Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Chupacabras Synchronicity ❯ Chapter 14 ( Chapter 14 )

Chapter Fourteen

The room was white when Quatre woke. He supposed it had probably always been that way. He himself had certainly never seen it any different, and he had been there before. Several times. The moment he opened his eyes he knew it for what it was, and knew himself to be asleep.

"I'm dreaming," he confirmed to himself. Nothing replied.

In the distance, as if it were far off, Quatre could hear something dripping, slow and heavy, a thick liquid splashing against the white. It would not, Quatre knew, be hard to find, but he feared he knew what he would find when he reached it and that simple fear made him slow his steps and consider if this was what he really wanted.

"I've been here before, in this place…" But I don't know where is it, he thought, or what it is for. They had never discussed the complexities of such a place; the warp in conscious that must exist for it to be revealed. Quatre guessed they had all been so relieved when the Psionic Saga came to a close that they had pushed it aside, not wanting to recall. But now it had returned to haunt them. Quatre was once again chasing shadows.

He pondered that as he walked, using the `how' as a means to block out the fear as he approached, closing in on the incessant dripping sound. He had been in a classroom with the others when he had felt Duo spiral out of control; felt the pre-drop of air that was the calling card of Duo's abilities. But, unlike everyone else in the room, Quatre had known it was not Duo, even as it was. He had sensed Duo in the room, sensed the fear and decay of shields, and then he was gone, swept downward in the spiral as something sprang forth from within him along with more power than anyone had thought Duo could possess. Quatre had felt something pulling him down, had heard Duo calling, but had been unable to follow. Trowa had held him back, giving him an anchor to the real world.

Quatre recalled carrying Duo's limp form back to their dorm room, remembered Trowa taking him back to the room they shared. Quatre remembered looking out the window at a pitch sky that was somehow darker than night had ever been before. And then he was asleep, beyond Trowa's reach, and he had kept his promise. He had returned to find Duo; he would not leave him alone.

Only now was Quatre truly beginning to realise how over heir heads they might be; how completely out of their depth. All about him he could hear whispers, growing louder the further he ventured into the white, and rising from that space that had once been completely empty he caught glimpses of great pillars rising high into the world above, and falling deep into the cavernous clouds below. Yet he walked between them and never was close enough tor each out and touch.

The further on, the more decayed the pillars appeared and he found forms shaping themselves around the masses. At first he thought they were spider webs, the fine silvern lines glistening in the preternatural light. But as the sound came closer they manifested fully as chains; a great maze of chain mail links, the use of which Quatre was already too familiar with.

He had been here before.

Heero had once been trapped here, his Psionic gifts held captive among those chains. Qutre had seen him; a lone boy hanging in a white room, empty, cold. His head down, mind asleep. Quatre had feared more than anything else that the boy would wake, but had realised only after the Psionic Saga had ended that there was nothing to fear. The boy was Heero, and he wanted nothing more than to free them all from the prisons of their own minds and destroy those who would enslave them. He had certainly done that, or so they had thought.

But now the white place was not so empty, not so cold, and not so white. A darkness was creeping in its edges and the very air seemed alive. Rather than empty it felt overfilled, as if a hand controlled all within it, taunting any who dared enter. Quatre's heart felt heavy. Then he rounded a corner, and it screamed.

Strung between two pillars was a labyrinth of chain; a spider web of silvern steel, and in its heart hung Duo, head down, wrists and ankles shackled so tightly blood dripped from beneath them. There was a maelstrom of power singing through the web, all held in check, perfectly stable, contained and restrained. And he can hear the whispers; through him Quatre could hear them. No words, just a sense of doom, of helplessness of complete triumph over one's prey all mingling together and sinking into the inner flesh. Dripping to he floor, each drop of blood splashed, but erupted into a bucket from the white floor, spilling over in a river over Quatre's feet, running up the white pillars and down, cascading through time and space to nowhere and everywhere.

And there was pain. Quatre's heart beat out of time, strained against his chest as it tried to escape and his gifts only magnified Duo's inner turmoil, yet when he reached out to contact he could not. Duo was asleep. Unreachable. Restrained. Contained.

Just as Heero had been.

Heero!

Quatre took one step back and it was all he needed to break free of his semi-paralysis and flee. He ran from the pale light, back into the darkness, through endless blackness, all the way out into semi-consciousness.

And into a pair of very unfamiliar arms, gnarled, twisted fingers, and a grip so tight he knew he would never break beyond. From these hands you could only hope to be released. So he looked up, into the blackest eyes he had ever seen, and blinked at the old woman grinning down on him.

"Oh, you've no need to be afraid of me deary!"

"Who are you?"

"Your friend in there knows who I am…." Was her unhelpful reply. Duo knew just about everyone on campus in some way or another.

"Then tell me; what are you doing here?"

"I imagine the same thing that you are doing."

Which was pretty much nothing other than screaming his guts out and trying in vain to help Duo, which meant they were, both of them, completely useless.

"What is this place?"

"You already know the answer to that."

"No, I don't!"

"Then you are not ready to know."

Quatre gaped at the old hag. She could not be serious? He needed whatever information she could give him. He did not need riddles and her wasting his time!

Quatre lunged forward, all his psionic strength thrown into the plunge as he wrapped his hands in her shirt and flung her down onto the ground, furious.

"You will tell me what you know! Right now!"

She smiled, a hideous rictus of a grin that near split her face in half. Quatre realised this was what she wanted; this lack of control, this unharnessed rage, but he didn't care. She had it, now she could spill it. He had to know. He had to save Duo, and if this was the only way to do it so be it.

"You have two minds," she said in a voice suddenly raspy, as if she had smoked all her life, and before his eyes Quatre watched her head split in two, straight down the middle, her eyes still watching him, but inside her skull two brains pumping lightly. He screamed and closed his eyes but refused to let go. He would have the knowledge, no matter what.

"Two minds…One conscious, one not. Your…gift…"

There was such a pregnant silence that Quatre forced himself to look at her, forced his lids apart to stare down on the monstrous figure below him. The brains were glowing, a dark blue, throbbing with something all too familiar. He felt tears brimming in his eyes but did not remove his hands to remove them. He would know.

"Your gift rests in both, but more in one than the other."

As Quatre watched the left brain began glowing brighter and it seemed it grew larger, bulging out of the open skull, pressing dangerously on the other until all he could see was the one brain…

"The stronger brain will take over; it has to, or they'll eat you alive."

The brain exploded. Quatre screamed, and in that brief moment he could have sworn he saw a thread linking him to the old woman, a fine silvery line linking one mind to the other. And then he woke, and it was gone.

"Trowa?" Quatre just stared at the face before his, knowing who it was but unable to rid the image of the old woman's split skull from his head. He lifted his hands and pressed all over it, but there was nothing there; he was whole. Finally, he let his hands fall to his lap. Trowa waited patiently for him to gather his senses but Quatre did not know what to say.

Instead, he lay back down and went to sleep.

The old lady plagued his dreams, laughing, cackling, and always that fine line linked them. She kept telling him to hurry, that time was running out. Quatre did not understand; not completely. But knowledge was blooming within him, and he could almost grasp the entirety.

You…are one of us. An older one; an ancient one…

Quatre was not sure how that was possible. The only person who would know for sure was Duo; Duo knew everything, or knew how to find out about it. But Duo wasn't there and Quatre knew he had to figure it out for himself, so he thought about that silver thread, and then about that white place, and then some more about the old lady and her connections.

Psychokinetics was a given; they all had it to some extent, but Quatre, stronger in it than most, knew this woman was inconceivably gifted in it. There was also an element of Photokinetics involved; the ability to distort vision and combined with Psychokinetics the ability to control dreams. Add Gyrokinetics and a Psionicist would be able to gravitate into someone else dream and control it. Or create a dream for others to share. Was that all it was? A sick, twisted dream? No…there was an element of reality to it.

It was more like she tried to create a resting place for them; a region untouched by the outside world. She had kept Heero there to protect them, but Duo had broken through and rescued him. Duo was…stronger than her. Or used to be. Before the Psionic Saga. Now…Now she held Duo captive, or a part of Duo.

One of the brains…the…weaker one?

Was that what she meant? The subconscious mind was stronger than the conscious? And the Chupacabra were being lured to them by the power they didn't realise they held? Yes! So, unless they learnt how to release the subconscious mind and harness their full strength, they would all die? But…Quatre shuddered awake, thinking of Duo, locked, bloody and dying, in his dark, diseased prison. How long could that place last to maintain them while they learnt? And what was the cost?

Quatre was not sure what to think. All he knew was that sunlight was pouring on his face; the day was warm.

The sun had finally risen.