Nightmares

The door to the office wasn´t locked. Of course not. For the whole world and probably for most of the people who worked in this building, this office was a totally ordinary one. It didn´t look special and the computer was seemingly an even more ordinary one. Advanced enough to not look out of place in a technology firm like this, but ordinary enough to seem harmless. No reason to lock a room like that. Nothing was to be found in here. Except if one knew what was behind that whole facade.

Noah Bennet knew. He´d worked long enough for the Company to know all the tricks. When he entered the office, he expected it to be empty. He was wrong. Someone was there. But not just any someone. Frederic Roth, the boss. The sponsor as everybody knew him. He was sitting behind his desk, patiently waiting for Noah to enter. He was smiling.

Noah stepped in, looking around, but no one else was there. After another moment he raised his gun.

"Throw it away, Noah." Roth demanded and Noah dropped the gun willingly. That was, his hand dropped it willingly. His mind screamed in shock at what he´d just done. He looked at Roth and the fat bastard was smiling.

"So that´s how it worked." Noah understood.

"That´s how it always works." Roth replied.

Noah nodded. "I guess Cartwright isn´t the boss either, is he?"

"Oh, he is." Roth replied and from one moment to the other, it was Cartwright who sat in that chair behind the desk. Noah couldn´t believe it.

"You´re a shapeshifter too?"

"Not a shapeshifter." Roth replied, changing back to his own form. "What I do is a little more nifty."

"You´re like Candice." Noah understood. "You´re creating illusions."

"I tell people what they have to do." Roth rephrased it. "What they have to see, what to think, what to believe. Mind control is the real power, Mr. Bennet." he said. "It´s as God-like as one could ask for." He stood up from his chair, walking over to Noah. "I have to thank you for your help, Mr. Bennet. You brought me four Extraordinaries right into my house. Spared us the labor of going out and hunt them. I wish it would always be that easy."

"You won´t get them." Bennet said.

"Oh, we already did." Roth replied. He switched on a monitor that was embedded in the wall and showed him the pictures of his friends, wounded and surrounded. His daughter just got captured by three armed men.

"Since we can´t kill her, we´ll lock her away." he told Bennet. "The rest of them will be dead soon. If they are not dead already."

"Why?" Bennet demanded to know. "You´re one of them. Why are you doing this?"

Roth just snorted. "Them." he said disgusted. "You mean the Specials? What´s so special about abilities if there are so many of them?"

"You are kidding, right?" Bennet asked. "That´s what all this is about? That you want to be the only one? That´s insane. There are hundreds of them out there. Maybe thousands."

"And my men will find them all." Roth replied unimpressed. "One day … I will be the last."

...

Down in the cell, Mohinder had finally overcome his coughing fit and tried to stand up. Sylar gave him a hand, until he stood upright again.

"I can walk." the scientist said with this new fizzing voice of his and Sylar let go of him. "I need you to do me a favor." Mohinder hissed at him.

"What?" Sylar asked.

"If things go wrong." the doctor said, breathing in rattling. "And I get worse … kill me." When Sylar stared at him, startled, he stated: "I don´t wanna live like that."

The killer only chuckled. "You think I want to?" he asked and was about to leave the cell. But Mohinder held him back, with one scaled hand. His grip was so much stronger than necessary.

"You can kill me without taking it from me." he hissed. His eyes were glowing with a haunted madness. Sylar looked at him estimating.

"Okay." he said at last, skipping back a little. It seemed that he felt a natural aversion against the reptilian part of what Mohinder was turning into, just like most people did. "We´ll see." he said.

"You´re lying, you goddamn bastard." Mohinder sizzled. "Promise me." he demanded, pushing Sylar against the wall.

The killer raised his hand and telekinetically shoved the other man back. Mohinder reacted startled and instinctively raised both hands. Something shot out of his palms, something sticky that flew at Sylar in thin threats. Before he even knew what was happening, Sylar found himself surrounded by that stuff. It was spinning him against the wall.

"What the hell?" he cried, opening his palms upwards.

The flames consumed the web-like mass and as soon as his arms were free again, he reached out a hand, to lift Mohinder into the air, pinning him against the opposite wall, just beneath the ceiling. The scientist was still struggling, hissing angrily.

"Mohinder, stop it!" Sylar cried, angry now. "You´re not helping yourself."

At those words, the scientist finally seemed to wake up from his rush. He was blinking as if he´d just woken up from a dream. Like a sleepwalker.

"It´s starting." he whispered, his voice raspy and rattling. "I´m losing control."

Sylar sighed. "No, you´re not." he stated, matter of factly. "You´ll fight it, you hear me? You will pull yourself together and you will contain the monster. I´ll help you. And then you will help me to find a way out of here."

"I came here with Shawn and Gus." Mohinder stated gutturally. "To find the detectives. They got caught too."

Sylar nodded, as if he´d known that all along. Slowly he let Mohinder slide down the wall, until his feet touched the ground, releasing him from his telekinetic grip.

"Then we should stop fighting each other and start doing what you came for." he said.

Mohinder swallowed, and nodded. He turned to the door, as if ready to leave, and hesitated. He turned back to the killer before him, one last time.

"I want to kill you." he informed him and Sylar couldn´t help but chuckled.

"Noted." he said.

He made an inviting gesture for the door and finally they left the cell.

For a while they only searched, cell after cell, without finding anyone. And the whole time Sylar could feel the longing gazes in his back. He knew that Mohinder was trying his best not to jump at him and tear him apart. It was funny. He was supposed to be the killer, not him.

Suddenly they heard gunshots in the distance. The echo in these corridors made it impossible to tell where exactly the shots came from, but that didn´t keep them from starting to run. Soon the shots stopped but they could still hear sounds. Voices mostly. Eventually they reached a corner. The voices were right behind it. What they saw when they peeked around it, was unexpected and shocking.

It was Shawn, Gus and the two detectives, lined up on the floor, where the Company men had just dropped them. All of them had gunshot wounds. All of them were dead.

"No." Mohinder gasped and immediately the guards turned around to them.

Before they even had a chance to aim their guns, Mohinder lunged forward, attacked.

Sylar reached out a hand and dragged the weapons away from them. Only a second later, Mohinder was at them. The killer barely needed to do anything. A few of the men tried to help their comrades, by attacking the raging monster from behind, while he was busy punching the living crap out of them. Sylar lifted these few men into the air, threw them into the wall. Bones were breaking and a few skulls cracked under Mohinder´s fury punches.

Now, that´s how it is when the monster comes out, Sylar thought watching this. Only a minute or so after it had started, all the Company´s men were dead or dying … just like the four people they´d killed earlier.

It was the most depressing thing Sylar had seen in a long time. Their eyes were open but there was no life in them. Especially in Shawn´s case this was hurtful to see. But there was one person where it hurt even more. Sylar went down to his knees next to Juliet. He regretted all of their deaths in some way but to see her like that really hurt.

He´d loved her. Sure he knew it was because of her gift. Everybody fell in love with her. But that didn´t make any difference. A man could only feel what his heart told him to feel. And his heart had told him, loud and clear, that he´d fallen in love with Juliet. Jules. Looking down on her now, he sighed deeply. He gently reached out a hand and wiped a strand of her golden hair out of her face. Her skin was cold.

Behind him, Mohinder was still wreaking his rage on the last guard. He punched him again and again. The man was probably already dead, but that didn´t matter for the fuming monster. It just urged to express its need for blood. Sylar closed his eyes and tried not to cry. He didn´t want to turn around and away from Juliet but it was impossible to stand these sounds any longer.

"Don´t." he begged, quietly. "Stop it, Mohinder."

The sounds of Mohinder´s fist colliding with the already smashed face, kept coming. At last Sylar couldn´t stand it any longer. He got up and grabbed the raging man, pushing him against the wall. "Stop it." he cried into his face. "You can´t bring them back with that."

These last words seemed to get through to the man. His fuming eyes became startled, as if he wanted to cry. Sylar swallowed.

"They are gone." he whispered.

"That´s my fault." Mohinder sizzled, shaking his head. "It´s my curse. Everybody that trusts me gets hurt or dies. And you …" he looked at the killer with new rage. Before Sylar could resist, he pushed him forward and against the opposite wall. This time he shot the threats out of his palms much faster, covering Sylar with it from top till bottom.

"Mohinder stop." Sylar cried but Mohinder didn´t stop until his whole body was covered with that sticky stuff and he hung from the wall, embedded in a big cocoon.

After he was done, Mohinder stumbled away from Sylar. At the level of the four dead bodies he dropped to his knees and just stayed there, crawling on all fours.

"Mohinder." Sylar tried to call but his voice came out very weakly. "Come back here." He tried to push against the cocoon but he could barely move his arms. "Please, I can help you."

"I can´t do this anymore." the scientist sobbed, his forehead on the floor.

"Mohinder, don´t do this." Sylar cried. "Don´t let them win."

"They already won." was the weak reply of the mutation.

"No, they didn´t." Sylar insisted. "Not as long as we´re still alive. We can still fight them, we can make them pay. We can stop them, keep them from doing this to anyone else. Help me. Help me stop them."

...

"Help me stop them." Sylar´s voice echoed through his mind.

"How?" That was Suresh, wasn´t it? But he sounded so different. And then a scream. Horrible.

"Gus, stop that." That was Jules. She sounded worried. Frightened.

"This is impossible." Gus cried and he sounded even panicked. "There has to be a way out. How can it possibly be that these corridors go on and on forever? This doesn´t make any logical sense."

"Gus, please." Jules was begging.

"Spencer!" Lassiter yelled and then there were shots again.

"Your blood in my veins? Great idea."

"What have you done, dad?"

"What I had to. To make you understand. I´m really sorry, Clair-Bear."

"Mind control is the real power, Mr. Bennet. It´s as God-like as one could ask for."

"You´re kidding, right? That´s what all this is about?"

Shawn wanted to scream. What was happening to him? Why was he hearing all these things? He grabbed his head and went down to his knees.

"Stop that." he cried. "I´m not a psychic. I can´t hear people´s thoughts. Stop it."

"But it is important that you hear all these things." a warm female voice told him.

Shawn looked up. At last the voices had stopped. He was in a place he couldn´t define. It was dark around him, somehow foggy. But there seemed to be light in the distance.

"It´s important so you will understand." the female voice told him.

Shawn was confused. "Mom?" he asked but the voice only chuckled.

"No, Shawn. I´m flattered but no."

Someone came out of this strange fog. A woman of maybe forty, fifty years. It was hard to tell. She had dark curly hair and indeed features like a loving mother. But Shawn didn´t know her. He´d never met her before.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Marilyn." she said. "And I brought you here to help you understand."

"Understand?" Shawn cried. "All I understand is that I just got shot. Oh, my god. Is my face still there?"

"Your face is unharmed." she assured him. "It was never hit by anything. That´s only what you were supposed to think."

"What?"

"You´re in a prison, Shawn." Marilyn told him. "A prison that is much worse than walls and locked doors. I´m here to help you escape."

"I … I don´t understand that." he stuttered.

"Where do you think you are?" she asked him. Shawn looked around but had to give up. "This is your mind, Shawn." she said.

"Okay, that´s impossible." he argued. "My mind is by far not that foggy."

She chuckled. "No indeed. Your mind is very clear. Most of the time. Though it´s a little overloaded with useless stuff, I´ve noticed."

"Useless?" Shawn cried offended.

"I´m here to bring some order into this chaos." she explained patiently. "Because that´s the only way you can get out of here."

"Out of my mind?" Shawn repeated and laughed about that pun.

"I´ve watched you, Shawn." she told him. "For a while now. And not just you. Also Gabriel."

"Gabriel? You mean Sylar. You do know this man´s a killer."

"He doesn´t have to be." Marilyn said. "And he knows that. But the human mind is weak. And so he is what he is. He would probably cry for help if he´d just know that he needs it."

"Sorry, you just lost me here." Shawn said, shaking his head.

"Fact is, you both noticed the effects of my presence." Marilyn explained herself.

"You were the reason why I dreamed of him?"

She nodded. "And not only you. Your friends told you that they had those dreams too."

"Yeah, but … That´s normal after such an experience. I mean … that happens to everyone."

"Right. And that is the reason why my presence didn´t raise any suspicions." she agreed with a smile. "Because that´s what humans do with the things they can´t explain. They examine it, find it explainable and then they dismiss it. They find a scientific explanation, like your friend Gus prefers it. But this time it´s a little more complicated."

"What are you?" he asked her. "Some kind of a goddess?"

"Oh, Shawn, you really know how to flatter me." she chuckled. "No, I´m nothing like that. Far from that. I´m just someone who was born with a special gift. Just like Juliet. Or Peter. Or Sylar. My gift was it to wander peoples dreams. I never had any of my own, I only wandered other peoples dreams. That´s how I could manipulate yours."

"How?" Shawn shook his head. "Why?"

"It was necessary to prepare the ground. To help you find a way."

"A way?"

"Out of this prison, inside of your heads. In this dream if you prefer that. This nightmare. My brother brought you here. All of you. Because the mind is the most effective cage a human being can be put in. Because a normal human being could never escape this prison ever again."

"Your brother." Shawn repeated this one fact, she´d mentioned.

"You already met him." she nodded. "Frederic Roth."

"The sponsor of this firm?"

"That´s what he wants everybody to believe. For real he is the mastermind that is behind all this. He was born with a gift like mine, only his is much more aggressive. And he is insane, Shawn. He is driven by the thought to be the only one with a gift. That´s why he started to kill us all." She halted for a moment, before she spoke out her last truth: "That´s why he killed me."

"What?" Shawn cried. "Wait. You´re dead? But … how can you be here then? Are you … Are you some sort of a ghost?"

"No, Shawn." she said and her voice sounded a little sad now. "Not a ghost. Just a dream. I don´t know how it happened. I´ve lived in peoples dreams all my life. Maybe what you see here isn´t even the real me. Maybe it´s just a part of me, that I left in this sphere what people call their dreams. But how I came here is not important. Important is, that you understand how you can get out of here."

"How? How can I do that?"

"Alone you can´t do it at all." she said. "You have to do it together. All of you. That´s why I manipulated your dreams. To make you understand that you´re connected. It was easy to do for the four of you, you were close before. With Sylar it was a little more tricky. I´m sorry if these dreams cost you your peace, but I had no choice. It´s essential that he helps you. You all have to work together."

"How?"

"Concentrate." she told him. "You know how. If you want it, you can call your friends. They will hear you. Take them by their hands … metaphorically. Combine your minds."

"What you mean … like in Star Trek?" Shawn asked.

Marilyn smiled at him warmly. "If you want to see it that way. It is the only way to stand up against my brother. He will fight you with a force that cannot be defeated with guns or computer viruses. Freddy can only be beaten within his own mind. And you can only do that together."

Shawn lowered his gaze for a moment. "Will you come with me?" he asked uncertain. "You could help me …"

"I´m sorry, Shawn." she said, almost sad. "But that´s impossible. That´s not my part in this story. I´m just a voice in a dream."

"But …"

"You´re strong enough for this." she assured him. "And now go back. Before Lassie starts to mourn his pain in the ass fake psychic."

"Lassie? But why should he …?"

"He saw you getting shot, remember? He´s still trapped in that dream."

Shawn remembered. He wanted to ask her some more, so much more, but she only smiled at him and in this moment, her face was already fading before his eyes.

"Good luck." she said and then the darkness around him became brighter and brighter. From somewhere he could hear gunshots. They became louder and louder. And then they just stopped. A moment later a hand touched his shoulder.

Shawn turned around and looked up into the concerned eyes of Lassiter. The instant the detective looked at him, he frowned, confused.

"What the …?" he stuttered. "I … I saw you getting shot. I saw the bullet coming out of your head. How …?"

Shawn touched his face and found that it was indeed unharmed, just like Marilyn had told him.

"Lassie!" he cried and sat up. "Wow, that´s strange." he mumbled. But then he looked at Lassiter again. "What about you?" he cried. "Are you shot? If you are, don´t worry. It´s gonna be better."

"What?" Lassiter cried. "Spencer, what the hell is the matter with you?"

"Wait, where are the guards? The guys that shot me."

"Where will they be, I chased them off. Some of them are lying there." Lassiter pointed ahead and Shawn saw some dead guys lying at the end of the hall.

"They are not real." he said.

"What?"

"That´s what this woman told me. Just now. In my head. She said …"

"Spencer, so help me god, this is not the moment for one of your faked mumbo jumbo." Lassiter growled.

"Would you just listen to me." Shawn cried. "It´s not that. She´s one of them. Someone with an ability. Like Jules. And Sylar. She´s the sister of the guy who did all this."

Lassiter frowned. A good sign. That meant he was considering Shawn´s words. Ahead they heard a sound and swirled around. One single guard had come back for them and was aiming his gun at them. Lassiter was about to shoot but Shawn held him back.

"Spencer, are you out of your mind?" Lassiter cried.

"Not yet." Shawn replied and stood up.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lassiter cried and tried to pull him back to take cover.

"He can´t shoot us." Shawn objected. "He´s not real. I´ll prove it to you."

He walked a few steps, his arms spread, practically inviting the guy with the gun to shoot him. And of course his invitation was taken. Shawn felt the impact of at least three bullets in his chest and with a grunt he flew back, landing on his butt.

Lassiter immediately started to shoot back and drove fife bullets of his own into the shooter, sending him to the ground.

"You goddamn idiot." he cursed and went down next to Shawn.

The fake psychic coughed, blood trickling out of his mouth. But he was breathing. Alive. With wide eyes he looked down on himself and after a moment he pulled down his shirt, to see what the bullets had done to him.

He could watch the bullets coming back out of the wounds and the wounds closing right after that.

"Wicket." Shawn breathed and looked up at a stunned Lassiter. "You see?"

Lassiter could only shake his head. He didn´t know what to say.

"This woman told me that all of this is a dream." Shawn told him excited.

"A dream." Lassiter repeated, obviously not convinced.

"How else do you explain this?" Shawn cried, pointing at his chest. "Or that you chased off these guards all alone. How many were they? Ten? Fifteen?"

"Well, I can be pretty scary." Lassiter pointed out.

"Okay, but where did you get all the bullets from?" Shawn went on. "How often did you reload? Exactly. Not a single time. Does that make any sense?"

Finally it seemed to get through to the detective. "Goddammit." he breathed.

"That was you." Shawn cried excited. "You made the bullets keep coming, because you wanted it. You did it without knowing it. You see it now? This whole thing is a nightmare, made up by this guy Roth."

"It sure is a nightmare if I can´t shoot you." Lassiter finally commented the whole thing.

"Marilyn says to get out of here, we have to concentrate." Shawn went on. "Together. Then we could wake up."

"Wake up? Are you serious?"

"Just do it, Lassie." Shawn cried and then following an intuition, he took Lassiter´s hand. He threw the detective a glance and then closed his eyes.

The detective didn´t seem very happy with that idea but he closed his eyes anyway. He opened one of them again to check on Spencer. But the fake psychic wasn´t smirking or anything. He really seemed to concentrate. So Lassiter closed his eyes again and tried to do the same.

There were sounds in the distance again. Footsteps, of men closing in.

"They´re not real." Shawn reminded. "Don´t listen."

"Spencer, if that doesn´t work, I´ll kill you. Dream or not."

The steps came closer. Men were shouting. Guns were cocked. Everything in Lassiter screamed for him to jump up and fight. Shoot before they could shoot. But Shawn squeezed his hand, keeping him in place.

"Not really here." he reminded again. "It´s a dream. Wake up. Come on. Wake up."

"There they are." someone shouted, so close to them as if they were directly behind them.

"Wake up, Lassie. Wake up."

The sound of a gun was directly behind them. And then the shot rang out. Lassiter opened his eyes widely, gasping in shock. But the light of the hallway was gone and he couldn´t smell gunpowder the way he would if he´d just been shot. He lay on the ground but he was not bleeding. He wasn´t even in the hallway anymore. "Wow." Shawn cried next to him and sat bolt upright.

The two of them looked at each other and then scanned their surroundings. They were back in the cell where Shawn had found Lassiter. The door was still standing ajar the way it had been before the guards had found them. Everything around them was quiet.