks like a pigsty! " Rachel told her, and Kat jumped
up.
"Thanks mom! I'll go clean it right now!" she replied,
and ran up the stairs.
"I just hope I don't regret it later," Rachel
muttered.
Her imagination's version of everything that could
happen was interrupted by her cell phone. "Rachel Corrigan."
"Hey, Rachel, you need to come to the hospital. We
were leaving and Alex fell unconscious." Nick hurriedly explained.
"I'll be right there." she replied, and went to get
Kat's jacket. "Kat!" she shouted upstairs, "Come on, we gotta go!"
*
Rachel rushed out of the elevator on the ICU floor,
her tan jacket billowing around her. She caught sight of Derek standing right
outside Alex's room, and rushed over to him. Kat followed calmly. Derek quickly
filled her in on what had occurred.
Kat listened trying to understand. {So Alex collapsed
after she saw something. What did she see?} "Derek, any idea what Alex saw?" she
asked quietly.
Derek shook his head, "No." Kat looked in through the
window at Alex's unconscious form.
"Can I go in there?" she asked gently, and her mom
nodded as she and Derek went to speak with the doctor, who had just come back
with some more test results. Kat walked into the room, and stood a few feet away
from the bed where Nick was watching Alex closely. "Into Alex's mind I go, to
see what she saw that I may know. Safe and sound we'll both return, and the
truth then be learned." She felt herself whirling and being sucked into Alex, as
her body fell to the ground, unoccupied.
*
Nick heard a thud from behind him, and spun to see Kat
lying on the floor. "Kat?" he ran over to the unconscious girl. He looked
around, and spotted Rachel and Derek standing outside. "Rachel, Derek, come
here, Now!" he shouted.
The two ran in, followed by the doctor. Rachel saw her
daughter immediately, and rushed over to her. "What happened?"
"I don't know. I was looking at Alex, I didn't even
know she'd come in, and I heard a thud. I turned and saw her laying there." He
shook his head.
"Kat, Kat, honey wake up." Rachel shook her daughter's
shoulders.
*
Kat found herself standing in the castle's control
room. Alex sat at the terminal, oblivious to Kat's presence. The young girl
walked over to her friend. "Alex, come on. You have to come back with
me."
Alex turned and looked at Kat, her face tearstained. A
knife poked out of her chest, just above the breastbone. "What are you doing
here, Kat?"
"I came here to help you. What happened?" Kat asked,
pointing at the wound.
"A woman attacked me and stabbed me." Alex began
crying. "I was so scared, I couldn't even defend myself. I came
here."
"Alex, no one attacked you, at least not in the real
world. Alex, take my hand, and we'll go back."
Another Kat appeared, and ran over to Alex. "Alex,
stop! That's not me!" Alex looked back and forth at both Kats.
"Don't listen to her, Alex. She's not real. She's
trying to trick you!" the first Kat told her, calmly.
"She's the one who's not real. Come with me, Alex,
please!" the second Kat pleaded. Alex looked at the two girls, confused and
frightened.
"Alex, trust me." "No, trust me" "Come with me!" "No,
with me!" the girls voices merged in a cacophony of noise, each trying to
persuade Alex to hold her hand. Alex pushed her hands over her ears, trying to
drown out the voices. "ENOUGH!" she shouted, and the two girls fell silent. "OK,
which one of you is the real Kat?"
"I am!" both girls exclaimed
simultaneously.
Alex realized she wouldn't make any progress this way,
then said, "Ok, one at a time." she pointed at the Kat who had just appeared,
and asked, "How did you get here?"
"It doesn't matter. We're loosing time." the second
Kat figure told her.
"I know how I got here, Alex. I did a spell, to find
out what had happened and to get you back." The first Kat answered, and Alex
looked at her. She smiled proudly, and said, "Now can we go? Everyone's really
worried about you."
Alex reached over and held Kat's hand tightly, as the
world around them dissolved and spun.
*
"Kat, come on... I think she's waking up." Kat heard
her mother's voice, and opened her eyes. "Kat, what happened?"
She groaned as she sat up, "I'm ok, I just had to go
for a moment." They looked at her confused. "I rescued Alex."
"Ugh..." They turned to Alex. Derek walked over to her
bedside. She looked up at him, and rasped, "It's ok, she's telling the truth."
She felt cautiously at the area of her chest where the woman had stabbed her,
and said, "That woman tried to kill me again."
Kat had stood up, and came over. "Alex had seen the
old woman, the one I had told you about. She stabbed her in the vision. Alex
thought it was real, and passed out." She looked at Derek "We have to stop her,
Derek. She won't stop until she kills Alex."
*
That evening, they released Alex and the group went
back to the house. Derek and Nick went to the control room, while Rachel took
Alex upstairs to her room. "Really, Rachel, I'm not tired." Alex whined,
petulantly.
"Tired or not, your body is still recovering and you
need to sleep. Now, lay down and rest." Rachel ordered maternally.
Alex lay down on her bed, "Fine, but I'm still not
tired," she yawned. Rachel smiled at her friend, and pulled the blanket up to
her shoulders.
Kat stood behind her mom, and smiled at Alex. "Sleep
tight, Alex." she laughed. Alex smiled wearily, and Kat and Rachel left, closing
the door part way behind them.
*
Rachel went into the control room, pausing only
momentarily for the retinal scan. The viewing screen showed the old woman. "So
what have you found out?" she asked.
"It turns out that she's been trying to destroy the
Legacy for almost it's entire recorded existence. First recorded instance is
around 200 bc. A young precept was killed by one of the old women of the village
of Noscrat, Germany. They killed her and imprisoned her spirit in a box, but the
box was lost around the turn of this century. It reappeared in the local museum
two months ago, broken in half." Nick informed them.
"I guess in all the confusion this wouldn't have
thrown up a red flag in the legacy database." Rachel sighed.
Suddenly a scream echoed out through the house. They
ran out of the control room. Rachel's first thought was Kat, but then the scream
came again, from Alex's bedroom.
Derek and Nick bounded up the stairs, and Rachel
followed behind. Derek threw open the door, to see Alex sitting erect in her
bed, a look of total horror on her face.
"Alex, what is it?" Derek asked, rushing over to
enfold her in his arms.
She sobbed and shivered against his body. She slowly
gained control of her breathing again, and said, "It was that dream again, but I
remember this time. God, where's Kat?" she exclaimed.
Rachel looked around, frightened. "I think she went to
the kitchen to get something to eat." The group rushed down the stairs, and
skidded to a stop in the kitchen.
The woman held Kat by the throat, a knife pressing
into her tender skin. "Mom!" Kat whimpered, and the woman pressed the knife in
harder.
"Let her go" Rachel shouted, infuriated.
"No. I will teach this child to try to stop
me!" the woman's form shifted and seemed to warp and mesh, the woman and demon
at once, red scales blazing under her translucent skin. She pressed the knife
into Kat's throat, and red jewels of blood spurted out.
"NO!" Rachel shrieked, and made a shoving motion with
her arms. The woman went flying out the open door.
Nick and Derek chased her, guns drawn. Rachel rushed
over to her daughter, who was gasping and bleeding on the floor. She grabbed a
towel, and pressed it to Kat's throat. It was soaked through within moments, and
Rachel grabbed more, all the while trying to assure her panicking daughter that
she would be ok.
*
The woman's figure flew down the path. Nick shot at
her, but the bullets just went through her. She laughed a wild, demented sound.
They reached the cliffs, and the waves battered on the rocks below. "You cannot
escape" Derek shouted over the roar of the surf.
"Oh, but I can. Nothing can stop me!" The woman
cackled.
"But that's where you're wrong." Alex's voice came
from behind the men, they turned to see her, disheveled and panting. "I know you
for what you are. I know what you did, and I know how to defeat you. Eliannan
Zimmersgaut, to the fires of Hell return, never again to walk this world. I
banish you! Be GONE!" Alex yelled.
The woman burst into flame, as horrific screams of
thousands of voices of the damned issued from her writhing body.
*
Alex leaned against Derek, the strength she had shown
moments before disappearing. "Come on," she said, "We have to help Kat." The
trio ran back inside.
Rachel was sitting on the floor, Kat's head on her
lap. She had strapped an oxygen mask over her daughter's pale white face,
streaked with blood. Piles of red blood soaked towels surrounded the
pair.
Derek took command, "Hand me the blood pressure cuff
and some gauze." he ordered. Nick hurriedly did. He strapped the cuff around the
girl's thin arm, and Nick inflated it as Derek pushed gauze into Kat's neck.
"Hang on, Kat. It's ok." he whispered to the barely conscious girl. "Nick, go
get the helicopter," he barked, lifting the girl up in his arms. Rachel sat
there, stunned. Alex helped her friend up and guided her outside.
*
Rachel once again sat in the uncomfortable hospital
chair, wringing her hands. A doctor came out, "Dr. Corrigan? Your daughter will
be ok. She lost a lot of blood, but we managed to stop the bleeding and restore
normal breathing, though right now she does have a breathing tube in. You
probably made the difference putting the oxygen on. You do realize however, that
the police will have to be called in on this?"
"No need." David Royce came down the hall. He flashed
his badge at the doctor, who went back into the ER. "I got your page. Is Kat
alright?"
Derek nodded, "She will be."
"Good. What happened?" he asked, almost afraid of the
response.
Derek managed a weak laugh, "Which story do you want
first, the real or the PR?"
*
A week later, Kat sat in her room writing in her book.
She rubbed the bandage over her throat, and wrote, "I've spent more time in
hospitals than I care to remember, but at least this time it all worked out
good. When that woman grabbed me and put the knife to my throat, all I could
think to do was warn Alex that she was there. It wouldn't matter if I had died,
if I protected Alex. I had to try. Now I understand how Derek was thinking when
he blew up the house, and that it wasn't really my fault. Everything happens for
a reason, my involvement with Miranda, the explosion, the attack, everything.
The challenge is seeing the reason in time to change the outcome. And I know
that with help, in time I will be able to see the reasons behind everything.
Until then, I must try my best.
Until then..."
For all that might yet
be... Back
