It's Only a Bad Dream

[Sarah_Kerrigan]

Sarah is dreaming while sleeping in her apartment.

Where am I? The thought brought focus into Sarah’s mind. At first she hadn’t even noticed anything abnormal. She had been in a bed – that she remembered – which was warm and cozy, and had also been content to sleep into the late afternoon (or as late as she could manage with the empire breathing down her neck) without as much as a stir to relieve herself. Now however, nothing seemed right. As though she looked at the world before her through some dirtied lenses – real enough, merely distorted in the most unusual ways. She squinted, straining her eyes to the point of tears, but nothing became any sharper. Instead, things were just there (where they were supposed to be) acting as they would, but still off in some manner or another.

For example, her mattress floated, leaning up against an invisible barrier that kept it in place. The panel which controlled the illumination in her room laid bare on a dresser, rather than propped and positioned on a wall – even its controls were inverted or blurred. Her windows opened out not into Coruscant, but into blankness no matter how she adjusted the opacity levels. After many attempts at fooling with the environmental layout of her room, she found herself sitting up again on the bed. Blinking, she tried to recall when she had sat down again; she couldn’t. Running a bare hand along the blanket, she tried to feel, well anything really. She could tell that she grasped at something, but no feeling came through. The cloth didn’t clutch at the fabrics of her clothes, and it neither felt cool nor warm.

What’s going on here? the Teenager wondered while practically rubbing her eyes out with her palms. She looked in a mirror and tilted her head. When did I . . . I don’t remember walking here. Something’s wrong am I . . . Sarah no longer saw herself in the mirror, the lights had gone out. A shiver ran down her spine and she wanted to cry out – to scream ever so badly. Then as she fell, her stomach lurched up into her chest. She felt like vomiting, but somehow she hadn’t really ‘fallen’ at all. The sensation dispersed, and beneath the covers she hid; her hair a matted mess of sweat and grime, and salt clung to her bare skin. Exposed. Naked. There were tremors at the walls. Torrents of noise were tearing at the boundaries of her mind. Her body shook all over. It burned and froze, thereafter thawed out again. She thrashed and tossed the covers off of herself, and they flopped to the ground.

Dreaming, Sarah’s thoughts came back around. I’m dreaming. This can’t be real. The gurgles, the slops, the growls and the howls echoed. They weren’t just contained within her mind. The walls quaked. The sheer number of them rising up in some seemingly vast distance drew closer and closer. She hid beneath her blanket. A passing thought: did I pick this up? In truth, she didn’t care, because she clung to it and wrapped herself up tight. Despite how hot she became after, she would not unbind herself.

Within the cries, the howls and growls, a beat droned on and ever on. A pulse actually, thudding with a rhythm that just wouldn’t cease. She felt her chest. Somehow the ululation – it was her heart. It beat on and on and encompassed everything that made of this world around her. They (whatever they were) with their howls, moans, groans and gurgles, were drawn to it. They were shadows running along the walls and monsters peeking in with bright eyes from the windows – from the windows that somehow couldn’t be seen through. Yet they managed. They managed to see and glare just fine. The glimmers of red and piercing yellow were horrible ever so horrible.

Sarah didn’t dare peek out from the covers. She reached back absently grasping for a pillow and propped it up against her ears. I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to see them. Please . . . I don’t want to know what they are. Now they were scuttling, creeping, crawling and sprinting across the floor. Paws and claws scratching upon wood, and tile, metal and steel while the windows slowly creaked open. No they’ll come in! Of course now there was no reprieve at all. Her covers were taken; the walls were gone. The smell of blood lingered in the air, and light streamed across it. Splotches of gory mess and puss slopped and slushed, caking upon the ceiling and floor; it seemed alive – all along the ground a trail of life… alive things breathing, growing in contamination.

She shut her eyes tight had pillows to her ears, but could still see and hear. There were beasts with burdens and some without; beasts with names and no names, horrifyingly there, but not possibly real. Their calling wails were all that remained. Their broods with their swarms spanned out as far as she could see. With their sharp many teeth, they had bitten holes into her room. They ate up reality itself leaving nothing in their wake (time did naught stop them) – not even the dark: world-eaters they had somehow adapted to become. Here, they had no color, no consistent shape nor form. To the Teenager, they looked like naught but shadows rapidly fading as light shimmered from far away. But, they ran ever so fast, surrounding her. Roars rose up, terrible in number and darkened tentacles, with tips like spears and tails like maces with spikes swung all about – crushing and stabbing at everything. A species evolved to make every appendage deadly.

Sending out a psionic vibration, she emitted a plea ever outward. She leaped into their mind, and felt only rage, only desire, and only power. They were evolution pure in essence, driven by nothing else – such a mindless quest yet precise action. When she opened and looked once more, they were there, but unmoving they only observed her as she did them. ”What do you want from me?” She asked without speaking and without parting her gaze. If she had an expected an answer, she would have been disappointed, for only silence was returned. ”I see into you. You devour anything – everything. Mutate and change – taking pieces of what you kill. Why, is killing not enough?”

They answered: ”Tell us. You destroy. You are pure – powerful. A sleeper that has yet to awaken.” Sarah didn’t understand, but at the moment, she did not want to. She wanted this to end. Her bed flipped and smothered her and everything became loud once more. Howls, growls, moans and roars, then the thrashing of teeth. Something bit her; something pierced, stabbed and bashed her. She was sure of that . . . their feast had begun. They were on her piling up and up – pinning her down while slashing with their claws and brandishing their teeth about. They dug into her flesh and devoured, but no harrowing cries parted from her lips. Whispers – harsh guttural in her head. ”You must be reborn. Rebirth.” The words became a chant. There were many voices, but one in their unison became the dominate force.

The rocks cradled a massive descent down a Cliffside. There were greys, purples, and greens swirled into an all-encompassing fog. Now standing, Kerrigan rapidly swept her hands along her body. She wore the hazard suit with no energy to power it. I can breathe? Why didn’t they kill me? That couldn’t be possible, but there were no wounds upon her flesh, and air was plentiful in her lungs. She inhaled deeply and stared out across the overcast skyline. Rumbles in the distance told of an oncoming storm – rolling clouds of darkness with terrors unknown and unimaginable. A trickle of a memory flowed into her. But, she didn’t really remember at all, it felt like a hallucination. Kneeling she peered unto the landscape far, far below and as suddenly as it appeared, the smog parted. She wished it hadn’t; the ground was alive.

A voice boomed again, boring into her very soul. Omni had done so once, but he had been far less, gentle – yes that was the word for it. He hadn’t cared. It became deep and firm, but no longer painfully loud. ”Nothing can stop us. The fabric of realities will only hold against our onslaught for a time. The Swarm is eternal – a fixed point in all of creation. Its will is eternal. You will serve once more. All will serve its purpose." Like sloths, they slithered up the embankment, and like serpents they hissed and barred their poisons. Endlessly they streamed from hatchling to full-grown monsters: the Zerg Swarm – these numbers only a fraction of a brood. In spite of it all, Sarah turned and fled. They followed easily keeping pace, for there was no outmaneuvering the Swarm.

”I don’t even know what you are – why would I serve you?!” She pushed back at them channeling her strength into the very words that wormed their way through psionic pathways. Still she ran on and on, over top the scaled, grey ground. It cracked at her feet, crumbling but reforming as swiftly. She sprinted, until her breaths became haggard and nigh inconsolable. Instinctively she attempted cloak, but that device had long since stopped working; the Omniverse had seen to that, the destruction of whatever tech she had once held in such high esteem. Panting, she slumped leaning up against the only cover that she could find: a lonely stepped rock formation. Heck, I don’t even know where I am.

”Kerrigan, my child – you know what I am – what we are. Step forward. See how it is you can hear.” Without a thought, the stranded Ghost obeyed. She didn’t know why, it was like she had been programmed to follow this entity. On her feet she walked at first heading in direction of that pulse (the beating of her own heart would lead to her demise). Harsher and faster it became with each footfall, until it felt as though her chest would explode from the pressure. Then – in that moment – she saw before her a massive overgrown structure. One that lived and grew even as she blinked and crept closer. A parasite that sapped the energy from the planet itself: the worm amplified psionic power and it resonated dominance.

”A Cerebrate – the extension of my will. Go on child, play the Assassin as you did in a previous life once more. But know this, the Swarm is coming. The Void beckons, and the Zerg will answer.” The fabrics of reality shifted before her, swallowing themselves up into a tiny rift – a hole in space and time. The command seemed absolute. It didn’t matter that the Teenager came from a time before it all. It drew everything into its path and when that faded, Sarah did too, leaving only silence in a realm created from thought, and memories that never occurred in the first place; a paradox that allowed reality to fold over on itself.

In those moments she had but the single glimpse of an eye encased by flesh and bound by it – almost strung up upon it. A mass of parasitic worms, tentacles and tendrils, and sheer size serving as a physical conduit for a soul that could be contained by none, save for a few. An embodiment of the Will of an entire species, capable of warping reality in its own right. The last thoughts Sarah had before awakening were those drawn out by fear: fear of the unknown that waited in the darkness. They aren’t here. They can’t be here; this is the Omniverse. I’m not that thing’s child. They weren’t shadows, nor were they memories however, they were real. This is just a dream. I need to get up . . . I need to wake . . .