Ajna
Prologue
Symphony Angel, Cloudbase, Spectrum, et. al. are created by Gerry
Anderson, and belong to ITV.
Many thanks to Ms. Kohler and Ms. Bishop for their generosity and
patience!
Symphony Angel, aka Karen Wainwright, had
never been afraid of the dark. She prided herself on her calmness and
rationality, both essential tools for her outstanding career in the military
and Spectrum. A steady mind in the thick of battle is vital to a fighter pilot,
and Symphony had worked hard to discipline her thoughts and emotions into rigid
order. Therefore, she was at a complete loss when that order began to fail.
On this chilly October night, the blonde
Angel pilot sat on the edge of her bed, gazing at the walls. These quarters,
which had once been as warm and inviting as her former home on Earth, had
become as cold as a prison cell. She had locked the door and shuttered the
windows, yet she knew, just knew, that somebody or something was in the
room with her, peering in from somewhere she couldn't place.
Nobody else is here, the blonde-haired pilot told herself as
usual. There's no logical reason to think there is. The feeling
persisted.
Three weeks ago, she had been rescued from
the desert after her Interceptor crashed, the result of a faulty wire the
diagnostic computers had overlooked. Symphony had collapsed from heatstroke and
passed out, to be rescued just in time by Captains Scarlet and Blue. A few days
of recovery in Dr. Fawn's sickbay, and the Angel pilot was well again.
At least, in a physical sense.
Lately, Symphony had been feeling more and
more unnerved. It was just a vague sense of unease at first, which she chalked
up to the near-death under the scorching sun; the awful nightmare she'd had
while unconscious hadn't helped any. But the sensation grew stronger with each
passing day until it metamorphosed into a powerful sense of being watched, even
when she was sure she was alone. When sitting in her jet fighter, Symphony's
eyes would wander down to the flight deck to see if anyone was staring up at
her. Every time she walked down a corridor by herself, she couldn't help
looking over her shoulder to see if she was being followed. Empty rooms
suddenly seemed threatening.
Symphony told herself over and over that
she was being silly and irrational, but could never convince herself..
And then there were the headaches. Like
the paranoia, they had started as a mild annoyance that grew worse and worse
with each passing day until they were endless hours of throbbing agony, like a
railroad spike being driven into her forehead, that no amount of painkillers
could dull. To add insult to injury, they almost always happened after *that*
dream, the one she'd been having remittently since the
rescue.
Something moved in the edges of her
vision. Symphony's eyes darted around the room. A thin edge of nervousness
pierced her thoughts. Had the shadows always been that deep?
Oh, stop it! Symphony scolded herself. For the
last time, there's nobody else here!
The American fighter pilot quietly crawled
under the covers, rolled onto her side, and forcefully told herself that there
really wasn't anybody staring at the back of her head. Worried that the
nightmare would return, she fought sleep at first, but allowed it to overcome
her.
Her fears were justified. Behind Symphony
Angel's closed eyes, the horrible vision played itself out once more.
Once again, Cloudbase burned under the
repeated fire of the Mysteron vessels. As Symphony watched, it fell from the
skies, taking the corpses of her friends with it. But that wasn't the worst.
The worst was that awful feeling of being watched. Something unseen watched as
the fiery wreck of Cloudbase streaked towards the horizon in a wake of its own
destruction, watched the distant explosion with something like twisted glee,
invisible eyes fixed on the thread of smoke rising from beyond the sky. Then,
to Symphony's horror, the eyes turned on her. She could see them now, as bright
as the brightest stars in the night sky, boring deep into her with their
unblinking gaze. A chill slid up her spine, dreading what was coming next.
The dark entity swooped across the desert
on vast black wings. Symphony had never seen the thing itself, only the mass of
darkness it cloaked itself in. Or perhaps she just didn't want to get a closer
look. She didn't know what it was or why it pursued her, only that it was what
was responsible for what was happening to her, both mentally and physically.
This was what was always watching from the shadows, stalking her. She knew it
had something to do with the unspeakable pain nesting in her head.
The fighter pilot tried to run away, even
knowing full well it was hopeless. The creature flew faster than any bird;
Symphony's puny human legs were no match for its speed. She never got farther
than a few meters before the beast was upon her. Even now she could see its
shadow thrown across the sand around her, its breath hot against her neck. It
dove towards her.
Symphony Angel struggled as the monstrous
claws pinned her to the desert sands. The thing leered down at her, its mouth
twisted into something that could be called a grin in only the most generous
sense of the word . The American Angel pilot fought for her freedom with
everything she had, to no effect. The talons dug into her flesh, snapping bone,
shredding soft internal organs. The pain was worse than any she'd experienced
before, dream or no dream. She found herself being twisted around to face her
attacker.
The monster lowered its star-bright eyes to meet hers. Symphony gasped as images began to flow into her head like water into a glass. Somehow, the thing was showing its mind to her, where it kept fragments of memories collected from those it had hunted before her, like trophies on a shelf. Such strange memories they were--a birthday party frozen in time, an enormous dining room, a city with a spinning tower burning to the ground as spacecraft slammed into it, two enemy factions dancing to Christmas music on the moon, a cowboy on a horse with a noose around his neck, a man screaming as his spacesuit filled with dark liquid, a nightclub among the stars--these and so many more, and oh god the pain was back, so much pain in her head, like burning knives in her skull, oh please God make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP....!
Symphony awoke trying to scream, but only the tiniest
whimpering noises escaped. Her head pounded with intense pain as she staggered
out of bed and toward the bathroom. She splashed the cool liquid on her face
and sobbed.
What's wrong with me? she wondered miserably. Why won't Dr.
Fawn do something about this? She raised her eyes to the mirror.
And saw the blood trickling from her
ear....
BACK TO “HALLOWEEN FANFIC” PAGE
Any comments?
Send an E-MAIL to the SPECTRUM
HEADQUARTERS site