In his restless slumber, AJ found himself eerily conscious. Surrounding him was darkness. It wasn't just darkness; it was as if the darkness itself was touching him, chilling his skin to ice. A void of sightless space stretched around his entire being.
His senses were still with him, hearing his breath as he inhaled and exhaled. Everything else was silent. With no other sound to complement it, his breathing bounced off his ears, driving him to annoyance.
He could sense his body as well, raising his right arm up in front of him as if to look at it. But, nothing was in front of him. When he thought he was walking, no noise erupted from where his feet should be. Looking down, he had no feet. It was just the void. The lack of a tangible body hastened his breathing in dismay.
It was as if nothingness had swallowed him up, floating adrift endlessly across its scape.
I'm dreaming?
Although this most likely answer, AJ made the claim more to ease himself, to bring himself back into an understanding of reality that made sense to him.
He started moving through the void with no idea if he'll ever reach the end. It was isolating, with nothing but his voice to keep him company. He grew anxious, unsure of what was happening. Was it really a dream? Did a D-Bugg kill him in his sleep?
No, that's not it. I can think. I'm still conscious.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Many of these simple breaths, made poignant by silence, occurred as AJ kept wandering, enough to make him think he was going mad. Suddenly, he heard the faint echo of someone's voice in the distance. Narrowing his hearing, he tried to clear up the sound of the voice. He could not understand what the voice was saying because it was muffled.
However, AJ could figure out that the voice sounded like a young girl. Hoping to finally find something real, he followed it. In the process, the voice quieted and reappeared behind him. He briskly swiveled his head around and found more void, and the voice now hummed distantly in the other direction.
This continued to happen many times. A game of cat and mouse. After some distance was closed in one direction, the origin of the girl's voice transferred to his sides or behind him. Each time the voice disappeared, AJ grew more and more frantic; his walking changed into a run and his breathing became erratic.
Don't you dare leave me!
Whose was the voice? What would happen if he caught up with it? He didn't know the answer, but everything inside him was screaming at him to catch up to it.
The muffled voice continued to toy with him.
Finally, AJ realized the voice had stopped moving around him, growing louder as he pushed forward.
Even Louder.
So loud that the voice overtook his breathing and stood as the only thing reverberating in his ears.
Still inaudible, the girl's voice boomed; she sounded as though she was in distress. Something was happening to her.
Who is this? Is she in trouble?
The voice was familiar, yet the emptiness of his memory made him think otherwise. Like many other things, he knew the voice, just not who and how he knew it.
Suddenly, a flash of white light appeared in front of him. His eyes, attuned to the darkness he'd been wading through, instinctively turned away to protect themselves.
The woman's voice he was chasing stopped ringing completely. Its game was over.
Slowly, cautiously, AJ returned his gaze to the white light. Or rather, lights.
Four bright silhouettes stood before him in a haze. They were fuzzy, their outlines phased in and out of existence in a nondescript manner, blending in with the void.
They were all human figures. Two women. Two men. One of the girls was quite small and appeared to be young, with an outline that hosted hair of medium length. From his judgment, she could be no older than twelve. The other girl was taller and looked more mature, likely in her early to mid-twenties. She rose to what would be his chest if he had one in this dreamscape. She boasted a longer head of hair than the previous. The other two were male. The first was short in stature, his back arched in a way that required a cane in hand to keep him steady.
AJ felt his eyes grow wide, though they didn't exist. A warmth unknown to him in his entire day of living welled up inside of him the longer he looked at the people.
These… are people. People close to me from my memories.
He looked at them, unable to see their faces. The bane of amnesia locked away the truth of who they were. Emotion rose, frustration from the fact he couldn't figure out who they were.
He turned to the last figure. Even in this void, he could tell who it was. They were the same height, and his idle position was identical to how he stood. The only thing that was different was that his hair wasn't in a ponytail; the outline showcased it falling to his shoulders. More than anything, AJ felt it was him.
But he couldn't have felt more like a stranger to himself.
Tell me…" he said, "Tell me, who were you before this? I do not know."
He looked at the other figures, "They are the people I cherish, right? And yet, I forget their faces," AJ grimaced, "How could I forget the ones I loved…?"
No answer came from the silhouette.
AJ felt his face contorting with a mix of frustration and sadness. He had no time to engage with it as suddenly the figures all evaporated. The void changed into a white ceiling with a fan frozen in its circular motion. He was back at the end of the world.
Screaming at the top of his lungs, he reached out his hand and sat up. He was in a bed, in one of the empty hotel rooms he had broken into. Sweat drenched him, and the mattress underneath him soaked it up. His head pounded as if someone had swung a metal bat at the front of it.
Shit. So I was dreaming. More like a nightmare.
There were tears in his eyes; the eruption of emotions from his dream had seeped into reality.
He sighed, sluggishly standing up from his resting spot. Though he got some sleep, he had awakened more tired than before.
Grabbing his weapon and belongings, he made his way down to the lobby. He found RL was already awake, standing around with Owen and his Orbital Warden, waiting for him.
He kept his eyes on RL as he approached, who smiled and waved at him to come over.
Did she have a similar dream?
He looked more intently at her eyes. There were soft bags under them with a pigment of red from tears.
I suppose she did.
"Sleep well? You were out for awhile." She asked as AJ caught up.
He nodded. He decided not to bring up the topic of his nightmare with her, especially since the Orbital Wardens were around.
"That's good to hear," Owen began, "Then it means we should prepare to make our trek to the City Command Center.
AJ's Orbital Warden pulled out the wireframe map with its projector, "I've already marked a path that should minimize the number of D-Buggs we see on our way there. It should take no longer than an hour and a half to get there if we keep a brisk pace."
"Sounds good, let's be off then." AJ agreed, rubbing his tired eyes.
…
Nearing the end of their journey, a towering building 200 meters away from every other structure popped into view. Unlike the other buildings, which had pieces of themselves falling off and sent to ruin ever frozen in the air, The Command Center was perfectly fine. This was because a blue shield surrounded the skyscraper, protecting it from any calamity that might befall the city. A yard of neatly cut lawn and freshly cleaned pavement also separated it from the rest of the city.
The building stood on four square legs, its framework hovering above
Floating in place atop the building was the enormous orb that Owen said to be on the lookout for. In times past, that orb used to rotate, lighting up in neon colors throughout the night. The most pivotal landmark in Paris of the time that brought in tourists from around the world.
People stood in the field, running frantically toward the monstrous building looking down on them. Their expressions stuck in animation.
The group had avoided most D-Bugg encounters along the way. Some scanners that had the ability to levitate were a problem, but they were easy for the wardens to lead the two around at a reasonable distance.
They entered the open lawn, approaching the Command Center's barrier.
"Do we have any way to get past that shield?" RL asked.
Owen's eye turned yellow, "Yes, all Orbital Wardens have the access code to the building."
AJ chimed in, "Will that even work? Time is frozen, doesn't it require time to read your ID's... or whatever it is you have?"
"You need not worry about that, Miss RL."
"Whatever you say."
As they continued their pace toward the shield, AJ looked over at RL who walked beside him.
Since their conversation, they had both somewhat distanced themselves from their Wardens, sticking together more often. They decreased the number of questions they asked them and, using only the functions they believed had no ulterior motives, like the Wardens' storage capabilities. Though, they still maintained a friendly air around them so as not to alert them of any unwanted speculation of their suspicions.
However, it did not stop AJ's desire to talk to RL about his dream. If anyone could understand how he felt, it would be another doomsday unit like herself.
Hopefully, the other units will think the same.
Walking alongside RL, he took notice of her height, something he didn't really think about before. She rose to the middle of his chest. Her long hair also fell down to the length of the young women he saw in the void. His eyes widened in surprise and thought.
Was she a person in my memory?
There was some merit in that being true. The moment he saw RL after saving her from the D-Bugg, he felt a familiarity towards her, like he had seen her face before, despite her being the first human he saw after waking up.
Before he could think of it any further, a faint scream erupted.
"What was that?"
'Hmm?" RL asked, tilting her head, unable to hear the noise.
"I heard someone cry from in front and slightly to the right of us. Let's find it."
They rushed ahead, reaching the barrier. As he said, to their right they found out what the sound was from.
On the lawn next to them was a young time-treading woman holding a metal staff in both of her hands. She was wearing a focused expression on her face.
An Orbital Warden was floating around her. She was another Doomsday Unit.
Her opponent was a D-Bugg. Its scale was massive as the height was double the size of the one from the plaza, perhaps reaching twenty meters. Reinforced armor covered its shell, protecting every vital crevice. The mech had no head; in its place were three floating orbs of light that were attached to the rest of the body by an electrical current. They seemed to be its eyes. The arms hosted two massive fists of hard steel. A hit from that could break all the bones in a human body. Who knows how many of them it's killed.
A fist was swung at the woman with a speed unprecedented for a construct that size. She reacted fast enough, promptly bracing most of the impact with her pole. However, the force was still too great, and it sent her flying towards RL, losing her weapon in the process.
RL caught her safely, resting her softly in the field as she recovered from her daze.
"I got you."
AJ prepared himself to continue the fight in her stead, pulling out his machete and falling into a fighting stance.
The D-Bugg stared at him, its iridescent eyes pulsating with energy.
BUGS. FOUND.
"Warden, can you scan the D-Bugg?"
His Orbital Warden complied, scanning the mech, "Be careful, AJ-001. This D-Bugg is not like the others; its designation states its ranked B."
He smiled widely, "Finally, something other than a C-tier."
Readying his sword, he prepped to defend as the D-Bugg barreled towards him.