Chapter 1 – Merging Dreams
Jeff looked at the television boredly. He sighed and continued to flip through the channels. Finally he gave up, deciding it was all terribly unexciting and fell back on his bed with another deep breath. Staring up at the ceiling he found himself sliding his hands behind his head, locking his fingers together behind his bright mane of orange hair and evening his breathing so that he was calm and silent. His mind wandered from subject to subject but none of them seemed worth thinking of. And so he laid in a void of sound and ponderings. Until his stomach raised uncomfortabley in that way it had been doing all day. He wasn't sure what it was or why it kept doing that because it wasn't a sick sort of turning. His stomach just kept flip flopping whenever he was alone with his thoughts and then he was overwhelmed by a sense of emptiness. Almost loneliness. He already hated the feeling, even though something strange about it told him it would lead him to comfort, and he tried his hardest to distract his attention from the lurking lacking emotion. His eyes dashed about the room lazily and then his mind flipped through various topics of interest. His plan wasn't working. He could still feel it loitering inside him, rising up from his stomach to the center of his chest and resting there, as if over his heart.
The feeling only grew as he drifted off to sleep…
Flash. Flicker. Scream. Caress. Flash. Flicker. Scream. Caress. Flash, flicker, scream, caress. FlashFlickerScreamCaress.
"Where am I?" It echoed off the plain grey walls.
Whispers surrounded him, licking at his sore body, bouncing off the walls so fast they seemed to be flashing at him. Blue, green, blue, green...blood red. Lights shrieked and glared at him, flashing around him at an intensely insane speed. Jeff closed his eyes, trying not to see it, to feel it. But even through the mesh of his eyelids he could make out the constant flashes that grew brighter and brighter until they broke through his close eyes and lingered so close that he felt they were inside him, alien in his body. He tried to scream out against it but nothing would spill from his lips. He squeezed his eyes shut harder. It only made the lights flicker at him.
Flick, flick…flicker.
Next a blood curdling scream sliced through the air. A scream that sounded desperate, close, pleading, harsh. A scream that seemed familiar. He clamped his hands to his ears but they did nothing to drown out the sound as it grew thick and echoed in the atmosphere around him. "Stop it!" he pleaded. Slowly the scream died out and the lights faded. He peeled open his eyes to find someone beneath him.
Suddenly everything became a blur of smiles and pleasure. Sweat and bodies. Jeff could feel someone beneath him, connected with him beyond the physical in which they writhed together hard then soft. Kisses and caresses, lips and hands, chests and thighs. He could hear heavy breathing, moans of ecstasy, mumbles of love. He couldn't distinguish his own voice. He didn't know he was contributing to the sounds of contentment. The body below him flashed; a blur of colour, of life and bliss. A flash of the body unrolled before his eyes with such a great speed he couldn't take it all in. Couldn't note the curves and the contours. Couldn't reach out and touch. It flashed again, a moan loud and satisfied. A blur...
Turquoise.
Everything faded. Flickered flash. Blackness.
Jeff shot up in bed, sweating and breathing fast. The strong emotion within his chest had grown intensely and beat against his rib cage in a fiery desperate fashion that simply screamed to be acknowledged. It almost burned inside him, almost caused him pain. Part of him was too scared of it to stay awake. But he couldn't sleep, not after that. He had no choice as finally the ball of passion inside his chest calmed and soothed him until he drifted off again…
Flash. Flicker. Scream. Caress……
*****
Tyana stared down at the silver table in front of her and sighed before raising her eyes to look at the man who had been assigned her chaperone in this difficult adjustment period. He smiled at her and she returned it weakly before glancing around the cafeteria. The walls were grey and plain, of a matted fashion. The floor was clean and equally as dull in a darker grey. Further down the hall was were one could get something to eat or drink and then several tables were all bolted to the floor in rows and rows of orderly seating. Everything looked so mundanely planned and structured. It all felt like a big smack in the face after what she had been living up until last night.
"Tyana, will you please eat something?" Bret's voice brought her out of her thoughts concerning how pathetically boring this place was and she looked over at his concerned eyes then nodded meekly and ate a piece of carrot.
"Better?" he rolled his eyes and just gave her a look that said 'it's-for-your-own-good'. Sighing she picked up her fork and began to eat slowly and with reluctance. She was everything but hungry. Luckily she had recovered from the side effects by this morning, just as Bret had told her she would, but she was left feeling healthy but empty now. The movement of her arm was no longer labored as the medical staff had used modern technology to heal her at the usual rate of 5.6 seconds and now she felt at home in her own body. Except she felt lonely and unwanted and disconcerted.
Tyana sulked silently for a few minutes more until she decided she needn't burden Bret with her troubles and so tried to seem more upbeat. She started a simple conversation about what would happen to her now even though she had been told over and over since her return that she and the rest of the mission would be kept in this underground vicinity until they were fit and well enough, both mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually to return to the now very different world above them. Tyana wasn't sure if she would ever feel ready to face that world again but she knew the day would come when she would have to. She supposed it was better to suck it up and get on with it than allow herself to be defeated and sulk back into the darkness whenever company draws near. Bret finally finished explaining and she just nodded before moving onto a different topic.
"So, um, how exactly does that whole memory erased thing work?" Tyana asked curiously, trying to sound indifferent and nonchalant about the answer she was desperate for.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean like, surely you can't just delete everyone's memories, they wouldn't know who they are or anything. The world would be chaos"
Bret smiled at her naïve confusion and explained it as he set his coffee down onto the silver table top, "Well not everyone is affected. You see only people who had contact with yourself and the others will have their memories erased. But, not their entire memory, just the memory of the people of the mission. Take a shop assistant for example. If you had gone to her one day with a complaint about a product and they has assisted you in that complaint they will no longer remember it. Instead they will think nothing out of the usual had happened that day"
Tyana took that in and sat there in dreaded contemplation. She nodded, "Right so, take, um, Jeff for example" she began. Bret had known when she first began asking that Jeff was the person that sparked her curiosity but he pretended along with her that the bright haired youth had just been someone that pounced from the tip of her tongue with no before consideration and contemplation. "For all the time we spent together, his mind will remember every day events. Like, he won't even remember my existence." Bret nodded. "He'll just think his life has been nothing but, well, ordinary for the last few months we knew one another?"
"That's right"
Tyana fell silent and stared down into barely touched meal blankly. Bret watched her with concern for several minutes until she finally raised her head and excused herself to supposedly go for a walk. She ambled off miserably, the spring in her step that he had noticed when she had been in the other dimension, nothing but a distant recollection now. Part of her had faded. That part was still alive in a parallel world. And there was no way in which she could rejuvenate it. Bret's heart went out to her. Things were going to be tough from now on. But he had every confidence in her, he really did.
******************************
*A/N* Hey there purty people, how's u? Good? Glad to hear it. Well thank you on the feedback, I'm glad you approved of the prologue. I've got a nice plotline in mind so hopefully the updates should be at nice regular intervals :o) thank you for reading and please leave a review
Thanks to those who reviewed:
Bailey: lol, I'm writing a sequel *does a little dance* I'm SO glad you're reading it. I was afraid I'd start it and no one would bother taking a look at it *phew* lol. Glad you liked the prologue, hope you liked this chapter too. Things will get better soon I hope, thank you for reviewing :o)
Shadow: *waves* hey girl, I'm well happy that you liked the prologue :o) yey *cheers and jumps about with balloons* I hope you continue to read because as long as I know someone is enjoying the story then I will continue to write. Thanks for reviewing :o)
