Gone

Chapter Eleven: Fractured Reality, Twisted Soul

I shot up and grabbed my neck, feeling like it was on fire and panting. I must've given Matt a fright from my sudden movement as he swerved quite suddenly, making us almost hit a passing truck, which too had to swerve out of our way. When he caught his bearings again, Matt looked over at me for a bit, eyes filled with concern, and spoke in a shocked tone.

"Fuck, Kid. You gave me a heart attack worthy of killing Joseph fucking Stalin." Sometimes I think Matt formed sentences with words that vaguely connected to one another- because not everything he said made a lot of sense out of his own personal context I imagined. We must've stopped earlier though as he had a plastic water bottle half-filled with Apple Juice, which he proceeded to down to a third now. He sighed and looked back at me after parking on the side of the road. "The nightmares you got that strong..?"

"Truth be told," I began to say, rather quietly as I was still trying to fully wake the rest of me up. "Not much I remember outside of the feelings such nightmares afflict me with, sometimes there are images I can recall- but never their context." That was the honest truth. These were different than the nightmares from before, usually I at least remembered audio and faces, but I'm drawing up nothing but blanks here. I turned my head to face Matt. He had just finished the remainder of his somewhat therapeutic juice followed by a deep sigh.

"I'm getting a refill. Want some now that you're awake?"

"Please, mouth feels dry..." I stretched a bit in the passenger seat and opened the door. Fortunately my legs weren't on pins and needles so I could bring myself to get out and walk. Flicking up the lock within the door, I made my way around back as Matt opened the trunk to the sight of a dozen or so containers filled with nothing but different brands of Apple Juice. He might be more reliant on it than I previously thought. A quick glance beyond the array of juice revealed Alice was still out, though now laid off the mattress and instead against the back of the rear seats. My attention was brought to a small plastic cup, no bigger than my palm and fingers being handed to me with it half full of said juice. Taking a sip, the flavor reminded me that I was truly up and awake now, the sun pierced through the surrounding treeline forcing my eyes to adjust.

"Anything of note happen while I was out?" I inquired my allies about.

"Well," Matt began, gesturing over to Alice "Bones and I here got to talking about legends and old stories- the similarities to our current escapades brought them to light as you may infer," Matt stated.

"Old you say-" I asked in a jestful manner, "Does that Frankenstein of a book you keep hold the ancient truths or something of the sort?" He gave a slight wry smile which nearly transitioned into a chuckle.

"The necronamicon it is not, Ash," he paused for not but a second before getting back on topic, "regardless, however- I brought up to miss Bones here that we're dealing with something natives once dealt with." He focused his gaze to me, perhaps looking for a reaction when he asked "The name, Swift Runner, ring any bells?" His voice started to grow serious.

While evoking nothing in particular from me, the name did pry an expression from our other passenger, Alice quickly revealing a brief glimpse of what seemed to be- disgust.

"Means nothing special to me," my answer followed with a minor shrug. Never stuck my nose in historical business. Never really needed to when my life was already stuck in a past event that I couldn't escape from. Didn't need someone else's maze of histories to wander into ontop of that.

"The events are, well, rather similar with that of your old man you see. Too fucking much so I'd say." There was a level of hesitation he displayed, and frankly I felt something akin to it as well. Wanting to hear more wasn't on my priorities, wouldn't even put it on my secondaries list of things to learn- but the line was casted before me, the bait more alluring than the reflection of the hook it was tied with.