High Moon
Snowdrops
Charley
SilverPaw
Tpartywithzombi
CitrusArms
PapaOso
Tlaloc
Vixere
Festive
-----After Dinner on the Boat-----
Kimberly couldn’t remember the last time the group had made and ate dinner together. It must have been many months ago if he couldn’t actually recall it, which would not have surprised Kimberly the least: their senior year of the academy was a busy one. It was nice to do things that were not military related with his friends again. Although Kimberly spent most of the time silent as a statue, responding only when addressed to, and occasionally feeling the awkward tension between a number of his friends, Kimberly enjoyed the dinner. As much as he appreciated the spaghetti, the giant only ate a small portion of it and focused on the lunchbox his grandparent’s gave to him. It was a jumbled mess that needed to be censored for the faint of heart, without a doubt, but it was still food that his grandparents made for him ---the group really--- and it was the last thing from them that he would be able to eat for awhile. He was not going to waste it.
While Kimberly ate quietly, Ghost sat down in a chair that was just as real as he was, next to Kimberly. He was eating the spaghetti, or the imaginary equivalent of the spaghetti, and “talking” to the group. No one could hear him, of course. Just Kimberly. Yet, it felt as if Ghost would have fit right in if he had been real. How the man could keep a conversation going when Kimberly was the only one who could hear any of his rants. If Ghost was anything real inside of Kimberly, he wondered why he couldn’t ramble as much and as long as his roommate could.
“You talk just as much as I do in your head, Kim.”
Nuh-uh.
“Ya-huh.”
Nuh-uh.
“Yaaaa-huuuuuuh.”
Nuh-uh. “Ya-huh.” Nuh-uh. “Ya-huh.” Nuh-uh. “Ya-huh.” Nuh-uh. “Ya-huh.” Nuh-uh. “Ya-huh.” Shut up. “You shut up.” How old are you? “You started it.”
After cleaning up what little there was to clean, Kimberly checked on and healed Thael’s bruise he had made during the previous fight with the xenomorphs. The bruise was nothing serious, but this made Kimberly concerned enough to check on the others for any bruises or scratches he could heal. When he finished that task, Kimberly headed to the cabin room he would be sleeping at to finally clean his armor properly and get ready for bed. At first, it was quite peaceful, but it became increasingly harder to focus as Ghost started to complain about the animal spirits once again.
“Really? REALLY? Kami damn it all! Who the f**k if screwing each other!?” Ghost screamed in agony.
That is none of your business.
“Oh. Oh, yes it is my business. Didn’t I just tell you earlier about these damn spirits and their pseudo-horniness? When allies connected to the host starts doing the baw chika bow wow, the ex-living animals think it’s mating season so they get rowdy? Do you remember that? Huh? Do you?”
Kimberly sighed deeply as he set his armor to the side. Yeah yeah, you don’t have to remind me. I get it.
Ghost glared at the giant that turned off the lights. “No. You obviously don’t. If you did ‘get it’, we’d be having an orgy by now.”
Fortunately for me, life is unfair. Kimberly got into the bed and tucked himself in.
“You cruel… heartless asexual bastard. ”
What happened to Maggie?
“Why does her name come up?”
I thought you really liked her.
“She... She’s always welcome to join you know. It’s an orgy. Everyone gets to screw everyone else! We’d all be happy. And all this ridiculous tension would be gone.”
I really… really hope you’re not my id. Kimberly buried himself deeper into the covers.
“Just for that, I hope I am your id.”
-----The Meeting Between the Appleberry’s and Doctors Perth and Ramirez-----
“What do you think is the major difference between the spirits that tend to be attracted to Kimberly and the spirits that tend to be attracted to the other Guardians in his team?” Dr. Perth asked once she situated herself close to Clair. Clair took a few seconds to think before answering the doctor’s question, “many of the spirits that reside in the other hosts are spirits of an element, an emotion, a type of energy, or an idea.”
“Types of spirits, which as far as we can tell, have never been ‘alive’ in the way that we are. They are sentient yes, but it is difficult for us to determine whether or not they are ‘alive’. Is their ‘death’ the same as our death? We don’t know. On the other hand, we do know that Kimberly’s animal spirits were alive at some point in time. Some may even be still alive. Even is so, in life, there is always death. A majority of life on Atlas eats other living things to live; kill others to survive. To be a Guardian of the spirits of a life form, also means to be a Guardian of death. Not to say that the other Guardians do not attract the dead, but the once-living spirits seem to have a natural attraction to Kimberly.”
“You think Ghost may be one of these living or dead animal spirits in Kimberly… or possibly ‘Death’.”
“It is also possible that Kimberly has dissociative identity disorder, but his symptoms does not match the diagnostic criteria. There are brief moments where it seems like Ghost takes control, but so far Kimberly has not shown memory impairment when Ghost does take control. He may not realize that Ghost did something, but he does remember what happened during that time. Ghost may even be the personification of certain aspects of Kimberly’s personality that he is not willing to accept, but his subconscious wants him to. I could apply any psychological or neurological disorder or phenomenon and it would explain Kimberly’s symptoms… But we must also take the fact that he is a Guardian into consideration. What I think is more important is the key moments Ghost started to emerge frequently.”
When Dr. Perth tapped the table, the tabletop “turned on” revealing that the tabletop was a large touch screen computer. On the display, a timeline appeared with a number of specific points linked to additional data. Every time Dr. Perth talked about a specific time period, images and documents were tapped into existence for Clair to see and disappeared with a simple flick of the wrist. “According to his records, Ghost first came into existence after… Kimberly’s mother died. Kimberly started to develop hallucinations and also had an imaginary friend, which we can assume was Ghost. Since imaginary friends were common for children, no one considered this to be a serious problem. There were no recorded incidence of Kimberly behaving differently and as far as anyone could tell, Ghost was just an imaginary friend. Then the Calamity occurred. Many people died during the First Contact, including his friend’s family members and his good friend Samuel. After this, Ghost starts to appear more frequently in Kimberly’s mind, however, he was never able to take control of Kimberly. Kimberly’s hallucinations also started to occur more frequently. Nothing changes for a few years until Kimberly starts training as a Guardian. This time, the change is not as dramatic or obvious as it was in the previous events. His hallucinations got progressively worse and Ghost began to occasionally take control. The only event that significantly changed Kimberly’s condition was when someone close to him or his friends died. Thus, my suggestion that Ghost is either a product of psychological distress, a spirit associated condition, or a combination of both. ”
“So you’re saying… regardless of who or what Ghost is, the frequency and duration of his appearance and the severity of Kimberly’s hallucinations correlates with some form of death that occurred around Kimberly, whether it be the addition of more once-living-animal spirits or a recent death that occurred.”
“More specifically, a death of someone or something that was directly caused by or greatly effected Kimberly and or his friends.”
“Directly caused by? As in killed by? How do you know that?”
“There was a time when the group was driving and accidentally ran over a frog. None of them noticed it happening, but Kimberly experienced a number of hallucinations that seemed to be frog and car related. They found out about the frog when they had to change the tires.”
“Why his friends?”
“I should rephrase that: his Guardian friends. Their connection with spirits, in general, and their close relationship have some degree of influence on each other. “ Dr. Perth looked up to Clair when she heard her chuckle.
“Did my grandson just unwittingly resign himself to making his condition worse?” Clair sighed. “Is this why you advised the Academy Council not to assign Kimberly to WARG?”
“There were just too many unknown variables that I thought would effect his performance in WARG. If we’d known his condition was not a prerequisite, but the result of the accumulation of spirits of the dead… we might have been able to devise a method to better control his hallucinations… But in the end, these are just ideas of possibilities and nothing more. I can only assume the Council thought the same.”
“What do you think his hallucinations are, exactly?”
“Spirits provide fantastical powers to their hosts. Why can’t memories be a source of power? Knowledge can be a powerful tool if used appropriately. Haziq and I hypothesized that Kimberly’s hallucinations may actually be a fragmented collection of the spirit’s memories.” The doctor sighed deeply, before she began to massage her eyelids. “You’d think we would have learned our lesson with his limit break. We honestly thought that Kimberly’s limit break was to summon spirits to perform a task and go berserk afterwards. Some Guardian’s limit breaks do involve releasing a powerful and uncontrollable force that could hurt allies and foes alike. We assumed Kimberly was just one of those types of Guardians for a long time… we would have continued to believe that if Haziq didn’t show up.”
Dr. Ramirez came over to sit down next to his colleague as Michaela also sat closer to Clair with Samuela in her arms. “You called?”
“Go away Haziq, I’m about to do the unthinkable… I’m about to praise you.”
“What? Noooo… impossible. I got to see it to believe it.”
Dr. Perth sighed once again, “Haziq was the one who thought that there was something we were not considering… and he was right.” Dr. Perth ignored Dr. Ramirez’s exaggerated gasp and continued, “we discovered that Kimberly’s limit break required a ‘payment’. This payment can be, theoretically, anything as long as it holds some value to the host. From a piece of bread to the ability to love. Anything.”
Clair looked down at the touchscreen in thought and clicked on a file. “Even someone else’s life?” Dr. Perth did not make an attempt to answer immediately, but instead glanced down at the document Clair was looking at. It was a tiny old news article about a murder’s wife committing suicide a few days after his execution.
“T-theoretically, yes.” Dr. Ramirez answered instead. “As long as that life was valuable to the host, but… I… I don’t think… Um… uh…” An awkward silence filled the room. Every adult was not sure what to say next, except for Clair who was lost in her own thoughts.
The Applberry’s missed out on the first five years of Kimberly’s life and the last ten years of their daughter’s. After a particularly bitter argument with his daughter concerning her future, Joyce left the house never to return to it alive. It was a typical argument between a worried father and an aspiring young artist. Clair wanted Joyce to find an occupation that could provide a stable income while Joyce wanted to be free to pursue her artistic interests and passions. One thing led to another and before anyone had time to calm down, Joyce was out the door.
Joyce never called or wrote to her parents during her long absence, but instead sent them a single photograph every month as proof that she was alive and well. She travelled to various places across the world. During her travels, she met Lee. The young ex-convict was originally just one of many subject matters Joyce took pictures of, but whenever another picture with Lee in it was sent to them, the Appleberry’s could tell that Joyce had fallen in love with him. Several months later, the two were married and a year or two later, Kimberly was born.
When the two argued that one day many years ago, Clair had only Joyce’s wellbeing in mind. “He” could not imagine Joyce leading a good life as a wondering photographer, yet there she was smiling in every picture with her own family. She was happy and that was all Clair wanted for his child. He wanted to see Joyce again. Clair wanted to finally meet his grandchild and thank his son-in-law for making Joyce so happy. Looking back on it, maybe it was a miracle that Clair was even able to properly accomplish even one of the wishes.
Being in an entirely different continent limited how much news from other continent’s regions could reach the Appleberry’s. Had they been in the same continent or region, the news of Lee committing mass murder would have reached their ears sooner. By the time it did, however, it was too late.
Clair was getting ready for speech to promote funding for the university, when the phone at his desk began to ring. He did not recognize the caller ID on display, but he answered regardless, “Hello?” Silence. “Hello? This is Clair Appleberry speaking. Who is this?” When he didn’t get a response the second time, Clair was ready to hang up, but halted at the last second. Could it be? “Sunshine?” One sigh later, a familiar voice began to speak, “hi dad.” Clair’s heart leaped with delight. “Joyce! Oh my… Joyce… i-..it’s good to hear your voice. Your mother and I were getting worried when you stopped sending pictures. Did something happen? How are you doing?”
“I’m… fine, dad.”
“Are you sure?”
Silence.
“Sunshine…?”
“Da---…” Joyce’s voice was beginning to crack when suddenly Clair’s assistant came rushing in to the room.“Dr. Appleberry! There you are! Didn’t I say we begin in 30 minutes? You’re late!”
“I’ll be there in a second.”
“Dr. Appleberry!”
“Dad,” Joyce’s voice softly said, “it’s okay, you can go. Sorry I called. I didn’t realize you were busy.”
“No, no. It’s okay. I wanted to hear your voice for so long. I’m glad you called.”
“Me too dad…”
“Professor!”
Joyce laughed weakly, “you better hurry. Who ever that is sounds like he’s about to rip your head off.”
“I feel like ripping his head off.”
Joyce laughed again, this time with a little more energy.
“Joyce… is this your home number? Can I reach you at this number?”
After a long pause, Joyce said, “yeah.”
Clair smiled, “great! I’ll call as soon as I can! We got some catching up to do.”
The assistant, finally at the last straw was screaming at Clair, “PROFESSOR!”
“Okay okay! I’m coming! I’m coming! Sorry Sunshine, I got to go, but I will call you. I promise.”
“Dad…?”
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
“I…” How long this had been unsaid, “I love you too.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Why did he hang up? Every fiber of his being told him something was wrong. The only time Joyce reached out for him and he hung up the phone on her. He may have been rushed, but at the moment, Clair chose his job over his daughter. For some odd reason, Clair thought he’d get another chance to talk to her again. If she called him once, he was convinced that he’d be able to call her back and she would pick up the phone.
He called her once the whole university ordeal was over, but the line was busy.
He called her again when he got home, but the line was busy.
He called her again the next day, the day after that, and the day after that, but the line was still busy. The day after that, the police called the Applberry’s to identify Joyce Evette Appleberry’s body.
Joyce had apparently died from carbon monoxide poisoning, while her five-year-old son survived with little to no side effects. “A miracle”, so they said, “Kami must have blessed him.”
“I wonder if she’s one of the spirits inside Kimberly,” Clair asked to no one in particular.
“What was it that The Caravan say? Umm… a spirit goes to where it yearns to be, be what it wants to be, because spirits are free?” Dr. Perth turned the table’s display off. “If she’s not with him, and spirits are able to ‘be what it wants to be’, then she probably turned into something that could watch over her family.”
Michaela smiled at the name of her people. “She always loved traveling… I think she’d be the wind.”
“Hmm,” Clair took off her reading classes, “I always thought she was the incarnation of the sun.”
-----On the Boat----
He was running as fast as he could. Franticly running down the streets with a group of other people, who were in a similar state of mind. They were coming. They were right behind them. They had to run faster. Faster. Faster! The people who were caught screamed in horror and pain.
They slashed at them; shot at them; burned them; froze them up; shocked them; tore them apart. They killed the people mercilessly and brutally. They laughed at each kill, before moving on.
One by one, everyone disappeared. He was alone. He kept running, but his legs must have been too short, or maybe it was because of the dress he wore, they caught up to him. A beam of light shines to brightly that it burns his skin. Blades cut through him, which must have rendered his muscles useless: he couldn’t move anymore. They kept beating at him. It hurt. The pain. So unbearable.
A hooded man grabbed him by the hair and lifted him up. The man smiled before tossing Kimberly’s head into the water. As Kimberly drowned, he saw his own body collapse to the ground. The hooded man and the tiny fire demon next to him cackle at Kimberly’s demise as the rest of their group continuously beat on the corpse of the xenomorph raptors.
He starts to…
fall into…
dark…
ness…
Kimberly eyes snapped open, stunned. He almost forgot to breath, before his lungs told him that there was not enough oxygen in it. He let out a loud gasp.
“Let me guess, you had a nightmare about getting killed again?” Ghost’s face appeared above Kimberly. “Morning, Kim. Don’t worry, I might not be real, but you managed to live to see another day.”
After taking the time to calm himself down, Kimberly looked around his surroundings. Why does the room look like a kid’s coloring project?
Ghost looked around their cabin room. The room literally looked like a child’s attempt at drawing the cabin room with crayons. Everything was a vague representation of the actual object. Thick black outlines traced the contours of the object. Colorful scribbles attempt to fill in the blank spaces, but always fail to properly cover the white of the “paper”. Ghost turned to his roommate, “cause you’re hallucinating it of course. Why else?”
After getting ready for the new day and taking his medication, Kimberly took a short walk to the deck. The sky was a blank white paper with a few white clouds that distinguished themselves from the sky by a simple light blue crayon line. The yellow sun looked down at Atlas with a large happy smile. The ocean was several separate layers of blue wave cut-outs that moved in the opposite direction of the wave cut-out next to it. Woosssssssssssh… woosssssssssssh the waves literally whispered. In this crayon world, only eleven figures looked real: the elven xenomorph raptors that galloped in slow motion while being suspended in midair as they headed towards the horizon. Trippy.
Kimberly turned his back to the ocean to head back inside. A few steps later, Kimberly stopped at the first sound he had heard that was not an onomatopoeia or someone else talking. It was a wet noise, like someone or something had pulled itself up onto the deck from the ocean down below. Kimberly turned around and saw a headless man with a black leather jacket on, sprawled out on the deck. As with the flying raptors, the dead body before Kimberly looked more real than anything else in the crayon world. The giant took a few cautious steps toward the unmoving body. It remained still, as any dead body should be, even after Kimberly poked at it. This… isn’t real… right?
“Well, you can find out by leaving it here and do whatever you want. If you hear someone screaming, it’s real and it you don't, it’s just another one of your crazy imaginations.”
Should I leave him out like this, though?
“Kim, if this is real, there isn’t much you can do to save a decapitated man. Come on, let’s go.”
Hesitantly, Kimberly left the body alone.
As Kimberly waited for the boat to get closer to their destination, he watched the crayon world slowly dissolve back into the normal world Kimberly was used to seeing. Around the time the medication had completely kicked in, Kimberly went back to the deck where he saw the decapitated body to check if it was still there. When he found that it wasn’t anymore, Kimberly sighed in relief. He turned around---…
And a hooded man chopped his head off.
Kimberly suddenly snapped out of it. He saw Aaron standing on deck doing something that Kimberly had no time to really take notice of. Most of Kimberly’s attention focused on the headless man standing right behind Aaron. The man pointed at Aaron.
Something rolled up to Kimberly’s feet. He knew it could not be anything pleasant, but he looked down anyways. A man’s head was staring up at Kimberly with water pouring out of his ears, eyes, nostrils, and mouth. The head made an attempt to speak, but the unlimited water that continued to flow out of its head made all of his words inaudible. Or, at least it would have. That was the beauty of hallucinations: anything was possible. While Kimberly may not have been able to hear what the drowning head was saying, he understood it perfectly well.
“Don’t make bets with him. He’s a cheater.”
Kimberly’s felt his stomach turn and body shake. He lifted his head up to look at Aaron and when their eyes met… Kimberly truly thought Aaron was going to kill him. The giant dashed to the closest bathroom and locked himself in it.
Kimberly flushed the toilet and watched all that he threw up disappear down the hole, “it’s official. I’m schizophrenic.”
Ghost caressed his chin in thought, “actually, that sounds really possible. What were the symptoms again? Delusions, more specifically, delusions of persecution. Check. Hallucinations. Check. Disorganized speech and behavior. Sometimes. Negative symptoms? Lack of emotional expression. Check. Speech difficulties and abnormalities. Check.” Ghost raised his hands in the air, before bear hugging Kimberly, “congratulations! I can call you a schizo! So schizo, how do you feel?”
“S**t.” Kimberly rubbed his forehead. People must be really desperate if I can get into WARG.
Ghost pulled away from Kimberly so that Kimberly could clean his face, “if it’s any consolation, every one of your friends has problems.”
That does not console me.
“Well sucks for you!” Ghost folded his arms. “Let’s just pretend Aaron did kill that imagery man. What? You think he did it just for s**t and giggles?
“No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Kimberly silently wiped his face dry using the towel near by. He didn’t say anything, because he knew Ghost already knew what the problem was.
“Fine.” Ghost crossed his arms, “just let me make this clear: the enemy is always going to be the child of a parent. There is always a possibility that the enemy had a family of their own, a lover, or a friend. As long as you are a soldier fighting in a war where everyone is desperate to survive, you will end up being the person who took someone else’s loved one. You will be a murder.” Kimberly’s body stiffened at the last word. “Joining WARG may not have been your first choice. But this is your chance to actually protect your friends from death.”
Ghost sighed after a long pause, “I swear, your compassion is going to come back to bite you on the ass.”
-----Battle II-----
Even on the boat, Kimberly could hear the destruction of Norton City. Now that the team was actually there, it was obvious. It was a real battlefield. A warzone so close to home. Kimberly glanced to the mountain range that stood proudly in the distance. All Nautilus had to do was go over that mountain and Helston would face a similar fate as Norton City, or worse. Helston was just a town; not nearly as equipped as Norton City was, it would be eliminated at the first attack wave.
Kimberly’s attention fell onto the Nautilus Storm Guards. He could feel his hands were shaking again. Was he ready to kill a person? “You better be,” Ghost voice said, “cause they are.”
Kimberly took in a deep breath. Olivia failed to give an order to him and she was obviously busy. He wouldn’t be disobeying any orders regardless of what he did, right? Kimberly’s ears started to focus as much as it could on Storm Guard Omega. As much as the surrounding ruckus distracted Kimberly to no end, he needed to focus on the Storm Guard’s vitals. Not to make sure it stopped, but to be sure the vital signs kept going.
“Wait, you got to be s**tting me. Are you serious!? F**k, of course you’re that stupid! Kami damn it! Didn’t I rant about this not too long ago!?”
Now that the group was on land, Kimberly called for aid from the earth spirits. Kimberly was not the best Synergist in the group, but as long as he and his allies had their feet to the ground, the earth spirits provided some amount of defense.
Kimberly Kimberly sprinted straight to Storm Guard Omega, allowing the soldier to open fire at Kimberly. Knowing his armor could take a few more bullets with the help of the earth spirits, Kimberly continued forward. By the time the soldier realized he was going to need to switch to a melee attack, Kimberly punched Storm Guard Omega straight across the face. As soon as the soldier stumbled back, Kimberly kicked the automatic rifle out of the Storm Guard’s hands. He quickly grabbed the firearm and threw it as far as he could towards the ocean. However short amount of time it was, Kimberly’s back was open for an attack, which Storm Guard Omega did not hesitate to take. The soldier smacked Kimberly from behind as hard as he could.
*The picture that made me pick Patrick Petitjean as a candidate.
