Damned if I do, Damned if I Don't
There's a bit of mild violence in this chapter. A bit of gore. So yea…you've been warned.
~Dream~
I was back. Back in my dream of the moss covered ground and the mist that threatened to choke me. Logan and Raylin were a while in front of me, still walking. I just guessed this was a continuation of my last dream and followed them.
They walked side by side, hand in hand. A worried look plastered on Raylin's face, a scared look on Logan. I wondered if they even knew where they were going.
" Logan…stop. What was that?" Raylin whispered.
" What was what?"
'I saw something…over there" She pointed over to the left in front of her. Her hand shaking. She let go of his hand and turned around, looking in my direction. I turned also, my back to her to see what she was seeing.
But when I turned around I hear a shuffle behind me. That's when I heard Raylin scream.
"Logan…Logan! Where'd you go…"
Logan was gone and Raylin stood alone in the mist.
"Logan…"
A blood-curdling scream echoed into the night.
Raylin grasped her hands up to her mouth. It was Logan.
The screams continued. I had a vision in my head of Logan getting torn apart, limb by limb. That was what it sounded like anyway.
"Logan!!!" Raylin screamed. I could see the tears streaming down her face.
She began to run forward. Screaming out his name. I ran after her and knew this was when he died. What we found, I don't think I'll ever be able to forget. The pure grossness of it, the way the blood seemed so bright in amongst the mist.
The same thing that had attacked me in the Hermes Ranges. It was holding onto Logan's limp body with one of its many tentacles. Holding him up. Blood trickled down from his body and onto the creature and the moss below. Logan had his head turned to Raylin, his face blood ridden sliced. He was choking and trying to say something but the 'thing' sliced yet another tentacle up into his body, silencing him. Blood poured form his mouth…and I knew he was gone.
It was then, when the thing turned around, I recognized it as a Grat. Not a normal Grat…a strangely larger and more ferocious looking Grat. A mutation?
It dropped Logan's body on the ground and screamed at us. A bone-chilling scream that rattled nerves.
Raylin didn't know what to do. She had just seen her husband torn apart in front of her. She screamed. Falling down on her back she tried desperately to crawl away. The Grat reared up and leapt towards her. The last thing I heard was her desperate screams.
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I woke up shaking. Beads of sweat ran down my face and my breathing was coarse.
"What…what happened?" I whispered to myself.
Everyone else was asleep. I brang my knees up to my face and held onto them. Feeling scared and tired I drifted back to sleep.
~Dream~
I was back again. In the forever mist. I sighed and wondered where Raylin was, where the Grat was.
"It's okay. The flashback is over…"
I turned around and saw Raylin. I breathed a sigh of relief and frowned.
" What was that flashback for?"
She smiled and looked down at the ground.
" The mutations…the one's created by the council, they've been around longer than you think. Manches is the creator. He designed the toxic waves"
Manches? Who the heck is he?
" Manches is the leader of the Council, you might think Donas is, but it's really Manches. The whole aim of the Council was actually to create these things and destroy the Gardens"
" But why?" I asked
" Because he thinks nothing can defeat them. He was a scientist. He used to work with Odine. He was ridiculed for his ideas and exiled. So he wants revenge…"
" So in that flashback…that was a mutated Grat?"
" Yes…it attacked Logan and I. It didn't kill me though. It self-destructed and I survived the blast. Barely. Manches found me and tried to kill me. I had found out about his creations. But I was of Crescent Winds birth, his mortal weapons couldn't kill me and so I ran…I managed to get into his dreams, to torment him, that's why I know so much about him. But over time he built up an immunity to me and I couldn't get in"
Manches…
" We know how to stop him. The stone he uses. If we re-use it a second time, by me using my sorceress abilities, we can send out a negative wave an-"
She shook her head.
"- no, its not that simple Rinoa. If you use the stone…if you use your powers to send out the wave, it will not only kill off the mutations…it will kill you…"
"Kill me? How?"
" The stone will try to use up your power…but because it requires so much, it will literally suck the life out of you…"
"I'll die…"
Author's Note: Aha! A really quick update! Please review!
