A/N: Again, a huge thanks to my reviewers. {{{{{Reviewers!}}}}}
Now, onto the next bit....
Chapter 17
"So you think death may hold interesting mysteries?"
"Yes. Think of the vast unknown of where none return. Think of the knowledge death must hold. Think of the questions it will answer and the new questions it will create."
A pause in the conversation was created by the unified screams that both souls let out as the micron sharp scalpel was once more raked deeply across their golden skin.
"But there is so much more of the corporeal world I wish to learn. I want to stay, to learn about your way of living," Nixic the invader whinnied.
"Harper will not let you, you know this, you share my knowledge of him. He will never allow you have my body. All you will know in this form is never ending pain."
The symphony of harmonious screams once more broke the chain of conversation.
Nixic sighed. "You are right dear Trance. Oh, I wish you could have shared the sweet bliss of murder with me, felt the joy of creating completely terrifying chaos. You would have enjoyed it immensely. But alias, the strings of the universe calls me in another direction."
The scalpel broke the skin like the release of screams broke the conversation.
"Thank you Trance for sharing your body with me. I have greatly enjoyed learning about your emotions, such as love, and about your interesting concept of compassion. It has been a very enlightening experience."
Once more pain broke the rhythm of saying farewells.
"Sweet travels Nixic."
"Violent wishes Trance."
A torrent of energy tore from Trance's body and flooded out into Med deck like a river during a flash flood. Trance felt her body being pull apart from the inside out. Nixic's screams of pain and cries for help slowly echoed around her, while the desperation from the homeless being engulfed her body. Curiosity and even pleasure occasional tapped against her skin from the storm of Nixic. Slowly, the electric air dissipated as Nixic went on the explore the vastness of the universe and beyond. Trance was left alone with only her thoughts and exhausted body.
The quiet was odd really. It was too quiet. She had become accustomed to talking with Nixic, to having two voices in her mind. Now it was just her. A drop of loneness fell into her being.
"Trance?" An even lonelier voice broke through the silence of her mind. Trance unclenched her previously closed eyes. What filled her view sent waves of nausea through her stomach. It was her best friend.
He was standing next to her, releasing her from the restraints he had placed her in. Restraints that had held her captive for the four hours of hell. Hell he had inflicted upon her. But revenge and anger never surfaced. One look at him and all she felt was sorrow and pity.
A light shadow of a beard was filling up his blood and dirt coated face. Bruising was still peaking out from underneath the vast layers of grim. She searched for his trademark dimple but only found infected cuts that his friends had given him. His deeply, sunken, empty eyes were motionless and his mouth didn't even twitch or try to produce any wise cracks. The stranger in Harper's body reached across Trance to release her right arm. As he did so, a wave of fowl stench filled her nostrils. The stench of sweat, blood, and death......the stench of hopelessness.
Her eyes dropped off his ragged face and onto the damages she had caused him. His left arm still hung from his side like a dead deformed snake. Grief, regret and even more pity filled every inch of her soul This was not her Harper. This was a depressing, hopeless, silent clone that was a mare shadow of the original.
"Harper," she struggled to get out past her dry lips, raw throat and overwhelming emotions.
The clone responded my meeting her longing gaze. But as with all the others, those depressing eyes fell a second later to spare his friends his pain, his regret and his hidden monster.
Trance ordered her trembling arms to push her aching body into a sitting position. She could feel the stimulant Harper had given her repress the tremendous urge to pass out.
The stranger who looked like Harper approached her with a syringe in his trembling right hand. She flashed him a questioning look which he quickly glanced up to catch.
"To make you sleep," he informed he as he brought the container of unconscious bliss closer to her neck.
Quickly the golden alien grabbed the trembling arm. But just as quickly, the owner yanked the extremity away as if her touch was death itself.
Where is my Harper!? she demanded to herself. "Seamus, are you ok?" she asked even though she knew the answer. She desperately needed to hear him give his normal speedy reply of "I'm good, I'm good." She needed to hear it to know that her best friend was still somewhere in that pathetic shell of a man.
"You need to rest," was all he answered.
Sorrow filled Trance once more as she searched for any sign of Harper. She tried to push herself off the bed to get closer to the oh-so distant human, but her jelly like arms couldn't even move her an inch. Words were her only tool now. "Harper, you're scaring me. Talk to me...please," she begged sounding more like her innocent purple pixie self rather than the battle hardened golden warrior.
The look-a-like lifted his wary head up from his intense study of the floor. Trance felt his cold gaze bore deep into her forehead. Apparently her eyes were to hard a target for him to hit.
"Look, you need to rest, just let me give this to you 'cause I don't have time for explanations or a pity party." His tone was quick, harsh and determined.
"Why don't you have time? Harper, at least sit down next to me. You know I won't bite...hard." That had to get a smile to break out of that eerily empty face.
His response was the continued endurance of his intense blank stare.
Trance felt buckets of ice water get poured down her back.
"No time," he hastily mumbled more to himself than to his audience.
One final idea hit Trance's desperate mind. If he didn't respond to this, nothing would free her Harper from stranger trembling in front of her. "Seamus Harper, if you come over here now and sit next to me, I will give you the best kiss you've ever experienced." Hoped filled the void of silence that flowed in after she finished her sentence.
He responded.
A blank stare, then a dropped head, then the unthinkable....he backed away.
Paranoia from the Buzz was racing through every inch of his mind and body. Why did she wanna kiss him? Why now? Why after he had just tortured her? He remembered her hand wrapping around his arm holding him while the others beat him. He remembered the sick crackling that his bones created as the pressure from her grip increased. Then he remembered her grabbing his arm as he had tried to inject her with the sedative. Yes, that's it. She wanted him to get close enough to her so she could finish the job. Well Momma Harper's boy was not about to loose his right arm to stupidity!
Trace watched in shock as Harper took that small yet huge step backwards. As his foot fell to the ground, he turned Trance's shattered world into dust.
Then the unthinkable was followed by the unbelievable. He threw the syringe at her as he quickly grabbed his gun from his belt. Even with a trembling arm, he managed to keep her equally trembling body targeted with the already charged weapon.
"Inject yourself," his raw alien voice demanded.
"Harper?" Trance whispered in overwhelming shock.
"just do it....no time, no time, must finish, no time...do it..." he rambled to himself.
Trance replied with a confused stare. What the hell was wrong with him. Was that really Harper or had one of the aliens invaded him too? What had this experience created?
"DO IT!" the stranger's mumbles had turned into a yell. His finger twitched ever closer to the trigger.
With no way to physically reach him and with words failing her, Trance gave into his demands. Guilt immediately filled her as the thought of giving up on Harper filtered into her conciseness. When my strength returns, I will help him, she thought to ease the monster of guilt...if he's even alive then, the scarier monster of despair added on. She raised the syringe to her neck with much effort and injected her body with the chemicals that would ease her troubled mind and let her escape her cruel reality.
Harper watched as Trance fell back onto the med bed. He still had his gun trained on her now unmoving form. A hurricane of emotions ragged in his head. Trust, betrayal, love, hate, acceptance, shame.
As he gazed longingly at his golden goddess, the eye of the hurricane hit. Emotions filtered up to the surface. His cold eyes filled with stubborn tears that would not give into gravity's relentless demand.
Slowly he made his way over to the peaceful form. He lifted her dangling legs back onto the soft mattress and placed her sprawled arms at her sides. Feeling safe in the knowledge that she could not harm him anymore, he brushed aside a loose dreadlock that laid across her beautiful face. He bent down over her and brushed his dry lips against her soft, warm forehead.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered as the tears finally gave into Newton's laws.
He kept his lips on her soft skin, taking in her sweet smell. Cleansing tears continued to flow down his filthy face creating a path of pale clean skin behind them. "So sorry," he whispered once more. 'So sorry."
Tears continued to flow from his eyes as he regrettably glanced upward and caught a glimpse of the bed next to Trance's. The bed that held his last duty before he would let Buzz take him away from the hells of his mortal existence. That glance marked the approach of other side of the eye wall and signaled that the storm was about to come back stronger than ever.
TBC.....