CHAPTER 1: The Dream, The Visit, And the Nightmare

Thursday, August 14th, 2460, 5:14 AM.

Quinn awoke, but he was not in his bed, he was standing in what looked like… wheat? "No, this is merely only but a dream." he thought. He walked further into the field, he stared into the distance to notice a small figure frolicking around the field, in almost an instant it clicked, it was Niko! He raised his arms into the air and waved them around, hoping that she would notice.

"N-Niko! It's me! Quinn!" He shouted over to her. Niko noticed him and lit up, her eyes widened and began to run over to him, Quinn tried to outstretch his arms for a hug, but he noticed that he couldn't move… But why? Niko slowly stopped and stared at something in confusion, it looked like it was behind him. Quinn then noticed that he could move freely again.

He turned around to see what was behind him, when suddenly, the everything went black, nothing was visible, nothing but pure darkness…

In one brief second the image of Niko being grabbed by two large feminine arms in pure black sleeves grabbing her by the torso and pulling her into what seemed like a portal, the words: "SUBMIT" we're seemingly engraved and scratched into the bottom left corner of his eye.

Quinn shot up from his rest in a cold sweat, breathing heavily but slowly coming to a stop. A single word leaving his lips.

"Ｏｈ ｇｏｄ．"

He knew that Niko was captured or was about to be captured by The Listeners, within almost an instant he stormed out of his room, not even bothering to put on regular clothes, was banging on Saimona's door so loudly that it echoed throughout the large lab like house that Saimona lived in.

"SAIMONA! WE NEED TO ACTIVATE THE TRAVEL MACHINE! NOW!" He shouted as loud as he could, banging on the door even more as there seemingly was no response from the other side. In a fit of rage he punched through the door and opened it from the other side. He jumped onto Saimona's bed and pulled a guitar and a large amplifier out of seemingly nowhere.

"WAKE UUuuhhhh . . . ." He attempted to sing the first words of Chop Suey and 'play' the guitar he pulled out when he just then noticed that Saimona wasn't in her bed, she was upstairs having her morning cup of coffee and reading the newspaper while Quinn looked at the empty bed, looking into the ceiling with a disapproved look.

"Good lord, I've been around many humans before, but you are certainly the loudest human I've ever met!"a voice spoke up, Quinn walked outside the room and stared at what looked like a zombie type creature slumped over on a the wall left to Saimona's room. It was Courtney Denning, one of Saimona's most recent friends that Quinn never had the chance to meet until now.

"Okay, who the HECK are you?!"Quinn said loudly.

"My name is Courtney, and you are?"

"Quinn, I take it we haven't met before."Quinn replied back.

The two of them shared awkward silence for a short while.

"I take it I have some explaining to do, so lets get some stuff cleared up."He added.

Ten minutes passed as Quinn explained everything that had happened, the machine he and Saimona built, their journey with Niko, and the dream, as well as other personal things about each other.

Courtney was, unlike many zombies, born a zombie, from her mother who became a zombie while she was still in her womb, her mother was one of the many victims of the zombie outbreak of 2455, however, this outbreak ended peacefully as the three-thousand-two-hundred zombies we're gathered and we're given a special gas that gave them the humanity they once lost, practically turning them back into humans and re-entering them into regular society, with the exception of their appearance, which the special procedures to revert them back to their once human bodies was still being worked on at the time.

However, the new zombie populace wasn't accepted by all of society. Soon anti-zombie groups were formed, all for one simple goal: to exterminate their kind to extinction. But thats for another story.

As a child, she was mostly talked down to by most at school for being such a creature, but she simply got used to the fact that she was going to always be the one freak in the crowd, this resulted in her becoming internally depressed and often hated herself for what she was.

One day, she felt like she was being stretched apart on the inside, her mother took her to the nearby hospital, during the whole trip, her pain soon changed to a feeling of… growth? By the time they had made it to the hospital, her mother noticed that she had become a full adult while she was driving. She honestly was dumbfounded and took her inside anyway, she apparently was a special zombie who had unreal aging speed, however this only lasted until she became what the doctors assumed was 19 years old. The government took notice of this and took some her DNA to be tested on to discover why and or how she aged at such an exponential rate. They still are trying to figure out her aging mystery to this day.

She mainly wore a ripped brown-green trench-coat with patched pants, torn at the knees, and two masses of zombie-like fungus growing from the left side of her back and right side of her face, leaving her with one eye.

Saimona then entered the room. "Hey Quinn! I see you met Courtney."She said, waving to the two.

"Yeah, we got to know each other quite well." Quinn added.

Quinn then remembered the dream, he ran over to Saimona with haste.

"Saimona, we need to activate the machine we built this instant, something terrible has happened or is about to happen, and we need to get to Niko's homeworld, NOW."He asked quite sternly.

"Wha- Whoa okay, whats going on? What do you mean 'something bad'?"She replied in confusion.

"No time to explain, we need to get to get there." Quinn said.

Courtney was intrigued on this journey, so she of course asked:

"He- Hey! I was really interested about the adventure you had with Niko, Quinn told me the entire story. Is it okay if I come along with you two?"

Saimona looked perturbed and glanced around the room, knowing she's a zombie she was worried that her appearance could scare Niko.

"Well…. About that Courtney.. I'm afraid that… Well. I-If you come with us… then…"

She tensed up and braced for what she was about to say.

"Youdprobablyscarethepoorchildtotears."She quickly hid her face into her hands and looked away, her face turning red.

"I'm sorry."She quietly added.

Courtney was at first slightly shocked, then became slightly sad.

"Oh… well… Okay, if thats how it could be, I'd best not intrude."

"I'll… just be in my room, if you change your mind…"

Courtney slowly got up and began to slowly limp her way to her room on the other side of the lab, sniffling slightly. Quinn gave Saimona a slightly displeased look, who still had her face in her hands.

"Do… Do you think I said the right thing by being honest…?"

Quinn scoffed and walked up to her.

"Listen, even though she's a zombie, she's entirely human on the inside."

Saimona began to become sad, a few small tears streaming down her face as she sniffled, Quinn replied to this by giving her a hug.

"I'll go over and change her mind, we'll introduce her to Niko slowly and calmly, hopefully she won't… Well.. You know."

Saimona, still sniffling, gave the okay. Quinn then walked over to Courtney, still limping her way to her room.

"Hey…! Courtney? You can come with us, it's okay!" Quinn said.

"Wh.. What…?" Courtney asked in confusion.

Quinn put his hands on her shoulders.

"Listen, Courtney, just because you're a zombie, doesn't mean you aren't human on the inside, it's always what's inside that counts, and inside you, is a soul as pure as the blue sky, and a heart of gold. You are a truly beautiful person, no matter what anyone says… Okay?"

These words we're enough to bring Courtney to tears, not of sadness, but of joy, finally, someone understood what she felt! She let out a screech of happiness as she tightly embraced Quinn.

"Yes! Yes! Thank you! Th-th… Thank you… So much…"She cried out in happiness, still holding Quinn in her arms, tears flowing from her one, pure white eye.

Quinn gave a small smile as their eyes connected, but quickly broke contact as a serious look covered Quinn's face as he remembered the dream.

"Saimona! Activate the machine ASAP!"He shouted to her in slight fear, who had already activated the machine while Quinn spoke with Courtney.

"Done and done!"She shouted with accomplishment, as the machine booted up with various beeps and blips.

Quinn got Courtney into one of the five pods that acted as the teleporters, he quickly entered another pod next to hers.

"Alright, just get the coordinates up, and… Alright! We are go!"Saimona shouted out as she quickly got into one of the pods. The machine started to work faster and faster, emanating more and more noise and beginning to flash colorful lights as the machine started to begin the teleportation process…

Immediately they felt their spirits leave the physical realm and all they could see was a vortex of dark, multicolored pixels traveling past them at the speed of light, As if they we're melting into code itself it surely was a strange feeling, but not an unpleasant one, at least not to Saimona and Courtney. Beads of sweat formed across Quinn's forehead, his first priority was to insure that Niko and her family, as well as the rest of the village was okay, but the pieces he put together in his mind we're anything but, and his breathing was loudly audible as he closed his eyes, thinking that this was simply another dream within the dream he had and that Niko was simply safe and sound, but it all felt so real…

They had made it, the three of them found themselves standing in the field just like in Quinn's dream, wind blowing through the strands of wheat that surrounded the two of them.

The two of them stared for a few seconds in absolute horror and shock as they saw that Niko's homeworld had become victim to the wrath of the Listeners. The sky was pure red, the sun, pure blinding white, the clouds seemed like holes in reality itself as they were as dark as black could be, and the wheat, dead and lifeless. Quinn became so immensely angry and scared at the same time scared mostly because the scene in front of him hinted that nothing good could come from it, he screamed, terror in his voice: "NIKO!? NIKO!? WHAT'S HAPPENED?! WHE-"

"The… The village! Quinn, the village!" Saimona yelled out, pointing to her village to left of them, colorless like moonstone, Quinn sprinted like his life depended on it, not worrying about the hard rocks that dug into his feet, he made his way around the last house before the main pathway, only to be greeted with the sight of…

Sheer horror.

Every man, woman and child had been subject to some sort of horrid petrification, as colorless as the buildings, including Niko's mother, the person that protected the person Quinn cared the most for, they looked like they we're running from something, more than likely the wave of magic that turned them to stone.

In the middle of the village, where the well used to be, was a large statue of the Three Watchers, three pure black arms, one short, one mid-sized and one tall, with eyes in the palms of their hands, the insignia of the Listeners.

Quinn fell to his knees in front of the crowd of petrified villagers, sobbing so hard he puked nothing but pure bile, he couldn't stop crying he couldn't speak, screaming under the weight of emotional pain, he hurt more than ever.

Saimona wasn't much better, she denied it all and shook her head, her hands grabbing onto it as hard as she could. Repeating to herself over and over again, "It's just a bad dream…" under her breath as a flow of warm tears streamed down her cheeks.

Courtney was only in shock at what she was looking at, she started to quickly limp around and search for Niko, potential clues and whatever the Listeners left at the village.

Quinn took his hands off of his face and began to look at them, his fingers curling up like spiders legs as they began to shake slowly but quickly pick up speed, soon his entire body started to shake uncontrollably, face going crunching up in pure rage and seeing red, he gripped both sides of his head and curled up before outstretching his arms and snapping his head up and howling out a single name, a name that echoed out into the blood red skies of the world that once was.

ZAPHARA NAXXREMIS!

CHAPTER 1 END