gulliver's travels 2

[gravitybuster]

In his dreams he always sees the same thing, a scene from a play put on each night for a different audience. He always wakes up in his mother’s lap, feeling her fingers running through his hair. They’d be sitting in a field of flowers, indistinguishable from the haze of his memories. She’d say something, and he’d never quite catch the way her lips moved or curved, and time ticks on.


Mother presses her forehead against his.

“Add,” She says, soft and quiet, like waking him for breakfast, “It’s time to wake up.”

The smell of rotting flesh burns his nose. The fields begin to collapse, and there’d be fire encroaching upon them, reducing flowers to dust. Desperately he’d squeeze his eyes shut, squeezing his mother’s hands as if she was his only lifeline.

“No, please-” He gasps, “Just a little longer. Mom- Please-”

“Add,” Mother repeats, “It’s time to wake up.”

Her face detangles itself, the skeletal structure underneath replacing what little he remembered of her face. Teeth chattering incessantly to a tune of destruction, the mother-skeleton combination clutches the sides of his neck, squeezing tightly until his life was snuffed out.

 

With his life snuffed, the dream fades out. Esper jolts awake, eyes snapping open to an unfamiliar ceiling and an unfamiliar bed.

How long had it been since he last slept in a bed proper? He doesn’t remember. His body aches too much to try and remember. His head still feels groggy, heavy with paralysis.

“He’s awake!” Someone shouts, just as Esper turns his head, trying to place the source of the voice.

Esper doesn’t recognize his room, or the person that just came in. He squints, focusing on the scar running down the side of his face. If his body didn’t ache so bad he’d reach out to make sure his own scar was still there. The other looks like a mirror, almost.

“How do you feel? You passed out.” The one with stupid hair says, “So we brought you here.”

Esper tilts his head in confusion, his lips parting. There’s a figure behind him. He waits.

The first speaker pulls up a chair out of the desk beside the bed. The back of the chair faces Esper, and Esper blinks, silent but wary, “Let’s try this again.” “I’m Lunatic Psyker, you can call me Lusa. This is Mastermind. What’s your name?”

Pausing for some time before he speaks again, Esper finds his voice hoarse and dry, “... People call me Diabolic Esper, but-”

Neither of them says anything about the name, and Esper feels a lurch in his stomach. Maybe he should have said ‘Add’ instead of this weird title. ‘Lusa’ nods, but then leans too far in on his chair, gazing into Esper’s face so intently the bedridden one recoils. He raises his hand to pinch Esper’s cheek.

“How long had it been since you got some rest? See, even your eyes have gone black like the bags under your eyes.”

“Lusa,” The long haired one cuts in, “I don’t think it’s from lack of sleep that his eyes have gone all black.” He sighs, placing a tray of food on the desk. Esper’s stomach gurgles again. Neither of them press the topic any further, and Esper isn’t sure if he’s thankful or worried.

“Good morning, I brought you some soup since I figured you’d be hungry. You’ve been sleeping for three days.” He continues, brushing his hair from his face. “Did you sleep well?”

Three, Esper thinks, when he usually slept for less than four hours at a time.

Mastermind cuts into his thoughts again, “Judging by that look, probably not, huh?” He laughs, “I’m sure you have lots of questions, and we have some questions of our own, but let’s wait until you’re better rested so we don’t get clear answers, alright?”

Esper slowly nods, and a small smile forms on Mastermind’s face.

Mastermind turns on his heel, making his way to the door, “Good. I have to get back to work, but I’m in the next room over. I’ll leave one of my drones with you. If you need anything, just shake it and I’ll be right over. Lusa’s on the other side, and if you knock on your wall, he’ll come running.”

“Mastermind, don’t be all work and no play—hey! Don’t leave-Listen to me-” Lusa huffs, dragging the chair back to where he had pulled it from, “But yeah, that’s basically it. Sorry Esper, I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

Esper nods again, watching them close the door behind them. He can hear Mastermind and Lusa, though muffled, still bickering about something inconsequential.

He stares at the soup on the desk, then back to the tiny diamond shaped drone placed right next to it, and slowly begins to shovel soup into his mouth.

At some point, he falls asleep.

This time, there are no dreams or nightmares, and instead he is graced with nothing at all.

 

When he wakes up again sometime later he feels more like himself, even though he doesn’t know how long has passed. The plate has been removed from the desk, and the diamond shaped drone remains inactive. Esper reaches over, his fingers lingering over the gadget, thinking of calling Mastermind. Before they left, they promised questions and answers.

The small thing reminds him of his Dynamos, and a sense of alarm floods into his brain. He has no idea where they are, and more importantly he can’t feel them connected to his system anymore. Suddenly, he feels dizzy. Mastermind mentioned he was right next door, and he seemed like the leader of the two, so if anything, he’d know where they were.

While nearly slamming his head on the desk and walls, Esper claws his way out of bed.

His gaze grazes past the mirror against the closet. The clothes he wears are just slightly too big for him and smell faintly of coffee. A cartoonish print of various kinds of cat paw-prints trails across the fabric. It’s cute. Esper approves, but his own clothes are what really matters.

He bumps into Mastermind when the door opens, “Esper- You shouldn’t be up and about yet. Go back to bed.”

“Where are my Dynamos?” Esper demands, while clutching the side of his head with his hand.

“I was just coming to bring them to you.” Mastermind sighs, opening the box. “They’re right here.”

The Dynamos stir to life, zooming out of the box Mastermind was holding to join Esper at his side. Esper shivers, letting the familiar vibrations mesh with his systems once more. He feels better, and the headache almost nearly disappears altogether.

“Where are my clothes?”

“We put them in the laundry machine, but Esper, you shouldn’t be up and about so soon-“

“Take me.” He demands again, “I don’t care if they’re still wet.”

Once Esper has his clothes and is properly dressed, Mastermind guides him to the living room. Lusa’s still nowhere to be seen, but Esper leans irritably against a wall. His arms are crossed, and his gaze is sour, glaring at Mastermind.

Nervously, Mastermind asks, “Do you want some tea?”

“No,” Esper finishes, “I have to go, thank you for taking care of me, so just ask what you want to ask and I’ll answer.” The dynamos whir into place again, just as Esper’s eyes flicker into darkness as they arrange themselves in a familiar order.

“We can handle ourselves if it comes down to that.” Mastermind frowns. A wave of his hand summons six pointed Dynamos of his own, “You’d be at a disadvantage.”

“I don’t care.”

Out of nowhere, Lusa seizes Esper from behind, putting him in a headlock. Esper squirms, struggling for freedom. The Dynamos start spinning in response to Esper’s struggles, diving for Lusa, only to be countered by Lusa’s own bulky Dynamos.

“Make it easy for us, okay Esper?” Lusa pleads, “We don’t wanna hurt you.”

Esper mumbles something under his breath.

Mastermind cuts in, “We just have one question for you. How did you get here and why did you fall out of the sky like that?”

Without adding unneeded commentary that it’s actually two questions, Esper finally stops struggling. “With my Dynamos, duh.” He rolls his eyes like they’re idiots, “You said I fell out of the sky, but I came through a rip in space and time. It’s not out of my powers to travel to alternate timelines. I mean, I know where we are. It’s Elder. I can see the forest from the window, but I’ve never seen either of you before.”

Esper inhales, “So who the hell are _you_? The only person in the world that should have Dynamos is me! And let me go already, I’m not gonna try and kill either of you anymore!”

Mastermind frowns, but gestures for Lusa to let him go. After Esper adjusts himself, rubbing his arms and stretching his neck to make sure everything was still in place, Mastermind finally says, “I guess we’ll have to tell you.”

Lusa looks at him, the gaze in his eyes reads, ‘Is it really a good time to tell him this?’

Mastermind rubs the back of his neck, “I suppose even Mastermind or Lunatic Psyker is a bit of a misnomer. We’re both actually named Add.”

Almost immediately Esper responds. He stops what he’s doing to stare at them with wide, expression-less eyes, still sitting in a pool of darkness.

“That’s impossible,” Esper says, “I’m Add.