(Warning, if you are squeamish, proceed with caution. This chapter has a lot to do with the plot but it has gruesome scenes. If you don't want to read that, begin when it says 'Page break!')

Nowhere

Holly couldn't see much. There was only mist and it enveloped everything. She was only conscious of walking forward. Not once did she decide to change her direction. It was as if an invisible yet insistent string was pulling her. Eventually she came to a clearing.

It was only a clearing from the mist. The only place that was visible. There were four stones set around it, three of which were occupied. No1 was sitting on one as was Qwan and Artemis. Holly sat down on the last unoccupied stone and looked around at her friends. Everyone seemed to be looking around at each other but they couldn't speak. Holly heard a faint clacking like a chain being shaken from one side to another in an eerie unison with what seemed to be three others.

Holly and the others looked to the side where they heard the clanking. There seemed to be four orbs of light going back and forth in eerie unison. The little lights followed each other in a single file line. The unnaturally gray darkness had only those as sources of light, yet it lit up nothing near it.

The lights came closer, so close that Holly could've reached out into the mist and touched them. But for some reason they seemed intangible. She could barely make out people wearing cloaks holding the lights. No, they were holding the lanterns. The lights came from lanterns, as did the clacking. The hands holding the lanterns were obscured in the folds of the sleeves of the cloaks. The figures nearly glided, their movement was so smooth. They swiftly began circling the clearing, still at the mere edge of the mist but too far in it to be tangible. The lights coming from their lanterns were hypnotizing. They circled the clearing faster and faster and faster. The clinking became louder and louder yet it still happened at the same moment. It got to the point the lights looked like they were dancing on their own and the clinking began reverberating around Holly's head like the bell of a church. Then, they stopped.

The silence was deafening. No one knew what to expect. The cloaked people entered the clearing. Their feet didn't even make the quietest tap on the ground. One of them stood in front of Holly. One of them stood in front of Artemis. One of them stood in front of No1 and the last stood in front of Qwan. The figures held their lanterns aloft and next to the faces of the person they were standing in front of. In unison, they kneeled so the person they were in front of was at eye level. Again in unison, their free hands went to the hoods of their cloaks. They gently drew the hoods away to reveal their faces.

All their faces belonged to those of young girls. They couldn't have been any older than ten years old, yet their features were marred by scars and seemed unusually serious. The one in front of Holly had dark black hair and stormy gray eyes.

In the middle of the clearing a tornado of darkness appeared. Something seemed to be trying to fight its way out. "Let me out…" a voice rasped from inside the darkness. The girl looked closer at Holly.

"Don't," she said simply. Something from inside the tornado cackled and the very flesh of all four of the girls seemed to be rotting right before their eyes. Holly wanted to look away but her eyes seemed to be held in place. She was captivated by this horrifying scene. It seemed a similar reaction had been brought about her friends. The girls didn't scream even as the flesh from their faces rotted cleanly off and the only thing that was left of their faces were clean white skulls. Blood began pouring out of their eye sockets as crimson waterfalls, staining the perfect whiteness of the skulls with their sinfull redness. The blood began filling up the clearing but Holly, Artemis, Qwan and No1 were all petrified on the stones. They were unable to move and their mouths were open in silent cries of horror.

Holly felt the blood lapping hungrily at her ankles and the reek of the rotted flesh and the blood fill her being. She would've gagged if she could move. The warm stickiness of the blood wrapped around her and the blood level rose to her knees. "Don't," the skull that was once the girl with the gray eyes repeated to Holly. The thing in the darkness cackled with relish. Blood filled Holly's mouth as she screamed and her eyes shot open.

Page break!

Holly sat up as soon as soon as she woke. Her eyes were wildly looking around the room. It wasn't normal for her to loose her cool like this but there was just something about the nightmare that had struck a cord inside her.

She seemed to be in a cave at night. A fire was flickering nearby her. Her eyes darted to the side of the cave to see No1 with a similar expression on his face. Holly took a deep breath and calmed herself down. She turned back to No1.

"Did you have the same dream?" she asked with only a hint of shakiness. No1 looked up.

"I still taste the blood," he said with his eyes wide. Holly looked down.

"So do I." Holly said.

"Fear, fright, terror." No1 said shakily.

"Captain Short, what are you talking about?" said a familiar voice. Holly's eyes shot up to the entrance of the cave and there was Commander Julius Root.

A/N

HAHAHAHAHA!! Another evil cliffie! I know, I'm sorry about the length but I perked your interest, didn't I? Maybe the dream can tell you something, or maybe not. I've noticed a severe shortage on reviews for a story this size. REVIEW! REVIEW! D'Arvit, REVIEW! (Oh yeah, I don't own anything. ;-))