My newest story...
Midgard Chronicles
Chapter 1
LOG NCTX001 - The Departure
When she departed on the aircraft, he didn't really know what to say. It might have been because he'd just woken up when she called. Or maybe something about being far from home had calloused him over in a way that made saying good bye easier. The way he wanted it I'm sure.
Still, he blurted out, "I'll always miss you...." Not a sound of a lie in his voice.
"I'll miss you too," she responded.
He wasn't sure if she was sad to be going or not. He knew she was leaving the loves of her life behind; but she was hard from her training. Not hard in the sense that most people think of the military. No...she had a deep soul, and a good heart. She just became better at hiding when it was broken.
He finished, "...I'll see you in June. Take care."
Why was he getting choked up, he wondered. Not like it would change his world; things keep moving just the same. Clocks keep ticking.
"Goodbye," she said before she hung up. The commotion in the background almost drowned it out.
"God I sound like an idiot." He told himself. "What the hell does she care that I'll miss her? She knows my life is going well here...she probably thinks I was lying. F-ing moron."
He sat up in his bed, half drowned in the hazy morning sunlight coming through his window. He swung his legs over the side of his bed, slouched over and just sat, staring at the floor.
A good 15 minutes later he wondered if she was even on the plane yet.
"I bet I wasn't even the last person she called," he said to himself, "not that it matters."
He'd been trying to convince himself not to call her right back since she hung up. The main thing keeping him from doing so was knowing he had no way to revoke his 'idiotic' comments.
On the other end of the line, she paid her last goodbyes for year she would spend across the world; her car, her mother, her closest friends.
She was sad. Not for the departure. she'd grown accustomed to that. But more that her 2 week vacation would be over in a matter of minutes; 14 days in as close to heaven as she'd be for along time to come.
Who wouldn't be depressed from that?
Self destructive as always, he was adamant at letting her know he really would miss her; he was always trying to make himself appear in the best light.
He wrote it. No, he declared it in a bulletin in public site; he was making a spectacle of his obvious insecurity. He felt smooth about it. "Perfect," he quipped.
She saw it when she arrived. She smiled. "Dork," she called him in the back of her head. She thought it was a rather cute move...of course she didn't know he was being mostly self-satisfying.
...That's how things worked with them. It's what they had in a friendship, in what made it best and what made it worse. It seemed like whenever he did something he thought was selfish, she was always a bit happier; she had a good heart (just kept it hidden), he had a good soul (just let it be misguided).
And so he would say, "...I'll see you in June," just to know she was smiling.
_________________________________________
Chapter 2
LOG NCTX002 - Only in Dreams
Part 1
The vehicle careened into the side of the cab; the fiery chaos of debris that remained of the two transports made an image becoming of hell itself. The passengers, remarkably thrown quite a distance from the car. Driver, man and woman.
All unconscious it would seem. The man started to come to, only overcome with bewilderment and terror at the sight before him. Residents and onlookers gathered along sidewalks across from the wreckage.
"Oh dear god, -------! Where are you -------!?" he cried out in fright.
Had he stopped to look beside him, he would have noticed that just before the crash, he pulled her close into his arm. They'd been throw together; his head bleeding, leg gashed, her in pristine condition.
"Oh thank god," he cried out in relief, "I thought I'd lost you -------, and I don't know what I'd do without you."
Sounds of sirens wailing, another explosion from the wreckage, and people screaming drowning his head which could barely keep itself up from the blood loss.
"Julius!..." he heard faintly as he passed out again, holding her close. "...get...togeth...hospit...save -------..." Fading in in out of verbal consciousness.
"HOLY SHIT!" He woke up in a frantic panic, his bedroom dreary and empty, a bottle of Sky on his desk quarter filled. "God damnit, not that fucking dream again...what the hell are you trying to tell me, huh?..."
The fire, the accident, the woman: most of what he saw was a recurring dream; a dream he wrote into a story once, before he washed himself out.
He believed that dreams were God's way of communicating with him; he was always told as a child 'only angels can fathom the true voice of God'. Because of this, his delusion of dream-communications was bred.
He sat up in his bed, leg stretched out, sheets soaked and salted. He sweat the fear out in his sleep.
"...and why that one again? You never even tell me her name," he pleaded to Heaven, hoping to solve his riddles. "And what about him? Is he me? Am I HardLuck?"
I suppose we should clarify: in his story, the one based on this nightmarish vision he has, he'd nicknamed the main character HardLuck; Julius Lucius, a retired police lieutenant gone PI.
All that aside, we're not permitted to tell you anymore about this dream than what has been demonstrated. He rolled himself out of bed, and cringed from head pangs.
"No more vod before bed ol' boy. You don't even like this stuff anyway, " he coached himself.
After a bit of coaxing, he realized the little icon on the bottom right corner of his computer screen was blinking. S tiny red envelope.
"...what the hell? Email?"
He didn't recognize the address, but the subject line read 'on elm st' which caught his interest.
He read it aloud -
"Nobody checked for passenger of the other vehicle did they? What about her? She was chasing the love of her life, with just one hour remaining before her pumpkin died; Where did the winds carry his scent, and why did she follow? nobody check on her did they?
-Cassius"
His breathing fettered, his heart raced, and he sent himself into a panic. He looked around the room frantically, trying to find an answer to his confusion...anything to ail the rush.
When he turned back at the screen, the message was gone. In it's place, a MySpace bulletin-
"SkyGoddess has posted a new blog. Click here to read."
Part 2 - 003
On the other side of the world she woke up tossing and turning, tears in her eyes. It took a lot to draw her to tears, and only her own imagination could do so readily.
She grasped at any ounce of sleep she could still hold, trying desperately to finish her dream. Nothing. She lay there for a minute in quiet contemplation, her thoughts booming loud:
"I could smell him...taste him...HEAR him!...why? One glimpse of him, one minute more of sleep and I could have found out what it was about..."
She looked at her watch. Conditioned to wake up in regimen fashion, she'd woken up just in time to head out to work.
"...so that's why I couldn't see the ending? To keep a schedule on time?...whatever," she conceded to herself.
Still, she sat down in front of her screen, and typed her heart out. Every ion of her nightmare, she flashed onto the page before her, and with all the drops on her dreams she could still recall, she painted a picture of words. No justice to what she really felt, but it would have to do.
"For some reason the only face I knew in it was my own; I felt everything in it though. My senses were so very alive. This has to be important," she stammered to herself.
Thirty seconds late to work, but not enough to be noticed.
"It will be worth it. I'll figure it out," she thought.
Part 3 - 004
"...tragically poetic," he said to himself. "But what the fuck does it mean? It has to be coincidence...and I have to be delusional."
He was talking out loud again, and not quietly.
"I coulda swore I saw a different email. I've got to lay off the sleep aids...even if I pull all nighters for exams," he grumbled.
The wreck stumbled to his bathroom, opened his medicine cabinet and threw away a box of OTC Benadryl. Not exactly sleep aid material, but he used it in a pinch.
He dragged himself to the kitchen, boiled some water on the stove, and made a fresh cup on black tea with honey and lemon. He sat down in the middle of his living room in surrounding silence, and drank. While there he recited to himself:
"Ichigo ichie. Sono kochya to inori no kotoba wa watashi no tsumi o araimasuyo. Soshite, boku no megami-sama ga daisuki wa watashi ni annaishite kudasaimasenka...arigatou gozaimasu kami-sama."
What we're aloud to translate is as follows:
"For this time only. This black tea and this prayer wash away my sins. Also, --- ------- - ---- lead back to me if you would please...thank you much dear Lord God."
He drowned himself in his self-proclaimed humility, though he lead a life of true redemption at times; He never asked for anything but a clean slate, but the nightmares kept coming. He figured it was because he was asking for a selfish request when he prayed, but he persisted.
After about half an hour, he stood up. His leg had fallen asleep, and he shook it sporadically to awaken it.
"I hope she's OK over there," he said regarding his friend's journal entry. "that's a hell of a dream to wake up from in such a crazy situation. Maybe I should leave her a comment...make sure she's alright."
We've been informed to clarify one more detail: The main protagonist in the stories based off of his dream sequence was a corrupt police officer, Sergeant Mark Cassius, best friend of Julius through most of what he'd written to date.
Part 4 - 005
The next day she slept dreamless. She woke mundane, on schedule, and proceeded to follow her day's work routine. In the fields of war, there's not much room for anything out of routine.
When she had the opportunity later, she checked her email. A a MySpace bulletin-
"HardLuck has posted a comment to your blog entry. Click here to read and respond."
She read the brief squabble he left in a rush before class, and she stared blandly, as though in disappointment.
"Sounds like a line," she thought, "I mean 'tragically poetic', how much tackier does it get?" She sighed softly. "At least someone responded."
She was a bit happy after reading it, though she had trouble convincing herself of that. She smirked a bit. She remembered the note he wrote her, and figured he was at least well intentioned.
"Dork," she thought, "If I can't know the ending, neither can you...I guess we can find it only in dreams."
It always seemed like both their stories remained without endings. Their villains never vanquished, and their lives never changed. All they'd been through (separate and together) was a chain of non-connecting links; oddly enough, each link read:
"------- has sent you a new message. Click here to read it."
_________________________________________
Chapter 3
Sector Changed from NC to IRA
LOG IRATX006 - Maps
Part 1
On the roof of a nearly torn down building, she lay, staring at the night sky; just the week before, the area around her was clouded with smoke and the smell of gunfire. Nothing more than flashing lights in the evening. And now, the silence.
She found it odd that the local children continued to laugh in play in the streets on into the night. In spite of their country being in wreckage day after day, the youth were oblivious to all the darkness in the world.
"What was it like," she asked herself, "to be that age?"
She'd grown up too quickly to remember; the harsh conditions of a war-torn world will do that. Or maybe it was that she's been hurt by too many people she loved.
Smoke and dust from nearby debris wafted up from nearby buildings. The feint moonlight hit the white veil of smoke. The clouds drifted slowly across the horizon.
She stood up, walked downstairs and entered the powder room. Her mother had been waiting for her, with her dress and veil prepped.
"Glad you got your hair finished in time sweetheart," her mother said.
"Does it look ok?" she frantically asked.
"Perfect Eve. Absolutely perfect," her mother responded. "This is your day sweetie, and you couldn't look more beautiful..."
"I'm just so nervous....what if he doesn't show?"
Her mother, full of faith as always, told her, "He'd have to be a fool not to."
She smiled, and blushed. She looked at the antique dress adoringly. It had been passed down since her great grandmother. It was an heirloom in the family, that had finally met its time for her to dance with.
She slipped the dress on, a beautiful pearly white number, that fit to her figure like a glove. The room smelled of a beautiful lavenders and magnolias, the flowers she chose to garnish the ceremony.
Her mother zipper her up in the back, and then gave her a kiss on the cheek before leaving the room. Eve was still fidgety, and nervous.
"Where's my damn phone," she suddenly scrambled around her belongings.
She called for comfort.
"----? ---- I can't do this," she began to well up. "Please..please tell you you made it alright! I need you here in case something goes...well, yeah I trust him...but what if...I know. I know. Just, hold my hand so I don't gt cold feet."
He was a good friend, and the one she knew she could count on most. He talked her back down to earth.
She walked out of the room, and down the hall out to the chapel in the courtyard. It was still empty; all the guests were congregating in the waiting area.
Her make-up was finished, and he breathing was calm. Her pulse, however was through the roof. "He's not going to come," she kept saying over and over to herself.
She walked up to the alter, and stood. Serene and still, she prayed for solace. She prayed for comfort. She prayed for him.
"Amen," a faint whisper escaped.
When she was done, she walked back out to the powder room. In just five minute's time, the guests would all shuffle into their seats in the courtyard, and her veritable prince charming would arrive to sweep her off her feet yet again.
Months had past since they last spoke. They sent out the invitations together five months before, to the day, and only week after she got the note -
"Dearest,
I won't break my promise to you. There's just something I must see to first. Be waiting there for me. Your wings will carry you, and your radiance will guide me back to you
Love,
--------"
Beyond the door, echoing through the halls and emanating from the courtyard, a gorgeous sonata was being played.
"That's my cue," she said aloud as she walked out the door.
She steps out, and the music switches. Canon in D, by Pachelbel begins to play; she had opted for a less generic song by which to walk the aisle.
She looked up at the chapel, and he wasn't there. She refrained from crying on the spot, and instead continued her march to the steps. "I knew it," she thought, "that he would break..."
As she got to the steps, she paused before facing back; just then, she glanced over at the quartet playing the music and through her voice she squeaked aloud "...our promise."
He stood up from the violinist seat and walked toward her smiling. She couldn't fight the tears anymore and ran over to him, and threw her arms around his neck embracing him tightly.
She whispered in his ear, "I almost thought I lost you."
To which, he responded, "I promised."
"Are you...ready?" she asked as she loosened her grip on him and leaned back to look him in the eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I...haven;t written my vows just yet."
A shot of panic overcomes her. In the midst of all her worries, she'd forgotten to write hers as well. Her fairytale ending was bitter-sweet at her own expense.
Her friend ---- walks up the them and taps her on the shoulder.
"Sorry to end the moment you two, but, the ceremony must go on," he says with a smile.
She looks around at all the smile-drenched-awe faces in the garden, seated and waiting, Sunday's best, surrounded by magnolia trees. It had slipped her mind that they were already at the chapel.
She giggles a bit, and smiles at her friend. "Sorry everyone," she says to the friends and family, "I got a little caught up in the moment."
She took her friends arm, as he led her back to the chapel steps. They walked the ten yards, that seemed, like miles. Everything was perfect.
She stood on the top step, looked down once more at her dress and smiled. And as she looked up to thanks ----, he wasn't there. In fact, as she looked around, she realized she was standing there alone. All eyes on her, and nobody to receive her. She starts to panic again, looking around frantically, and finally...
...snaps out of it.
"Damn," she said, the smoke still floating across the horizon before her, "I dozed off again. I should head back to the barracks."
As she sat up, she felt a tear run down her cheek. As she moved her hand to wipe it, she realized it wasn't just the one, but many tears. She had been crying in her daydream state; at that moment, the world as she knew it felt lonely...
Part 2 - 007
"Move your fucking car prick!" he heard through the cracked car window, along with honks and screeches, as vehicles all around him scuffled to squeeze five lanes worth of cars through three lanes of traffic.
"All the places to hit traffic, and I hit it in this god forsaken town," he muttered to himself.
Oblivious of the people around him, angry with each other for lord knows what, he was just trying to get home.
"Six hours into a ten and a half hour drive, and you stop me here of all places, huh? To do what? Ponder?...you've got a fucked up sense of humor." He was addressing God, assuming coincidental traffic was a punishment.
The city in question was home to one of his former lovers, and he saw fit to avoid the city at any expense. The fastest and safest route to his family's home from his own residence, however, happened to pass right through the center of the aforementioned city.
He fiddled with things in his car to occupy the time in the traffic jam. Smoke billowed off in the distance from where an accident had occurred; it was the apparent cause of the traffic-jam, and so he was patient.
He was more concerned that the people involved not be hurt, rather than he make good time on a trip.
As he shuffled around his his music to find something to play, he found a copy of a compilation-CD Eve had made for him the spring before.
"Oh wow," he said aloud, "I forgot I had this thing..."
He put it in to play. As he skipped from track to track listening to the eclectic collection of songs, he came to song number ten. He smiled, and sat himself lower into his chair.
The song that played soothed him, and he almost forgot where he was. He sung along:
"Wait...they don't love you like I love you..."
Once traffic cleared, he continued on his route home; at that moment he wished he had some way to call Eve. He missed her much more than he thought he should have.
"That's dangerous," he said too himself. "Dangerous thoughts are going to get both of you hurt if you're not careful."
"Why?" his subconscious questioned him. "Are you that afraid of falling for her again? Or is it the other way around?"
"Nobody asked you to question, ----" he responded to his subconscious.
A rather auspicious site as this might otherwise be left for a science fiction story, but no. He Genuinely conversed with himself. The numerous parts of his psyche often seemed to manifest themselves in self-sustained conversation partners; this particular one he had named Wolf.
What God did to you all to make you act so oddly from time to time, we may never understand. We are merely watchers.
The sun set to his right, and he continued his drive through the dense darkness that lay ahead. Desperate to stay awake, he replayed Eve's CD over and over.
every now and then the soft beep of his phone going in and out of service area could be heard through the pauses between songs for the next two hours.
"...I just want to know how she is," he continued his previous thoughts rather late, "is that a bad thing? So a fucking care...we both decided to stay friends."
"Fine, I wasn't questioning that," Wolf quipped. "I just want to make sure you're not in over your head because of some tacky love song."
He paused to think.
"The song's not about love. It's about promises," he said. "I intend to keep mine..."
At that moment, as track ten ended again, and the sound of his phone coming back into service chimed, his phone's e-mail warning went off.
He turned down the music, and shuffled uncomfortably to take his phone out of his pocket while driving. He looked down at the screen -
"Incoming Text Message from Sky."
"Eve?," he stated confused. He read the message -
"----, I can't do this. Please, I need you here in case something goes wrong. Just, hold my hand so I don't get cold feet. Get here please."
That caught his interest, and threw him for a loop. He sat staring at the road in front of him, his thoughts racing. "How did she send that? Where is she? Cold feet about what? Is she ok? Who's ----?"
As he looked back at the phone to re-read the message, it was gone. The screen saver read the current time, and nothing else. His inbox was empty, even his missed call logs were days old.
No sign of the message.
"Who the hell is ----?" he repeated again to himself. "She never mentioned anyone by that name before. And...what happened to the message?"
He sat quiet in thought the remainder of the trip. when he arrived, he greeted his family and shortly after sat himself in front of a computer screen. When going through his email, the only thing in his inbox was a MySpace bulletin-
"SkyGoddess has posted a new blog. Click here to read."
What he read baffled baffled him. He sat staring for minutes, until finally he left his seat, laid down on the couch and feel asleep. He muttered, "Now I know i'm going crazy..."
_________________________________________
Chapter 4
LOG IRA??008 - Just Like Heaven
Part 1
A small strand of light escaped through the clouds, glared onto his shut eyelids while the wind blew the white sands over his body. His lips did but move to breathe, though only faint voice could be heard escaping.
“E…Eve…,” was muttered.
His eyes opened wide to see the light escaping dark storm clouds above. Though it wasn’t very bright, it felt blinding to him. He’d been unconscious for almost a week’s time.
“What the hell,” he exclaimed loudly, but through the winds and the roar of nearby waves not much could be heard.
He’d been laying asleep on an empty beach, the water from the ocean dark and murky, crashing on the shore only one hundred meters from where he now sat. It seems the light was enough to wake him where we could not, however it hadn’t shone since he fell here.
“How in the hell did I get out here? And just where the fuck is here?”
He looked around frantically; up both ends of the beach, hoping to see some kind of habitat. But nothing. He stood up quickly, and climb to a nearby dune to get another perspective. Still, nothing.
The scenery, as the land was laid out, included the vast expanse of desert beach sand, the raging dark sea in one direction, and a deep distant forest in the other; all of this was dreary in a way. The trees were tall, and dark; far off in the distance (thought it stood out very apparently) lay a much larger tree, towering above the rest. The little bit of light that woke him had already escaped back into the clouds.
The shade continued on forever it seemed.
“I don’t know where I am, or how I got here but there’s got to be someone around,” he grumbled as he reached for his phone. He found that most of his belongings were missing, however his phone was still where he expected.
“Great…I get fucking mugged, left for dead…and all the leave is my phone,” he opened it up, “which has no fucking signal. Good game.”
Despite not having signal, he happened to glance at the date on the screensaver.
“Holy shit! I’ve been out for a fucking week!? How the hell did I…” his yells were drowned out by a nearby scream, one that seemed very familiar. “Eve!?…” another scream, “EVE!”
He ran toward the screams, near the torrent waters. When he arrived however, nobody was there. But there was a set of footsteps walking toward the water, and disappearing at the line the tide would come up to, left in the sand; no signs of struggle…a willing march into the ebb.
“Eve…I…did you drown?,” he asked in a whisper as he fell to his knees before the mighty ocean. A tear escaped his eyes, and though I was told not to interfere, I could sit in wake no longer.
“I feel this is where I must make my introduction…”
Even we angels have our limits.
Part 2 - 009
“Why won’t you show me how you do it Vale?,” she pleaded of him, with a resounding giggle, “just show me how you can do it so well.”
He was reading a book beneath a willow tree on an outstretched blanket; she was sitting next to him, holding his arm, and suggestively nudging him.
“Do what so well my dear?,” he looked over at her with a sarcastic glimmer in his eye. “Make you…scream?”
“And make me laugh. How you make me melt,” she said softly into his ear. She slid her arms around his neck, pushed aside his book, and pressed her forehead to his so they faced one another. “Show me how you do it and…”
“…and what,” he asked.
“…I promise to run away with you,” she whispered.
He kissed her, grabbed her by the wrist, and in one movement swung her down onto the blanket; he leaned over her, his glasses flung off to the side, the book tossed even further. Her eyes were wide, and her breathing heavy. He breathes were deep and violent.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said to her, staring her straight in the eyes, as he leaned down to kiss her neck. He pinned both her wrists down with each of his hands.
“I promise. I’ll run away with you,” she closed her eyes and said in a suggestive tone.
“I’ll hold you to that…If you must know,” he explained, “the trick is nothing more than what lies inside of me dear.” She looked at him perplexed. “A beast…that can not be tamed.”
She paused for a moment, and then began to chuckle. His expression however did not change in humor, but rather became more serious; his eyes now took on a sinister glare. When she realized this, she began to worry…and shuffled up from beneath him.
He picked up his glasses, and put them back on; his eyes locked off into space toward the forest. She stared at him, now fettered by his sudden change.
“Vale…Vale you’re scaring me,” she said. “Vale what’s gotten into you?”
A snarl came from his mouth, and his eyes grew intense into the distance over her shoulders. She shuddered a bit. Just then, a very close loud howl came from behind her. She let out a small squeak of fear, and her eyes began to well with tears of fear.
As she turned to see what it was, He reached past her very quickly, grabbing a large black wolf by the neck, and quickly slamming him up against the tree pinned. Still with his right arm outstretched. It was very apparent that the wolf was not yet dead, but getting there.
He turned over his left shoulder, fixed his glasses with his left hand, and looked her in the eyes. She could see blood of the wolf ,splattered from the impact to the tree, on his face.
He told her, “the trick is…I never let you see me at my worst. But I fear it’s become too late. The beast is…aware Ver…”
She jolted up from her bed, dripping sweat.
“Another freakin nightmare,” she thought to herself, “and again with Vale. I swear, I don’t hear from him in a month, and I start having the craziest dreams…nightmares about him.”
He’d been out of touch, as we previously explained. The dreams kept worsening, and her state of delirium was enough for the army to have to remove her from full active-duty; she was on temporary-on-site leave, and under supervision of medics in the mean time.
“PTS syndrome, or whatev, my ass, I just need to stop thinking about that asshole,” she said out loud. “He could at least call me and give me some freakin…something, geez.”
She sat and thought about the dreams, as she’d grown accustomed to doing. Even though she hated the nightmares, she still worried they might represent a bigger problem, so she evaluated all of them just the same.
The men, the trees, the wolf. They all had to mean something bigger; they couldn’t just be objects or scenery. The actions, the places, the time and events: all of these had to be something bigger. To be honest, she’s always been this way. Even when all she was doing was watering their life source, she thought about everything she saw.
Part 3 - 010
His head shot up and swung around behind him. A tall figure clad in a full set of white and gold plated armor, and helmet in his right arm. A glow about him seemed to illuminate the otherwise dismal atmosphere.
“…I apologize for not doing it sooner Vale, but you see, we’re not exactly aloud to up here,” said the figure. “My name is Adam.”
The thoughts shooting through Vale’s head escalated exponentially. Eve, the message, his dreams, and now…
“…yes, that’s who she was referring to,” said Adam. “You have a rather persistent memory for someone in Midgard. Those memories, those figments and fragments, even those little flashes were supposed to have been erased.”
“Erased?” asked Vale.
“Yes, exactly as it sounds,” replied Adam. “They are system glitches, in a sense, and we’re supposed to clean them up so you couldn’t find each other again. But once you did, despite our attempts…I saw how much you suffered to get the…”
Before Adam could finish, Vale swung around quickly, standing to his feet and jolting at Adam, and with one outstretched arm held Adam in the air. A lust for blood sat in his Vale’s eyes now. Adam had no choice.
From a sheath-less hilt at his side, a sword materialized into Adam’s hand, which he swung in the same motion he drew it with. The swing sent out force that sent vale flying ten or so yards, releasing his grip on Adam.
While Vale picked himself up in a daze, he looked over at Adam, floating where he’d been before, choking and gasping for breath, and dripping spit. What amazed Vale more was not the brightly glowing sword now in Adam’s hand, but the slight transparent outline of wings keeping him aloft. Adam had made his point, and Vale now had fear in his heart.
“Who…what….what are you?,” Vale squeezed out, as he shuffled back to his feet. He took a defensive posture, worried for an attack. “Where are we? And what have you done with Eve? You know where she is don’t you!?”
Adam had now collected himself. He set himself back onto the ground, and began slowly walking toward Vale. He placed the materialized blade into the empty sheath, and it seemed to disappear as it went in.
“I guess the first one’s pretty obvious,” Adam said with a smirk, “I’m your valkyrie; your guardian angel. And this? Well, we call it Asgard…”
“Bullshit,” said Vale. “Bullshit!”
“Don’t you wish? At any rate, as for the last question,” Adam continued, “I didn’t do anything with the one you call Eve. Someone higher up is responsible for that…and she’s fine. She’s where she’s been since you got here…fighting your human wars. Noble as she’s always been.”
For some reason, all of this was making a weird kind of sense. Like he’d seen this all before; like he knew what Adam was saying was true. This scared him, but he didn’t question it; he wanted answers, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard the name Asgard before. Instead he turned back toward the ocean, and began to walk.
“And now where are you going?,” asked Adam.
“To find my way back,” Vale chimed.
“Back,” responded Adam. “Your way back from death? That’s not an easy task to accomplish.”
Vale stopped cold in his tracks. He suddenly remembered where he had heard the term before. “Asgard…,” he muttered, “is Heaven. And so…,” He turned around slowly to face the vast dark forest, and looked far at the tallest of the trees, “…that’s…the Tree of Life…”
“Its name is Yggdrasil, and you would be wise to address it as such,” said Adam, “after all, it’s the fabric that keeps life going on your realm Vili.”
“Why? Why am I here,” Vale begged.
“Don’t sound so desperate. It doesn’t look good on you Vili,” Adam snapped. “And the reason you’re here is the same as anyone: you died.”
Vale was at a loss for thought, and barely whimpered, “how?”
“Well, I can’t say for sure that it’s a normal death by any means. It was voluntary, though, not suicide. If that were the case, you’d be bound for the boats in Niflheim…your death was actually very inter…”
“HOW!?,” Vale now demanded.
“You really don’t remember do you?,” Vale sighed. “You died for her to live…I swear, you remember everything I try to erase, but the past week I didn’t even bother with, you can’t remember a moment. Guess I have no choice…”
Adam put his hand onto Vales chest, and began reciting an indecipherable hymn. Through the sound of the melody, Vale fell asleep and entered a shared dream state.
Part 4 - 011
Eve’s Dream:
You were in the middle of the water, a radiance emitting from your body. I always dreamed of the ways I could make you glow like that. In ways that only I could see. I always hated heights, but I’d walk out to the cliff’s edge just to see you.
My legs would tremble in fear, and I would often lose my balance, but I would wait there for you. Watching you dance on the ocean’s surface. Twisting around and around, making patterns with your footsteps. You were the wind, softly blowing, shuffling the waves around. And when you were through, you come sit next to me, and I’d kiss you on the forehead.
Then when you left, I stared at the ocean again, and I could hear you from the other side. You asked me to come, but I was bound to this land, and the sea was unforgiving of me.
“Why are you so far away? I should have told you before I left. Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you?” I could hear your voice carry your questions to me. The breeze brought it to me gently every night, in absence of when you would dance.
So I tried. I tried to go to you, but I knew I was bound. And the ocean that separated us told me it would take you from me forever if I didn’t offer myself in return. He said It wouldn’t hurt, and I wouldn’t even remember you when he was done. He said he’d drown my memories of you deep inside me, where nothing could unearth them.
The only girl I loved. I die for you, so please keep dancing. And please keep shining so bright, so that I can find my way back to you.
_________________________________________
Chapter 5
LOG IRA??012 - Sirens
Part 1
Vale awoke, panting and soaked, his body suspended above the calm ocean floating like a fallen leaf.
"Was that her..."
"Dream?," Adam responded, hovering above the water off to Vale's side. "Of course. You couldn't have thought I'd only come prepared with one trick."
"But why does it feel like I should...remember all that for some reason?" Vale asked, distress in his voice.
It was apparent that he'd not yet realized they were atop the water. He sat up, and stared at his own reflection in the black pool between his legs. His mind and heart racing, trying to grab at memories long since locked out.
The sky had grown dark, as the Asgard eve set in while he was asleep. It was hard to see anything, and the air lay still.
"Was it here?" Vale asked in a whisper.
"No. It wasn't in this location per-se," Adam responded, and began moving inward toward the coast, "but, it was in Asgard yes."
"Then where? And who were those people she was dreaming about?"
Adam paused a moment, looked back at Vale and snipped, "you're very naive..."
Of course by now Vale had already presumed it was himself, but didn't want to accept that truth. Adam continued moving forward.
"...While you still can," Adam shouted at Vale without turning to face him, "you should really get back to the shore."
Vale jumped to his feet, only now realizing the dim reflections were from water. Leaning over just enough to look down at his feet, he began to ponder how and why he could stand on the water. As he did this, he realized that he could see his reflection more and more clearly. The area was getting brighter with an eerie red glow.
The clouds quickly opened to reveal the true for of the sky, and the source of the odd light. Vale saw his full reflection in the ocean, and beyond his mirror image, a sky set ablaze. In a panic, he slipped and fell back down landing on his back now facing the flames head on.
"What is that?" He hollered.
"It's the Midgard...your earthen world," Adam answered.
"Well, why the fuck is it on fire?" Vale said, still staring at the spectacle.
"In our world, which is set to watch over the mortal realm, Midgard is manifest in a number of visible ways," Vale continued from the safety of the shore. "In this case, the Midgard evening sky represents the hatred in the world evenly and openly. Every soul's hatred burns like a small candle, and the end result during warring state is a bevy of flames, forming a night fire..."
Vale was trapped, staring at the sky. He knew not what to make of the situation...but the sight had entranced him. He lay still, eyes wide.
"...the clouds rarely spread; only when a strong enough emotion pushes a new light past them. In this case, the moment before our daybreak shows the strongest points each day where hatred seethes in," Vale kept on, however pausing for a moment before stating, "speaking of which, you might want to get off the water. The oceans lose stability once evening dies out."
A loud rumble, similar to the mix of shattering glass and waves breaking started approaching from the vast ocean expanse behind Vale. Flustered and worried, he got to his feet and began running toward the shore. He looked over his shoulder to see a large placid wave rising from the seas, breaking the stillness of the waters as though they were frozen. The wave advanced quickly, and Vale ran faster but not quite enough.
The wave drew him up, and tossed him ashore before crashing down and returning the ocean to its previous norm state. He landed on his back in a dune of sand near Adam's feet, cold and drenched from head to toe. Adam set on one of many stones in the area, lining the sand before the flora began to stretch into the forest.
The area grew brighter, and the gray skies returned to replace the black.
"Our equivalent to sunrise, I suppose," Adam said.
A soft breeze blew by, and still quiet filled the air for a minute. Vale caught his breath, but wouldn't have long.
A sharp shrill siren filled the air, screaming through echoes off the rocks in the area, shot through the air like gunfire and continued to sound. Vale jumped in panic, and it even appeared to startle Adam a bit.
"What the hell is..." Vale screamed as he looked for the ringing, "...that."
Vale grabbed his phone off a nearby rock, and pushed the silence button. Still in continued to vibrate from the incoming call.
"You must have dropped it in our quarrel yesterday," Adam chuckled. "You should probably answer it."
He stared at the words on the screen. His phone routed messages to his account from his email, and other websites; his screen read:
"SkyGoddess has sent you a new message. Click [Open] to read it."
"I thought I couldn't get reception out here," Vale said aloud.
Adam stood up, and walked over, "you shouldn't. There's no tangible connection between Asgard and Midgard...at least none that any human technology could bridge."
Vale opened the message in the phone, and read it aloud:
"There's a message at the river, I need you to meet me there. I
have a package I need you to take for me. Once day breaks, in
the darkness of the night I will be there. You know I will...
-Eve"
"River?" Vale whispered confused.
"I know they have rivers in Midgard," Adam said. "They're just as easy to locate in Asgard. The message is probably referring to the one nearby."
Adam began to walk toward the vast forest. Vale stood still staring at the phone, weary of the message.
"There's a cabin nearby, beside the riverbed," Adam added. "Odds are, whoever sent you that message has housed themselves in the abandoned building. We're going to have to follow the river inward at some point no matter what in order to get to the gates. Might as well take a small detour. We should arrive just before dusk."
Vale looked up, paused for a moment. After he gathered himself, he began to follow Adam.
Part 2 - 013
Talking and commotion fill the office. The wind howls through a broken glass windows, and decrepit walls.
She wakes up from a daydream at her desk, one of her superiors barking orders at her. She hadn't realized he was there.
"...is that understood soldier? By 2200 tonight!," he yelled as he pointed at a stack of papers.
She was getting sick of it; being the lackey. A mutt for military control, doing her own duties along with the work that her superiors were too lazy to finish. She hadn't been there a day, visiting the rest of echo company in their new location and she was already knee deep in assignment.
"Yes sir, understood!" she saluted.
After he dismissed himself, she meandered slowly toward the nearby broken window. It was one of the few actually broken in the building; the area had seen much battle, but despite that this building remain oddly near untouched. A single gunshot escaped into the innards through this window at some point.
She moved her finger along the cracks in the glass, tracing it back to the bullet hole.
"I hate this fucking place," she muttered.
"But I have to be here for their sake," she thought to herself quietly.
Her attention shifted to the city below. From the height she was at in the skyscraper, she could see the entire town, and the barricades on the outskirts.
Large concrete and stone barriers and walls, set up to keep enemy forces from intruding. The area hadn't seen fighting since after echo company first arrived. she hadn't been there for most of it, but she was there for the calm after...and this small calm in the eye of it all.
A siren screamed through the air, and whistles to take cover shot past her ear. She moved away from the window fast, and got to the ground behind a chair. This was no test, but nobody else seemed all too fazed.
The sirens grew louder, as helicopters whizzed by the windows, knocking in the glass from the broken window with a gust as they passed. Explosions outside send smoke into the air, and shake the foundations. Soldiers from both sides exit choppers into the buildings from roofs nearby.
More aircrafts are coming by, as the city is bombarded from outside the walls by enemy footmen. She hears a stampede of footsteps from the stairwell nearby, and reaches for her 9mm at her side, but insurgent forces storm the office.
Panic no fills most of the previously calm people in the office. Now people are being led by gun barrel and force into a corner, herded like cattle.
She notices that the arms cage has remained shut and locked this whole time. She looks over at it, and readies herself to dart, but before she can a soldier comes up behind her and grabs her by the hair. He drags her along the ground, kicking, screaming and flailing. Her screams are downed out by the raging battle outside, bullets and explosions creating a symphony of horror.
Her arms and legs burn from struggling against the carpet, and the soldier turns and slaps her before throwing her into a corner near the rest of the people. Another comes by and aims a machine gun at her face, while the first one whispers into his ear.
The first grabs her hair again and rips her jacket off, while the second grabs her by the feet, and tears her legs apart tearing one of her pants legs, gesturing crudely to other insurgents. Another of them, clearly higher rank, looks over. This commander walks to her, moves close to her legs and runs his hand up the inside of her leg.
"FUCK YOU! get the fuck away from me!" she yells as tears fill her eyes.
He looks up, and grins with a sick desperation in his eyes, his teeth and smile disgusting to the eye. He leans in further, and she spits in his face, struggles out of the grip of the one at her feet enough to kick the commander in the head more than once.
He stands up, slams his foot down on her leg snapping her ankle with his foot and screams: "!یک مثال ازاوبسازید" (Make an example of her!)
The men cheer, and they begin to drag her by the hair and legs into one of the rooms in the office nearby. She grabs at her comrades nearby for help, but they are all filled with fear and panic. The pull their limbs back from her grasp, and huddle close into the corner.
Bang.
One shot flies in from the broken window, and tears the head off of the insurgent holding her hair. A sniper across from the other roof opened fire slowly, and a yelling from portable radios could be hear "stay down, stay down we're opening cover fire."
All in a brief moment, blood surges from his neck, and spews across the room covering everything in five meters. His body drops quickly to her left side, and when she realizes this she reaches for her nine, which they never removed. She shoots the one at her legs, and on her unbroken ankle hobbles toward her comrades that hadn't helped her before.
She turns away from them, placing herself between the remaining soldiers and echo company.
As she prepare to open fire, scared and shaking, she awakens.
Her eyes dart around the room, tendrils of sweat and tear drip from her face, and she screams, "SHIT! not again!"
It all felt real to her. Her dreams carried her around, toying with her head more and more. She could smell things in the office, and still felt the rug burns and pain in her ankle from the struggle.
"It felt so real," she whispered to herself, trying hard not to cry more.
She caught her breath sitting up, pulled her knees into her chest and sat quietly for a few minutes. Then, she opened her computer and got online.
"What the hell?" she said as she saw that her MySpace account had sent a message she's never seen. "I sent a message to HardLuck? I'd better call Vale and find out what this is all about."
Part 3 - 014
As they ventured into the forest of Asgard, they remained fairly quiet. The were sounds of wildlife, but nothing could be seen moving.
"What with this forest anyway?" Vale asked.
"Fauna hasn't visited lately," Adam replied contently.
"Fauna," Vale questioned curiously, "like animals and stuff?"
Adam smirked, "I suppose that's how humans refer to it. I was referring to the goddess Fauna. She's been ascertained much like the rest of them."
Confused as ever, Vale continued to piece together what was going on. He was having trouble coming to terms with the situation as it had played out, but he thought he was getting some lucidity on it all.
"She's...a goddess isn't she?" He asked.
Adam stopped walking, and looked over his shoulder, "You mean Fauna? Or..."
"Eve," Vale forced. "Eve is a goddess, and she's in trouble...just like this Fauna chick. Something more is going on here that you're not telling me and I want answers!"
"Yes," Adam said, "at one time she was a goddess. But I can't tell you any more than that which I have been ordered."
A distant rumble, muffled by the trees a shook the air. The skies started to dim slowly.
"We're almost there," Adam said. "We should press on until we arrive at the hovel. That sound is that of the seas calming again. Being caught in the forest at night isn't exactly pleasant anymore."
Even though Vale was still concerned, he agreed to continue onward. He nodded at Vale, and they hastened their movement forward. As they moved, the sounds of crickets got louder, in front of them. Behind them, distant howls resounded through the branches while all else was quiet save for their panting and footsteps.
As the forest broke, a faint glow could be seen from ahead. The cricket sound wavered and hung softly in the air, like a distant orchestra. The glow was supplied by fireflies glowing green and light blue. The cabin was dark, and unlit, and the river nearby was not very wide.
What Vale found odd was that the river water was also completely still at night, but the reflections from the fireflies wear different colors or reds and faint pink-violets. He almost forgot his worries for a moment, as he gazed over the beautiful sight.
Adam went around to the front of the small building, facing the river's edge.
Vale went around to the back, and knocked on the door he found. He jiggled the knob, but it was locked so he continued to try to get the attention of anyone inside.
"Hello? Anybody there?," he shouted. "We're looking for someone, and we were wondering if you could let us in and help us find them."
"Be careful what you ask for..." a faint whisper whipped through the air and met his ears.
Vale jumped back from the door and stared. Adam came back around from the opposite side, and told him, "It's abandoned. I told you already. We just need to find a way in."
Adam could see that Vale hadn't heard the whisper, so he ignored it. Both their eyes met a window nearby, slightly open and unlocked. Without exchanging a word, they both moved in toward the window.
Adam held it open while Vale slipped through. His feet landed inside to be greeted by a sand covered floor. The room was dark, and nothing could be seen. While Adam got himself in, Vale began to wander around the pitch black room leaving footprints in the sand below him.
"This place is bigger than it looks from the outside," he said.
Now inside, Adam cupped his hands and began speaking in the same indecipherable language as before. A quick flash came from within the cup his hands made, and illuminated the room for a short time. It was large and mostly empty with the exception of some oddly expensive furniture and decorations.
Vale was standing near the entrance of a hallway, and as the light extended slowly into the hall, voices could be heard from coming from various rooms mixed with the familiar sound of waves crashing down. As the light dimmed and dismissed itself, so did the voices.
"Why are you standing so still Vili," Adam asked as he moved closer, "trying to frighten off a crow perhaps?" He smirked.
"Didn't you hear that talking?" Vale questioned him. "It was coming from the rooms down this hall."
Adam looked at him puzzled. "I didn't hear anything, but we should be very careful of this place. if you're hearing things. There might be a dreamer present."
Vale was confused, but before he could question Vale further, he saw a hint of light escaping from under a door at the end of the hall. It flickered around like candlelight, and so Vale thought someone might have lit it.
"Come on!" he shouted, and dashed for the door.
"Wait," Adam shouted back, "don't wake the..." Vale knocked open the door, and rushed inside "..dreamer."
Vale was gazing into the room, a pale moonlight coming in through the window, and a tall candle burning near a bed to the left. He was entranced by the moon, because it had been completely cloudy when they entered the cabin only minutes before.
The sound of whimpering broke his focus, and he turned to the bed to notice a girl laying there asleep. She was huddled with her knees in her chest, covered with blankets on the bare bed frame and mattress. A large mirror was suspended on the ceiling above her bed, but he hadn't looked into it.
Adam nudged Vale out of the way, and came into the room.
"Just as I thought, it was her the whole time," Adam proclaimed.
Vale walked carefully toward the bed, and to his amazement he saw a beautiful girl that bore a striking resemblance to...
"Eve!" he shouted, as he ran to the opposite side of the bed and knelt down.
"Not quite," Adam stopped him. "That's not 'Eve', it's her sister."
"Sister?"
"Yes. Her name is Skuld...she goes by Scarlet in her current incarnation."
"But she doesn't have any sisters."
"Not since she left," Adam explained. "But when you both were occupants of Asgard, she had two sisters. That's not important right now, but what is is to not wake her."
Vale's mind was racing again, but he struggled to ignore his confusions and ask, "What happens if we wake her?"
"Well," Adam tried to explain, "she's in a dream state, the area around this cabin including this room are being governed by that dream. And by the looks of it, she's having a nightmare..."
They both looked over, noticing her face veiled in sorrow. She was breathing heavily, and sweating while her hands were clenched tight.
"...waking her suddenly from that could result in utterly chaotic escape of the dream's manifestations."
"So what can we do?" Vale worriedly asked.
"Remember what I did for you at the beach..." Adam hinted, and looked up at Vale, and saw him nod, "...we could try a different form of that. If we can talk to her, then maybe we could convince her to wake up."
Adam walked over to Scarlet's bedside, place his hand on her chest. And close his eyes.
"If we do this, I can't go," Adam said sternly. "I can only send two individuals into the same dream realm at once. That means you have to wake her yourself Vili. can you handle that?"
Vale gulped down his fear, and answered, "Yeah. I can do it."
"Good. I need you to do something...did you see the mirror when we entered? I need you to look in it," Adam said.
As Vale turned his head upward, Adam outstretched his other arms and impacted Vale's chest. He started the hymn again, and once again, he blacked out.
Part 4 - 015
Scarlet's Dream State:
He was sitting in a dark room, with a bright pillar of light on him and nothing else. A large metal table was in front of him, and the metal chair he sat in was too heavy for him to push away from the table.
A loud female voice came resounded, and began to ask him questions.
"Who are you, and why are you here?" the voice said.
"My name is Vale, and I came looking for...umm," he paused trying to remember her name. "...Scarlet."
"What business could you have with her?"
"I'm trying to find someone very important to me, and...someone told me that Scarlet is her sister. I wanted to know if she knew anything."
The room grew quiet for a minute. After a bit, a bright light came into the room from what seemed like an opened doorway. A silhouette centered itself in the doorway, and began walking into the room toward the table. The sound of footsteps made by high heels echoed through the room.
The silhouette sat down in a chair across the table from Vale, still shadowed in the darkness. She let out a quick condescending giggle, and said, "You must be scared of me...I can hear you breathing from here."
"I could hear you breathing heavily in your sleep before I came here," Vale snipped.
Another bright pillar of light clicked on over her. There sat a seductively dressed semblance of eve, with blood red hair and extravagant body artwork. "So you know who I am then?"
"Yeah," he said. "You're sleeping right now. A dream state, or something like that."
He paused a moment, gave her a twice over, and then continued, "You look a lot like her you know?"
"I don't even know who you're talking about kid," she responded condescendingly. She pulled out a cigarette, snapped her fingers to create a small flame in the palm if her hand and lit it; then she snapped her hand out to put out the flame.
"Eve, your sister," he added.
"I don't know anyone named Eve, so you've got the wrong..."
"...Adam calls her Verdandi," He interrupted. She got quiet and still. Her eyes locked onto his, and smoked drifted out of the corner of her lips.
After a short amount of time she continued, "Like I said kid, you've got the wrong person. Tell that wash out Adam it's not my business anymore."
He shouted, "Just wake up and help us! She's in trouble, and we need your..."
She slammed her hand on the table, and stopped him, "I get it, they're all in deep shit! I can't help the state of things right now. Neither can you or him, and nothing you can do to help Verdandi will solve anything either."
With one hand, she threw aside the large metal table that he couldn't even budge, left her seat walked over to him. She stood above him, looking down on him, "Besides, don't you think if I could have woken up from this nightmare, I would have already? I can't even speak my mind anymore! The sound of my own heartbeat shakes the walls of this infernal prison!"
He stood up, looked at her, and started walking away into the darkness.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going kid?" she yelled at him.
"You know, at first I thought you looked a lot like her," he said as he turned around to face her again. "But I saw it in your eyes...you're nothing like her. I used to love to watch her sleep, and think about her all the time. But you won't even lift a finger for your own sister...and I feel all the pain for my first love. How could you let that go?"
He turned again, and kept walking.
"Wait," she yelled. He stopped. She asked, "Did you really come from Midgard just to save her?"
"I didn't even mean to. I just kind of appeared here," he said.
"You're all kinds of stupid," she giggled. "Fine, I'll help you. But if I'm going to get out of this nightmare, I'm going to need your help."
_________________________________________
Chapter 6
LOG NC??016 - Viva La Vida
Part 1
Scarlet's Dream State:
"Fine," Vale agreed blindly, "what do you need me to do?"
He started walking toward Scarlet, nervous at first. She held her hand out to the side. A long black glove...
_________________________________________
Chapter 7
LOG ####
Part 1
Coming Soon!
_________________________________________
That's all I've got for now. I've been writing these for a while now, and I just now decided to post them. It's only supposed to be short story of mine, but it's very emotional. There tends to be a lot of mention of Norse Mythology in this one. I tend to find that when I find one topic that appeals to me, I use it as a general background theme. [Edit] Music (which always inspires me) is also a big driving background theme for each chapter.
Anyway, this is my newest story. Good times. I'll see you all later.
[UPDATE - 12/18/07]
Chapter 4 (Just Like Heaven) has been added. Things took a turn, just like I said they would. Names of the characters are finally coming tome, and being reveled accordingly. You'll find out soon that some of the characters actually have more than one name, and with good reason. Anyway, enjoy!
[UPDATE - 2/22/08]
Chapter 5 (Sirens) now added. It took a while, I know. I kinda lost contact with my co-author on this one. It's up now, so enjoy. New character added too! yay!
[UPDATE - 7/27/08]
Chapter 6 (Viva la Vida) in progress...
- David
Chapter 1
LOG NCTX001 - The Departure
When she departed on the aircraft, he didn't really know what to say. It might have been because he'd just woken up when she called. Or maybe something about being far from home had calloused him over in a way that made saying good bye easier. The way he wanted it I'm sure.
Still, he blurted out, "I'll always miss you...." Not a sound of a lie in his voice.
"I'll miss you too," she responded.
He wasn't sure if she was sad to be going or not. He knew she was leaving the loves of her life behind; but she was hard from her training. Not hard in the sense that most people think of the military. No...she had a deep soul, and a good heart. She just became better at hiding when it was broken.
He finished, "...I'll see you in June. Take care."
Why was he getting choked up, he wondered. Not like it would change his world; things keep moving just the same. Clocks keep ticking.
"Goodbye," she said before she hung up. The commotion in the background almost drowned it out.
"God I sound like an idiot." He told himself. "What the hell does she care that I'll miss her? She knows my life is going well here...she probably thinks I was lying. F-ing moron."
He sat up in his bed, half drowned in the hazy morning sunlight coming through his window. He swung his legs over the side of his bed, slouched over and just sat, staring at the floor.
A good 15 minutes later he wondered if she was even on the plane yet.
"I bet I wasn't even the last person she called," he said to himself, "not that it matters."
He'd been trying to convince himself not to call her right back since she hung up. The main thing keeping him from doing so was knowing he had no way to revoke his 'idiotic' comments.
On the other end of the line, she paid her last goodbyes for year she would spend across the world; her car, her mother, her closest friends.
She was sad. Not for the departure. she'd grown accustomed to that. But more that her 2 week vacation would be over in a matter of minutes; 14 days in as close to heaven as she'd be for along time to come.
Who wouldn't be depressed from that?
Self destructive as always, he was adamant at letting her know he really would miss her; he was always trying to make himself appear in the best light.
He wrote it. No, he declared it in a bulletin in public site; he was making a spectacle of his obvious insecurity. He felt smooth about it. "Perfect," he quipped.
She saw it when she arrived. She smiled. "Dork," she called him in the back of her head. She thought it was a rather cute move...of course she didn't know he was being mostly self-satisfying.
...That's how things worked with them. It's what they had in a friendship, in what made it best and what made it worse. It seemed like whenever he did something he thought was selfish, she was always a bit happier; she had a good heart (just kept it hidden), he had a good soul (just let it be misguided).
And so he would say, "...I'll see you in June," just to know she was smiling.
_________________________________________
Chapter 2
LOG NCTX002 - Only in Dreams
Part 1
The vehicle careened into the side of the cab; the fiery chaos of debris that remained of the two transports made an image becoming of hell itself. The passengers, remarkably thrown quite a distance from the car. Driver, man and woman.
All unconscious it would seem. The man started to come to, only overcome with bewilderment and terror at the sight before him. Residents and onlookers gathered along sidewalks across from the wreckage.
"Oh dear god, -------! Where are you -------!?" he cried out in fright.
Had he stopped to look beside him, he would have noticed that just before the crash, he pulled her close into his arm. They'd been throw together; his head bleeding, leg gashed, her in pristine condition.
"Oh thank god," he cried out in relief, "I thought I'd lost you -------, and I don't know what I'd do without you."
Sounds of sirens wailing, another explosion from the wreckage, and people screaming drowning his head which could barely keep itself up from the blood loss.
"Julius!..." he heard faintly as he passed out again, holding her close. "...get...togeth...hospit...save -------..." Fading in in out of verbal consciousness.
"HOLY SHIT!" He woke up in a frantic panic, his bedroom dreary and empty, a bottle of Sky on his desk quarter filled. "God damnit, not that fucking dream again...what the hell are you trying to tell me, huh?..."
The fire, the accident, the woman: most of what he saw was a recurring dream; a dream he wrote into a story once, before he washed himself out.
He believed that dreams were God's way of communicating with him; he was always told as a child 'only angels can fathom the true voice of God'. Because of this, his delusion of dream-communications was bred.
He sat up in his bed, leg stretched out, sheets soaked and salted. He sweat the fear out in his sleep.
"...and why that one again? You never even tell me her name," he pleaded to Heaven, hoping to solve his riddles. "And what about him? Is he me? Am I HardLuck?"
I suppose we should clarify: in his story, the one based on this nightmarish vision he has, he'd nicknamed the main character HardLuck; Julius Lucius, a retired police lieutenant gone PI.
All that aside, we're not permitted to tell you anymore about this dream than what has been demonstrated. He rolled himself out of bed, and cringed from head pangs.
"No more vod before bed ol' boy. You don't even like this stuff anyway, " he coached himself.
After a bit of coaxing, he realized the little icon on the bottom right corner of his computer screen was blinking. S tiny red envelope.
"...what the hell? Email?"
He didn't recognize the address, but the subject line read 'on elm st' which caught his interest.
He read it aloud -
"Nobody checked for passenger of the other vehicle did they? What about her? She was chasing the love of her life, with just one hour remaining before her pumpkin died; Where did the winds carry his scent, and why did she follow? nobody check on her did they?
-Cassius"
His breathing fettered, his heart raced, and he sent himself into a panic. He looked around the room frantically, trying to find an answer to his confusion...anything to ail the rush.
When he turned back at the screen, the message was gone. In it's place, a MySpace bulletin-
"SkyGoddess has posted a new blog. Click here to read."
Part 2 - 003
On the other side of the world she woke up tossing and turning, tears in her eyes. It took a lot to draw her to tears, and only her own imagination could do so readily.
She grasped at any ounce of sleep she could still hold, trying desperately to finish her dream. Nothing. She lay there for a minute in quiet contemplation, her thoughts booming loud:
"I could smell him...taste him...HEAR him!...why? One glimpse of him, one minute more of sleep and I could have found out what it was about..."
She looked at her watch. Conditioned to wake up in regimen fashion, she'd woken up just in time to head out to work.
"...so that's why I couldn't see the ending? To keep a schedule on time?...whatever," she conceded to herself.
Still, she sat down in front of her screen, and typed her heart out. Every ion of her nightmare, she flashed onto the page before her, and with all the drops on her dreams she could still recall, she painted a picture of words. No justice to what she really felt, but it would have to do.
"For some reason the only face I knew in it was my own; I felt everything in it though. My senses were so very alive. This has to be important," she stammered to herself.
Thirty seconds late to work, but not enough to be noticed.
"It will be worth it. I'll figure it out," she thought.
Part 3 - 004
"...tragically poetic," he said to himself. "But what the fuck does it mean? It has to be coincidence...and I have to be delusional."
He was talking out loud again, and not quietly.
"I coulda swore I saw a different email. I've got to lay off the sleep aids...even if I pull all nighters for exams," he grumbled.
The wreck stumbled to his bathroom, opened his medicine cabinet and threw away a box of OTC Benadryl. Not exactly sleep aid material, but he used it in a pinch.
He dragged himself to the kitchen, boiled some water on the stove, and made a fresh cup on black tea with honey and lemon. He sat down in the middle of his living room in surrounding silence, and drank. While there he recited to himself:
"Ichigo ichie. Sono kochya to inori no kotoba wa watashi no tsumi o araimasuyo. Soshite, boku no megami-sama ga daisuki wa watashi ni annaishite kudasaimasenka...arigatou gozaimasu kami-sama."
What we're aloud to translate is as follows:
"For this time only. This black tea and this prayer wash away my sins. Also, --- ------- - ---- lead back to me if you would please...thank you much dear Lord God."
He drowned himself in his self-proclaimed humility, though he lead a life of true redemption at times; He never asked for anything but a clean slate, but the nightmares kept coming. He figured it was because he was asking for a selfish request when he prayed, but he persisted.
After about half an hour, he stood up. His leg had fallen asleep, and he shook it sporadically to awaken it.
"I hope she's OK over there," he said regarding his friend's journal entry. "that's a hell of a dream to wake up from in such a crazy situation. Maybe I should leave her a comment...make sure she's alright."
We've been informed to clarify one more detail: The main protagonist in the stories based off of his dream sequence was a corrupt police officer, Sergeant Mark Cassius, best friend of Julius through most of what he'd written to date.
Part 4 - 005
The next day she slept dreamless. She woke mundane, on schedule, and proceeded to follow her day's work routine. In the fields of war, there's not much room for anything out of routine.
When she had the opportunity later, she checked her email. A a MySpace bulletin-
"HardLuck has posted a comment to your blog entry. Click here to read and respond."
She read the brief squabble he left in a rush before class, and she stared blandly, as though in disappointment.
"Sounds like a line," she thought, "I mean 'tragically poetic', how much tackier does it get?" She sighed softly. "At least someone responded."
She was a bit happy after reading it, though she had trouble convincing herself of that. She smirked a bit. She remembered the note he wrote her, and figured he was at least well intentioned.
"Dork," she thought, "If I can't know the ending, neither can you...I guess we can find it only in dreams."
It always seemed like both their stories remained without endings. Their villains never vanquished, and their lives never changed. All they'd been through (separate and together) was a chain of non-connecting links; oddly enough, each link read:
"------- has sent you a new message. Click here to read it."
_________________________________________
Chapter 3
Sector Changed from NC to IRA
LOG IRATX006 - Maps
Part 1
On the roof of a nearly torn down building, she lay, staring at the night sky; just the week before, the area around her was clouded with smoke and the smell of gunfire. Nothing more than flashing lights in the evening. And now, the silence.
She found it odd that the local children continued to laugh in play in the streets on into the night. In spite of their country being in wreckage day after day, the youth were oblivious to all the darkness in the world.
"What was it like," she asked herself, "to be that age?"
She'd grown up too quickly to remember; the harsh conditions of a war-torn world will do that. Or maybe it was that she's been hurt by too many people she loved.
Smoke and dust from nearby debris wafted up from nearby buildings. The feint moonlight hit the white veil of smoke. The clouds drifted slowly across the horizon.
She stood up, walked downstairs and entered the powder room. Her mother had been waiting for her, with her dress and veil prepped.
"Glad you got your hair finished in time sweetheart," her mother said.
"Does it look ok?" she frantically asked.
"Perfect Eve. Absolutely perfect," her mother responded. "This is your day sweetie, and you couldn't look more beautiful..."
"I'm just so nervous....what if he doesn't show?"
Her mother, full of faith as always, told her, "He'd have to be a fool not to."
She smiled, and blushed. She looked at the antique dress adoringly. It had been passed down since her great grandmother. It was an heirloom in the family, that had finally met its time for her to dance with.
She slipped the dress on, a beautiful pearly white number, that fit to her figure like a glove. The room smelled of a beautiful lavenders and magnolias, the flowers she chose to garnish the ceremony.
Her mother zipper her up in the back, and then gave her a kiss on the cheek before leaving the room. Eve was still fidgety, and nervous.
"Where's my damn phone," she suddenly scrambled around her belongings.
She called for comfort.
"----? ---- I can't do this," she began to well up. "Please..please tell you you made it alright! I need you here in case something goes...well, yeah I trust him...but what if...I know. I know. Just, hold my hand so I don't gt cold feet."
He was a good friend, and the one she knew she could count on most. He talked her back down to earth.
She walked out of the room, and down the hall out to the chapel in the courtyard. It was still empty; all the guests were congregating in the waiting area.
Her make-up was finished, and he breathing was calm. Her pulse, however was through the roof. "He's not going to come," she kept saying over and over to herself.
She walked up to the alter, and stood. Serene and still, she prayed for solace. She prayed for comfort. She prayed for him.
"Amen," a faint whisper escaped.
When she was done, she walked back out to the powder room. In just five minute's time, the guests would all shuffle into their seats in the courtyard, and her veritable prince charming would arrive to sweep her off her feet yet again.
Months had past since they last spoke. They sent out the invitations together five months before, to the day, and only week after she got the note -
"Dearest,
I won't break my promise to you. There's just something I must see to first. Be waiting there for me. Your wings will carry you, and your radiance will guide me back to you
Love,
--------"
Beyond the door, echoing through the halls and emanating from the courtyard, a gorgeous sonata was being played.
"That's my cue," she said aloud as she walked out the door.
She steps out, and the music switches. Canon in D, by Pachelbel begins to play; she had opted for a less generic song by which to walk the aisle.
She looked up at the chapel, and he wasn't there. She refrained from crying on the spot, and instead continued her march to the steps. "I knew it," she thought, "that he would break..."
As she got to the steps, she paused before facing back; just then, she glanced over at the quartet playing the music and through her voice she squeaked aloud "...our promise."
He stood up from the violinist seat and walked toward her smiling. She couldn't fight the tears anymore and ran over to him, and threw her arms around his neck embracing him tightly.
She whispered in his ear, "I almost thought I lost you."
To which, he responded, "I promised."
"Are you...ready?" she asked as she loosened her grip on him and leaned back to look him in the eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I...haven;t written my vows just yet."
A shot of panic overcomes her. In the midst of all her worries, she'd forgotten to write hers as well. Her fairytale ending was bitter-sweet at her own expense.
Her friend ---- walks up the them and taps her on the shoulder.
"Sorry to end the moment you two, but, the ceremony must go on," he says with a smile.
She looks around at all the smile-drenched-awe faces in the garden, seated and waiting, Sunday's best, surrounded by magnolia trees. It had slipped her mind that they were already at the chapel.
She giggles a bit, and smiles at her friend. "Sorry everyone," she says to the friends and family, "I got a little caught up in the moment."
She took her friends arm, as he led her back to the chapel steps. They walked the ten yards, that seemed, like miles. Everything was perfect.
She stood on the top step, looked down once more at her dress and smiled. And as she looked up to thanks ----, he wasn't there. In fact, as she looked around, she realized she was standing there alone. All eyes on her, and nobody to receive her. She starts to panic again, looking around frantically, and finally...
...snaps out of it.
"Damn," she said, the smoke still floating across the horizon before her, "I dozed off again. I should head back to the barracks."
As she sat up, she felt a tear run down her cheek. As she moved her hand to wipe it, she realized it wasn't just the one, but many tears. She had been crying in her daydream state; at that moment, the world as she knew it felt lonely...
Part 2 - 007
"Move your fucking car prick!" he heard through the cracked car window, along with honks and screeches, as vehicles all around him scuffled to squeeze five lanes worth of cars through three lanes of traffic.
"All the places to hit traffic, and I hit it in this god forsaken town," he muttered to himself.
Oblivious of the people around him, angry with each other for lord knows what, he was just trying to get home.
"Six hours into a ten and a half hour drive, and you stop me here of all places, huh? To do what? Ponder?...you've got a fucked up sense of humor." He was addressing God, assuming coincidental traffic was a punishment.
The city in question was home to one of his former lovers, and he saw fit to avoid the city at any expense. The fastest and safest route to his family's home from his own residence, however, happened to pass right through the center of the aforementioned city.
He fiddled with things in his car to occupy the time in the traffic jam. Smoke billowed off in the distance from where an accident had occurred; it was the apparent cause of the traffic-jam, and so he was patient.
He was more concerned that the people involved not be hurt, rather than he make good time on a trip.
As he shuffled around his his music to find something to play, he found a copy of a compilation-CD Eve had made for him the spring before.
"Oh wow," he said aloud, "I forgot I had this thing..."
He put it in to play. As he skipped from track to track listening to the eclectic collection of songs, he came to song number ten. He smiled, and sat himself lower into his chair.
The song that played soothed him, and he almost forgot where he was. He sung along:
"Wait...they don't love you like I love you..."
Once traffic cleared, he continued on his route home; at that moment he wished he had some way to call Eve. He missed her much more than he thought he should have.
"That's dangerous," he said too himself. "Dangerous thoughts are going to get both of you hurt if you're not careful."
"Why?" his subconscious questioned him. "Are you that afraid of falling for her again? Or is it the other way around?"
"Nobody asked you to question, ----" he responded to his subconscious.
A rather auspicious site as this might otherwise be left for a science fiction story, but no. He Genuinely conversed with himself. The numerous parts of his psyche often seemed to manifest themselves in self-sustained conversation partners; this particular one he had named Wolf.
What God did to you all to make you act so oddly from time to time, we may never understand. We are merely watchers.
The sun set to his right, and he continued his drive through the dense darkness that lay ahead. Desperate to stay awake, he replayed Eve's CD over and over.
every now and then the soft beep of his phone going in and out of service area could be heard through the pauses between songs for the next two hours.
"...I just want to know how she is," he continued his previous thoughts rather late, "is that a bad thing? So a fucking care...we both decided to stay friends."
"Fine, I wasn't questioning that," Wolf quipped. "I just want to make sure you're not in over your head because of some tacky love song."
He paused to think.
"The song's not about love. It's about promises," he said. "I intend to keep mine..."
At that moment, as track ten ended again, and the sound of his phone coming back into service chimed, his phone's e-mail warning went off.
He turned down the music, and shuffled uncomfortably to take his phone out of his pocket while driving. He looked down at the screen -
"Incoming Text Message from Sky."
"Eve?," he stated confused. He read the message -
"----, I can't do this. Please, I need you here in case something goes wrong. Just, hold my hand so I don't get cold feet. Get here please."
That caught his interest, and threw him for a loop. He sat staring at the road in front of him, his thoughts racing. "How did she send that? Where is she? Cold feet about what? Is she ok? Who's ----?"
As he looked back at the phone to re-read the message, it was gone. The screen saver read the current time, and nothing else. His inbox was empty, even his missed call logs were days old.
No sign of the message.
"Who the hell is ----?" he repeated again to himself. "She never mentioned anyone by that name before. And...what happened to the message?"
He sat quiet in thought the remainder of the trip. when he arrived, he greeted his family and shortly after sat himself in front of a computer screen. When going through his email, the only thing in his inbox was a MySpace bulletin-
"SkyGoddess has posted a new blog. Click here to read."
What he read baffled baffled him. He sat staring for minutes, until finally he left his seat, laid down on the couch and feel asleep. He muttered, "Now I know i'm going crazy..."
_________________________________________
Chapter 4
LOG IRA??008 - Just Like Heaven
Part 1
A small strand of light escaped through the clouds, glared onto his shut eyelids while the wind blew the white sands over his body. His lips did but move to breathe, though only faint voice could be heard escaping.
“E…Eve…,” was muttered.
His eyes opened wide to see the light escaping dark storm clouds above. Though it wasn’t very bright, it felt blinding to him. He’d been unconscious for almost a week’s time.
“What the hell,” he exclaimed loudly, but through the winds and the roar of nearby waves not much could be heard.
He’d been laying asleep on an empty beach, the water from the ocean dark and murky, crashing on the shore only one hundred meters from where he now sat. It seems the light was enough to wake him where we could not, however it hadn’t shone since he fell here.
“How in the hell did I get out here? And just where the fuck is here?”
He looked around frantically; up both ends of the beach, hoping to see some kind of habitat. But nothing. He stood up quickly, and climb to a nearby dune to get another perspective. Still, nothing.
The scenery, as the land was laid out, included the vast expanse of desert beach sand, the raging dark sea in one direction, and a deep distant forest in the other; all of this was dreary in a way. The trees were tall, and dark; far off in the distance (thought it stood out very apparently) lay a much larger tree, towering above the rest. The little bit of light that woke him had already escaped back into the clouds.
The shade continued on forever it seemed.
“I don’t know where I am, or how I got here but there’s got to be someone around,” he grumbled as he reached for his phone. He found that most of his belongings were missing, however his phone was still where he expected.
“Great…I get fucking mugged, left for dead…and all the leave is my phone,” he opened it up, “which has no fucking signal. Good game.”
Despite not having signal, he happened to glance at the date on the screensaver.
“Holy shit! I’ve been out for a fucking week!? How the hell did I…” his yells were drowned out by a nearby scream, one that seemed very familiar. “Eve!?…” another scream, “EVE!”
He ran toward the screams, near the torrent waters. When he arrived however, nobody was there. But there was a set of footsteps walking toward the water, and disappearing at the line the tide would come up to, left in the sand; no signs of struggle…a willing march into the ebb.
“Eve…I…did you drown?,” he asked in a whisper as he fell to his knees before the mighty ocean. A tear escaped his eyes, and though I was told not to interfere, I could sit in wake no longer.
“I feel this is where I must make my introduction…”
Even we angels have our limits.
Part 2 - 009
“Why won’t you show me how you do it Vale?,” she pleaded of him, with a resounding giggle, “just show me how you can do it so well.”
He was reading a book beneath a willow tree on an outstretched blanket; she was sitting next to him, holding his arm, and suggestively nudging him.
“Do what so well my dear?,” he looked over at her with a sarcastic glimmer in his eye. “Make you…scream?”
“And make me laugh. How you make me melt,” she said softly into his ear. She slid her arms around his neck, pushed aside his book, and pressed her forehead to his so they faced one another. “Show me how you do it and…”
“…and what,” he asked.
“…I promise to run away with you,” she whispered.
He kissed her, grabbed her by the wrist, and in one movement swung her down onto the blanket; he leaned over her, his glasses flung off to the side, the book tossed even further. Her eyes were wide, and her breathing heavy. He breathes were deep and violent.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said to her, staring her straight in the eyes, as he leaned down to kiss her neck. He pinned both her wrists down with each of his hands.
“I promise. I’ll run away with you,” she closed her eyes and said in a suggestive tone.
“I’ll hold you to that…If you must know,” he explained, “the trick is nothing more than what lies inside of me dear.” She looked at him perplexed. “A beast…that can not be tamed.”
She paused for a moment, and then began to chuckle. His expression however did not change in humor, but rather became more serious; his eyes now took on a sinister glare. When she realized this, she began to worry…and shuffled up from beneath him.
He picked up his glasses, and put them back on; his eyes locked off into space toward the forest. She stared at him, now fettered by his sudden change.
“Vale…Vale you’re scaring me,” she said. “Vale what’s gotten into you?”
A snarl came from his mouth, and his eyes grew intense into the distance over her shoulders. She shuddered a bit. Just then, a very close loud howl came from behind her. She let out a small squeak of fear, and her eyes began to well with tears of fear.
As she turned to see what it was, He reached past her very quickly, grabbing a large black wolf by the neck, and quickly slamming him up against the tree pinned. Still with his right arm outstretched. It was very apparent that the wolf was not yet dead, but getting there.
He turned over his left shoulder, fixed his glasses with his left hand, and looked her in the eyes. She could see blood of the wolf ,splattered from the impact to the tree, on his face.
He told her, “the trick is…I never let you see me at my worst. But I fear it’s become too late. The beast is…aware Ver…”
She jolted up from her bed, dripping sweat.
“Another freakin nightmare,” she thought to herself, “and again with Vale. I swear, I don’t hear from him in a month, and I start having the craziest dreams…nightmares about him.”
He’d been out of touch, as we previously explained. The dreams kept worsening, and her state of delirium was enough for the army to have to remove her from full active-duty; she was on temporary-on-site leave, and under supervision of medics in the mean time.
“PTS syndrome, or whatev, my ass, I just need to stop thinking about that asshole,” she said out loud. “He could at least call me and give me some freakin…something, geez.”
She sat and thought about the dreams, as she’d grown accustomed to doing. Even though she hated the nightmares, she still worried they might represent a bigger problem, so she evaluated all of them just the same.
The men, the trees, the wolf. They all had to mean something bigger; they couldn’t just be objects or scenery. The actions, the places, the time and events: all of these had to be something bigger. To be honest, she’s always been this way. Even when all she was doing was watering their life source, she thought about everything she saw.
Part 3 - 010
His head shot up and swung around behind him. A tall figure clad in a full set of white and gold plated armor, and helmet in his right arm. A glow about him seemed to illuminate the otherwise dismal atmosphere.
“…I apologize for not doing it sooner Vale, but you see, we’re not exactly aloud to up here,” said the figure. “My name is Adam.”
The thoughts shooting through Vale’s head escalated exponentially. Eve, the message, his dreams, and now…
“…yes, that’s who she was referring to,” said Adam. “You have a rather persistent memory for someone in Midgard. Those memories, those figments and fragments, even those little flashes were supposed to have been erased.”
“Erased?” asked Vale.
“Yes, exactly as it sounds,” replied Adam. “They are system glitches, in a sense, and we’re supposed to clean them up so you couldn’t find each other again. But once you did, despite our attempts…I saw how much you suffered to get the…”
Before Adam could finish, Vale swung around quickly, standing to his feet and jolting at Adam, and with one outstretched arm held Adam in the air. A lust for blood sat in his Vale’s eyes now. Adam had no choice.
From a sheath-less hilt at his side, a sword materialized into Adam’s hand, which he swung in the same motion he drew it with. The swing sent out force that sent vale flying ten or so yards, releasing his grip on Adam.
While Vale picked himself up in a daze, he looked over at Adam, floating where he’d been before, choking and gasping for breath, and dripping spit. What amazed Vale more was not the brightly glowing sword now in Adam’s hand, but the slight transparent outline of wings keeping him aloft. Adam had made his point, and Vale now had fear in his heart.
“Who…what….what are you?,” Vale squeezed out, as he shuffled back to his feet. He took a defensive posture, worried for an attack. “Where are we? And what have you done with Eve? You know where she is don’t you!?”
Adam had now collected himself. He set himself back onto the ground, and began slowly walking toward Vale. He placed the materialized blade into the empty sheath, and it seemed to disappear as it went in.
“I guess the first one’s pretty obvious,” Adam said with a smirk, “I’m your valkyrie; your guardian angel. And this? Well, we call it Asgard…”
“Bullshit,” said Vale. “Bullshit!”
“Don’t you wish? At any rate, as for the last question,” Adam continued, “I didn’t do anything with the one you call Eve. Someone higher up is responsible for that…and she’s fine. She’s where she’s been since you got here…fighting your human wars. Noble as she’s always been.”
For some reason, all of this was making a weird kind of sense. Like he’d seen this all before; like he knew what Adam was saying was true. This scared him, but he didn’t question it; he wanted answers, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard the name Asgard before. Instead he turned back toward the ocean, and began to walk.
“And now where are you going?,” asked Adam.
“To find my way back,” Vale chimed.
“Back,” responded Adam. “Your way back from death? That’s not an easy task to accomplish.”
Vale stopped cold in his tracks. He suddenly remembered where he had heard the term before. “Asgard…,” he muttered, “is Heaven. And so…,” He turned around slowly to face the vast dark forest, and looked far at the tallest of the trees, “…that’s…the Tree of Life…”
“Its name is Yggdrasil, and you would be wise to address it as such,” said Adam, “after all, it’s the fabric that keeps life going on your realm Vili.”
“Why? Why am I here,” Vale begged.
“Don’t sound so desperate. It doesn’t look good on you Vili,” Adam snapped. “And the reason you’re here is the same as anyone: you died.”
Vale was at a loss for thought, and barely whimpered, “how?”
“Well, I can’t say for sure that it’s a normal death by any means. It was voluntary, though, not suicide. If that were the case, you’d be bound for the boats in Niflheim…your death was actually very inter…”
“HOW!?,” Vale now demanded.
“You really don’t remember do you?,” Vale sighed. “You died for her to live…I swear, you remember everything I try to erase, but the past week I didn’t even bother with, you can’t remember a moment. Guess I have no choice…”
Adam put his hand onto Vales chest, and began reciting an indecipherable hymn. Through the sound of the melody, Vale fell asleep and entered a shared dream state.
Part 4 - 011
Eve’s Dream:
You were in the middle of the water, a radiance emitting from your body. I always dreamed of the ways I could make you glow like that. In ways that only I could see. I always hated heights, but I’d walk out to the cliff’s edge just to see you.
My legs would tremble in fear, and I would often lose my balance, but I would wait there for you. Watching you dance on the ocean’s surface. Twisting around and around, making patterns with your footsteps. You were the wind, softly blowing, shuffling the waves around. And when you were through, you come sit next to me, and I’d kiss you on the forehead.
Then when you left, I stared at the ocean again, and I could hear you from the other side. You asked me to come, but I was bound to this land, and the sea was unforgiving of me.
“Why are you so far away? I should have told you before I left. Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you?” I could hear your voice carry your questions to me. The breeze brought it to me gently every night, in absence of when you would dance.
So I tried. I tried to go to you, but I knew I was bound. And the ocean that separated us told me it would take you from me forever if I didn’t offer myself in return. He said It wouldn’t hurt, and I wouldn’t even remember you when he was done. He said he’d drown my memories of you deep inside me, where nothing could unearth them.
The only girl I loved. I die for you, so please keep dancing. And please keep shining so bright, so that I can find my way back to you.
_________________________________________
Chapter 5
LOG IRA??012 - Sirens
Part 1
Vale awoke, panting and soaked, his body suspended above the calm ocean floating like a fallen leaf.
"Was that her..."
"Dream?," Adam responded, hovering above the water off to Vale's side. "Of course. You couldn't have thought I'd only come prepared with one trick."
"But why does it feel like I should...remember all that for some reason?" Vale asked, distress in his voice.
It was apparent that he'd not yet realized they were atop the water. He sat up, and stared at his own reflection in the black pool between his legs. His mind and heart racing, trying to grab at memories long since locked out.
The sky had grown dark, as the Asgard eve set in while he was asleep. It was hard to see anything, and the air lay still.
"Was it here?" Vale asked in a whisper.
"No. It wasn't in this location per-se," Adam responded, and began moving inward toward the coast, "but, it was in Asgard yes."
"Then where? And who were those people she was dreaming about?"
Adam paused a moment, looked back at Vale and snipped, "you're very naive..."
Of course by now Vale had already presumed it was himself, but didn't want to accept that truth. Adam continued moving forward.
"...While you still can," Adam shouted at Vale without turning to face him, "you should really get back to the shore."
Vale jumped to his feet, only now realizing the dim reflections were from water. Leaning over just enough to look down at his feet, he began to ponder how and why he could stand on the water. As he did this, he realized that he could see his reflection more and more clearly. The area was getting brighter with an eerie red glow.
The clouds quickly opened to reveal the true for of the sky, and the source of the odd light. Vale saw his full reflection in the ocean, and beyond his mirror image, a sky set ablaze. In a panic, he slipped and fell back down landing on his back now facing the flames head on.
"What is that?" He hollered.
"It's the Midgard...your earthen world," Adam answered.
"Well, why the fuck is it on fire?" Vale said, still staring at the spectacle.
"In our world, which is set to watch over the mortal realm, Midgard is manifest in a number of visible ways," Vale continued from the safety of the shore. "In this case, the Midgard evening sky represents the hatred in the world evenly and openly. Every soul's hatred burns like a small candle, and the end result during warring state is a bevy of flames, forming a night fire..."
Vale was trapped, staring at the sky. He knew not what to make of the situation...but the sight had entranced him. He lay still, eyes wide.
"...the clouds rarely spread; only when a strong enough emotion pushes a new light past them. In this case, the moment before our daybreak shows the strongest points each day where hatred seethes in," Vale kept on, however pausing for a moment before stating, "speaking of which, you might want to get off the water. The oceans lose stability once evening dies out."
A loud rumble, similar to the mix of shattering glass and waves breaking started approaching from the vast ocean expanse behind Vale. Flustered and worried, he got to his feet and began running toward the shore. He looked over his shoulder to see a large placid wave rising from the seas, breaking the stillness of the waters as though they were frozen. The wave advanced quickly, and Vale ran faster but not quite enough.
The wave drew him up, and tossed him ashore before crashing down and returning the ocean to its previous norm state. He landed on his back in a dune of sand near Adam's feet, cold and drenched from head to toe. Adam set on one of many stones in the area, lining the sand before the flora began to stretch into the forest.
The area grew brighter, and the gray skies returned to replace the black.
"Our equivalent to sunrise, I suppose," Adam said.
A soft breeze blew by, and still quiet filled the air for a minute. Vale caught his breath, but wouldn't have long.
A sharp shrill siren filled the air, screaming through echoes off the rocks in the area, shot through the air like gunfire and continued to sound. Vale jumped in panic, and it even appeared to startle Adam a bit.
"What the hell is..." Vale screamed as he looked for the ringing, "...that."
Vale grabbed his phone off a nearby rock, and pushed the silence button. Still in continued to vibrate from the incoming call.
"You must have dropped it in our quarrel yesterday," Adam chuckled. "You should probably answer it."
He stared at the words on the screen. His phone routed messages to his account from his email, and other websites; his screen read:
"SkyGoddess has sent you a new message. Click [Open] to read it."
"I thought I couldn't get reception out here," Vale said aloud.
Adam stood up, and walked over, "you shouldn't. There's no tangible connection between Asgard and Midgard...at least none that any human technology could bridge."
Vale opened the message in the phone, and read it aloud:
"There's a message at the river, I need you to meet me there. I
have a package I need you to take for me. Once day breaks, in
the darkness of the night I will be there. You know I will...
-Eve"
"River?" Vale whispered confused.
"I know they have rivers in Midgard," Adam said. "They're just as easy to locate in Asgard. The message is probably referring to the one nearby."
Adam began to walk toward the vast forest. Vale stood still staring at the phone, weary of the message.
"There's a cabin nearby, beside the riverbed," Adam added. "Odds are, whoever sent you that message has housed themselves in the abandoned building. We're going to have to follow the river inward at some point no matter what in order to get to the gates. Might as well take a small detour. We should arrive just before dusk."
Vale looked up, paused for a moment. After he gathered himself, he began to follow Adam.
Part 2 - 013
Talking and commotion fill the office. The wind howls through a broken glass windows, and decrepit walls.
She wakes up from a daydream at her desk, one of her superiors barking orders at her. She hadn't realized he was there.
"...is that understood soldier? By 2200 tonight!," he yelled as he pointed at a stack of papers.
She was getting sick of it; being the lackey. A mutt for military control, doing her own duties along with the work that her superiors were too lazy to finish. She hadn't been there a day, visiting the rest of echo company in their new location and she was already knee deep in assignment.
"Yes sir, understood!" she saluted.
After he dismissed himself, she meandered slowly toward the nearby broken window. It was one of the few actually broken in the building; the area had seen much battle, but despite that this building remain oddly near untouched. A single gunshot escaped into the innards through this window at some point.
She moved her finger along the cracks in the glass, tracing it back to the bullet hole.
"I hate this fucking place," she muttered.
"But I have to be here for their sake," she thought to herself quietly.
Her attention shifted to the city below. From the height she was at in the skyscraper, she could see the entire town, and the barricades on the outskirts.
Large concrete and stone barriers and walls, set up to keep enemy forces from intruding. The area hadn't seen fighting since after echo company first arrived. she hadn't been there for most of it, but she was there for the calm after...and this small calm in the eye of it all.
A siren screamed through the air, and whistles to take cover shot past her ear. She moved away from the window fast, and got to the ground behind a chair. This was no test, but nobody else seemed all too fazed.
The sirens grew louder, as helicopters whizzed by the windows, knocking in the glass from the broken window with a gust as they passed. Explosions outside send smoke into the air, and shake the foundations. Soldiers from both sides exit choppers into the buildings from roofs nearby.
More aircrafts are coming by, as the city is bombarded from outside the walls by enemy footmen. She hears a stampede of footsteps from the stairwell nearby, and reaches for her 9mm at her side, but insurgent forces storm the office.
Panic no fills most of the previously calm people in the office. Now people are being led by gun barrel and force into a corner, herded like cattle.
She notices that the arms cage has remained shut and locked this whole time. She looks over at it, and readies herself to dart, but before she can a soldier comes up behind her and grabs her by the hair. He drags her along the ground, kicking, screaming and flailing. Her screams are downed out by the raging battle outside, bullets and explosions creating a symphony of horror.
Her arms and legs burn from struggling against the carpet, and the soldier turns and slaps her before throwing her into a corner near the rest of the people. Another comes by and aims a machine gun at her face, while the first one whispers into his ear.
The first grabs her hair again and rips her jacket off, while the second grabs her by the feet, and tears her legs apart tearing one of her pants legs, gesturing crudely to other insurgents. Another of them, clearly higher rank, looks over. This commander walks to her, moves close to her legs and runs his hand up the inside of her leg.
"FUCK YOU! get the fuck away from me!" she yells as tears fill her eyes.
He looks up, and grins with a sick desperation in his eyes, his teeth and smile disgusting to the eye. He leans in further, and she spits in his face, struggles out of the grip of the one at her feet enough to kick the commander in the head more than once.
He stands up, slams his foot down on her leg snapping her ankle with his foot and screams: "!یک مثال ازاوبسازید" (Make an example of her!)
The men cheer, and they begin to drag her by the hair and legs into one of the rooms in the office nearby. She grabs at her comrades nearby for help, but they are all filled with fear and panic. The pull their limbs back from her grasp, and huddle close into the corner.
Bang.
One shot flies in from the broken window, and tears the head off of the insurgent holding her hair. A sniper across from the other roof opened fire slowly, and a yelling from portable radios could be hear "stay down, stay down we're opening cover fire."
All in a brief moment, blood surges from his neck, and spews across the room covering everything in five meters. His body drops quickly to her left side, and when she realizes this she reaches for her nine, which they never removed. She shoots the one at her legs, and on her unbroken ankle hobbles toward her comrades that hadn't helped her before.
She turns away from them, placing herself between the remaining soldiers and echo company.
As she prepare to open fire, scared and shaking, she awakens.
Her eyes dart around the room, tendrils of sweat and tear drip from her face, and she screams, "SHIT! not again!"
It all felt real to her. Her dreams carried her around, toying with her head more and more. She could smell things in the office, and still felt the rug burns and pain in her ankle from the struggle.
"It felt so real," she whispered to herself, trying hard not to cry more.
She caught her breath sitting up, pulled her knees into her chest and sat quietly for a few minutes. Then, she opened her computer and got online.
"What the hell?" she said as she saw that her MySpace account had sent a message she's never seen. "I sent a message to HardLuck? I'd better call Vale and find out what this is all about."
Part 3 - 014
As they ventured into the forest of Asgard, they remained fairly quiet. The were sounds of wildlife, but nothing could be seen moving.
"What with this forest anyway?" Vale asked.
"Fauna hasn't visited lately," Adam replied contently.
"Fauna," Vale questioned curiously, "like animals and stuff?"
Adam smirked, "I suppose that's how humans refer to it. I was referring to the goddess Fauna. She's been ascertained much like the rest of them."
Confused as ever, Vale continued to piece together what was going on. He was having trouble coming to terms with the situation as it had played out, but he thought he was getting some lucidity on it all.
"She's...a goddess isn't she?" He asked.
Adam stopped walking, and looked over his shoulder, "You mean Fauna? Or..."
"Eve," Vale forced. "Eve is a goddess, and she's in trouble...just like this Fauna chick. Something more is going on here that you're not telling me and I want answers!"
"Yes," Adam said, "at one time she was a goddess. But I can't tell you any more than that which I have been ordered."
A distant rumble, muffled by the trees a shook the air. The skies started to dim slowly.
"We're almost there," Adam said. "We should press on until we arrive at the hovel. That sound is that of the seas calming again. Being caught in the forest at night isn't exactly pleasant anymore."
Even though Vale was still concerned, he agreed to continue onward. He nodded at Vale, and they hastened their movement forward. As they moved, the sounds of crickets got louder, in front of them. Behind them, distant howls resounded through the branches while all else was quiet save for their panting and footsteps.
As the forest broke, a faint glow could be seen from ahead. The cricket sound wavered and hung softly in the air, like a distant orchestra. The glow was supplied by fireflies glowing green and light blue. The cabin was dark, and unlit, and the river nearby was not very wide.
What Vale found odd was that the river water was also completely still at night, but the reflections from the fireflies wear different colors or reds and faint pink-violets. He almost forgot his worries for a moment, as he gazed over the beautiful sight.
Adam went around to the front of the small building, facing the river's edge.
Vale went around to the back, and knocked on the door he found. He jiggled the knob, but it was locked so he continued to try to get the attention of anyone inside.
"Hello? Anybody there?," he shouted. "We're looking for someone, and we were wondering if you could let us in and help us find them."
"Be careful what you ask for..." a faint whisper whipped through the air and met his ears.
Vale jumped back from the door and stared. Adam came back around from the opposite side, and told him, "It's abandoned. I told you already. We just need to find a way in."
Adam could see that Vale hadn't heard the whisper, so he ignored it. Both their eyes met a window nearby, slightly open and unlocked. Without exchanging a word, they both moved in toward the window.
Adam held it open while Vale slipped through. His feet landed inside to be greeted by a sand covered floor. The room was dark, and nothing could be seen. While Adam got himself in, Vale began to wander around the pitch black room leaving footprints in the sand below him.
"This place is bigger than it looks from the outside," he said.
Now inside, Adam cupped his hands and began speaking in the same indecipherable language as before. A quick flash came from within the cup his hands made, and illuminated the room for a short time. It was large and mostly empty with the exception of some oddly expensive furniture and decorations.
Vale was standing near the entrance of a hallway, and as the light extended slowly into the hall, voices could be heard from coming from various rooms mixed with the familiar sound of waves crashing down. As the light dimmed and dismissed itself, so did the voices.
"Why are you standing so still Vili," Adam asked as he moved closer, "trying to frighten off a crow perhaps?" He smirked.
"Didn't you hear that talking?" Vale questioned him. "It was coming from the rooms down this hall."
Adam looked at him puzzled. "I didn't hear anything, but we should be very careful of this place. if you're hearing things. There might be a dreamer present."
Vale was confused, but before he could question Vale further, he saw a hint of light escaping from under a door at the end of the hall. It flickered around like candlelight, and so Vale thought someone might have lit it.
"Come on!" he shouted, and dashed for the door.
"Wait," Adam shouted back, "don't wake the..." Vale knocked open the door, and rushed inside "..dreamer."
Vale was gazing into the room, a pale moonlight coming in through the window, and a tall candle burning near a bed to the left. He was entranced by the moon, because it had been completely cloudy when they entered the cabin only minutes before.
The sound of whimpering broke his focus, and he turned to the bed to notice a girl laying there asleep. She was huddled with her knees in her chest, covered with blankets on the bare bed frame and mattress. A large mirror was suspended on the ceiling above her bed, but he hadn't looked into it.
Adam nudged Vale out of the way, and came into the room.
"Just as I thought, it was her the whole time," Adam proclaimed.
Vale walked carefully toward the bed, and to his amazement he saw a beautiful girl that bore a striking resemblance to...
"Eve!" he shouted, as he ran to the opposite side of the bed and knelt down.
"Not quite," Adam stopped him. "That's not 'Eve', it's her sister."
"Sister?"
"Yes. Her name is Skuld...she goes by Scarlet in her current incarnation."
"But she doesn't have any sisters."
"Not since she left," Adam explained. "But when you both were occupants of Asgard, she had two sisters. That's not important right now, but what is is to not wake her."
Vale's mind was racing again, but he struggled to ignore his confusions and ask, "What happens if we wake her?"
"Well," Adam tried to explain, "she's in a dream state, the area around this cabin including this room are being governed by that dream. And by the looks of it, she's having a nightmare..."
They both looked over, noticing her face veiled in sorrow. She was breathing heavily, and sweating while her hands were clenched tight.
"...waking her suddenly from that could result in utterly chaotic escape of the dream's manifestations."
"So what can we do?" Vale worriedly asked.
"Remember what I did for you at the beach..." Adam hinted, and looked up at Vale, and saw him nod, "...we could try a different form of that. If we can talk to her, then maybe we could convince her to wake up."
Adam walked over to Scarlet's bedside, place his hand on her chest. And close his eyes.
"If we do this, I can't go," Adam said sternly. "I can only send two individuals into the same dream realm at once. That means you have to wake her yourself Vili. can you handle that?"
Vale gulped down his fear, and answered, "Yeah. I can do it."
"Good. I need you to do something...did you see the mirror when we entered? I need you to look in it," Adam said.
As Vale turned his head upward, Adam outstretched his other arms and impacted Vale's chest. He started the hymn again, and once again, he blacked out.
Part 4 - 015
Scarlet's Dream State:
He was sitting in a dark room, with a bright pillar of light on him and nothing else. A large metal table was in front of him, and the metal chair he sat in was too heavy for him to push away from the table.
A loud female voice came resounded, and began to ask him questions.
"Who are you, and why are you here?" the voice said.
"My name is Vale, and I came looking for...umm," he paused trying to remember her name. "...Scarlet."
"What business could you have with her?"
"I'm trying to find someone very important to me, and...someone told me that Scarlet is her sister. I wanted to know if she knew anything."
The room grew quiet for a minute. After a bit, a bright light came into the room from what seemed like an opened doorway. A silhouette centered itself in the doorway, and began walking into the room toward the table. The sound of footsteps made by high heels echoed through the room.
The silhouette sat down in a chair across the table from Vale, still shadowed in the darkness. She let out a quick condescending giggle, and said, "You must be scared of me...I can hear you breathing from here."
"I could hear you breathing heavily in your sleep before I came here," Vale snipped.
Another bright pillar of light clicked on over her. There sat a seductively dressed semblance of eve, with blood red hair and extravagant body artwork. "So you know who I am then?"
"Yeah," he said. "You're sleeping right now. A dream state, or something like that."
He paused a moment, gave her a twice over, and then continued, "You look a lot like her you know?"
"I don't even know who you're talking about kid," she responded condescendingly. She pulled out a cigarette, snapped her fingers to create a small flame in the palm if her hand and lit it; then she snapped her hand out to put out the flame.
"Eve, your sister," he added.
"I don't know anyone named Eve, so you've got the wrong..."
"...Adam calls her Verdandi," He interrupted. She got quiet and still. Her eyes locked onto his, and smoked drifted out of the corner of her lips.
After a short amount of time she continued, "Like I said kid, you've got the wrong person. Tell that wash out Adam it's not my business anymore."
He shouted, "Just wake up and help us! She's in trouble, and we need your..."
She slammed her hand on the table, and stopped him, "I get it, they're all in deep shit! I can't help the state of things right now. Neither can you or him, and nothing you can do to help Verdandi will solve anything either."
With one hand, she threw aside the large metal table that he couldn't even budge, left her seat walked over to him. She stood above him, looking down on him, "Besides, don't you think if I could have woken up from this nightmare, I would have already? I can't even speak my mind anymore! The sound of my own heartbeat shakes the walls of this infernal prison!"
He stood up, looked at her, and started walking away into the darkness.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going kid?" she yelled at him.
"You know, at first I thought you looked a lot like her," he said as he turned around to face her again. "But I saw it in your eyes...you're nothing like her. I used to love to watch her sleep, and think about her all the time. But you won't even lift a finger for your own sister...and I feel all the pain for my first love. How could you let that go?"
He turned again, and kept walking.
"Wait," she yelled. He stopped. She asked, "Did you really come from Midgard just to save her?"
"I didn't even mean to. I just kind of appeared here," he said.
"You're all kinds of stupid," she giggled. "Fine, I'll help you. But if I'm going to get out of this nightmare, I'm going to need your help."
_________________________________________
Chapter 6
LOG NC??016 - Viva La Vida
Part 1
Scarlet's Dream State:
"Fine," Vale agreed blindly, "what do you need me to do?"
He started walking toward Scarlet, nervous at first. She held her hand out to the side. A long black glove...
_________________________________________
Chapter 7
LOG ####
Part 1
Coming Soon!
_________________________________________
That's all I've got for now. I've been writing these for a while now, and I just now decided to post them. It's only supposed to be short story of mine, but it's very emotional. There tends to be a lot of mention of Norse Mythology in this one. I tend to find that when I find one topic that appeals to me, I use it as a general background theme. [Edit] Music (which always inspires me) is also a big driving background theme for each chapter.
Anyway, this is my newest story. Good times. I'll see you all later.
[UPDATE - 12/18/07]
Chapter 4 (Just Like Heaven) has been added. Things took a turn, just like I said they would. Names of the characters are finally coming tome, and being reveled accordingly. You'll find out soon that some of the characters actually have more than one name, and with good reason. Anyway, enjoy!
[UPDATE - 2/22/08]
Chapter 5 (Sirens) now added. It took a while, I know. I kinda lost contact with my co-author on this one. It's up now, so enjoy. New character added too! yay!
[UPDATE - 7/27/08]
Chapter 6 (Viva la Vida) in progress...
- David