One Little Spark: Part 2

Chapter 1

          It seems like it's been days, maybe months since Rachel had fainted after defeating the beast in Eli's laboratory. She had nearly been consumed into the darkness, but somehow she had escaped. Her mind is swirling in a black and white spiraling flash like she is being drained into a vortex of abysmal cavity. At times, her body seems to be shifting from heavy to lightweight, light to heavy, and so forth. It's as if Rachel is being softly swayed, floating above, below or beside whatever may come her way as her eyes droop with exhaustion. Her strength has been used up fighting the beast she thought was truly Nebulus. In the state that she is in, she may be on the verge of falling into a senseless deep slumber.

          But in this strange scene is an invisible, but palpable beating pulsing softly all around her. They come in waves. They are large like tidal waves, but they don't seem like the kind of waves that could selfishly drown out a person mercilessly, especially when there is nothing material around that could choke her with. This beating speaks in ba-bumps and thumps. So soft and tender they sound like something that is coming straight from the heart...heartbeats, perhaps. Rachel's eyes open halfway. She looks to the sky, if it even is a sky to begin with, where she finds what looks like a ceiling pounding and vibrating in a soothing reddish-pink at the center and a mush lighter pink growing and shaping the ripples outwards as they penetrate against the baffling black and white atmosphere. Before she knew it, the whole place is filled with a warm pink tone. It suddenly got warmer inside, too. This warmth gently cloaks her like a blanket. The pulses around her beat softer and softer into her ears.

          In the midst of this, a kind voice calls to her. It tenderly tickles her ears as it speaks. The voice seems to be coming from a man...a man whom Rachel knows all too well. His voice sounds pure and mild like a god. As he talks, the warmth in the atmosphere he must be providing keeps getting warmer. Rachel's body slowly ascends upwards like she is being pulled into Heaven just like she had felt before when Dr. Nigel Channing almost choked her to death. Is she really dead this time? Hardly. Otherwise, she wouldn't have the senses to touch, feel or hear the voice or the warmth coming about. As Rachel floats up closer to the source of the voice and his warm glow, the pink tones above become overwhelm by a shining bright white light engulfing her as it did before. The voice that is calling to her becomes louder and clearer for Rachel to hear. And soon enough, she has been taken back to her life. Weak, still, but alive.

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          As Rachel opens her eyes, she notices that their surroundings have changed. They are no signs of dust or rubble or overgrown vine, but floating along on the Dream Machine in an endless night sky of vast blue sparsely glittered with stars. The stars are faint, the moon is full and bright, and the soft clouds around them darken in a very deep gray illuminating on only one side where the moon shines brightest. There isn't any surface below the Dream Machine; they are either far above the Earth to see the ground or maybe Dreamfinder must have conjured another portal to another realm with his imagination. Some of the clouds flowing through the Dream Machine are blanketing them both.

          Then Rachel notices that something is holding her, something warm and gentle. It must be the main source of the warmth she was just feeling in her unconsciousness. She looks up and sees Dreamfinder, blurry in her vision, his head looking down at her with his deep blue eyes. His arms are what's holding her as she is coddled with her head close to his soft beating heart, wrapped in a blanket like a sleeping child in its toddler years. It appears that Dreamfinder has Rachel sitting on his lap as he is controlling and guiding the Dream Machine through this moonlit starry paradise. She tries to grunt, but she hardly makes a sound. She tries to move her arms a little, but her muscles are too weak. She wonders if the monster at the pavilion had done her bad enough to lose at least a quarter of her energy, maybe even half. Rachel tries to speak again with more effort. This time, she tries to have her eyes wide enough to see her dear friend.