Dream Gate

Chapter 1: Wake Up Call

         Prologue

Dark. Pitch black. Deep and...Cold. This is the best I can muster of my surroundings; a void of borderline existence. Wait...A voice? Muffled, as if through water. "Wake up...Wake up!" .A small spark of light, like an ember. Warm. Soft. Kind. I want to meet the voice, to see, to feel, to...sense. I try to open my eyes, slowly, embracing this light. My eyes are still clouded and the figure before me is blurred. It's humanoid, to an extent. It seems to be trailing something behind it. A weapon? An item of some sort? I can't tell. It helps to my feet. I stumble it catches me. "Thanks..." "Your welcome". I feel the void coming on again, so I ask before it pulls me under. "Who are you?" "Oh, sorry! You fall all this way and I can't even be polite!" "Fall...?" "Hi, My name... Is...".Bright yellow and then dark. I've gone again. Cold and then...Loud? I wake up.

Chapter 1: Wake Up Call

It's loud, so loud. I open my eyes to see where the noise is emanating from but they're still not working quite right. "Damn it! Again with the alarm clock, N? I told you if I wake up on my own, I'll get used to getting up earlier! Oof!" My younger (though admirably more responsible) brother N, or as he was way back when, Nick, walks in with a plate of drizzled waffles and my keys. "And I told you if you wake on your own, I'll be monitoring your cryostasis chamber in 2099! Now get out of bed, put on some decent clothes and go work on your science doohickeys at school." I sighed as I got up of floor, pulling the sheets off me and taking my breakfast. "I told you, they're called Gates and they're gonna help me bring VR to the next level." He handed me an outfit from my closet and started fixing the bed. "Right, right. So did you have the fall dream again? Woke up to a weird light and then passed out again? That's how it went last time, right?" I pulled on my shirt and wolfed down my waffles and chugged my orange juice. "This time was different, N, this time it...it...spoke. And it held me and carried me and it...it laughed!" He snickered. "You went out last night didn't you?" I growled at him (a strange habit I have) and grabbed my backpack and keys. "You'll never believe me, will you Nick?" He frowned at my use of his full name. "Look, all I'm saying is that you've been doing this too long, Jake. Maybe it's time to call it quits." I didn't answer. Looking at my now shoe covered feet, I turned to him and ruffled his hair. "Hey, I combed that already! Bah, now I have to do it again!" We both smiled. "If I quit though, it will all have been for nothing. And time not wasted..." "Is time worth finishing, I know. Now go out there and do some... sciency stuff." I laugh. "Thanks bud! I'll see you tonight after work!" We said goodbyes, not knowing that would be the last time we saw each other.

I got to the lab and began working on the Gates again. I had tried every possible conductor recently but the system kept overloading. "Damn it! <sigh> Maybe N was right. Maybe it's time to call quits. This piece of crap won't do a damn thing unless I find a strong enough conductor!" I sighed and sat and thought until an idea struck me. "Ughh... Well it's better than anything I've used so far." I started tearing away the wires and made a make-shift body scanner. I got in and hooked myself up and started up the system. "Let's hope this works." I turned on the machine and waited for something to happen. Then the energy started to flow through my body- hundreds of volts coursing through my nerve system. "Aaaauugghh!" And as soon as it had started, it had stopped. I was gone.

Dark. Cold and then hot, burning hot. I woke up (again) to the feeling of burning. "Where-Auuggh!" My arm, now visibly broken, was bent at an odd angle, definitely not right. I tried to get a hold of my surroundings only to find that, once again, I could not see clearly. "These eyes are really getting annoying!" I lay back down on the ground to rest when I hear someone running towards me. Not knowing if I was in danger or not, I did the one thing I was good at- passing out. Whatever it was, it burst from the bushes and ran to kneel beside me. "Ohhhh, not again. This one better be alive." I recognized this voice. It was the one from my dream! I slowly opened my eyes, and though I couldn't see clearly, I could tell this was the being in my dreams. "Oh thank goodness you're alive! Are you hurt? Can you stand?" I went to touch them, to see if they were real, only to be painfully reminded of my broken arm. "Aaaauugghh! M-My arm is broken. W-who are you?" It gasped as it turned towards my arm. "Oh my, your arm! I'm so sorry I should've thought of that sooner! Here let me help you up!" It motioned for my arm- the good one- and lifted me up on my feet. "Are you okay to walk or should I carry you?" I use its body for support motioned to take a step. "I think I'll be fine." Stepped away, only to start falling towards the ground. It caught me before impact and cradled me. "I'll just carry you. Your body needs to regen after that fall. Just rest." I asked again. "Who are you? And where... where are we?" It laughed lightheartedly and I could finally tell this was a woman from her soft yet kind tone. "Like, what sector are we in? This is the forest zone but if you mean the world, this is the digital world. We get you people from Earth falling to the surface every now and then but you're one of few who actually survive and even fewer who are conscious." I was baffled. To think that I fell off my own world and into another. "Who are you?" She sighed. "Oh I'm sorry I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I? My name is Renamon. I'm the youngest in my village, still a rookie but I'm the strongest as well." I smiled. "Renamon huh? Finally." She turned her head in confusion. "Finally? What do you mean?" I laughed. "I've been having dreams of you and this world lately but they all end before you tell me your name. And now I know, Renamon." She smiled at me and giggled. "Well, you're welcome for finishing my sentence!" We both laughed the rest of the way, telling each other about our worlds. "Well here we are. My village. Home sweet home." I looked around at everyone in confusion, my eyes still too blurry to see clearly. "Why is everyone dragging around big sticks? Is it some kind of training?" She sighed. "Those aren't sticks. Did you land on your head?" I shook my head. "No, when I wake up from sleep, my eyes take longer than normal to adjust to the light." She smiled. "Oh I can fix that. Come with me. I'll take you to my home so I can heal you up and fix your eyes." I laughed. "What, you're a medic and an optometrist?" She laughed. "Close. I'm a combat healer. When we battle with other clans or tribes, I'm responsible for healing and protecting the kids and elders." We entered her house and she laid me down on a bed. "Mom! Dad! I'm home and I brought a guest!" A woman entered the room in what seemed to be a robe. "Oh it's another of those...things. What are they again, dear?" The man walked into the room and grunted in acknowledgement of my presence. "It's vermin is what it is! And it doesn't belong here!" The woman scowled. "Dou! You know how they get here! They should at least be cared for!" Renamon laid me down on the bed. "Don't listen to them. They argue all the time." She held her hands over my arm and they ignited in a blue flame. "Whoa, hey don't go burning my arm! It's broken not frozen! And how did you do that?" She smiled. "It's the first move I learned. Trust me, I know what I'm doing." She slowly lowered hers hands onto my arm. I winced, expecting it to burn but instead, it felt cool, like a breeze of air. She then held her hands over my eyes and I could feel my retinas stitch back together. When she took her hands away, looked down at my arm to see it fully healed. My vision had improved as well. I thanked her. She placed her...paw in my hand and squeezed? "No problem! It's my job after all!" I stared at the large three-fingered paw, my gaze moving up to her face and her parents standing beside the bed. I backed away quickly. "You're a...a...!" "Giant humanoid foxes? Yeah we get that a lot." I got over my original shock and moved towards Renamon, reaching for her face. "What...are you doing?" My hand reached her face and I pulled it back from the realization that she was real. "You're real. Okay." She looks at me confused. "Real? Why wouldn't I be?" I sighed in relief. "In my dreams, I can feel, hear, smell and taste as would in the real world. I'm making sure I'm not comatose." She laughed. "No, you're fine!" I laughed back. Then my stomach growled. Her mother jumped. "Oh, looks like I should make dinner!" The father scoffed. "Tao, he's not staying here!" She turned and scolded him. "Now listen, you! He is staying until he has a way home, whether you like him or not so get used to him! You haven't even introduced yourself, have you?!" He backed down, sensing the danger in arguing further and walk over to me. "I'm Renamon's father, Doumon." I took his giant paw and gently shook it up and down. "Jake. Jake Fenson." I got up from the bed as he walked away and Renamon led me outside. "Sorry about that. Dad doesn't like humans." I nodded. She started to lead me away from the house, walking down the road. "Well, we have about thirty cycles before dinner, knowing Mom and her recipes." I assumed cycles were the equivalent of minutes in the digital world. As we were walking a thought came to my mind. "Hey Renamon, how do you use that fire thingy you did earlier?" She squealed in excitement. "Oh, this is the first time I get to show anyone around! Come on!" She sped off, nearly knocking me over with the force. "Hey wait up!" I started running to catch up to her and realized I could run much faster than normal. I soon caught up with her. "How am I running this fast?!" She motioned her hands toward the sky. "The digital world doesn't have a degradation factor or a constant acceleration system!" I nodded. "Meaning my muscles don't denature and my speed increases in intervals! Amazing!" We slowed to stop at what seemed to be a training ground. She took me to a training dummy and started to teach me. "This ability is called Touhakken. It allows the user to heat energy from their hands or paws and attack with flames." I turned to the dummy and tried to feel the energy flowing through my body. I channeled it to my hands and palmed the dummy. "Touhakken!" Nothing happened. We both burst out laughing. "Why did I expect to be able to do that?!" I was about to laugh again when an explosion of fire was seen coming from the village. Renamon gasped. "Come on!" I grabbed a chain off the wall and we started racing towards the village to come to the scene of large bug like creatures destroying the huts. I turned toward the direction of Renamon's hut to see one busting through the door. Grabbed Renamon and started running towards her house. "Your parents!" We entered through the broken door and found Tao huddled in the corner and Dou stuck to the wall with what looked like a giant thorn. "Father!" Renamon ran to him and pulled the thorn out of him collapsing to the floor as he fell. He started to disintegrate into dust as Renamon tied to heal him. "Renamon. Stop. It's not going to work. I'm as good as dead now." She kept trying but he pushed her hands away. "Renamon. I'm going to come back someday. I know now why you like these humans so much. Their actually quite amusing! But I want you to go with Jake and protect him. Jake! Take my daughter far away from here. I want you to protect her with your life. Goodbye, Renamon." He broke into particles that shimmered in the air. "No..." With her back turned, Renamon didn't see the bug approaching her. It raised a scythe like hand and swung but it never got to her. In the span of five seconds I had crossed the room and was standing between the two. "Touhakken!" I swung the chain down, now covered with blue flames, through the bug's head to his feet. I turned. "Let's go."