|
|
~~~
Twilight
Chapter 4
~~~
((Chapter 4 Notes: I have no idea if Gundam Wing is supposed
to be set in the far future or not, like Star Trek, or
if it's in a completely alternate universe. I also don't know if
any of the other Gundam series actually describe the time
"Before Colony" or not. So I'm taking the liberties of
assuming that GW is placed our own distant future. :D))
~~~
A strange chill caught her and Sally shivered, her lips pressed together with concentration as she continued to tune the small device in her lap. The flickering firelight was hardly the appropriate lighting for what she was trying to do, but Sally had no intentions of attempting to do the alternative... which would be trying to sleep. Experience had taught her that night was a far more dangerous place than the day...
Narrowed eyes raised from her task and Sally inspected the now blackened clearing carefully, taking in the barely discernible outlines trees, shapes... only half reassuring herself in the meantime that nothing was out there. The sounds of animal habitation were amplified with the night, sharp calls followed by eerie silence distracting to her. The natural human instinct to cower away and hide was strong... and getting stronger -- gritting her teeth slightly, Sally gripped the handgun at her side briefly and turned her attention back to the little radio.
She was being illogical. She didn't particularly care though... her gun made her feel safe. 'Though,' she thought ruefully. 'My *partner* would probably make me feel safer right about now...' she shook her head, banishing the thought... it hurt too much to think about it.
~~~
A chill ran though his prone form and Wufei shivered, blinking rapidly. He couldn't see a thing in the darkness that surrounded him, but he could feel, it... whatever it was, surrounding him. He breathed in once rapidly, then twice and again, trying to calm himself. He was letting fear get the better of him, and that was something that he could *not* allow.
He relaxed forcibly, falling back on the now cool foliage, and repeated himself. "Who are you?"
Silence. A cool tendril of air seemed to brush against his face, and Wufei frowned. Suddenly he felt like he was under a microscope... he couldn't see a thing, but he received the general impression he was being inspected. *Very* carefully.
He resisted the urge to strain against the plants that held him once again, and let out a tiny huff of frustration. Hands balling into tight fists he glared out into the darkness. "I know that you are there. Speak or show yourself," he snapped.
There was silence for only a few moments more, and then suddenly the presence moved; closer. It contracted, became denser around the boy. A feeling of drowning suddenly over took Wufei, and despite himself Wufei resumed struggling against the vines, eyes wide...
... can't *breath*..!
Wufei quivered as the presence continued to envelop him. A silent scream lodged in his throat. Drowning....
He tried to gasp, straining, trying to do anything to suck air into his lungs. He was suffocating, whatever it was, it was suffocating him...!
Desperately he thrashed about, twisting his head from one side to the other. He half berated himself as well, In any other situation he would have calmed himself completely and put himself into a state of deep meditation, but it was too late for that now. Now primitive need overtook all reason.
Anything, *anything*, just to get air....
'Stop it!' He thought desperately. 'I can't *breath*, I can't...!'
He hadn't expected a reply. At least not one in his mind; but then one came, as clear as if were spoken out loud.
::Hello:: It "said".
In a rush he could breath again... Wufei sucked in a lungful of air and let out a long low howl of pure fright. The jungle around him caught the sound and it echoed back to him, over and over again...
~~~
There! Letting out a soft "a hah!" Sally's ears caught the dip in the static of her radio. Eyes narrowing, she moved the dial back a bare notch, attempting to get the signal again.
Static. Sally frowned, moving it a fraction of an inch to the right again. Nothing; only more noise...
She was about to give up and keep on searching when she shifted her body a slight bit, causing the static to shutter slightly before clearing just enough to barely make out a voice.
The voice belonged to a male, she could tell that much, and at first she thought he was speaking in another language. Then she realized he was speaking in heavily accented English. Her eyes widened with shock.
"... plese hellp. Wee repet. Wee r sitesens ov the Yonited States of Amirica...." was all that Sally caught through the static before the signal faded out again.
~~~
'Who the hell *are* you?!' Wufei thought at it, trembling with half terror, half anger. He felt violated, he could sense more than see it looking around the *inside* of his head. The presence ignored him for a moment, and then Wufei felt it turn it's attention back to him. A sense of dark amusement came over him.
::Interesting::
'WHAT'S interesting???' Wufei ground out at it. He was still gasping, his lungs laboring for the breath that couldn't have been gone for more than 30 seconds. He was upset at himself... he shouldn't have let himself lose control. And he was also upset at this *thing*, whatever it was, for being in his mind, for keeping him captive here like this...
It spoke with pictures as well as words, Wufei discovered, as a mental image of himself, bound and straining against the vines came to mind. ::You are:: it replied.
Wufei "stared" at the mental image of himself for a long moment. It was him... but the details were too fine to be his own mental image of what he assumed he looked like at that moment. It was obviously what this thing saw of him in the physical world. He could "see" out of it's eyes then... or at least whatever it was wanted him to see at any given moment.
Once again, Wufei turned his attention back to the presence. When he spoke again his voice wasn't angry any longer -- perhaps a little bit fearful, but it was more than a little bit intrigued. "... *What* are you??" he asked out loud.
~~~
Apprehensive, Sally clutched the radio in white knuckled hands, staring blankly flickering light of the fire she made. Citizens... of the United States of America...
'You've gotta be kidding.' She thought incredulously. Very, very carefully, Sally moved the dial a micro-inch, trying desperately to rehone in on the signal.
The "United States" of America used to be a very powerful and distinguished nation that existed somewhere on the northwestern hemisphere, she remembered, trying to recall what she was taught back in her history classes when she was a very little girl. But they were decimated because of the Great War. And after the Great War, (which everyone back in that time named the "Third" for some odd reason, she couldn't remember why)... it took the world a better part of a hundred years to rebuild it's self. The people living Before Colony vowed to never repeat history as they rebuilt technology... just bring back all of the perks and quirks of the devastated people before them. But no war.
Too bad that war happened anyway...
She smiled once, bitterly, bringing her gaze to back to her radio. Now all it was doing was picking up white noise... but still that signal...
Her heart fell slightly. If it were a true signal, then it had to be at least three hundred years old. A three hundred year old *distress call*. Bleakly she stared at the small radio in her hands. For some reason that didn't reassure her at all....
~~~
::I am::
The presence was silent for a moment, and then images began to flood Wufei's mind. ::I am:: It repeated, and an image of the canopy came to mind.
'You are trees?' Wufei tried quickly, confused.
Irritation. ::No. I am:: the presence continued to send mental images to Wufei's mind, of the trees, and then the ground, and then beneath the ground, of roots. Around them, him the vines... Wufei got it, or at least he thought he did. "You are the forest?" He asked out loud.
Hesitation. ::Yes and No. I am::
And then the people came to mind. Mental images of people... natives he assumed... of a little village, full of people. Fascinated, Wufei watched as image after image of people flashed through his mind. They all had brown skin and black hair and eyes, and all of them seemed incredibly happy as they went about their lives. Images of a primitive well like structure came to mind, of the people drinking from it, of circular shaped rocklike structures with huge leaves covering the tops of them, homes -- forming around the well, half buried in the trees. People - people coming out of the doorless homes and into the next freely. Of the people dancing, singing, laughing. Little children. And more images, and more... so caught up was he in the display that Wufei almost forgot to notice if he was bound or not. Which he wasn't... the vines had loosened. Carefully Wufei sat up, massaging his wrists as he continued to "watch" the images in his mind.
When the images stopped a strong feeling of warm affection flooded Wufei. He loved them - he loved those people. Or rather the presence did. They were *his* people.
Wufei shook his head slightly. 'You are them then.' He corrected himself. 'You are all of it.' In "it" he meant the forest and the people... all of the images he had received.
::It's where I come from:: the presence was silent for a moment, and then a feeling of disquiet fell over Wufei.
"What is it?" He asked, climbing to his feet. He was grateful to be released, but he had a feeling he wasn't quite free yet. He could still feel the cool chill of the presence about him, almost oppressively close.
He was right. A feeling of dark slipped over him, replacing the feeling of love... affection. Cold. ... hatred.
::Don't::
Wufei felt something re-curling around his ankle. Letting out a shout he yanked his foot away, only to trip... the other leg was in the process of getting bound again, vine as hard as iron against his leg. Letting out a grunt, he brought his hands up, trying to ward away the vines that moved out of the darkness towards his upper body, but there were to many of them. Latching back onto him with a deadly grip, they roughly threw him back to the ground.
He lay there for a moment, stunned, then turned a blind furious glare to the presence about him. "What do you want with me?" He demanded to know.
There was a pause. And then the images began running though his mind again, of those people. Except these ones where awful. Dark. The people... the people were dying... had died. They got sick, open sores appearing on their skin. Their feet dragged, they no longer ran and laughed. They fell, they lay, and they never got up again. Died. All of them, left to rot. Wufei flinched involuntarily, trying to shut off the mental assault.
"Why?" he finally whispered tonelessly.
The final strings of images were shown to him. They were elaborate... hard to follow. Wufei's brow crinkled. More people... these ones dressed in uniform, coming to visit the people. It seemed that everything was okay... until they left again, and the people began to get sick. They didn't return again... not until the people were all dead. Wearing masks Wufei "watched" as they burnt the clearing full of the stone houses, deliberately and systematically. They didn't even bury the bodies.
"I don't..." His mouth snapped shut as an overwhelming sense of anger came over him.
::You:: It seethed. A mental image of the masked uniformed people appeared in his mind.
"Me?!" Wufei retorted. "I had nothing to *do* with...!" He didn't understand *how* he could have been associated with the mental images.
The feeling of suffocation was beginning to return again. He was then shown the image of the uniformed people once again. Then another mental image came to mind. It was of another clearing, and what he saw made his blood run cold. The clearing was darkened by the night, a scant fire burning in the center of it. Behind the fire an uniformed woman sat, head bent over an object in her lap, brow creased in concentration. As the presence eagerly focused in on her, she looked up, glancing around the clearing almost nervously before returning her attention to her lap.
Delight came to his mind. Vengeance.
Wufei "got it" all right. Feeling a desperation like he had never felt before, he wrenched against his unyielding bonds yet again, wishing to be free with all of his heart. "Don't!!"
He *had* to get free... to warn Sally. A back part of his mind moaned at the hopelessness of the situation, but still he had to *try*...
The presence was planning to kill her. And him as well...
He stopped suddenly, eyes widening. ... not again... can't *breath*..!
Cursing the situation he was in, he slowly lost consciousness, slumping back into the foliage.
~~~
End Chapter 4
To be Continued...