Dream Sequence (Second Chapter 7/30)
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 11:25 pm
I personally hate crossovers, but when this idea popped into my head, I realized that I wanted to write a series pertaining to this. This first chapter will hopefully be the shortest of them all, as I sort of wanted to push through explanations and establish some early play development to get you guys into the story quickly. The pacing may seem a bit off as of right now, but it will improve with the upcoming chapters. I'd like some light criticism (just don't bother mentioning pacing, as I already know about it), just to see how much people enjoy / dislike this idea. Enjoy my first real series: Dream Sequence.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Trigger (this post)
Chapter Two: Ancestry
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapters will get longer as the story progresses. This chapter is simply to establish some plot and background of the story.
Chapter One: Trigger
I still can't figure out the pattern of my dreams. Maybe I should begin calling them nightmares? Always something new, right after I pass out from my narcolepsy. What the hell does it even mean? This place is old. I wouldn't say to the point where things are still being made with wood, but rather everything made with stone and has gorgeous architecture. But that's really the only good that comes out of them. I witness killings every time I close my eyes. I'm always literally at the location as well. It's not birds eye view or anything, I'm literally standing at the location. How can I tell? I can only move my eyes around, and everytime I look down I can see my body. I'm always frozen in place, and the criminal or victim never see me. It's as if I'm a ghost to them, a non-existant fixture in their world.
Frustration hit after the fifth consecutive nightmare. I can't escape the world, always seeing some hooded woman - who I assume is the same person every single time - walk forward with blade in hand, executing someone who appears innocent to me. I can hear the conversation between killer and victim every single time, yet I cannot understand a word they're saying. They both always speak a few words in foreign tongue before the victim is brutally killed, the methods ranging from a simply stab to the chest, all the way to being hung from a balcony. It always makes me feel like I should scream, like I should just wake up and get away from the horrors of someone getting killed; the trouble is, it doesn't work like that.
The nightmare this time is no different than the rest. I stand out on the small balcony of a home resting in this unknown city, staring past an open pair of french doors. I can see the entire scene unfold; the hooded woman climbs down silently off of the roof of the home and slings herself through the doorway. The target or victim - I have no idea what to call the other person, to be quite honest - is enjoying a nice glass of what appears to be some sort of alcoholic beverage, looking out a window of the expensive interior into the streets below. The killer walks up behind the man and grabs him by the back of the shirt, lifting him from his seat and throwing him into the ground with minimal effort.
The expression of the victim is one of horror. His eyes have gone wide and his mouth is open, repeating and stuttering out gibberish that I can't understand. Within mere seconds, with the killer having her back turned to me, a small blade pops out of a metal wristband and is driven through the mans skull, leaving him to bleed out in a mess of his own fluids. The man screams and struggles as his eyes look to nearly pop out of his skull, his muscles and joints slowly starting to lose their strength. The woman simply crouches down and puts a finger to his lips, silencing the man and almost seemingly calming his nerves. The shouts subside and the man passes on relatively silently, with only a few moments of painful suffering. The cloaked killer finishes the mission - I guess you could call it that? - with her signature; a simple kiss to the forehead of her victim. She turns and runs off after muttering a few words, straight through my plastered body, into the winding depths of the streets below.
---
Okay, now I'm panicking. The nightmare has ended, yet I'm in an unknown place. This is not my bed, hell, this isn't even my room. I'm in a room that has a single bed and nightstand, the area being very small in size. It's nothing like a Yamaku dorm room. It's got an eerie feel to it, a feeling that is making me overly uncomfortable. I scream out of fear and confusion, obviously drawing the attention of someone from outside of the room. The door slides open, and a dark figure swiftly enters the room, waiting a brief moment before turning on the lights. To my surprise, I see that the person is...
Miki?!
She gives me a tired smile, a slight look of concern and surprise taking over her expression.
"Good morning, sunshine. Sleep good?" She flashes me her signature pearly grin, but something feels different about it. It doesn't look as playful as normal; it actually looks quite serious, a bit more concerned.
"Miki, where the hell am I?" She shuffles around in an uncomfortable fashion, coming over and sitting down on the edge of my bed, patting her hand to indicate that I should join her. I roll over and sit beside her, resting my head on her shoulder. I'm still completely lost and scared as to what the hell is going on.
"This is going to take a little to explain, Suzu. Save your questions for the end, okay?"
"Okay..." I feel awfully distant right now, like I've been kept in the dark on some massive secret. I have so many questions swirling around in my head, and I'm going to make sure that they all get answered by the time I get out of this room.
"I'll start with a question for you: do you really know what triggers your narcoleptic attacks, Suzu?" What a strange question considering the confusing situation that I'm in right now. I honestly don't know what's going on with my narcolepsy; it's always just been told to me that the cause of my attacks are unknown, most likely just random patterns or noises in my daily life. I'm interested in what she's got to say, because she obviously knows more about it than I do.
"The doctors have always just told me random patterns cause it, and that it's unknown what the specifics of my problem is. Are you telling me that they're wrong?" She nods gently up and down, her eyes closed as she goes through the motion. When she opens her eyes, I can see fury chiseled into it. What does she know? It's killing me to understand what the hell she's talking about at this point.
"You don't even know. Do you want me to tell you straight what's going on?" I nod my head, my hands now shaking out of concern. I close my eyes tightly as she continues to talk. "Alright. It's going to take me a while, but here goes nothing."
"You were dropped off at an orphanage as an infant, as your parents were facing supression from an outside force. The people who adopted you from the orphanage that you were at... well, for now, we'll just call them extremely bad people. I'll explain who they truly are later. When they recieved custody of you, you were immediately taken to the headquarters for these evil bastards." Her left hand forms a face, and it's obvious she's holding back tears as she speaks to me. I continue to listen, a knot slowly beginning to form in my throat.
"Let me get something out of the way first before going any further: You're going to think I'm absolutely insane." Well, at least she's upfront about it. How she knows specifics of my past is already beginning to creep me out a bit, but not entirely. "Can you promise me you'll hear me out before coming to your own conclusions?" I move my head up and down slowly. I can't make the promise, but I'll make sure I hide my opinions well if need be.
"Okay then. These people, your 'parents', hid you from the world because of what happened at the headquarters. These people are known as Templars, and they are basically out to take over the world and to have full control of everything. Your adoptive parents were a part of this group, and they need you for their causes. This is why you're here right now; I am your peer protector. We are both descendants of a group of people... a society of Assassins."
I stand up from the bed, my fists clenched at my sides. I can't take this anymore. I feel like just destroying something. Templars? Assassins? I don't kill people, and Miki doesn't either! I start pacing back in forth, the knot in my throat continuing to grow and tighten. Eventually, I break down.
"Miki, what the fuck are you talking about! We don't kill people, hell, we don't fight evil! We're students! We're just two kids with disab-"
"Suzu."
Her voice cuts me off, causing my rant to end abruptly. She's standing now, walking towards me with slow and gentle steps. It's as if she's afraid of scaring me off, as if I have an option to run away from this twisted apparent past of mine. I clearly don't. She stands before me, placing her hand on my shoulder.
"Listen to me. You see this?" She raises her wrapped stump, holding it in between our voices. "This is from my years of running. They've attempted to capture me, they've tried to turn me into a copy of you." She pauses for a moment, collecting herself. "They put a microchip in your brain that triggers your narcolepsy. There, I said it. Your problem is not natural in the slightest, it's handled by this trigger." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out an electronic device no larger than a cell phone in size. A simple number pad with a large green button at the bottom.
I stare in disbelief. Microchip? I start to pull at my hair, attempting to rip the scalp off my head. I don't want this anymore!
"Get it out of my head, Miki! Get it out, get it out, get it out!" I'm screaming, flailing, pulling, everything possible I can do in this time of desperation. I don't want to be some experiment, I didn't even give consent to do what they're doing to me! I feel a stream of blood trickle down from my head, obviously a laceration from my panic attack. Miki scrambles forward and wraps me in a massive hug, slowly stroking my hair as I continue to panic. I beat and scratch her back in an effort to gain release from her grasp, before I finally give up and allow my hands to fall to my sides. Tears stain my cheeks. I'm just a puppet for people who are fighting over power. That's all I am, and all I ever will be.
"Suzu, please. This is hard enough as it is. Please, just hear me out."
"I don't want to!"
"You don't have much of a choice, my friend. It's not my decision, it's not even yours. You just need to follow my instructions, and I promise everything will be okay." Her words, regardless of the venom I have in my heart towards her right now, are actually somewhat reassuring.
I turn around an walk over to the opposite corner of the room, my back sliding down the wall as I bump into the ground. I hug my knees tightly, my eyes wide with a negative emotion. Could it be fear, maybe even anger? I've known Miki for a long time now, and learning all of these awful things about myself from her is something I'm struggling to believe. For whatever reason though, I believe her. I believe what she's saying, simply because I know she wouldn't pull some ignorant and far-fetched trick on me like this as a joke. After what feels like an hour of what feels like blank thoughts, I finally have come to the point where I've sorted out the information that has been thrust onto me.
"Continue, please." I have no choice. I wouldn't be here right now if I did. I wouldn't have these nightmares, hell, I wouldn't even have narcolepsy. I want revenge. I want to rid the world of these people, even though I can't really even trust that I'll be fighting for the 'good guys'. Maybe there truly is no good side to this battle, fight, war - whatever the hell you want to call it. I'll make sure it ends in my favor though, even if it's the last thing that I do in my life. I want to remove these heartless fiends from this planet for what they've done to me. I can't live with these nightmares and the risk of dying at any moment from just randomly passing out by the will of one person. My change of heart may seem abrupt, but my brain has gone through a process of eliminating options. Running away is not one of them. Fighting my way out is not one of them. With no control over the situation, I truly have no options. Miki shuffles forward and gives me a light hug, one that comforts me more than anything else could in this situation.
"Are you sure you want to hear the rest tonight? We could always just wai-"
"I need to hear it now."
She stands back, rotating her shoulder and causing it to crack in the process. She quickly loosens her neck, then finally decides to continue speaking.
"Alright, if you insist." She sighs heavily. It's almost as if I have to convince her to tell me now. "When you were an infant and adopted by the Templars from the orphanage, they took you to the headquarters in Tokyo. From there, they performed a surgery to implant a microchip onto the stem of your brain. This device," she pulls out the electronic controller once again, waving it slightly through the air, "is what they made to control it. For a slight while as an infant, they ran tests on you, before realizing you would need to grow older before much of any information would be revealed to them. Your infant mind was not developed enough; they only got vivid imagery and extremely general details of your ancestors from your dreams."
"When you approached about a year old, you were taken from your home. Your Templar keepers were eliminated by a group of us, who are actually my parents." Well, that explains why we're such good friends. When I arrived at Yamaku and first met her, I felt as if I had seen her from somewhere before in my life time. Turns out, it could have quite possibly been that night where her parents took me away. "They took you away and put you with a male and female of our kind; the two people in your life who you personally know as Mom and Dad. The reason you moved so much, if you can remember, was because of avoiding the Templar empire. They wanted you back, and were going to get you back, even if it meant killing hundreds of people."
"While you were being recovered by our people, though, our leader went on a solo mission in behind the enemy lines; the Shourin Corporate building in Tokyo. They are the biggest media empire on nearly the entire planet, and all of that revenue has been put towards hunting you down. They need you to find what they want, but that is not currently important. What is important, is that you know that we did not make you this way. We did not create this device or put the chip in your brain. We simply stole them away from the enemy and have used it for a much more... well, less evil cause."
"Finally, after years of running, you're here. You've been here at Yamaku for three months now, and it's time for you to realize a bit more about your past and future here. I haven't lied to you about myself: I'm your age, I have that same personality as you know me to have, yadda yadda." She waves her hand around to emphasize her point, causing me to smile a slight bit. "Where you are right now is a large, undetectable World War II bomb shelter that was built underneath Yamaku. Rather, Yamaku was build over top of the bomb shelter without them knowing. You are here because there is no satallite reception or anything down here due to the thickness of the walls and the depth it's at beneath the ground, so that eliminates a major way for the Templars to come searching for you. What you need to know is that you are not the only one out there. We are here to fight this battle along side of you and protect you while doing so. In fact, you're not even the only one at Yamaku."
I raise my eyebrow, which causes Miki to smirk a bit.
"Come on, let's go meet the boss. He can explain things better to you than I can."
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Trigger (this post)
Chapter Two: Ancestry
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapters will get longer as the story progresses. This chapter is simply to establish some plot and background of the story.
Chapter One: Trigger
I still can't figure out the pattern of my dreams. Maybe I should begin calling them nightmares? Always something new, right after I pass out from my narcolepsy. What the hell does it even mean? This place is old. I wouldn't say to the point where things are still being made with wood, but rather everything made with stone and has gorgeous architecture. But that's really the only good that comes out of them. I witness killings every time I close my eyes. I'm always literally at the location as well. It's not birds eye view or anything, I'm literally standing at the location. How can I tell? I can only move my eyes around, and everytime I look down I can see my body. I'm always frozen in place, and the criminal or victim never see me. It's as if I'm a ghost to them, a non-existant fixture in their world.
Frustration hit after the fifth consecutive nightmare. I can't escape the world, always seeing some hooded woman - who I assume is the same person every single time - walk forward with blade in hand, executing someone who appears innocent to me. I can hear the conversation between killer and victim every single time, yet I cannot understand a word they're saying. They both always speak a few words in foreign tongue before the victim is brutally killed, the methods ranging from a simply stab to the chest, all the way to being hung from a balcony. It always makes me feel like I should scream, like I should just wake up and get away from the horrors of someone getting killed; the trouble is, it doesn't work like that.
The nightmare this time is no different than the rest. I stand out on the small balcony of a home resting in this unknown city, staring past an open pair of french doors. I can see the entire scene unfold; the hooded woman climbs down silently off of the roof of the home and slings herself through the doorway. The target or victim - I have no idea what to call the other person, to be quite honest - is enjoying a nice glass of what appears to be some sort of alcoholic beverage, looking out a window of the expensive interior into the streets below. The killer walks up behind the man and grabs him by the back of the shirt, lifting him from his seat and throwing him into the ground with minimal effort.
The expression of the victim is one of horror. His eyes have gone wide and his mouth is open, repeating and stuttering out gibberish that I can't understand. Within mere seconds, with the killer having her back turned to me, a small blade pops out of a metal wristband and is driven through the mans skull, leaving him to bleed out in a mess of his own fluids. The man screams and struggles as his eyes look to nearly pop out of his skull, his muscles and joints slowly starting to lose their strength. The woman simply crouches down and puts a finger to his lips, silencing the man and almost seemingly calming his nerves. The shouts subside and the man passes on relatively silently, with only a few moments of painful suffering. The cloaked killer finishes the mission - I guess you could call it that? - with her signature; a simple kiss to the forehead of her victim. She turns and runs off after muttering a few words, straight through my plastered body, into the winding depths of the streets below.
---
Okay, now I'm panicking. The nightmare has ended, yet I'm in an unknown place. This is not my bed, hell, this isn't even my room. I'm in a room that has a single bed and nightstand, the area being very small in size. It's nothing like a Yamaku dorm room. It's got an eerie feel to it, a feeling that is making me overly uncomfortable. I scream out of fear and confusion, obviously drawing the attention of someone from outside of the room. The door slides open, and a dark figure swiftly enters the room, waiting a brief moment before turning on the lights. To my surprise, I see that the person is...
Miki?!
She gives me a tired smile, a slight look of concern and surprise taking over her expression.
"Good morning, sunshine. Sleep good?" She flashes me her signature pearly grin, but something feels different about it. It doesn't look as playful as normal; it actually looks quite serious, a bit more concerned.
"Miki, where the hell am I?" She shuffles around in an uncomfortable fashion, coming over and sitting down on the edge of my bed, patting her hand to indicate that I should join her. I roll over and sit beside her, resting my head on her shoulder. I'm still completely lost and scared as to what the hell is going on.
"This is going to take a little to explain, Suzu. Save your questions for the end, okay?"
"Okay..." I feel awfully distant right now, like I've been kept in the dark on some massive secret. I have so many questions swirling around in my head, and I'm going to make sure that they all get answered by the time I get out of this room.
"I'll start with a question for you: do you really know what triggers your narcoleptic attacks, Suzu?" What a strange question considering the confusing situation that I'm in right now. I honestly don't know what's going on with my narcolepsy; it's always just been told to me that the cause of my attacks are unknown, most likely just random patterns or noises in my daily life. I'm interested in what she's got to say, because she obviously knows more about it than I do.
"The doctors have always just told me random patterns cause it, and that it's unknown what the specifics of my problem is. Are you telling me that they're wrong?" She nods gently up and down, her eyes closed as she goes through the motion. When she opens her eyes, I can see fury chiseled into it. What does she know? It's killing me to understand what the hell she's talking about at this point.
"You don't even know. Do you want me to tell you straight what's going on?" I nod my head, my hands now shaking out of concern. I close my eyes tightly as she continues to talk. "Alright. It's going to take me a while, but here goes nothing."
"You were dropped off at an orphanage as an infant, as your parents were facing supression from an outside force. The people who adopted you from the orphanage that you were at... well, for now, we'll just call them extremely bad people. I'll explain who they truly are later. When they recieved custody of you, you were immediately taken to the headquarters for these evil bastards." Her left hand forms a face, and it's obvious she's holding back tears as she speaks to me. I continue to listen, a knot slowly beginning to form in my throat.
"Let me get something out of the way first before going any further: You're going to think I'm absolutely insane." Well, at least she's upfront about it. How she knows specifics of my past is already beginning to creep me out a bit, but not entirely. "Can you promise me you'll hear me out before coming to your own conclusions?" I move my head up and down slowly. I can't make the promise, but I'll make sure I hide my opinions well if need be.
"Okay then. These people, your 'parents', hid you from the world because of what happened at the headquarters. These people are known as Templars, and they are basically out to take over the world and to have full control of everything. Your adoptive parents were a part of this group, and they need you for their causes. This is why you're here right now; I am your peer protector. We are both descendants of a group of people... a society of Assassins."
I stand up from the bed, my fists clenched at my sides. I can't take this anymore. I feel like just destroying something. Templars? Assassins? I don't kill people, and Miki doesn't either! I start pacing back in forth, the knot in my throat continuing to grow and tighten. Eventually, I break down.
"Miki, what the fuck are you talking about! We don't kill people, hell, we don't fight evil! We're students! We're just two kids with disab-"
"Suzu."
Her voice cuts me off, causing my rant to end abruptly. She's standing now, walking towards me with slow and gentle steps. It's as if she's afraid of scaring me off, as if I have an option to run away from this twisted apparent past of mine. I clearly don't. She stands before me, placing her hand on my shoulder.
"Listen to me. You see this?" She raises her wrapped stump, holding it in between our voices. "This is from my years of running. They've attempted to capture me, they've tried to turn me into a copy of you." She pauses for a moment, collecting herself. "They put a microchip in your brain that triggers your narcolepsy. There, I said it. Your problem is not natural in the slightest, it's handled by this trigger." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out an electronic device no larger than a cell phone in size. A simple number pad with a large green button at the bottom.
I stare in disbelief. Microchip? I start to pull at my hair, attempting to rip the scalp off my head. I don't want this anymore!
"Get it out of my head, Miki! Get it out, get it out, get it out!" I'm screaming, flailing, pulling, everything possible I can do in this time of desperation. I don't want to be some experiment, I didn't even give consent to do what they're doing to me! I feel a stream of blood trickle down from my head, obviously a laceration from my panic attack. Miki scrambles forward and wraps me in a massive hug, slowly stroking my hair as I continue to panic. I beat and scratch her back in an effort to gain release from her grasp, before I finally give up and allow my hands to fall to my sides. Tears stain my cheeks. I'm just a puppet for people who are fighting over power. That's all I am, and all I ever will be.
"Suzu, please. This is hard enough as it is. Please, just hear me out."
"I don't want to!"
"You don't have much of a choice, my friend. It's not my decision, it's not even yours. You just need to follow my instructions, and I promise everything will be okay." Her words, regardless of the venom I have in my heart towards her right now, are actually somewhat reassuring.
I turn around an walk over to the opposite corner of the room, my back sliding down the wall as I bump into the ground. I hug my knees tightly, my eyes wide with a negative emotion. Could it be fear, maybe even anger? I've known Miki for a long time now, and learning all of these awful things about myself from her is something I'm struggling to believe. For whatever reason though, I believe her. I believe what she's saying, simply because I know she wouldn't pull some ignorant and far-fetched trick on me like this as a joke. After what feels like an hour of what feels like blank thoughts, I finally have come to the point where I've sorted out the information that has been thrust onto me.
"Continue, please." I have no choice. I wouldn't be here right now if I did. I wouldn't have these nightmares, hell, I wouldn't even have narcolepsy. I want revenge. I want to rid the world of these people, even though I can't really even trust that I'll be fighting for the 'good guys'. Maybe there truly is no good side to this battle, fight, war - whatever the hell you want to call it. I'll make sure it ends in my favor though, even if it's the last thing that I do in my life. I want to remove these heartless fiends from this planet for what they've done to me. I can't live with these nightmares and the risk of dying at any moment from just randomly passing out by the will of one person. My change of heart may seem abrupt, but my brain has gone through a process of eliminating options. Running away is not one of them. Fighting my way out is not one of them. With no control over the situation, I truly have no options. Miki shuffles forward and gives me a light hug, one that comforts me more than anything else could in this situation.
"Are you sure you want to hear the rest tonight? We could always just wai-"
"I need to hear it now."
She stands back, rotating her shoulder and causing it to crack in the process. She quickly loosens her neck, then finally decides to continue speaking.
"Alright, if you insist." She sighs heavily. It's almost as if I have to convince her to tell me now. "When you were an infant and adopted by the Templars from the orphanage, they took you to the headquarters in Tokyo. From there, they performed a surgery to implant a microchip onto the stem of your brain. This device," she pulls out the electronic controller once again, waving it slightly through the air, "is what they made to control it. For a slight while as an infant, they ran tests on you, before realizing you would need to grow older before much of any information would be revealed to them. Your infant mind was not developed enough; they only got vivid imagery and extremely general details of your ancestors from your dreams."
"When you approached about a year old, you were taken from your home. Your Templar keepers were eliminated by a group of us, who are actually my parents." Well, that explains why we're such good friends. When I arrived at Yamaku and first met her, I felt as if I had seen her from somewhere before in my life time. Turns out, it could have quite possibly been that night where her parents took me away. "They took you away and put you with a male and female of our kind; the two people in your life who you personally know as Mom and Dad. The reason you moved so much, if you can remember, was because of avoiding the Templar empire. They wanted you back, and were going to get you back, even if it meant killing hundreds of people."
"While you were being recovered by our people, though, our leader went on a solo mission in behind the enemy lines; the Shourin Corporate building in Tokyo. They are the biggest media empire on nearly the entire planet, and all of that revenue has been put towards hunting you down. They need you to find what they want, but that is not currently important. What is important, is that you know that we did not make you this way. We did not create this device or put the chip in your brain. We simply stole them away from the enemy and have used it for a much more... well, less evil cause."
"Finally, after years of running, you're here. You've been here at Yamaku for three months now, and it's time for you to realize a bit more about your past and future here. I haven't lied to you about myself: I'm your age, I have that same personality as you know me to have, yadda yadda." She waves her hand around to emphasize her point, causing me to smile a slight bit. "Where you are right now is a large, undetectable World War II bomb shelter that was built underneath Yamaku. Rather, Yamaku was build over top of the bomb shelter without them knowing. You are here because there is no satallite reception or anything down here due to the thickness of the walls and the depth it's at beneath the ground, so that eliminates a major way for the Templars to come searching for you. What you need to know is that you are not the only one out there. We are here to fight this battle along side of you and protect you while doing so. In fact, you're not even the only one at Yamaku."
I raise my eyebrow, which causes Miki to smirk a bit.
"Come on, let's go meet the boss. He can explain things better to you than I can."
