The Known/Unknown Quantity

Chapter 145: Worlds of the Past, Dreams Best Forgotten

Chapter 145: Worlds of the Past, Dreams Best Forgotten

Pagers went off. And then the group forgot all about them, and fell into worlds of shadow.

Tracy turned and saw her life in drudgery. Married 30 years, five children in a small flat where there was no silence ever, her husband never home, and when he was drunk, and loud. Or 45 years, and pleasant, but cold and distant. Or 15, and young and easy-going, but dying early and leaving her a widow. Or no one, but the point was not the marriages themselves, but the way she had decided to give up in them. At some point her voice fell, her dreams were replaced by others' dreams, and the person of Tracy was lost in a Marjorie too demure to speak up for herself, and in the end, was herself no longer.

Anathema was caught in a loop of time. Cut off from Newt, and she could see him but not reach him. She remained the same while he aged, going screaming and mad for her. Every once in a while she broke free, and could touch him, but he was grieved and traumatized by her flitting back and forth every five or ten years, or a few weeks, while he grew withered and caged, that he would chase her away, and she would run from him weeping, and rocking in a corner.

Shadwell learned very quickly why he didn't dream in his younger years. His father had died early, and the spirit of that parent paid penitence by blocking such images that would have come alive for his son and walked with him in the daylight, and coerced him to do things he didn't want to do, and bare down on him ceaselessly and increasingly until even eating a gun would not end them because he somehow missed, and became paralyzed and caught in his own head alone with them.

And on and on.

None of these things held truth. They were the parody of truth, the warped reflection. They had the seed, the color, the aspect. But only through the nightmare lenses of their own fears, and so it wasn't a truth at all.

But it was real, all the same.

Now Newt, Newt was different.

Newt still had those silly glasses. As soon as the mirrors came down, he flung them on.

He paced in the silent room, listening to the gears in the glasses spin and work. At one point he was tempted to test their functionality, and let them side down his nose a bit. He promptly shoved them back. A split second of howling and flashing lights hit his synapses, and later on he couldn't recall what he saw, just whatever it left wanted to rot inside his brain for a few weeks after. After that, he took up Crowley's offer.

With the glasses firmly in place, this was nothing more than a dark, moldy cellar. He could even break the mirrors, if he chose. But the mirror creature released him, and he heeded the sudden vibration of the pagers, and grabbed backup lamps, the ones flashing at 1600 Lumens, and he followed the screams to subvert whatever mayhem had already snared the others.

Now the case had been the same for Gary and Olivia. No, they were lucky, or blessed, enough to get stuck together. And they regarded their nightmares with somber silence, because truly, it wasn't new to them.

They lived their nightmares daily. This was nothing new.

They even switched vantage points, and watched each other's.

They couldn't hear the thing in the mirror room grow testy, and give up after a few minutes. They only knew saw a wall crumble away into the corridors ahead. They pounced on it and fled the room.

The mirror monster let them all go, to focus her meager energies on easier prey. To her they were harmless, powerless, pathetic, if they thought they had a chance in hell to regroup.

But, they had the pagers. And soon, all the other would know help was on the way. That is, if the vibrations broke into their nightmares.

Shouts reverberated down the corridors. Gary and Olivia ran toward them and caught up with Newt, his lanterns charging, and Gary shouted out on the walkies to the others:

".--. ..- - / --- -. / - .... . / .--- ..- -- .--. . .-. ..."

"Oh, no, no, sorry, it's hard for me to hear this," Crowley moaned.

The angel's face crashed.

"All of it?"

"Please," the demon pled softly, "I can't go through this again. Please come back to me, angel. Come on."

At that, something shifted. The demon felt Aziraphale's hand grip his chest. He saw the blue of the eyes refocus. He felt the ward click in place like a perfect puzzle piece.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale came back. Crowley grabbed his head and kissed him.

"Stay put, you little shit!" the demon laughed manically, excited glee surging through him. "Don't move! We've got to get out of here, and get to B.G. and the rest!"

"Stay put?" the angel asked, so very dazed. "How can we stay put and get the others at the same—"

But the angel never got to finish. Suddenly, he jolted, his spine bowing as he seized. Crowley gripped his shoulders. "The fuck!?!" Aziraphale jerked and shouted, grabbing his chest as if someone had speared him through the back. And then, his eyes fluttered, and he shuttered, his eyes finally recognizing his friend.

"Looks like she has other plans for us, dear, sweet boy. Forgive me."

In a blink of an eye, something jerked the angel, flinging his arms and legs forward, and he was yanked away into the darkness, his hands reaching out to Crowley.

And then he was gone.

The shocked demon suddenly realized his body was already in motion after him, flying into the cavernous black and shouting the angel's name. His cries echoed behind him, and carried a hint of the tyrant's cackle as they warbled into nothingness.