Pervading Interactive Stress Syndrome (PISS)
Part
3
Christine
woke up feeling extremely troubled. Her head bothered her, she felt slightly
nauseated and, worst of all, she, the Dreamweaver,
who had no dreams of her own, had had a nightmare of epic proportions.
Then,
again, she thought to herself, it wasn't so much a nightmare as it just was a
scary feeling. She shivered a little as remnants of that feeling of dread, of
fear, of...badness encompassed her again for a moment. She took that moment to
leap out of bed, hurriedly dress herself and run into
the hallway to Daina's room.
She
found Naomi lying on Daina's bed and, for lack of a
better idea, went over and hugged Naomi, burying her face into Naomi's side.
"Ahhh, kids...oh, man!" said Naomi, flailing slightly
as if Christine's very presence disgusted her.
"Stop
it; I'm sad," said Christine.
"Oh,"
said Naomi, becoming serious. She sat up slowly, gingerly putting an arm around
Christine as if she weren't used to doing such a thing. "What's
wrong?"
"Nothing. Where's Daina?"
she asked.
"Deeply
troubled and hangin' with Jerry," Naomi replied.
"What do you need?"
"Nothing,"
Chris mumbled. On any other day, Naomi might've searched Christine's face for
traces of the truth, but Chris could tell that Naomi was preoccupied with Daina and not feeling too well on top of that.
"In
that case," said Naomi, "why don't you go over to Jerry's with Josh
and make sure he and Stevie
stay out of trouble?"
"'Kay,"
Chris shrugged noncommitantly.
"Now?" Naomi added.
"O-kay!" She shuffled
off toward the door to Jerry's subconscious and began to walk the intricately
designed rainbow lattice of mental energy known as the Link to Jerry's side. As
she looked at the tunnel around her, she slowly began to notice a very minute
difference. The closer she came to Jerry's side of the Link, a light change in
color began to occur in the walls. Darker hues of the rainbow colors slowly,
almost imperceptibly began to swirl into the interwoven rainbow fibers.
Christine stopped to touch the walls and almost recoiled in terror. Something
was different on Jerry's side of the Link, something that she'd felt
occasionally, but never really thought about. The feeling she'd had when she
woke up earlier came back to her in a rush and she blocked it out magically,
trying to keep it from attacking her like it had in her dream.
She
ran for the door in a panic. She had to leave the Link, make it to Jerry's side
before it got to her. She ran, faster and faster until she thought she might
cry out when she finally reached the door handle, then she yanked it open and
flew through it into the safety of Jerry's subconscious mind...and into the
arms of Alan.
She
couldn't speak for a moment, which was alright, since he looked almost as
surprised to see her as she was to see him. It didn't take him long, however,
to pick up on her fear like a bloodhound and begin to grin at her nefariously.
"Going
somewhere?" he asked.
Christine's
jaws moved but no sound came forth.
Jerry
looked at Daina with a deep sigh. She was sleeping
and this was probably a good thing. She had made no sense for most of the hour
that they'd been in this dark and somewhat foreboding place, but at least she
hadn't performed any more feats of superhuman strength on him. She was
obviously not herself and definitely under a major amount stress.
He
stood up and looked around himself. The
He
wasn't bothered by the darkness itself; actually, he rather liked it. He
would've liked to go prowling about in the dark, listening to the sounds the
Forest made and becoming one with the night (or day, he wasn't sure). The
problem was Daina. She couldn't possibly take care of
herself like this and, much as he wanted to, he couldn't just leave her.
Friendship had such ties on a person's loyalties. He knew nothing of this area
and its inhabitants, which meant that sometime soon, he would probably find out
just how many of them were actually afraid of light. He could protect himself
and probably Daina for a while, but if the numbers
became overwhelming...
He
decided not to think about that as he turned back to his friend. She was still
sleeping, which, as he heard a twig snap very near him, he was now realizing
was not much help at all.
Reluctantly,
Jerry's crouched near her slumbering body and let loose a low warning growl...
Naomi
whimpered in agony. Creating doors in Daina's
subconscious was not her idea of a good time. It took mental energy that was
not hers and caused a great deal of mental pain, which was. She couldn't
understand why it hurt her to use something that was supposed to be imaginary,
anyway, but she supposed that was just the way it was, or, to use one of Daina's phrases, "Sometime it just be's
like that".
Besides,
Daina would have been twisted enough to put in some
sort of thing that made anybody trying to use her imagination suffer ungodly
amounts of pain, which she was. Actually, Naomi thought with a small smirk, I
would be twisted enough to do the same thing. Maybe evil is contagious.
Then,
again, I'm not exactly evil; just mischievous, she thought. Although
I have no problem with it, personally. After all, there's
lots of evil things to do in this world that are really a lot of fun, if you
can get past the moral standpoint. She recognized this as a bizarre thrill of
hers, but shrugged it off as nothing. It wasn't as if she lusted after seeing
others in pain or distress; it was more of a deep seated curiosity in their
reactions.
Naturally,
her mind wandered to Alan. Past his permanent sulk, he was actually pretty good
at making people suffer, when he set his mind to it. But even he wasn't
completely evil, much as he wanted to be, or thought he was. Pure evil had no
fear except in the face of pure good and Naomi could only think of one person
who'd ever had that quality, or, for that matter, even came close right now.
She
frowned. Where was Christine, anyway?
Christine,
at that moment, was sprite-sized and shrieking hysterically to be let out of
Alan's top jacket pocket. He was reading a book, which wasn't unheard of for
him, but was certainly odd enough to mark the occasion. Every few moments or
so, he would grin, pat his hand just hard enough over his pocket to hurt her
and say, "Shut up, listen to this" and then tell Christine of yet
another wonderful sprite torture he'd just read about. He was purposely taking
his time and she knew it.
She
began to sob. Everything was hopeless. Alan had made her
become this small, then taken a huge paper clip and pinned her wings together
with it, causing some minor, but painful wing damage and definitely making any
position inside his stuffy pocket uncomfortable. She couldn't call to Daina or anyone for help because she was in Jerry
subconscious and she couldn't move around very much, or the weight of the clip
would pull her wings right out of her back.
Her
fear of Alan was more debilitating than all else, however, and knowing that
frightened her even more. Every time he hit her or grabbed her, there was the
pain, but there was also the scary black feeling she'd had in her dream, the
feeling she'd had in the Link. It was so scary that she'd always put up a
barrier near him, a magic one that kept most of the feeling away, blocked it
out each time he touched her. If it was that bad while she was blocking it, who
knew what would happen if she let it hit her full force?
He
must have read her mind, because he'd kept teasing her at first, pretending to
nearly touch her just to watch her flinch. Then he'd told her to get small
until he figured out what to do with her. As long as she continued to do what
he wanted her to do, she wouldn't have to have him touch her, at least not
right now, she hoped.
"Oh,
this one is definitely it," Alan said, laughing as he took her
roughly out of his pocket and set her on the table. She wailed as the clip
pulled at her wings and the black feelings clouded her mind again.
Alan
rolled his eyes irritably. "Would you shut up, already; I'm tired
of hearing you whine!" he groaned. "It's always me, me, me
with you! 'Let me go, Leave me alone,
Help me, somebody'...think about my needs, here! I haven't even begun
to seriously hurt you yet and you're wasting your voice on all this menial
pain! I'll be bored by the time I tear your wings out."
"My wings???" Chris gasped through her tears.
"Oh,
yeah," Alan grinned. "That's the thing I was gonna
tell you about." He looked up at the ceiling fan, then back at her and
said, "Maybe I should just show you."