Chapter 5

Daniel

Day 2, 16:21:54

Dominion Ghost Daniel Torrovois

124th Marine Division

Oasis, Mar Sara

I lean my head against the one of the building in the alley way. I can't seem to sleep at the moment. Every time I try, I have some sort of nightmare. I look over to Nova, who still has her head rested on my shoulder. She is sleeping soundly. It must be nice to have a clear mind like her. I grab the knife that Nova pulled out from my back (Standard Dominion military knife, leather lacing around the hilt and a 6 inch blade). I shiver when I look at it. This was in my back. I drop it back to the ground.

I close my eyes again just to see if I can fall asleep without having a nightmare. That though was short lived when Nova jumps awake, breathing heavy with her eyes darting all over the alley way.

"Shit, Nova. Chill, you just had a bad dream." I say attempting to calm her down. I don't think it worked, because she is still looking around like her nightmare is somewhere around here.

She blinks twice and looks back at me; desperation and panic scar her face now. "Yeah" she says "Just a dream…"

"That does sound like it was 'Just a dream'"

She looks toward the ground and remains silent for a while. Could her "dream" be a memory too? I shake that though almost instantly. She was mind wiped; she shouldn't remember any sort of memory, unless she had the same problem as me. Another though I immediately shake off. I sit against the wall and sigh. What is wrong with me?

Suddenly the sound of small arms fire is heard. Nova and I almost instinctively sit up and grab our weapons. I was a little slower on the whole situation but that didn't matter. Nova looks at me and signals that she is going to look ahead to see the situation at hand. Right as she gets up, I snatch at her hand.

"If you're going up there, so am I" I whisper.

She sighs. "Alright, fine. Just please be careful will you." I nod to reassure her.

We creep slowly toward the front of the alley way. As we do, the gun fire begins to increase in sound and starts to leave a sort of ring in my ears. Screams of death are also heard and it makes me shiver a little. I was never the person to want to listen to people die. Then again, who wants to hear the sounds of a man dying?

Nova pokes her head out of the alley way just a little, probably just to see who is fighting. She immediately pulls her head back just as a few stray bullets hit the building we are creeping along.

"Maybe we should let this blow through." I whisper trying to persuade her from going out there, which I knew was the first thing on her mind.

She shakes her head, rejecting my suggestion. "I am going to out there to see what's going on. I didn't get a good look at what is happening."

She starts up her cloak and begins walking out. "Nova, wait!" I say as I try to reach out and grab her. It's too late, though; she blinks before eyes and leaves me.

Oh no she doesn't. She isn't leaving me that easy. I attempt to activate my cloaking system, but nothing seems to happen. I try again. This time, when I do try to activate my cloak, the system sends a shock throughout my body that feels like I have been struck directly by lightning. It almost makes me scream out in pain, but I manage to keep it down to groan.

Shit, now what am I going to do? I look up at the building that we were creeping along. I could try to scale it. The question now is; can I pull it off? I look back over to my bandaged arm. It hasn't been bothering me yet, so I decide that taking the risk to climb the building wasn't such a bad idea. Curiosity will be the down fall of me, or my arm. Either one.

I take a deep breath and begin my trek up the building. The pain strikes right as I use my arm to pull me up, but I have to ignore it and continue. I am not the one to give up immediately; it usually takes me a few hundred times to finally give up. The building was sort of decaying which left small little holes, enabling me to scale the building quite well. I push myself all the way up to the top of the building, which had to be maybe 10 stories tall.

I look down toward the ground level and finally understand what was going on. The chaos and madness was still going down, but it wasn't between any sorts of Dominion force. It seemed as though the fighting was between two drug lords, probably fighting for territory. That didn't seem to bother me now. They wouldn't be focused on us then.

I hear shifting from behind me and spin around to see what it is. It's a kid, maybe 8 or 9 with blonde hair. I can't see his eyes because they are hidden behind the hood on his jacket. I start slowly walking toward him.

"Stay away from me." He says his eyes still hidden from my view.

"I am not here to hurt you, I promise. I just want to know why you are here." I say, still slowly walking toward him

"Stay away from me." He repeats.

I now stand over him and kneel down to get on eye level with him. "Stay away from me!" He yells pulling out a knife and lunging toward me stomach. Instinctively, I grab his hand and stop him from stabbing me.

"I am not here to hurt you." I repeat. "I only want to ask you a few questions." He lifts his head to look at me. His eyes a light grey and feel empty, void of sight. Is he blind? No, can't be. He knew I was coming toward him, however his hood was covering his eyes. "First off, who are you?"

"I know what you really want to ask. You don't have to hide it."

"Excuse me?"

"My name is not important right now, I am Psionic and I am also blind. I know you wanted to ask those questions." I look at him, a little dumbfounded, now.

"How?"

"What do you mean?"

I am still in shock a little at how he figured out what I was thinking. I usually try to keep my thoughts locked in my own mind, so it is more difficult for other Psionics to read my mind. "I… I mean how did you know what I was going to say? You are one of the few who have seemed to do that to me."

He seems to smile, like he accomplished something important. I guess he did in a way. "Thanks, I usually don't get many compliments. Being a Psionic can get you a bad reputation."

I grunt. "So can a lot of things."

This time he chuckles at my attempt at a joke. I didn't think it was that funny, but I meant it in a serious matter. I guess the way I put it out made it seem funny to him. I hear whispers from below. I walk toward the edge of the building that looks over the alley way. Nova stands in the alley way alone.

I glance back toward the kid, who is still sitting there waiting for me to ask him what he already knows. "Come on, I got someone you should meet…"

"If you are trying to recruit me to the Ghost Program, I would rather you not. I don't want to go through the hardships and the memory wipes."

"First off, the person I was referring to was Nova, a friend…well acquaintance, and second…. I…..I can't really help persuade you on the topic of the Ghost Program, I was forced into it myself, but Nova can change your mind, if you want her too. I wouldn't, but that's just me."

A shy look of confusion spreads across his face. "You remember how you got to the program? I thought all Ghosts' went through a mind wipe process."

I scratch the back of my head. I really didn't have an answer to that question. That is something I will have to find out for myself later. "Long story" I say, "I will explain it when we get down, ok?" He nods.

I look back over the ledge and notice Nova looking back up at me. I immediately avert my gaze from her back to the kid who now starts walking toward me. He is a little shaky when he does, but he manages to make it to me without falling.

"I am guessing if you can walk to me; you can climb down a building?" I say hoping he nods in agreement. He doesn't, which I should have figured.

"Only reason I can walk to you is because I sense an aura around you. I have adapted to the sense and used it as a defense system. It gets stronger as you get closer, but I have been trying to use it as a system to walk around and seem…" He seems to linger on his next words. "More human I guess you can say."

"Human isn't the best word to use, but anyway, we need to head down." I glance back at Nova. Her attention is averted to something else on the streets. "Nova isn't the most patient person."

"You think you can carry me down?" He says gesturing to my bandaged shoulder. I wonder how he knew that?

I shrug it off. "If I can get up here holding my own weight, I think I can handle a little more weight on the way down."

I get a hold of him in my bad arm, making my good arm take most of the weight of us on the way down. I kneel down toward the edge and get a good grip on the ledge of the building. I keep my gaze on the kid while I go down. I didn't want to look down because if I did happen to fall, I wasn't the only one getting hurt. I slowly walk climb down making sure I get good footing and a strong grip in some of the holes in the wall. My arm burns from holding him, but I am trying to ignore it, which is much more difficult than it was on my way up here.

Then, I hear a pop. Pain sears across my arm and a scream come out of my mouth. I lose my grip on the wall. I get my wounded arm and hold the kid tightly against me so when we hit the ground; I will take the majority of the damage from the fall. However, when I do hit the ground, I don't feel anything. It is as if the nerves in my arm died.

Nova rushes toward us and kneels over me. I look back at the kid, who has his eyes closed and is slightly shivering.

"Were ok, kid. Well, were not dead." I say sarcastically. Nova shakes her head.

"Ok? You just fell about 10 stories and you are 'ok'."

"It was more like 6 stories, but yes I am fine, or as fine as having pain spike through your entire arm."

"And who is this?" She points at the kid who is now staring at me with a concerned look.

"I think we need to sit down and have a nice discussion."

"Could you stop flicking around!" She now raises her voice. I think she though my last comment was supposed to be a sarcastic one. "This is serious. Your condition is critical and that's bad. That makes moving around in this city near impossible. We will eventually be found by someone not part of the Dominion…"

I cut her off. "Nova, let's see what my condition is now because it isn't that critical, I have been through worse. Then we can worry about something else later, ok?" She sighs, but doesn't say anything to object. She puts her hand out to help me up. I try to move my good arm, but I can't. I can't even lift it up to grab her arm. She looks at me impatiently at me. "Nova, can you do me a favor and help pop my arm back in to place."

"What?" She says.

"Just help me Nova. That seems to be the only thing wrong with me at this moment, well minus that." I gesture toward the bandages with my head. She sighs again and gets herself ready.

She wraps her hands around my arm. I prepare myself for the pain I am about to endeavor on. My wounded arm is still throbbing and now I am about to feel even more pain when she does pop it in place. I feel her moving my arm around; try to put it back into place. I have popped a limb out of place, which was my jaw, and that was very painful. Nova seemed to find the socket and pushed it in, making a small popping sound. It wasn't that painful to pop it back into place, but I still winced.

I give her a smile and thank her for helping me out. She nods and keeps her serious face. I look back at the kid, who just sits there looking toward the ground. He looks up at me and gives me a slight smile.

"Feeling better?" He says "Especially after I saved your life." I give a confused look. Saved my life? Could he have saved me from breaking something in that fall?

"Saved? I think it was luck; not you saving him." Nova says

I hear shouting and footsteps coming toward the alley way now. Shit, they must have heard the shouting and scream from us and sent someone over here to see what's going on. I look at Nova and she looks back at me. She knows they are coming too; probably heard them coming as well.

"Follow me, now." She says.

I get up and grab the kids arm as well as my rifle that was lying right next to him and pull him to his feet. I begin my jog after Nova, my hand gripped tightly around his wrist. I keep running after Nova, hoping she knows if there is an exit on this side of the alley way.

"Where are we going? What's going on?" the kid says.

"We have baddies on are tail right now, so we are trying to get away from them." I reply, hoping that was enough to make him accept it, which it should because I wasn't lying.

I lose sight of Nova just as she rounds a corner. I round the corner and stop when I see Nova stopped. She looks ahead of us and shakes her head. I look in her direction and immediately feel some sort of weight shift in my body, maybe its worry moving around in there.

The alley way has come to an abrupt stop and we stand at the dead end while whoever is chasing us is now closing in.

Thank you, again, for reading my series. I will, as always, try to keep these chapters coming out every week for you guys/girls to read. Feel free to leave a review as I do read them and will reply to them. I, also, do like you guys can leave a review that will help improve my story even more.