No....not now...please...no. Trees. So many of them. Everywhere. Nowhere to go. Closer. She could feel It's presence behind her. No. Run. Faster. Faster. Must go faster. Not now. No. She sprinted between trees, over fallen branches, under protruding brush. Pitpatpitpat. Closer. No. Speeding fast, she could hear It. Crunch crunch. The crumbling leaves beneath her feet, a dead give-away. Must go faster. FASTER!
It was right behind her. That monster. She couldn't look back. No. Not now, not yet. Darkness.
No moon filtered light shimmered between clearings. It abandoned her, left her to die. Hid behind the clouds so it wouldn't have to watch her death.
Silence.
They knew. They knew It was coming. They all hid, not wanting to be Its next prey. It was breathing down her neck. Smelling her.
How. No. Faster. Closer.
Crunch snap. Dead leaves, dead twigs. It was autumn. Time of death. Time of her death. Must go faster. Not yet. No. The darkness was overwhelming. It lived in this darkness, breathed it, cherished it, loved it. How.
Where did It come from? Why was It here? Why would God make such a thing capable of...this? She felt It. So close now. She could feel Its thoughts, Its intentions. Die. Must die.
Green eyes.
Those green eyes that penetrated her soul.
Those green floating orbs.
So deadly.
So sinister.
Green death. No.
Live, please. Closer. Faster. So close, too close. Faster damnit FASTER!
She fell. No. It's here.
No. Autumn. Time of death, my death. My death. November. Fall. Time of my fall. Where is he. Wait. Who? It?
No, not It. He. Him. Where. Save me. Now. Yes. Save me from this monster. My monster. My nightmare. My everything. ["Where was It? It should have ripped me limb from limb and piece by piece consumed me alive. Why not?"] Him. He came. She sat up, looked around. There. There he was, standing there, smiling. Him. Face shadowed, body scraped, he came closer. He held out his hand and chuckled.
Beautiful smile, beautiful body, he helped me. He always will.
He stopped. His smile faded.
No. Not now. Blood. No.
Everywhere. The monster.
His body, bone, blood, eaten by this this thing. No. Not him. Not my refuge. The monster got him. Why him. No. No. NO! His upper body. Not there. Blood. On trees, leaves, the monster. It was satisfied enough for now. It left, leaving him there, her there. His body in two. Nowhere. Trees, leaves. Crunch crunch. Farther. Gone.
Everything. All gone. Not him.
He will be back. He always is. He has to be.
No. He's gone.
Forever. No. No. Not him. NO! "NO!," Videl sat straight up in her car seat, breathing hard, sweating, eyes wide. It was the Dream, the dream she has had from childhood, but it was worse now. He was killed. Him. Who he was she never saw. His face was always shadowed darker than everything else, but she felt warm in his presence. He always smiled, helped her, got her out of the dream, but He was killed, gone. She tried to catch her breath. Chest heaving, she realized she fell asleep in her car outside of the restaurant.
The red neon light irritated her eyes. She closed them, took a deep breath in, and slowly exhaled, leaning back in her seat. She wiped the sweat off of her forehead and rubbed her temples. The Dream was getting worse. She didn't know what it ment. Well, not exactly, but could it be prophesizing or symbolizing something like those psychic people always say ? Naw...couldn't be. She shook her head, but it's getting worse. A lot worse.
The dream had been recurring since as far back as she could remember. Most nights her mother would have to sit there and rock her to sleep four to five times, but her mother never complained. She would sit there and sing to Videl, drying her daughter's tears. It seemed as if she understood all the time, always there, helping and loving.
But then her mother left. She had no one to turn to on those horrible nights. Those nights when she would cry aloud, but her father would do nothing to sooth her, nothing to calm her or protect her. It was then He came along. That wonderful stranger. She always believed that her mind created Him so she could survive that monster, but He always seemed so real, so kind, so good. Within the presence of evil that constantly plagued her dreams, He was always there like a shining beacon of hope. When He first entered her dream she was frightened believing another monster had come along to take away everything. He was young, about her age. He always seemed to be her age. Even now. He appeared to be around twenty, maybe even older. But she thought it was most likely her body calling out for someone to interact with that was well...her age.
In this nightmare, though she always came out alive, others would perish due to her stupidity. He was next. It was His turn to die, and now she was alone again with no one to turn to.
She was afraid to fall asleep a second time. What if He never came back, would her mind create a new body guard so-to-say, and would they suffer the same fate as Him and her mother?
There were questions that always frightened her when she thought about the monstrosity. Why was she having these nightmares, when were the dreams going to end, and if they do, what would the consequence be to stopping them? Will people die, or will I just have to pay a psychiatrist?
Sure, she has had people's life in her hands before. She was an emergency cop, a special S.W.A.T. gunman without the gun. Fighting crime she felt immortal, but fighting this demon inside her mind she felt helpless, and helplessness was one emotion she dispised. After opening her eyes and resting her hands on her lap, she took a deep breath and started the engine to her truck. The digital clock read 8:30. It wasn't too late, but she was tired and wanted to get home, perhaps to take a good sleeping pill before bed.
Her eyes half shut, she warily pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. It's coming. But why?
BAD CHEESE!!!!
He sat at his desk upstairs looking at it. It was strange, like nothing he has ever seen before, but yet so familiar. Well, it was a doll. Dolls are common, but not this kind. It was a stuffed beanbag of a doll. The tough fabric was all white and perhaps a worn cotton. It was about six inches tall with mitten hands and feet. Typical enough, but the face was what daunted him. From the face he could tell this was no child's doll. The eyes were crudely stitched with a black thread into large X shapes and the mouth was the same, accept consisting of five or six in a strait scowl. There was another aspect that freaked him out also. There was a black threaded X over the place where a person's heart would be. He had never seen that before. The six inch doll sat lifelessly against Gohan's green desk lamp hunched over due to the unsturdy stuffing. Gohan looked over to the item that was attached to the X doll. A black headed pin secured a note to the mannequin. The paper was yellow, crumbled and it seemed to be very aged, but what was on the note is what dismayed him most of all. He couldn't read it. The note was written in Saiyan. How could anyone on Earth know the Saiyan language?
Studying the note, Gohan was able to recognize a few articles such a 'the' an 'a' every now and then, but all knowledge of verbs and nouns slipped away from him long ago leaving him clueless, so he simply gave up. No use crying over spilled soup...or forgotten languages. Okay, so maybe that metaphor didn't exactly fit the situation, but you get the point.
Moving his attention over to the doll once more, Gohan picked it up, but in the process knocked the pin off of the desk and onto the cream colored carpet of his study. He took no notice. Gohan held the figure in the palm of his hand and, deciding to pick up the pin later, gazed at its sluggish features.
It just laid there. It seemed harmless enough.
He closed his hand over the doll's torso and head trying to see if there was anything inside of it, but only beans shifted inside of the doll. Gohan shook his head and stood up. "This is just...," he stopped himself, shook his head, and sighed before putting the doll back to its position on the lamp.
"I have to pee."
He turned his back to the bean bag thing and left to relieve himself of the liquids he consumed at the diner. After about five minutes, the sound of a flushing toilet filled the silence in the house and eventually faded away as Gohan made his way back through his home to the study.
Entering the room, he noticed the computer was on. "Hmm. That's strange. I don't remember turning it on," his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He walked over to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down. A pain shot through his right leg. Gohan shot up off his chair knocking it down and felt down his thigh to find out what caused the burn. His fingertips met a smooth little ball the size of a bead attaching his jeans to his leg. He turned his head and looked down. It was black. The pin. It was a good two inches long and buried all the way into his leg.
A small blotch of red began to stain his jeans around the pin. Slowly grabbing the head, he quickly yanked it out of his leg and looked at it. The pin glistened red as if showing off to the world that it had indeed inbedded itself into Son Gohan.
Gohan held up the pin to his face and examined it, turning it in all directions. The fact that the pin was on the chair when it had clearly fallen onto the carpet was weird enough, but something shook him. How could the pin puncture his skin if not even bullets can get through? How could the pin even cause him pain? What was this pin... Gohan looked over to his desk. The doll had fallen over from the lamp and was now laying there flat on the desk's surface. Its arms were crossed over each other and its head tilted to the side as if it was looking at him. He warily eyed the doll and then went back to the pin, then the doll again. "This is crazy. How...how can this...," once more shaking his head, he disposed of the pin into the nearby waist bin and picked up the chair before sitting on it once more. By now the screensaver had been running across the computer screen for a few minutes. His leg still stung, but it wasn't too bad. Remembering that he had quite a bit of work to do, he moved the mouse to deactivate the screen saver and noticed something was written on the screen. The deadline is dawn. Ticktock, Kanahan.
Gohan's eyes widened as he timidly stoop up from his seat. Placing his hands on his desk, he looked over a the doll, arms still crossed, head still tilted. Slowly, he reached a shaking hand over to the rag doll to pick it up.
It was heavy. Not nearly as light a before. He poked the doll trying to find the source of the weight. There. A lump in the doll's chest and it was...moving. Twitch, trob throb, twitch. A constant pattern, but it wasn't the beating of a heart...just throbbing.
["Wait, but there was no lump before. I couldn't have missed it...could I?"]
The lump squirmed frantically as if it was trying to retreat to another area to not be disturbed. Gohan yelled and quickly flung the mannequin across the room. It eventually hit the opposite wall and fell beside a leather sofa. It didn't move, but it landed once again with its arms crossed, head tilted. Staring, just staring at him.
"Wha-What the hell...i-is that?" Gohan stuttered pushing himself up against the opposite wall.
Thunder crashed. A bright white, blue light soared through the windows of his study. Then the storm broke. The clouds quickly unleashed their never ending platoons of raindrops onto the Los Angeles ground below.
Pitpatpitpat.
That continuous sound of water droplets falling on the roof reverberated throughout the two story home keeping perfect time with the thunder as if they were a symphony creating the mood for the next scene in a movie, and from the sound of it, the next spectacle was not going to be good.
Gohan felt the urge to get away from that doll. Something grew inside of it, and from what little knowledge he had about dolls, he could immediately guess that there were no such things as organic baby growing rag dolls. He looked to his left and saw the hallway that led to his bedroom. Quickly shifting glances between the X stitched puppet and the hall, he inched his way over to his destination glancing back and forth to make sure the doll wasn't going to jump up and eat him or do something strange and cannibalistic like the things you see in horror movies these days.
The drums of the sky made their presence known above the rain once more after sending out their preemptive strike of lightening. The room shown like a strobe light.
Gohan reached the hall, closed the door - just for precaution...It's not like the doll's just gonna stand up and walk out of here...right? - , and sprinted down the hallway to his small room. Once again closing the door behind him, Gohan activated the lock and began to pace. "This just isn't right, not logical. Dolls don't ... do whatever that thing did!" He ran his fingers through his hair. "It just can't be happening. I need to get out of here."
Why was this doll, this little six inch tall blob of fabric, cause him such fear? Why was he afraid to go out there and find a trusty seam ripper to kill the thing?
His Saiyan instances were running wild telling him that danger lay ahead, but where was the danger?
The only problem with being two species at once is the difference in how you think. One part of his mind, the Saiyan part, was screaming at him to go out there and rip up the thing before it killed him, but the other half of his mind , the human part, was quietly telling him that this thing was just a doll and couldn't do anything.
["Then again," ]Gohan thought contradicting his human reasoning, ["humans don't think that people can fly without wings, and look at me."]
Simotaniously feeling embarrassed and in grave danger was confusing to Gohan. He wasn't necessarily in fear at the moment, but he had no clue what was happening in his study, his own home. He walked over to the door and put his ear up to it hoping that his sensitive Saiyan hearing could pick-up something that might be happening in the hallway if the doll managed to have magical door opening skills.
If anything happened, all soundly evidence of it was wiped away with the pitpat of the rain on the roof.
Gohan sighed and plastered his back to his bedroom door.
["How am I even sure this thing can do anything other than freak me out?"]
Okay, so he had no proof that something was going horribly wrong in the current circumstances of reality, but his mind was going crazy splurting off code red warnings. His brain was going haywire with imaginary sparks and short circuits happening by the second. Any moment now smoke could start appearing from his ears.
["Okay,"] he began to reason, ["If I don't have sure fire evidence that this thing is gonna try and rip my balls off, then I shouldn't be worrying this much."]
Hoping that his human-made deduction was the correct one, Gohan took his back away from the door and placed his hand on the doorknob.
["'s now or never."]
Gohan hoped he could have made it never.
It was right behind her. That monster. She couldn't look back. No. Not now, not yet. Darkness.
No moon filtered light shimmered between clearings. It abandoned her, left her to die. Hid behind the clouds so it wouldn't have to watch her death.
Silence.
They knew. They knew It was coming. They all hid, not wanting to be Its next prey. It was breathing down her neck. Smelling her.
How. No. Faster. Closer.
Crunch snap. Dead leaves, dead twigs. It was autumn. Time of death. Time of her death. Must go faster. Not yet. No. The darkness was overwhelming. It lived in this darkness, breathed it, cherished it, loved it. How.
Where did It come from? Why was It here? Why would God make such a thing capable of...this? She felt It. So close now. She could feel Its thoughts, Its intentions. Die. Must die.
Green eyes.
Those green eyes that penetrated her soul.
Those green floating orbs.
So deadly.
So sinister.
Green death. No.
Live, please. Closer. Faster. So close, too close. Faster damnit FASTER!
She fell. No. It's here.
No. Autumn. Time of death, my death. My death. November. Fall. Time of my fall. Where is he. Wait. Who? It?
No, not It. He. Him. Where. Save me. Now. Yes. Save me from this monster. My monster. My nightmare. My everything. ["Where was It? It should have ripped me limb from limb and piece by piece consumed me alive. Why not?"] Him. He came. She sat up, looked around. There. There he was, standing there, smiling. Him. Face shadowed, body scraped, he came closer. He held out his hand and chuckled.
Beautiful smile, beautiful body, he helped me. He always will.
He stopped. His smile faded.
No. Not now. Blood. No.
Everywhere. The monster.
His body, bone, blood, eaten by this this thing. No. Not him. Not my refuge. The monster got him. Why him. No. No. NO! His upper body. Not there. Blood. On trees, leaves, the monster. It was satisfied enough for now. It left, leaving him there, her there. His body in two. Nowhere. Trees, leaves. Crunch crunch. Farther. Gone.
Everything. All gone. Not him.
He will be back. He always is. He has to be.
No. He's gone.
Forever. No. No. Not him. NO! "NO!," Videl sat straight up in her car seat, breathing hard, sweating, eyes wide. It was the Dream, the dream she has had from childhood, but it was worse now. He was killed. Him. Who he was she never saw. His face was always shadowed darker than everything else, but she felt warm in his presence. He always smiled, helped her, got her out of the dream, but He was killed, gone. She tried to catch her breath. Chest heaving, she realized she fell asleep in her car outside of the restaurant.
The red neon light irritated her eyes. She closed them, took a deep breath in, and slowly exhaled, leaning back in her seat. She wiped the sweat off of her forehead and rubbed her temples. The Dream was getting worse. She didn't know what it ment. Well, not exactly, but could it be prophesizing or symbolizing something like those psychic people always say ? Naw...couldn't be. She shook her head, but it's getting worse. A lot worse.
The dream had been recurring since as far back as she could remember. Most nights her mother would have to sit there and rock her to sleep four to five times, but her mother never complained. She would sit there and sing to Videl, drying her daughter's tears. It seemed as if she understood all the time, always there, helping and loving.
But then her mother left. She had no one to turn to on those horrible nights. Those nights when she would cry aloud, but her father would do nothing to sooth her, nothing to calm her or protect her. It was then He came along. That wonderful stranger. She always believed that her mind created Him so she could survive that monster, but He always seemed so real, so kind, so good. Within the presence of evil that constantly plagued her dreams, He was always there like a shining beacon of hope. When He first entered her dream she was frightened believing another monster had come along to take away everything. He was young, about her age. He always seemed to be her age. Even now. He appeared to be around twenty, maybe even older. But she thought it was most likely her body calling out for someone to interact with that was well...her age.
In this nightmare, though she always came out alive, others would perish due to her stupidity. He was next. It was His turn to die, and now she was alone again with no one to turn to.
She was afraid to fall asleep a second time. What if He never came back, would her mind create a new body guard so-to-say, and would they suffer the same fate as Him and her mother?
There were questions that always frightened her when she thought about the monstrosity. Why was she having these nightmares, when were the dreams going to end, and if they do, what would the consequence be to stopping them? Will people die, or will I just have to pay a psychiatrist?
Sure, she has had people's life in her hands before. She was an emergency cop, a special S.W.A.T. gunman without the gun. Fighting crime she felt immortal, but fighting this demon inside her mind she felt helpless, and helplessness was one emotion she dispised. After opening her eyes and resting her hands on her lap, she took a deep breath and started the engine to her truck. The digital clock read 8:30. It wasn't too late, but she was tired and wanted to get home, perhaps to take a good sleeping pill before bed.
Her eyes half shut, she warily pulled out of the parking lot and onto the highway. It's coming. But why?
BAD CHEESE!!!!
He sat at his desk upstairs looking at it. It was strange, like nothing he has ever seen before, but yet so familiar. Well, it was a doll. Dolls are common, but not this kind. It was a stuffed beanbag of a doll. The tough fabric was all white and perhaps a worn cotton. It was about six inches tall with mitten hands and feet. Typical enough, but the face was what daunted him. From the face he could tell this was no child's doll. The eyes were crudely stitched with a black thread into large X shapes and the mouth was the same, accept consisting of five or six in a strait scowl. There was another aspect that freaked him out also. There was a black threaded X over the place where a person's heart would be. He had never seen that before. The six inch doll sat lifelessly against Gohan's green desk lamp hunched over due to the unsturdy stuffing. Gohan looked over to the item that was attached to the X doll. A black headed pin secured a note to the mannequin. The paper was yellow, crumbled and it seemed to be very aged, but what was on the note is what dismayed him most of all. He couldn't read it. The note was written in Saiyan. How could anyone on Earth know the Saiyan language?
Studying the note, Gohan was able to recognize a few articles such a 'the' an 'a' every now and then, but all knowledge of verbs and nouns slipped away from him long ago leaving him clueless, so he simply gave up. No use crying over spilled soup...or forgotten languages. Okay, so maybe that metaphor didn't exactly fit the situation, but you get the point.
Moving his attention over to the doll once more, Gohan picked it up, but in the process knocked the pin off of the desk and onto the cream colored carpet of his study. He took no notice. Gohan held the figure in the palm of his hand and, deciding to pick up the pin later, gazed at its sluggish features.
It just laid there. It seemed harmless enough.
He closed his hand over the doll's torso and head trying to see if there was anything inside of it, but only beans shifted inside of the doll. Gohan shook his head and stood up. "This is just...," he stopped himself, shook his head, and sighed before putting the doll back to its position on the lamp.
"I have to pee."
He turned his back to the bean bag thing and left to relieve himself of the liquids he consumed at the diner. After about five minutes, the sound of a flushing toilet filled the silence in the house and eventually faded away as Gohan made his way back through his home to the study.
Entering the room, he noticed the computer was on. "Hmm. That's strange. I don't remember turning it on," his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He walked over to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down. A pain shot through his right leg. Gohan shot up off his chair knocking it down and felt down his thigh to find out what caused the burn. His fingertips met a smooth little ball the size of a bead attaching his jeans to his leg. He turned his head and looked down. It was black. The pin. It was a good two inches long and buried all the way into his leg.
A small blotch of red began to stain his jeans around the pin. Slowly grabbing the head, he quickly yanked it out of his leg and looked at it. The pin glistened red as if showing off to the world that it had indeed inbedded itself into Son Gohan.
Gohan held up the pin to his face and examined it, turning it in all directions. The fact that the pin was on the chair when it had clearly fallen onto the carpet was weird enough, but something shook him. How could the pin puncture his skin if not even bullets can get through? How could the pin even cause him pain? What was this pin... Gohan looked over to his desk. The doll had fallen over from the lamp and was now laying there flat on the desk's surface. Its arms were crossed over each other and its head tilted to the side as if it was looking at him. He warily eyed the doll and then went back to the pin, then the doll again. "This is crazy. How...how can this...," once more shaking his head, he disposed of the pin into the nearby waist bin and picked up the chair before sitting on it once more. By now the screensaver had been running across the computer screen for a few minutes. His leg still stung, but it wasn't too bad. Remembering that he had quite a bit of work to do, he moved the mouse to deactivate the screen saver and noticed something was written on the screen. The deadline is dawn. Ticktock, Kanahan.
Gohan's eyes widened as he timidly stoop up from his seat. Placing his hands on his desk, he looked over a the doll, arms still crossed, head still tilted. Slowly, he reached a shaking hand over to the rag doll to pick it up.
It was heavy. Not nearly as light a before. He poked the doll trying to find the source of the weight. There. A lump in the doll's chest and it was...moving. Twitch, trob throb, twitch. A constant pattern, but it wasn't the beating of a heart...just throbbing.
["Wait, but there was no lump before. I couldn't have missed it...could I?"]
The lump squirmed frantically as if it was trying to retreat to another area to not be disturbed. Gohan yelled and quickly flung the mannequin across the room. It eventually hit the opposite wall and fell beside a leather sofa. It didn't move, but it landed once again with its arms crossed, head tilted. Staring, just staring at him.
"Wha-What the hell...i-is that?" Gohan stuttered pushing himself up against the opposite wall.
Thunder crashed. A bright white, blue light soared through the windows of his study. Then the storm broke. The clouds quickly unleashed their never ending platoons of raindrops onto the Los Angeles ground below.
Pitpatpitpat.
That continuous sound of water droplets falling on the roof reverberated throughout the two story home keeping perfect time with the thunder as if they were a symphony creating the mood for the next scene in a movie, and from the sound of it, the next spectacle was not going to be good.
Gohan felt the urge to get away from that doll. Something grew inside of it, and from what little knowledge he had about dolls, he could immediately guess that there were no such things as organic baby growing rag dolls. He looked to his left and saw the hallway that led to his bedroom. Quickly shifting glances between the X stitched puppet and the hall, he inched his way over to his destination glancing back and forth to make sure the doll wasn't going to jump up and eat him or do something strange and cannibalistic like the things you see in horror movies these days.
The drums of the sky made their presence known above the rain once more after sending out their preemptive strike of lightening. The room shown like a strobe light.
Gohan reached the hall, closed the door - just for precaution...It's not like the doll's just gonna stand up and walk out of here...right? - , and sprinted down the hallway to his small room. Once again closing the door behind him, Gohan activated the lock and began to pace. "This just isn't right, not logical. Dolls don't ... do whatever that thing did!" He ran his fingers through his hair. "It just can't be happening. I need to get out of here."
Why was this doll, this little six inch tall blob of fabric, cause him such fear? Why was he afraid to go out there and find a trusty seam ripper to kill the thing?
His Saiyan instances were running wild telling him that danger lay ahead, but where was the danger?
The only problem with being two species at once is the difference in how you think. One part of his mind, the Saiyan part, was screaming at him to go out there and rip up the thing before it killed him, but the other half of his mind , the human part, was quietly telling him that this thing was just a doll and couldn't do anything.
["Then again," ]Gohan thought contradicting his human reasoning, ["humans don't think that people can fly without wings, and look at me."]
Simotaniously feeling embarrassed and in grave danger was confusing to Gohan. He wasn't necessarily in fear at the moment, but he had no clue what was happening in his study, his own home. He walked over to the door and put his ear up to it hoping that his sensitive Saiyan hearing could pick-up something that might be happening in the hallway if the doll managed to have magical door opening skills.
If anything happened, all soundly evidence of it was wiped away with the pitpat of the rain on the roof.
Gohan sighed and plastered his back to his bedroom door.
["How am I even sure this thing can do anything other than freak me out?"]
Okay, so he had no proof that something was going horribly wrong in the current circumstances of reality, but his mind was going crazy splurting off code red warnings. His brain was going haywire with imaginary sparks and short circuits happening by the second. Any moment now smoke could start appearing from his ears.
["Okay,"] he began to reason, ["If I don't have sure fire evidence that this thing is gonna try and rip my balls off, then I shouldn't be worrying this much."]
Hoping that his human-made deduction was the correct one, Gohan took his back away from the door and placed his hand on the doorknob.
["'s now or never."]
Gohan hoped he could have made it never.