Beetlejuice

Season 2: The Sleeper Saga

Episode 38: The Sleeper Awakens – Part 1

"Personifications of our personalities." Claire stated flatly, making a movie reference in her mind. "No." Strength stated bluntly. "We're personifications of Lydia's entire life. 'Any part of her life that doesn't commit to memory, but is an essential part of her being as a whole'. Is what 'Knowledge' would tell you, if she were here." Claire was now afraid to ask her next question but still found it escaping her lips instinctively, "What happened to her?" Innocence gripped ahold of Claire's left hand and hung her head in sadness before answering her question. "She was taken by that monster." Strength stated with a twinge of her own fear in her throat. "So…" Claire asked trying to cheer them up, "There must have been a lot of you." The thought of a colony of "Lydias" living inside of her mind had crossed her own at one point but the idea brought into the open like that still surprised her. "Yah" Innocence piped in, instantly cheering up from her sadness. "There were lots of us. There was Me, Strength, Knowledge, Art… Ooh! And Kindness, she was really nice." She was interrupted by Strength, "Thanks Innocence. I think she gets the idea. And I think Kindness might still be around here somewhere." Innocence's eyes began to light up like twinkling stars, overflowing with hope, while Claire gauged Strength's expression to see if she was simply trying to make her feel happier or if she was telling the truth.

Reluctantly, Lydia was returned home with Delia and Charles still kept in a dream-like state to avoid suspicion and drama. For a while, Lydia gazed back into their eyes curious about who they were. The man she recognized eventually as her father, but she unknowingly held a mild contempt for the woman. "Lydia?" Beetlejuice asked as he crept up behind her. She jumped in her skin, startled slightly, and turned back to face the man in the black and white striped suit. "Come on, we need you to get us back into the Neitherworld." "Explain to me how I can do that again." Lydia asked still confused as to what went on. "When we first met, you made a pact with me and made me your guardian ghost. From then on, you could either summon or banish me by saying my name three times, or you could open a gateway between dimensions with the full incantation you made to form the pact." Was his answer to her. Memory still fuzzy, but still she seemed to recall some of it. "Although I know I should be weary…" The rest escaped her. "Let's go to your room before saying the rest of it, shall we?" Beetlejuice suggested. In an instant, they both witnessed a flash of light and found themselves startling Bertha, Prudence, and Merlin. "You're learning to control that, I see." Lydia instinctively blurted out. Beetlejuice laughed a bit and smugly answered, "Yah." Realization then hit him hard. "Wait, you remember?" Lydia, blinked slightly before thinking hard. "I don't know. Somethings are coming back to me, but most of it remains a blur." "Let's get to opening the doorway to the Neitherworld, ok. I'll help you if you can't remember. I've heard it so many times, I can recite it myself." Beetlejuice offered. Dead silence saturated the room for some time with all who were present staring at him each with the same question buzzing in their heads. "Yes, I've tried it once before. But nothing happened." Lydia chuckled slightly imagining his disappointment when no doorway opened in front of him. She then positioned herself in the middle of her room and chanted off of the top of her memory. "Although I know I should be weary" the words flowed from her, as if another was whispering it to her ear. "But still I venture someplace scary. Ghostly haunting, I turn loose, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!"

From within Lydia's mind, Claire finished piecing together a stone slab with the words of that very chant engraved upon it. She used her arrows to undo the damage done by the creature, thinking that she could help put Lydia back to normal as she went along on her journey with Strength and Innocence. She noticed that from here on the dragon's ring was no longer on her wrist, yet when she needed her bow, her armor appeared. It took her much more effort and caused her new pain as the armor slowly covered her, becoming easier and less painful every time she summoned it, however still causing tremendous strain on her body. She sealed the final piece of the slab back into place when Strength said, "That thing comes in handy, doesn't it?" Her armor once again vanished into silver dust as she breathed heavily from the strain it physically put on her. "Yah, although it never was this hard to maintain." She answered. "Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it." Innocence stated with unbridled faith shining behind her child-like eyes.

Claire still had not a clue as to what exactly happened to the dragon's ring and why it had transformed when it did, and why it took so much effort now to activate and summon. However, she decided not to question results. She had eventually learned that what she was talking to was not, in fact, pieces of Lydia's current personality, but different parts she had displayed throughout her life, even for a brief moment. Every little personality quirk that had popped up become its own resident inside of Lydia's mind. And she had also learned that only parts that Lydia shows in her personality have the most influence. In conclusion, Claire learned that even though Lydia had technically lost most of her innocence in the wreck that killed her mother. Innocence still stayed a part of her, just had much less influence.

She lifted herself back off of her knees to stand upright and attempt to show Innocence that she would be alright, when a question hit her. "What exactly was that thing that was attacking you?" she found herself asking aloud. Strength peered at Innocence as if the question alone would break the little girl's fragile mind. "We called it 'Despair' at one point." She finally answered solemnly. Claire was slightly confused for a moment until the idea hit her. "That thing is a part of Lydia?" She exclaimed in a burst of air that drained nearly all of her breath away. "Despair used to be content with reminding Lydia of her mother's death every now and then, keeping her memories alive in her own twisted way. It was only recently when she began attempting to off us all." Strength paused for a moment and then added, "Kept saying something about despair being all she needs to feel and that the rest of us are 'unnecessary'. It was just now that she became that giant blob of shape-shifting goo you saw." The memory of that creature replayed in Claire's mind as she recalled the battle and her struggle with the energy burning her body through her injured wrist. She gently touched her wrist and the remembering the dragon's ring laying upon it like a bracelet. Nostalgia and regret both swirling in her mind as she silently thought out a sincere apology to the silver dragon who was housed inside. "We should get moving if we're going to catch up with Despair." She suddenly heard Strength say.

Instead of finding themselves near the Roadhouse like usual, the gang found themselves in a forest of silver trees, the forest looked as if it was constantly autumn as the leaves were a brilliant golden orange with mixtures of ruby, and even topaz. In the center of the forest stood a lake with a beautiful mermaid woman who, this time, looked like the mythical mermaids from legend, the torso of a human female and the tail of a dolphin, lined with beautiful sapphire scales and hair that flowed like the water itself. "Where are we?" Beetlejuice asked in surprise. "I have summoned you here, as I was instructed to." The mermaid said in her melodious soft voice. "A siren?" Merlin stated in shock. "Thou shoulds't know who I am old friend. For thou entrusted me with the great sword of the great king. Though it was last sent by a young human." She gently responded, with a hint of longing. "The great king?" Merlin asked then suddenly memories of his face, his voice, his name, came flooding back and his eyes began to well up with endless tears of joy and fondness. "Arthaer!" "Wait, it's not Arthur?" Prudence asked shocked. "Yes it is little one. Your King Arthur from myth was actually pronounced Arthaer." Merlin corrected, his eyes still welling up with tears. "And now is the time when he awakens. And one of us is tasked with retrieving his sword before my brother slays him for good." "But I thought the end of the story is how Arthur died on the battlefield." Bertha interrupted. "Dragons cannot be killed by mortal weapons, however it takes us a long time to heal from certain poisons and fatal wounds. He fell into a healing coma with a seal placed to prevent enemies from finding him." He then turned to the siren in the lake and addressed her. "You look as lovely as ever, Autumn." "And yea be as ever foolish. It be rude to keep your lady waiting all of these years." She responded. Now the group was completely dumbfounded. "Your lady?" Prudence finally shouted. Merlin turned back to the group and coyly rubbed the back of his head, "Heh, I said that the stories were a good piece of fiction, didn't I? The truth you may find much stranger than fiction."

He then turned back to Autumn and with a serious expression on his face asked her, "We need his sword and to find where he lies before Grimnak does. The Black Mage has returned and he won't just stop at my brother. He'll destroy all of the Overworld if he gets there first." She maintained her soft expression before leaning in to passionately kiss him and embrace him for approximately three seconds. Once she broke away from him, she answered him, "You know where he lie, my love. As for the sword, only one who gives back that which has been lost most precious above all else may freely retrieve the sword from the bottom." Her hands pressed firmly against his cheeks she again planted a passionate kiss on his lips. This time he broke away from her, urgency in his voice and face. "Are you serious? Can't you just swim down there and get it?" Autumn solemnly shook her head. "It only appears when the test has been completed. These were the instructions that I was given all of those years ago." She then coyly slapped his chest with the retort, "In which you didn't even call or come to visit." She then hung herself in his embrace with a simple whisper, "I've missed you so." He then gave up on urgency and tightened his embrace around her as they both knelt down into the water and just stayed there.

Claire and Strength walked side by side, through what Claire had come to call Lydia's "Hall of Memories" with Innocence skipping happily only a few yards ahead. Most of the relics, Claire had noticed, were still worse for wear, being smashed to pieces. She couldn't help but to think back on the strange voice's words, "Be careful not to lose yourself." 'What does that even mean?' She questioned quietly. 'Lose myself. I like Lydia the way she is… who she is… don't I?' She looked back at some of the broken memorabilia, gauging as to what some of the things might represent when they were whole. She was suddenly brought back when she heard a delighted squeal from Innocence. She shot her gaze back up and watched as the young girl ran up to a dark corner and reached in to pull out another version of Lydia. This one wore glasses and instead had on a comfortable pair of black denim jeans and a loose fitting red blouse. She looked glad to see Innocence and breathed in a sigh of relief. "I should have known you would survive. Logic dictates that you were probably being protected by…" She gazed up to see Strength. "I knew it." She stated. Claire simply tilted her head to the side trying to figure out which part of Lydia's personality this could possibly be until Strength responded happily, "What's up, Reason?" The other one was slightly younger than Strength but displayed a calculating expression on her face. She adjusted her glasses in mild annoyance and stated, "I told you, don't call me that. My name is Logic."

While Merlin and Autumn sat in the shallows of the lake silently, Beetlejuice, Bertha, and Prudence thought about how to help their friend Lydia regain her memories. "It's been a strange day. Even for us." Prudence remarked. Looking down at the ground, Bertha wondered about their other friend they had to leave behind, Claire. "What do you guys think happened to Claire?" She asked inquisitively. "It's possible that the Dragon's Ring rejected and destroyed her." Beetlejuice answered her. "I read once that some magical objects are constantly testing and judging their wielders." With that, Bertha began to be nervous and grasped her magical trinket from around her neck as if she was waiting for it to begin weighing her down or burn her. Nothing happened.

"Is it possible that I could be putting together the objects as I want Lydia to be rather than who she is?" Claire asked herself strangely panicked. "I may know a lot about her, but I don't know everything." She began to wish that she had taken up the dragon's offer of knowing everything about everyone, but then shook the idea out of her head. "I need to try on my own. Not with some omnipotent power." Suddenly, she could hear the sound of metal scraping against the ground. She slowly turned around to see the black creature. It's grim reaper-like appearance foreboding, looming over her about to lift its scythe to cut her down. The blade clanged against thick plated metal as Claire summoned the armor once again. She was flung thirty feet away as she struck the ground and bounced four times before rolling to a stop. The wind driven out of her lungs and now an injured rib, she slowly stood back up only to have the scythe throw her again. Another thirty feet backward, as well as another bruised rib, she found herself on her side witnessing Strength recklessly attack with kicks and punches. Strength dodged the minster's attacks but wouldn't back down even when she was slashed a few times. Innocence was being held safe by Logic who both of them were panicking and fear stricken. Painfully, Claire pushed herself up back to her feet and watched as the scythe of the black inky monster pierced through Strength's stomach. "NO!" Claire shouted in shock, remembering the cheer leader that she couldn't save. Immediately she fired a rejuvenation arrow at Strength. The arrow soared and struck its target. Once again, nothing happened. She watched as her best friend's courage fell to the ground, bleeding from a stab wound in her stomach. The dark and sinister voice of the creature then rang in the air, "Fear and anger shall reign supreme."

Lydia felt all courage and fearlessness flee her and fear set in her mind. "Who are these people?" She asked herself. "Who am I?" "Why am I here?" Faded memories ran frantically through her mind and she found herself afraid and angry for no reason. The farther her anger grew, the more she and Beetlejuice began to change.

The room around Claire began to shift and warp into a fiery hell. The grim reaper creature then shifted and shrank down into the demonic version of Lydia. She cackled and roared and glared at Claire. "I shall reign supreme." She stated in her harsh dry voice. She then lunged at Claire, claws and sharpened teeth bared in a full ferocious attack. Quickly, Claire shot an arrow into the ground just at her feet. The arrow formed a shield that shattered upon contact with Demon Lydia's claws. Claire was thrown to her back as Demon Lydia lunged once again, poised to tear out Claire's throat. Claire threw up her arms to block only to have them knocked away. A second set of claws thrust themselves at Claire's throat but were interrupted by a shoulder charge from Innocence. They both hit the ground hard with Innocence rolling away unconscious and Demon Lydia grumbling to herself angry and calling Innocence a "bitch" and a "brat". Thinking quickly, Claire loaded another arrow and fired at Demon Lydia. When it struck, it bound her with golden ropes of light. She fought and thrashed and struggled, shouting curses and obscenities. "What in the hell?" Claire thought to herself as the adrenaline continued to pump through her veins. She then shot another arrow to each side of Demon Lydia. The golden ropes that attacked from the bonds to the ground held her in place, anchoring her to the ground. Demon Lydia continued shouting more obscenities at Claire, thrashing and pulling at her bonds. Suddenly, an impact from behind knocked Demon Lydia out. There stood Strength blood running out of her mouth but her stomach wound cauterized. She then looked at Claire and stated, "Dude, if you wanna heal wounds this big, you might wanna learn anatomy and medicine." It was then, Claire learned why she couldn't save anyone. Minor wounds were easy to heal, because only the flesh was injured. To heal major and mortal wounds, she needed to heal organs, bone and other tissue that she couldn't see.

End of Season 2 Episode 18.