Rise Of Pandora

Rise Of Pandora: LIV. The Last Supper

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XV. Foreigner

Gaijin, with a sudden jolt of energy, awoke. He gasped loudly. Fear was aligned in the creases of his face. He sat up upright and found himself on the floor. His arms, which were trembling terribly, weakly held him up. He pored his attention across the room as beads of sweat dripped from his brow. As his eyes adjusted, he found that he was not alone in the room, and alerted his company with a sudden shriek. They turned to him, Atlas being among them. Their faces emulated a shared look of concern. Gaijin appeared truly disquieted and apprehensive.

"Are you feeling well, Gaijin?" Atlas asked concernedly, picking up on Gaijin's sudden distress.

Gaijin waved his hand and said, "It was only a nighttime terror."

Genuinely interested, Atlas asked Gaijin if he would mind sharing with the group what he dreamt of.

Gaijin, still groggy and bothered, did not know what to say. He had not expected Atlas to take such an interest. He gave it thought. Glancing around the room, he saw that the others were nervous and anxious but were not in much of a hurry to go anywhere. He even saw that Maddard was now conscious, and was now wearing a bloodied bandage around his head. He too, had a look of worry on his face. Yet still, Gaijin was not eager to share his dream.

"You wouldn't want to hear of what I dreamt. My mind in its unconsciousness knows no peaceful thoughts," Gaijin told Atlas morosely, a sour gleam visible in his teary eyes.

Noticing tears forming at the ducts of Gaijin's eyes, Atlas became wary of the fact that he was pressing too much but still he insisted one last time that Gaijin share his dream. He was truly interested to hear Gaijin's dream, for his face was a grimy mutilation of the beauty that was once there. What used to be a face so beautiful was horrifically maligned by dripping sweat and sunken eyes. Gaijin appeared so weary and terrified, a sight that was no novel to Atlas. He knew those eyes and wished to know had caused them. He even halted the conversation that he was having with the others. He sincerely wished to know.

Gaijin rubbed his face with the fur of his arms and wiped away the tears that were now escaping his eyes. He shook his head and repeated, "You do not want to know what goes on in my mind."

"Truly, I do," Atlas shared confidently.

Gaijin shrugged indifferently and broke eye contact with Atlas.

"I was dreaming of my time, and of who I once was before all of the changes...I was smiling or at least it was supposed to appear as if I were. I was smiling but it was not a happy smile. My face was stiff and unmoving as if almost it was not even mine. My skin was purely white, and the fur on my body was not fur, it was something fake that was meant to look like fur. And past my smile were two rows of rotten teeth. I was being fed something by two floating hands that had no owner. They were grey and larger than my body. It kept feeding me and feeding me until my mouth was full. My mouth was so full my face looked like I was smiling permanently. But I was not smiling with happiness. It was a sadness so painstaking. I wanted to shout but no sound came from my mouth. I wanted to cry but whenever I did, my tears would become acid and melt away at my flesh."

"I was not being held down by anything, I was entirely free from what I could tell. But, I stood there allowing the hands to keep filling me with these green things. The world resumed as normal. Around me were deer grazing in the fields, fish swimming in a lake, and even trees and other life. But they could not see me. That was when the hands stopped feeding me...and then a creature appeared. It looked like an owl but it wasn't an owl. Its face was mutilated and it had no wings. Its beak was a human mouth with lips that were pure black. Its eyes were pure black. That is when everything turned red around me. I felt like I was in a netherworld."