High Society: The tales from Victory

DREAMS [Part V] (Chapter 26)

Pressure pushed down in rhythm. Every few seconds a thrust down, then a gust of air. Pump. Pump. Pump. Pump. Blow. Repeat. This kept going until a coughing fit ensued. 

She spat the water out of her mouth, which had found its way into her lungs. She began to hack out her lungs as she sat up, leaning on the support of her right arm. Her left grasped her chest, desperate for air.

When her fit subsided she looked up to see two red eyes looking down on her. It stood over her, watching, menacingly. She then felt a force grab her by her dress and lift her. She instinctively pulled her dress down, to cover herself.

"Phoebe?"

"What's your name?"

"L-lacy?"

"Good, I would have left you if you had amnesia or if you were something else..."

"Wha-"

Phoebe gave a dismissive wave and raised her hand to snap. 

"Wait!"

She stopped.

"Did you save me?"

Phoebe turned toward Lacy. She approached her shorter teammate and glared into her eyes. She made a psychic connection and sent her quick images. 

Lacy saw her own body slumped on a rock wall in the distance of Phoebe's vision. She sat beneath some etching in a wall that spelled out DREAMS. Her dress was torn in different places, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. Her hair was in disarray and her makeup was awfully smeared.

Then her body fell over to the side and off the rock she was on. She fell back into the stream face first. Phoebe's vision looked away, then warped and looked down at Lacy's body as it drifted slowly. Phoebe's hand outstretched itself and dragged Lacy's limp body onto the dusty stone using psychic energy. 

When Phoebe disconnected she turned and warped away. Lacy stared in a state of disbelief. She watched as her savior blipped out of her sight. She slowly pushed herself up to see the cave around her, even seeing the etching of DREAMS.

She softly muttered, as she brushed herself off, "Thanks…" She felt a touch of fear being indebted to that woman. Who knows what she would want from her. A woman who had dragged herself out of hell.

Lacy jumped on her feet, trying to get her blood circulating. She shook off the water droplets that rested on her arms. She scrunched her face and tried to think, despite a throbbing pain in the back of her skull; presumably, from the fall Phoebe witnessed.

She remembered being swept away by the current while holding onto Battousai. Considering Phoebe's vision didn't show Battousai, she must have gotten separated… or worse. She then patted herself down, looking for any major wounds. Besides a few bruises and scrapes, her body was mostly fine. 

Although her leggings were torn and her dress was soaked. Her sandals had absorbed some water, but were still affixed to her ankles by the straps; However, the sandal's thongs had broken out place making far more uncomfortable to use.

While she was secluded from Phoebe's sight, Lacy disrobed, wrung out her dress to the best of her ability and put it back on. Her broken sandals trudged through the muddy water until she found where Phoebe stood. A rock platform.

She opened her mouth to ask about the others, but she vanished like a phantom. Lacy dropped her hands to her side in frustration. She looked around and then saw a makeshift wooden bridge to cross the miniature stream of water. 

She looked for Phoebe's glowing red eyes, but they were absent from her view. She felt abandoned. No, worse. The suffering she was feeling, of loneliness and rejection was being made into a performance for her entertainment. Ignoring the human side of her and pursuing the self pleasures.