Dreamer

Sunday, March 18th, 2029

GAVIN

I’m standing naked over Iris who is sitting up now waving her hand in front of my face. “H-Hello? Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?” She asks, her voice quiet.

I wipe my face with my hands and swallow hard. “No…no.” I say.

“What’s wrong?”

I look to her. “Get your clothes on, we have to go, now,” I say.

She grabs her panties off of the floor and slides them on, I hurriedly throw my pants up and tighten them with the belt.

“What’s the big rush?”

“We have to go, c’mon, hurry, we have no time to spare, I say, handing her the bra at my feet.

“Do you mind explaining?” She asks.

“It’s much easier explained when we are out of the danger zone,” I say, rushing my shirt on.

“Was it…a vision?”

“Less explainy, more dressy,” I say, picking up her top off of the floor.

“Okay, okay.”

She fixes her top and forgoes the shaul, in another second the entire building rocks. “What was that?” She asks.

“I have a bad feeling it is related to my vision,” I say.

Just then an explosion booms out from below us and the entirety of the kitchen collapses and sinks below. “What the hell?!” I ask.

“Okay, let’s get out of here! Let me go get Tammy and Kevin!” Iris says.

“No! Iris, they-”

As if on cue, and who knows, they probably are, Tammy and Kevin walk out of the bedroom side by side.

“Oh, thank god! We have to get out of-”

Iris doesn’t get a chance to finish as she is immediately rushed by Tammy who clotheslines her down to the ground. Before I can react I see Kevin lunging to do the exact same to me.

“Iris!” is all I get out before I’m hit by what feels like a freight train. I’m slammed into the back wall and have my breath knocked out of me. I hear the clang of metal as I look over to see Tammy picking up a knife that survived the kitchen bombing. She picks up Iris by her hair and holds the knife to her throat, pricking a little bit of skin causing a thin bloodline to form.

“Gavin, help!” She screams out, a tear forming in her eye.

“IRIS!” I scream out at the top of my lungs.

I jump to my feet, extending my arms out. In an instant the lights from the room all go dark and I can see pure energy flowing through the room into my arms, dancing around my arms more like it.

The electricity from the television and the lights come to me as pure plasma dancing at my fingertips. There was something like this when I’d fought against Jack before I escaped my moon imprisonment. Jack had the ability to form pure plasma from his mind and I was able to use it against him. Maybe I’m developing the ability to take the electricity out of nearby objects and turn it into such? I assume it has to do with the fact that my arms are cybernetic, it draws electricity and plasma like a magnet.

The sole light source of the room is now coming from my arms. I turn around and smash my arm into Kevin beside me. My arm begins to glow as it burns a hole through his chest, he drops to the floor spasming. The light from my right arm grows dimmer. I turn, Tammy stands completely shocked. I use the momentary distraction to rush up to her and grab her by the throat with my left arm, it burns her throat as she gaggles for air. She too falls to the ground, flailing erratically. The light in my left arm grows dimmer as well, now equal to that of about two candle-lights.

I reach my hand out to Iris, “C’mon! We need to leave, pronto!”

“Tammy and Kevin…why would they…”

“They’re automatons, we need to leave,” I say.

She looks to Kevin’s body and sees the white liquid pouring out from the gaping hole in his chest and then looks back up to me, nodding.

“C’mon, take my hand,” I say, wiping off the light of my right hand as if it were like water. I keep my left hand lit with the plasma so we don’t have to escape in the dark. She grabs my hand and without a second thought we’re running out of the door.

We’re out and not another second there is another shockwave that sends us off of our feet. From the neighboring apartments I see the lumbering bodies of more automatons exiting their rooms, deadlocked onto us. From one room I’m seeing as many as five automatons coming out. Iris and I stand up and begin running down the hall.

“This really feels like a horror movie,” Iris says.

“You’re telling me.” I take her hand in mine as we run away from the lumbering automatons.

We’re making way down the hallway when the building shakes once more. The wall to our right breaks away to the ground below, and then we’re falling as the ground below us begins to crumble and collapse. I hit the ground hard, knocking my head off of a fallen piece of debris. My vision goes red, but I sit up slowly, keeping a hold on my consciousness. I turn to Iris, she’s bleeding from a large cut on her arm, but other than being roughed up seems to be okay.

I struggle to get myself to my feet, she limps over to me and extends her hand out. “Come on, we have to keep moving. Can you get up?”

“Y-Yeah, I’m good,” I say, grabbing her hand and pulling myself up.

I look around and notice we’re standing in the first floor hallway. A grandfather clock in the hall shows it’s five in the morning. Time has been so hard to keep track of lately. We scramble down the hall to the entrance, we’re nearly tripping over ourselves.

My vision threatens to go black, but I don’t let it. I feel dizzy and am positive I’m bleeding, but escape is the only thing on my mind right now. We run past the closed apartment doors which I’m certain have more automatons hiding behind them. Why they haven’t joined the pursuit, I wouldn’t have a clue. We arrive at the exit and burst through the doors, we’re immediately greeted by the moonlight outside. It hangs high in the sky, a perfect full moon. Iris grabs my hand and pulls me out into the cold night air, I go along, knowing she hasn’t seen it yet.

I know when she does, because she stops and gasps audibly. She let’s go of my hand. In front of us stands what seems to be hundreds of automatons, each of them blank faced and standing in some sort of military pose.

I turn behind me to run back inside, but the automatons that were inside begin pouring out, including Tammy and a twitching Kevin.

“He…He’s moving with that hole in his chest?” Iris asks.

“He isn’t human, who knows what they can live through?”

“Jesus.”

“Grab my hand,” I say, holding it out. She does, and I close my eyes, I need to jump to get us out of here.

My head pangs and my vision goes red again. It hurts to think and I put my other hand to my head.

“I…I can’t jump, not with my head being this fucked up right now,” I say.

“What?”

“I can’t concentrate enough to jump…”

“What…do we do?”

A laugh echoes through the night, it comes from every direction and I recognize it immediately.

I look to see a figure walking through the huge crowd of automatons, a figure I know all too well.

“Micah…or should I call you Gavin? How many names are you willing to throw away to make yourself believe you aren’t me?” I call out. Micah makes it to the end, the circle around us. He’s wearing a devilish grin, his eyes are ten times as crazy than I remember, especially since Jack overloaded his system with Radical-9.

“Why, it’ so very nice to meet up again! I was starting to worry that maybe you’d call it quits just to fuck the slut here day and night,” He laughs.

“Who do you think you are?” Iris calls out.

“Me? I’m him. I’m him but better.”

“You’re very existence here is going to tear this world apart, you do realize this?” I ask.

He stands tall, his hair, my old hair, hasn’t been cut, it reaches just past his shoulders.

“Then I just move onto the next one! It’s as simple as that! You know that there are infinite worlds for me to visit, who the fuck cares if one ends?”

“You’re so messed up,” Iris says.

He looks to her, “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time, and I just can’t WAIT for the bloodbath to begin. I’m going to enjoy watching every moment of it,” he says.

“You’re going to cower away?”

“I’m not stupid, Gavin. I know when to pick my battles, and I cannot deny the fact that you would be a formidable opponent, but only because you are me. Why give you the chance when I can sit back and watch my little friends here tear you both limb from limb?”

I grate my teeth as he raises his arm.

“And it’s even better now that you can’t jump out of your problems like normal, you’re here for the long run.” He cocks his head to the side, “Now! Rip them apart!” He growls.

The automatons seem to roar into life one by one, a domino effect of each and every single one of them filling with a sort of life of their own.

I walk up to Iris and grab her hand tight in mine. She clasps it tight and I know we’re in this together. I can only think one thing as they begin walking one step at a time.

“Help!”