A/N: Just an FYI, There is a character name in here that is used in one of the Comic Arcs. However, these characters are COMPLETELY Different. Just don't want to confuse you 0o. Anyways, Onwards with the story!
W.I.T.C.H.: Dead Memories
"Friends Turned Enemies"
Drip. An infinite amount of time passed in between each drop of fluid as it fell. Drip. Long pauses in which life itself seemed to slow down to a complete stand still. Drip. Was continuing on worth it anymore? The hardships? The pain that she had suffered? Drip. Will's eyes shifted to the IV line's accumulator where drops of the fluid, whatever it was, fell to collect and then be feed into her veins. It was steady, almost rhythmic, the dripping of her IV line. It most certainly should of put her to sleep, but blissful dreams were far from the young redhead.
Her life was possibly at a crossroads. Down one road, her mother recovered, Elyon was saved and life ended happily ever after. Down the other road, her Mother was just a finely etched gravestone, one of the millions that would come to pass if Prince Phobos was not stopped. Will desperately wanted to go down the path where her Mother lived and everyone was safe… but it wasn't as easy or simply as wanting. Nothing ever was, or would be. What's more, she was plagued by what had occurred recently.
At first, it was nothing more then missing time. Oh how time now seemed to come back full force and last an eternity between each drop. The throbbing of her head steadily reminded her of that. Then there had been that strange memory, the one of the man who wasn't Caleb. She couldn't even remember what she had done to Caleb. The splitting pain though, it cut through and defined that moment. Unbelievable agonizing pain, pain that Will thought never existed. But she was wrong, It was more then physical pain though.
At first that's all it had been, but awaking from the inky blackness only began the nightmare of when Will first heard about her Mother. Now the pain lanced through her heart, and soul. Terror gripped her in oh so painful ways. Will couldn't really contemplate life without her mother. It just wasn't possible, unspeakable on a level that far surpassed Will's comprehension.
The almost daily fights; constant arguing; it had all lead Will to believe that maybe she was drifting away from her mother. If this was how Will treated her Mother, was she truly the one who should possess the Heart of Kandrakar? Deep down though, Will realized that she had always loved her Mother. She had taken that love for granted, and now… now it seemed that she would pay the ultimate price, the loss of the one person in Will's life that made life bearable, from the math homework to the draining war waged against Phobos. This couldn't be happening.
The sorrow over possibly never seeing her mother again triggered something within Will. A memory of sorrow… and the dripping of an IV line? The light in the room got blindingly bright as everything blurred.
"How is she doing?" a muffled voice asked. The words didn't seem to make sense to Will. All she wanted to do was get some sleep. She was after all lying down. The first thing she noticed was the throbbing of her head. It felt like she had hit it on something. Letting out a slight moan she opened her eyes. There was something over her head and it provided a semi-dark. It looked to be a pillow case with multi-colored strips, and squiggly lines all over it. She tried to take it off her head… but couldn't. Her arms were strapped down it felt like. She tried moving her legs and found them to be stuck too.
"H-hello?" Will asked tentatively. She was afraid of what was going on. Maybe she had been captured by Prince Phobos! The only thing she could remember was leaving school to go home. Everything after that just wouldn't come to mind.
"Ah, I see that you are awake Mrs. Vandom," a voice off to her left replied. "How rude of me to leave that on you."
With a yank, the pillow case was taken off of Will's head to reveal a completely white room. There were bright lights in the ceiling 10 feet above here that caused her to squint. The ceiling it self, looked to have observation windows in it in a circle around where she was strapped down. Looking over to her left she saw the face of a man who appeared to be in his early 30's, with a shaved head and built exterior; a body that looked like he pumped iron every day in a gym. His face was sharp and chiseled, brown eyes with a stare that looked like it could penetrate steel shone brightly at her. He wore a Green t-shirt with army camouflage pants. A green belt with a steel buckle adorned his waist were a cell phone was hanging.
Off to her right were what appeared to be doctors in their surgical gear lathering up, like in ER and some of the medical shows Will's Mom would watch. All around her appeared to be medical equipment, everything from cardiac monitors to scalpels. Questions began to fly through her mind at a million miles an hour. Had she been in an accident and needed surgery? Is that why her head had hurt? But what about the pillow case? Why was it on her head?
The man in the green shirt as if knowing what Will was thinking because of his penetrating gaze got up and walked purposefully towards Will, his gate even and Militaristic in style. "I know you have many questions Will, some of which will be answered soon enough. But first we have to do a little operation. Then you will wake up in your bed back home." The voice from earlier said, issuing from the man that was walking towards her.
"Where am I? Am I going to see my Mom again? Is this just a dream?" Will said rapidly, adrenalin kicking in as fear began to spread across her. Will's answer to if this was real became painfully true as a needle was deftly placed in her right arm by a nurse.
"Yes Will, this is all real. But you won't remember any of it, so just relax." The man said in an attempt at a calming voice. It didn't work though, as Will began to struggle. But whatever was being fed through the needle was beginning to take over.
"Let me see my mom! Noooo! Let me go!" she cried frantically as her world began to fade. Fear and immense sorrow saturated her heart as the world turned black.
The hospital came back into focus as she withdrew from the memory that had so abruptly invaded her mind. It seemed to be a dream, but there was no doubt in Will's mind that it had happened. She felt her left hand touch where the current IV was, as she realized that there was something different about the room.
Sitting at the foot of her bed sat a girl, who looked to be about the same age as Will. She had sandy colored hair with brown freckles that covered her petite face. Green intelligent eyes looked at Will intently. Her clothes were that of a hospital patient, a white tag, similar to Will's was on her right wrist. The child just sat there watching Will, as if waiting for something.
"Ummm, can I help you?" Will asked cautiously. She didn't know who this kid was, or where she had come from. Then again she had been out of it remembering dead memories.
"No, but I can help you," Replied the girl with a distinctly British accent, in a high alto voice. She stood up from the end of the bed and padded closer to Will. "My name's Cassidy, what's yours?"
Will felt it happening again, that inexorable pull towards some forgotten part of her mind, Cassidy's name and face triggering an emotion from some far off place.
"Hi! So where are you from? I just recently moved here from England when they picked me up." The girl said, wearing the same uniform that they all did. Her sandy hair was tied up into a pony tail at the back of her head.
"Umm, I just moved here not too long ago from Fadden Hills." Will replied eyeing the Grey T-shirt, with black shorts that the girl wore. Looking dubiously down at her own uniform, she wondered why they made all the new recruits where them.
"Oh, that's neat. Want to be mates? My name is Cassidy…" The girl said holding out a hand.
"Umm, sure. My name is Will." She replied to the girl that stood before her. Just then, their drill sergeant walked in and barked that everyone should form up.
Adrenalin and realization whipped Will back from the memory just in time to move from what would have been a fatal stab with a needle. Rolling over the edge of the bed, Will landed on her knees and a hand. Noticing she was still tethered to the IV, she quickly pulled it out and dodged towards the front of the bed as Cassidy dove over it at her.
"Wait? What are you doing?" Was all Will could say before Cassidy was on the attack again. Will seemed to miraculously dodge a punch thrown at her. Then Will grabbed Cassidy's foot and flipped the girl as she threw a kick. While on the ground, Cassidy managed trip Will and was on top of her within a matter of seconds. The needle came to bare again as Cassidy tried to drive it into Will's chest. Will struggled to push it away, but the needle was slowly but surely being forced downwards.
In a last ditch effort, Will bucked her self and unsettled Cassidy just enough that she landed off balance on her, allowing Will to grab the needle, turned it around, and stabbed it right into her shoulder. As if by reaction Will pushed the plunger in all the way. Cassidy fell off Will in a yelp of pain, grabbing the needle and yanking it out. Here eyes showed a look of surprise as she looked at the spent syringe.
"You… You got me." Cassidy said, with a look of detachment glazing her face over. "I thought I had you… but I guess I didn't."
"Wait?! What was in that syringe?!" Will cried out in a panic.
"Sodium Pentothal, most commonly used as an anesthesia, and as lethal injection in over 36 states." Cassidy said.
"What?! You tried to kill me!" Will cried in an outrage.
"Yes. It was my mission. You are a security risk to the project. It was my task to find an eliminate you. I have failed both of my missions." Cassidy replied leaning against the cabinet she was near. Her voice seemed to be getting shallow as the overdose of Sodium Pentothal circulated through her bloodstream. "You and your mother were both supposed to die."
"But why? Weren't we friends or something like that?" Will asked, baffled and horrified at what was happening.
"In a past life Will, a life that doesn't exist." Cassidy said half closing her eyes. "A life that is going to haunt you mate until the day you either die, or they are defeated. I'm afraid the former is more likely to happen then the latter."
"What life Cassidy…? I… I can't remember it all, I just have bits and pieces flashing before me." Will asked the girl who was rapidly fading.
"You apparently remembered your hand to hand combat relatively well," Cassidy said, a slight smile coming to her lips. Opening her eyes one last time she spoke in barely a whisper, "Will, seek out Kuang Ao'ning, Petra Egorova, and Jonathan Petersburg. They will have answers to the questions you seek."
For some reason, those names struck a bell and rang clear in Will's mind. No matter that they all seemed to be complex and hard to remember, to Will, it was as if they were all her first name.
Cassidy's head slumped forward slightly as she exhaled her last breath. Will just sat there, motionless at what had happened. Then it hit her, like a train plowing through a car. Will had just killed someone, a person that had at one time apparently been a friend. Tears started to pour forth from her eyes, at the very moment that the door burst open to reveal an alarmed nurse.
"What happened here? Will? What's going on?" She said as she rushed over to Will. As she reached the sobbing Will, the Nurse noticed Cassidy over in the corner, the needle in her hand. Checking Cassidy's pulse, the nurse realized she was dead. Moving to the phone on the wall, she dialed a number and said into the receiver, "Medical assistance to room 203! Medical Assistance!"
Will remained mute, tears of anguish coating her face as the nurse checked her over, and guided her over to the bed. Several other nurses and a Doctor rushed in to see what was going on. Detective Ethan Riley was just a few steps behind them.
"What's going on in here?" Ethan asked the group of people that was crowded in the room.
"Will's vitals spiked and then flat lined moments ago. I rushed in to find her over there in the corner, near the body of a girl, same age." The nurse replied in a calm voice of an experienced Intensive Care Nurse. She had seen many people die and was used to handling patients who vitals would suddenly plummet.
"Body of a girl?" Ethan asked curious, stepping over to the corner, to find a girl who appeared to be the same age as Will. In one hand was an empty syringe, on the other was a tag similar to Will's indicating that the girl was a patient. Or was she?
"Who is this girl? She seems to be a patient here at the hospital." Ethan said pulling out his pen and notepad as his detective instincts kicked in. One of the nurses attending to Will turned around to see who the Detective was talking about. Seeing the white band on the girl's wrist, the male Nurse pulled out a scanner from his pocket used to pull information about patients from the hospital database.
"She isn't one of the patients here. This tag does not match any of the patient records here at the hospital." He replied, intrigued himself.
"Okay, everyone out. This is officially a crime scene." Ethan said standing up and turning around to group around Will's bed.
"Alright, we just need to get a wheelchair for Will. Then we will be out." The doctor replied nodding towards the other female nurse in the room. She quickly left in pursuit of a wheelchair.
"Good. You'll inform me of any further updates with Will?" Ethan asked, his last question for now.
"Yes, you will be one of the first people to know." The doctor replied, moving towards the door with the gait of a man who worked long hours and saw much death and sickness in his life.
Ethan turned away from the nurses who were continuing to check on Will, and surveyed the room. When one entered, there was a bed directly perpendicular to the door. A window was on the other side of the bed facing northward. Several chairs were just located inside the room on the left side of the door. Another chair was in between the bed and the window for a visitor to sit and chat. Medical equipment was on either side of the bed, from heart monitors to IV lines.
At the end of the room at the foot of the bed was a bathroom, counter with sink, and a cabinet with what appeared to be extra bed sheets and other medical utensils like bed pans. The struggle looked to have taken place on the side of the bed next to the window, then moved towards the foot of the bed, culminating in the girl getting killed, near the bathroom and the counter.
The wheelchair was brought in and Will was loaded in just as Ethan got done with his survey of the room. As she was being wheeled out, Ethan could just here Will say, "Her name was Cassidy."
Shaking his head, Detective Ethan truly began to believe what Senator Jonathan Petersburg had told him. The only explanation for "Cassidy" was that she was one of these Innocent Assassins sent to kill Will and probably her mother. This was going downhill fast, and didn't look to be stopping any time soon. He left the room and called CSI to canvas the room while he went about finding the evidence he needed to prove or disprove the Senator.
A/N: Well, that was a short chapter. I'm thinking that my future chapters that I spit out are going to be short too. It's just the way the plot is playing out. Well, there is some intriguing information revealed in this one. What will the next chapter reveal? Who knows P R & R Please.