Power Swap: Dreams (open)

They were surrounded.

The three men had been fighting all day. Fighting and running. Now there was nowhere else to run; the only chance of survival they had was to stay and fight. Their chances looked dark, but Josh was itching for a fight; running was beginning to wear on him. He would rather fight and fail than live the rest of his life in hiding.

"They...just....won't....stay....dead..." Josh complained, hacking off the head of one hungry corpse as its owner lunged for him. She looked almost human, still, and he cringed; that was the one little detail that made zombie hunting difficult: not all the undead were in a state of decay. If it weren't for the fact that they were trying to eat him he would have thought they were still alive.

He gave a sideways glance toward his companions; Sean Neville and Cobalt Weaver wore identical looks of grim determination as they slashed their way through the seemingly endless mob.

They were going to be overwhelmed. The virus had spread as quickly as a grassroots campaign organized by diligent bloggers, infecting even those who should have been immune. The government had issued anti-zombie vaccines. People had taken them. And that sense of safety had been false.

Josh wanted to think he was immune, as well. He'd prepared his whole life for this day, done everything in his power to ward of zombie-ism. But if it even infected those he had most looked to for guidance...he had to keep fighting. He couldn't give in. He couldn't do anything about the zombies winning through sheer numbers, but he couldn't allow them to win because of his own disaffection.

A sudden shout from Cobalt caused him to look up, startled. "What...?" He began, before he noticed what his fellow zombie hunter was waving at. Leila. What was she doing here?! She should have been holed up at the White House with the other survivors. Ugh, she probably thought that just because she was Cobalt's intern she could help in this fight. He didn't want to see someone so young and promising turned.

He fought his way toward the younger man. "What is she doing here?" He hissed, trying to keep his eye on Leila and the zombies all at the same time, which was really rather difficult. "We'd better get her out of here..." If they could. If they could get themselves out.

"Sean, can you...." He began, whipping his head around to call out to his friend. Shit. Sean had stopped fighting, staring at one of the more human looking zombies. "Kill it!! It isn't human anymore!! Kill it!" He shouted, but it was too late. Idiot. Compassionate idiot. It only looked human.

The only consolation was his friend had been eaten, not turned.

No time to mourn, though. Not when Leila was still there. Unharmed still. Somehow.

He shoved Cobalt forward with one hand, the other slashing indiscriminately at anything flailing toward them. "We still have time to save her. Hurry!"

Josh stumbled toward Leila, relieved that she apparently did know how to take on zombies. Her education hadn't failed her the way it had failed others. Were they the only ones left? The three civil rights attorneys from Pilot Ridge?

"This isn't a dream," Josh informed her warily. She couldn't have forgotten the beginnings of the zombie apocalypse, she'd been there, had seen the zombie hordes spread from their grassroots origins to infect the politicians and then the journalists before spreading across the entirety of the country, even the pockets that had seemed well-protected: Asheville, North Carolina had fallen just the same as Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His beloved New York City had fallen; Washington, D.C. had fallen before all the others, infiltrated by the first wave of undead. Some had warned that they were clearly not human, but most people had dismissed their warnings as ungracious paranoia. It had turned out that Josh and his ilk were now considered prophets by the few people still left alive; little use prophecy was if people didn't listen.

He took a deep breath and stepped away from her, wondering if she weren't infected herself. She was one of the few who had a strong immunity toward zombification and it could take her awhile to fully turn, so he couldn't be entirely sure. "...You don't remember..." He murmured, turning with concern to Cobalt. "She wasn't sympathetic to Hammel, was she?" He demanded. That kind of weakness had been so common, had caused so many to succumb. They had thought the school was a haven when really it was a nest.

In her defense, however, she was helping them fight and she was quite good with that gun. Of course, some who had fought had been turned; some who fought had been sleeper agents. At times it was difficult to tell friend from foe until it was too late; even Sean's telepathy hadn't helped. He'd been so shocked to discover how many of his coworkers had been dead for years.

"Change...they promised change. And then the zombies put an end to that." And now those who had promised change were zombies themselves; had they been all along? "There are zombies because they took over America." He explained, in case she had some legitimate reason for not remembering. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or something. "And we have to sto----" He trailed off, gaping as the young woman began to shimmer out of existence. Not a zombie. Not human, either. He tensed, clutching his knife harder; He didn't want to have to stab her.

Luck was with him there, as she faded entirely. Gone. Had she been a vision?

Beside him Cobalt spoke, "She's a reminder that the innocent left in this world are worth fighting for. We can't give up."

"Do you, Nick, take Jessica to be your lawfully wedded wife? TO have to hold? In sickness and in health? For better or for worse, until death do you part?"

The extreemly tall, much older, shaggy gentleman scowled down at the teenager who's hands he held.

"I do," his rich barritone echoed in the cathedral.

Her gown was tattered, evidence of the battle they had fought to get to the alter where they were. The groom's suit was smeared with soot as the village outside burned. Idly Jessica wondered why the village was burning, but paid it no more attention than that.

"Do you, Jessica, take Nick Cave to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and hold? In sickness and in health? For better or for worse, until death do you part?"

The priest, whom she'd only just now really noticed, against the melted background as the walls of the cathedral began to run as though made from wax. He was old, as priests often were, and -- oddly had horns. Ah well, no matter.

"I do!" Giddiness tinged her words.

"Then, by the power vested in me, pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride."

The kiss itself would have melted the church as Jessica was lifted in the powerful arms of the man she'd married to be at face level. Her eyes remained opened, for she was afraid to blink. Knowing, somwhere in the back of her mind, that this was a dream, and not wanting it to end.

Nick Cave!

Squee!

The man himself was hottness personified. Okay, so he wasn't *hot* hot, but he was interesting looking and his voice, oh God that voice.

"Shall we?" He asked, lips brushing hers as he spoke. Jess bobbed her head--

There was someone else there. Not the priest, he'd already melted back inot the background as the cathedral continued to melt.

"Uh--you're at our wedding?" Jess offered, wrapping her arms around her hubbs.

This wasn’t a dream.

This was a nightmare.

The door opened up to a house and a long hallway that lead back through it to the kitchen. There had been pictures on the walls, but they were shattered on the floor now. The wallpaper was scored with long gashes, and they were red and starting to turn brown. The house was dark. In the kitchen there was a man face down on the floor in a pool of blood that enveloped his entire body. Well, most of it. His head had been separated from his neck and was nowhere to be found. The body was still warm. Boot prints led from the kitchen to the living room, then into the garage.

She was waiting in there.

Standing over a frightened old woman, a brown haired and raging Lyra Milliner was holding a severed head in one hand. Her other hand was covered in spikes. The rest of her was covered in blood and brain matter and other gory details. Her hair was flecked with it. Her jeans were stained with it. She threw the head down, the force of her throw shattering the skull across the concrete. The woman whimpered.

“Well, Mother? Is this what you wanted?” Lyra spread her arms and looked down at the old woman. Her Mother. “Is this the life you wanted, after throwing me out of your house? You hoped I would die, didn’t you?” The old woman shook her head, mute. Lyra screamed in rage and stomped her foot. “DON’T LIE TO ME, YOU BITCH!” There was a sickening crack as Lyra raised her foot and spikes jutted from the bottom. She kicked her Mother square in the face.

She hadn’t noticed the other person in her dream yet. She was too focused on her Mother. The ex-carnival performer was lying on the cold concrete of the garage floor. Her new husband was dead. Her new life was shattered. The children? She’d get to them later. She wasn’t sure where she had hid them, but she’d find them. She’d rip the house apart board by board if she had to-

Sirens.

Lyra looked up at the windows of the garage and saw the flashing blue and red lights. They illuminated the space, even the dust motes twirling in the air. Lyra seemed to shift back down to her teenage self again, her hair becoming blonde, her height shrinking a few inches. She looked to her Mother on the floor. She was faceless. The front of her skull was shattered and caved. “Did you… No. You didn’t have the time. No. No…” She turned, and caught sight of the new person in her dream. She blinked. This person hadn’t been here before. She didn’t even know them.

“Did you call them?” Her eyes began to brim with tears. This was the conscious part of her. She remembered what came next in the dream sequence, and she knew that she would wake soon. It was like clockwork. “Why did you call them? I have to do it now. I have to. Why did you call? Why?” She wasn’t making any sense, but then again, dreams rarely did.

“Where is it, where is it?” Cobalt muttered, bare feet padding down the long, straight hallway. If Cobalt had any wherewithal to realize this kind of thing, he’d realize that the hallway he was walking through looked kind of like the one from The Shining. But he wasn’t really thinking about that. Instead, he had to get down the hallway. He had to find… find…

Something.

He had to find something and it was definitely at the end of the hallway, he was sure of it. His feet were cold; he realized this in the distant, thought-feel way that didn’t really connect with anything beyond the vague, soporific part of his brain. He was cold in general, and that didn’t really make a whole lot of sense, since he was in his typical pajamas: grey sweats and a t-shirt. The lights flickered and in the shadows of the hallway, he could see his room, the one he was actually sleeping in. He was only ever half dreaming anyways.

He may be waking up. But at the moment, he didn’t really understand the concept of dreaming.

Movement on his peripheral turned his attention reluctantly away from the hallway, his movements slow and disconnected. He squinted in confusion. This wasn’t expected.

“Leila.” His voice sounded slow and confused to his own ears. But that didn’t really matter. “What are you doing here? Are you looking too?” He turned away and kept walking down the hallway, the dream already beginning to fall away around him. “I think it’s at the end of this hallway…”

Cobalt stared down slowly to look down at his clothing. “They’re just pajamas.” He mumbled, still disoriented and distant. He blinked at her suggestion to open the doors. “I
don’t know...” He hadn’t thought of opening doors. For some reason, he didn’t even realize they were there. “I don’t know if I’m looking for a way out.”

He watched Leila push open the door, and noticed that she was wearing pink pajamas herself. “Your pajamas look stupid too.” He pointed out, his voice fading in and out., the conscious part of his brain realizing that he was indeed waking up. The surrounding hallway was flickering more and more into his room.

“I… don’t know. Let me check.” He stepped over and touched the handle of the door. Maybe Leila was right, maybe all he had to do was open the right door and then he could find what he was looking for and maybe he could be free to—

Then the room flickered away.