Chapter Two: The darker side of Dreams
Heather was started when the elevator jolted to a halt and the rusty bars that kept her inside ground open with an ear piercing shriek that nothing, man nor monster could have failed to hear. She cowered against the foul smelling, rust covered bars, to afraid to move from the spot.
Outside the elevator, she could see little but darkness, broken only by vague and menacing shapes and the occasional sputter of light from a failing panel.
Wherever Heather was, be it some nightmare realm or the twisted confines of her own imagination, she could not have found herself in a worse place… alone, in the dark, danger everywhere…
She tried in vain to pierce the darkness, but it remained absolute. If this was a dream, as she was increasingly coming to doubt, then she no longer had any control over it.
Standing on pale and trembling legs, she moved cautiously to the exit and poked her head around, examining her blindness critically.
The darkness wasn't as complete as she feared, there was enough ambient light for her to make out some things, though her imagination filled each moment and every shadow with fantastic terrors.
It was as she was considering retreating into the elevator, that she spotted the light. It was blinking lazily, but strongly from around the corner of what she guessed was some sort of T-junction.
Her first impulse was to race toward it unheedingly, but even as she began to place her foot outside the safety of the elevator, something told her that wasn't a good idea. Every hair on her body seemed to stand at once, and she had the uncanny feeling that she was being watched.
Heather tried to figure out her options, she could wait here, and hope to avoid the attention of whatever was out there or she could make an active attempt to get to the light and with any luck, to safety before whatever might be out there could decide that she might be edible…
Holding her gun at her side, Heather strode out of the lift, looking neither left nor right, still keenly aware that she was being watched.
Her entire body trembled but she remained focused on the light ahead, blocking out the noises she heard around her, the shuffle of a phantom footstep, the wet tearing of flesh being rent in secret and the unintelligible growls that stalked her footfalls.
She was talking to herself quietly but she barely noticed and didn't care. All that mattered now was the light, the light meant safety, nothing existed but the light.
Something brushed past her leg, the feel of rotting flesh on her bare legs making her want to scream but she didn't, she remained focused.
There was a sudden guttural growl from behind her, and her head turned in reflex, eyes accustomed to the distant illumination now hopelessly maladjusted and lost.
The shadows rushed forward and Heather ran.
The light leapt forward to greet her as she powered around the bend, catching a brief glance of the mutilated, dog like creature to her right before instinctively choosing the opposite direction.
There was no time to try every door, so she just angled for the first opening she saw and slammed the door closed, sliding its deadbolt into place and back-pedalling more rapidly than her balance could cope with, earning many gouges from the shards of glass and wood splinters that littered the floor, all that remained of many of the rooms cabinets.
She incurred more as she continued to scramble back on hand and foot, her gaze locked on the door, until her back encountered cool, ungiving steel.
Her heart pin-balled around her chest as if it no longer deemed her a safe place to reside, and it didn't subside until she had spent minutes huddled there, bleeding from her many minor injuries, waiting for the flimsy door to be torn asunder by the things that had been chasing her.
Be it from blood loss or a level of panic her body couldn't cope with, Heather blacked out.
"She is the one!"
"Maybe… but she's useless like this"
"Yes, but I have plans for her"
"I remember all to well how your plans turned out last time old woman"
"Bah! I was not ready, but this time my daughter will succeed, she has a… unique perspective that will be useful here"
"Maybe, but… she's here!"
"Yes! Come to me child, remember!"
"Stop you fool, the Master of Fate-"
"Is a mindless puppet of a system he cannot understand!"
"Perhaps, but he understands the rules that govern us if not her… besides, if all else fails, there is still the boy…"
Heather woke instantly, fumbling blindly until her hand encountered something that gouged a fiery line across her palm.
She drew the dripping appendage up to her face as if offended that it would do something as mundane as bleed and tried to remember what had happened…
Her mind drew a complete blank. All she recalled was ducking into this room and tripping… She couldn't even recall for sure how or indeed when she had passed out.
Her wound was still steadily dripping and aching, reminding her that it was there and required her attention.
Heather stood, stretching muscles that seemed to have cramped all at once and looked around.
What she saw was so ironic it actually made her snort with somewhat cynical laughter, she had cut herself in what seemed to be an infirmary. The traditional red cross was emblazoned in fading glory on every bit of glass that remained intact and there was even a wheeled stretcher/bed, the thing she was currently leaning against, though it looked as if someone had given birth on it and it had never been replaced since. The blood looked almost… fresh…
Heather moved away with as much hast and dignity as she could manage, crunching already broken glass underfoot as she began a careful search for something to bandage her still weeping hand.
Most of the cupboards were bare, and those that weren't only had age rotted scraps of what once might have been bandages, and a few bottles of various evil looking fluids.
Eventually she found a scrap long enough to suit her purpose and bound her hand quietly, trying not to think about how filthy the room and cupboards were, and how that might affect her chances of getting an infection of some sort.
Not satisfied, but no longer openly bleeding, she paced the room, allowing her mind to run down her 'plan of action' hence forth.
'Leave the room, run around aimlessly until one of those things finds you, then die'…. Not an inspiring train of thought.
Lost in trying to find scenarios that didn't end this way, or at least ones that put more steps in the way of that final one, she didn't really notice what she was starring at until she found herself tracing the edges of the symbol with her eyes.
Each time she had seen this symbol previously it had denoted something terrible, and yet she could look away, there was such a familiarity in the complex drawing that it held her gaze, she had definitely seen it before, but where…
Douglas paced the main hall of the mall impatiently, he had waited a whole hour for that girl before realising the obvious and sticking his head in ladies room to confirm.
Exactly as he had expected, no Ms.Mason and one empty bathroom with an open window mocking him with an inanimate grin.
A trusting nature was not beneficial to a private detective, quite the opposite in fact as someone had once pointed out to him long ago…
The age worn man shrugged off those old memories and the personal demons that lumbered after them, he still had a job to do. If that map he had, ahem, appropriated, from the employee lounge was anything to go by, there was no way Heather could have gotten out by simply hoping out the window, there was simply nowhere for her to go but back inside, back into the service hallways that ran through every part of the mall.
At which point logic dictated she would have been apprehended by mall security and deposited at the nearest security office.
Following this train of thought Douglas had gone to one of these stations, intending to make inquires about her, perhaps hinting that she was a shoplifter or a mentally deficient ward who had wondered away, if his read on the girl was anything to go by she was probably stubborn enough to simply not have answered any questions they would have tried to ask her, making it easier for him to pull his little deception, he had been given enough of her background information to pass as her guardian with ease.
However, when he had arrived he had found the station deserted. Not any real issue, there were so many that not all of them needed to be manned every second, he had just gone to the next.
Again, deserted, as were the three after that. In fact, as he was becoming disturbingly aware, there didn't seem to be anyone in the mall at all. That confused him, it had been late when he had finally found her, but not enough for an hour or so to see everyone packed up and gone, especially not without a closing announcement and at least one sweep by security.
However little sense it seemed to make, it appeared that everyone had vanished while he was distracted.
'I can't be getting so old that I failed to notice some two hundred odd employees leaving for the night', he thought with an irritable shake of the head.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted something moving, but it vanished around a bend as he turned to regard it.
"Hello?", he called out… no response.
Maybe he was seeing things, after all, he hadn't heard anything, an impossibility in this buildings eerie silence, maybe there hadn't been anyone there.
Then again… moving with a grace that belied his growing girth, Douglas moved to the intersection where he had thought he'd seen the figure, finding his hand reaching under his trench-coat for the pistol he kept hidden there, just in case.
Douglas rounded the corner just as his hand established a firm grip on the pistol. A good thing to, it probably saved his life…
Heather watched as the Closer moved away in impossible silence, attracted to the noise of the can she had thrown, it, and the two other silent killers like it, were drawn to the new noise, not paying any attention to the unmoving shadow that was Heather Mason.
As much as she loathed the dark, it was fast becoming her only ally in this twisted nightmare dimension, although considering her foes lack of visible eyes, it might just have been wishful thinking.
She snuck on ahead, something about the place she now found herself in playing at the back of her mind.
It wasn't until she passed the severely out of order pay phones that in clicked. She was back where she started, or more specifically, back where all this had started, with the appearance of that creepy old detective. Heather's remaining doubts about him vanished, he had to have something to do with this, it was too big of a coincidence otherwise.
She checked each door she passed, always glancing back to make sure she hadn't picked up a silent pursuer before and after she tried the handle.
As was almost becoming the norm, only one door opened, allowing her into an employee storeroom, a class of room she was rapidly becoming disdainful of.
Light dazzled her as she opened the door, but she retained enough sense of mind to close the door behind her. In the near perfect darkness of the mall, any light would attract unwanted attention.
When her eyes finally adjusted to the sudden intrusion of light that required they actually work once more as they would normally, she saw that the light was actually much smaller, and nowhere near as bright as she had thought. In fact it came from a small pocket torch, standing alone on one of the room's empty steel shelves.
Heather picked it up, wondering who had left it there, these things were notoriously short on battery life, so someone would have had to have been here pretty recently for it to still be working.
'So… that means I'm not alone here', Heather thought, a smile creeping on to her face, there were actually other people, or rather, at least one other person, wondering around out there, as lost and probably as scared as she was.
Heather dawdled for a moment, unsure wither to turn the torch off and pocket it, or to pin it to her vest. She desperately wanted the comfort of the light, but didn't want to be walking around with what would amount to a homing beacon stuck to her chest.
In the end she compromised, pining the torch to her jacket but switching it off first.
When she was sure her eyes had adjusted properly again, she opened the door to the storage room and checked outside… the hall was still empty.
Another few minutes of searching confirmed that the rest of the doors in this hallway were locked or otherwise inaccessible. This cause Heather to pause, where else was there to go if she couldn't go on any further?
There was a slow creaking noise from behind her, and Heather spun just in time to see the door leading to the ladies room swing lazily open.
'That door was locked', she thought even as she began moving toward it, 'I'm sure it was'.
Heather ducked inside and was hit with an almost physical wall of stench, as if all the pipes in the public bathroom and simultaneously burst, and spewed their feted contents all over the floors.
Like everything here there was decay and what Heather consciously called rust covering every surface, and the room was lit solely by a sputtering street lamp, somewhere beyond the bar covered windows.
'Bars?', she thought, 'How can there be bars? I climbed through there only a few hours ago'
Heather reluctantly scoped out the rest of the rotting restroom, scenes from every horror movie she had ever watched playing on a continuous loop in the back of her mind… wasn't it about now that the young heroine found something truly horrendous…
The blond squashed that thought ruthlessly even as she saw the stall begin to swing open, gripping her gun tighter and pointing it at the stall as if to ward off whatever might try to emerge.
Nothing was there however, or rather, nothing living. Torn shreds of what might once have been human flesh covered every inch of the stall, and tiny groves, possibly made by scrabbling fingernails covered much of the wooden walls where gore failed to prevail.
Heather backed away, her eyes widening and pain growing in her mouth as she slowly bit through her own lip to stop herself screaming.
She stumbled out of the bathroom dry heaving and force to use the wall for support as she moved.
The shutter in front of her, previously sealed, had been wrenched upwards, not prised or jacked, but wrenched, the lower section bent in the middle as is something had simply grabbed hold and torn it free of the locks that held it in place.
In her current state, Heather didn't question how this had been done in complete silence with her mere meters from the shutter, nor did she really register the faint crimson stain that she passed over to duck under the ruined shutter, like some gory arrow.
The crimson path, a voice at the back of her mind whispered, full of fear respect and… sorrow?
Heather wondered on autopilot while trying to quell her rebellious stomach, instinctively seeking the nearest open door and the comparative safety of 'shelter'.
When her stomach finally consented not to empty its contents over her boots, she looked around, not immediately recognising the clothes store she had been in only hours before. Indeed it was hard to tell what this store had been used for, it was empty save for the usual array of gore and decay, the only thing that hinted at the original purpose of the store was the single clothes rack that remained.
Heather looked over the only two thing present that didn't seem to have rotted away to nothing… a rather frumpy in her opinion, floral print dress and matching peach cardigan.
She was about to leave again when she spotted the third 'item', pinned to an unused wire hangar, was a leaflet advertising the Happy Burger. Heather removed it from the rack, turning it over and scanning the leaflet for anything else… she wasn't disappointed:
Ascend from the masses… the mighty use the simplest tools
It was vague on purpose but clear on destination, just like every other 'clue' she had found. Who ever the sick bastard was who was causing all of this he sure enjoyed his little games, and liked to make sure his 'puppets' stuck to the routes he had lain out.
Heather briefly considered ignoring the clue, but quickly disregarded the idea. She was dealing with someone or something that could twist reality to its will, if playing this stupid game was what she had to do to escape, then that's what she would do.
Douglas was panting and out of breath when he came upon the hole. Blood covered his rumpled shirt and every breath was agony. He had spent the last of his ammo a long time ago trying to take down those unholy creatures with little success. He caught himself just before toppling into the abyss that seemed to have opened while he wasn't looking, a deep hole that seemed to have been gouged right through every floor of the mall, ending just perceptibly somewhere bellow it's basement as a sand filled crater.
'What the hell is going on with this place', he thought bewildered, monsters, strange holes, blood everywhere, it was like some sort of twisted fairytale come to life.
Douglas glanced back into the hole, trying to fathom its purpose seeing as it's reason for existing eluded him right now, catching movement from the corner of his eye.
The old detective squinted, trying to focus his slowly fading vision on what had caused the movement, his eyes sighting on a flash of white as a torch was lit somewhere down below… the white of a padded jacket.
Douglas made to open his mouth to shout out when all hell suddenly broke loose.
Heather stood regarding the ladder dubiously. She had arrived in the Happy Burger with little or no resistance, only being forced to fire a few discouraging shots at a lone dog creature that took more of an interest in her than was healthy. Upon gaining the relative security of the run down, greasier than usual establishment she had been forced to turn on her appropriated torch out of necessity. Heather had worried about this until it became apparent that the same filth than blocked all outside light also worked to keep her torchlight from any roving monstrosity that might be passing.
Having turned on the light Heather had almost wished she hadn't, it instantly cast shadows across everything it touched, each shadow moving in time with her breathing as the rise and fall of her chest moved the torch. This gave the impression that she was far from alone in the room, but faced with purposely depriving herself of the light when she had a choice her fear of the dark, though less influential now, won out, and she opted to put up with the mildly disturbing shadow-play.
The ladder had been rather jarringly obvious, seeing as a table had been placed directly beneath it, as if the casual passer-by could fail to notice the gaping hole in the ceiling, or the rusty metal rungs that hung down from said hole.
Using the coat hanger she had been, more or less, given, she had been able to pull the ladder down to the accompaniment of several surprisingly loud groans of steel on steel considering the ease with which the ladder moved.
Heather cast one last look around the empty room and set one foot on the first rung. She took a moment to question if going up was the best option.
'I went down a long way in that elevator', she thought, trying to make the following process seem perfectly logical to assuage her concerns, 'So… I have to go up… right?'
Still unsure, Heather climbed higher, her heart thudding almost as loud as the resounding clang each boot made on the steel rungs.
She reached the top with startling swiftness, and poked her head over the lip of the hole and looked around.
To her right and left, just a little way ahead came the familiar drone of escalators, each ascending or descending away from the stark corridor whose floor was currently at face level with her.
There was also another noise, the static hiss of white noise. A quick and panicked scan revealed no sign of any monsters, and after pulling herself up to sit on the ledge, pistol in hand, a check revealed that her pocket radio was completely dormant as well.
The source of the static turned out to be a bank of TV's, sitting in the shattered remains of a shop window, as if crying out to be rescued before whoever had done the damage returned.
Heather strode over to them, ignoring the escalators for the moment and poked a hand through the jagged remains of the storefront display window, tapping buttons. No effect, every screen continued to spit out only snow and a blanket of noise, even when she turned them off.
Heather bent closer squinting at the screens, trying to will them to do something other than assail her with this irritating noise.
For a second it seemed she succeed, she began to make out the faint outline of someone… a woman, She had a red cardigan on over some sort of uniform. The woman looked up at her, her eyes widening in shock and recognition, as if she in turn could see Heather. Suddenly the screens were filled by a pair of dark eyes framed by raven hair.
"This is not for you", a voice echoed, seemingly from around her, not coming just from the speakers. Heather reared back in shock, split seconds before the screen in front of her exploded, gashing her cheek as shards of glass flew past at high velocity.
Heather cupped her cheek with a trembling hand, watching in horror as the image dissolved back to static, static over lain with the symbol she had seen so many times already.
Heather backed away shaking, had she been closer, those shards might have gone through her eyes instead of just gouging her cheek.
The symbol hovered over her in digital menace, somehow still looking just as intimidating even incomplete due to the missing screen.
This is not for you, that message echoed back through her mind, the voice had been angry that was true, but it hadn't seemed to be directed at her.
Heather wasted no time, eager once more to be as far from that symbol as possible she all but ran for the nearest of the escalators, the one leading her up further into this twisted maze.
Reach the top she was immediately forced to open fire as something soundless loomed up over her, catching the Closer faster than it could unsheathe it's bone spikes in her adrenaline fuelled state and introducing a variety of its organs to hot lead before it dropped, making the only noise these creatures ever seemed to make.
She headed straight at the first door she saw in the torch's limited arc and lashed a foot out at it, hoping adrenaline had done for her muscles what it had done for her reflexes… it hadn't, and she was deposited on her rear by the offended door for her efforts.
She was up again quickly, this time trying the door again in the more conventional fashion, in other words the handle. The door gave a rattle that told her it was locked and planned to stay that way.
Heather considered shooting the lock, cops did it all the time on TV, but she had no idea where to shoot and might just end up wasting her ammo, not to mention the noise…
Offering up a little curse she backtracked, searching the other doors until she found one that would open for her.
Inside was such a change from her usual experience here, that she was momentarily struck dumb.
Every part of the building was tastefully decorated in reds, golds and subtle natural wood colours, giving everywhere an air of sophistication that would have seemed out of place in any mall let alone one recently converted to serve the purpose of 'demonic labyrinth'.
Small groups of tables were gathered here and there in an informal fashion, to create an relaxed air of quiet intimacy.
As awaiting that moment to push Heather over the edge the smell drifted over, not hit, or assaulted her as everything had since she had found herself here, but wafted, gently tickling her nostrils with the most delectable sensations.
It didn't take long for her to track in across the room to the large silver serving tray, complete with silver cover that was the only no standard décor at any of the tables.
Heather's stomach growled loudly, as if she hadn't eaten in days rather than hours and she was having a hard time no salivating at the wonderful smell.
Deciding that no one was likely to miss whatever culinary delight might be lurking under that cover, Heather pulled it aside eagerly, and felt her stomach lurch violently as the steam parted, allowing her a clear view of her 'meal'.
Back arched and face stretched in a rictus of pain, as if it had still been alive when cooked, was a smallish dog.
Protruding from its chest was a carving knife, used to pin yet another note in place:
Getting to the heart of the matter…
With that it ended and Heather couldn't help but shudder at the obvious implications of the note. Something was buried inside that dog's chest, something she would probably need to go on any further.
Heather pulled a variety of disgusted faces as she grasped the knife, dry wrenching even before she began the first sawing motion.
Turning her head aside, Heather reached into the newly sawn cavity and felt around, wincing every time her hand came into contact with the creatures rotting organs.
Suddenly her hand brushed something hard and metallic, and she reached back, clasping her hand around it and yanking it clear with a minor eruption of gore.
Heather held her prize aloft victoriously her arm caked up to the elbow in entrails… and then vomited over the table.
Still a little woozy, Heather stumbled through the door she had unlocked with the new found key, suddenly finding herself on a very narrow path.
Heather looked in confusion over the edge and her already spinning head swam as the seemingly bottomless void started back at her unblinkingly.
She dropped to her knees and crawled, not wanting to risk falling, but not to rest either.
Heather had had enough, she just wanted to go back home.
"Just let me out already", she whimpered
The top rungs of a ladder homed into her view as she crawled, ladders leading once more back down. Heather whimpered again, but gripped the bars and began her descent mechanically. Why couldn't this all just end already? How many times would she be dragged through this?
Heather reached the bottom and slumped soundlessly against a wall nearby, not knowing why the floor was covered in sand, and not caring, all she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep right there and then… Suddenly the ground lurched, throwing her forward, even the earth itself it seemed wasn't going to let her rest.
Heather stood warily, pulling out her torch and gun and playing both around the chamber.
The area was covered with holes and tunnels at the edges, that was the first thing she noticed, like the hive of some giant insect.
There was a noise to her right, a bass rumbling growing rapidly louder, and Heather spun just as something exploded from one of the tunnels near her.
It was gargantuan in size, the length and breath of a single level bus at least, a uniform, streamlined body of purple, tipped by a massive maw of teeth that opened away from its head in four directions at once.
The thing, the worm, crashed to a halt on the other side of the room, slithering around to face her, it's 'face' dripping unspeakable fluids everywhere.
Somewhere in the back of Heather's mind someone screamed, or maybe it was her, she couldn't tell over the din as the creature let loose its own roar and charged.
Heather barely scrambled aside as the monster slammed into the wall she had previously been resting against, jarring the ladder, her only means of escape, loose from the wall.
The steel construct swung down in one final gravity assisted blow, impacting its 'killer' solidly, but only seeming to enrage the beast as it proceeded to rend steel like paper with its massive maw.
Heather backed away while it spent its fury, looking around frantically for any way to escape but finding none, she was trapped down here with this thing.
It looked like she was getting her wish, she was being 'let go'.
Heather clutched at her gun, not knowing how many bullets she had left, or indeed how they could succeed in killing anything so massive.
Done with its first victim the creature turned quickly, searching for her and without any cover, spotting her easily.
Again it charged and again Heather jumped aside just in time, narrowly avoiding its razor edged teeth as it sailed past her, this time veering off with incredible agility and disappearing into one of the tunnels that honeycombed the outer edges of the chamber.
Had its agility not been another thing that increased the already high likelihood of it killing her, Heather might have been impressed, especially considering its bulk.
It emerged again bare moments later, somehow from a passage behind her, its four jaws opened wide to catch her.
There was another scream, definitely Heathers this time, and she levelled her gun and pulled the trigger.
The bullet tore into the sensitive flesh of its mouth and the worm roared in pain, instinctively baring away from her and retreating into the safety of its tunnels.
Heather panted deeply. 'Is it over already', she wondered hopefully.
Another roar and a charge answered her unspoken question seconds later and this time the beast kept coming even when shot, ripping deep gouges into her side as she tried to roll out of the way, before once again ducking back into the safety of its tunnels.
Suppressed tears welled in Heathers eyes, and she cried out as she dragged herself away from the tunnels, the blazing agony in her side making every movement slow and painful.
She waited for the creature to emerge again, blood and sweat making her grip on her gun suddenly fragile, she was going to die next time it emerged, she had no doubts now, but she wasn't going to make it easy.
The ground under her rumbled and Heather rolled away, screaming as sand was ground into her wounds.
The worm burst through the sand, jaws snapping at empty air, and it let out a roar of frustration , rearing up to look down on her prone form as Heather raised her gun.
Fear weakened her already loose grip, fear of dying, fear of the worm.
"I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid", she chanted out loud, tears running down her face openly now.
As if angered by her statement the worm opened its maw and roared.
Heather screamed back, releasing all of her fear and anger as she pulled the trigger over and over, each round slamming up through the beasts cranium at a new angle, each one shredding more of its brain.
Heather screamed until she had no voice left, not noticing until her voice failed that the worm no longer screamed with her.
The giant creature lolled forward as if it meant to crush her and she cringed.
It rolled to the side as it fell, missing her by about a meter, but the shockwave was more than enough to carry her up and away from, the body, flinging her down roughly on her injured side.
Heather had no voice left to scream, all she could do was lay there and pant, tears blinding her as her life's blood streamed out of the gashes in her side.
Somewhere amongst the pain and relief, just before oblivion reached out to claim her, she thought she heard a voice whispering to itself.
"Maybe it would be better this way…"
Then the darkness claimed her.
The tall humanoid looked at the worm monster curiously, it was familiar with all manner of void spawned beast, but this was foreign to it. That had only happened once before.
Valdet turned its scarred face upon the human girl lying unconscious, maybe dead a few feet away and scrutinized her with its sight.
The girl's image seemed to waver, almost as if Valdet was seeing double for a second, to images of the same girl slightly over laid… No, it corrected itself, not the same…
Valdet frowned, it couldn't read her, her line was confused, sometimes running backwards or in impossible directions.
It couldn't understand, did this mean the Mother of God had returned or not? Or had she never left. Valdet, wondered over to the girl and stood over her. What was it supposed to do, the rules didn't cover this situation, and Valdet had only limited free-will by its design, enough to think within the rules but not well around them.
Should it let her die?
Decisions… no, it would do as it always did, let chance decide, most of fate was after all merely chance and circumstance.
First it would remove her from this place, the rules didn't seem to work here properly, most likely what its creator had hoped to achieve, a repeat of last time… after she was back in a place it understood, then it would decide what to do about her life.
Grasping one booted foot in each burnt hand, it dragged her away into the darkness.
Author Notes: There we are my friends, a long time coming but at last, a new chapter, hu-zar! LOL, I hoped you all enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it, the next instalment will be chapter 3: Loco-motion, no prizes for guessing where that takes place lol
Also there are a number of easter eggs hidden in this chapter, see if you can spot them, e-mail me with your answers and expect many more in the future
Finally a few shout outs:
Kelli: Thanks for all the reviews, help and encouragement, I've done the same for your DOOM fic, so all you guys reading check that out, the girls got skills, and good luck writing and controlling your new little friend lol
Ernst Scribber: again, thanks for your adivse and e-mails etc
If I forgot anyone I apologise in advance, just e-mail me a reminder and I'll be sure to include something
Until the next chapter, sayonara…