Week 28, Day 5 Dream | Deepest Fears
(Warnings: Gore, death/battle/murder, infestation by Yeerks.)
For the first time since becoming a nothlit, Tobias was sleeping deeply. Around him, his dream spilled, like milk from a carton, staining the wood beneath him to look like the grass of a sports field, near the school he had once attended. He was running with panic and fear racing through his veins, making his heart thunder.
Cool air washed through his hair as he ran, as he focused, intently, on the hawk DNA. As he wished, prayed for wings. But the wings wouldn't come, the feathers wouldn't rise from his skin like a 3D tattoo. He screamed as he tripped, tumbled to his face in the grass, cold and wet against his face.
"No!" The shout was raw with fear, pain, grief. He was trapped! Trapped again, and this time in a completely useless body! Waves of emotion washed over him, stifling him like being coated in saran wrap, over and over again. Fear. Guilt. Hate. Until the world grew dim around him.
Suddenly, he was on his feet again, the sound of battle muffled only by drywall and plaster. Growls of a grizzly, a tiger, a wolf, a gorilla. The swift snap of an Andalite tail-blade. The only thing missing was the scream of a hawk, because he was in the next room, stuck in his weak, soft, human body.
He turned, facing the wall with dread as the soft click of hooves approached, deafening along with his thundering heart. He wasn't surprised when the cold steel of an Andalite tail-blade touched against his throat, only felt his heart sink, felt tears slipping down his cheeks.
Visser Three's thought-speak laughter echoed in his mind, drowning out thought and leaving only emotion, raw and intense. To make the next act all the more painful.
Suddenly, the wall in front of him vanished, like a hologram being deactivated. The sounds of battle had grown muted, and now it was obvious why -- his friends littered the floor, half-dead, struggling to move, to stay conscious. He watched, helpless, as they were taken out, one by one.
Ax, first, his tail-blade sliced clean off, followed by his head.
Rachel, her grizzly neck sliced open, hacked at, until her chest stopped heaving with breath. Blood flowed everywhere. Andalite, grizzly, Hork-Bajir.
Then Cassie. A yelp rising from her throat as a Hork-Bajir crushed her chest with his talon-like foot, the snap of ribs echoing.
Marco was next, blades being buried in his skull, until his body stopped twitching.
Jake was last, his head taken off, just like Ax.
And through every long, aching moment of it, Tobias was helpless. Paralyzed. Tears tracking down his face. He closed his eyes and suddenly the world tumbled on its side. He tried to get up, but his neck and wrists were confined. He couldn't move, couldn't tug his hands free, couldn't lift his head.
And when he felt the soft flesh poking at his ear, his eyes flashed open. He knew what was happening now. He screamed, thrashed. Fear, panic rose within him, followed quickly by grief. Well within his view were the heads of his friends, mounted on the wall, still covered in blood and drool and sweat. He screamed, screamed, screamed until his throat was raw.
Screamed both within the dream, and within the real world, a pair of screams, in unison. One of the screams was silenced when the Yeerk made it past his ear, and found the speech center in his brain. In a few seconds, he was trapped. Trapped within his own body, a prisoner. He watched with his own eyes as his Yeerk master directed his body, spoke for him, pawed through his memories.
The memory. Kneeling in front of Elfangor in the construction sight, the feeling of his Andalite hand, at once foreign and familiar. His most cherished memory. For a long moment, that memory filled him, overtook the dream.
The pain and fear of the nightmare faded. Replaced with comfort, the only contact he'd ever had with his father, and a strange sense of peace.
Until he remembers that the memory is being violated, touched by a Yeerk. The dream changed, Tobias standing, boy and hawk mingled as a single creature, able to see in and through and around in more dimensions than he can comprehend and there, on his brain, visible from all angles at once, is the Yeerk infesting him. The grey slug, settled into every crevice of his brain.
For the first time since becoming a nothlit, Tobias was sleeping deeply. Around him, his dream spilled, like milk from a carton, staining the wood beneath him to look like the grass of a sports field, near the school he had once attended. He was running with panic and fear racing through his veins, making his heart thunder.
Cool air washed through his hair as he ran, as he focused, intently, on the hawk DNA. As he wished, prayed for wings. But the wings wouldn't come, the feathers wouldn't rise from his skin like a 3D tattoo. He screamed as he tripped, tumbled to his face in the grass, cold and wet against his face.
"No!" The shout was raw with fear, pain, grief. He was trapped! Trapped again, and this time in a completely useless body! Waves of emotion washed over him, stifling him like being coated in saran wrap, over and over again. Fear. Guilt. Hate. Until the world grew dim around him.
Suddenly, he was on his feet again, the sound of battle muffled only by drywall and plaster. Growls of a grizzly, a tiger, a wolf, a gorilla. The swift snap of an Andalite tail-blade. The only thing missing was the scream of a hawk, because he was in the next room, stuck in his weak, soft, human body.
He turned, facing the wall with dread as the soft click of hooves approached, deafening along with his thundering heart. He wasn't surprised when the cold steel of an Andalite tail-blade touched against his throat, only felt his heart sink, felt tears slipping down his cheeks.
Visser Three's thought-speak laughter echoed in his mind, drowning out thought and leaving only emotion, raw and intense. To make the next act all the more painful.
Suddenly, the wall in front of him vanished, like a hologram being deactivated. The sounds of battle had grown muted, and now it was obvious why -- his friends littered the floor, half-dead, struggling to move, to stay conscious. He watched, helpless, as they were taken out, one by one.
Ax, first, his tail-blade sliced clean off, followed by his head.
Rachel, her grizzly neck sliced open, hacked at, until her chest stopped heaving with breath. Blood flowed everywhere. Andalite, grizzly, Hork-Bajir.
Then Cassie. A yelp rising from her throat as a Hork-Bajir crushed her chest with his talon-like foot, the snap of ribs echoing.
Marco was next, blades being buried in his skull, until his body stopped twitching.
Jake was last, his head taken off, just like Ax.
And through every long, aching moment of it, Tobias was helpless. Paralyzed. Tears tracking down his face. He closed his eyes and suddenly the world tumbled on its side. He tried to get up, but his neck and wrists were confined. He couldn't move, couldn't tug his hands free, couldn't lift his head.
And when he felt the soft flesh poking at his ear, his eyes flashed open. He knew what was happening now. He screamed, thrashed. Fear, panic rose within him, followed quickly by grief. Well within his view were the heads of his friends, mounted on the wall, still covered in blood and drool and sweat. He screamed, screamed, screamed until his throat was raw.
Screamed both within the dream, and within the real world, a pair of screams, in unison. One of the screams was silenced when the Yeerk made it past his ear, and found the speech center in his brain. In a few seconds, he was trapped. Trapped within his own body, a prisoner. He watched with his own eyes as his Yeerk master directed his body, spoke for him, pawed through his memories.
The memory. Kneeling in front of Elfangor in the construction sight, the feeling of his Andalite hand, at once foreign and familiar. His most cherished memory. For a long moment, that memory filled him, overtook the dream.
The pain and fear of the nightmare faded. Replaced with comfort, the only contact he'd ever had with his father, and a strange sense of peace.
Until he remembers that the memory is being violated, touched by a Yeerk. The dream changed, Tobias standing, boy and hawk mingled as a single creature, able to see in and through and around in more dimensions than he can comprehend and there, on his brain, visible from all angles at once, is the Yeerk infesting him. The grey slug, settled into every crevice of his brain.