"Oh my Lord…" Lance said, rubbing his head with his fingers. "That was absolutely terrifying."
Lance shook his head repeatedly to get the horrible images out of his head, but he couldn't. The nightmare was so vivid and descript, he couldn't get the words, or the images away from his mind.
Even though it's only a nightmare… this one was different… somehow…
Lance set his head back on the pillow of the bed, staring at the ceiling of the room.
Lance set his foot down on the ground, and watched as a beautiful spring
sprouted up from the ground.
"Where am I?" he asked himself.
If you live… you are evil… if you have lived… you are the devil…
He didn't know at all. He was younger in his dream, perhaps a boy of five years, long gone in his life. He walked through the rushing water, his clothes stained with the wet water, but then as his body was released, it immediately dried up. His spiky hair wasn't drooping down from the dampness.
He was somewhere in a city, a big city. Midgar maybe? Lance continued to walk the streets without a clue until he ran into a man who was very large and had on a khaki trench coat.
"Hello… little boy…" the man said, extending his hand to Lance. "I've been monitoring you…"
"I bet you have," Lance said without thinking. "I'm smart."
"We could use you well…" the man replied. "Would you like to join us?"
Lance pondered, his cute innocent eyes scanning his face. Then, he asked with a cute voice, "Are you guys… a mafia?"
The older man laughed and took his hand and led him to a strange hotel up in the hills. Okay… maybe it wasn't Midgar.
The hotel was very large with a nice swimming pool in the back of the hotel. Women in bikinis were swimming around and giggling, drinking large glasses of martini. The boy looked around in horror, and yet awe at the same time.
They went up to the front desk. They checked in and Lance went upstairs to sleep for the night.
The next thing the poor boy knew was when he was awakened by strange sounds coming from the floor. He pulled away his covers to check it out.
There, on the floor, were two people, a man and a woman, having 'the word Lance was forbidden to say.' He saw as the woman reached out to grab something and shove it inside her mouth.
"Dammit, harder!" she yelled.
"More more!" the man screamed in response.
Lance couldn't help but screaming as well, and he looked for a way to get rid of them. He found a couple weapons on the table next to him, and threw a couple grenades at the two people. Then, without thinking, he launched himself out the window of the room. His whole small adult life passed before him in front of his eyes. Then, just about when he thought he was going to die, he belly flops into the hotel pool.
After he dries himself off and after trying to keep a hold of last night's dinner, one of his comrades in the mafia comes over.
"Are you all right, GC?"
Lance ponders to himself. "… GC?"
"That is your new code name. It stands for Green Comet. I am DS, for Darksaber." He shakes the boy's hand. "Our boss had declared a meeting in the hotel lobby."
So, Lance and Darksaber head for the lobby. When they arrive, they see two people sitting at a table. The woman is drinking from a straw, on the man's head, which is sucking up blue liquid from his head. She waves over to Lance and asks, "Would you like some? It's great!"
"No thank you." Lance said, and continued walking.
He watched as the two people bickered at each other.
"Dammit Zwieback!! He was mine!"
"No, Cliquish, he was mine!!"
Lance continued walking with DS, and came up to a table, where three people were sitting. The boss, a guy with heavy artillery strapped around his entire body, and one little geek sitting at the edge of the table, drinking a soda.
DS motioned to the table and GC sat down. "This is… our boss, Louie. This…" DS pointed to the guy with all of the weapons. "… is Gobbow. And, this little pimp over here is Brock."
Lance said hello and shook their hands. Finally, the boss got to talking.
"All right now. You know the weapons we store out at the old man's barn? Well, Freddy, Hank, and Frank have caught up to our plan. They're out to steal them right now. We need to head out as quickly as possible. Gobbow…?" Louie turned to him, motioning his hand around the lobby. "I assume you'll do the honors of eliminating everyone in this room?"
Gobbow rose to his feet without another word, and began to shoot off all of his machine guns and flamethrowers. He laughs evilly and watches as the hotel manager comes walking in.
If you live… you are evil… if you have lived… you are the devil…
"What the hell is going on here?"
Gobbow grins and begins to shoot him wildly. After a few thousand rounds of bullets, the guy finally dies.
Louie nods his head. "Thank you Gobbow."
Lance shivered as he remember the dream. "Wow…" he said, scratching
his forehead. "It went by so quick, didn't it?"
But it wasn't over yet.
"Now we need to get our plans ready. GC, you head for the farm. If anyone
gives you trouble, here." Louie tosses him a gun. "Kill the farmer and grab
the weapons and run. DS, head for the forest for our hideout. Gobbow, you
will be riding in the limousine with me. As for you… Brock…" Brock's
eyes lit up with excitement. Louie frowned. "Uh… you can come with
me…"
GC knew he needed to get out there immediately.
And when he blinked his eyes, all of sudden, he was there. He walked up to the barn and went inside.
He remembered the boss told him where the weapons were hidden. He looked around the barn for a little bit then checked under the haystack and guess what Lance found? He found about forty corpses and several hundred thousand gil worth of weapons. He smiled and began to grab them one by one.
Suddenly, he heard a noise behind him.
"What the fuck are you doing in my barn?!"
Lance turned around quickly. He saw the angry standing there ready to whack the crap out of him with his pitchfork. Lance grabbed the fork and began to beat and stab the man to death. Finally, he took the bloody clothes and put them on, disguising himself to be the farmer and the man on the ground would be the dead mafia guy.
Soon, he heard more footsteps from behind him. He saw three people coming from the field, Freddy, Hank, and Frank. They all had on really strange looking shoes.
Freddy comes up to GC, and says, "Hey farmer? Where did you get that bloody pitchfork there?"
GC drops it at once and replies, "Not much. Don't know about you."
Frank points out onto the street. "Hey look that guy is jogging!"
Lance doesn't take a look but he takes the opportunity to punch the guy hard in the stomach. "Get the hell off my farm!!"
"Hey hey, we aren't doing harm are we?" Hank says.
GC responds, "I have a farm here to run here now, get your little asses along!"
"You wouldn't happen to know if there were illegal weapons stored in your barn would you?" Freddy asks.
If you live… you are evil… if you have lived… you are the devil…
GC shivers, slightly. "I don't got no fucking weapons, get the hell out of here!!"
The three ignore him just the same and begin looking around the barn. They looked in every place but the haystack. After ten minutes, they still hadn't found anything. GC started whispering to himself. "Not the haystack… anything but the haystack…"
"Hey!" Hank says all of a sudden. "Let's check the haystack!"
GC cringes and watches as they search the haystack. They find all of weapons and stored bodies. Frank comes up to GC holding a large bazooka and asks, "Farmer…? Are these yours by any chance?"
"Nope." Lance replies, sticking his hands in his pockets.
The three look at each other with suspicision in their eyes. Finally, Frank says, "Oh okay! Our mistake!"
But Lance still knew he had to get them out of there, or else they would be spending the night with him. He saw his chance coming up the road.
Lance saw a speeding limousine pass by, and he knew exactly who it is. His boss! He saw Gobbow roll down the window and shove a gun out. He sees him pull the trigger and shoot the jogger on the sidewalk.
"Oh my God…" Lance said. "He killed him." He turned his head to the three men. They all seemed distracted by it.
"Look!!" Lance cried. "A drive-by shooting!!"
While the three men turned to take another look, GC bolted off in the other direction, towards the field. He heard a sudden cry, "Hey, get the little bastard!!" and so he ran further. He stopped quickly to read the sign in front of the fields.
It read: Blackhead Fields.
"Great." Lance muttered and he started to run. He saw huge black hills pop up and go down into the soil and he saw strange things. However, he never encountered one to his advantage.
He saw the limousine coming around the streets again. His boss rolled down the window and yell out, "Hey GC!! Get in!!"
If you live… you are evil… if you have lived… you are the devil…
Green Comet hopped into the limousine as fast as he could. He slammed the door behind him. "Thanks boss."
"Don't mention it. Say…" Louie said, motioning his hand toward the seat over next to him. "This is my new bodyguard, say hello to Wallis."
"Hey what's up Wallis?"
The strange black man looked to him and yelled out, "Grasshopper!!"
GC shuddered in fear, then he chuckled under his breath. "Okay…" he said. "That was weird…"
"Grasshopper!! Grasshopper! Grasshopper? Grasshopper."
"Right."
The limousine turned onto the corner of Broad Valley Lane and Hill Street. The boss saw a lovely woman jogging around the sidewalk. He looked at her rather large breasts. "Hey GC…" the boss said. "I'll give you a million gil if you capture that girl for me…"
Lance smiled at the offer. "Sure thing!" and he dashed out the door.
He yelled out to the woman. "Hey wait!!" but she continued jogging. She was now jogging to the edge of the forest. He would have to chase her into there and somehow manage to capture her. He bolted faster, but soon, she made a few quick turns and had disappeared.
"Damn…" he said, and he stopped running. He stopped and sat down by a tree. He saw another man jogging around the forest. It was the same man Gobbow had killed in front of the barn. Lance said hello.
Soon, before he knew it, Gobbow jumped out from the trees of the forest and shot the man repeatedly again and again. Then, as mysteriously as Gobbow and the strange jogger had appeared, they had both vanished.
"Wait a minute…" Lance said. "Didn't Gobbow kill him already?"
He shrugged his shoulders and stood up to walk on the path. He was walking, when about five minutes later, he came up to another tree. DS was sitting there, with a naked skinny woman. GC waved to him and asked, "Hey what are you doing here?"
"Mustard?"
GC looks at Darksaber, very confused. "Huh?"
"Mustard!!"
"Uh huh… right."
"Mustard!"
DS gets up and charges at another tree and runs into it. GC looks confused. The naked woman giggles. The tree they were leaning against starts to talk.
"Hey leave them alone, man, no da!!"
Lance looks at the tree, very scared. "What?!"
"Hey why don't you get out of here, man, no da!!"
"Right, I think I will."
If you live… you are evil… if you have lived… you are the devil…
Lance digs in his pocket for the gun the boss had given him earlier, but all that GC found, was a stick and two red balls. He threw the stick at the mad tree.
"Hey ouch, that hurt man, no da!!"
Lance turns around to face his good friend DS, but he's already running in the opposite direction screaming out, "Mustard! Mustard?"
GC shakes his head and runs down the path where he meets up with the strange woman again. But, he also comes face to face with the three men that are after his mafia. Soon, as he's running, the path starts to curve around a rapid flowing stream. The three are yelling insane remarks at him from the other side of the river.
"Screw you mafia killer!!"
If you live… you are evil… if you have lived… you are the devil…
Soon GC comes around to see that man that Gobbow destroyed twice, come running from behind him and tripping on a rock and landing in the river. He flows down the stream screaming for help, and he falls off the waterfall.
"… Didn't Gobbow already kill him?"
Lance shrugged his shoulders and watched as the three men found a bridge and ran across and they began to run behind him.
Lance's eyes were now wide open in the room as he gazed around. The nightmare
was still fresh in his mind. He doubted he would get it out by tomorrow.
He yawned, still a little sleepy from waking up so fast.
As the three guys approached him, getting closer and closer, and the path
getting skinnier and skinnier, Lance knew he had to do something. So, not
thinking at all, he jumped off the edge of the cliff and down the raging
waterfall.
He fell, down, down, down…
… until he landed in the water below, mostly unharmed. He watched as the clouds in the skies were getting darker. The blue were turning into black and green. Soon, it would start raining.
But this was a nightmare right? Lance smiled and laughed. "Now, do you think
it would rain water?"
Of course not.
No way.
This was his weird fantasy right?
And… of course, it didn't rain water out there… it rained newspapers.
So, being as curious as GC was, he picked up the paper and began to read
the front page. GC found the head titles.
"Midgar Sea Coast Burned and Nuked by Mad Man!!"
"Mayor of Kalm Seized and Publicly Executed!!"
"End of Planet is Near!!"
"Insane Alcoholic Driven to Kill all of Junon!!"
Lance coughed as he saw the headlines. He saw… none other than Gobbow, his good friend Gobbow, burning things with a huge flamethrower. He even saw the jogger from the farm, being burned by Gobbow in the paper.
"Didn't Gobbow already kill him?" GC asked himself.
After he read an article, he felt a pinch from underneath the water, and he saw the strange woman from before, skinny-dipping in the waters he was wading in. She proceeded in taking his pants off, but he pushed her away. She tried again and again, until finally Lance started throwing newspapers at her head.
"I don't want to be a victim of rape! Get away from me!!"
So, he ran out of the waters and soon, he fell off another cliff when he was carelessly running down the path.
And so he fell… down, down, down…
… until he came down near the sea coast of Midgar, right in front of Gobbow burning the mayor, Domino, of Midgar. He laughed and laughed his head off.
"Gobbow! Boy, am I glad to see you!"
But, as the words escaped from his mouth, Gobbow made on response to him, and continued burning everything.
And as the world began to spin around Lance's head, everyone started to chase Gobbow in a wide circle around the world. Freddy, Hank, and Frank, the weird woman, his boss, Brock, DS and the naked girl, even the strange tree, the dead farmer, and the jogger person who kept getting killed running around the world, chasing Gobbow. Finally, the world began to shrink under their feet, and it became smaller and smaller as they continued running. At last, there was nothing but black space and everyone floating around it.
But, before anyone could say anything… the boss' limo pulls up and Wallis opens the door.
"Pizza anyone?"
Everyone screamed and hopped inside the limousine, and they all drove off, leaving Lance all alone in the dark of space. The car circled around once or twice, then out of the window, flew the jogger guy from the barn and he landed in space next to GC. GC looked at him.
"I can't even bring myself to say it this time…"
Soon, the weird man disappeared. And GC was all alone in space…
"I'm all alone…" he said, hanging his head low. "All alone…"
But just as his dream was about to end, it became a nightmare.
Lance cringed at his reoccurring thoughts. It happened so fast in his sleep,
he could hardly pick out the important parts, but he had the idea of it.
A beautiful dragon appeared up to him and roared loudly. Lance looked at
it in awe and yelled out, "Jade! Jade, you're here!!"
"Yes… young soul, I am." Jade replied, flapping its six wings gracefully. "But I can't handle it anymore…"
"What? Can't handle what?"
The dragon screeched as another dragon came from behind, a dragon that looked almost alike to Jade, but somehow, it was different. It had a light blue crystal in the middle of its neck.
The dragon began to tear away Jade's body, its six wings dying away and blowing with the wind like sand. The dragon ripped open its chest and swallowed the Jade's heart in one gulp. It tore off Jade's legs, and chewed away its beautiful neck and face. The last whispers of Jade's voice were now gone.
"This is your last chance…" the other dragon said, wiping the blood from his mouth. "Turn back now…"
Lance knelt down in the open space, watching the dragon shatter crystal stones away. Tears began to stream down his cheeks. "No! How could you do this to him?!" Lance cried.
The dragon screeched loudly. "Leave this issue to the people who know!! I will destroy all of you unless you keep to yourself!!"
"I don't want… just leave me alone!!"
"If you wish… but heed my words, young man, this will be your fault if you succeed!!" the dragon flapped its wings and cried out again. "Delos and Sirea shall return once more!!"
Then, the beautiful, but entirely evil dragon disappeared with a flash of light.
All that was left in the darkness, was Lance, and faint giggles from a young girl.
Lance watched as her body came into view, so faint and light, he could hardly make it out, but she was there. Her giggles came softly from her mouth. She beckoned her hand toward him…as if death had been awaiting him all of these years. She whispered sweetly to his ears, "If you live, you are evil. If you have lived, you are the devil." Then, with her long beautiful silver hair, and with her long colorful skirt of autumn leaves, she disappeared…
…
… …
… But her giggles in the twilight were still there…
Lance sat up from his pillow violently, as if he had awoken from the dream
all over again. His hair dangled limply over his manly features on his face.
His mouth began to breathe hiccups.
He was absolutely stunned, but most of all, petrified. What was that dream anyway? He had relived his whole dream again!
And what was that whole… if you live, you are evil thing? What did it mean? He didn't understand at all.
Maybe death was trying to tell him something important but it got tangled up a bit on the way and his nightmare ended up being more of a comedy than a tragedy. It sure freaked the shit of him. He was about ready to get a nice drink at the bar outside of Nibelheim. And his growling stomach sounded like it was hungry for a little food as well. He could fit that all in.
At least it would be a small distraction from that horrible nightmare.