Colin's posts

Again, Hal nodded.

"I understand." he replied.

"Go and do what you need to do." he told her.

With that, they said goodbye and she left, causing Hal to collapse in his chair.

"....well, then." he muttered.

"Guess all that's left to worry about... is Syraene." he said further.

".....and Erika's disappearance." he then muttered, sitting up again.

"Great." he growled, as he pondered what to do with the disappearance that had left no clues whatsoever.

"...hm. I see." Hal responded.

"Is there anything I can do to help you with that?" he asked.

"Anything at all?" he asked further.

"I want you to be all right, and I want you to know that I'm here for you." he went on.

"Is there any way I can help in you not losing yourself to what you are?"

Hal immediately started to look enraged, before his desk phone rang.

He half-stormed over towards it, and picked it up.

"This is Sharp." he said curtly.

"...oh? Mmhmm... mmhmm... I see... oh?... mmhmm... mmhmm... well, all right then. Very well." she heard him say into the device.

"I will be there later, but thank you." he finished, before saying goodbye and ending the call.

"That was Leonard." he told Sierra.

"Seems he got Dr. Rene Calder over there to take care of her and make sure she's in stable condition. So I don't have anything to worry about in THAT regard." he added with a bit of a relieved sigh.

"How are YOU doing, Sierra?" he then asked her.

Hal was silent for a moment, but sighed heavily when she finished saying what she said.

"Firstly, thank you for the volume awareness and changes." he told her.

"Secondly, the issue has been handled? Good." he said further.

"Thirdly, Hollie will survive, but assuming she gets the proper medical attention?" he then asked. "....then might I ask if that is happening right now?" he asked further.

"And if not, WHY?"

"...." Leo was silent, before nodding.

"Right." he said.

"Thanks again." he repeated, before disappearing from where he was.

Sierra was then left waiting for about a minute, before Hal returned.

"Agent Gardner?" he addressed her.

"....so. How did things go?" he asked, expectant and a little agitated, probably from the anxiety he was feeling.

Leo winced a bit when she spoke, before shaking his head.

"Ah, right." he said.

"You have Agent Sharp to fill in, and I have to speak with Chronos." he commented.

"Thank you." he then said to her. "Without your help, we couldn't have done this." he reasoned.

"So thank you for what you've done." he said further.

"It's no stretch to say the world is in your debt."

"We do not know." the leader replied.

"Odds are she made contact in a lucid dream, much like you have done, but we don't know how she learned of our existence, or when." it admitted.

"Now, I'm sorry, but the longer we stay here, the higher the risk of this place becoming more and more unstable." it then apologised.

"Sierra, guess we have to go." Leo said to the banshee.

"Just know that even though she will not wake up, she is safe in this dream world, and she will be among the one that she wishes to be with. the somnovore told them, as Juliusz placed his hands on Hollie's shoulders from behind her.

"But get her to a hospital for her external injuries quickly." it added, before Leo suddenly remembered something.

"We're missing the head of our Order!" he exclaimed. "We think that your former comrade may have done something to her!" he told them.

This caused the leader to curse slightly.

"We'll contact Chronos and work out a way to bring them back." it responded.

"..." Leo was silent for a moment, before nodding, as he and Sierra started to fade from 'existence'.

Leo nodded in response.

"We will." he replied.

The head somnovore merely sighed, before using some shadow magic to collect the puddled remains of the one that had attacked earlier.

"We somnovores lead very quiet lives." it said. "We need to feed every few months, and to do so, we must cause extremely intense nightmares." it explained. "But, we feed on the nightmares we create, and then disappear, our victims never experiencing that same nightmare ever again." it continued.

"So you exist as a flipside to us, the Order." Leo chimed in.

"Pretty much." one of the other somnovores confirmed.

"However, a dark elf named Encrae got into the mind of our comrade." the first one went on. "Convinced them to eat more often, for pleasure, regardless of the imbalance it would create." it continued.

"Odds are the victims were killed to try and hide evidence." it added, shaking its head slightly.

The trio approached her, and one sighed.

"Nothing would really be expected of you." they said. "Other than a strong will to live, and a soul that refuses to give up." they went on.

"If we do not interfere now, you will surely die." the first one told her. "However, we can delay it enough that you will be able to get medical treatment for your injuries." it said further. "However, you will be trapped in this dream world for an undetermined amount of time." it then warned.

"....any time estimates at all?" Leo asked.

"Depends on her." the somnovore said, gesturing to Hollie.

"Her own soul and will determine that." it added.

The earplugs were gone, and before anyone could respond to Hollie's statement about her feeling herself fading, there was another voice that cropped up.

A new one.

"We'll try and fix that." it said.

Then, from the door that had been busted down, 3 more somnovores stepped inside, but these ones looked more like humanoid silhouettes, and FAR less primal.

When everyone instinctively went on the defensive, the one in front raised its hands up in a non-threatening manner.

"We're not here to hurt you." it assured the group.

"If anything, we're here to see if we can't try and right what our fallen former comrade has wronged." it said further, looking at Hollie.

Even with the earplugs, the three of them could tell that the scream wasn't pleasant. They felt the discomfort in their heads, like a vibrating headache.

But that was nothing, compared to the somnovore.

It stopped inhaling the dream world, before it grabbed at its head, involuntarily causing the dream to be expelled from its gullet, and then collapsed to its knees.

"AAAAAH! NO! NO! STOP!" he shouted, but Sierra did not.

Eventually, the creature collapsed to its side, continuing to clutch at its head... before it then started to melt and dissolve away, into a weird black puddle of sorts.

Leo and Juliusz raced towards Hollie to try and help her, as the creature just started to laugh... almost as though it weren't thinking straight now.

"Ah-hah. Hah. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" it laughed.

"I WILL CONSUME IT ALL!" it shouted.

"THIS DREAM, THIS WORLD, IS MINE!" it finished, before the suction seemed to increase in ferocity.

"......" Leo was silent, before conjuring up earplugs for the three of them.

"She can't kill us or really hurt us here, but we don't want to hear this." he reasoned, as they all put them in.

The creature froze for a moment, before it narrowed its eyes.

"You... this was rigged from the start!" it then declared.

It growled at Sierra, before looking at Hollie.

"Damn it, if I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!" it declared.

With that, its claws extended on its other hand, and it slashed them across her torso, before it then started to seemingly begin to vacuum up the dreamscape before them.

"HOLLIE!" Leo yelled out when he saw this.

"I don't know her name." the creature replied.

"Names don't matter, anyway." it said.

"Never really cared to learn the names of elves, anyway." it went on. "Especially dark elves." it added.

"That's all we needed to hear." Leo then said from across the room.

The creature quickly looked in the direction of the voice, and saw Leo there... as well as Sierra.

"....no..." it said, seeing the latter.

"No... no, no... not one of YOUR kind..." it muttered further.