Insomnia

33

"Is this what you want?!" Esme screamed, pressing the knives in closer. "Is this it? The strong eat the weak? Survival only of the fittest?" Esme watched as the last of the Omens squirmed in her grasp, skin flushed, breath panting, tears pouring from their eyes.

With a vicious slice of Psionic power, Esme forced them to wake up. Her shoulders slumped in exhaustion as she surveyed the scarred and cratered plains before her. Finally, she'd managed to clear away the teeming hordes. Hypnos had disappeared somewhere in the chaos. He wasn't in the dream, Esme could sense that much.

Fatigue ached in her Looking over the destruction, heaving for air, she was forced to pause in thought. Why was she doing all this? She didn't know the politics well enough to really care. Their philosophy was disgusting, but her own snobbery about Psionics followed the same road. Vengeance? The faces of those terrified Omens appeared in her mind. Yes, she wanted vengeance. But a very real part of her liked the feeling. Mastery. Control.

"This is where it leads," she whispered, shaking her head. "Power. Where it takes us. You want a savior and you get a demon." Self doubt reared its head inside her, before she pushed it down with rage. Maybe her motives were impure, but there was no time for doubt. No time for questioning. She'd gone too far. It was time to end this.

"Come out, Pasithea," panted Esme. "I'm waiting, Erebus. Huh?" She raised her hands. "I'm still here. What? Are you too scared to take me on?!"

A flash of anger boomed on her left like a signal flare. Esme pivoted to seize Pasithea by the scruff of her neck as she shifted into place.

"You're a waste of my time," Esme Believed, pressing as much despair and futility into the other Psion as she could. Pasithea's skin paled as her lips began to quiver, resentment and self-hatred colliding. She let go of the Herald and let her crumple to the ground, no longer self aware and at the mercy of these turbulent emotions.

A swirling black portal opened before her, and the last Herald stepped out. An act of theater to make his shifting look more impressive. A waste of energy.

"You going to help her out?" asked Esme, nodding towards his companion.

Erebus sniffed as he gave Pasithea a backwards glance. "No." He walked towards her, his stride so nonchalant that she was almost surprised when he tried to stab her in the chest.

She sidestepped the cold steel blade. Esme could weather pain, but she was already exhausted from fighting his endless columns of minions, and a solid blow would drain her energy even more.

Erebus seemed winded as well. No flashy bolts of Psionic power, just carefully aimed blows to wear her down. Esme breathed a silent thanks to the WBI for putting up as much fight as they had. Nonetheless, the Herald was no easy opponent, and he was certainly in better condition than her.

The Knightmare remained within the dream, but had constructed his own world inside of it. A Psionic haze hung over his position, courtesy of Erebus, like a static buzz. It prevented her from shifting to the Sanctum. She needed to get closer. To save Minerva. To kill the Knightmare.

Esme moved on the offensive, turning her hands into knives and catching Erebus's blade between them. A hard push knocked him back, and she lunged towards his neck. He pulled away and flung out his sword desperately to fend her off. Esme snarled and hammered the blade with a vicious knife hand. He yelped in pain as the sword tore away from his fingers, and he lurched back. Erebus locked eyes with her as she advanced a second time. Esme felt her teeth rattle beneath the force of a Psionic blast, pressuring her into non-existence.

She weathered the blow as Erebus got back to his feet and scrambled backwards, putting some distance between them. Esme felt her clarity begin to crumble, exhaustion creeping in at the edges of her mind. They were both skilled combatants, slugging it out like prizefighters in the last round of a boxing match, bloodied, weary, and on the verge of collapse. Each exchange was just a test of stamina at this point. Esme looked towards the dome of shadows. It seemed clearer now, palpable. Just a little more...

"Look at what you've done, Erebus," she hissed, trying to distract his focus. "So many people hurt, and for what?"

"To draw you and your WBI friends here!" he called back, hands open to gesture towards the surrounding carnage. "The world will see this and know. The Omens are powerful. The Omens are cunning."

Esme glanced at a crack in the earth and imagined the plates shifting beneath it. The land shattered and groaned. She heard a sharp intake of breath from her opponent as the shaking subsided, and the plates vanished.

"If you're so clever," groaned Esme, standing back up. "then how did I infiltrate your entire organization? Almost become your highest ranking member?"

Erebus laughed. "You didn't infiltrate anything, Esme, we brought you here." Her look of puzzlement prompted him to continue. "Did you really think that Esme Trahan, Somnus Developer and the woman who's been hounding us for months, could just waltz into our most inner sanctum, unquestioned? Unnoticed? Who do you think told your friend, Oswald, about our meetings? Who 'accidentally' showed him where to find information on our organization?"

The revelation stung her more than she cared to admit. She should have known their discoveries had come too easily.

A sharp stabbing pain in her leg alerted Esme to the sudden transformation of the grass at her feet into razor blades. She concentrated and blunted their edges. The effort dizzied her, but Erebus seemed exhausted as well. She stepped forward and he inched back.

"Why frame me?" Esme asked. "Pretend I was one of you? Why go to all this effort?"

"I only thought you'd bring the WBI within our reach. "The Herald smirked. "It was a stroke of luck on our part, your attempts to join us. I convinced the other Heralds to go along with it, and of course no one else knew you were anything but sincere. I would've been satisfied just grinding you beneath my heel... But branding you as an Omen? Turning the WBI against you? That was too much to pass up. This way, you don't have a choice. You have to fight for us."

Erebus's triumphant glee warmed the air. The shadows darkened.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"You have no allies, Esme. The WBI are after you. The public will fear you. Only theOmens can help you now. We have connections, money. We can move you underground, out of their reach in the real world. In return, you'll be on the front lines." His grin was full of teeth. "A perfect little soldier."

"You seriously think I'll join you? After all this?" His blank stare told her the answer to that question. "Okay. Let me put this straight. I hate you. I hate the Omens. I hate everything you stand for."

"Oh, forever the hypocrite!" snarled Erebus. "I know all about you Esme - the lying, the violations of Sleepwalkers' minds? You endorse us with your actions even if you're too much of a coward to admit we're right."

She snarled. How did he figure out her secret? It didn't help that his words struck home.

"You don't get to judge!" Esme said. "I don't know what life was like before the Disaster. What people's values were or if they were any good. But the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that yours aren't. And you have no right to shove them down our throats!"

Esme had kept her focus fixed firmly upon the orb of shadows in the distance. It had slowly sharpened in her vision as Erebus's attempts to obscure it faded. Taking a deep breath, she detached her focus from this battle, and Shifted towards it.

Esme leapt towards the dome, bracing for an attack from behind. She turned in the air to see Erebus standing back, frozen as she approached the Knightmare.

"You don't want to get near him," she realized. "You're... terrified of what he can do."

Her last sight as she slipped away from the dream was the telling grimace on his face.