Chapter 1.2: Dreamcrafter ~ Swallow
In an unknown area surrounded by life that being of trees within the mass of land, there is a train travelling at moderate speeds holding several carriages; some empty and others with crates and a few posters, with two not being surrounded by anything. In the train, nothing of life. Nor any of the others nor any such people that would have been on the train… or so it seems.
Blake was in one of the carriages, dazed and holding her forehead with a groan. After gaining a slight sense of sense, she shook her head and questioned, "What happened?" She looked around, seeing that she was on a platform with circumjacent walls accompanied by a ceiling. She looked around and saw that she was in an empty room, void of life. All she could hear was the running of the train tracks. "Where… am I?" She started touching her surroundings, trying to grasp what had happened before deciding to move out of the doorway for information.
The carriages within were massive, much bigger than a typical train. She steadily groaned, having her eyes narrowed as she used her hand as an escort for when she moved into the next room, after which placing that same hand onto her forehead and shaking it again. She also rubbed her eyes due to her eyes causing apparent problems. The inside of the train was already brightly lit from the windows so sight would not be an issue for anyone.
"How did I get here? This… This doesn't make sense." The train went over a bump, as something was within the tracks, which caused her to stumble onto the ground and thenceforth fall, with her gasping in the process. Her eyesight was still bothering her as she tried to find herself and placing her hands on the ground, carefully picking herself up and coughing from the stress that she was placing onto herself. She successfully brought herself upright and continued to traipse along the area, placing her hand on whatsoever was present and within her reach, with simultaneous groaning.
After continually using her hand for guidance along the crates until there were none left, and wiping her eyes with her hand in order to remove her hindrance and better her eyesight, saw saw the end and feebly moved towards it, only to stumble and swiftly grab onto the corner of the doorway before hitting the floor.
She made a recovery and started to go to the next carriage, being careful of the wobbly boundary between both sections. With her half-closed eyes, she saw that it was a fairly musty area that looked like a munitions area for weapons and such. There was a foul ambiance, possibly indicating how long the area had been left for. There were even parts of a robot which was under repairs, the main body seen on display. Blake glanced at it and vaguely saw the semblance of it. She could not depict it thoroughly, as the object was blurred, but she denoted the colours and the overall structure, "Wait… What's that doing here?"
After thinking that, a thought process rushed through her head as she recalled the time when Adam and she were in a train at the time of present looking through cargo, as depicted in the train which she saw herself being in. Remembering the slight conversation between the addressal of the bombs with Blake being minutely concerned with the apparent passengers and the indifference from Adam, happening thereafter a Spider Drone dropping, commencing its attack on the pair of them. A fight ensued and they started obviating the blasts, Blake jumping at it, having rebounding in the process, falling flat on the ground. After which Adam saves her from being trodden on as Blake, at that time, suggests departure, only for the Spider Droid to blast them into the wall…
- Evanescence of the memory -
With a curious face, Blake wondered, "What… What was that?" She cowered herself quickly as a pain rushed through her head, planting a hand on it. After the jolt subsided, she shook her head and straightened her posture, persisting onwards trying to not push focus on whatsoever mental postulate that perceived.
She moved to the rest of the cargo that consisted of weaponry and the such and scrutinised it, picking out a sword at random from a rack and kneeling down to look at a crate full of guns and Dust cartridges. She took out a gun and fixed it to the weapon, rather creatively. She then moved a strip of Dust with her firm hand and began shifting it to the gun, failing continuously from her appaling, yet intrusive, eyesight. Eventually, she succeeded and connected it promptly to the weapon, a rough sound for confirmation. Whereafter, she had felt a jolt in her system and collapsed onto the floor with a piercing headache.
"Hehehe…"
Blake was unconscious on the ground, on another section of the moving train, in the open. The area was filled with tightened cargo with the train itself moving past a vast number of trees. To the other side, another empty area without a solid structure atop as, conversely, a section beyond that held a carriage. Blake started to twitch her fingers as she made a slight moan upon waking up, moving her arms and looking down at the ground. "What happened?" she said in a low tone. She moaned once more, using her hands to bring herself from the floor and survey her area. "OK… This isn't where I was a minute ago…" She was just about able to see where she was with her vision, although she did notice that her vision had become infinitesimally better to the time prior.
After looking at the area, she could not help but notice that the area seemed eerily familiar. "Have I… been here before?" she asked herself, after looking all around herself, even at the other carriage. What happened next seemed more like visual release hallucinations. She noticed both Adam and she flying through the air from what turned into a damaged part of the carriage and even seeing the Spider Drone emerge from it.
In confusion, she moved a foot back and squinted an eye, "This… There's just no way…", this, followed by her dropping her newly-formed weapon, as all she could do was watch the action of her past happening before her eyes; seeing herself act acrobatically against the Spider Drone up to the drone deploying its Cannon Mode again and attacking Adam with its cannon, causing him to block all of it in its entirety and sheathing the weapon, putting on a belittling laugh as he began his own attack, ripping his sword out and swiping everything in the vicinity, turning the machine into dust.
Blake, clearly worked up, gripped onto her weapon tightly with wide-open eyes. "This can't be real… There's just no way.!" She then turned to face the other end of the section, noticing that she, herself, was on the other part of the train, watching as Adam ran up to her, but stopped and gesticulated, possibly in relation to Blake. The past Blake looked with apathy as she said her good-byes with the movement of her sword. "No.." said the present Blake, starting to move and then begins darting towards the figments with a loud "NOOOO!" from when the other cut the gap between the two sections and disconnected the train Blake went to grab Adam, only for him to become magicked away into dust. Blake had her eyes widened, shining in disbelief, only for her to fall steadily and trying to keep herself from doing so by quickly putting a hand onto the steel piece. She tried to act flexibly by throwing herself back onto the train, but a hand abruptly slipped with her yelling in response to the action, hitting her head and hearing the crack aloud, plummeting to the rails and turning to black.
A rather ominous laughter can be heard…
Blake was falling within a realm of darkness, an area full of emptiness. All she could hear was laughter amidst the talk of her memories. Pictures emerged from areas of her life, her part in the White Fang, being with Adam and even another event yet to come. She gradually opened her eyes. "Where… am I?" she said, seeing nothing but purple and darkness. More laughter can be heard, only most silent. "That voice…" Blake's head ached, putting a weak head onto it and with a frail wince. She glimpsed a white tower and saw herself move to it and confronting Adam erratically and skittishly, seeing her past before her eyes; unimaginable. "Why… Why am I seeing this?" she thought, "Just… Why…? I… I… I didn't ask for this!" It was then she shouted within her passion raspily, "Just leave me alone!", and after which the illusory images faded after it ending with both Adam and her falling from the tower from a step of the foot, which coincidentally also had Blake hit a hard surface in an area which never showed a surface.
Blake erupted a rather loud "Ahh!", coughing soon after and bringing a hand to her throat, producing a stridor after having her neck damaged earlier. The fall, however, not helping. "I've… I've…" she tried to continue her sentence in her changed tone, but she kept coughing in her raspy tone. She then began to place her hands below herself to bring her upright, letting off a gravelly cry. "... had it!" Just then, she fell backwards as if she were already in a proper posture as she was tending to herself, causing her to fall down onto her back straightaway. After plummeting down to the invisible floor of the abyss, she began breathing heavily which later began hyperventilation. She gulped, trying to catch her breath with simultaneous fast-paced breathing alongside the coarse sound of her throat turning it into that of a wheezing effect. "Who-... Whoever's doing this… ple-ase… P-p-plea-... se… Sto-p…." Tears trickled down her face as she no longer wanted to be in this wretched place.
At this time, another source of breathing could be heard, a rather deep breathing, different to Blake's condition. "Hello again (hello again)… my… love (love)…" Blake turned her head steadily to her side and opened her eyes in disbelief with frantic pupils at the sight. "A-A-Adam? Ho-w…?" "It's been a long time (a long time)…", flipping his finger on his hilt as he trudged over, "... hasn't it, Blake (Blake)?" Both persons were also producing resonating voices, with Adam's repeating themselves, because of where they were: an area full of emptiness.
Adam tilted his head slowly to the right and then to his left whilst saying "Nothing to say (to say)...? And after all this time (this time)... After everything (everything)... I've done for you (you)..." Blake still had her eyes wide open in a petrified state, shocked at what she saw. Why was Adam here? Blake surely killed him during that time. A glimpse of her past emerged as she saw Adam's final moments where both Adam and she charged for the broken Gambol Shroud and with her being slightly faster and grabbing it forthright, stabbing him in the chest followed by Yang's stabbing of his back with the broken blade simultaneously.
Adam slowly moved towards Blake, steadily taking his sword out of the sheath. "Stiff (stiff)... like a frightened mouse (mouse)... Oh, how long I've waited for this moment (this moment)..."
Come up to her, Adam looked down at her with a serious expression, placing a hand on her chin and turning her face to align with his. There, his mouth turned into a smirk as he made a slight snigger, "I want you to see this (to see this)... Watch me as you suffer!" As soon as he shouted "suffer", he quickly, with the turn of his blade, stabbed into Blake's torso, Blake sounding a very strident scream from the sheer force of it. "That's it (that's it)... Scream for me (me)... Let me hear you me hear you beg (beg)..." He turned the blade to the left whilst embedded within her, causing her to scream intensely.
As this caused her once-immobile situation to become livened, she was quick to look for her weapon, which was beside after upon her fall, and grab it out of desperation and to slash at Adam. Adam moved his hand away to avoid the blade and Blake unhesitantly ascended and started to move away in a sprinting posture, but given her injury she was not moving at all fast with a hand on the blade, ripping it from her abdomen and tossing it aside. Blake continued to move awkwardly, now placing her hand on her bleeding wound and panting from all of the pressure. She would not talk or think, just run.
She became slower the farther she moved. There was a trial of blood behind her from where she was. She stopped for a moment with heavy panting. Waveringly, she moved her hand from the wound to look at it, seeing the reddened hand of her own nature. Without knowing it, she blacked-out an instantaneously awoke in a now-different area, not of the wood. She saw herself in a brightly-coloured area, full of grass, water and other earthly matter.
"Now where am I…?" the puzzling Blake said, now with a proper voice, free of stress and strain. Surprised at this, she moved her hand with her fingers sprung out, tilting it and forthright brought it to her neck and began feeling it, "Am… Am I OK, now? I.. I don't understand…" After pondering this, a thought rushed through her mind as she could no longer feel a pernicious pain in her body. She looked down upon herself with a look of astonishment. The wound had healed itself.
She then swayed her eyes over to her other hand and noticed, for some reason, she had Gambol Shroud in her hand in its sheath. She stared at it for a moment, rising it upwards to match her face and slowly removing the sheath and thereupon seeing the reflection of her face in the blade. As she was looking at her blade carefully, a reflection of a red, spinning object could be seen hurtling towards her. Within reaction, she turned to block herself from it, as it then rebounded and spun still in the air, until it went back to its past place.
"What? A-Adam?" Adam prepared his sword and lunged at Blake, slashing at her with Blake disrupted with her clone and having herself materialising in the air, the movement of Adam's sheath alternating with bullets rapidly coming from it as they were shot at Blake. Blake was able to avoid damage from the bullets with her sword and underwent a backflip with a landing soon after.