Saving the World - Awakening

The World in Her Mind

If Eliot could have taken a second to think, he would realize that taking Samantha's hand was a supremely bad idea.  After his first taste of her contact-induced acid trip, there was no reason for him to go back.  But she was insistent, and something about her made him trust her, and he took her hand.

Falling away into the same dreamy infinity he had experienced minutes before, he instantly regretted his decision.  His mind was on fire, and he couldn't understand anything that was happening. Minutes, hours, days, he couldn't comprehend how much time passed before he could think again, but when he did he was just as confused.

He noticed strange things around him: memories.  He wasn't viewing them, though, he was experiencing them.  There were hundreds of thousands of memories around them.  They looked like movie clips, like the scene selection in any movie.  He reached out for one and tried touching it.  He looked down at his body and noticed that it was wispy and ghost-like.  His hand drifted forward to the memory and he touched it.

With a flash, he was in the jungle.  He knew somehow that it was the Amazon, but he was being chased by something.  He looked behind him and saw a woman chasing him.  She looked to be young, college age, but was gaining on him.  She expertly navigated the jungle while her allies beside her were falling behind due to the thick brush.  Eliot quickly dashed through the jungle, desperate to get to his home.

Finally he made it to a tree house clearing.  There was a ladder up to the top, which he swiftly scaled. He entered the hut and looked frantically around.  There was nothing to save him.  The woman who was chasing him was going to kill him.  He looked over to the corner and saw a piece of wood that was sharpened to a point.  He walked over to it and looked at it for a second before bringing it to his throat.  He couldn't stop himself, he never had control.  After a second, he shoved the spear into his neck and died.

Eliot screamed.  He was out of the memory now, but he could still feel the spear plunging through his head.  It was like a bad dream, except it looked like this really did happen.  What horrors did Samantha endure before B came, and how did he save her from actual death?  He had a lot of questions for her when he got out of her head.

As if on cue, the memories all drained away, leaving Eliot alone without anything.   His wispy body drifted in space as he waited for Samantha to do something.  Perhaps she had wanted him to see her memory, perhaps she wasn't in control.  He genuinely hoped it was the first one.

A loud voice boomed through the space, disrupting his solitude.  He went to cover his ears, a futile effort considering his spirit-like body.  The voice kept booming, and slowly the space around him started to spin.  He could hear a change, as if a radio was being tuned, or the signal being improved.  After another few seconds of the sickening spinning, Eliot found himself in the room he had been only minutes before, next to B and Dr. Nicos.

"-they aren't ready for it, e-emotionally." Dr. Nicos said.  She had a strong stutter and a thick Italian accent, making it difficult to understand what she was saying.

"But physically they are way beyond any teenager I have ever met!" Brachs turned to Dr. Nicos and raised his eyebrows. "And I have been around the world for ten years in search of someone like them. They're special, and not just because we put your chemicals into them."

"B-but the tests.  They c-can't reach a conclusion.  We have nothing to g-go off of. S-s-s" Dr. Nicos stopped. "the girl is hiding something."

Brachs turned quickly to face Dr. Nicos, his face alight with excitement.

"Do you mean...?  Did we...?" He started.

"No," Dr. Nicos replied quickly, "t-this means n-nothing.  Only that we need to w-wait for her to c-come to us if she is experiencing a-anything.  As it i-is, resur-recting her was e-enough."

Brachs sat down, disappointed but still hoping that whatever it was that he wanted was going to come.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't; we still need to hit them back, and all we have since the falling is those two.  They're making something, something horrible that could end us for good.  We need to find out what it is they are planning." Brachs put his hands up. "Don't misunderstand, Eliot and Samantha are two remarkable individuals. Together they could be quite a force, but I have a feeling that we need something bigger. We need a real trump card, and I don't think that those two can get us the information we need without being killed."

Dr. Nicos nodded her head slowly while shuffling through her papers.  She finally found what she was looking for and held it up.

"Before we make any move, we should find out what kind of powers could these two cou-"

Without any reason, Dr. Nicos' voice seemed to shut off.  Her lips were still moving, but no sound was coming out.  Eliot could hear nothing, but he started to feel a pull back to his own mind.  He attempted to resist it, hoping to stay around and learn some more about his purpose here, but he had no control.  He spun away, into space, and back into his own mind.

Eliot staggered backwards, falling away from Samantha's touch.  He landed on his back, stunned from the experience.  It was all so much to take in.

"How did you do that?!" he exclaimed.

He sat up, expecting a response from Samantha, but she was lying down on her bed, unmoving.  Eliot jumped up in concern.  Now was not the time to sleep.  He approached her, but saw that her eyes were still open.  She seemed to be stuck in a trance.  He waved his hand in front of her, expecting some kind of reaction, but there was none.  Weird psychic trips probably had that kind of effect on people, so he decided that she just needed to lay down, so he put a blanket on her and closed her eyes, hoping to see her in the morning so he could ask about all that he had seen.

He looked around the room.  It felt similar to the jungle he had experienced in Samantha's memory, which made sense.  If what he saw was real, then both he and Samantha had been saved from death. It was getting eerie how similar they were.  They seemed to be in the same situation, which meant to him that they needed to stick together. 

He remembered the scene with B and Dr. Nicos he had seen.  B was afraid of someone, probably another group of people.  That wasn't a good sign, if B was afraid of someone then there was reason to worry.  He placed a lot of trust in Eliot, though.  It seemed that he and Samantha were there for something bigger than just scientific experimentation.  He wished that Samantha was awake, she could make sense of all of this.

He looked down at his watch and gaped.  It was 1:25, he and Samantha had been in the dreamworld for hours.  No wonder she was so tired.  He quickly exited her room and went back to his.  Exhausted, he fell into his bed and closed his eyes.  It had been a crazy day, he couldn't wait to find out what the next held for him.  Maybe this place was worth his time.