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The Dreamcatcher
“Nothing can hurt you unless you give it the power to do so”
- unknown
Pictures very kindly drawn by saz.
It was dark, probably around
Bubbles shivered as a chilly current of air swept past her. Clad as she was in just her nightdress, she didn’t have much protection from the cold. Carefully, she stepped forward, and heard the dry leaves under it crunch. She walked onwards, fallen foliage crackling underneath her feet. Crossing her arms across her chest to keep warm, she started shivering again, but continued to proceed on the forest path.
“Where
am I?” she asked herself. “What am I doing here?” The surroundings weren’t
familiar to her, and she didn’t feel as though this was a place she’d even been
to before. Weird, she thought, and carried on up the track. A bird flew out of
one of the trees, uttering a harsh cry that startled her, and disappeared into
the night. At that moment, she began to start worrying about what was in this
forest. Oh, my God, she thought worriedly, there could be wolves...bears...monsters...anything!
Oh, God...
Attempting
to push her fears to one side, Bubbles carried on timidly up the track, saying
to herself over and over, “There’s nothing there.
There’s nothing there.” But they still stayed firmly in her mind, and her eyes
darted nervously from one clump of trees to another, expecting a dangerous,
snarling beast to suddenly spring out from within them, claws poised, ready to
swipe...
She
felt her heart rate quicken, and edged further along the pathway. Ahead of her,
the forest seemed to stretch into infinity. She felt the prickles as her feet
touched the rough woodland floor, and winced in pain when she trod on a
particularly sharp stone. Supporting herself against a tree, she lifted her
foot up to see the damage. There was a little cut on there, but nothing
serious... She paused.
Something
was rustling in the bushes behind her. And it was getting closer. She listened
as the rustling grew louder and louder, and she came a couple of paces closer
to it. Watching the shaking undergrowth, her breathing rapid and short, she
waited in fear for the thing to reveal itself...
The
leaves trembled as the entity struggled to tear its way through. Some of the
dead leaves were swept up and tossed around in a helix as the wind howled
through the night. Bubbles felt a chill running down her back.
“Oh,
my God,” she whispered, petrified with fear and deathly curiosity as the bushes
shook more and more, threatening to explode in a shower of organic matter...
And
then a hand reached through the bush. Slowly, deliberately, it grabbed a hold
of the forest floor and heaved its conjoining body through the leaves. She was
rooted to the spot as the thing dragged its way through, grunting with
determination as it did so. It was as white as snow, almost like an angel, and
it had some tears in its clothing. Her breathing quickening, Bubbles watched in
disbelief as it stood up.
It
was a boy. He looked about her age. His eyes, although they were green, seemed
to her to contain a passageway, to places she had never been... The child
dusted himself off hurriedly and then noticed her. She froze up. What’s he gonna do?, she thought
frantically, What’s he gonna do?
The
boy held his arms out and she backed away. A thought flashed like a neon light
through her mind. He’s gonna strangle me!, it read. He’s gonna kill me!
But the boy did nothing to her. He simply stood motionless, and said to her,
“Please help me...save me...”
“W-what?”
she stammered. “What did you say?”
“I
need help,” the boy replied, “I can’t survive here much longer...help
me...please...”
“OK,”
Bubbles tried to reassure him. “Don’t panic! I’ll help you!” She reached out to
take his hand, but it went right through. She tried again, but the same thing
happened. The boy looked desperately at her, pleading silently for solace, but
she could do nothing. She put her hand on his chest, and it went straight
through. Pointing this out as clearly as she could, she looked up at him with
an expression of remorse, regret that she couldn’t help. His eyes fell
disappointedly to the ground, and she stood there, staring at his helpless
form, doomed to spend an afterlife in some God-forsaken forest somewhere.
He
looked up at her again, his eyes glistening with new expectation. “If you can’t
save me,” he said, “at least come and play with me.”
“Well...”
Bubbles deliberated for a while...could she trust this boy? It’s the least you
can do, her conscience told her, if you can’t help him. Slightly uneasily, she
said, “OK. I’ll play with you.”
The
boy smiled and skipped back over to the bushes, beckoning to her to follow him.
She did so, still shivering from the cold. Stepping through the bush, she
squinted as the moonlight caught her in the eye, and entered into a circular
area that was surrounded by trees. The boy sat himself in the middle of the
circle, and brought out some jacks and a rubber ball. He bounced the ball and
swept some of the jacks up in his hand. Bubbles’ eyes followed the tiny sphere
as it rebounded off the leaves and back up into the air. She knelt down in
front of him, dead leaves crackling under her knees.
“Wow,”
she complimented him, “you’re good.”
“I’ve
been practising,” he said, not taking his eyes off his game. “I’ve been
practising for a very long time.”
“It
shows,” she added. “You’ve got a – ”
A
corpse was lying on the ground underneath one of the trees. Her chest tightened
again as the silver light shone on its hideous form. She realised with horror
that its face...matched the boy’s... Oh, God.
“Is
that...your body...under that tree?” she asked, shaking with fear.
The
boy looked casually over at it and replied, “Yeah. That’s mine, all right.”
“B-but...”
she said, “that means you’re...”
“I
know,” he said. “A real drag.”
This
is too much, she thought, I’ve got to get out of here...
“Um...I
think I’d better be getting home now,” she said, and she got up and walked back
to the bushes. The boy said nothing, as if he hadn’t heard her. She pushed the
bushes back, and stepped through...
She
couldn’t.
Something
was blocking the way. She felt the air in front of her. It was almost as if an
invisible wall had been put up while she was in there –
The
boy looked up from his game, and saw her trying to escape. “You can’t leave,”
he told her. “We’re just getting started.”
“What
do you – ” Bubbles began, and then screamed. There, by
the boy’s lifeless body, she saw herself, dead, lying on her stomach, her eyes
wide open in horror, a kitchen knife buried in her back up to the handle, a
steady trickle of blood creeping through the leaves like a red river, turning
some of them dark in the indigo night.
She
looked at her hands...but looked through them instead. The forest floor could
be clearly seen through them, and they seemed to glow with a ghostly, white
aura.
The boy took her by the
hand, and there was an icy feel as their hands connected, as if a tray of ice
cubes was sandwiched between them. “We’re gonna have
so much fun,” he said brightly. “You get to play with me. Forever.”
Bubbles followed him obediently as he led her deeper into the darkness...
Bubbles sat bolt upright and screamed, “No!” She felt Blossom jolt out of her
sleep next to her, and shake the mattress slightly.
“Bubbles!”
she exclaimed, in a daze. “What’s the matter? Why’d you scream?”
“Sorry,”
she apologised sheepishly. “I just had a bad dream, that’s all.”
“Mmf...whass
goin’ on?” Buttercup mumbled.
“Bubbles
had a bad dream,” Blossom explained wearily.
“It
was strange,” Bubbles said. “I was alone in this weird forest, and then this
boy came out behind me. He asked me to help him, but I couldn’t, so he asked me
to come and play with him, so I said, ‘OK’. But then, I saw his body under a
tree and I realised he was a ghost. I tried to get out of there, but I couldn’t
escape, so I turned around and I saw my body under the same tree...someone
killed me somehow. And then I saw that I was a ghost, too, and then the boy led
me further into the forest...”
“OK,
OK,” Blossom said soothingly, rubbing her shoulder. “It was just a dream.”
“I
know,” she replied, “but it seemed so real...”
“It
was just a dream,” Buttercup reiterated. “Now just try to go back to sleep,
OK?”
As
they all settled back down, Bubbles contemplated the dream for a while. The
cold had seemed real to her...but, as her sisters had said, it was just a
dream...
Wasn’t
it?
Trying
to put the thought out of her head, she settled back down, unaware
that someone was watching her.
The
entity sniggered as he watched Bubbles’ head lie down on the pillow.
“Yes...”
he hissed. “It’s all going according to plan...”
*
Blossom let out a sigh of exhaustion as she snuggled
under the covers. It was quite cold outside, and the warm bed felt extremely
comforting after a hard day’s work. She lay back, felt her eyes steadily close
themselves like iron gates, and sleep slowly enveloped her, transporting her
away from reality, and towards a wonderful dream world...the light at the end
of the tunnel.
Her eyelids gradually parted, and she found herself
standing in a field, a gentle zephyr making the tall grass sway hypnotically.
The sun was shining, and its warming rays were graciously received. What a
beautiful place, she thought. What was that song she’d heard the Professor
humming the other day? It was an old Beatles one, but what was it called?...
‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. That was the one.
Like
an intrepid jungle explorer, she trekked her way through the grass, pushing
stalks and leaves out of her way until she came to a fence. Crudely-made as it
was, one of the rustic, wooden planks had fallen on one side, so she slipped
through the hole without any difficulty. It led her to a small patch of trees.
There’s something behind them, she deduced. I wonder what it is?
Maddened
with curiosity, she stepped carefully through the trees, and inched herself
through a gap between the trunks...
“Whoa!”
she exclaimed.
In
front of her was a gigantic hole, at least a couple hundred metres in diameter.
She whistled in awe. She felt very insignificant standing on the edge of this
vast expanse of nothingness, which seemed to stretch down infinitely into the
Earth. With caution, she began to walk slowly around the perimeter, taking care
not to set a foot out of place. One wrong move, and
she was a goner. Having covered a small sector of the perimeter, Blossom risked
a glance over the edge. She felt dizzy as she peered down into the chasm, its
end concealed by an impenetrable mass of dark, almost like a black hole. She
felt herself begin to slant forward as her body went off balance, and jerked
her head back suddenly - too suddenly.
She
slipped as the earth underneath her right foot crumbled away and fell into the
hole, and she followed it. Automatically, she grabbed onto the edge of the
circle, holding on for dear life. Trying desperately to haul herself back up,
she remembered something : What was she doing trying
to pull herself up? She could fly, couldn’t she?
Relieved
by this realisation, she tried to fly back up...but she couldn’t. Somehow, she
had lost her power to fly. And she couldn’t pull herself up, either. What was
she going to do? She attempted desperately to think of something, but her panic
obstructed her brain from doing so. She tried pulling herself up with both
hands, but that wouldn’t work either.
“It’s
just a dream,” she reassured herself. “It can’t really hurt you...”
She
paused when she felt something. Her arm was getting tired, and she was losing
her grip on the ground. Feeling the dirt slip from her grasp, she swung her arm
up to try and grab a hold again...
But
she was too late.
Her
scream reverberating around the chasm, Blossom’s hand slid away from the edge
and she began to fall through the darkness, a handful of dirt accompanying her
in a miniature meteor shower. The air billowed past her body as she tore
through the vacuum, as if she were jumping out of a plane. The cyclical wall of
stone that surrounded her got gradually darker and darker as light failed to
reach the depths. She looked around erratically, trying to find a means of
escape...and then something clicked. If she could land on the walls, she could
climb back out. Determinedly, she pushed herself forward through the current of
air as the walls fleeted down past her. Gotta grab
onto the wall, she thought. It’ll hurt, but I gotta
do it...I gotta...
Instinctively,
she made a star-shape, like a flying squirrel, and prepared for the rough
landing - the jagged rocks seemed very unforgiving to her. She took a deep
breath, narrowed her eyes and braced herself for impact...
But
as she neared the wall, a malicious square of sharp metal spikes pierced the
stone, the little remaining light glinting off them.
She
didn’t stop in time.
As
she hit the wall, Blossom cried out in agony as one of the spikes went straight
through her hand, skewering it like a piece of meat. Overwhelmed by the pain,
she pushed herself away from the wall, and the spike slid comfortably out of
her flesh. But she began to tumble through the bottomless pit again, and she
could feel the blood thumping in her head. Gritting her teeth, she looked at
her hand and saw a repulsive stigma, a dark blotch spreading outwards from it.
She held her wounded hand close to her chest, and tears fell from her eyes as
she sped through the darkness. Looking up, she sobbed as light, and salvation,
edged itself further and further away from her as she hurtled deeper into the
reaches of the abyss...
Blossom’s eyes shot open, and she breathed in
sharply, feeling the cold sweat running down her forehead. Her heart was racing
in her chest, and she took a few deep breaths.
Murmuring
as she turned around, Buttercup saw Blossom sitting up, her eyes wide with fear
and her face slightly pale. “What happened?” she asked. “Did you have a bad
dream?”
“Uh-huh,”
Blossom answered, still trying to regain her breath.
By
this time, Bubbles had also been woken up, and she propped herself up on her
elbow. “Blossom?” she asked, “What’s going on?”
“It’s
OK, Bubbles,” Blossom replied. “I...I just had a nightmare. That’s all.”
“What
happened?” Buttercup inquired, still half-asleep.
“I
dreamt I was in this field, but then I found my way through to this clearing
with some trees. Through those trees, I found this gigantic hole in the ground.
It was like...like...one of the those massive
meteorite craters?” Bubbles and Buttercup nodded, and she went on. “So then, I
started walking carefully around the outside, when, all of a sudden, I slipped
and fell in...” She paused as Bubbles gasped quietly. “I grabbed on, but then
my hand slipped, and I started to fall down through the darkness. I was gonna grab on to the wall, so I could climb out,
but...before I landed, these spikes came out of the wall, and I impaled my hand
on one of them – ”
Suddenly,
a stinging pain came into her hand, and she grabbed it, cringing, teeth and
eyes clenched with pain.
“Blossom?” Buttercup asked. “Blossom?
What’s the matter?”
“It’s
my hand,” she replied through gritted teeth. “It really hurts, almost
like...almost like something went through it...”
Buttercup
looked at Bubbles with a look of confusion, and said, “Let me see."
Blossom held out her hand for her to have a look, but there was nothing to see.
"There’s nothing there,” she said. “You must have imagined it.”
“Maybe,”
Blossom accepted, “but it did feel real...”
“I
think the Professor called it a ‘phantom pain’, or something,” Bubbles said,
“when you can feel a pain that isn’t really there.” Blossom murmured in
agreement. “OK. Let’s try and go back to sleep...oh, my God.”
“What?”
inquired Buttercup.
“What’s
the matter?” Blossom asked.
Bubbles
pointed at the mattress cover, and uttered, “Look!” The other two looked at
where she was pointing, and gasped. The moonlight through the window revealed a
large, dark stain on the mattress. One that could only have been...
“Blood,”
Blossom said. “It’s blood.”
“What?
No way!” Buttercup dismissed her. “How could it have
gotten here?”
“I
don’t know,” Blossom replied. “Perhaps...I really did start bleeding when my
hand hit that spike? I don’t know how, but maybe that’s what’s happened.”
“We’re
all just tired,” Buttercup explained. “Our minds are playing tricks on us.
Let’s just try to go to sleep, it’ll be gone in the
morning.”
“Yeah,
you’re probably right,” agreed Bubbles. “Are you OK, Blossom?” she added.
“Huh?”
Blossom responded, snapping out of her deep thought. “Oh...yeah, I’m fine.”
“All
right,” Buttercup said, and lay down again. “Let’s just get some sleep, huh?”
As
the other two settled down, Blossom lay awake for about thirty seconds,
thinking about what had happened. Was that blood real? No, it couldn’t have
been. It was just a dream after all.
That’s
right, it was just a dream, she thought sleepily as she dozed off again.
*
Buttercup opened her eyes and found herself speeding through the interstitial vortex to her
mind. The small, rounded beam of light at the end began to balloon out as she
gradually drew nearer to it, closer and closer...
A little light seeped in through the slits as her
eyelids parted carefully. She looked around, and saw that she was lying on the
floor of a corridor. It was poorly lit. Must be night out,
she thought as she picked herself up from the carpet. Cautiously, she
crept along the hallway, keeping a sharp lookout for anything sinister that
might be hiding here, in the coat of shadow that covered every wall.
A
floorboard creaked under her, and she jumped, thinking that something was
sneaking up on her. Hurriedly, she turned around...
Nothing.
Buttercup
began to edge forward, taking care to make each step as quiet as possible, lest
some horrific monster suddenly leap out from the shadows, and drag her off into
its terrifying world, kicking and screaming for help that wouldn’t come... She
shuddered, and slunk forward warily, the air around her thick with anticipation
and dread. All of a sudden, she stopped dead. There was a very faint sound
emanating from around the corner before her, and it became clearer as she
further approached it. Acting on instinct, she pressed herself against the
wall, trembling slightly with fear. So as not to make a
sound, she side-stepped along the corridor, her back firmly against the wall.
The sound was amplified with every step, and it gradually became clearer to
her. It seemed to be an irregular thumping noise, and she swore that she could
hear breathing – panicking breathing. Beads of sweat started to trickle down
her face, but she kept her composure and continued to edge along the wall.
Her
groping hand felt the corner of the wall, and she grabbed it. Taking a deep
breath, she peered around the corner, trying to find out what was going on...
She
gasped.
In
front of her was Blossom, except that she had turned pale white, almost
transparent. Is she a ghost?, Buttercup thought. Her
skin, her hair, even her clothes, all of her seemed be
little more than a white shadow, a phantom. Buttercup could also see that
Blossom had a look of pure terror on her face. What’s more, she was backing up
against the wall, panting heavily.
She
turned, and gasped again. She saw herself, also white as snow, with an axe,
dripping blood, held tightly in her hands. Watching in horror, the murderous
spectre swung the axe and embedded it in Blossom’s shoulder. She doubled up as
Blossom shrieked in pain, her screams echoing infinitely around the hallway,
and clenched her wound with her hand. Buttercup began to tremble when she saw a
streak of crimson trickle from under her sister’s palm and meander down her
arm, staining her clothing with a streak of dark red. She cringed as her
ghostly counterpart struck her sister with the axe again, this time with the
blunt end in her ribs.
Blossom collapsed on the
floor, and lay still, her eyes wide with terror, as the phantom Buttercup
hissed, her utterances reverberating maddeningly around the real Buttercup’s
head, “You mangy, little mutt...you little pup, you’ll take your stinkin’ medicine...right now, by God, right now...” With
that, she lay her foot on Blossom’s stomach, pinning her to the ground, raised
the axe above her head and brought it back down with a sickening cry of rage...
Buttercup turned away
quickly, and nearly vomited as she heard the sound of metal cutting into flesh.
She heard Blossom cry out in agony again as the blade struck her chest, and her
shouts slowly faded away down the corridor. Shaking uncontrollably, she poked
her head back round.
Blossom had vanished. Where
she expected to see a bloodied, battered corpse, there was only carpet.
However, the apparition was still there, its shoulders heaving with raw anger.
Its teeth were bared, and its breath whistled in and out through them.
Suddenly, its head jerked up, and their eyes met. Buttercup’s insides froze
solid when she saw the vacant, murderous glow that lay in the wraith’s eyes. It
was almost like a malevolent spark, waiting to ignite something... Rooted to
the spot, she could only watch as it began to advance on her.
“Don’t think I don’t know
you’re here,” it said quietly, in her exact voice.
“What...what did you do?”
Buttercup asked timidly.
“Had to make Blossom...had
to make her take her medicine...” the ghost Buttercup replied, out of breath.
It grinned maliciously, and the real her took a step
back. There was a small trickle of blood seeping from the corner of its mouth.
“But...this is all a dream!”
she said, confidently. “Nothing really happened at all! You don’t even exist!”
“I do exist,” her
counterpart corrected her. “Just not yet.”
The confidence sapped from
her, Buttercup asked, “What do you mean?”
“It’s only a matter of time,
Buttercup,” the phantom responded, “before it happens for real...”
“What?” she replied,
frightened by this premonition.
“You’re gonna
take care of ‘em for us...” the ghost continued, a tone of menace all too present in its voice.
“They all gotta go...all of ‘em...”
“No,” she protested, “no,
I’m not gonna do that!”
“You are going to do it,” the ghost replied. “They’re all gonna go...one way, or another...”
“No!” she shouted back. “You
can’t make me do this!”
“All gonna
take their medicine...every last drop...”
Buttercup broke into a
sweat, her heart thumping ferociously in her chest. Taking another step back,
she considered making a run for it. “No...” she whimpered again.
“Please...no...”
Still smiling horribly at
her, the ghost swung the axe in a perfect arc. She cried out as the blade raked
across her stomach, its cold steel slicing into her flesh. Clutching her
abdomen tightly in pain, a tear trickled down from each eye as she looked
helplessly up at the gruesome entity in front of her.
The ghost looked at her
threateningly, some of its snowy hair straggling in its face. “You can’t deny
the inevitable,” it hissed through its teeth. “All gonna
get their comeuppance...sooner or later, they gotta
take their medicine...”
“No!” Buttercup shouted,
“No! I’m not doing it!”
“Don’t try to resist it,
Buttercup,” the spectre jeered. “You know you want to, really...” Buttercup
watched in horror as it brought the axe behind its head again, and screamed as
the blade whistled down through the air...
Blossom was woken by some sudden movements next to
her, and turned over to see Buttercup thrashing around in turmoil like a
deranged animal.
“Buttercup!”
she exclaimed, “What’s the matter? Are you all right?” She cringed back as
Buttercup yelled out in pain again, and held her hands to her temples. Roughly,
she tried to shake her terrified sister back into reality. “Buttercup!
Wake up! You’re just dreaming! Wake up!”
“No!
Leave me alone!” Buttercup shrieked, waking Bubbles up with a jolt. “I’m not gonna do it! Please don’t make me do it! Please!”
“Buttercup!” Bubbles called to her, “What’s happening to
you?”
“Stay
away from me!” Buttercup pleaded, her eyes still clenched tight shut, “Don’t
make me do it! I’m not gonna – ”
She was cut off as her head hit the bedroom floor with a dull thud. “Oww...” she complained, rubbing it.
Blossom
and Bubbles leapt out of bed and ran over to her.
“Oh,
my God, Buttercup, are you OK?” Bubbles asked
desperately.
“What
happened?” Blossom added. “You looked like you were having a seizure, or something!”
Buttercup’s vision focused,
and the room came back into view. In a slight daze, she turned her head to look
at her sisters, both of them staring at her. “Must’ve...fallen out of bed,” she
muttered.
“Did
you have a bad dream?” Bubbles inquired.
“I
don’t think so...” Buttercup began, but then cried out again and held her head
in her hands. The ghost’s voice, an echo of her own, escaped from her memory
and sibilated around her mind. Her fists tightened in
her hair as the reminiscence came back in all its horrific glory. Her closed
eyes provided a movie screen for it, and it was much too clear to ignore...
The
fight, Blossom desperately calling out for someone, anyone...
The
ghost finishing her off with the killer blow...
It turning on her, cutting her stomach with the axe...
The
final, terrible thing it had said : ‘Don’t try to
resist it, Buttercup...you know you want to, really...’
She
hunched up into a ball, whimpering with fear, but felt someone shake her again.
Coiling away as if she’d been burned, she opened her eyes to find that it was
only Bubbles.
“Oh...”
she realised, relieved, “it’s just you.”
“What
do you mean?” Bubbles asked, confused. “I’ve been here the whole time.”
“What
happened to you back there?” Blossom persisted, a look of mild panic spreading
rapidly across her face.
“I
saw the dream again,” Buttercup replied, her voice trembling slightly. “I
saw...myself...trying to hurt Blossom with an axe...” Blossom and Bubbles
looked uneasily at each other. Buttercup continued, “Then, after she’d...” She
struggled to find a word that wouldn’t scare them too much. “...disappeared,
then the ghost me turned on me. It kept advancing towards me, and...saying
stuff about how it was gonna happen for real...how
you were all gonna...‘take your medicine’...” She
held her knees close in to her chest, and sat still on the floor for a while,
threatening to let a few tears loose. Blossom broke the silence by putting her
hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t
worry. It was just a nightmare, I’m sure,” she reassured her.
“I
don’t think it was just a nightmare,” Bubbles disagreed.
“Why
do you say that?”
“Well,
look at what’s happened these past few nights...” she explained. “When I had my
dream...I could feel that boy’s hand touching mine as he led me away into the
forest...and that blood on the mattress a little while ago. Maybe you really
did hurt your hand in your dream?”
Horrible realisation dawned on Blossom, and her eyes widened slightly. She turned to face Buttercup, and asked, “What about you? Did you get hurt?”
Buttercup
frowned as she recalled it, then she whispered, “Yeah...yeah, I did. The ghost
swung the axe, and it tore right across my stomach. I knew it was only a dream,
but I felt the metal going through my body, and I could actually feel the pain...”
“Oh,
my God,” Bubbles whispered. “What do you think this means?”
Blossom
was remotely scared, but she wasn’t going to give in to fear. “Maybe it’s like
Buttercup said earlier...maybe we’re just tired.” She threw back the duvet and
looked at where the bloodstains had previously been. She was comforted
immensely by the fact that they had disappeared. “See? The blood’s not there
any more. This is all psychosomatic.”
“Psycho-whazza?” asked a bemused Buttercup.
“We’re
all imagining it,” Blossom explained. “It isn’t really there...it’s just an
illusion.”
Buttercup
felt sceptical, and looked at her stomach. There was no cut as far as she could
see, and she didn’t feel any pain, either. “I think you’re right,” she said
after her inspection. “We should probably just get back to bed.”
They
were all startled when the light turned on, and the Professor asked, “Girls?
It’s three o’ clock in the morning! What’s going on in here?”
“It’s
OK, Professor,” Blossom replied, her confidence now fully restored. “Buttercup
just had a nightmare, that’s all.”
“Oh...OK,”
he said. He didn’t sound convinced.
Buttercup
climbed back into bed and settled down under the covers. The Professor tucked
them in, kissed them goodnight, and turned the light out. As the door closed,
Buttercup stared at the wall for a minute or two, thinking about the dream.
Blossom could be right...there wasn’t a mark on her, or anything, but...
The
pain...the blade of the axe raking across her stomach...it felt so real to her.
Was she crazy? No, she affirmed herself, ‘cos Blossom
and Bubbles felt something, too...
However,
her thoughts were silenced for the night as she gave in to her tiredness.
*
The black sky hung over Townsville like a storm
cloud, with every possibility of danger lurking unforeseen. The moon was a
great, silvery orb suspended in the eternal blanket of space. Down below, the
city was shutting down for the night. The mighty skyscrapers slowly became
empty obelisks of steel and concrete. The streetlights emitted a welcoming,
yellow glow as people returned home after a hard day’s work.
None
of them had wristwatches, but Blossom guessed that it was around
“I
don’t think there’s anything left,” Blossom reported. “Anything you guys can
spot?”
“Nope,”
replied Bubbles.
“Nothing
I can see,” Buttercup added.
“OK,”
Blossom said. “Let’s go home – ”
“Wait,”
Bubbles interrupted her. Her face was one of deep concentration – she was
frowning, and her eyes were closed, trying to pinpoint something.
“Can
you hear something?” Buttercup asked.
“Ssshh,” Bubbles replied quietly, and continued to listen
intently, meditating on the sixth sense inside her head. Her eyes snapped open,
and she said, “I think something’s up at the zoo.”
“Really?” Blossom inquired. “What?”
“I
don’t know for sure,” Bubbles answered her. “But I think we’d better check it
out.”
“Good
idea,” Blossom agreed. “Let’s go!” They sped off towards the Zoological
Gardens, leaving a tricolour of light behind them as they went. As they neared
it, Bubbles could definitely sense that something was there. It was her
super-heroine instinct, acting like a radar screen. She didn’t know, she
just...felt.
They
landed within the compound, and looked around. The gates at the entrance were
padlocked shut. Each wall was topped with a menacing length of jagged barbed
wire, and it looked less like a zoo than a hostile war zone.
“We’ll
have to split up,” Blossom resolved. “We’ll spread out and see if we find
anything.” Bubbles and Buttercup nodded in agreement, and they flew out their
separate ways; Blossom headed north. Having scoured the tiger and lion cages,
wolf and hyena pens and orca pools, she pondered where else the villain might
be hiding. Suddenly, something caught her eye - a large building, near where
the crocodiles were. She flew over, and pushed against the door to the
entrance. It creaked open, surprising her, and she
carefully stepped through. A hyena cackled. It was almost pitch black inside,
the only illumination coming from the dim lamps in the enclosures. Swallowing
hard, she tried to inhibit her fears as she walked cautiously down the dark
passageway, feeling her way along the wall.
Outside,
inaudible to her, a key jangled as it hit the stone terrace.
Creeping tacitly down the hall, Blossom looked
slowly from one glass pane to another. From each came a faint, purple light
that showed her their inhabitants.
A gecko in one.
An iguana in another.
A
particularly large one revealed a crocodile, lying in wait in the water like a
fallen log.
“Just
my luck to end up in the reptile house,” she moaned as her soft footsteps
resounded ever so slightly around the corridor. It was hard to stop herself from trembling - she didn’t get on well with
reptiles. Keeping a sharp lookout in the tunnel, she peered warily at each
tank. One of them showed to her a flat spiral lying motionless on the ground,
like a brown nautilus. She peered through the thick pane of glass at it, and
watched as it began to unfurl. A head rose up from the centre, its shape
unmistakable.
“Oh, God,” she whispered,
“snakes!”
Her eyes barely touching the
viewing panel, Blossom watched motionless as the serpent opened its mouth,
baring a set of long, sharp fangs. The top two were oozing venom. She stayed
still, not wishing to agitate it, but the snake was angry enough already. It
hissed, so loud she could just hear it through the glass, and a hood sprung
open on its neck. It wasn’t just a snake - it was a cobra. Suddenly, it lunged
at her, its mouth open so far she could almost peer down its gullet...
Blossom flung herself away
from the glass, and peered up at the cobra, still spitting evilly and pressing
its head against the pane. Welcome relief swept over her when she remembered
that it was prevented from attacking her by that glass. Wiping the sweat from
her forehead, she edged further along the passage, dozens of beady, little eyes
watching her from every direction. She began to feel very afraid - she got on
terribly with snakes. It was a fear she’d had ever since she could remember,
and it happened because she knew what snakes could do - bite, crush, poison,
kill...
She shuddered as she neared
a set of double doors at the end of the hallway. But something caught her eye.
One of the tanks, a particularly large one in the very bottom corner, was
empty, and had a sign taped to it, reading, ‘Anaconda. 8-9m
in length, c. 400kg. Location : Central/South
Gingerly, she pushed one of
the double doors. It swung weakly, and then closed itself. Opening it again and
stepping through the entrance, she found that there was nothing there, save an
illusory puddle of moonlight streaming in through a window in the ceiling. Of
course, it was too dark to see anything anyway.
God, this place is dark, she
thought, it’s almost scary... Carefully, ready to jump at the slightest thing,
she peered around the room, praying silently that she couldn’t find anything.
She didn’t. “Thank God,” she said to herself. “It’s not here. Now I can get outta this place...” She began hurriedly to turn around,
but suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
Through the double doors,
faint though it was, she could hear something sliding languorously across the
floor. Something was moving behind her...and it was drawing closer. She had her
back to it, but she was too terrified to move. Risking a glance over her
shoulder, she whimpered when all she could see was darkness. Her breathing
became shorter and quicker as the creature slowly moved nearer, dragging its
body across the floor in sporadic bursts of energy. She listened in utter fear
as it shifted itself across the tiles, making a slight scraping sound. Closer
and closer it came, its terrible writhing threatening to drive her insane.
Just at that moment, her
body became rigid as horrific images began to form in front of her eyes.
Terrifying omens of a huge, black monster slithering lethargically out of the
darkness like a giant slug, ruthless, hungrily desiring to eat anything it
could find...
What is it?,
her mind asked fearfully, Oh, God, what the hell is it?
The disgusting beast opening
its mouth with a horrifying shriek as its head crashed down on her...
“Please,” she whispered
quietly, a tear rolling down her cheek, “please make it stop...oh, God, please,
just make it stop...”
All went quiet. The smooth rustling noise stopped, almost as soon as it had started. An eerie silence, that which would normally follow after a battle in the trenches, ensued. Blossom felt the waves of fear gradually dissipate away from her...but claw themselves back again.
A deathly hissing sound
replaced the scraping, getting slowly louder, but then ricocheting back into
the gloom. She could tell that it was closer – much closer. So close, it might
even be right next to her...
“I’ve got to get out of
here,” she affirmed herself, and tried to turn around to run back the other
way. She couldn’t. Her legs were clamped together, and they wouldn’t budge, no
matter how hard she tried. What’s going on?, she
thought. Why can’t I... She froze again when she felt something slipping around
her arms and waist, forcing them together as well. Shivering as the entity’s
cold, scaly body wrapped itself around hers, constricting her like a
straightjacket, Blossom stood rigid with fear as she was slowly bound in the
creature’s clutches. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead as she felt
something crawl past her cheek, its skin rubbing it smoothly. Its monstrous
head turned to the side, and it appeared as a thick, black shadow in front of
her face, opaque against the silvery beams from the window. It turned again,
slowly and deliberately, to face her. The moonlight glistened in its eyes,
little orbs of pure evil. She watched in terror as a forked tongue poked out of
its elongated mouth and flickered, like a candle in the wind, hissing horribly
as it did so.
A freezing blanket of fear
enveloped her as she realised what it was. The anaconda that
“wasn’t”.
It had its hold on her. And
it wasn’t going to let go.
In vain, she tried to
struggle against its clutches, but it held fast. The serpent drew its face
dangerously close to hers, and its tongue poked out and in again.
Suddenly, she cried out in
pain as she felt her body being crushed from all sides. The anaconda was
constricting her as it would its prey, slowly squeezing the life out of her.
Blossom sobbed as she felt her bones heave under the strain, and screamed
again.
Bubbles! Buttercup!, she thought desperately. Oh, God, where are you? I’m in
trouble! Help me! Please help me!
She gasped for breath as her
rib cage threatened to implode, but the snake was merciless. It was hungry. It
wanted food now.
“Bubbles!...Buttercup!,”
she yelled with her remaining ounces of strength as the snake’s body closed
over her head. “Snake...please...help me!...”
“D’you find
anything?”
“Nope. Not a nibble.”
“I
don’t think your instinct was on target this evening,” Buttercup said.
“Sorry,”
Bubbles apologised. “But I really thought something was there...”
Buttercup
shrugged. “Could’ve happened to any of us.”
“Guess
you’re right,” Bubbles replied, confused over the outcome of the manhunt. They
had found nothing. No-one was there, not even a zookeeper. Weird, she thought.
“C’mon,”
her sister said. “Let’s go find Blossom.” They took off into the air, a
tranquil quietness surrounding both of them. Crickets chirruped in the bushes,
and Bubbles could hear some of the birds squawking as they settled down for the
night. The serenity of the atmosphere was soothing, calming, peaceful.
All
quiet on the Western Front, Bubbles mused as she and her sister flew on,
searching for Blossom. Despite doing a number of sweeps over the top of the
zoo, she was nowhere to be found, on the ground anyway. There was one place
they hadn’t checked, though - a large building which rose up at the end like a
warehouse.
“She
must be in there,” Buttercup deduced. “That’s the only place we haven’t
checked.”
“OK,”
agreed Bubbles, and they landed on the terraced pathway in front of the
entrance. Bubbles followed her sister as she walked towards the door, but
something caught her eye. A metallic flash, a short glimpse
of light. She turned her head in the direction it had come from, and
shouted, “Buttercup! Hold on! I think I’ve found something!”
Buttercup
came walking back to her, and watched as she bent down to pick up something
from the ground. It was a key, the same colour as a silver coin, and it
glistened as the moonlight reflected off it.
“What
do you suppose it opens?” Buttercup inquired.
Bubbles
looked back up at the door about 20 yards away, and considered its proximity.
“Maybe it opens that door.”
Buttercup
flew back over to the door and gave it a gentle nudge. It swung open, and shut
again with a soft thump. She signalled to Bubbles to follow her, and they
stepped inside, Bubbles keeping a firm hold of the small key in her hand.
They
crept side by side down the corridor, the bang from the closing door bouncing
off the walls. Although she knew that they were safely behind glass windows,
Bubbles moaned in fright as she set her eyes upon the scaly, prehistoric
creatures in the tanks.
Even Buttercup felt the
slightest pangs of fear as the lizards and crocodiles and snakes all eyed them
contemptuously. God, I wish we had a torch, she thought as they edged along the
hallway, Bubbles pressing closer and closer into her side. Considerately, she
put her arm around her trembling sister’s shoulder, and pushed open a set of
double doors with her one free hand.
The resulting room was
empty. Or so she thought.
Both of them saw that there
was a large form near the centre of the room, illuminated slightly by a pool of
light from a window high above the floor. Huddling together a bit more, they
inched towards it slowly. The image gradually became clearer, and they took it
for a huge cone in the centre. Warily, Buttercup reached out and stroked it.
Scales. Lots of
them. The cone was also heaving a little, in and out, as if it was
breathing. Bubbles swore she could actually hear it breathe, the air travelling
out and in with deep, shrill gasps...
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“What?” Buttercup asked
worriedly. “What is it?”
“Look!” she uttered,
pointing at the vast form in front of them. Buttercup did look, and took a
cautious step backward as the pile imploded upon itself...and
from within came a bone-chilling screech of agony that was horribly familiar to
them.
“Blossom’s in there!”
Bubbles whimpered, still pointing accusingly at the creature. They both felt
icy waves of fear drift over them as something hissed, like water on a fire, susurrating infinitely into the darkness.
The snake raised its loathsome
head from the top of the spiral, and reviewed them unconcernedly. They shook
with fear and anger as they heard Blossom’s pain-stricken sobs emanate from
inside her serpentine prison.
“Hang in there, Blossom!”
Buttercup called, praying that her sister could hear her through the serpent’s
body.
“It’ll be OK!” Bubbles
added, her voice trembling, “We’ll get you out of there!”
Blossom, her eyes clenched
and tears of anguish streaming down her face, heard their cries, not very loud
but distinct enough, and pressed her head against the muscular walls of her
cell. “Bubbles! Buttercup!” she yelled back,
desperately trying to make her voice heard, “Are you there?”
“Yeah, don’t worry!”
Buttercup replied, “We’re right here! We’ll get you out, don’t worry!”
“Hurry!” Blossom begged, her voice muffled a little by the snake’s body. “I’m not gonna last much longer! Help me! Hurry!”
The snake squeezed again, and Buttercup cringed as the last syllable made the
horrendous transition to another scream of torment. She tried to pull the snake
away, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried punching it, but it was like striking a
concrete block, and she cursed as searing streaks of pain shot up her hand.
Holding her injured fist
with her other hand, she desperately tried to think of something, the angst
dissipating through her bloodstream like a drug.
“Bubbles!” she called out.
“Are you still here?”
No answer. “Bubbles?” she
asked, but she was gone. Whirling around in a mild panic, Buttercup’s eyes
darted from wall to wall, painstakingly searching for her sister...
Suddenly, the atmosphere
appeared to resonate with a harsh battle cry, one filled with fear and rage,
and rose to a maddening level. Bubbles charged from behind the snake, leapt
like a cougar into the air and landed a terrific punch on the back of its head.
It jerked forward, seemingly
stunned by this unexpected assault. Bubbles landed cleanly on the floor, and
watched with Buttercup as the spiral began to drunkenly unravel. The coils fell
away from Blossom like bandages from a mummy, and she stood weakly before them,
swaying slightly. The snake slithered a short distance across the floor, and
looked at them silently, remaining completely motionless.
Blossom tottered for a few
seconds, as if coming out of a trance, but the punishment it had inflicted on
her was too severe. Without saying a word, she fell backwards and collapsed
onto the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling like a corpse, eyes wide with
terror. Her chest rose and fell as her breath whistled in and out in a death
rattle.
“Blossom!” Buttercup called anxiously
to her, “Blossom! Are you OK?”
She didn’t reply, exhausted
as she was by her ordeal. But she twitched. Buttercup noticed it. At the same
time, the hissing began again, and the snake crawled along the floor back
towards them. It wasn’t travelling particularly fast, but it was full of rugged
determination.
Buttercup sensed the danger,
and ran between it and her sister to impede its journey. “Oh, no you don’t!”
she told it angrily. “You’re not getting her this time!”
The snake ignored her
warnings, and continued to creep placidly across the ground.
“Stay away!” Buttercup
shouted at it. “Leave her alone!”
The snake raised its
monstrous head from off the ground, swung it gently to the side, and then
snapped it back like a whip. Buttercup felt the breath knocked out of her as
the top half of the snake’s body cannoned into her stomach, easily sweeping her
aside. Turning its head back, the serpent slithered further along the floor,
its tongue protruding from its mouth, flickering, and shrinking back in again.
Blossom began to tremble
weakly as she felt the snake slink onto her stomach, and she uncomfortably
raised her head from the ground. She didn’t have the energy to scream as the
serpent’s head gradually came into view. It seemed to be smirking.
She moaned, “No...” as it
hissed again, and opened its mouth so wide that it was almost at a right angle.
Bubbles cried, “Blossom!
NO!” as she watched the snake’s gaping jaws open like a bear trap as it
approached to devour her sister.
Pinned to the floor, Blossom
felt a tear well up in her eye as she peered into the snake’s throat, as dark
and ominous as night itself...
Come on, Blossom!, her brain urged her. You can’t give in that easily!
You’re right, she told
herself. With her remaining strength, her fist clenched and she drew her arm
back as the snake’s head descended frighteningly through the air. Then, when
its fangs were but two inches from her face, she aimed her fist right for its
head, and veered it with all her might...
There was a crunch as her
fist connected with the snake’s skull, and it staggered to the side, its head
swimming with pain. Blossom lay sprawled on the floor, and watched the creature
retch away, its body writhing horribly in the darkness. Then, with a thump, its
head flopped forward, and it lay still on the floor, its slender body
resembling a thick scar. It began to fade from view, the concrete floor showing
through it as it gradually turned more transparent. They could just about see
its outline...and then it was gone. Blossom’s head sank to the floor, and she
closed her eyes.
Buttercup snapped out of her
stunned daze, and ran over to her, Bubbles doing the same. Rapidly, she sat her
up and asked, “Blossom? Blossom? Are you OK? Oh, God,
are you all right?”
Blossom’s eyes opened
slowly, and took in a few short breaths. “I ache all over,” she slurred. “I
think I’ve broken something...”
“Don’t worry!” Bubbles said.
“We’ll get you home! The Professor’ll know what to
do!”
There was a pause, and
Blossom faintly replied, “OK.” Her voice had dropped to a low whisper, and her
face had almost turned snow-white.
Gently, Buttercup picked her
up like a fallen comrade, and said to Bubbles, “Come on. We’d better get home.”
As they flew back through the snake-tunnel, her mind kept asking her, What the hell just happened back there? Was that snake real?
What happened?
Bubbles remembered the small
key in her hand, and placed it on a shelf to the right of the door. It’s all
right, she thought, no-one’s gonna break in her. Who
wants to?
Blossom put her arms around
Buttercup’s chest, and held herself close to her so that she wouldn’t fall, not
that Buttercup would let her, anyway. She felt the newly tranquil, nocturnal
air slip through her hair as her sister forlornly carried her through the night
sky.
The Professor looked at his watch. 7:30pm. Odd, he
thought, the girls are normally in by now. What’s taking them so long?...
There
was a knock at the door, and he got up from the table to go and answer it.
Whoever it was on the other side, they insisted that he open the door, because
they banged on it again, this time more urgently.
“Hold
on, hold on,” he said as he turned the latch. Bubbles and Buttercup were
floating solemnly above the doormat. “Girls!” he exclaimed. “What took you so
long...” His speech trailed off as he laid his eyes on
Buttercup cradling Blossom in her arms.
Blossom clung tight to her,
but turned her head to look at the Professor. He gasped when he saw her face,
bleached with fright, gaze up at his.
Carefully, he took her from
Buttercup, and asked, “What happened to her? She looks awful!”
“We were checking out the
zoo – ” Bubbles began.
“And Blossom went to check
the reptile house, but then this huge snake appeared out of nowhere, and
started crushing her – ” Buttercup said, talking
rapidly due to her agitation.
“We tried to help her, but
it was huge, I mean really big,” Bubbles added, stretching her arms out wide to
demonstrate the size. “So it was gonna eat her, but
then she punched it, hard, and then it vanished...”
“OK, OK,” the Professor
said, calming them both down. He looked down at Blossom and asked, “Are you OK,
honey?”
“No,” Blossom replied
weakly. “I think I’ve broken a rib...”
Carefully, the Professor set
her down on the floor, and drew his thumbs up her rib cage, counting silently
as he did so. “Nope,” he concluded. “They’re all there.”
“Oh,” Blossom said, relieved
no end by this. “Well, I don’t think I’ve broken anything else, but I just ache
all over. That snake was really powerful, and I thought my body was gonna crack...”
“It’s all right, dear,” the
Professor reassured her, rubbing her shoulder. “Maybe you should just get to
bed, and sleep it off.”
“OK,” Blossom croaked, but
it was clear she didn’t even have the energy to fly up the stairs by herself.
Bubbles took her hand and helped her up. Once back in their bedroom, she
crawled under the covers and laid her head down on the pillow.
Bubbles pulled up the
covers, and asked, “Are you OK now?”
She smiled and replied,
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”
Smiling back, Bubbles hopped
off the bed and closed the door as she went out. Although her tiredness was
getting the better of her, Blossom thought about what had happened that night.
The snake...its crushing vice had felt so real, she could still feel its impact
even now...
Silently, she closed her
eyes and went to sleep.
*
The next evening, the city fell under surveillance
as the girls swooped over it like vultures in the desert. Blossom’s injuries
had almost healed, although the remaining numbness in her limbs impeded her
duty somewhat, and she looked a bit haggard. Just tiredness, she told herself,
relax.
“Just
one more quick check, and then we can go home,” she said. “I’m going in.”
“Bubbles
had better go with you,” Buttercup added.
“What?
Why?” Bubbles asked.
“C’mon,
Bubbles,” Buttercup reminded her. “We can’t take any chances after what
happened last night. You copy?” Bubbles nodded in affirmation. “Anyway, two are
better than one.”
Blossom
accepted this reluctantly, and said, “OK. You check the coast, all right?”
“Got
it,” she replied, and watched as the others dive-bombed towards the city. Woe betide anyone who comes across those two, she thought.
With that contemplation on her mind, she set out towards the coastline that lay
a mile or two from the city itself. The waves undulated onto the shore, ebbing
and flowing across the sand. It seemed to light up as the moon shone on it from
above it, its reflection rippling in the water.
Buttercup
felt calmed by this placid scene, the tranquillity of the view enveloping her
like the waves. She was at peace, and it felt exceedingly comforting. Landing
on the beach, her feet made deep imprints in the sand as they pressed into it.
As she walked leisurely towards the waterfront, she felt the sea air billow
around her, and her hair flailed slightly in the wind.
She
saw a sign placed in the ground as she approached it. It was wooden, and looked
pretty old and shabby - pieces had gradually flaked off it over the years,
leaving some of the writing faded and illegible. However, Buttercup could read
the first few lines, and they said,
‘
Alarmed
slightly, she turned away, and looked back at it again. The grim text had
disappeared, and had been replaced by, ‘Beware of currents. Some sea currents
can get particularly strong, especially in the summer. Take care not to swim
out too far...’, and then it broke off. She viewed the fatigued, decrepit thing
for a minute, in case the letters rearranged themselves again, but they didn’t.
“Must’ve
been a trick of the light,” she muttered to herself, and carried on walking
towards the sea. Everything was in place; the scenery was beautiful - the
moonlight on the water, the city glowing incandescently in the background; the
soft sounds of the waves crashing on the shoreline, the air around her feeling
clean and pure...
Buttercup
took in a deep breath, and sighed contentedly as the slightly salty air was
drawn in and out of her lungs. Remembering what she was supposed to be doing
there in the first place, she scanned the beach carefully, from vanishing point
to vanishing point. Nothing.
She
crossed her arms across her chest and looked out over the sea, which seemed to
stretch out to meet the Moon nestling on the horizon. A couple of seagulls
cried on the wing overhead, circling above the water like buzzards. It was easy
for her to envisage a giant dorsal fin protruding through the water, cutting a
path through it like a knife, and then sinking again. She knew about Jaws, and
it was a movie that fascinated her intensely. Her mind then brought about
virtual images of dolphins leaping playfully out of the sea, their bodies
casting shadows as they jumped in front of the moon. She laughed, and proceeded
to walk along the beach.
Approaching
a clump of reeds in the sand, Buttercup stood still and closed her eyes, as if
trying to be at one with Nature. The long grass behind her swayed to and fro as
the wind caressed it gently.
Have I reached inner peace?, she thought light-heartedly. Nirvana?
Enlightenment…
The surges of water roared
up the beach onto the stones, and then melted away calmly. The sounds were
music to her ears, and they were so soothing. The stress inside her seemed to
untwist itself, and break apart, diffusing away into her body. Wow, she
thought. The sea air’s getting to my head. It looks like it’s all falling away…
Wait a minute.
She looked back out over the
sea, and saw it appear to rise up and go away from her. It wasn’t that it was
rising up, more like she was going down, like in an elevator…
Buttercup realised with
horror that she was sinking slowly into the ground. The ground she was standing
in bubbled and rippled as it dragged her further in. She tried to pull her legs
out, but they wouldn’t budge – it only made her submerge deeper. It was
quicksand. She had sometimes had terrible visions of her drowning in thick,
murky water, which sucked her in like a ravenous monster.
She
needed help. She called out for her sisters.
“Blossom! Bubbles! Help me!” she yelled. “Girls!
I’m trapped in quicksand! Help me!” A shiver went up her spine as she felt the
level rise up to her knees, but she was trapped, as if in concrete. Soon, it
would engulf her, the light-brown sludge rising steadily over her head...
“Girls!”
she shouted again desperately. “Help me! Oh, God, please, help me!”
“Looks good to me,” Blossom reported.
“Same,”
Bubbles replied. “Should we go and find Buttercup?”
“Yeah,
OK,” she agreed, and they started to fly off towards the coast, leaving the
ghostly metropolis fluorescing gently in the moonlight. It was on its own now,
at least for that night. Silently, so as to not disturb the calming stillness
that was always present at this time of evening, they glided through the air
and landed softly on the sand. Blossom looked out over the waves, enraptured by
their overwhelming natural beauty. The moonlight made puddles of silver on the
surface, which shimmered as the body of water heaved underneath it.
Bubbles
did the same, and saw a couple of seagulls flying out towards the moon, their
squawks echoing through the silent night. This is so beautiful, she thought.
What a lovely place –
Get out now.
An
urgent thought flashed momentarily through her head, as clear as if someone was
speaking to her. She whirled around, expecting to see someone hiding in the
marshy grass behind them, but no-one was there. Weird...
Get out, before it’s too late!
“Bubbles?” Blossom asked, confused by her abnormal
behaviour. “What’s wrong?”
Quickly! Run! Get out of here! The voice
gradually became more harsh and desperate, as if pleading with her to leave. Now!, it screamed at her, RUN!
Holding her head, Bubbles yelled out and winced as the frantic warning dissipated through her mind like a shock wave. Her heart was pounding with the sudden force of the omen, and she kneeled down on the sand.
“Bubbles?” Blossom inquired again, more concerned this time,
“Are you all right? What’s the matter?” Oh, God, what was happening? Was she
possessed? Maybe something was lurking, waiting to be unleashed upon their
world...
Bubbles
slowly opened her eyes as the voice’s cry faded to nothing, and felt Blossom’s
hand fall supportively on her shoulder. She looked up at her sister, and
replied, “It’s OK. I’m fine. Just getting a bit tired, that’s all.”
“I
don’t think it’s that, Bubbles,” Blossom said uncomfortably. “That thing with
the snake last night...and those dreams we all had...maybe there’s a reason
for...oh, God.”
“What?”
Bubbles asked anxiously.
“It’s
got Buttercup,” Blossom uttered, her voice quivering. “Whatever it is, it’s got
her – ”
She
was abruptly cut off by someone shouting to them from further down the beach.
Both of them listened intently as the yells became clearer. They sounded like,
“Girls! Where are you! Help me! Please, help me!”
“Quick!”
Blossom instructed. “Buttercup’s in danger! We gotta
find her!”
“Oh,
my God, what’s happened to her?” Bubbles whimpered as they bolted down the
beach.
“I
don’t know, but we need to help her!” Blossom responded. Tearing down the
shoreline like fugitives, they stopped briefly to catch their breath. The cries
for help had ceased, and they were getting worried.
“Where
could she have gone?” Blossom panted, gritting her teeth as her aching limbs
flared up again.
Bent
over, a wheezing Bubbles looked up, and caught sight of a dark figure near the
grass about ten metres away, part of its face obscured by the darkness. It was
struggling against something, and whatever that was, it was buried up to its
waistline in it. However, its tussle in vain, it gave up, raised its hands to
its mouth and shouted, “Blossom! Bubbles! Where are you? Oh, God, where are
you?”
“There
she is!” Bubbles yelled, and ran off towards her sister. Blossom’s head jerked
up, and she watched her sister sprint over the miniature dunes. Catching her
second wind, she went after her, and gasped when she saw Buttercup,
half-submerged in a deep, watery pit, and she seemed to be sinking further into
it all the time.
“Buttercup!”
she shouted.
“Girls!” Buttercup said with relief. “Thank God! Help me out
of here! Hurry!”
“Why
can’t you pull yourself out?” Bubbles asked.
“I can’t do it by myself!” Buttercup replied. “The pull’s too strong, and I’m still sinking! Help me!”
With
the adrenaline pumping through her bloodstream, Bubbles quickly flew over the
quicksand, which was bubbling ominously like in a swamp, clamped her arms
around Buttercup’s chest and tried to drag her out with all her might. But the
quicksand held back - Buttercup wouldn’t budge. She gritted her teeth as the
immense exertion began to take its toll on her body, and her arms shook with
the strain.
“Blossom!”
she cried. “Help me out!” Blossom copied her, and tugged backwards, with
Bubbles clinging on to Buttercup like a limpet. Still, she wouldn’t move – she
was stuck fast, ensnared in the quicksand’s powerful clutches. Buttercup yelled
in pain as Bubbles’ arms were pushed forcefully against her ribs.
“Hang
on, Buttercup!” Bubbles shouted. But her grip was slipping – little by little,
the chain was weakening. She could feel her arms growing further and further
apart. Desperately trying to keep a hold of her sister, Bubbles tried to claw
her way back around...
Suddenly,
Buttercup was snapped back into the pool, and Blossom and Bubbles were thrown
backwards through the air, landing roughly on the sand.
Blossom rubbed her head,
looked up, and her eyes widened with terror. Buttercup was now buried up to her
neck in the quicksand, and she was treading sand, gasping for breath. A piece
of advice she had once come across made an unwelcome entrance
: ‘The more you struggle in quicksand, the more you sink in’.
Desperately trying to hold
her head above the sludgy water, Buttercup called out to them, “Quickly! Think
of something else!” For even now, she was still sinking, deeper and deeper
below the surface.
“Buttercup!” Bubbles screamed, “No!”
Heeding her sister’s urgent
cries, Blossom looked around wildly for something they could use to save her...
She caught sight of a
lifeguard’s ring, hanging from its wooden harness slightly higher up the beach,
the attached rope bunched up above it, casting a shadow on the sand. Leaping
instinctively into the air, she flew to it, snatched it from its perch and tore
back to them. Like a frisbee,
she tossed the ring into the sand, and yelled to Buttercup, “Grab onto the
ring!”
Buttercup wrenched her arms
powerfully out of the pool, and she clung on to it for dear life. And all the
while, the quicksand sucked her deeper into the ground...
Shaking Bubbles out of her
catatonic trance, Blossom grabbed a hold of the rope and told her sister to do
the same. Together, they pulled ferociously, competing in a tug-of-war with the
hideous chasm. She felt beads of sweat trickle down her face as her muscles
cried out in protest, and her hands felt inflamed as the rope scratched at
them, but Buttercup was still disappearing fast. The horror of what they saw
next made them stop pulling any further, and just watch dumbfounded.
The next ten seconds seemed
to pass in slow motion, as they watched Buttercup flail helplessly, trying to
escape the black hole below her, cough a few times as she swallowed a couple of
mouthfuls of sand...
As if she was drowning, and
with a final, desperate wave of her free arm, her head sank beneath the waves.
She was gone.
Blossom felt a tear well up
in her eye. Buttercup – her own sister – was gone. For ever.
The rope in her hands began to fall weakly towards the floor.
Bubbles whispered, “Oh,
please, God, no” as she watched her sister dragged down to her watery grave.
A couple of quiet sobs
emanated from behind Blossom, and she walked solemnly over to the poolside,
away from them, and knelt down next to it. The tear fell off her cheek and
splashed on the sand. She felt ready to howl with sorrow and rage – their
sister was dead. And it was all their fault. The
thought of living her entire life with the overwhelming guilt made her feel
even more inconsolable. Looking up from the sand, through her slightly blurred
vision, she viewed the pool with abhorrent disgust, and wanted to vent her grief
at it, to shout things at it, to scream at it until the heavens rang with her
rage.
The plastic ring was still
floating in the sand, and it too was beginning to sink. It looked like part of
the Titanic as it slowly turned upright. But if it’s got Buttercup, Blossom
wondered, why is it still pulling things in...?
Something clicked.
With Bubbles still weeping
mildly behind her, Blossom grabbed the rope and pulled it back evenly, but
forcefully. The ring was retrieved from its slow descent into the ground, and
floated again on the surface. But, she noticed, there was something holding it.
A hand, grasping it firmly, was revealed on the side. She watched as it flexed
and grabbed a better hold of the hard plastic.
“Quick! Bubbles!”
Blossom shouted, half-urgently, half-joyfully. “Pull the rope! She’s still
alive!”
Bubbles broke out of her
mourning, and said, “Huh?”
“She’s still alive!” Blossom
cried happily. “She’s still alive!”
Looking over to the pool,
Bubbles saw her sister’s hand cling to the life-ring, and watched the other
hand re-emerge and do the same thing. It’s a miracle!,
she thought. She surged up from the sand and as she grabbed the rope, it
snapped with a ‘twang’ and became taut. Fuelled by this one last hope, this one
last chance to save their sister’s life, both of them hauled it backwards
ferociously, praying that Buttercup didn’t let go.
It was a futile struggle for
a while but...Buttercup’s head slowly penetrated the surface, and she
spluttered a couple of times. She swung her other arm out of the sand and held
on tightly to the ring with it. Feeling the evil in the quicksand suck her down again, she urged them on, shouting, “Keep going!
Come on!”
Jerking the rope like a
maniac, Bubbles watched as Buttercup grabbed onto the ring and held on for dear
life. Surplus energy surged into her arms, and she pulled back still further,
Blossom adding to the effort in front of her. Slowly but
surely, Buttercup’s body was dragged out of the pool, but her legs were still
trapped.
“One more pull!”
Blossom yelled behind her, and with the last of her remaining strength, her
muscles screeching in agony, she took a firm hold of the rope and tugged at it.
Buttercup felt her body
being released from its sludgy cell, and she took a step onto the land, but
stumbled with the force of the pull and fell to the floor. She rolled herself
over and lay sprawled on the sand, staring up at the night sky and breathing in
deeply. Spluttering, she got weakly to her feet and staggered over to the
others, who had overbalanced and tumbled backwards onto the ground. She smiled
in gratitude at them, and then bent over, still trying to get her breath back.
“Are you OK?” Bubbles
inquired urgently.
“I’ll be fine,” Buttercup
replied, and coughed heavily again.
“Quick,” Blossom recommended,
the events of the past two nights beginning to get to her. “We’d better get
home before anything else happens.”
“You don’t seriously
think...?” Bubbles asked, her fear returning to her voice.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Buttercup added. “It’s almost like...something’s controlling our nightmares...”
“Come on,” Blossom
persisted. At that moment, she really had her mind set on going home. There was
something evil lurking in the shadows...
With that, they lifted off
into the air, each of them filled with a deep sense of apprehension of what
might come next.
That evening, the Professor sat himself down in his
armchair and wondered for a moment, the newspaper nestled on his lap. The girls
had come home earlier in near hysterics, and Buttercup looked the worst of
them. They had then told him that she was drowning in quicksand, and that it
nearly got her. He had listened with anxiety, but at the same time with
interest, as the girls told him of their ordeal. None of them had the energy
left to say much more than that, but they were looking pretty haggard, all of
them. Blossom had muttered something about their nightmares coming true, or something to that effect, but after that, they just
went upstairs and straight to sleep. He knew Blossom had had a morbid fear of snakes,
but the idea of Buttercup being afraid of something, of anything, was
completely alien to him.
Was she scared of quicksand?, he mused as he thought it through. Maybe that’s why
Blossom was attacked by that anaconda...
Having come to no
conclusion, he turned on the television. Behind him, up on the wall, the clock
ticked away the seconds, the minutes, the hours. Time was indeed a fleeting
thing.
*
Bubbles rolled herself over
sluggishly as the sunlight streamed in through the window. Sitting herself up
against her pillow, she rubbed her eyes and looked around subconsciously. Same
old room, same old pink walls. She still felt dead after last night, and found
it hard to stay awake - her eyes kept threatening to close themselves every
time she blinked. Her head bowed down, as if in prayer, and she realised that
she was still wearing her normal clothes.
Must’ve
fallen asleep straight away, she thought as she hopped out of bed and trudged
wearily towards the door. She was normally more cheerful in the mornings, but
the events of the last couple of nights had left her feeling shattered. Slowly,
she walked down the stairs, keeping a hand on the banister for safety reasons.
The sounds that were usually heard in the mornings emanated from the kitchen –
the Professor was always up early.
Bubbles
yawned, stretched and said, “Morning, Professor.”
“Morning,
honey!” the Professor replied cheerfully. “What a great day! The sun is shining, there ain’t a cloud in
the sky!”
Bubbles
laughed cynically, and said, “I still feel tired. What time did we get home
last night?”
“Oh,
I don’t know,” he estimated. “Around
“
“Yeah,
you three went up and fell asleep right away,” the Professor told her, and he
filled up a glass of orange juice for her. “Here you go.”
“Thanks,”
Bubbles replied. Pouring herself some cereal, she preferred not to think about
last night. Buttercup’s near-death experience...the crushing
agony she felt as Buttercup slipped under...the voice in her head when she
landed, begging with her to leave... Who was that?,
she wondered. Maybe it was her more fearful side...maybe someone was trying to
influence her thought, trying to get her to run away and leave her sister to
perish?
She
put the thought firmly out of her mind as she ate her breakfast. Soon after,
she was reading the back of the cereal box as the Professor gazed longingly out
of the window.
“
“Aww, come on, Professor,” Bubbles protested. “We got really
overworked last night. Buttercup nearly died!”
The
haunting memory of seeing their exhausted, ashen faces came back swinging, and
he said, “Oh, God, yes. Sorry. I forgot.” How he could forget something like
that was beyond him; Buttercup had hugged him tightly almost as soon as she had
flown in the door. She had been really frightened by that...thing on the beach.
He felt disgusted with himself. How could he have forgotten?
All
of a sudden, he remembered something else, something that didn’t make him feel
quite so worthless.
“Bubbles?”
he asked, “Could you take the trash out, please?”
“Okay,”
Bubbles said, not so much through resignation as through tiredness. She waited
as he removed the bag from the large waste bin, tied a knot in the top, and
handed it to her. He smiled at her in gratitude, and she smiled back. Opening
the front door, Bubbles flew out into the early morning sunshine.
At
that moment, Blossom and Buttercup walked lethargically into the kitchen.
“Good
morning, Professor,” Blossom said. Buttercup yawned.
“Morning,
girls,” he replied. “Cereal’s all out, so just help yourselves.”
“Where’s
Bubbles?” Buttercup asked.
“She’s
just taking the trash out,” he said, and heard the door latch itself as it
swung shut. It’s OK, he told himself, she can let herself back in.
As Bubbles thrust the garbage bag into the dustbin
on the kerb, she heard the door being blown shut. “Dang,” she said. “Oh, well.
I can let myself back in.” But she decided to stay out for a little bit longer
– the Sun shone brightly behind the city, and it was a beautiful day. Her
family wouldn’t mind, and she was dressed already. She ambled calmly along the
path between their house and the fence that led to the back yard, and inhaled
deeply. The morning air tasted so fresh and pure as it travelled in and out of
her lungs, and the sun shone on the dew. However, despite her pleasant
surroundings, there was still a nagging doubt in the back of her mind,
something which reminded her of the events of the past two nights. It told her
that it was a simple process of elimination – she was next.
She
mentally dismissed the thought, and sought to enjoy the brilliant morning
sunshine. As she twirled around playfully on the grass, something caught her
eye. They had a tree in their back garden, one that would occasionally yield
apples when the weather was right. They normally tasted too sour to eat, but
the Professor used them sometimes when he was cooking. In this tree, she
spotted a large, white ball in one of the branches. It looked as though it was
made of paper, but there were some small holes in it, as though someone had
poked it with a pencil. She knew what it was – she had seen one of them before.
It
was a wasp’s nest.
Cautiously,
she approached it, taking great care not to aggravate the wasps inside. She
hated wasps. They looked so much like aliens, with their oddly-shaped heads,
their repulsive detached thoraxes and their formidable stingers – their
stingers. That was what she hated the most about them. She had never been stung
before, and she didn’t want to be. When Joey Finklmayer
at school was stung during recess, he kept telling everyone about the intense
pain that seemed to shoot through his arm like hot lead. She had also heard
about instances when people had been stung so many times that the venom had
overwhelmed their system... Shuddering, she took a precautionary step back. God, how she hated them.
Just
leave them alone, she told herself, and they’ll leave you alone.
She
started to walk back towards the house, preferring to get as far away from them
as possible, but then she stopped in mid-step. Something was, very faintly,
making a noise behind her. It was a very quiet sound, and, as she listened
intently, she began to make it out as a low kind of buzzing...
Wasps!, her mind yelled at her in fear.
She
spun around quickly on one foot, and gasped. About ten wasps had crawled
sluggishly out of the hive and grouped together in a small swarm. They were
flying towards her like tiny, striped Zeppelins, and she could hear the
mechanical droning as their wings beat ferociously against the air. They were
angry with her – very angry.
But
I haven’t done anything, she protested silently, as if to appeal telepathically
to them for forgiveness. But none came. The wasps were on a mission – to hurt
her, make her pay for what she’d done. It was succeed
or die.
Bubbles
began to break into a sweat as they homed in on their target, stingers at the
ready. Closer and closer they came, the buzzing becoming almost maddening.
Leave
them alone...
Oh,
my God, they’re gonna sting me, it’s gonna hurt so much...
...and
they’ll leave you alone.
She
swiped at a few of them, hoping to drive them away, but they dodged it. She
swiped again, quicker this time, but she missed. “Get away from me!” she
shouted at them. “Go away! Leave me – ” Her last sentence
broke into a cry of pain as she felt a savage, little dagger pierce her skin.
The pain was unbearable, and she clutched her hand closely, wincing as the pain
spread out into her arm. She stopped yelling when she felt three pairs of tiny
legs crawl up her other arm, and she froze stiff. Just leave it, she told
herself, but she shrieked again as she felt the stinger jab into her flesh.
Already, a little purple swelling was forming around the first one, like a sore
brought on by some horrible disease. She opened her eyes, and whimpered, “No,
oh, God, just go away...” Some were circling around her, and two more had
landed on her arms. Bubbles tried to shake them off, but she was too late, and
howled in agony as both erupted in a fiery blaze of plain. Tears rolled down
her face as she looked around helplessly, trying to spot the next one.
The
wasps’ droning grew louder as they buzzed incessantly around her head. One even
got close enough to sting her on her face, below her right eye. Oh, my God, she
thought, they’re fighting dirty now, they want to kill me. Oh, God... She
covered her face with her arms in self-defence, but brought them swiftly back
down again as another jagged little spike was thrust into one of them. Moaning
in torment, she crouched down on her knees, and sobbed quietly as they
surrounded her like a pack of hyenas. She drew in breath through gritted teeth
as she felt another two or three stings, but she wasn’t counting – she was in
too much pain to care. Finally, capitulating, she lay down on the grass and
yelled as one of them stung her cheek. The pain by now had become excruciating,
and as she clenched her eyes shut, her tears fell slowly onto the grass, and
her chest heaved with heavy sobs. Why wasn’t anybody coming to help her? Why?...
She
figured it out. This force that was messing around with them...it didn’t want
anybody to help her. It wanted its fun, its amusement from watching little kids
writhing in agony in front of it.
All
of a sudden, the buzzing went away. Bubbles opened her eyes carefully, but a
terrible sight met them. She cried, “Oh, God, please, no!”
The
wasps were still there, hovering ominously in the air. As she watched in
terror, they began to merge with each other, creating a bigger wasp. From ten
came five, from five came two. She could only lie still, paralysed with horror,
as the last two amalgamated repulsively, their body parts seeming to meld and
reorganise themselves, to effortlessly run into each other. It was disgusting
to watch, but Bubbles couldn’t take her eyes away from it. A horrific Frankenwasp was being created before her, and it had only
one thing in mind – to kill her.
In
its new form, the wasp mothership adjusted to its
surroundings, and Bubbles gasped. It was almost as big as a man’s fist, and its
stinger was pointed dangerously at her like a grotesque harpoon, dripping
yellow venom onto the grass. Its wings hummed with a terrifyingly low buzz, as
if it were a huge horde of wasps attacking all at once. She could only watch,
rooted to the spot, as it flew indolently towards her, moving in for the kill.
This
can’t be happening, she thought, no, it can’t be…oh,
God!
The
wasp closed in, and she began to cry wretchedly again.
I’m
going to die, oh, God, I’m going to die…
Wings
flapped furiously against the air as it came still nearer. Trembling as the
droning rose to such a level that her mind seemed to resonate with it, and
utterly helpless and isolated, she surrendered with a moan and lay on her side
in the grass. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes tight shut was
its bulbous thorax and on the end of that, the needle, the lethal injection. A
few tears trickled down her face as she waited in anguish for it to come. She
imagined the baneful spear being thrust into her arm…the pain shooting up
through her arm…the horrible feeling as her vision clouded over, and everything
faded to black…
It
didn’t come. The buzzing stopped. Bubbles opened her eyes cautiously. The
horrible insect was still there, but it simply floated motionlessly in the air.
Its body seemed to vibrate slightly, but it did nothing, just hung in front of
her.
All
of a sudden, in a puff of black smoke, the wasp blew apart, exploding into
little acrid clouds, which then dissolved gently on the breeze. Bubbles watched
as the wasp vanished without a trace, as mysteriously as it had been created.
She looked back at the apple tree, and saw with relief that the nest was gone,
too. There was nothing to suggest that it had ever been there.
But
with relief came reality, and she winced as she felt the searing pain in her
arms and face. True, she was in agony – but she was alive. Gritting her teeth,
and with her nerve endings screaming, she began to stagger back inside.
As the girls flew to school that morning, Bubbles
prepared to face the endless barrage of questions from the other kids. They
would stare at her arms, now dotted with livid little scars since the stings
had gone down. They would keep asking her what happened, if she was OK, all
those other little things, ad nauseam until she screamed at them to shut up…
Her
sisters and the Professor had got up from the table with a start when she came
in snuffling through the door, clutching both her arms close to her chest as if
she were trying to keep warm. She remembered him murmuring, “Oh, my God” when
he saw the savage, purple swellings on her arms. He was horrified to discover
that there were also two on her face. Buttercup had indignantly asked her, “Who
did this to you?”, and she had replied that it was wasps, wasps in the garden. She
had then proceeded to explain how she discovered the nest in the tree, how she
had calmly walked away from it, but how they began to attack her with no
provocation (she insisted all the while that she had done nothing to anger
them). Then, almost bursting into tears, she relayed to them the overwhelming
dread that she felt when they all melded together, and the monstrous clone
began to approach her. The Professor had given her a hug, and she was told that
it was all over, that everything would be all right. Yet, deep down inside her,
she knew that it wasn’t over. Maybe, she thought, it’s only just beginning.
She
looked reflectively back down at her arms. She had, in total, been stung eleven
times – four times on her left arm, five on her right and twice on her face.
The tiny scars were all that remained of her frightening ordeal. They
themselves would fade, but the memory would not, engraved as it was in her mind
like a tattoo. She shuddered as the terrifying drone returned as a shadowed
sound, but she shook it off. It’s not real, she told herself, it’s not there.
With
a resigned sigh, she entered the classroom, and the class’s attention was
immediately diverted from their separate conversations to her. Here it comes,
she thought wearily, the Spanish Inquisition.
Her silent contemplation was
interrupted when Robyn Schneider asked her, “Bubbles? Are you OK?”
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