Another Life
By Overlord Mordax
Disclaimer: Digimon 02 is copyrighted to Bandai. No copyright violation is intended, and this story is entirely non-profit. Many of the other characters are based on real people; their names have been changed as a courtesy.
Chapter Two The Crazies
The Kaizer was by nature, capricious; sometimes fiery and mad and passionate, and sometimes he was as cold and distant as a snowy mountain peak. He was brooding now now, sitting in his throne of steel, his icy blue eyes fixed on the huge display before him. He watched without visible emotion as his digital slaves toiled at his projects. He had been in the digital world for days now. What was there to go back to? His parents? School? Soccer? What was the point?
Here the world bent to his whim, and bowed at his command, and for a boy who had never felt quite in control of his own life, that feeling of power was a potent drug. There was simply one flaw in his otherwise perfect Empire, well, five if you counted each of them separately, ten if you counted their Digimon. The Kaizer's fists clenched almost imperceptibly. It was no matter, though, they could not resist him forever. Soon he would crush them, and there would be no one left to stand in his way.
A disturbing smile twisted the Kaizer's lips.
"Master," a timid voice asked.
His gaze traveled down to the small form of his most pathetic servant, Wormmon. "What do you want?" the Kaizer snapped.
"It's the Digimon master, you're working them too hard," the bug cajoled.
A sneer replaced the Kaizer's smile. "So what? They're mine and I'll do with them as I like."
"But Master, if they keep going at this pace, some of them are going to die!"
"Do you really think I care?"
000
Hilde sat awkwardly at the lunch table with Tally and her chatty group of friends whose names Hilde wasn't about to remember. She tried to look interested as she picked at her sandwich and they talked about who was dating who, and who could afford what expensive trinket.
Hilde had lost her appetite, she couldn't eat in front of these people, they were making her too self-conscious. And being self-conscious made her angry. Finally, she picked up here things, "I have to go, sorry," she hastily apologized to Tally, without looking at anyone else.
"What's her problem?" she heard someone ask behind hr back.
The bespectacled brunette slumped down in an empty corner of the cafeteria and spread out her books.
'That was stupid,' she grumbled, taking a bite out of her sandwich. She gleaned for a moment across the room at the other table, but looked hastily down when she saw Tally looking back at her.
She only wanted to be your friend because she pitied you, she told herself. Who needs pity? Not you.
I don't want her stupid pity.
If it was possibly to eat ones lunch vengefully then that is what Hilde did. She finished several minutes before everyone had to head to class and she spent a moment leafing through her papers. Her teacher had assigned an essay project to them, due at the end of the grading period, and the instructions for it were about five pages long. The assignment itself had to be ten.
Hilde sighed, wondering if she should start on it when she got home, or just wait until it was almost due. It sure as heck wasn't going to take her a month to write the thing. A day for research, a day for writing was all she would need.
I'll do it over the weekend I guess, she decided. Its not as if I have other plans.
She pulled out her schedule to see what class she had next. She smirked, feeling a little pick lucky, despite the lunch fiasco; she had a free.
Why did Tally think Hilde would want to sit with her preppy little friends anyway? How stupid. If Hilde was going to make friends they would certainly be a better class, in her opinion at least, than a bunch of teenyboppers.
The bell rang, and Hilde shoved her books in her bag and hurried off out of the wide cafeteria into the narrow and rather dim corridors of the first floor of the school. It was annoying, but to get to the library you had to go through the Senior hallway. It was ridiculous, the sense of entitlement that was fostered in Seniors. Being in your final year of high school did not make you better than anyone else, or smarter. Just older.
Being fifteen often annoyed Hilde. It was such a frustratingly in-between age, not old enough to gain the privileges and credibility of age, but not young enough to be given the simplicity and moral freedom of childhood.
The seniors didn't move out of her way as she walked through the hall, so she had to make do by jostling her way through the mob, and glaring harshly at anyone who wanted to take their grievance further than 'Hey! Watch it!'
At the end of the hall was a short staircase and the glass double doors of the library, or as the administration called it, the media center. She pushed the door open and walked into the only spacious well lit and air conditioned room in the building. It was a new addition, or so she had been told.
"Good morning Miss Smith," she greeted the young librarian as she walked up to the large check out desk near the door,
"Hey, what's up Hilde?" the dark haired woman replied with a smile.
"Meh," Hilde shrugged. "I can deal. Hey, have they gotten the internet working again, yet?"
"Yeah, Mr. Jones was in here this morning, he says everything's working now."
"Oh good," Hilde nodded. The library computers had been offline for almost a week; it had gotten pretty annoying.
"Well, I gotta get some filing done," Miss Smith said.
"Okay. Heh, have fun with that."
"Yeah, right," she grinned.
Hilde turned and walked forward into the bulk of the library, it was roughly circular, with high shelves forming a protective wall around the center floor where the copters and reading couches were. The other die was lit by tall, wide widows looking out on the school courtyard.
She slumped down at one of the computers with her back to the shelves, so that the glare of the sunlight wouldn't fall on her monitor. She mentally chided their internet tech guy for allowing having the school computers run Internet Explorer instead of Firefox, which was her own preference. The net was one of the few things that Hilde would admit to feeling strongly about. It was freeing and empowering, a place where you were judged by what you said and did instead of what you looked like, and what people expected of you. There were times when Hilde longed for the internet to just open up and swallow her.
Hilde looked up from her monitor and gazed coolly out the window where a soft breeze blew the leaves of the oak trees. The glass was clear, but the sun was quite bright, and so her view was partially blocked by a reflection of the library behind her, and his own reflection, his raven-dark hair, and sharp, handsome features. He smiled easily ,and looked back down at her computer. Him? Her?
'Who am I? I'm falling, I'm nauseous.'
The wave of vertigo passed and Hilde found herself hugging her own shoulders for support. She took a deep, ragged breath. Her hands were shaking like leaves. She looked behind her, to see if Miss Smith had noticed her, but the librarian was busy stamping cards.
'What the hell is wrong with me? There has got to be something wrong with me. Was it something I ate? '
Just calm down, she told herself, you'll be alright.
But I'm hallucinating or something!
Do you want to go to the nurse and lie down?
And I'm also talking to myself.
But not out loud.
Thank goodness for small favors.
Hilde took a few more deep breaths and cradled her chin in her hands. Maybe she should just go home and rest, and wait for whatever this was to pass. This had happened to her before, she remembered suddenly, the last time she had had that weir dream. It hadn't been this bad, but she'd gotten dizzy a few times, and lost track of where she was. And after that she hadn't had the dream for months and months.
I'll just go to the nurse, call mom and tell her I need to come home. Today's Friday, so I can just sleep this, whatever it is, off over the weekend. She sighed and picked up her bag. Who is that boy anyway? A ghost? No that isn't right. When I dream, its like I'm living his life. Except I can never remember the details!
"Bye Miss Smith," she said distractedly as she stalked out of the library, she didn't wait for an answer.
She avoided the senior hall this time by taking the other staircase up to the second floor where the nurse's office was located.. The nurse, a jolly lady, Carol Polanski was sitting behind her desk reading a romance novel from the library; she looked up as Hilde entered.
"What's up?" she chirruped.
Hilde sat down heavily in the chair beside the desk, and put on her best 'have sympathy for me for I am ill' look. "I'm feeling really dizzy, Ms. P. I fell down in class about an hour ago."
"Hmmm," the nurse nodded, "You want to call your mom."
"Yeah."
Miss Polanski handed her the phone.
000
Hildegard lay on her back on the soft plastic cot in the darkness waiting for her mother to arrive. On the other side of the small room a boy turned over fitfully on another cot. Hilde was surprised when he addressed her.
"Hey, whatcha in for?"
Hilde considered ignoring him, but she had been in the room to short a time to convincingly pretend to be asleep. "I was attacked by a crazed piano wielding janitor.," she replied sarcastically.
"Wha? Really? That's horrible!"
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Some people… "No, not really. It was a joke. I'm just not feeling well, okay?"
"Oh, I get it."
Hilde could make out him grinning stupidly in the dim light.
"I got hit in the head with a soccer ball," he offered.
"I suppose you must not play very often."
He laughed. "I don't play at all. I was, er, watching the girls Phys Ed class on my free..."
Hilde rolled her eyes. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Um… that's a good question. Haha."
"Miss Hilde," the nurse called from the other room. "Your mother is here."
Hilde stood up and grabbed her bag from the end of her bed. "Bye."
"Hey, I'm Roland," the boy called after her as she left the room.
This time she did ignore him.
"Hi sweetie," her mother greeted. "You feeling any better?"
Hilde shrugged. "Dizzy."
Her mom sighed. "I told you, you didn't look well this morning. You should try listening to our mom more often."
"Sorry mom."
"Well, lets get you home then. I have to get back to work one of our clients is making a big stink about some possible copyright infringement."
000
Hilde lay on her stomach on top of her covers, flipping TV channels and wondering why nothing was on. Well, nothing she wanted to watch anyway, Dragon Ball Z was on Cartoon Network, but it was a rerun anyway. She flipped past a Spanish soap opera, a documentary on echidnas, a Lfetime movie, and an brief ad for the new season of Digimon starting tomorrow. She left it on Fox Kids since Power Rangers was coming on anyway.
She sighed and looked up at the ceiling as the annoying Fox announcer chattered on. She'd slept for maybe an hour and a half after her mom brought her home, mercifully, it had been dreamless.
"Hallucinating isn't as much fun as they say it is on TV," she muttered with an edge of irony. She rolled over onto her stomach and grabbed one of her plushies, an oversize and shaggy tan dog, using at as a pillow for her arms and chin.
"And I miss the old Power Rangers," she complained sullenly to no one in particular.
"I'm sorry," came a small voice.
"What?" Hilde looked around; expecting to see her father, but no one was there. She clenched her teeth. "I am not hearing voices," she told herself, "I just misinterpreted noise from the TV. It happens to everyone."
To be continued…
