Author's Note: So, I guess I lied again, huh? I promise to write and now, months later, I finally post something. The funny thing is, I'd written this chapter in August. Why didn't I post it then? I really don't know. But now, I look back over this and the first chapter, and I'm very pleased with my writing. Chapter Three should be coming in reasonable time.
A pillar of salt, a box of want
You were pulled out of the embers
It was never my intention
All the clouds are black
---
002: Fading Consciousness
"Okay, who wants to play 'I Spy'?" Robert asked, briefly glancing from the road to Ryoko, who looked up from the romance novel she'd been reading.
"Oh? Well, I suppose that sounds like fun!" she replied somewhat eagerly, and folded over the page she was on. "Fayt, Sophia, are you two interested?"
Sophia clapped her hands. "Yeah!" The level of enthusiasm would have been easily mistaken for sarcasm if her expression (a wide, almost luminescent grin) hadn't been so earnest. "Faaayt, you'll play too, right?"
Fayt shrugged, taking a moment to wipe the sleep from his right eye before leaning back in his seat to continue dozing. "I. . . ah, I don't know. I didn't get much sleep last night."
"Oh, really? Whose fault might that be, then?" she growled, and jabbed him in the arm with what felt like a very sharp nail.
He winced, but laughed sheepishly. "Mine. . . I was thinking about-" he paused, "-er, things, and I ended up dreaming about them. It was weird, like some sort of drug induced hallucination."
"What's drug induced?" Robert asked, obviously only having heard the last few words because of parental hearing.
Fayt shook his head. "It was just a comparison, Dad. I had a nightmarish dream last night."
"You had a nightmare, Fayt?" Ryoko asked softly, turning to look over her shoulder at him.
"No. . . well, not exactly, but I don't know how else to describe it."
The voice I heard. . . it was like a heartbeat. . . he thought, recalling the most vivid part of the dream. It wasn't just one, though. . . it was as if a hundred people were talking at once. . .
"Fayt! Stop spacing out!" Sophia barked with a tug to his hair.
"Ow! Sophia!"
She sighed and let go, then tightly folded her arms across her chest. "You have to start."
"At what? . . . Oh! The game! Uh, okay. Sure." Fayt looked out at the scenery of the city, frowning as he found nothing interesting to rest his eyes on. "I spy. . . something beginning with 'W'."
Sophia bit her lip in thought. "'W'... 'wings'?"
"Nope."
"Um... 'wheels'?"
"Sorry."
"'Wire'?" his father offered, "But just how many things start with 'W', anyway?"
Fayt shrugged, and kept his face to the side so they wouldn't see his grin. "You'll see."
"'White'?" Sophia clicked her tongue, "What else is there to guess? 'Walls'?"
He fought down the urge to chuckle. "No, and no. It's really pretty simple, Sophia. . . you'll be kicking yourself when I tell you what it is."
"Ugh! Don't tell me yet, you egghead! I just need some more time!"
He opens his eyes and it's night; he can tell that much. The car is still, and everyone else is fast asleep, lying perfectly motionless in their seats.
Regardless, Fayt leans forward to tap his father's arm. "Dad?" he asks quietly, nudging the man's shoulder, "Dad, where are we?"
The man doesn't respond.
Right. . . he's asleep. He looks across at Sophia. Her, too? Something doesn't feel right to him. It might be the cold or the air or something else, but it's something, and whatever it is may be potentially dangerous.
Sophia mumbles something in her sleep, and a dark liquid starts to trickle from the corner of her mouth, pausing at the curve of her chin for a few moments before dripping to land on her neck, pooling in shadow below her ear.
That's not important.
He tenses and shivers at the sensation he feels in his head, words pressing into his brain and being absorbed, deeper and deeper into his subconscious until there's absolutely nothing left except --
Stop. Do as I tell you.
His thoughts and body obey, locking in place as they patiently wait for more words to form.
She is dead. They all are.
. . . No. He can see her soft breathing hang in the air, little clouds of moisture indicating that there's no way she could be dead if she's so very obviously alive.
This is a test, Fayt. You have no time to worry about her.
Moonlight floods the car like spotlights from all directions, creating millions of shadows in their path as his eyes burn from the brightness.
Close them. You don't have to see anymore. He does so, and it all finally makes sense. He knows why he's here and why they're all dead and why Sophia looks alive and what the dark liquid is. He doesn't know the words for them, but he doesn't need words right now. He's never felt so calm; it's amazing.
"fA-Yt."
The voice shakes him and breaks the understanding he's only just obtained. The light disappears, and he's left utterly alone, save the bodies of Sophia and his parents.
"Fa-yt."
Ta-dum. Ta-dum. His heart gently speaks to him, its voice pushing away everything that had been around him before, purging the words of the other voice from his mind. Each heartbeat is somewhat slower than the last, preparing for a possible shutdown. But he can't let that happen, there must be something left for him to --
"Fayt!"
"Fayt! Wake up!"
Fayt opened his eyes to see his father above him, shaking him roughly with a fearful determination.
"Dad. . .?" He sat up, noticing that at some point he'd been moved from the car to a wooden bench. "Dad, what's going on?"
Robert stepped back, and sighed deeply. "You passed out in the car, Fayt. We weren't able to get any response out of you for at least an hour."
"What, an hour! That can't be right!"
He was answered by a grim look. "Sophia nearly had a heart attack. She thought you'd died."
Oh, the irony! the bitter voice quipped for the first time that day, Because, you know, how in that dream or whatever you thought that it was her dead!
"Where is she?" Fayt asked and hung his head, staring down at the buttons on his shirt. "She's not too worried, is she?"
Someone hugged him around the waist from behind. "Not any more," Sophia whispered, "but. . . Fayt, I was so scared. . ."
He rested his hand over hers. "I'm sorry. But, I did tell you I was tired, didn't I?"
". . . Yeah, I guess you did." she released him, allowing him to swing his legs off the bench and stand up, albeit unsteadily. "By the way, Fayt?"
"Yeah?"
"Um. . . what was the word?" Sophia looked away meekly.
Fayt laughed. "It was 'window'. As in, the car window."
There were several seconds of pure silence as she stared at him, agape. Then, without a word, she clenched her hands into tight fists and stomped towards the car. "Oh, Fayt, you. . .!"
Robert looked down at Fayt, one eyebrow raised. "Maybe you should give her a few minutes to cool off."
". . . Good idea."
After they were back in the car, Fayt had been returned to the hotel with orders to 'get some sleep or never see the light of day again during this trip'. He'd taken the threat seriously, and actually had managed to sleep -- for a short while, after which he was wide awake, and dully pacing the room.
Maybe I should tell Mom about what I've been dreaming. . . she might be able to make some sense of it. . . He sighed, and flopped into one of the many plush armchairs lining the walls. But what if she just thinks I'm crazy, or stressed? Though. . . I might be. . . stressed, that is.
The irony was clear to him -- he was in Las Vegas and he was bored. If he had any money left, the situation may have been otherwise, but no, his good judgement had deserted him and left him to metaphorically rot in his hotel room. Not that it wasn't a nice room, but there was just so much roominess he could handle.
Several empty hours later, a sharp and excited banging on the door alerted him to the fact that his parents and Sophia had returned.
"Fayt! Fayt!" he heard the girl squeal from the other side of the door, "Get up! I've got so much to tell you! We went to Madame Tussaud's and it was so awesome and you would've loved it and-"
Fayt opened the door, stopping her sentence dead in its tracks. "You know, Sophia, if I'd been asleep, I would be very irritated right now."
Sophia rocked on the balls of her feet. "I knowww, you get all cranky when people wake you up. But! That doesn't matter right now, I have so much to tell you. . .! Oh, I love this city!"
That makes one of us, then, he thought glumly. Wasn't this supposed to be a vacation for me, anyway?
"Come on, Fayt! We're going to be having dinner in the downstairs restaurant tonight!" She tugged on his arm, but he pulled it back.
"I don't know if I'm hungry, Sophia. . ."
"Of course you're hungry! And. . . it's a smorgasbord! You love those! Come oooon!"
He grinned at her particularly lame attempt to entice him down to dinner. "All right, Sophia. . . I'll come. I'll come and have dinner and listen to everything you have to say about your time without me!"
"Yay!" Sophia hugged his arm, and subsequently started dragging him towards the elevator, already beginning her spiel about how things were, and how nice and peaceful. . .
"Fayt, she convinced you to come down?" Ryoko looked up from a half-eaten plate of bow tie pasta to the two. "I thought you'd still be asleep. . ."
Fayt shook his head, and took a seat at the table. "I didn't actually get much sleep, anyway. I was wide awake when she started banging the door down, thankfully enough."
"I was not banging it down!" Sophia hissed at Fayt, and sat at the other end of the table, glaring at him all the while. "You weren't meant to be awake, anyway. The only reason we left you here was so that you could, you know, sleep. Remember what that is?"
Ryoko laughed at their 'antics'. "Sophia, why don't you go get yourself something to eat? I want to quickly talk to Fayt about something."
Sophia nodded and curtly got up, poking her tongue out at Fayt before turning to walk away.
He stared after her for a few moments before turning his attention to his mother. "What is it you want to talk to me about, Mom?"
"It's nothing important, but. . . are you feeling ill?" she asked, putting a hand to his forehead. "You feel a little warm."
"No, I feel fine. It's just. . . my sleep's been weird. But it's nothing to worry about. Probably caused by something like stress or school."
She smiled, looking grateful to have heard his answer. "That's good. . . if there was anything wrong, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"
"Of course I would, Mom. I'm fine." he then glanced around, "Uh, where's Dad? Is he getting his dinner, too?"
"Well, yes, but he should be back by now. . . he went to get his around the same time Sophia went to go get you."
He blinked. "Really? And when did you get yours?"
"Soon after he did."
Fayt leaned back, frowning. "That's. . . that's weird."
Ryoko didn't reply for a little while. "Fayt, there's something I have to tell you about-"
The hall was thrown into pitch darkness. Chaos erupted in a matter of seconds.
"-Oh, no, not now. . ." He heard his mother whisper, accompanied by a similar, harsher word that he'd never heard her say before.
"Mom? You know what's going on?" Fayt asked quietly, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness to see her.
"Stay here, Fayt. . . no, hide under the table. I need to go. Don't talk to anyone, even if it's Sophia." Ryoko slid carefully out of her seat, making sure her movements couldn't be heard over the roar of the scared tourists.
"But, Mom-"
"I love you, Fayt. Your father does, too." She was suddenly gone, not even bothering to reach for her jacket or handbag and instead rushing off to do something obviously important- but what?
She'd told him to get under the table, but why? What was going to happen? What was that clanking noise he could hear from outside the hall-
"People of the Hyda IV hotel."
A mechanical voice boomed over what sounded like an amplified loudspeaker.
"Harm will not come to those who co-operate with our wishes."
Silence reigned over the confusion and panic.
"Do not hinder us. We are here for a reason. We are the Vendeeni. We have no desire to do anything other than what we were commanded."
The Vendeeni? Aren't they some sort of terrorist gang! Fayt felt his heart leap into his throat, beating wild a wild thunder that was so loud it almost deafened him. . . . Hide under the table. She told me to hide under the table. . .
His entire body shaking but obeying, he managed to crawl from his chair to underneath the table, and gently tugged the long cloth back into place, shielding him from all sides.
"I repeat, harm will not come to those who co-operate with our wishes!"
Loud, clanky footsteps, coming in through lots of doors and there were so many--
A gunshot. Someone screamed. And something fell to the ground with a hard thud.
"Do not hinder us!"
The only thing talking now was the supposed person with the loudspeaker, from wherever they were.
. . . You know, you really should've just stayed in bed. The voice said, sounding somewhat entertained by the situation. I wonder who the screamer was, anyway? It almost sounded like Soph-
"Shut up." Fayt whispered under his breath, "Shut up. Shut up. . ." he gulped in a mouthful of air, trying his hardest to ignore his all-over shivering.
And what was it your mom knew? Why couldn't she have told you sooner? Just what the hell is going on here, huh?
He shut his eyes. I don't know. He thought in response. I just don't know. Nothing could make this make sense.
Well, the voice said after a few moments, you can't help but wonder, right? Maybe your mom's a member. Maybe your dad, even!
Fayt took another deep breath. If he calmed himself, then the voice would subside and he'd be able to think of a possible plan.
How about the 'Get the Hell Out of Here' plan? That's a good plan. It's very structured -- you see, the idea is to get the hell out. You'd be surprised how many people aren't able to understand that. . . like, well, whoever just got shot. What an idiot.
He shook his head to clear it of the voice's influence. There was no proof someone had just been shot. No proof at all. Something could've just fallen over. A chair. A table. Someone could have fainted from shock.
Explain the gunshot then, Mr. Logic.
How had this happened? Why had this happened? This. . . this wasn't right. Was he really in some sort of seige? Was he? Or was this another dream? It had to be. Another dream. There was no way such a thing could actually happen, no. . .
Oh, come on, Fayt. You're losing it. Keep your damn head together!
Fayt gulped down the rising bile. Even though it was horribly cruel and annoying, the voice was right in at least the sense that he couldn't freak out, not in the middle of such a situation -- be it real or imaginary.
That didn't mean he couldn't hope it was imaginary, though. . .
A person walking by the table grabbed his attention.
"Did you find anything?" Someone whispered, "Or is there nothing over there, too?"
"Affirmative. If there's anything to be found in here, it's escaped," another person replied, "I don't know how, though. Bastards."
"Is anyone checking the rooms?" the first asked, "Or haven't we secured them yet?"
"Oh, we've secured them, but some of the security is being a pain in the ass. We'll be able to check soon, though."
Fayt shivered again, but didn't dare move. If he did, then. . . what would happen? Would he die? Would one of the Vendeeni discover him and shoot him right where he hid?
Mom. . . he thought sadly, are you okay? Is Dad okay? Sophia. . . Sophia, I'm sorry about getting you so mad. . . I hope you're all safe. . .
And if they're not? The voice asked roughly, What're you going to do then, hmm?
Fayt chose not to listen. The last thing he needed was doubt. His mother, father, and Sophia would all be all right, he knew they would be.
"Faaaayt? Hey, Faaaaaaaayt! Wake uuuup!"
Fayt woke to a blinding sun right above. "Argh..." he mumbled, raising an arm to shield himself from the light. ". . . Hey, where am I?"
Sophia was sitting beside him, watching him with an amused look on her face. "We're in a forest, silly. Don't you remember?"
"No. . ."
"Oh, I bet it's just the heat getting to you. You'll remember everything soon enough," she stood, and dusted off her skirt, "Come on, then. Let's go swimming!"
"What? Swimming?" He asked, completely confused.
"Yeah, swimming! It's only the entire reason we came here, but you just had to take a nap, didn't you?" She flicked his right ear. "I bet the water's fantastic." She then ran off to somewhere -- wherever the water was, obviously.
After rubbing his ear, he got up to follow her, though at a slower pace. "It's. . . it's really peaceful here. . ." he whispered, in awe of the beautiful surroundings.
"Isn't it just? I love it here, Fayt. I'm glad you like it, too." Sophia turned around and smiled at him, then resumed skipping along the wide path before them.
"Sophia. . . I don't think this is right."
"Huh? What do you mean, Fayt? What's wrong with this place?"
He sighed, and knelt down to feel the grass. "As wonderful as this is - and I mean it, it's really wonderful here - I think. . . I think this is just a dream. I've fallen asleep and this is my subconscious' way of calming me down."
Sophia walked towards him, clearly sad. "So. . . you want to wake up, is that it?" It pained him to hear the sorrow in her voice. "Fayt, if you wake up, who knows when we'll see each other again?"
"I. . . I wish I knew. I'm sorry, Sophia. . . I don't want to leave, but I can't stay. This isn't real." He stood and held her by the shoulders before drawing her into a comforting hug. "But that isn't to say I don't want to be with the real you."
She sniffled, and tightly hugged him back. "Will you find me, Fayt?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I'll find you."
"Do you promise?"
"Of course."
There was a sharp pain in his side, caused by his awkward sleeping position. His left arm was pressed to the ground by his tucked up legs, and he could feel pins and needles ranging from above his elbow to the tips of his fingers. He wiggled them in front of his eyes, seeing creases made in the skin by his jeans--
Wait. The darkness is gone. . . he was surprised he'd only just noticed that. Does this mean. . . are the Vendeeni gone, too?
Fayt pushed his head out from under one side of the tablecloth. The entire hall was empty of people, but showed the obvious signs of a struggle. Some chairs were tipped over, there were broken glasses in various places, in a pool of the liquid that had once been inside. . . and in some places, there was blood.
But as much as he could strain his eyes, there were absolutely no people to be seen. Was that a good thing, or a bad one? No people could mean that they'd all been taken to safety. . . or alternatively, they'd all been killed.
How on earth did I sleep through it all so quickly? He wondered, taking the initiative to get up from his now unnecessary hiding place.
"Hello?" He called out, "Is there anyone in here?"
"Yeah. You could say there's someone."
Fayt spun around to see a tall, muscled blonde man walking towards him. "You're Fayt, right? Fayt Leingod?"
"Who are you!" Fayt demanded, "I won't tell you who I am unless-"
"Hey, hey! Relax, kiddo. I'm not one of those Vendeeni guys." The man stopped a few feet from where Fayt was. "My name's Cliff Fittir. I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to get you out of this mess. It looks like you could use the help, too -- I don't know if you've noticed, but I've seen drunk men with less bloodshot eyes than yours."
Fayt laughed uneasily, and collapsed into the chair behind him. "Well. . . what can I say, Mr. Fittir? Something insane just happened while I was under there-" he indicated weakly to the table, "- and when I get out, I'm approached by someone who looks sinister and thuggish. . ."
"Whaaat? Me, sinister and thuggish? Jeez, kid, if it wasn't my job to find you you'd be getting a beating for that!"
Job? . . . Hadn't the Vendeeni been looking for someone for their 'job'. . .?
". . . You're one of the Vendeeni, aren't you?" Fayt glared up at the man, "You must be!"
Mr. Fittir rolled his eyes. "Such a drama queen. . . listen. I only just showed up here, I don't know what went down or why. I was sent here to find you and make sure you were safe, and look! You are! So why don't you just tone down the paranoia a little and come with me, okay?"
"No! I can't leave! What about my mom, my dad, and Sophia!"
The man shrugged. "Hell if I know what's happened to them. Not my problem, really."
Fayt gripped the seat of his chair firmly. "I'm not going anywhere. Just leave me alone."
"Fine, kid, have it your way..." the man sighed. "Mirage, you know what to do."
Something banged on his head, and everything went black.