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N didn't want to sleep tonight, not at all, but he knew he had to.
He didn't want to go through that same nightmare again. It would end up waking him up in a cold sweat and leaving him crying in his emotional agony.
He forced himself to lie down anyway, knowing he had to rest if he wanted to function, no matter how much his fear ate away at him.
Forcing his system into sleep mode, he prayed for a peaceful rest for once. He was so tired.
He felt light, recognizing he was in a dream now.
It started as it always did. His hand was poised to slice Uzi's hand off at the base of her wrist. It was the same hand he'd held to bring her comfort mere minutes before.
He swung down, as he always did, and her hand came off. The same repetition of her snapping her head around to look at him with a wide grin, and a pop-up of 'MISS ME?' appearing beside her head, before she fell backward. He was quick to catch her as she choked and gagged on her own oil. He winced.
As every repeat of this dream went by, the more he felt he had to force the motions to hurt her. How was he supposed to be genuine when he was so sick of hurting her over and over again?
"W-What the h-hell is g-going on!?" Uzi's voice was glitching and spazzing, causing a stutter. Tessa, as if on cue, (which at this point N was convinced she was on some sort of cue) yelped. "Bugger, that's bad! Come on, team!" Before yanking him and Uzi into the elevator.
N still felt sick every time this part came along, and every time, he found his emotions from this point onward being genuine, as if he could change the outcome somehow by pushing more desperation into his voice or screaming louder.
"V, come on!" He yelled, digging his fingers into the carpeting.
He couldn't get out, he couldn't change it, it was going to happen again, he could feel it.
He couldn't move, it felt like someone had glued his feet in place as the hopeless realization hit him.
He watched the woman he loved fight with such grace, the way her movements went by with such fluidity like she'd trained for this for years. The noises of metal blades clanking together, and the sparks that flew when they did were forever burned into his memory, up until the elevator dropped again and knocked him away from her view, but he always scrambled to keep her in his sight.
And of course, like it always did, the damned sentinel pulled the roach out of the sensor and made the elevator rise. N didn't look at it this time.
Like always, V's glasses flew off her face and were crushed under a sentinel's feet. N would forever curse that sentinel in particular.
Like always, she'd turn toward the elevator, and murmur with a tone heavy in regret. "Hey, um.."
And like always, N would scream that they needed her. But he couldn't look at her, not without risking his life. That forever haunted him. That would stay imprinted in his mind that he never got to see her angelic face just one last time before she was taken from him, just because he was too selfish to risk his life for it.
"Nah. Uzi?" V's voice gently rang out to call the girl.
Uzi weakly looked up at her as best as she could.
"I trust you."
N cried out one last time in desperation.
He then made the choice to turn to try and grab her, but of course, this didn't work. She'd already cut the cord, and he was already falling. Falling away from her.
He had been too late, again.
Like. Always.
The last thing he ever saw of her was her sorrowful smile and her salute.
Like an angel of death.
As the elevator fell, N half expected to wake up, but he didn't.
The scene began to flake away and fade to a blank, white void.
He looked around in confusion, calling out for Uzi and Tessa. This sudden change disorientated him.
It was a voice, although quiet, that caught his attention. It was so familiar, so familiar that mentioning its familiarity was unnecessary to him because he knew it so well. He heard V, and he'd be a fool if he didn't look for her.
He didn't have to look far, or at all really, because she appeared right in front of him. Her wings laid limp, blades touching the ground. Her metallic claws were out, but she wasn't fighting. She looked terrified, yet so exhausted, but there was no threat.
He reached out to her, but his hand went right through. He tried to talk to her, but his words fell on deaf ears.
He literally wanted to cry, he didn't know how else to describe it. She was right there, yet she was still so far away.
She soon turned, she was facing him now, but she seemed like she was looking right through him. She was so close that he could whisper something, and she'd hear it, but he knew she wouldn't.
It was like talking to a ghost.