A scream in the distance and the sound of booted feet approaching ever closer.
There had to be something, anything he could do to get free, but his mind was blanking and his lungs were ablaze.
A broad boot planted on his back shoved him into the ground. The rough concrete abraded his hands as he pushed against the massive force that was pushing him down, hacking and spluttering in the yellow smoke.
“Jonah!” The voice of Aegera reached his ears through the melee around. The cry was punctuated by a series of coughs that mirrored his own.
He grit his teeth and shoved against the weight pressing him down only to fall back down to the dirt and concrete, the implacable foot pressing him into solid mass. His ribs burned and his eyes wept and his limbs flailed like a pinned lab specimen.
There was something down there in the smoke with him. Something that he had once known but had long since forgotten about. Thinly cloaked in the civility of the world it had been watching him. One look into its dark depths told him that it had always been watching. It cared nothing for spreading the gift he had discovered and nothing for the morality of some fight that was taking place in the mist. All it cared for was the insect that was holding him down.
He screamed into the pavement.
"YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS!"
The rules here are suspended, the thing slithered into his ear and spoke in a voice that was clear as day in the noxious fog.
"YOU DON'T—" He paused to cough harshly. "—HAVE TO DO THIS!"
But they want to.
“Jonah!” Aegera yelled again.
He could see her feet amid the fleeing Adepts and the advancing guard. Frantically he shoved against the force holding him to the ground. His muscles were exhausted, his blood felt like sludge in his veins and yet still this thing was holding him down. If he could just catch his breath…
A tide of feet washed over Aegera as she fought to get to him, caught her up and pulled her away with its undertow. There were shouts of those who were being trampled. At nearly the same time a solid line of boots reached him. An iron bar thumped against his arm and stomach.
Pain, sharp and undeniable, told him that the arm was broken. Doubled over, certain that he was about to throw up he was hauled towards one of the vehicles lining the outer perimeter of the melee. About ten meters out the smog was thinner, his lungs began to clear.
The thing that had been with him down in the pavement screamed and roared, clawing at the sludge that fouled up his mind. Clarity slowly returned to him and as it did he sucked a gasp of clean air. In an instant a word began to form on his lips, a deadly syllable.
White light exploded around him, forming into blinding specks as something collided with the back of his head. The clarity was instantly gone, replaced by rings of washing darkness. The sounds of shouting and running grew distant and his body seemed to grow spongy beneath him. Hands were there to keep him from falling and for a moment he seemed to be floating towards the open maw of the vehicle.
That something, the thing which now barely had strength to whisper in his ear, told him that if he disappeared inside of that door he would never see the light of day again. He struggled ineffectively against the grip they had on him and then the world grew dull and dim. His eyes remained barely open, but the functioning behind them was gone. The mind of Jonah McAllister fluttered once in a brief flight of fancy and then, it was silent.
House of the Forgotten
As her eyes snapped open, Jenny could have sworn that she saw Ezra's great round face hovering over her, as it had before. The face disappeared into the haunting white ceiling with its yellowish stains and exposed, cardboard-like interior.
It was coming up on six months since the night of that dream and the semi-anniversary must be playing tricks on her mind. Still, it had happened before.
She threw the blanket off of her body and embraced the cool December night air on her clammy skin, wet with the perspiration of a worried mind. Were they going to have to leave this place as well? This would be the fourth time since they had last seen Sandy and Jonah. No. There was no actual reason to leave, it was something her unconscious mind had convinced her of in her sleep.
Dreams were something to take very seriously these days, but what she was experiencing was not a dream as much as a general malaise.
She swung her legs out into the night air and, careful not to wake Carmen who was sleeping in the bed across the room, made her way to the bedroom door and out without a noise. The bathroom was down a long hallway that tended to squeak when certain places stepped on. She deftly avoided those spots with weeks of observation and practice and flicked on the ancient, stubborn light switch.
Her face was gaunt as she splashed water on it. They were all in worse shape than they had been before that night six months ago, but at least they were alive.
I had a dream! the words as clear in her head as she had when she first heard them. All that was missing was Ezra's round face hovering over her and his hand trying desperately to pull her from her bed. At first she thought he had gone mad. His body was sweating even
