Zoom's First One Shot

Darkness.

Although my eyes have opened now, I see nothing.

"Hea- Hea- Heather." I call weakly, my voice like a rollercoaster.

I hear a mumbling only a short distance away from me, but it is slurred and I don't understand.

I painstakingly force my limbs to move, to drag me across the freezing, damp, rocky floor towards the noise. I don't know how long I crawl for, but it seems as though it is forever. Eventually, I hit something soft and warm.

"Noah." The thing says, in a voice so distant it could have not existed at all.

"Heather. Is that you?" I ask the darkness, and my throat gives a jolt of pain, having not been used in so long.

There is a long silence, and I think that the soft object I now know is Heather is not there anymore.

I get worried, and reach out again, only to hit the same warm surface. It quavers under my touch.

"Yes. It is me, I am Heather." The voice rasps to me, although it seems that the owner of the voice, who I am now sure is Heather herself, is more assuring herself, rather than me.

"Do.... Do you know where we are? I can't... I can't remember any-" I begin, when suddenly repeated shocks of pain rack my skull and grimacing, I curl into a ball, clutching my head.

I block out all my senses, only aware of the bursting pain that is... me. I am pain. I only become myself again when it begins to cease.

Dizzily, I reach out again, just to make sure that Heather is still there, the only source of warmth in this cool, wet world.

She is not.

Trembling, I look around, although there is nothing to see.

"Heather? Heath- Heather, where are you?" I call out, my voice almost immediately bouncing back at me, as if I were in a small room. But when a few seconds later I crawl forward, reaching out to seek a wall, there is none.

"What kind of hell is this?" I think out loud, my voice still raspy but easing every time I speak.

And then that's when I hear it.

"Noah. Come to me."

A small line of light appears in front of me, and I realize after a few seconds that the source is actually at my back. Slowly I turn around. When I look up, the light stings my eyes painfully and I turn away.

"It is alright, Noah. Everything is alright." The voice says again. The second time around, I realize it's owner is female, from the way it fades away at the end, and is of a lighter pitch.

"Who- Who are you? Where is Heather?" I ask the voice, turning back in its direction again, although covering my eyes with the palm of my hand.

The voice chuckles, or even laughs, I should say. If I weren't in such pain, and my conditions weren't so foreign and horrid, I would have actually smiled. It is almost attractive. Almost.

"Ah, Noah, my pet. There is nothing to fear. Heather is safe. And before you ask, Cody is alright too." The voice says warmly, the only thing not freezing in the area.

As she says this, just about a million images of Cody flash through my mind. And as they do, I have a sudden sense of fear for the boy, and longing to see him again.

"Cody..." I whisper.

"Yes, and as I said, he is fine. So are the others." The voice says, adding the latter part a couple of seconds later.

And that's when it hits me. What I knew at the back of my mind was so off.

Other than what I have remembered from Heather and the voice, I cannot recall anything else. Nothing at all.

I know what I should remember, like my mother's name, or my father's occupation, or my brother's birthday. I know they exist, I just don't know what they are.

"Please... Help me. Help... Me..." I plead to the voice, my own slowly fading away as if I was falling into a deep sleep.

"No." The voice says harshly, and suddenly I awake from my dreamy state.

"Please. No, don't leave me here! Not alone! No!" I begin to shout at the voice, for the line of light has begun to fade away.

I have a sudden feeling of urgency, and complete and utter fear.

Not the kind of fear you get when doing an exam. Not even the kind of fear you get when a loved one is in the hospital, although that's getting there. No, at this very moment, I experience the fear that everything you have ever known, everything you have ever done, and everyone and everything that you have ever loved will suddenly cease to exist.

The shaft of light is fading to nothing now, and although the pain is so great I can barely think, I crawl, and then limb towards the light.

"No!" I call, "No!"

"Yes, Noah. All will be better soon. Until then..." The voice says, and just as I seem to reach the source of the light, it suddenly seems ten miles away, and it fades into nothing.

Completely exhausted, sweaty, delirious, and quickly freezing, I slump against a cold, moist wall that was not there half a second ago.

My eyes begin to close again, and, fearing that they will never open, I attempt to keep them from shutting.

But as quickly as the nightmare began, it ends, and I cannot stop myself from leaving this world once more.

My eyes close.

And I sleep.