Dreamer

Sunday, March 18th, 2029

GAVIN

“D-Dead?” I ask, raising my head, keeping my hand on the coat against it. Andy turns from the grass onto the streets, I can see the pack of automaton running in an attempt to chase us, but we’re obviously much faster than them.

“I messed up, I messed up big time,” Andy says, clearing his throat.

“What?” Iris asks, she looks from me to Sarah with a look of concern growing on her face.

“They’re gone. There isn’t anything to do about it now, but they’re gone. Lindsey overdosed on some fucking pills and I…I killed Jay when I developed Telekinesis.”

“But there isn’t much we can do about that now except for keep moving forward,” Sarah adds. “We’ll have time to mourn once we save the world.”

“Right,” Andy says, his grip tightens. I bend back over and breath deeply, in and out.

I close my eyes as I feel some tears begin to ebb out.

“Are you okay?” Iris asks, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“How many friends are we going to lose?” I ask.

“I don’t know, but I hope it isn’t any more,” she says.

“Where are we headed?” Iris asks.

“We’re following a signal that is coming from John’s watch. Jay managed to build a transmitter using the code in his pacemakers to find out where John was exactly,” Andy says.

“Where does the signal lead?”

“It says we’re about forty miles away from it.”

“The Statue of Liberty,” I say.

“The what?”

“That’s about forty miles from here,. I had a vision, that’s how I knew those guys were automatons,” I say, turning to Iris. She nods in understanding. “I saw the statue…it was absolutely demolished, John was there, too.”

“I guess they really were doing something to the statue,” Iris says.

“Then the statue is our destination,” Sarah says.

“To think…it ends here. Here we rescue John,” I say.

“There’s something about that, that you might not like,” Sarah begins.

“What is it?”

“I was going to tell you when I woke up, Andy, but getting those two out of that mess took precedence. When I was asleep I saw Jay, he was talking to me through my dream,” she says.

“What’d he say?” Andy asks, turning a corner on an empty intersection.

“He…He said that Jack took over John’s body, and that the only way we can kill Jack is by killing John. He said that they overloaded John’s body with Radical-9,” she says.

“If that’s true…then even if we were to get Jack out of his body-”

“Jay said that too, he’d die of overexposure.”

“So, that’s the John I’d seen in my vision, then?”

“With Jack at the reins, it seems.”

“So, how much longer until we get there?” Iris asks.

“We don’t even have to look at the transmitter anymore, look,” Andy says, nodding his head upward.

I slide to my side and look out the front, I see the beach that Iris and I had been at before. Out in the distance I can see the fallen head of the Statue of Liberty just as I’d seen it in my vision. It is far away, but it is big enough to be noticeable even from this distance.

Just then I see a face appear right in front of the car, a face that just narrowly missed being ran over is now back to be run over, Micah stands with his feet firm on the ground and in the second he has he hunches over and holds out his hands in a stance as if to block the car.

The ZX Hybrid makes contact, but instead of sending Micah flying or running him over the entire front end of the car bends back and folds up as if it were made of tinfoil. It collapses onto itself and we’re thrown against the seats. Sore, I reach over to the door to my side and yank it open.

I crawl out of the car on my stomach and hit the ground uncomfortably. I’m looking underneath the crumbled pile of metal that used to be the ZX Hybrid. Andy crawls out in front of me coughing up blood. I see Sarah step out from her seat nearly unscathed. Iris looks to be in much of the same condition. The right side of the car seemed to have been hit less than the left.

Black smoke fills the air from the front of the car, I crane my neck upwards to get a look of what had happened to Micah. I also turn the other way, and in the distance beyond the hills I believe I see shapes moving, bodies moving, several bodies running on top of each other and over one another. The Automatons, they’re catching up. They shouldn’t be too long to make it here.

“I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting to see you nearly run me over,” A guttural voice howls out. Micah.

I turn to face him and find myself unable to lift myself from the ground, it is as if gravity had intensified tenfold.

“Y-You’re…tearing this world to pieces, you aren’t supposed to exist here,” I say, trying to look around to him.

I feel a strong force at my side and then I’m rolling across the street to the nearby curb just narrowly missing the side with the tall streetlight, my side stings with pain. He must have kicked me or something.

I can finally see him in all of his terrible power. He’s a giant wolf-man hybrid with an elongated snout for a mouth with teeth sharper than any knives I’m familiar with. He turns and looks directly at Sarah and Iris who are both frozen where they stand. I don’t think they can move either, his existence here is so…wrong. It’s bending space and time itself.

As he walks closer to them I can feel the weight start to lift off of me. I struggle to my feet, I see Andy is still in his range, he’s pinned to the ground. His eyes are begging me to do something. Micah grabs Iris by her hair, from the back I can see a grin forming something wild.

“I’m so glad that I’m the one that gets to see the life of your precious slut leave her eyes,” He growls and reaches his arm back, readying his claws.

Before I even think I’m already moving. My feet are guided by their own will and as I approach closer I feel each step become heavier, but pure momentum keeps me going as I ram into his side. He drops Iris and she falls to the ground, her eyes wide open. I send Micah sliding off of his feet, and I drop to the ground beside him, it’s become insanely hard to breath. Micah turns and roars. Then I see him pounce, claws outstretched. I’m helpless as he lands on top of me, his claws sinking into my chest. I don’t even feel it, but I look down to see them glowing, and then all of a sudden my chest is ripe with feeling again and it burns.

I scream out loud. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Andy start to struggle to stand to his feet. As he does he looks directly at me and then nods.

“I remembered you had telepathy, I guess maybe we all do, but I’ll get you out of this mess.”

He looks up and Micah’s body begins floating upward bit by bit. His claws leave my skin, glowing lights of various colors pour out of the holes in my body. A strange sort of liquid begins leaking out, but it doesn’t seem to be blood, it’s much too runny.

Looks like we have to get through Micah before moving on.