The Anthem Force Chronicles

Nightmares

The dream comes every night now. My team is chasing after Vigor across the rooftops. I’m in the lead, his hood almost in my grasp.

We run. We jump. We fall.

And then I hit the ground. Pain floods into my body, wracking down my spine and coursing through my bones. It’s excruciating. I can’t feel my leg or my wrist, my chest keeps heaving up and down as I gasp for air. Hot tears run down my face and stick my cheek to the cool concrete. A sticky liquid begins to form all around me. Blood? My blood? Vigor is beside me, his arm snapped back in a cruel position. But he’s laughing, his face twisted with pain, but laughing nonetheless.

This isn’t real. This couldn’t happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Luke is beside me first, his eyes wide with fright as he pulls me into his arms. A scream erupts into the air.

“Stop! You’re hurting her,” a voice says. It’s David, a phone pressed to his ear as he calls an ambulance. My whole team is huddled around, watching me with wary eyes.

Luke sets me back down on the concrete. I think the scream came from me earlier.

“Oh Dante,” he says as he looks me over. I can just imagine how pitiful I look her, straggled against the concrete, my limbs flailed out. Luke looks mortified. Luke gently strokes my hair, barely touching me as if I might break under his touch. “I’m so sorry. The ambulance is on their way. I’m so, so sorry”

What is he sorry for? It was my own stupid fault. I want to ask him but the pain paralyzes me. It comes in waves and every once in a while a stray scream escapes my lips.

My fault. I was reckless, careless, and now I had paid the price. Nothing would ever be the same again.

I don’t wake up screaming or in tears. It’s as if my eyes gently flutter open, a heavy ache in my chest. Stupid nightmares. Is it not enough I had to live through it? Now I have to relive my darkest moment every night.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

So that’s what woke me up. With a groggy head I rise out of bed and grab my communicator, which is flashing and beeping and just begging for attention.

Trouble. Downtown. Fire.

Fantastic.

…

And the countdown continues.

I can already tell this isn’t good as soon as I pull up to the Anthem City bank. A giant “3” is painted out in flames across the front of the building, a faint glow comes from inside. Before there had just been scattered flames, this was a full-blown inferno.

A team of firefighters is working on putting out the flames. That’s good. They can handle the fire. My team’s job is to find Vigor.