The Nightmare Before Time

He was laying content on his large bed, idly humming a tune he had heard today. His hair was tousled and he was almost asleep, barely clinging to consciousness. Alcohol was lowly simmering in his veins, buzzing and addictive. He was rather satisfied with life in general at this moment. His eyes were half lidded and he didn't give a single damn about the world right now.

He closed his eyes, running thoughts coursing through his mind. He had a good day today, he had argued towards a case that most considered very difficult, even impossible to win. He had felt accomplished when he had shut down the opposing parties arguments. He knew by his achievements today that he would most definitely will win the case. After that he had gone out with some of his coworkers for drinking. He had a great time with them, he may have boasted a bit about his successes but why shouldn't he? He deserved some praises for his accomplishments and they didn't seem bothered anyway.

He smiled, yes he deserved some praises. He wasn't vain. He didn't think he was but sometimes being appreciated could build up a lot of confident and self worth in oneself. He deserved this.

He closed his eyes again, his breathing deepening and he felt his muscles growing lax. And before he knew it, he was already drifting off. His mind calming down, his limbs growing heavy and his mind still lingering on a subconscious almost forgotten thought.

Did he actually deserve it?

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!

WAKE UP!!!!!!!!

He awoke with a gasp, his hands clutching his throat. His eyes widened in terror, as he woke from some unknown horror that was lingering in his consciousness. It felt like he was ripped from one reality and dumped unceremoniously in another. He didn't know what has woken him but he felt his thoughts jumbled up in an incoherent mess. It felt like some unknown entity or being was still laying curled up on his mind, still clutching some part of his mind even as he tried to drift away from as he started waking up.

He lay panting, his breaths heaving and his body trembling. His heart felt like it was trying to beat out of his chest and he couldn't control the growing panic he felt rising in his veins. He curled in on himself, his head pressed against his knees as he took calming breaths and tried to stop himself from shaking so badly. After what felt like an eternity, he finally managed to stop shaking. His breathes had calmed down and he overall felt more like a human being than a brain that had overridden on adrenaline. 

After gathering himself remarkably but not before the tinge of embarrassment that clung on to him drove deep and stabbed his ego. He sat up on his bed and ran a hand through his hair, finding sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. He noticed just then that his bed has turned rather uncomfortable during the night, it was harder than he remembered being. He frowned, feeling his mattress with his hand carefully. He was not on his bed, he realized as he looked down, he was on asphalt. Someone has dragged him onto asphalt whilst he has been sleeping.

He felt an uncomfortable feeling rise in him, along with panic as he continued to stare at the asphalt incredulously. He took a deep breath, calming his nerves and then turning to examine his situation more, he looked up.

He was in hell.

His breath stuttered in throat, the rising feeling of nausea and horror coursed through him as he watched his surrounding. Everything was in ruins around him, buildings were demolished on the surrounding where he laid. It was as if it was razed to the ground, the destruction was breathtaking in its savagery. The sun was beating down on him and it felt uncomfortable just sitting down in it. There was no breeze, not that he could tell but the stench was acidic in it's nature, he didn't know how he didn't notice before. It was so awful. But more than any of that, the true horror lied in the piles and piles of garbage surrounding him. It was so horrifying in it's nature that it was almost marvelous.

His heartbeat picked up in his terror, sweat beading at his temples as he took everything with a surreal repulsion.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing was true, he contemplated if he was dreaming but this felt too real for a dream and he never did dream lucidly before, so he didn't know what to make of his current circumstances. He got up on shaky legs and stumbled when he did. This place, wherever he was, was awful. He walked around searching for some kind of reprieve from this too real nightmare but didn't find any. Everywhere he went, everywhere he saw, was filled with destruction and garbage.

So, so, so much garbage.

He looked around for anything beautiful, anything that was not covered in garbage but didn't find any such place. He searched for trees, shrubs, grass. Anything, anything that would take away the stench of the place. He didn't find anything, his eyes watered as he searched for some sort of positive in the hell that he had landed in. Nothing, there was nothing but this...this wreckage.

He frantically searched more but the result was the same. Just as he was doing his searches around what he thought appeared to be a city, he heard crying. A child's crying. He ran in the direction of the noise, panic rising in his throat. He looked around for the sound as he was in general vicinity of it and finally came across an enclosure surrounded by broken walls of a building.

There was a child there. A toddler. He ran towards it, heart in his throat but before he could fully reach the child, something in him stopped him. He stood there watching the child, his breathing echoing in the place. The child didn't stop crying, it's hiccuping breath resounding in his ears. The child looked at him and stopped crying, it smiled. It's big brown eyes shinning as he babbled at him, raising it's arm in an innocent command to be held.

He didn't move from his place.

He continued to watch the child in some sort of trance, but the child didn't appear happy with his inactivity. It hiccuped, sobbing softly then growing louder as he still stood there and watched. As he was watching the child sob, he noticed as the tears dropping from his eyes turned to a tar like substance, the drool in his mouth turned to the same substance. He watched in horror as the baby cried a goo like black liquid.

He stood in shock and watched as the baby vomited the tar and hiccuped and raised his arms again and again, asking him to carry him. He didn't move towards it, in fact he took step backwards from it. The babies cries turned louder, it's eyes getting covered in tar. It kept vomiting and crying. He kept taking steps back from it. Just then he blinked and then the baby seemed to have multiplied. There were several children, all around the baby's age surrounding it. All of them crying ad vomiting the black material. Their cries growing louder and louder and he felt a headache developing.

When one tried to reach for him, he threw it off his legs and stumbled backward. The fallen child started crying even more at his treatment and tried to reach him again but he wouldn't have it. He took several steps backwards and started to run away from the children.

He ran and he ran, putting as much distance between him and the babies.

He was horrified by what he saw, not quite still able to understand it. Just then he tripped on a piece of rubble and stumbled in a pair of arms. He was righted by the person who had caught him. He took a breath, looking back at the place he had ran away from. He panted and looked up and he froze.

It was his Anya. His beautiful Anya. His beloved fiance. She smiled gently down at him and he felt himself growing calmer as he looked at her. She cupped his cheeks and caressed his lips.

"We should get out of here" he told her when he finally got his breathing in control, frantic yet still coherent.

She didn't say anything, her beautiful white dress fluttering in a poignant wind. She took his hands in hers and smiled again. Her eyes full love and affection. He looked down at her hands as they started gripping him tight but then looked up again to tell her to leave with him when he saw her skin turn wrinkled and ashy. Her eyes started pouring the same tar like substance and she had still not stopped smiling at him.The liquid dripped from her lips and she kept smiling, her smile somewhere without him knowing turned eerie.

He shook off her hands and stumbled back. And she still smiled at him. She reached out a hand but not towards him but towards her own throat and started tearing into it. He let out a cry, almost running towards her, in order to make her stop but he didn't. He stood stock still and watched her tear her own windpipe out. She was not dripping blood but the same tar like substance. He saw her take a step towards and he wanted to move away but he found that he couldn't move. He just watched numbly as she handed him her windpipe and smiled.

He watched in horror at the grotesque image of his fiance smiling at him with a torn throat. He watched and still watched as suddenly she started coughing and clutching her throat. The black substance running down her mouth and her torn throat. She gestured towards the sky which has turned red and gestured towards her mouth and nose. She mouthed something at him and his numbly understood what she was trying to say.

'Couldn't breath'

'Air too bad'

'Help'

He stood there and watched her get suffocated even with a torn throat. He was still holding her windpipe.

He collapsed on the ground, crying out. His mind, his thoughts a jumbled mess. He was crying so hard he didn't noticed darkness surrounding Anya. He didn't even noticed when it suddenly surrounded him.

He was surfing in the darkness when he came to. A speck of nothing and something in the same second. He didn't know if he was but he did know he could be. The was stretching and encroaching. He felt at the same time, both safe and in more danger then he ever been in.

'SO YOU COME HERE FINALLY!"

A voice said from and in the darkness, he didn't who it was but it felt all-encompassing.

'LOOK AT US' The voice roared 'LOOK AT THE REALITY OF YOUR BEING?"

He cowered and called into the darkness "Who are you? What was that? What do you want from me?"

'THAT WAS WHAT YOUR FUTURE COULD BE!' The voice said 'LITTLE HUMAN, NOT FORGOTTEN, RUINING EVERYTHING IN ITS WAY, REPENTING NOT. AS EVERYTHING TURNS TO DUST AND HAY'

"What?" he asked "What do you mean?"

'YOU RUIN EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH' The voice said 'THINK OF US, THINK OF THE EARTH, WE ARE THE EARTH AND YOU RUIN US'

Just as he was comprehending what the voice has said, he was flung back in the void and he kept falling and falling and then he landed. He opened his eyes with a gasp, looking around himself and taking in his room. He was back in his room. He had the sick feeling still clutching his stomach and he couldn't let go of the dream he had had. Was it a dream? He didn't know. He didn't know anything.

He stood up from his bed, and looked down when his foot almost slipped on a tar like substance. He gasped and cried. His body heaving and panicking and he stayed there for a very long time before he got up. He had a job to do.

That day, Edward Notron, willingly lost a case. A case where a big cooperation was trying to take a large part of the environment in order to make artificial environment, trying to replicate. What most didn't know was that if it would have happened the earth would have slowly died.

Edward became a silent hero, who was never known for his contribution.