Disclaimer:
I do not own Gargoyles, or any of the characters which appeared in the cartoon. All original characters seen here were created by me, but everyone else is not. This writing is for pleasure, not for profit...Please don't sue.

The Nightmares Saga Chapter 4: "The Dream of a Child "

Darkness and silence. Elisa is alone in a hallway. She looks around, but sees only the darkness enveloping her. She takes a few steps to the right of her, with her hands outstretched, and feels a wall. She takes a few steps to the left of her and behind her, and she feels a wall as well. The only way to move is forwards, so she slowly begins walking, with her arms still outstretched in front of her, in case she encounters another wall. Suddenly, out of the darkness, a noise can be heard. She walks towards this noise, though she cannot make out what it is, or what sort of creature can be making it. She follows it nonetheless. She walks for what seems like hours, always towards the sound.

Finally, when her feet begin to feel heavy and tired, the sound becomes amplified and she knows what exactly it is; it is the sound of a baby crying loudly and violently. Panicked, Elisa begins running towards the cries, wanting to ease the baby's pain and cradle it against her. Light suddenly replaces the darkness and Elisa can see what is in front of her: a door made of mahogany wood. The baby's cries are coming from the other side of this door. Without a second thought, Elisa reaches for the doorknob. The door opens before she touches it, and she walks through it. The door slams shut behind her.

She looks around her. She is in a nursery. It is painted a faint shade of baby blue, with white clouds gracing the walls here and there. In the right corner of the room, there is a wooden rocking chair with a white fluffy pillow on the seat. Directly beside this rocking chair, there is a changing table with two stuffed bears on the top, and a short pile of clean diapers. Radiant beams of sunshine enter through a small window beside the changing table, bathing the room in pure light that allows Elisa to see these things such as the crib in the left corner of the room. She walked slowly to the crib. The cries persist. Elisa reaches to crib, and peers into it.

She sees a baby boy, his eyes red from crying. He stops crying when he sees Elisa. His face is round, and angelic. He has a little blue-black hair on his perfect head, and his eyes tell her this is her son, but his nose and mouth remind her of someone she hates; she can't figure out whom, though. She bends over to pick up the child but suddenly his peaceful face transforms into that of a monster with large fangs, giant, crazy eyes and fur covering his whole face. The baby's body instantly metamorphoses into a large wolf-like creature, and begins howling at Elisa, and attempting to bite her. In shock and fright, she backs away from the crib and runs for the door of the nursery. She tries to open the door, but to no avail.

The creature has escaped from the crib, and now stands on two legs, with a stature of over 8 feet. It begins walking towards her, still howling and still bearing his teeth at her. Elisa, now completely terrified, hears something in the midst of all this chaos that makes her even more terrified; the sound of Tony Dracon's malicious laugh. Banging on the door, Elisa shouts at the top of her lungs to be let out. The creature approaches her and suddenly lunges at her. Elisa feels nothing, except the warm sun touching her face. She awakens.

6 am…

Opening her eyes abruptly, she saw Tony Dracon standing over her in his usual way. Elisa realised she was shaking from her nightmare and tried to calm herself. She raised herself up from the bed, fixing the pillows behind her back. Tony lowered himself to her level, and laughed.

"What was all that screaming about, Wifey? Were you having a nightmare? Aww." He asked with mock sympathy. He placed a hand on the bed and raised himself from the floor. Again, he stood above her.

"I guess the power of suggestion is pretty intense, Tony, because I just dreamt that I had a baby. And that baby turned into a monster." Elisa said, with her eyes tightly closed, trying to rid her memory of the image of the baby changing into that hideous creature who attacked her in the nightmare. Dracon began laughing again.

"Suggestion? If you say so, Sugar. But I highly doubt that it was just what I told you last night that caused this nightmare…" He pointed to the door of the room, and it opened, and a man in a white lab coat entered. He had a stethoscope around his neck, and carried a clipboard. Dracon shook his hand and continued.

"I'm going to let you in on something I should really keep a secret for a while. This is Dr. Marco Oliveira, one of the doctors I paid extremely well to care for you. You will become very familiar with him over the nine months or so."

Elisa's eyes widened.

"Dracon, there is no way that I will sleep with you, and if you even consider raping me, you'll be missing your dick by the end of it." Elisa added. Dracon sniggered again.

"Elisa, remember when you first came here and you asked about this pain in your stomach from what you said was a pinprick? That was the good doctor here using his advanced tricks to get you pregnant." Dracon nodded at Dr. Oliveira. "Rape is low even for us Dracons." He added. Elisa was dumbfounded. It was impossible that something like that would work to impregnate her...wasn't it?Dr. Oliveira nodded at Dracon, and began to speak with a heavy Portuguese accent.

"It's true, Elisa. I did inject you with a special serum that should have worked to impregnate you. Coincidentally, Mr. Dracon," He turned to Tony. "I have the results right here. I had a test conducted last night after her little…fit." He looked down to his clipboard, and adjusted the thick glasses on his nose.

"And…?" Dracon asked.

"Sir, let me be the first to congratulate you. You are going to be a father."

Dracon was elated. His smile was contagious, at least to the doctor. Dracon could not contain his joy over the news. He shook the doctor's hand and looked down at Elisa, whose eyes were filling with tears. Dracon kneeled down once again; his eyes met Elisa's eyes with a mean and spiteful look.

"Well, Sugar, there you have it. You better take good care of yourself now, because if that kid dies," he patted her stomach quickly, "you die. Get it?" His look softened slightly, and his features did a complete about-face. He placed a hand on her cheek, almost in a loving manner.

"You should be excited, Elisa. This will be our first child. And maybe the next one will be conceived in the natural way."

He leaned over and kissed her forehead. The contact made between his sour lips and her delicate forehead made the tears fall freely from her eyes as she stared at an unknown spot through the window. She was still in shock, and didn't retaliate against the kiss as she normally would. She felt the fighting spirit in her diminishing with this news. He got up from the floor again and walked out of the room with the doctor. The door slammed behind them.

Elisa was alone again with her thoughts. This time, however, a new thought entered her head.

I am pregnant. Deep inside, I somehow felt it. I somehow knew it.

Elisa swallowed hard. Her throat became dry just thinking about being pregnant, let alone carrying the child of a dreaded enemy. Also, her growing self-awareness was something she was not used to, either. She was suddenly quite aware of her stomach, and it was as if she already felt a new life growing inside of her, though she knew this was impossible at this early stage in the pregnancy.

Pregnancy, Elisa reminded herself, I am pregnant. I always thought I would be happy when I decided to have a child. But this is all wrong. I don't want a baby—not like this…
She continued to cry that morning until she was called to breakfast.

Manhattan, 12am.

Goliath sat in the library, trying to read the rest of the book he had almost finished reading the night Elisa disappeared, Paradise Lost. His mind kept wandering to Elisa the way it did every night. What was happening to her at this very minute? Was she safe, or running for her life? Either way, these thoughts were beginning to frustrate the lavender gargoyle. Knowing that he could still do nothing but wait was killing him. He realised that the more he thought of Elisa, the less reading he would get accomplished. He slammed the book shut in frustration and got up from the sofa and put the book back in its rightful place on the bookshelf. He grabbed the poker from its place beside the fireplace and moved the few pieces of burning wood around until the fire glowed brighter than it did before. He glared into the fire, his mind on distant things.

He had spoken to the Clan about Elisa's disappearance, and how finding her would be their top priority, but he feared that he was also putting the people of Manhattan at risk, since the Clan were very rarely foiling robberies or stopping carjackings lately. He could not place Elisa's safety above the safety of the city in good conscience, as much as he would have liked to continue to. He resolved to speak to the Clan right then about this. With that, he left the library and headed for the courtyard of the castle.

"…and so I feel that perhaps we should continue to search for Elisa, but ensure that we are putting our patrols first." Goliath sighed. He could see the looks on the clans' faces were those of disagreement. The younger gargoyles were hesitant to disagree with their leader, but Brooklyn was the first to speak.

"Goliath, we are still patrolling. Just yesterday, I helped a little old lady who was being mugged, and Lex and I scared away some punks from a couple of college girls walking home. Right, Lex?" Lexington nodded furiously.

"He's right. We did. And we are looking for Elisa and along the way. If we see something suspicious, we check it out." He paused, hoping for someone else to add their opinion. Angela heeded his silent plea.

"Father, Elisa is dear to all of us. It would not make us bad protectors of the city if we were to concentrate on finding her over our normal patrolling, but we are still protecting this city. We must not give up hope that we will find her. I don't think I can think of the alternative…" Angela's voice trailed off. She turned away from the clan so that they would not see her tears. Broadway, standing nearby, walked toward her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Goliath sighed again. "I see. I do not want to neglect our duty to the people of Manhattan, but if what you are saying is true, perhaps we can continue putting all our efforts into searching for Elisa." Hudson laid a hand on Goliath's shoulder. "Aye, Goliath. I think that would be the best course o' action right now. Elisa will always be a part o' this clan, and we will continue to look fer her until she is found. But we must keep hope alive. 'Tis the only way, lad." Hudson smiled faintly. The others nodded at his words. "Very well. We will not give up hope that Elisa will be found. We will find her. I swear it."

The next day, Sao Miguel, outside the Dracon Compound, 3:42 pm

Stray dogs were an unfortunate commonality in Portugal. With little or no animal control in place, animals that no one wanted became wandering souls along the streets and country sides of Portugal, even on the islands, looking for handouts from friendly strangers and eating from garbage bins left outside.

A stray Jack Russell terrier, once named Diva, trotted along the country side of Sao Miguel, in search of some food and a place to sleep for the day. She used to belong to a farming family a few kilometres from the village of Ribeira Grande, but when the family decided they had too many animals, they set poor Diva free. Now Diva was at the mercy of the elements and of God.

Diva came across a fenced off area. This fence looked sturdy enough, but Diva did some digging and was able to get under the fence easily. Her small size also helped. She sauntered around this grassy meadow until she came to a very large house. Her nose could smell some cod fish being cooked. She trotted toward the house. Something suddenly caught her eye. It was a small black disk that flashed with a red light. The dog pawed at it and touched it with her snout. Diva then picked it up with her mouth and trotted closer to where the smell of fish was coming from. She waited by the door where the smell was the strongest for nearly an hour. When no one came out and offered her some of the fish she smelled, she decided to take her new treasure and leave the meadow the same way she came in. With that, she turned and began ran off of the Dracon compound, with Elisa's communicator securely held between her teeth.