Chapter Eighteen
John

Usually when I'm tired, I always fall asleep dreamless. Normal people do. Even if my arms are around Six, the girl that anchors me to the real world, I still don't get why I had this damn dream.

I'm back on Lorien, on the day it was attacked. Blood and bodies are strewn everywhere I look. I can easily see my father upon hundreds. I wonder if my mother is still here, or my grandfather, or my grandmother. So I wander around, floating above the people I was supposed to lead. I stop floating. I can't see this area, because this is where the krauls slaughtered the children.

Instead, I turn back to where my father lies on the ground. He looks like me; past the blood, we share the same wavy hair and build, but something about his features reminds me of danger, unpredictability. Maybe I got my traits from my mother. Either way, I will get my revenge. I'll kill every single Mogadorian if I have to. The only thing I want to achieve right now is revenge. I will avenge you, I think, All of you.

Dad begins to move. So do the other Lorics, Lorics I've come to know as dead. But, how come they can still move? Many of them are on their feet now, including my own father, Liren. Their limbs crack back to their ordinary positions, and I feel the hairs on my arms stand up. The sounds of bones popping are definitely not pleasing.

My ability to float fails me and I fall into a puddle of dark red blood. The walking dead closes in on me. Their skin turns greener and greener with every step. The color looks kind of familiar to me, but I don't have the time to register my sudden thought because one of them grabs my arm. Another grabs my left leg. The others rip my shirt apart. My Lumen won't light up. Every time I attempt to fling one of them away with telekinesis, a headache is what results. What is happening? They pull at my limbs, stretching me. I can't believe that they'd have the strength to stretch my body, given the fact that they've been dead for nearly a year since we left the destroyed planet.

Liren walks past the crowd, his face twisted into an unimaginable state. My own father is watching me as I helplessly try to fight off my own undead kind. He takes my pendant and with a tug of his hand, the chain breaks. "No!" I manage to yell, but every struggle against them is futile. They have my pendant, and there's nothing I can do. "This will be what's left of you," a voice says through Liren's mouth, "When I'm through with you, there will be nothing left of your body for a proper burial." Liren's face turns darker than the rest. The green in his skin turns gray and ashen. He shoots up several inches and all of a sudden I see Setrákus Ra, and the view of Mogadore behind him…

"John!" Six yells and I sit bolt upright, seeing nothing but darkness. Bile comes up my throat and I didn't have the time to force it back down. I double over the edge of the bed and let everything come out while Six rubs my back and shoulder.

What does the vision mean? Why did the dead come back to life? Why did their skin turn green? I cough out the last stream of vomit as Six asks, "What happened?"

I force the lump in my throat to come down before answering, "Another premonition."

"Come on. Let's get you some water," Six suggests. I nod uneasily and after fixing ourselves up at a slow pace, we exit our room.

There is no sign of water in the storage area in the dining room but there is glowing baby blue liquid in a pitcher there. After Six made sure that it isn't poisonous, I drink three glasses of the odd liquid. I remember from dinner that this is the same liquid from the taste, minus the glowing part.

Six copes with my slow pace yet again. We must have reached about half an hour before entering our dimly lit room. There is a metallic click from the floor and my vomit gets sucked by hole in the ground. The lights in our room continue to change colors and courses. Six is first to lie back down with a sigh. My insides churn horribly as I lie back down beside her. I rest my head on her chest as she gently strokes my hair. I stare as the color blue explodes on the left side of the room. The effect is truly amazing; it looks like a bucket of paint had been thrown at the wall. I play with Six's fingers, thinking about how she's always there for me. How I love the way she smiles. How she kisses me on the lips. How she became my everything.

The pleasing thought of her is washed away when I start to replay the vision in my mind. The bodies, Liren, Setrákus…

"I give up on sleeping," I say, "I see it all over again." My head rises as Six sighs loudly. I can tell she's very, very tired.

"What did you see?" she asks.

"I saw Lorien after the attack. The dead started rising up from the ground. And with every step they took, they turned moldy green until they looked like the lower-ranked Mogs. They swarmed over me, tugging at my limbs, scratching my chest until my shirt rips open and they took my pendant," I say. I feel my hairs rise up again. I start to tremble out of fear—for the first time since we left Earth, I feel the cold chill of fear run down my spine. Six tries to take it away. I now realize how perfect she is for me—how only she can keep me calm. Six is and will be the only who will have this kind of effect on me. I love her, and I will protect her, even from myself.

Six gives me a kiss on the forehead, and then dozes off. Maybe it's about time I take a rest too. But I'm afraid—again—that I will see that horrible dream. I interlock my fingers with Six's, and slowly, nervously, I close my eyes.

I haven't dreamt of anything, but the next morning, I knew I'm going to have to confess it to the others.

Breakfast comes, and I remain silent. Six is first to dig in under guidance from Zakarius. She bites at the end of weird, deep red meat and says, "Tastes like chicken." That is enough for everyone to eat. Ella, however, wants more fruits. So Zakarius, with the help of octopus-like arms, hands her a plate-full.

Training is directly after we have a grace period of ten minutes—and I still haven't told anyone. No one but Six knows. "Aren't you going to spill the beans yet?" Six asks me on the way to the training area.

"I don't know when, but soon," I reply. Ella's head cocks a little to our direction. Eavesdropping, I suppose, but that doesn't run in Ella's personality and attitude. At least, I hope not.

Six tries the stimulation area. She puts on a pair of dark glasses, and she starts punching at odd places, kicking things visible only to her. I see Nine in the singles mat, Ella and Sam on the doubles, but I can't find Crayton. I have to speak with him.

After checking the target practice area, it turns out Crayton isn't in the training room. I walk out of the training room without anyone noticing. Zakarius is waiting outside, and I nearly bumped into him if I did not catch myself. "Where's Crayton?" I ask.

In the control room, Zakarius says.

"I thought only Six can activate the door to the control room."

Yes, only she can do it, Zakarius replies, but she already has, and it will remain available until she exits the ship. Oh, so that's how it works. Zakarius leads me to Crayton, and I get nervous each step I take. I wish Six is here, beside me, comforting me, not Zakarius, the stone cold protector. Soon I'm facing the same metal door that lead to the room where I watched the sky turn from stormy gray to midnight black as we left Earth. I should go, Zakarius says, I have my own army to train. With that he turns and disappears, the impact of his paws of the stone floor the only thing left behind. I take a deep breath and walk past the door as soon as it slides open.

Before, I didn't have time to study the paintings on the wall. Now, I have all the time in the world. I look at the nearest one. It shows ten people, and in their very midst is one I recognize pretty well—Pittacus Lore. This painting must be a presentation of the original ten Elders of Lorien. The next one shows twenty people—ten children, ten adults. That must be us. I can easily pick myself out because we're arranged in number. Number One was a girl, and so was Number Two. Number Three was a boy. Three members of the Garde who died before me. The first three Gardes who died for Lorien.

"John?" Crayton asks. I turn around just in time to see an automaton take the wheel. The ship must be in auto-pilot mode.

"I had a vision last night," I say, "I was on Lorien, after the attack. Everywhere, the dead began to move and rise. Even my own father. Then they grabbed me, scratched me and then my father took my pendant. I couldn't do anything. Then my father transformed into Setrákus Ra." The words came out of my mouth in a rush. It's a pretty good thing I didn't stutter, because I would have to explain all over again.

"The dead rose, like zombies?" Crayton asks, but I don't answer. As he thinks for a logical solution, I think of Henri. He would have given me advice by now. He could have taught me how to control the dreams. He could have helped me. I didn't realize that I was standing in front of an odd painting until Crayton curses. He had hit his foot against one of the steel legs of a chair. The painting looks like Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, except that it only has four images. The first image is a man, ordinary, nothing special. The one next to it has some sort of graffiti all over his arms. The third image shows shades of mossy green, like infection. The skin…it looks like Six's skin, when she got hit by the poisoned bullet. The dream suddenly popped into my head. That's why it was so familiar. They were all infected. But how? I force myself to look at the fourth image, but what I see is not human, nor Loric. It's a low-ranked Mogadorian.

"Intriguing, is it not?" Crayton says.

"The dream, Six being poisoned, everything. It all makes sense," I say, in a whisper. How is this possible? Well, I know that once you're infected by the poison, there is a one hundred percent chance you'll die.

"What do you mean?"

I sigh, and the spark of hatred in my heart turns into an inferno. I jab my finger at the last image. With all the hatred that weighed down on my heart, I say, "That is the evolution from Loric to Mogadorian."