ONE
NIGHT ALONE a reboot fanfic by Mary Jane
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CHAPTER
THREE: As Night Ends
Matrix awoke with a start, frightening the
binomes that had gathered around him. He immediately noticed that, as far as day and night went in the web, it
was the heart of the morning. His eyes
darted around and around in panic. He
felt weak almost to the point where he could not move his limbs, and his entire
body was numb.
Soon after he woke up the Captain, who
immediately looked down with a look of intense concern, approached him. The crewmembers backed away in order to give
the Captain room, and Matrix attempted to sit up. Bad idea. He was
immediately struck by a wave of dizziness that brought him heavily back to the
ground. He tried to raise his hands to
touch his face, but nothing in his body seemed to work correctly. He felt like he was stuck in a dream world,
for not only was his body unresponsive, but he was barely aware of everything
around him, and he had to force himself to keep his eyes halfway open.
The dream had paralyzed him. He had forgotten about that story, the story
about the loyal cat and the selfish sprite that didn't realize the value of
friendship until it was too late. He
hadn't even remembered Dot telling him that story, or the night that they spent
after she had finished. He remembered
now how they had briefly argued over what the story was about, and after which
they remained on his bed, just hugging each other, and silently crying. Actually, Dot hadn't really cried, but he
had. It was strange, Matrix hated
people who cried, and he wouldn't ever dream of doing it himself, because he
thought it was the ultimate weakness in a person, to show that kind of
emotion. But as a boy, he had cried a
lot, over so many things, even a simple little story about a sprite that
abandoned love, the cat that had waited for him, and the inevitable death of
their togetherness.
'Stupid story,' was all he could think of
at the moment, 'doesn't mean anything. Why the hell did I cry over a stupid cat?'
With another loud groan he managed to sit
himself up. He was still incredibly
dizzy, but he got to the point where he could fight it...nearly. The binomes all gathered around him to
support his body, and he half-heartedly shook them off at first, but then just
let them help him. He was too drained,
both physically and emotionally, to fight with anyone.
"Why lad, quite a night you must have
had! How the Dos did you get out
here?" The captain said, with a
little laugh in his voice to break the tension.
"I came out here." Matrix said gruffly. The captain chuckled a little, said
something, and just shook it off. So
much for breaking the tension.
"Why sir?" One of the binomes spoke up. Matrix shot a glare, which frightened the
little binome to the point where he was so afraid, he started to bow down in
front of Matrix in an "I'm not worthy" position and saying, "I
apologize for my presumption!" over and over again. Matrix just rolled his eyes, but for the
others it was quite the comical sight.
About three seconds went by, and Matrix
suddenly remembered the reason he had come out here, the reason he had
collapsed: AndrAIa. His eyes darted around, once again
panic-stricken. He jumped up,
forgetting about the previous dizziness that had plagued him, forgetting about
the dream. He furiously began to look
around, and he walked wherever he looked, so he basically started pacing the
entire deck of the Mare.
"Where is AndrAIa?" He demanded, actually more worried than
stern. "Is anyone watching
her? Has she gotten better?"
The former smiles disappeared from
everyone's faces in an instant. They
all looked around at each other and at the floor. The common sprite would have interpreted this as a sign of the
worst; that AndrAIa had died over the night, and there was no trace of her left
anywhere. But Matrix, being in the
mental position that he was in, and being so in denial of the reality of her
physically position, simply denied the worst possible scenario, and just
thought that they didn't know.
With a grunt, he jumped over all of them,
leaving them behind, with the Captain beginning to call out to stop him and
stopping just as soon as he had started. Matrix assumed that she had not been moved, so he flew down the stairs
to the bottom deck, breaking into a run and internally scolding himself for
leaving her alone for this long. He
remembered how he had left her last night simply to get a breath of fresh air,
and then he must have fallen asleep and had his dream, and now it was the next
day. He began to silently pray, 'Please
don't let her wake up alone...I don't want her to be alone...'
But before he could get to the private
bunkroom that held AndrAIa's fading life, he was stopped. He hadn't been watching where he was going,
for he had just been thinking about getting to her as fast as he could, and
then he felt himself collide with something else, sending him sprawling to the
floor.
Normally, if another sprite were to run
into him, he would threaten them for being so careless and clumsy. But, being in the unresponsive state that he
was currently in, he just stood up and was going to continue going, if it
wasn't for the arm that reached out and grabbed his leg, pulling him down to
the floor, and snapping him back into reality.
With a scowl that could kill, he looked at
the face of the person that tripped him. The scowl deepened when he noticed the familiar white-blond hair, the
sunglasses, the chiseled skull on top of a blue racing suit clothed, muscular
body. The Surfer.
Matrix could have killed him at that very
moment. Deep down inside, he knew that
everything that had happened was not entirely Ray's fault. However, the irrational portion of him, the
portion that had been controlling him ever since he had entered into the games,
told him that Ray was to blame. And
Matrix wanted to believe it: his
jealous blindness made him view Ray in a way that distorted who he really
was. Instead of seeing Ray as a
relatively nice guy who just like to flirt with people, just as everyone else
in every system did, Matrix saw Ray as a malicious player who only wanted
AndrAIa for himself, to keep her away from him. Matrix also knew inside that if it weren't for his jealousy, he
would have been there to protect AndrAIa, and therefore prevent this entire
mess she was in from happening. But
instead, he just blamed everything on Ray, and hated Ray ever more for it.
"Get out of my way." Matrix growled, with a ferociousness the
likes of which none had ever seen from him before. Ray just looked at him with confusion, because he innocently did
not know why Matrix was so angry. He
understood why Matrix would be upset, but he had never seen anyone take sadness
and morph it into rage before. He
admittedly did not know Matrix very well, but he assumed that Matrix just
needed to talk to someone.
"Matrix, uh..." Ray
started. But Matrix didn't let him
finish. He got on the defensive, and
hurled himself up to his feet, crashing through Ray. Ray was still for a moment, in his shock, but once he realized
what Matrix was planning to do, he hurried to get a hold on him. He had to stop him; Matrix was in no state
to see what was left of AndrAIa.
Ray reached out an arm and roughly grabbed
onto Matrix's shoulder. Matrix didn't
know what Ray was trying to do, but his fear combined with his jealousy made
him assume that this was just another of Ray's attempts to hold him back, to
prevent him from living his life the way he wanted to. In his mind, he just thought about how
AndrAIa hadn't needed protection from any web creatures or anything like that,
but instead she just needed protection from the snakes that would try to tear
her life apart. Ray was one of these
snakes; he presented himself all kind-hearted, but in reality he was trying to
get her killed from the very beginning. He wanted her to die, and what was more, he wanted her to die alone.
"I won't leave her alone, and you
can't stop me!" That, plus a loud
scream of blind hatred, drove Matrix to lash out at Ray, with his fists
clenched, his teeth grinding, and his body completely tense. Ray backed away a little, but he didn't fear
what Matrix could do to him, but rather what he could do to AndrAIa, or to any
of the crewmembers that might get in his way.
"Matrix, you need to calm
down." Ray reached out an arm,
trying to comfort Matrix, but Matrix just shook it off and lashed out again,
this time striking Ray successfully. Ray went flying across the hallway, landing hard on the far wall. He hit it with such a force that his head
was struck and he slumped to the ground unconscious before he even knew that he
had left Matrix's side. Matrix just
took one look at him and ran away, heading for the room in which AndrAIa lay.
And then, there she was. Deathly still, her eyes closed, her entire
body flickering and slowly turning translucent. It was actually a miracle that she had survived the night, but
Matrix never thought for a moment about that. He knew that she would still be alive when he got there, and soon she
would wake up, and he would take care of her until she regained her strength,
and then everything would be like it had been.
Matrix was in denial. Every sprite in the world knew what that
kind of flickering meant: death was not
far from this room. Matrix clenched his
fists and bit down on his lip, doing it so hard once again that blood almost
instantly appeared. His eyes circled
around the room, and he saw two binomes seated on both sides of the bed,
looking up at him with awe and fear and just the tiniest little bit of
sympathy. Then, they looked down at
AndrAIa, looked at each other, and stood up to leave the room, all without
saying a word. They closed the door
behind them, and Matrix was left alone.
He forced himself to look at her. His mind still told him that she wasn't
dying, but the tiny little rational part of his heart told him that he had to
be strong, for her sake. He had to
admit to himself that this was serious, and that she needed every ounce of love
and care that he could give her. So, he
looked at her face, at her closed eyes and her limp hands, and walked over to
her very slowly. He took small steps,
one after another, not looking at anything except her face, and he reached the
side of the bed. Then, suddenly, the
tears returned.
"No!" he said out loud. He shook his head and grabbed it, then
slapped himself for starting to cry. Now, more than ever, he couldn't be weak and cry like a little
child. If he was going to bring her
back, he had to be strong about it, to encourage her. Crying wouldn't do anything. "I won't cry, I won't cry, stop crying you stupid little
weakling! Stop crying!"
These words were so familiar to him...he
had said them so many times throughout the night that they were becoming almost
a prayer for him, one that he had to say every day in order to feel complete
and in touch with the world around him. He kept saying them over and over again as he slowly sat down by the
side of the bed, still looking at her face, still fighting the tears that
refused to go away. Even as he stopped
saying the words, in his mind he was still repeating 'I won't cry, I won't
cry'. And he didn't. Instead, he reached out his hand, touched
hers, which felt only like a little breath of air from some tiny little baby,
and took a deep breath. He had to say
something to her, for she couldn't see him. He knew that she knew he was here, but he had to say something, to give
her strength. Words alone would keep
them together.
"Hey, AndrAIa." He paused, for that was the only thing he
could think to say. There were so many
things that he had wanted to tell her, but he didn't know how to say any of
them, nor did he know where to begin.
"I know you're hurting so badly
inside, AndrAIa. I know that this, that
all of this, must be so painful for you. And I know that you are a warrior, and I know that you are fighting and
you aren't giving in to anything. I'm
here to just help you fight, just as I've always been here to help you
fight."
And then he abruptly stopped talking, for
the lump returned to his throat, stronger and thicker than it had ever been
before. He tried so hard, and he once
again touched his head and shook his entire body and said the words, "I
won't cry, I won't cry", but he couldn't fight it. He felt small tears drip out of his eyes and
begin to roll down his cheeks. He
rubbed his face, making them go away, but more and more appeared in his eyes,
and then on his cheeks. There were so
many tears...so many tears...he couldn't fight them all. They just had penetrated his senses and were
overpowering him, destroying the strength that he thought he had and bringing a
feeling of weakness into his heart. He
fought for a while, and then with a small cry fell to the floor once more,
screwing his eyes shut incredibly tight. He curled his body up into a fetal position and rocked back and forth on
the ground, returning for a moment to the little boy mindset where crying
helped. It made him feel better, and
worse at the same time. It made him
feel like a person with feelings, and like a little boy who had no dignity.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Ray's eyes fluttered open after what must
have been seconds after his little run-in with Matrix. He groaned and reached out his hand to touch
his forehead. He had quite a headache,
which he knew would not go away for a while, no matter how much he rubbed his
temples. So, he forced himself to stand
up after a little while, bringing dizziness, but it was bearable to the point
where he could walk a little. He didn't
know how he had gotten on the floor, slumped up against the wall with a
splitting headache and a cut right above his eye, but he did remember that he
had been trying to stop Matrix from going to see AndrAIa when Matrix had gone
off on him. He would normally be
infuriated at Matrix's actions; his pugilistic nature had gone too far this
time, and he had started a fight that was not justified at all. But, as Ray walked slowly towards the room
in which AndrAIa was, he knew better than to scold Matrix for it. He felt bad enough about what Matrix must
have been going through; Matrix didn't need, and probably couldn't deal with,
criticism right then.
He reached out an arm and steadied himself
on the doorway. He was still very dizzy
and needed to sit down. He opened the
door slowly at first, but then as he saw Matrix on the floor out of the corner
of his eye he forgot about his own pain and threw the door open, rushing over
to Matrix to see why he was on the floor.
"Matrix? Are you awake? Matrix,
say something!" Ray yelled. But Matrix was unresponsive; his eyes were
closed and he looked like he was asleep, except he wasn't waking up.
Ray shook him, but when that didn't do any
good he yelled out for help from everyone, from anyone who was around.
"Someone get in here now!" Ray yelled. Almost immediately, two binomes appeared at the doorway, gasped, and
rushed in to help Ray with Matrix. Ray
recognized them as the two that had been watching over AndrAIa prior to
Matrix's entrance. Then, more and more
came, until almost the entire crew was down, squeezing together to try to get a
look at what was going on.
The captain managed to shove his way
through and crouched down beside Matrix's still body. He had thought, at first, that Ray was calling out because
AndrAIa had finally died, but he looked over and saw that AndrAIa, though
considerably dimmer, was still alive.
"What happened to him?" the
Captain said as he reached down onto Matrix's neck to see if his body was still
somewhat warm.
"I don't know...I just came in here a
few minutes ago. He had been in here
for a while, and I thought he was okay..." Ray's voice trailed off. That was actually untrue; he hadn't thought
that Matrix had been okay since AndrAIa had been wounded. In fact, despite the fact that Ray didn't
remember anything about what had happened before he had been knocked out, he
did specifically remember the look in Matrix's eyes as he met him in the
hallway. His eyes had looked empty and
hollow, then when he saw Ray they looked bloodshot and insane, and then finally
as he delivered the final blow they had been, well, he wanted to say almost
full of pain. Ray would never say
anything about it, but he thought that he had seen tears.
"Well, we need to get him into
another room to rest, and he needs to be monitored." Then the Captain swore underneath his
breath, and made a cry of disgust as he said, "I should have known better
than to leave him alone in this kind of a state!"
Ray just nodded and motioned for a few
bystanders to help them carry Matrix out of the room, which would be no little
task, considering his size. They
gathered around his legs, arms, torso, and one got his head, and they lifted
him up slowly. They were almost ready
to carry him out when the little binome holding his head jumped back and
shrieked. Ray was about to ask what was
the matter, but he didn't need to.
Matrix suddenly began to thrash
wildly. His eyes were still oddly
closed, but his mouth twisted into a snarl, and his fists clenched, making his
huge, muscular arms tense up as hard as they could get. Ray yelled for everyone to get back, but it
was too late. Matrix's fists began to
swing around, striking binomes at every angle, and because of his massive
strength some of them were greatly injured. They cried out as he hit them in their eyes, their chests, and their
legs, everywhere. And no one was brave
enough to step up and attempt to restrain him, so they all just screamed and
pushed each other out of the way, desperately trying to get out of the
room. Ray went along with it, but
instead of trying to get himself out he aided the others in clearing out of the
room, and all the while just looked at Matrix. He noticed that his eyes were still not open, but on his face there were
wet stains mixed with fresh tears, and he had a cut on his lip that looked
large. His hands, too, were covered in
gashes that had not been there before he had gone into the room to be with
AndrAIa. Ray could only assume the
worse: that Matrix had done all of this to himself, and was now so incredibly
controlled by his insanity that he was in a deep sleep. Ray could only imagine what must have been
going through his head.
As almost everyone scrambled to get out of
the room, however, one brave and somewhat suicidal binome tried to stop all of
this. He looked around, and saw a piece
of heavy metal by AndrAIa's bed. It
looked like some piece of machinery, and he had no idea what it did, but he
thought that if he could get to it he could use it to bash Matrix on the head
and perhaps knock him out. So, as
everyone else pushed against him, he forced his way over to the bed and somehow
got past the thrashing Matrix to be within a reasonable distance of the
machine. He looked around once more,
and it didn't look like anyone had seen him, so he began to raise the metal
piece above his head, and prepared to use it.
But then, his face twisted with horror as
he noticed Matrix turn around to look at him. And what this little binome was doing Matrix did not know, but the
binome saw Matrix open his eyes to reveal two bloody, wet orbs that seemed to
burn fire in their pupils. No one had ever
seen this kind of rage before, and the little binome did not know what provoked
him to open his eyes. But what the
binome did not know what that Matrix saw what he was doing as slightly
different.
Matrix was still in the mindset that told
him everyone around, everyone in the entire universe was only out to hurt him
and to hurt AndrAIa. So, as he looked
at this tiny little creature that stood in front of him, its eyes filled with
horror, only saw a cowardly little virus that was trying to hurt AndrAIa when
she was in a vulnerable position. He
saw this little coward, raising a piece of equipment over his head, snickering
as he thought about how much pain AndrAIa must have been in that moment, and
how she was only going to suffer a little bit more, and then she would be
deleted forever. He was enjoying this,
and had been the one who had woken Matrix up in order to distract him, and he
was just a malicious little vulture who lived only to create suffering in Matrix's
life.
So, Matrix reached out his arms, and as he
yelled the most anguished cry of hate ever heard in the entire system, grabbed
the binome by the neck, and immediately a loud crack was heard from underneath
his hands.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Whew! I think that was the longest chapter I've
written! I'm sorry if it isn't as good
as some of the others, but there needed to be a little movement to the
story. Thank you for reading, and, as
always, please review (even if you think it sucked - but be nice!)
--MJ