Edit 7/07/04
A/N: This chapter was significantly shorter than any of the others, so I felt a need to lengthen some of the scenes in addition to fixing the continuity problems I invoked by changing my own universe.
Again, the invitation to flame still applies... that is, if you managed to make it this far into my story.
Note – I used American currency in this, as I am not familiar with the current exchange rate or appearance of Japanese yen and would not want to completely butcher such an important aspect of living.
Lost in time, on the edge of suffering
Another taste of the evil I breed
Will level you completely
Bring to life everything that you fear
Live in the dark, and the world is threatening
Disturbed -- Prayer
Chapter 2: Another Nightmare About to Come True
All of a sudden, he was aware. He was aware of razor-edged grass rubbing against his face, of his hands clenched tightly around his head, of his clothes absorbing and holding the heat of the sun close to his body. Right in that moment of hyper-awareness he knew everything that was going on around him and understood it completely; but the awareness was immediately followed by a blinding pain that completely erased any leftover knowledge from the moment before.
He screamed in an instinctive reaction to the pain, then bit down suddenly on it, determined not to show any sign of the pain circulating through his system. The unexpected coppery taste flooding his mouth was enough to shock the agony away by evoking another reaction. He retched. The blood glistened wetly red on the healthy green grass, but the retching had no effect other than getting rid of the blood in his mouth. He was glad for that blessing, as he did not want to sting his tongue with anything other than saliva. But no matter how much the stomach acid would have stung, it did not come close to the pain he had forced, with a great expenditure of will, into the back of his mind.
Blood ceased dribbling from his mouth. He wiped a crimson smear from his lips, balancing on his knees and left hand. The smell was quite addicting to his senses, and there was quite a bit there on the ground, soaking into the earth, evaporating into the air. Enough so that his tongue shouldn't be attached at all. Especially the strength that he had been biting with suggested that he should be missing at least the tip of it. But there it was, in his mouth, whole, sore, and with only a medium sized slice on the top, pulsing rather uncomfortably. Luck seemed to be on his side, even if health wasn't.
A rustling noise penetrated his hearing, and he swiveled warily towards that noise. There, propped up against a tree, was a person wearing a robe. The robe was spread out, and the person inside was barely moving. He stood up shakily and staggered towards the other person whom he had yet to see make any sort of move. Kneeling by the person, he managed to spit out, in a gravely voice due to his dry throat and damaged tongue, "Are you okay?" The irony of that question did not escape him; for in all likelihood, he was more injured than this person ever could be. It sure felt that way, anyway. But it was much easier to just ask the person if 'he' were okay then have to search for the signs of it.
There was no reply. Not even a shifting of body weight or lifting of the head to acknowledge that he had spoken. But this person was obviously awake and moving, for there was nothing else around that could have made that rustling noise, not even wind. It had sounded too much like the crinkling of fabric to have been the wind. So he reached and gingerly pulled the hood back from the person's head. From beneath the hood appeared a head of brown hair, pulled back and braided loosely. The person still didn't tilt their head back to look at him. So he did the deed himself, not noticing the red he accidentally left on the chin. There, in the middle of what was now obviously a male face, were two completely empty eyes. They were barely tracking his movements, and showed absolutely no comprehension of what was actually being seen. Nevertheless, he had to try to get a response one more time. "Hello?"
The guy didn't even blink. Carefully laying the guy's wrist down, he sat back and stared at the enigma. He was breathing normally, had a good pulse, and could obviously move when pushed too, but nobody was home. It was extremely annoying. There was absolutely no reason for the withdrawal from the world to be so bad. Even more annoying was the fact that this guy evoked a familiarity within him, one that he could not quite remember. It was probably that damn pain's fault. Suddenly, it clicked. The pain. If he had it, then it would make sense for anyone who was with him here in the clearing to have it too. The pain had probably made the guy withdraw completely from the world, if it was indeed the same exact experience. Goodness knew that he had almost succumbed to it as well. Dammit, that meant that it might happen again... to him, this time. He remembered nothing about what caused the pain, whether it had something to do with this damnable clearing, some random person who had left them for dead, or some genetic thing that both he and this guy had. Whatever had caused it, it was powerful enough to wipe his memory completely and reduce this guy to an almost catatonic state. He glanced around the clearing, looking for any sort of movement that might indicate the presence of any sort of danger or even another person he had forgotten. There was none.
The real question was, what to do now? Just the two of them, in an empty clearing, in the middle of what looked like a forest. They would never be found unless they moved. But moved where? He had no idea in which direction to go. Civilization could be anywhere! He couldn't even count on someone coming to look for them, because he didn't even know the situation that had landed them here. It was probably best to just try not to move at all. This was a clearing, so if anyone flew over they could see down. Moving the guy on the ground probably wasn't the best of ideas either, but he wasn't inclined to let that stop them from getting out of here. Then again, there was no sign of water around the clearing, and dying of thirst did not seem like one of the better ways to go.
They were moving, and in whichever way seemed the clearest and thus the easiest. That guy couldn't be light, and he didn't look like he was going to get up and walk off on his own anytime soon. Hoisting the guy to his feet and draping an arm across his shoulder cost him a lot of precious energy as well as some judicious juggling. It was going to cost him even more to drag him through the forest. But never once did he consider leaving the guy there to fend for himself. It would take a huge monster, injustice, or evil to leave an obviously disabled guy to fend for himself in the woods. He would surely die if he were left alone, and it would take someone with a great resistance to guilt or fairness of any kind to leave him. Anyway, he was familiar, and if he seemed familiar, he wasn't going to be left behind.
So they took off through the forest, one supporting the other whose feet worked well enough even if his mind didn't.
It was here that Guardian was to spend his night. Some cheap dirty motel so far on the wrong side of the tracks it made you wonder if there was such a thing as daylight. It seemed as if any activities were opposite here than at normal places; the most activity occurred at night, and everything was silent during the day. It made for some annoyances, but easier for Guardian to slip out without paying. Indeed, the only reason he could afford to stay in this cheap dump tonight was because of something he was more willing to call a random chance than anything else. Some long- haired blonde girl in a flashy vinyl 'outfit' had grabbed onto his arm and wrapped it around herself as he had wandered through the neighborhood. Then she had whispered in his ear while he stood there, dumbfounded, and wondering how he had managed to get himself a trophy. "You get me into that club there and I'll pay you. Handsomely." Guardian glanced at her rather distastefully, annoyed that his personal space had been invaded. After all, what kind of guy wanted a slut with plastic boobs? They'd probably melt from too much body contact.
A hurt expression crossed her face, but she slowly unwound herself from his grasp. "Well, if you don't want to..." Her soft voice had trailed off, and in her defeated state she looked much younger than her actions had suggested.
Guardian looked her up and down, feeling the slightest stirrings of a feeling he wasn't sure he could identify. But as much as he hated the idea of coupling with a floozy to get some money, it couldn't hurt to just get her into the club. He grabbed her hand as she tried to wander away down the sidewalk, as if in shock from not getting her way. "How much money are you offering?"
She blinked at him for a bit, then managed to organize her thoughts and reached into her shirt. Guardian looked carefully, watching what she was reaching for. He was mildly surprised to note that what seemed to be padding her shirt were not breasts at all, but rather a lot of twenty dollar bills. No wonder he had thought her chest was manmade; it was filled to brimming with life-saving currency. "Is sixty enough?"
"Make it a Ben Franklin and you've got a deal." He tightened his grip on her fingers, pointlessly, as her face had already established her glee at his acceptance.
She nodded, slipping up close and depositing money in his back pocket. "Sixty now, forty more when you get me past the doors."
Guardian shrugged. He could easily slip out the back doors, but he felt rather uncomfortable with the girl so close. Still, if the bouncer were going to let them past as a pair, they had to look the part. So he slid his arm cautiously around her shoulders, and pulled her even closer to him. She giggled, and twined herself around his muscular body, staring up adoringly into his almost panicky gaze. How the hell was he supposed to walk with her clinging to him as if they were some sort of Siamese twins?
Staggering forwards, he watched, almost in shock, as the girl adjusted her stride to match his rather large one, and helped to support him. It appeared that she, at least, knew how to walk even while sticking close enough that she became some sort of grotesque tumor. It also appeared that he was drunk... but at least he had someone to help support him, unlike some of the bums he had passed exiting the club. The bouncer took one glance at how old Guardian looked in his khaki's and button-down shirt (not to mention the sharp gaze) and had spent the rest of the time staring avidly at the girl's bare parts before Guardian pulled her roughly past.
He jerked to a stop, though, upon sighting the sea of humanity. The heads were bobbing wildly up and down as if floating on storm-tossed waters, the lights flashed disjointedly and randomly—threatening to cause seizures in anyone that watched them too long—and the music throbbed so loudly that Guardian wondered how, possibly, the streets outside weren't shaking apart, much less the club itself. The girl's hand felt around in his back pocket again, supposedly depositing a wad of money, but when she withdrew her hand, Guardian took it as permission for him to leave (quickly) through the nearby side exit.
Startled when his hand didn't follow the rest of his body, he looked back to see the girl holding onto it for dear life, and tugging on her blonde hair like a pouting child. She mouthed at him, almost wistfully and with the most innocent expression, "Dance with me?"
And so he had. Allowing her to lead him out on the dance floor was one of the most nerve-wracking things he could think of doing, yet he found himself unable to refuse the floozy out of concern; better that she stuck with him than get picked up by a murderer. The pulsing rhythm was kind of hard to miss, but while Guardian was content to rock back and forth in time to the music, clutching the girl and rubbing accidentally against other very sweaty clubbers, she twined herself around him, gyrating and grinding against him. The pleasure building up inside his body from the girl's ministrations both disgusted and intrigued him, and the constant procession of women trying to cut in between them was actually extremely amusing in their own way... especially considering this slut of a girl weaving herself around him had somehow managed to dissuade all of the other admiring women from doing anything other than glare from nearby. They were glowering mostly at her, over their shoulders or over their partner's shoulders. But she seemed completely oblivious to it, other than occasional "accidental" scratches, and had spent all that time either staring into his eyes or doing things to him that he wouldn't protest, but wasn't quite sure were appropriate. But for once he shut up and enjoyed it. After all, considering all that he had already let her get away with, it would be rather rude to just walk away and leave her alone.
An indeterminate amount of wild dancing and alcohol later, the club closed, effectively kicking out all of its patrons onto the streets. Thoroughly exhausted now, Guardian let the girl pull him by the hand through the front doors, past the leering bouncer (whom Guardian leered right back at; highly amused when the bouncer averted his gaze with a disturbed expression. Couldn't take his own medicine, apparently), and into the side alley, which was conspicuously empty. She pulled a pen out of seemingly nowhere, leaving her number on his arm in sloppy handwriting. Winking, a wad of bills appeared in her hand, and she tucked it playfully into his waistband. He wasn't sure if he should be insulted by her giving him more money as if he were a gigolo in a bar that had just had his services appreciated, or just take the damn money and go find a place to sleep. Guardian eventually decided that not even his guilt over taking the money and revulsion about being a play object would tempt him out of a room to sleep in; besides, that girl was a once in a lifetime thing, and he was going to make it a point to never call her number. So he had turned in the opposite direction the girl had strutted in and walked. From behind him had come the sound of things falling to the pavement, but it had only caught his interest because it sounded like someone had tripped over someone else. Moronic clumsy clowns posing as people, Guardian had thought to himself as he walked away and eventually ended up here, in front of this dump.
Guardian shook his head and pushed his way past a pimp and his underdressed whores to get inside the building where he promptly paid forty-five dollars for a room for the week. Even the key to the room was broken, but the room itself was surprisingly clean. He guessed the hotel cleaned it well so that more people would come back to do their business... No, don't think about that. Just sleep. And so Guardian lay down in the bed (the mattress was firm, but the sheets were thin) and tried not to think himself to sleep.
He laid the guy down to rest for the third time in what seemed the past hour. He was heavy, and his randomly moving feet weren't much help in holding him up. His brain hadn't woken up at all during their little jaunt through the woods. Surprising really, because he had accidentally run the guy through branches and bushes galore. It was really hard to maneuver an extra body that he wasn't used to having through thick underbrush. But the guy had faired fairly well at least in physical health... despite the fact that nothing had woken him up. So he spread out the guy next to a tree root and slumped down beside him.
It was getting dark. Well, it had been semi-gloom for a while now as the trees were too thick to let much light through. But now with the sky fading it turned into night sooner than it should have. They had come a long way, but they had yet to find civilization, and he wasn't too sure he wanted to stop here. A lot of good the worry of stopping would do him, for if they did try to continue he was likely to break a leg or lose the other guy down a ravine or something. No, as much as he hated the idea, they had to stay here for tonight. And he might as well try to sleep... maybe sleep would give him a break from the gnawing hunger in his belly that had not disappeared with the random nuts he had been able to find and eat. Rather, those nuts had just reminded him of how hungry he was. But one good way to escape that was sleeping, provided he could squash down or ignore the hunger long enough to actually fall asleep. So he leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to dull his ears to all the natural rustling sounds in the background.
Death. The screams of the dying still rang loud through her head, echoing and screaming a warning with their last breaths. But the warning was in vain, she couldn't understand what they were trying to show her. All she had seen was red, blood red swirling around her as if she were in a twisted, psychopathic whirlpool. The screams were nothing new to her dreams, but that did not mean that they disturbed her any less. The last time she had heard screams in her dreams had resulted in the world almost collapsing. That dream was eerily similar in an undecipherable way, but the problem it had warned of had been dealt with, but this new, distressing dream had enough remembered differences that she couldn't figure it out. She was suffering under so much of a sensory overload from the panicked state that she had awoken in that she could barely think with her own consciousness at all. Flashes of black appeared against the red quickly... images of the people who were screaming out their tortured souls into hers as they died in the dreamscape. Most of them had passed onto the next plane in rather gruesome and macabre ways, but an overwhelming number of them had died in unusual or freak accidents. None of them had died the exact same way, so there wasn't a serial killer or someone who was leaving their mark doing this. It seemed completely random. The dream made absolutely no sense from the information that she had. Life was peaceful, evil had been defeated. These things should NOT be happening again... if they even were. Perhaps she was just imagining it. She had read a murder novel recently, so perhaps her subconscious was playing tricks and imagining different ways that the murder could have been committed. But why the multitudes of people, then? Why the carelessness and indifference to not being caught shown in the murders?
Rei ran a hand across her forehead and discovered that she was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. The night was warm and made her room stuffy, so the sweat made her uncomfortable. She opened the screen noiselessly and slipped out to sit on the porch, hoping some fresh air would stimulate her mind and cool her off somewhat. The stars were beautiful, but the lush trees loomed up out of the darkness and their branches moved restlessly. Nature was trying to tell her something and it couldn't seem to get its message across no matter what it did. The dream was haunting her, especially the colors and the expressions, making her see things that couldn't possibly be there. Like the darkness and emptiness of the trees. Sunlight had showed them earlier to be lush, verdant, and the embodiment of summer. The underlying horror of knowing something was happening, or at least capable of happening in her mind, ruined even these few peaceful, too peaceful, moments that had in the end made her more upset than she had been when she woke up. Those screams... she still heard them, as if from far away. Rei hoped that they wouldn't haunt her for too much longer, but she wasn't sure what she wanted to replace them with...
She shook her head, her hair spilling over her shoulders with that violent movement, as she tried to get her mind off of this destructive looping track. Coming out here on the porch was supposed to make her more at peace, but had instead riled her up more. Rei stood up with a sudden decision that could work either way; to make her either more worried or to put her at ease. She was going to go meditate in front of the fire. At the very least, even if a vision decided not to appear in front of her, the fire always soothed her. It was so mesmerizing in its crackling and movement that it was almost impossible to do anything but get caught up in it. The only setback was that it was uncomfortably hot in that room, but Rei almost always forgot about that one discomfort in the face of the almost nirvana of meditation.
Indeed, the fire relieved her fears somewhat by mesmerizing her. She sat there, and watched the flames go back and forth, burning away at the oxygen in the air and crackling in a symphony that had been praised throughout the evolution of humanity. But even the fire had an air of urgency. Rei couldn't sense that urgency, because she had blocked herself to it, preferring to see only what she wanted to see and not what her psychic senses were capable of showing her. The fire had tolerated this attitude of wanting to be a normal girl long enough, and a vision grabbed her with such suddenness she didn't even have time to gasp. It had been so long since she had had a vision that her mind panicked, and wasn't able to take in much of what was appearing. And what she was able to receive through her panic, and slightly understand, was of poor quality too.
Everything was moving around and around, as if Rei were drunk and the world didn't want to conform to her standards. The panic made her breathe shallowly and this lack of oxygen combined with the ever-changing landscape left her mind spinning in its own unpredictable directions. She staggered through the landscape, trying to find some sort of stable patch to focus on, and came upon two brown splotches that kept stretching and contracting as she watched in confusion. Then, she was back in her own room so abruptly that it had the equivalent effect on her as jumping into a pool in the middle of February. Not even sitting this close to the fire was doing anything to stop Rei's uncontrollable shivering and nausea.
What the hell just happened? Rei managed to stop her shivering through a sheer force of will, but the feeling of nausea didn't go away. She stood up shakily to go find a phone, or medicine, or something, trying not to do anything that might set off her stomach. As soon has she had turned out of the door to the right, her nausea just disappeared, evaporating into thin air quicker than she could blink. Eyes narrowing with suspicion, Rei turned back around and headed the opposite way. The now obviously artificial nausea reappeared in the pit of her stomach.
It was trying to steer her. The heavens only know where this... after- vision... was taking her. Knowing the fates as she did didn't reassure her at all, but rather made her more uneasy. Whatever it was that it was trying to get her to see, it could wait until she had some sort of backup. It wouldn't do to go in blind even if she was stronger than she had been so long ago; Rei had learned the lesson of teamwork well over the years. But which of the former senshi was free, in town, and wouldn't panic?
Ami. Ami didn't panic, and Ami would keep Rei from doing anything that might risk her health. Not that this nausea wasn't making her health go out the window. Ami wouldn't like to be woken up this early in the morning though... if she could just last a few more hours then she wouldn't alarm Ami anymore than she had to. Just think of it as a test of character, Rei told herself. You can pass this test easily. Just go lie down facing the right way and it should go away. She walked down the patio aiming for her room, walking gingerly and thinking these words over and over like a mantra.
A/N: This chapter was significantly shorter than any of the others, so I felt a need to lengthen some of the scenes in addition to fixing the continuity problems I invoked by changing my own universe.
Again, the invitation to flame still applies... that is, if you managed to make it this far into my story.
Note – I used American currency in this, as I am not familiar with the current exchange rate or appearance of Japanese yen and would not want to completely butcher such an important aspect of living.
Lost in time, on the edge of suffering
Another taste of the evil I breed
Will level you completely
Bring to life everything that you fear
Live in the dark, and the world is threatening
Disturbed -- Prayer
Chapter 2: Another Nightmare About to Come True
All of a sudden, he was aware. He was aware of razor-edged grass rubbing against his face, of his hands clenched tightly around his head, of his clothes absorbing and holding the heat of the sun close to his body. Right in that moment of hyper-awareness he knew everything that was going on around him and understood it completely; but the awareness was immediately followed by a blinding pain that completely erased any leftover knowledge from the moment before.
He screamed in an instinctive reaction to the pain, then bit down suddenly on it, determined not to show any sign of the pain circulating through his system. The unexpected coppery taste flooding his mouth was enough to shock the agony away by evoking another reaction. He retched. The blood glistened wetly red on the healthy green grass, but the retching had no effect other than getting rid of the blood in his mouth. He was glad for that blessing, as he did not want to sting his tongue with anything other than saliva. But no matter how much the stomach acid would have stung, it did not come close to the pain he had forced, with a great expenditure of will, into the back of his mind.
Blood ceased dribbling from his mouth. He wiped a crimson smear from his lips, balancing on his knees and left hand. The smell was quite addicting to his senses, and there was quite a bit there on the ground, soaking into the earth, evaporating into the air. Enough so that his tongue shouldn't be attached at all. Especially the strength that he had been biting with suggested that he should be missing at least the tip of it. But there it was, in his mouth, whole, sore, and with only a medium sized slice on the top, pulsing rather uncomfortably. Luck seemed to be on his side, even if health wasn't.
A rustling noise penetrated his hearing, and he swiveled warily towards that noise. There, propped up against a tree, was a person wearing a robe. The robe was spread out, and the person inside was barely moving. He stood up shakily and staggered towards the other person whom he had yet to see make any sort of move. Kneeling by the person, he managed to spit out, in a gravely voice due to his dry throat and damaged tongue, "Are you okay?" The irony of that question did not escape him; for in all likelihood, he was more injured than this person ever could be. It sure felt that way, anyway. But it was much easier to just ask the person if 'he' were okay then have to search for the signs of it.
There was no reply. Not even a shifting of body weight or lifting of the head to acknowledge that he had spoken. But this person was obviously awake and moving, for there was nothing else around that could have made that rustling noise, not even wind. It had sounded too much like the crinkling of fabric to have been the wind. So he reached and gingerly pulled the hood back from the person's head. From beneath the hood appeared a head of brown hair, pulled back and braided loosely. The person still didn't tilt their head back to look at him. So he did the deed himself, not noticing the red he accidentally left on the chin. There, in the middle of what was now obviously a male face, were two completely empty eyes. They were barely tracking his movements, and showed absolutely no comprehension of what was actually being seen. Nevertheless, he had to try to get a response one more time. "Hello?"
The guy didn't even blink. Carefully laying the guy's wrist down, he sat back and stared at the enigma. He was breathing normally, had a good pulse, and could obviously move when pushed too, but nobody was home. It was extremely annoying. There was absolutely no reason for the withdrawal from the world to be so bad. Even more annoying was the fact that this guy evoked a familiarity within him, one that he could not quite remember. It was probably that damn pain's fault. Suddenly, it clicked. The pain. If he had it, then it would make sense for anyone who was with him here in the clearing to have it too. The pain had probably made the guy withdraw completely from the world, if it was indeed the same exact experience. Goodness knew that he had almost succumbed to it as well. Dammit, that meant that it might happen again... to him, this time. He remembered nothing about what caused the pain, whether it had something to do with this damnable clearing, some random person who had left them for dead, or some genetic thing that both he and this guy had. Whatever had caused it, it was powerful enough to wipe his memory completely and reduce this guy to an almost catatonic state. He glanced around the clearing, looking for any sort of movement that might indicate the presence of any sort of danger or even another person he had forgotten. There was none.
The real question was, what to do now? Just the two of them, in an empty clearing, in the middle of what looked like a forest. They would never be found unless they moved. But moved where? He had no idea in which direction to go. Civilization could be anywhere! He couldn't even count on someone coming to look for them, because he didn't even know the situation that had landed them here. It was probably best to just try not to move at all. This was a clearing, so if anyone flew over they could see down. Moving the guy on the ground probably wasn't the best of ideas either, but he wasn't inclined to let that stop them from getting out of here. Then again, there was no sign of water around the clearing, and dying of thirst did not seem like one of the better ways to go.
They were moving, and in whichever way seemed the clearest and thus the easiest. That guy couldn't be light, and he didn't look like he was going to get up and walk off on his own anytime soon. Hoisting the guy to his feet and draping an arm across his shoulder cost him a lot of precious energy as well as some judicious juggling. It was going to cost him even more to drag him through the forest. But never once did he consider leaving the guy there to fend for himself. It would take a huge monster, injustice, or evil to leave an obviously disabled guy to fend for himself in the woods. He would surely die if he were left alone, and it would take someone with a great resistance to guilt or fairness of any kind to leave him. Anyway, he was familiar, and if he seemed familiar, he wasn't going to be left behind.
So they took off through the forest, one supporting the other whose feet worked well enough even if his mind didn't.
It was here that Guardian was to spend his night. Some cheap dirty motel so far on the wrong side of the tracks it made you wonder if there was such a thing as daylight. It seemed as if any activities were opposite here than at normal places; the most activity occurred at night, and everything was silent during the day. It made for some annoyances, but easier for Guardian to slip out without paying. Indeed, the only reason he could afford to stay in this cheap dump tonight was because of something he was more willing to call a random chance than anything else. Some long- haired blonde girl in a flashy vinyl 'outfit' had grabbed onto his arm and wrapped it around herself as he had wandered through the neighborhood. Then she had whispered in his ear while he stood there, dumbfounded, and wondering how he had managed to get himself a trophy. "You get me into that club there and I'll pay you. Handsomely." Guardian glanced at her rather distastefully, annoyed that his personal space had been invaded. After all, what kind of guy wanted a slut with plastic boobs? They'd probably melt from too much body contact.
A hurt expression crossed her face, but she slowly unwound herself from his grasp. "Well, if you don't want to..." Her soft voice had trailed off, and in her defeated state she looked much younger than her actions had suggested.
Guardian looked her up and down, feeling the slightest stirrings of a feeling he wasn't sure he could identify. But as much as he hated the idea of coupling with a floozy to get some money, it couldn't hurt to just get her into the club. He grabbed her hand as she tried to wander away down the sidewalk, as if in shock from not getting her way. "How much money are you offering?"
She blinked at him for a bit, then managed to organize her thoughts and reached into her shirt. Guardian looked carefully, watching what she was reaching for. He was mildly surprised to note that what seemed to be padding her shirt were not breasts at all, but rather a lot of twenty dollar bills. No wonder he had thought her chest was manmade; it was filled to brimming with life-saving currency. "Is sixty enough?"
"Make it a Ben Franklin and you've got a deal." He tightened his grip on her fingers, pointlessly, as her face had already established her glee at his acceptance.
She nodded, slipping up close and depositing money in his back pocket. "Sixty now, forty more when you get me past the doors."
Guardian shrugged. He could easily slip out the back doors, but he felt rather uncomfortable with the girl so close. Still, if the bouncer were going to let them past as a pair, they had to look the part. So he slid his arm cautiously around her shoulders, and pulled her even closer to him. She giggled, and twined herself around his muscular body, staring up adoringly into his almost panicky gaze. How the hell was he supposed to walk with her clinging to him as if they were some sort of Siamese twins?
Staggering forwards, he watched, almost in shock, as the girl adjusted her stride to match his rather large one, and helped to support him. It appeared that she, at least, knew how to walk even while sticking close enough that she became some sort of grotesque tumor. It also appeared that he was drunk... but at least he had someone to help support him, unlike some of the bums he had passed exiting the club. The bouncer took one glance at how old Guardian looked in his khaki's and button-down shirt (not to mention the sharp gaze) and had spent the rest of the time staring avidly at the girl's bare parts before Guardian pulled her roughly past.
He jerked to a stop, though, upon sighting the sea of humanity. The heads were bobbing wildly up and down as if floating on storm-tossed waters, the lights flashed disjointedly and randomly—threatening to cause seizures in anyone that watched them too long—and the music throbbed so loudly that Guardian wondered how, possibly, the streets outside weren't shaking apart, much less the club itself. The girl's hand felt around in his back pocket again, supposedly depositing a wad of money, but when she withdrew her hand, Guardian took it as permission for him to leave (quickly) through the nearby side exit.
Startled when his hand didn't follow the rest of his body, he looked back to see the girl holding onto it for dear life, and tugging on her blonde hair like a pouting child. She mouthed at him, almost wistfully and with the most innocent expression, "Dance with me?"
And so he had. Allowing her to lead him out on the dance floor was one of the most nerve-wracking things he could think of doing, yet he found himself unable to refuse the floozy out of concern; better that she stuck with him than get picked up by a murderer. The pulsing rhythm was kind of hard to miss, but while Guardian was content to rock back and forth in time to the music, clutching the girl and rubbing accidentally against other very sweaty clubbers, she twined herself around him, gyrating and grinding against him. The pleasure building up inside his body from the girl's ministrations both disgusted and intrigued him, and the constant procession of women trying to cut in between them was actually extremely amusing in their own way... especially considering this slut of a girl weaving herself around him had somehow managed to dissuade all of the other admiring women from doing anything other than glare from nearby. They were glowering mostly at her, over their shoulders or over their partner's shoulders. But she seemed completely oblivious to it, other than occasional "accidental" scratches, and had spent all that time either staring into his eyes or doing things to him that he wouldn't protest, but wasn't quite sure were appropriate. But for once he shut up and enjoyed it. After all, considering all that he had already let her get away with, it would be rather rude to just walk away and leave her alone.
An indeterminate amount of wild dancing and alcohol later, the club closed, effectively kicking out all of its patrons onto the streets. Thoroughly exhausted now, Guardian let the girl pull him by the hand through the front doors, past the leering bouncer (whom Guardian leered right back at; highly amused when the bouncer averted his gaze with a disturbed expression. Couldn't take his own medicine, apparently), and into the side alley, which was conspicuously empty. She pulled a pen out of seemingly nowhere, leaving her number on his arm in sloppy handwriting. Winking, a wad of bills appeared in her hand, and she tucked it playfully into his waistband. He wasn't sure if he should be insulted by her giving him more money as if he were a gigolo in a bar that had just had his services appreciated, or just take the damn money and go find a place to sleep. Guardian eventually decided that not even his guilt over taking the money and revulsion about being a play object would tempt him out of a room to sleep in; besides, that girl was a once in a lifetime thing, and he was going to make it a point to never call her number. So he had turned in the opposite direction the girl had strutted in and walked. From behind him had come the sound of things falling to the pavement, but it had only caught his interest because it sounded like someone had tripped over someone else. Moronic clumsy clowns posing as people, Guardian had thought to himself as he walked away and eventually ended up here, in front of this dump.
Guardian shook his head and pushed his way past a pimp and his underdressed whores to get inside the building where he promptly paid forty-five dollars for a room for the week. Even the key to the room was broken, but the room itself was surprisingly clean. He guessed the hotel cleaned it well so that more people would come back to do their business... No, don't think about that. Just sleep. And so Guardian lay down in the bed (the mattress was firm, but the sheets were thin) and tried not to think himself to sleep.
He laid the guy down to rest for the third time in what seemed the past hour. He was heavy, and his randomly moving feet weren't much help in holding him up. His brain hadn't woken up at all during their little jaunt through the woods. Surprising really, because he had accidentally run the guy through branches and bushes galore. It was really hard to maneuver an extra body that he wasn't used to having through thick underbrush. But the guy had faired fairly well at least in physical health... despite the fact that nothing had woken him up. So he spread out the guy next to a tree root and slumped down beside him.
It was getting dark. Well, it had been semi-gloom for a while now as the trees were too thick to let much light through. But now with the sky fading it turned into night sooner than it should have. They had come a long way, but they had yet to find civilization, and he wasn't too sure he wanted to stop here. A lot of good the worry of stopping would do him, for if they did try to continue he was likely to break a leg or lose the other guy down a ravine or something. No, as much as he hated the idea, they had to stay here for tonight. And he might as well try to sleep... maybe sleep would give him a break from the gnawing hunger in his belly that had not disappeared with the random nuts he had been able to find and eat. Rather, those nuts had just reminded him of how hungry he was. But one good way to escape that was sleeping, provided he could squash down or ignore the hunger long enough to actually fall asleep. So he leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to dull his ears to all the natural rustling sounds in the background.
Death. The screams of the dying still rang loud through her head, echoing and screaming a warning with their last breaths. But the warning was in vain, she couldn't understand what they were trying to show her. All she had seen was red, blood red swirling around her as if she were in a twisted, psychopathic whirlpool. The screams were nothing new to her dreams, but that did not mean that they disturbed her any less. The last time she had heard screams in her dreams had resulted in the world almost collapsing. That dream was eerily similar in an undecipherable way, but the problem it had warned of had been dealt with, but this new, distressing dream had enough remembered differences that she couldn't figure it out. She was suffering under so much of a sensory overload from the panicked state that she had awoken in that she could barely think with her own consciousness at all. Flashes of black appeared against the red quickly... images of the people who were screaming out their tortured souls into hers as they died in the dreamscape. Most of them had passed onto the next plane in rather gruesome and macabre ways, but an overwhelming number of them had died in unusual or freak accidents. None of them had died the exact same way, so there wasn't a serial killer or someone who was leaving their mark doing this. It seemed completely random. The dream made absolutely no sense from the information that she had. Life was peaceful, evil had been defeated. These things should NOT be happening again... if they even were. Perhaps she was just imagining it. She had read a murder novel recently, so perhaps her subconscious was playing tricks and imagining different ways that the murder could have been committed. But why the multitudes of people, then? Why the carelessness and indifference to not being caught shown in the murders?
Rei ran a hand across her forehead and discovered that she was covered in a fine sheen of sweat. The night was warm and made her room stuffy, so the sweat made her uncomfortable. She opened the screen noiselessly and slipped out to sit on the porch, hoping some fresh air would stimulate her mind and cool her off somewhat. The stars were beautiful, but the lush trees loomed up out of the darkness and their branches moved restlessly. Nature was trying to tell her something and it couldn't seem to get its message across no matter what it did. The dream was haunting her, especially the colors and the expressions, making her see things that couldn't possibly be there. Like the darkness and emptiness of the trees. Sunlight had showed them earlier to be lush, verdant, and the embodiment of summer. The underlying horror of knowing something was happening, or at least capable of happening in her mind, ruined even these few peaceful, too peaceful, moments that had in the end made her more upset than she had been when she woke up. Those screams... she still heard them, as if from far away. Rei hoped that they wouldn't haunt her for too much longer, but she wasn't sure what she wanted to replace them with...
She shook her head, her hair spilling over her shoulders with that violent movement, as she tried to get her mind off of this destructive looping track. Coming out here on the porch was supposed to make her more at peace, but had instead riled her up more. Rei stood up with a sudden decision that could work either way; to make her either more worried or to put her at ease. She was going to go meditate in front of the fire. At the very least, even if a vision decided not to appear in front of her, the fire always soothed her. It was so mesmerizing in its crackling and movement that it was almost impossible to do anything but get caught up in it. The only setback was that it was uncomfortably hot in that room, but Rei almost always forgot about that one discomfort in the face of the almost nirvana of meditation.
Indeed, the fire relieved her fears somewhat by mesmerizing her. She sat there, and watched the flames go back and forth, burning away at the oxygen in the air and crackling in a symphony that had been praised throughout the evolution of humanity. But even the fire had an air of urgency. Rei couldn't sense that urgency, because she had blocked herself to it, preferring to see only what she wanted to see and not what her psychic senses were capable of showing her. The fire had tolerated this attitude of wanting to be a normal girl long enough, and a vision grabbed her with such suddenness she didn't even have time to gasp. It had been so long since she had had a vision that her mind panicked, and wasn't able to take in much of what was appearing. And what she was able to receive through her panic, and slightly understand, was of poor quality too.
Everything was moving around and around, as if Rei were drunk and the world didn't want to conform to her standards. The panic made her breathe shallowly and this lack of oxygen combined with the ever-changing landscape left her mind spinning in its own unpredictable directions. She staggered through the landscape, trying to find some sort of stable patch to focus on, and came upon two brown splotches that kept stretching and contracting as she watched in confusion. Then, she was back in her own room so abruptly that it had the equivalent effect on her as jumping into a pool in the middle of February. Not even sitting this close to the fire was doing anything to stop Rei's uncontrollable shivering and nausea.
What the hell just happened? Rei managed to stop her shivering through a sheer force of will, but the feeling of nausea didn't go away. She stood up shakily to go find a phone, or medicine, or something, trying not to do anything that might set off her stomach. As soon has she had turned out of the door to the right, her nausea just disappeared, evaporating into thin air quicker than she could blink. Eyes narrowing with suspicion, Rei turned back around and headed the opposite way. The now obviously artificial nausea reappeared in the pit of her stomach.
It was trying to steer her. The heavens only know where this... after- vision... was taking her. Knowing the fates as she did didn't reassure her at all, but rather made her more uneasy. Whatever it was that it was trying to get her to see, it could wait until she had some sort of backup. It wouldn't do to go in blind even if she was stronger than she had been so long ago; Rei had learned the lesson of teamwork well over the years. But which of the former senshi was free, in town, and wouldn't panic?
Ami. Ami didn't panic, and Ami would keep Rei from doing anything that might risk her health. Not that this nausea wasn't making her health go out the window. Ami wouldn't like to be woken up this early in the morning though... if she could just last a few more hours then she wouldn't alarm Ami anymore than she had to. Just think of it as a test of character, Rei told herself. You can pass this test easily. Just go lie down facing the right way and it should go away. She walked down the patio aiming for her room, walking gingerly and thinking these words over and over like a mantra.