//------------------------------// // Nightmares Shared By Two // Story: Regenerator 228 // by Hopefullygoodgrammar //------------------------------// Regenerator 228 Chapter 7 He was on an operating table, the stink of rubbing alcohol, blood and excrement assaulted his nostrils and made him want to vomit. He tried to turn his head and found that he couldn't. Panic flooded his senses, he began to sweat, he called out for help, but nobody came. The minutes stretched on into hours, his sweat made him shiver against the cold steel, he was naked, exposed, vulnerable. The fear was so overpowering that he could taste it in the back of his throat. He sobbed, he screamed, he begged, but still there was nothing. After a while he cried himself to sleep. He was awakened by a bright, white light coming on overhead, he tried to raise his hands to cover his eyes, but then remembered that he was bound. He tried to speak, but something had been shoved into his mouth, the alien object tasted of sour plastic and bad breath. Then a voice from somewhere out of his line of sight said, “Don’t bother calling out, child, no one will help you.” The voice was thick, smug and heavily accented. He instantly knew who it was: Osmund Saddler, the leader of the cult that had been causing so much fear in the village as of late. He shuddered as he remembered all the Los Illuminados monks in their silken robes and skull-shaped helmets. Their horrible chanting kept him up most nights and on many days they would come into town to look for “recruits”  to take back to their castle. His father had been one such recruit, now it was his turn. “I know that you must be scared, child,” Saddler continued, “but you need not fear me or my goal.” Saddler moved into his line of sight and smiled down at him, “I’m going to make you better than you’ve ever been or ever will be. I will Purify you, but you must endure pain before you become Pure; you must embrace the Las Plagas.” A man dressed in a white lab coat moved into his line of sight as well, in his hands he held a massive needle attached to some kind of glowing tank filled with red water; he could see several shadowy shapes moving inside the liquid. “Now brace yourself, child” said Saddler with a calm and almost fatherly smile, “this is going to hurt.” The needle plunged through his stomach and his world became a single, agonized scream... 228 awoke with a gasp, still feeling that pain in his stomach. The barrage of memories had pursued him back to his cave and, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make them stop. They pummeled him mercilessly, drowning his screams out in an endless cacophony of words and thoughts. After several hours of writhing in agony and clawing strips of his skin off 228 finally passed out from the sheer, overwhelming pain. But he had dreamed. He had remembered the agony of the needles in his blood, the cold Plagas squirming in his innards, their unnatural voices reverberating off of his skull, his young bones being broken and stretched, the talons erupting from underneath his fingernails, his new fangs pushing his old, flat teeth out. He remembered the way that Osmund Saddler looked at him after his transformation was complete. Perverse, depraved pleasure gleamed behind his cunning eyes; it was like he was looking at some new toy or bauble. 228 gasped as another stab of pain exploded in his gut, he had thought that the feeling was just phantom pain left over from his dream, but this pain was all too real. 228 looked down and examined his stomach, tracing a talon against the rough flesh and lightly pressing down with his palm. He didn't feel any movement, which was good, and he didn't feel any odd lumps, which was even better. But the pain was still there, it was just a bit muted, like someone had dialed the pain back a bit. The Regenerator slowly got to his feet and headed for the cave entrance, which was several yards away. He could feel hunger start to set in again and he knew that he needed meat soon. The Las Plagas must had increased my metabolism when they were implanted.  he mused as he neared the cave entrance. He was just about to step into the light when the barrage of memories attacked his mind once again. He had been moved out of the operating room and into a cold freezer.  The cold bit into his still-hardening skin and made him shiver. He tried to move his arms, his legs, a finger, but nothing moved except for his eyes which roamed around his new surroundings. He was painfully aware of his heightened senses: he could see every single detail down to the smallest icicle, he could even count the number of rivets that held the metal foundations up. He could also count all of the other experiments in the room with him. There were 36 total, each one bore some resemblance to their fellows, but each had a few horrific differences that made each one disturbingly unique. Some had no eyes, some had more than two, many were covered in tumors, several had obviously been females when they were still human, a few had probably been younger than he was. He wondered how his mother would react to seeing him in this state. His mother’s name was Maria and she was, in his opinion, the nicest mother in the whole, wide world. She was caring, kind, honest, generous, loyal to her family and her religion, and she could cheer him and his younger brother up no matter how bad his day was. She was wonderful. And now he’d never see her again. He began to cry gently, the tears burning as they trickled out of his eyes, his breaths came in quick, panting sobs that barely sounded human. WhAt SeeMs To BE the IssUE, ChilD?  asked a whispering voice that seemed to come from all around him. He tried to speak, but could only growl and hiss. Don’T BoTHer TalKing, ChilD. the voice said, AnD YoU Don’T NeEd to IntRoDuce YourSelF. He had mentally asked the voice what it was, not really knowing if he wanted the answer. We Are THe LaS PLaGas  it said. We? he had queried Yes. said another voice, TheRe aRe FivE oF uS. They each squirmed inside of his body to demonstrate their locations, it was uncomfortable and terrified him, his mind, which his mother had always called “Uber-Imaginative”, conjured up an image of fat, leech-like tumors squirming in his guts. We aRe NOT TUMoRs! hissed the one in his stomach, sending a wave of pain through his body to drive the point home, We haVe BeeN oN THis eaRth for EonS. WE are EtErnAL. We haVE waiteD in the ShadowS for Far TOO LonG, But NoW WE will rise to PurifY All ManKinD!!! The voice grew in volume until he felt like his head would burst. Then, thankfully, darkness overtook him and, when he awoke again, he was being wheeled on a cart that was heading to a new place. The place where he lost everything. The night was colder than usual. Luna’s moon hung in the cloudless sky, the stars twinkled brightly and the cool night breeze stirred the long reeds that surrounded Fluttershy’s quaint, little cottage. All was calm and peaceful outside. But inside Fluttershy’s house the mood was anything but. Inside her bedroom the timid pegasus was tossing and turning in the wake of one of the worst nightmares that she had ever had. Normally her nightmares were about her horrible time at the Cloudsdale flight academy and the torment she suffered at the hands of bullies, or it was about one of the many monsters that she had encountered. Sometimes her nightmares showed her friends leaving her, denouncing her as “too weak” or “No fun at all” or “a pansy”.  These, of course, were the absolute worst of them all. But tonight the nightmare was new and horrifying beyond words. The only saving grace about the nightmare was that it came in flashes. She was looking at a file, most of the words were blurred or gone entirely, but she could still make out a good deal of it. Name: ################ Age: 16 Height: 5.7 Weight:###3 Date of Birth: ##### 1990 Date of Purification: ####### #### Species Type: Regenerator. Subject Identification Number: 228 The file disappeared and she heard the screams of a young boy in the darkness. The next few images flashed by so quickly that she had barely registered one image before a new one took its place: she saw a needle puncturing flesh, several misshapen leech-like creatures suspended in red liquid, a freezer full of twisted aberrations that had been hung from hooks, a strange creature with a furless, ashen face staring at a shadowy form on what looked like an operating table, blood pouring from ugly gashes marring soft, alien skin. It was overwhelming and yet she only woke up when Angel bunny shook her awake. After that, it took her a full hour until she was able to get out of bed. The instant that her hooves hit the floor she began to walk, she walked past a very concerned-looking Angel, past the rest of her animals and out the door. The cool wind felt good on her sweat-soaked fur and the sounds of the owls hooting and the crickets chirping helped calm her down. But she still needed to talk to somepony and she knew just who to talk to. A few minutes later she had arrived in Ponyville, which was currently as silent and still as a graveyard. Graveyard…. the word triggered memories of her dream and she felt tears prick her eyes. Thankfully, she had arrived at her destination. She reached up and knocked on the door to the Golden Oaks Library. There was a series of muffled thumps, followed by a mumbled curse, then the door opened to reveal a very tired-looking Twilight Sparkle. She looked at Fluttershy with bloodshot eyes and stifled a yawn, “Fluttershy? What are you doing here at this time of night?” she asked, obviously a bit disoriented. “Ummm… well I-I had a really, really bad nightmare.” she admitted, pinning her ears down when she realized how foalish she sounded. She half expected Twilight to dismiss her, but her bookish friend simply nodded and moved aside to allow her in. Twilight gestured to a nearby chair as she got a fire going with her magic, “Take a seat and I’ll go make us some hot coco, how’s that sound?” “That sounds wonderful Twilight” said Fluttershy with a small smile, “thank you very much.” As Twilight busied herself with the coco, Fluttershy stared into the flames and thought back to her dream. She wondered why she had dreamed things that were so… different, the things that she dreamed usually reflected her mood, but this was entirely unrelated to the stress of yesterday. Unless… Fluttershy gasped when the realization hit her, prompting Twilight to come back into the living room to check on her. “Are you alright?” she asked, “You look like you've just seen a ghost.” “Twilight… I need to talk to you about my nightmare, but I need to warn you, i-it’s not very pleasant.” So she told her about all of the horrible things that she had seen, feeling massive relief as she got all of her fears and upset feelings out in the open. As she related what she saw Twilight’s expression went from interested, to shocked, to disgusted, then to horrified before finally settling on sadness. “It’s okay, Fluttershy.” she said, laying a comforting hoof on her friend's shoulder, “It’s okay to cry when you've seen what you've seen.” It was then that Fluttershy realized that there were tears running down her cheeks, giving a soft sniff she wiped the tears away and gave her friend a shaky smile, “Thank you for hearing me out, I almost thought that you would just… y’know… dismiss what I had to say.” “Oh, ‘Shy, you know that I’m always here for you and I’ll never, ever dismiss anything that you have to say, I Pinkie Pie Promise.”  said Twilight with a grin. Fluttershy blushed and nodded before tentatively wrapping her friend in a tight hug. When they finally pulled apart Fluttershy sighed and bit her lip, Twilight cocked her head, “Is something wrong?” she asked. Fluttershy looked into her friend’s eyes and said, “I think my dreams had something to do with that creature from the other day, have you found out what he was?” Twilight shook her head, “No, I've looked through every book on odd or rare species that I could find, but I couldn’t find anything.” She got up and began pacing, “I mean, it’s impossible, it’s just flipping impossible!” she half-shouted, “I mean… what was that thing? The only explanation that I could think of was that he was one of Discord’s, but I think Discord is more into creatures that are more… whimsical and that… whatever that was, was not even close to whimsical.” Fluttershy cleared her throat and Twilight stopped her rant, “I think that he’s from another world, Twilight. I saw odd creatures in my dream, creatures that looked kind of like him, but… uhm-less scary?” Twilight looked at her and then nodded slowly, “Go on.” “I think that that poor creature is an alien and he needs to be found and returned to his home before he causes any...more…. trouble.” Fluttershy’s voice weakened as she realized how ridiculous she sounded, but, instead of gently debunking her theory, Twilight just nodded and said, “I’ll get the girls together tomorrow and we’ll go try to find it.” Fluttershy smiled bigger than she had in a while, “Thank you so much, Twilight!” she said, giving her a quick hug before turning around to leave. “Uh, Fluttershy?” called Twilight, the yellow pegasus turned to her, “Yes, Twilight?” she asked expectantly. “I just wanted you to know that if you ever need somepony to talk to I’ll be there.”  said the purple unicorn with a warm smile. Fluttershy blushed and mumbled a quick “Thank you.” before opening the door and rushing out, not heeding the storm that had snuck up on the town. That’s funny. thought Twilight as she closed the door with her magic, I don’t remember there being a storm scheduled for tonight.