Warning: Rated 'M' for horror-genre violence, adult situations and adult language.
The main characters of this story are based on characters from the cartoon 'Code Lyoko.' I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.
Certain characters have been adapted from 'The Stand,' by Stephen King, and he is the copyright holder of these.
Certain characters are based on 'Hikaru No Go' by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata. I do not own, nor do I claim, any copyright to these characters.
Brief references are made to a character from 'Watership Down,' by Richard Adams, and he is the copyright holder of this character.
Wednesday
Aelita slipped out of Jeremie's room and ran down to Odd and Ulrich's room. She pounded on the door, calling to them for help. Odd answered the door.
"Quick, I've found Jeremie and he's in trouble!" Aelita shouted as she grabbed Odd and pulled him into the hall.
Ulrich had seen her grab Odd, so he pulled out his earplugs and followed the to Jeremie.
They got to the room and opened the door.
The first thing that hit them was the smell. It was a sour, locker room smell, the smell of month old dirty socks and jockstraps. They entered and Odd went over to the window and opened it up while Ulrich looked at Jeremie.
Jeremie looked like he had been drenched in sweat. He was lying on his stomach, covered for the most part by his sheets. Ulrich could tell instantly that Jeremie didn't have any clothes on underneath. He turned to Aelita to tell her something, but stopped.
Aelita was soaked all up and down her front. Her hair was messed up like she just got up, and her face had a lot more worry on it that he thought it should from having just found Jeremie. Odd had turned back to the scene too, and was looking at Aelita strangely.
"Aelita, is there, ahh, anything you want to tell us?"
She told them, "I'll explain everything later, but now we have to help Jeremie!"
"Okay then," Ulrich said at last, "you run get the nurse, Odd and I will get him to the bathroom."
"No," Aelita said, "not the nurse. If she sees him, he'll be in the hospital and that may be the worse thing in the world for him right now."
Ulrich and Odd were trying to wake Jeremie up, trying to pick him up to get him to the bathroom without exposing himself.
"Maybe the hospital is the place he needs to be right now," Ulrich said.
"You didn't seem that concerned when I asked you about him yesterday," Aelita sharply replied, "I'm going to get him something from the cafeteria. He hasn't had anything in days."
Odd spoke up, "Get Sissi to go with you. Tell her 'Odd says it's urgent'."
Aelita and Ulrich gave Odd a long look, then Aelita ran off after Sissi.
Odd and Ulrich wrestled Jeremie into the boy's bathroom and got him into a shower stall. The sat him down and turned on the cold water.
Jeremie startled awake.
"Oh, God, that's COLD!" he hollered, "Turn it off!"
They warmed up the water a little bit, and started soaping Jeremie down. After about a minuted, Jeremie finally decided he had had enough, pushed the boys back, and tried to stand up. He immediately fell back down.
Ulrich and Odd helped him to stand, and Jeremie finished washing himself off.
After the shower, Jeremie sat down on a bench in the bathroom, barely able to sit upright. Odd ran back to Jeremie's room to get him some clothes. Ulrich sat next to Jeremie and asked him what had happened.
"The last thing I remember is running out of the cafeteria. They were serving body parts," Jeremie replied, "I just ran back to my room and that was it."
"I know the food ain't that great, Jeremie, but body parts?" Ulrich said.
Just then Odd returned with clothes for Jeremie. He also informed them that Sissi had arrived with bread and orange juice for Jeremie. When Aelita came to her room and told her what was going on, she told Aelita that she would got down to the cafeteria and that Aelita should get a shower herself.
Ulrich was still processing this new data, and its ramifications, while Jeremie dressed.
They finally got Jeremie back to his room as Aelita rejoined them. When they entered, they saw Sissi Delmas sitting at Jeremie's desk, idly looking at the book there.
"DON'T TOUCH THAT BOOK!" Jeremie roared at Sissi, causing her to spin around, jump up from the chair, and back away from the desk.
"Jeremie, what's your problem!" Odd hollered back at Jeremie.
"Look, I'm sorry," Jeremie said, "I want to explain it, and everything I know to you, but I want you all here when I do. Get Yumi over here."
It took Yumi thirty minutes to arrive. During that time, Jeremie sat on his bed, slowly eating a slice of bread and sipping on orange juice. He wanted to devour the whole thing, but he knew if he did, he would just throw it back up. While he ate, Aelita sat beside him on the bed, helping him sit upright. At least that is what she hoped the others thought.
When Yumi arrived, the first question out of Ulrich's mouth was, "okay, what is Sissi doing here?"
Odd answered simply, "she's involved. I met her in my dreams Saturday night, at the old woman's house. On Sunday, we talked. She's had similar experiences to you and I, Ulrich. So I told her everything. Everything."
Ulrich started, "Odd, why did you..." when Jeremie interrupted.
"Odd is right, Ulrich, Sissi must be involved in this. In part of my dream, Mother Abagail told me that we and one other would have to fight the man in the cornfield again. This Saturday night."
Everyone stared at Jeremie.
He then explained his dream. Not all of it, for that was too personal for him to tell. Aelita did try and press him however.
"You don't want to know," was all he said to her.
He then went on to explain that he was responsible for the dreams that they had been having. When he checked out 'The Stand' from the library, he made it possible for both Mother Abagail and the monster they encountered in the cornfield to enter their dreams.
"If I had known, I would have never..." Jeremie said at last.
"You would have picked something else up," Sissi replied, "maybe it would have been better. Or maybe it would have been worse. At least I understand now why you yelled at me when I was looking at that book."
"Yes, and I'm sorry for yelling," Jeremie told her, "so, that's it. Saturday night, we are all going to face something more horrible than our minds can comprehend and there's no way out. No 'game over' de-virtualization if we lose all of our life points, no Return To The Past to cover it up. Nothing."
Unconsciously, Aelita pulled Jeremie closer to her.
"Saturday night will take care of itself," Yumi said to everybody, "right now, we need prepare as best we can for it. First things first, Jeremie. We've got to get you up and feeling better. It seems you have been hardest hit by whatever is going on here, and we have to fix that. For one thing, I don't think you should be left alone for any amount of time between now and Sunday."
Yumi continued, "I'm going to try and talk may parents into letting me stay here at the school until Sunday. Hopefully, they will allow it since I have to leave Monday for Japan, assuming we live to see Monday."
Aelita said, "I'll stay with Jeremie."
Ulrich smirked, "day and night?" Aelita turned and shot daggers at him with her eyes.
"I just couldn't help but notice that you were awful grimy when you were pounding on our door this morning. Almost like you had sweat your shirt through. Or someone had."
Aelita jumped up, ready to mix it up with Ulrich, when Yumi smacked Ulrich in the back of his head.
"After what you've been telling me over the last few days, I don't think you are particularly qualified to be throwing stones," she told him.
"Look, all I was saying was..."
"STOP IT!" Odd yelled, "we've got 'til Saturday to get ready for this thing, and the last thing we need to be doing right now is bickering among ourselves. If we live to see Sunday, then we can toss around all of the innuendos we want. But right now, let's concentrate on the situation at hand."
"Now, since you jackasses can't seem to do that, here is what we're going to do," Odd continued, "Aelita will stay with Jeremie during the day. At night, Ulrich and I will bunk in here with him. Yumi, if your parents will let you, you and Sissi will stay with Aelita in the evenings. And the first thing I'm going to do is take that damn book and get it out of here. And Jeremie, if I ever catch you with a Stephen King novel ever again before you're twenty-one, I'm going to give you such a knuckle-rub that you'll have a bald spot on the side of your head!"
Later on in the day, Aelita took Yumi aside and told her what had happened the night before with her and Jeremie. Yumi gave her a look of, is that all that happened? Aelita said, yes, that was all that happened, but not for the lack of her wanting more.
Jeremie found some time that day to tell Ulrich more about his dreams. He told him everything, including what happened in the cornfield, what happened the last few days, and how Aelita pulled him back from the abyss. He then asked Ulrich to cut Aelita a little slack, and maybe he would cut Ulrich some slack the first time someone caught Yumi in his bed.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Jeremie was up and walking about quickly, and made it down the the cafeteria to eat. Body parts were not on the menu.
That evening, Ulrich and Odd settled down in Jeremie's room, while Sissi settled down with Aelita. Yumi couldn't join them until Saturday.
That night, and for the rest of the week, Jeremie dreamed of nothing, just being surrounded by Aelita's scent. Aelita dreamed of standing over Jeremie, holding a bow and arrow in her hands, making sure nothing would harm Jeremie in his dreams. The seed that the old woman gave her was glowing brightly in her chest, filling the area all around her with light.
Odd spent his dreams with Sissi, scratching around in the dirt at the old woman's cabin, looking for worms to feed Sissi's chick. The chick grew strong and would actually play a bit with Sissi, something that would cause her face to light up with a smile. And Sissi's smiling brought a smile to Odd's face. Both of them were completely happy about this turn of events, though they didn't understand why.
Yumi dreamed of standing at the gate to the school. It was locked and Ulrich was standing behind it, holding the key. She called out to him to let her in, that this was the last gate, that she had something to give to him. She even held out the vial that the old woman had given her, but Ulrich wouldn't listen. He was standing next to the man in the cornfield, talking. Slowly, Ulrich turned away and walked off with the man. Yumi screamed for him to come back, to let her in, as she heard the sounds of Ulrich being torn apart by some horror.
Ulrich dreamed of walking through a landscape of bars and strip clubs, images of girls and women he knew promising passers by the Time Of Their Life. He stopped for a moment and talked with Milly and Tamiya, telling them that there would be a special customer in the audience at the club tonight, so they were to pull out all of the stops. Walking further down the street, he reminded Yolande that she had a 'patient' waiting for her and to get a move on or she would be the one needing a nurse.
All the while, Yumi was banging at a gate in the distance, desperately trying to get his attention. He just walked on.
And then there was the Yumi on the strip, cowering at him because she hadn't make her quota for the evening yet. He gave her a backhanded slap, told her to get back to work, and walked off. As he did, he adjusted the shiny cowboy buckle on his belt. His cowboy boots made a distinctive sound as they hit the pavement.