“Ugh...ouch...” I mumbled from the floor. Olivia held onto me tighter as I awoke from my spellbinding dream.
“That’s it, Luc...wake up,” she said, with hope blooming.
“Olivia...” I whispered, still dazed. “Olivia, I...”
She placed her ear closer to my mouth, not being able to understand me as I could barely speak.
“I’m here.” Her face tensed up.
“I...” My head pounded.
“Tell me,” she whispered. A faint cough slipped from my mouth.
“I, I...love you...”
Olivia froze, holding my hand, tightly.
LEVEL 19: Warning
As I strained for fresh consciousness, my hand swelled with tight pressure and soon after, pain. My eyelids pulled open, the room in a blur. It took me a moment to realize the pain was coming from Olivia and her grip-o-death. Her fingers locked around mine like a bear trap. I was so happy to be waking in her arms that a goofy smile settled along my face. Pain rushed to the gash at the back of my head and I tried to reach behind me to check if it was bleeding. Olivia stared down at me, upset, not moving at all. I didn’t know why, but it turned my smile upside down, quickly.
“Olivia?” I spoke slowly, still in a fog. She snapped from her trance and let go of my hand. She jumped to her feet and stepped away from me. Her face filled with relief and subtle fear. Did I do something to upset her? Did I say something in my unconscious slumber? I couldn’t remember. My head continued to throb with pain. I closed my eyes to ease the ache, and when they reopened, she was gone.
“What did I do?” I wondered. And with that thought, things became a whole lot worse.
The main door to the Music room exploded open in a fiery blast. A squadron of fully armed soldiers piled through the open wound, their boot steps shaking the floor. In a matter of seconds, my friends were surrounded. I jumped to my feet with the world still spinning, slightly. I readied my powerful gauntlet on my wrist, but it was cold and lifeless now. A sinking feeling tunneled its way into the pits of my stomach.
“Mr. Ryan!” General Love called out, his voice full and ferocious. I steadied my stance, still weary from Olivia’s absence. Carefully, I stepped out into the larger room.
“I’m here,” I said, with my legs shaking.
“Finally!” he chastised. The General’s men had their guns pointed at each of my friends. Two guns at Felicity...I guess she brings out the best in everyone she meets. Olivia found my worried stare and directed me to look at the back of the Music room. There, I spotted her sister, Sophia, wedged between two brawny soldiers. She looked unharmed but petrified. My blood boiled, filling my skin with fresh goose bumps.
“Leave my friends alone!” I warned. General Love laughed and it reverberated everywhere through the open room. He marched up to the wilted stone in the middle of the room, concentrating on its form, intensely. It was the first time I had seen it since my accident and it didn’t look good. It was shriveled up like a giant raisin with a large crack along the side of it. Bubbling energy was leaking down its shape, puddling around it on the floor. I checked the gadget embedded on my wrist for any signs of awareness. There was none.
“Is this it?” General Love said, smugly. He tapped it with his big black boot. It moved slightly to his touch. How was that possible when it weighed so much before? Something was wrong. I tried to focus on the moment.
“Let the girl go, General,” I demanded, with a finger pointed in Sophia’s direction. Sophia tried to smile my way. General Love burst into a fit of laughter, but it didn’t sound right. It didn’t sound natural. It sounded ominous.
“Mr. Ryan, you are quite the underdog! I love that spirit, but I don’t think you have too much leverage anymore.” He placed his boot onto the top of the stone, threatening to crush it.
“Please, I’ll give you anything you want,” I pleaded, scared to lose the bond I had with the mysterious stone. His face fell heavy.
“I’ll take what I want. I’m taking this weapon.”
I took a small, awkward step toward him and his men swarmed me, restraining my arms behind my back, painfully. They forced me down to my knees, twisting my arms so hard it took all my strength not to cry. Taylor pushed forward, only to have more guns pointed at him. He stopped with a horrible grimace on his face.
“Taylor, no!” I warned. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to him. General Love strolled up to me with his handgun drawn at his side. He tapped my magic gauntlet with the barrel of the gun.
“Now, I would appreciate a crash course in how to use this special piece of hardware...”
“I don’t know how...” I started. He stepped into me hard and angry.
“Don’t you finish that sentence! I want that weapon functional and under my control in two minutes, or you, and your friends will never see the outside world again!” General Love threatened, with all his power. I looked over at Olivia as she started to cry. My head fell in defeat. Slowly, I lifted my heavy brow and nodded to him.
“Okay.”
“Don’t do it, Luc!” Taylor called out. One of the soldiers hit him in the stomach with the end of his rifle, sending Taylor to his knees. He grunted and stood back up. Taylor locked his eyes on his captor.
“That’s strike one,” Taylor promised. The soldier spit at Taylor’s feet and winked. Things were turning from bad to worse. I was ready to end this.
“General, I won’t help you if any of my friends are hurt,” I said, as forceful as I could. He refused to hear me.
“The weapon, Mr. Ryan,” General Love crossed his arms, waiting for me to spill all the stone’s secrets. Felicity had other ideas.
“It’s not a weapon!” she shouted, in her know-it-all voice. General Love whipped around and motioned for her to be brought closer.
“Felicity, what are you doing?” Taylor scolded. The soldier slammed his gun handle into Taylor’s chest this time. Taylor staggered back on his feet, stunned and furious.
“Stay quiet, Blondie!” the soldier chuckled. Taylor flipped his hair from his face.
“That’s two!” he rumbled.
Oblivious to the escalating turmoil, Felicity continued, “It’s not a weapon or bomb.”
“What?” General Love asked, aggravated.
“It’s not this all powerful weapon you keep rambling on about!” she said, with a roll of her eyes.
“Little girl, you have not seen what this thing can do, but I have!” General Love cursed.
Felicity smiled up at him, “You haven’t seen anything...yet.”
“Shut up, Felicity! Are you crazy?” I screamed. She glanced over at me and then back to the General.
“Well, I do know that it is not a bomb,” she said, and then found Roland’s pale face. “And it’s definitely not a key.”
Roland shrugged, embarrassed.
“I don’t understand,” General Love said.
“It’s organic,” she said, almost in a warning.
“What?” I exhaled, disgusted with her silly and dangerous game.
Taylor called out to her, “Felicity, this isn’t the time for your nonsense.” His captor pulled back his weapon to strike Taylor again, but Taylor was ready for him this time. As the soldier’s gun swung forward, directly for Taylor’s face, Taylor caught the gun with one hand and grabbed the soldier’s arm with his other hand.
“That’s three,” Taylor said, removing the assault rifle from the soldier. He tossed it to the ground before the soldier could react.
“You son of a...” the soldier cursed. Taylor’s forehead smashed into the soldier’s face, sending him to the floor next to his weapon, completely unconscious.
Bored with the mini riot, General Love turned his attention back to Felicity.
“You were saying?”
“General, it is not a weapon of mass destruction,” she said, confidently.
“Then what is it, my dear?” he asked, with the last of his patience.
She stepped forward and l
ooked down at the stone. Everyone focused on her and the wounded mystery. For the first time I noticed the surface of it was moving. Gently, it pulled in and then back out. It did it again, soft and fluid. It looked as if it was breathing. I lost all my words.
Felicity knelt down next to it and whispered...
“It’s alive.”
LEVEL 20: Breaking The Habit
General Love stood silent with his cold eyes staring down at the strange stone just inches from his boots. Its shell, or skin was pushing in and out much quicker now. Its color a deathly gray covered in thin black lines that resembled the shape of veins.
“Is it true?” General Love asked, still glaring at the dying stone. I didn’t know how to answer him and I couldn’t find my words. I reached for Olivia with my eyes. She reached back with a confused and watery stare, watching me as the General’s men held me on my knees. I knew exactly what she was thinking...how could that thing be alive? But before I had time to wrestle with the question, Felicity made her opinion known, again.
“I think it’s dying,” she shouted out. “I saw something moving within it earlier, but now there’s no movement inside of it.” She shrugged as if she were discussing a weed growing in her garden of roses.
“Saw what moving?” General Love asked, biting down on his teeth. He sounded like he was growling from the back of his throat.
“I don’t know,” Felicity whimpered. Clarity latched onto her as she finally realized that she may have said too much.
“General, please let my friends go,” I said, finally finding my voice again. “Let them go home and I’ll tell you everything I know.” I sounded exhausted, and my arms had started to ache terribly while being pinned behind me.
The corner of General Love’s mouth curled into a slight smile, “Okay.”
“What? Really?” one of his soldiers asked, adding more pressure to my restrained arms.
“Let them go, let them all go,” General Love ordered, calmly. “We’re done here.”
All the General’s men quickly settled their weapons at their sides. The two soldiers holding Sophia nudged her forward, motioning her to go to her sister, Olivia. Sophia ran into her big sister’s arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. They embraced each other and a small weight lifted from my shoulders. Olivia thanked me with a quiet whisper from across the room. I smiled at both of them, feeling a rush of relief. The guards keeping me pinned down on my knees let go of my arms, and I fell forward to the carpeted floor. Taylor ran up to me, catching me just before I cracked my jaw as I collapsed.
“Nice job, Luc,” he congratulated, lifting me back to my unsteady feet.
“Thanks, T.” Stretching my arms out, a few bones popped along my neck and shoulders. With his arms dangling at his sides, General Love cracked each of his fingers with his thumb, one by one, mimicking me. He ended this display with a quick clench of his lower jaw, snapping the cartilage with an unnatural pop. The sound crept up my spine ghostlike and foreboding.
“Yeah, we’re done here...” he grinned. “Well, almost done here.” He lifted his boot into the air, over the stone. He drilled into me with his cold, evil stare.
“No!” I screamed.
He smashed his entire weight into the helpless stone with his large dirty boot. The stone flattened with a putrid explosion of black and silver fluid. It was thicker than blood and filled with tiny purple bursts of electricity. The sparks shot from under the sole of his boot, skipping along the floor before disappearing into soft white smoke. Blinding pain cut into my brain, just behind my devastated eyes. It took all I had to not throw up and pass out from the moment.
“Now, we’re done!” General Love laughed, clutching his chest from the force of it. Another wave of pain rippled down my throat, and rattled the ribs in my chest. I had been mentally and physically attached to this mystical stone like a drug. This alien spirit had haunted me completely. It had made me its victim, its savior, its...friend.
Now, I was crashing inside, spinning in a painful spiral of separation. A science fiction addict with no fix. How did I get this way? How do you survive breaking the habit of fantasy? I started to fall again, crippled by my torture, when Taylor supported my stance with an arm locked around me.
“Why? Why did you do that?” I called out to General Love, sweating in anguish. General Love ignored me and turned and walked away. He stopped only long enough to scrape his boot on the carpet edging.
Leaning into one of his men he ordered, “Tag and bag what’s left.”
“Yes, General.”
Morgan slid up to me, trying to help Taylor with my dead weight. “Lucas, are you okay?” she asked.
Before I could answer her the same undeniable pain radiated down my arm to my wrist with the broken gauntlet. Trying to steady myself from the pain, I clinched my hands into fists. The edges of the gauntlet pulled from my skin and crumbled into flakes of metal debris. They peppered the floor just before the cracked screen fell from my forearm and onto the ground. Its screen splintered into spiderwebs without a sound.
Searching my wrist and arm I found a bright red scar outlining the oval shape of my former body decoration. In the middle of the scar was some kind of alien symbol. It was symmetrical and raised slightly on my skin. It reminded me of Egyptian writing. As my fingers traced the new lines I began to feel the darkness overtake me again. My body relaxed in Taylor and Morgan’s grips.
“He’s gonna pass out!” Taylor warned.
“Lay him down...hurry!” Morgan added.
In the darkness I could see everything as if I was watching it on a television screen. I guess there was still a little magic left in me. A lone soldier walked up to us with a small clear bag in hand. He frowned at my situation, kneeling down to the scattered pieces of my gauntlet next to me. He scooped up what he could and placed it into the bag and quickly sealed it. Then, he pulled a long cylinder from his military vest and popped the top of it off with his thumb. He rolled the bag as tightly as possible and slid it into the opened container. With a tight twist he had quarantined the remains of my magical cell phone.
“Hey guys, bring the sled,” the soldier said, and waved to two other guards who were cleaning up across the room. Moments later the two men walked up with a large see-through gurney.
“I’ll take care of him,” the soldier said as the other pair of guards joined him. All three men carefully placed me on the weird gurney and lifted me into the air. It was surreal watching this from inside my head.
“Wait! Where are you taking him?” Taylor demanded, clutching the nearest soldier’s arm.
“We can help him, trust me.”
“Trust you?” Taylor gasped.
“Yes. Your friend needs treatment, immediately,” the soldier said.
“How are we supposed to trust you after all the damage you and your leader have done?” Taylor accused. The soldier stepped up to Taylor and whispered.
“Some of us don’t agree with what happened here today. I don’t agree with it, but I have to follow orders. It is just the way it is. General Love orders it and it is done. There are no exceptions.” The man paused for a moment, stealing a look around the room. “Your friend is hurt. Let me fix that, let me...fix him,” he pleaded.
“I don’t know...” Taylor worried.
“Trust me, I’m not like the rest of the Hive...I mean...men,” he corrected himself. Worry fell across his face as he made sure the other soldiers hadn’t heard his slip up. Taylor let go of his arm in fear, but trusted the soldier for some reason. Minutes later the three soldiers began to walk my gurney to the exit. Morgan fell into Taylor’s arms and started crying. He held her tightly, sliding her hair from her ear and whispered.
“He’ll be okay. I promise. I won’t let them hurt him.”
Olivia overheard him and held Sophia tighter in her arms. Dax watched from the corner of the room. Sophia took a deep breath and pulled from Olivia’s arms.
“Sophia...” Olivia reached out for her. Sophia ran up to my gurn
ey and placed a hand on my arm. Her cool fingers slid along my newly scarred wrist, touching every marking. She leaned down to my ear.
“Thank you, Lucas. You saved me,” she whispered, with flushed cheeks. One of the soldiers signaled for her to move away from the gurney and she did with a silly smile. Just before she made her way back to Olivia, her foot crunched something on the floor. Looking down beneath her shoe, Sophia realized she had stepped on something. Without thinking she reached down and picked up the object. She had found the ruined screen to my magical gauntlet. She tumbled it around her fingers in awe. The destroyed screen was now perfectly smooth again. No cracks at all.
“Wow,” Sophia said, and slid it into her back pocket. Olivia walked up to her sister angry and worried.
“Soph, what did you say to Lucas?” she asked.
Still holding onto the perfect glass screen in her back pocket, Sophia said, “I told him, thank you.”
Olivia sighed and scooped up her little sister’s hand.
Five minutes later, they all found themselves standing in an empty room. No more soldiers, no more stone. My friends searched their surroundings, dazed and unsure what to do next. Suddenly, the power came back on and all their cell phones erupted in a chorus of beeps and music. Missed phone calls and text messages popped upon their phone screens in every digital color possible.
“Now what?” Roland asked, relieved. Everyone looked to the closest person next to them, unsure. Dax had seen enough.
“We go home!” he snapped, tired of the entire situation.
LEVEL 21: Until It Sleeps
“Wake up, Lucas,” Taylor spoke, slowly. I could barely hear him in the physical state I was in. I had been brought to a room, a familiar room. It was cold and filled with silver cabinets. I couldn’t make out any other details because of the heavy dosage of pain meds I had been given by General Love’s goons. For the last few minutes I had been in and out of consciousness. Taylor’s voice pulled me back to the land of the living though.