Here, Lancey Lance

Chapter Twelve

He hated sleeping, Lance decided. He hated seeing such terrible things in his dreams and he just wanted to sleep peacefully once again. He kept himself up by keeping busy, though occasionally he would nod off, he would snap out of it and go do something. He thought he wasn't showing off how exhausted he was and for the most part he didn't. Most of the team hadn't noticed with the exception of one.

Shiro waved to Lance from down the long corridor, beckoning him over. Lance took a deep breath in before strutting over to the leader with a greeting. His words slurred together but he pretended to ignore it.

"Yes, oh so fearless leader," he joked, raising a brow with a smirk but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes, far too tired to put too much energy into grinning.

"Come with me," Shiro said and jerked a thumb behind him. "It's been a while since we've talked."

He began walking and Lance followed behind. "What do you mean? We literally talked, like, an hour ago." He was terribly confused. Was he just that tired he didn't have any concept of passing time?

"Just follow me." So he did, albeit a little skeptical. They arrived at Shiro and Keith's room and Shiro had Lance sit on the bed against the wall. He sat himself down across from him and gave him a gentle smile. "I want you to do something for me."

Lance glanced off to the side nervously. "Should I be scared?"

"No, Lance, just trust me." Lance bit the inside of his cheek before nodding. "Alright, so I'm going to have you close your eyes while I begin to count."

"What? Why?"

"Trust me."

"But this is kind of sketchy—"

"Trust. Me." Lance furrowed his brows then closed his eyes with a sigh. Shiro began counting. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six."

Lance didn't remember what number he heard last but the next thing he knew, he was in darkness. He looked around for any form of light to see but all he saw was black surrounding all around him. Where was he? That wasn't the castle-ship. Where was everyone else? He felt the floor beneath him open up and his stomach did a terrible flip as he fell through the nothingness. He let out a choked gasp as he collapsed onto the floor, immediately noticing he was inside a glass container.

"Hello?" No response. He knocked on the glass, calling out again. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

He began to panic at the silence. All that was heard was the sound of his fist banging against the container, echoing all around him. He didn't understand how he got there. He didn't remember ever leaving the castle-ship.

"Please–!"

"Shh."

Lance froze at the hush and glanced all around him, searching for whoever made that noise.

"Can you help me–?"

"There is no use in fighting it," the voice cut him off, seemingly closer than before. "Just let it happen. Don't fight it."

"Fight what?"

The voice was moving all around him at that point but the speaker still was not visible. "If you fight it, it will hurt more. Just let it happen."

"I don't understa–"

"You don't want to end up like us."

Lance screamed as a mutilated face popped up in front of him. He tried stepping away but his back hit the other side of the container. Then another face popped up beside him, this one worse than the other. Then another, and another, and another until dozens of those mutilated, cut-up, horrific faces were crying out to him through the glass begging him to help them.