The gentle sound of a monitor across the room shook me from my slumber that was void of nasty dreams. For a second, I was out of sorts, the clinical whiteness of the lab ceiling coming into focus above me before recalling Chase’s presence, his arm slung lazily around my hips, it felt like heaven because I was at peace.
I shifted a little to look into his face as he slept a sight I’d never tire of. He appeared like someone who was in his thirties now; the frown lines that had formed when I was deep in slumber when everyone thought I was gone.
Suddenly, I felt an urge to embrace him, but the feeling was immediately overshadowed by a pang of guilt. How much had I tortured him? How much more does the Composite Index and the inflation rates have in store for us? More importantly, how much does the Phoenix Organization, The Raven and the Architect have in store for us?
Chase’s eyes opened as if he felt my gaze staring heavily at him, and he looked straight at me with a terrified expression.
I brought my eyes to meet his and could not help but smile at the sexy half-smile that slowly formed on his lips. “Hey,” he said to me, and his voice was still heavy from sleep. But for a moment or two I thought that everything had been nothing but a dream of mine.
I tilted my head to the door and lightly kissed his lips. “No, not a dream,” I replied to him. While reality feels, or is at least a bit nebulous at the moment, indeed.
Chase’s face became more concentrated when he sat up, rubbing his disheveled hair. “Speaking of which,” he said, “It is high time we started making our movements. We cannot continue to be here forever, others will start asking questions. ”
At this point, I didn’t really care, but I simply just nodded my head, realizing that the pressure of the situation returned to me. “You’re right,” I sighed. “But where do we even begin?” How do we explain. . Any of this?” I asked unbothered.
I did not have time to say anything to Chase before a loud knock interrupted me at the door.
“Brianne… Chase?” A voice called from the other side of the door, it was Zoe.
“Excuse me,” she said in a very light tone, because I was certain she did not want to disturb us, but there was urgency in her tone.
, “I know you’ll want to check this out”.
Looking across at Chase and worrying that I looked disheveled, I rose to my feet and tried to remove the most pronounced wrinkles from my clothing. “We will be right out”, I said as loudly as I could to hide my nervousness. I had a feeling something was wrong.
Moving out of the room and into the main part of the lab, the intensity of the topic felt high. Zoe was right on one of the large monitors the room seemed to have, her usually composed self-exchange shifted expressions as she was. Detective Morris walked nervously near the door with his hand on the handle of his gun.
“What is happening?” Chase questioned. He soon joined Zoe so that he could look at what was on the screen.
‘It began about an hour ago,’ Zoe said further, typing in on the computer to pull up a number of trend diagrams and analysis displays. “We’ve been watching the movements and activities of the Phoenix Organization ever since, and I can tell you this is very huge. .. well ever since the incident with Brianne happened At first it was normal unremarkable oscillation, but then it became something else. Something bigger than we can comprehend”
She looked at me and quickly got distracted by one of the graphs on the screen. So I stopped breathing for a second, staring at the line, how it went skyrocketing high, and then skyrocketing even higher and spreading out in spikes, things I never saw before.
“What are they really up to?” I murmured.
After a few moments of greed and silent appreciation, I turned to the man behind the glasses, Agent Morris.
“What are we looking at?” I already thought I knew the answer.
I struggled for a good comparison, for a while, until Zoe managed to find one herself:
“It’s like. .. Echoes,” she said, her tone was both admiration and fear. ‘Chunked distortions in the current physical continuum in the multidimensional plane, and it is increasing gradually every minute. ‘
All of a sudden, his scientific interest piqued, so Chase moved closer to see the preparation process. “The pattern,” he murmured. It is similar to brainwave activity recorded during Brianne’s. .. Event but much bigger around the whole city and this time, they are out for blood.” He pointed to the boxes that they were carrying and suggested that was what The Raven used to take her out.
‘So, you are suggesting,’ Morris interrupted, palpable fear in every word, notes
“What’s happening to Brianne , could happen to. . Everybody?
“With this huge number of boxes. Yes”
The idea sent a shiver up my spine at this notion. I shut my eyes tight and tried to project that feeling that I had discovered beyond this world. And there in its place was a whisper, a hum that the nerve cells of my body transmitted to all the molecules in my body.
“Well no, not exactly,” I replied hesitantly, managing to look up from the floor to meet everyone’s stares, ” It is sort of like an awakening. The wall between the realities is fading. People are beginning to. .. feel things. To. .. see things. ”
Just at the expected time, Zoe’s phone rang through its ringtone. She looked at the paper, her facial expression changing to disbelief. ”
It is so great that reports are coming from all over the world, she said while flipping through the feed. It’s termed as mass hallucinations; they are seeing things that shouldn’t exist, other versions of themselves and what can be described as peeks into other realms.
“It is,” I whispered to myself, feeling the gust of wind enter my body with excitement mixed with dangerous fear, “like I found out. The great awakening… yes, it is starting. ”
Then Chase tenderly held my hand tightly. “What do we do now?” He asked me, his eyes pleading with mine for directions.