Phantasmal Truths

By:  Mark J. Hadley

 

CHAPTER 4

 

 

                Downstairs in the kitchen, the girls sat around the table.  It was almost two-thirty in the morning, and they had been awake for over an hour.  Buttercup’s eyes started to become droopy, but Blossom shook her, shoulder, waking her up again, “Careful, Buttercup…”

                “So…tired…” Buttercup mumbled.

                “No!” Blossom said, firmly.  “You can’t go to sleep…do you want to go through all that again?”

                 Buttercup shook her head to clear it, and said, “You’re right…I-I’ll try to stay awake…if I can…”

                Blossom nodded, and looked over at Bubbles, who was seated nearby.  She gave no sign that she was listening.  Although her eyes were wide open, she was still staring blankly forward and not really reacting much to what was going on around her.  At least her breathing had steadied, but she was still trembling, non-stop.

                Poor Bubbles, Blossom thought.  Whatever it was that she dreamed, it must have been terrible.  She tried to focus back on the matter at hand, “Okay…let’s think…we need to figure out what’s going on and stop it.  Otherwise, we’re not going to last much longer…”

                “No kidding,” Buttercup said.  “But how?  So far, we haven’t had a single clue…”

                “I know…” Blossom nodded.  “But I don’t know what else to do…”

                They heard footsteps, as the Professor entered the kitchen.  He was someone disheveled, like he had just woken up.  Narrowing his eyes against the light from the kitchen, he said, “Girls?  It’s the middle of the night…what are you doing up?”

                “Professor,” Blossom said, her voice losing its resolve a little, “We a-all had nightmares again, all three of us…b-but they were worse than before…”

                “Oh no,” the professor said sadly.  “How much worse?”

                “A lot,” Buttercup told him.  “I-I dreamed I fell into a volcano…and I felt every second of it…”

                Blossom nodded, “Mine was realistic, too…and Bubbles, I think her dream must have been, too…”  Bubbles finally reacted…she looked up at the professor, and though she said nothing, the fear that was showing in her eyes said enough.

                The professor scooped them all up from the table, hugging them tightly, “Oh…you poor girls!  This is terrible…I promise I’ll get to the bottom of this…”  The girls hugged him back…although they were still afraid, it still gave them a feeling of comfort.

                “Th-thank you, Professor,” Blossom said.

                Setting them back down, the professor started to pace, “Now, let’s think about this.  It’s only happening to you three, and no one else, right?”

                “I think so,” Buttercup agreed.

                “So that means there are three possibilities,” he said, scratching his chin thoughtfully.  “Okay, ‘A’…it’s something in your unique Chemical-X-based physiology that’s causing this.  ‘B’…something is specifically doing this to you, as exclusive targets.  Or ‘C’…the three of you came in contact with something that caused this change.”

                Blossom scratched her head, “I think you’re right…but the question is, which is it?”

                “I’d hate to think it was the first,” the professor said.  “The idea that your minds would eventually be warped by the same source that gives you your powers is a frightening thought.  Besides, from my tests, there’s nothing really physically wrong with you, at least that I can detect.  Still, unfortunately, it’s a possibility.”

                “What about the second one?” Buttercup asked.

                “Yes,” Blossom added.  “Any number of the villains we’ve fought would probably do this to us if they had the chance.”

                “I don’t know, though,” Buttercup pointed out.  “This seems a little extreme, even for them.”

                “Mojo would go to those lengths and further to prove that he was the most evil being in the universe,” Blossom countered.  “But…yeah, we’d probably remember being shot with a chemical or something.  I certainly don’t remember anything like that, do you?”

                Buttercup shook her head.  The professor said, “Now, the third…do the three of you remember anything unusual happening before everything started?  Even a few days or a week before?”

                “No, nothing,” Blossom said.  “The two weeks before it were pretty uneventful, actually.”

                “Well, now I am puzzled,” the professor admitted.  “There are a lot of possibilities, but no definite answers…”

                “Maybe not, but we’ve got to…keep…” Blossom began, but trailed off.  She became aware of something moving down on the ground.  It was like a black mist, rolling into the room from the doorways.  As she started down at it, Buttercup and Bubbles noticed it as well, but the professor just stood there, oblivious to it.

                “What on earth…” Buttercup breathed.

                The professor looked concerned, “What?  What is it?”

                The mist grew thicker, covering the ground like a carpet.  It slowly rose higher as it filled more of the room.  The professor’s not seeing it, Blossom thought.  It must be another hallucination…  As the mist reached her chair level and touched her legs, she suddenly felt chilled, almost like her legs had just been dunked into ice water.  With a yelp, she flew up from the table into the air.  Buttercup and Bubbles, seeing her reaction to the mist, followed suit.

                Blossom looked around for a way out, but the doors were already completely covered.  The mist closed in around them, and the three of them held onto each other, back to back.  Bubbles finally spoke, “Wh-what is it?!”

                Before anyone could answer, the mist encircled them and closed in.  All three of them cringed, as the iciness of it bit into their skin.  They shivered and began to cough, now that the thick stuff filled the air.  They couldn’t see anything, and Blossom desperately held tightly onto the other girls’ hands.  “Girls, don’t…*cough*…don’t let go!”

                The professor’s voice came, but it was distant, and it echoed around them.  [Girls…?  Are you all right…?  What’s happening…?]  They still saw nothing except the inky void, and besides the grip of each others’ hands, they felt only the coldness…

                Something rushed out at them from the void.  They could hear it, but they could barely see it aside from the mist that seemed to roll aside at its passing.  It passed right through them like a ghost, but they could feel something deep in their chests that they couldn’t describe, like it had struck them from the inside.  They screamed and reeled from the impact.

                “What was that, what was that, what was that!” Buttercup repeated, holding on tighter.  Without warning, they heard it approach from another angle…but before they could react, it struck them again, in the same way as before.  Screaming again, their eyes darted around frantically, trying to see where it had gone.

                Everything fell eerily quiet, save for their own frightened breathing and whimpering.  They watched and waited, looking all around them, still sensing that it was nearby and knowing that it could strike them again at any time.  They heard the professor’s distant voice speaking again, [Oh my…!  Girls…!  Remember, it’s an illusion…!  It’s not real…!]

                Who cares if it’s an illusion? Blossom thought.  It still feels real!  We have to find a way to resist it, though…we have to!  After several long seconds of waiting, it approached them again, again too fast for them to do anything to stop it.  Bubbles had only enough time to say, “No, no…!” before it struck them again.  They screamed louder…it wasn’t really getting any worse, it’s just that that they had no idea when it was going to hit them next.

                Buttercup ignored everything else and just focused on the mist.  Show yourself! she thought.  You coward!!  The coldness of the mist continued to prick at her skin, but she barely noticed.  All her attention was on the mist, looking for any sign of whatever it was to show…

                 “Buttercup, we…” Blossom began.

                “Shh!” Buttercup hushed her.  She didn’t blink as she continued to stare, although her eyes shook with the same fear that she felt.  C’mon, she thought…a little twirl of mist, a little change in the shadow…give yourself away…

                She caught a tiny bit of movement, and shouted, “There!”  She immediately dashed forward, pulling the other girls with her…letting go of Bubbles’ hand, she struck out with her fist, and felt it connect with a satisfying *krakk*.  An echoing roar rose from the darkness, and she grinned to herself.  The other girls, hearing the roar, immediately honed in on it and threw their own punches, each landing one.

                There was a *whump* as it hit the floor.  Before they had a chance to congratulate themselves, however, the mist slowly started to evaporate, growing thinner and thinner until they could see again…by the time it was completely gone, they had all seen what they had done.  Although Blossom and Buttercup were speechless, Bubbles managed to say, “P-professor…?”

                The professor was lying crumpled on the ground in front of them, motionless.  His face was battered from two of the hits, and he looked like he had taken a hit in the side as well.  For a moment, they thought he was dead—the way he looked, and how motionless he was—but then, to their relief, they saw his chest rise and fall slowly with a breath.  They still didn’t feel any better about it, though.

                “Professor, no!” Bubbles cried out, in tears.

                “Tell me we didn’t just do that…please, tell me!” Buttercup exclaimed, horrified.

                Blossom flew down next to the professor, checking him.  He was out cold, but she confirmed that he was still alive.  “We need to get him to a hospital, fast!” she ordered.

                The others nodded, and all three of them scooped up the professor, gently lifting him into the air.  They headed out of the kitchen for the front door, and froze in confusion.  The walls were blank…there weren’t any doors or even any windows.  Buttercup blanched, “What?  But…”

                “Just an illusion!” Blossom shouted.  “Go to where the door normally is!”  They flew over to that section of the wall, and Blossom felt around with her hand.  Sure enough, even though she couldn’t see it, she felt the doorknob, and quickly opened the door, which became visible as she did.  They flew out from the house and into the night sky.

                They headed for the skyscrapers of Townsville in the distance.  As they did, another illusion hit them…no matter how much they continued to fly towards the buildings, they seemed to get further away rather than closer.  Buttercup clenched her teeth and growled, “No, this isn’t fair!!  How the heck are we gonna find the hospital if we can barely find the city?!”

                “We have to try!” Blossom shouted.  “The professor’s life depends on it!”

                Try as they might, though, the image of the city just kept getting further and further away.  All of a sudden, in a flash, they were right upon it…one of the skyscrapers that looked way off in the distance a moment ago became visible only a couple dozen feet from them.  They were able to stop in time, but just barely.  Another second and they would have impacted into the side.

                Not wasting any time, Blossom said, “Now, while we can see clearly, let’s find the hospital!”  They quickly circled around the edge of the building…and froze.  The entire city looked like it was on fire…tall burning blazes reaching up into the sky and illuminating the surroundings with a dull orange glow.

                “It’s not really on fire, is it?” Bubbles asked, worried.

                “Probably not,” Blossom said.  They dove down towards the streets, looking for the hospital amongst the flames.  They could feel the heat from the fire; it certainly felt real enough, but they knew better, especially when they spotted a policeman walking a night beat along the sidewalk, completely unaware of the raging inferno around him.

                Wait, that gives me an idea, Blossom thought.  She said, “Change of plans…this way!”  They flew on an intercept course with the officer, who looked up at their arrival in surprise, and looked shocked when he saw the Professor’s condition.  Blossom quickly asked, “Officer!  Can you get Professor Utonium to the hospital for us?  We need to get moving and don’t have time!”

                “Of course, Powerpuff Girls, right away,” the officer responded.  The girls set the professor down on the sidewalk in front of him, and took back off into the sky.  They looked back down as they left and saw the officer calling for an ambulance over his radio.

                Buttercup gave a sigh of relief, “That was lucky.  If we tried to find the hospital ourselves, it’d probably have been too late…”

                 “Yes…but now, we’ve got to figure this all out on our own,” Blossom said, “at least until the professor gets better.”

                Buttercup was about to say something else, when she noticed that the orange glow and crackling sound of the fires had just stopped.  Looking down, she saw that Townsville was no longer on fire.  She grinned, “Ha…I knew it!”

Bubbles smiled, turning to face the other girls, and said, “At least the worst is over wi—…”  Her smile quickly faded, though, into a horrified stare.  With a shaky arm, she pointed behind them, her jaw dropping open but no words forming.  The girls spun around to see what she was looking at.  Something huge and dark was moving towards them, sweeping across the landscape for miles across, and much taller than even the tallest buildings in Townsville.  It looked almost like a tidal wave, except it wasn’t water.

The girls backed away from it, but it was coming awfully fast…and as it got closer, they could see that it was a flood of all kinds of insects and other bugs.  Ants, beetles, roaches, centipedes, spiders, and more, including lots of things they didn’t even recognize.  They turned to flee, but barely got a few feet before the tidal wave crashed over them.  The impact from it knocked them down from the sky.  They reeled around, disoriented, and somehow let go of each other’s hands in the midst of it all.

Bubbles waved her arms around, trying to clear a place to see, and swam her way upwards through the darkness until she managed to stick her head up from the ‘surface’.  There looked like an endless sea of the creatures in all directions.  With little more than a horrified whine, she tried to fly out from them.  Impossibly, even with her strength, they weren’t letting her go…instead, she was very slowly starting to get pulled under again.

Omigodomigodomigod, Bubbles thought as her head disappeared beneath the surface again.  She felt them crawling all over her…on her arms and legs, across her face, in her hair…it was too much for her, and she shrieked hysterically, thrashing around and trying to get away, thinking, Get ‘em off me GET ‘EM OFF ME!!

Buttercup was in a similar situation.  Normally, something like this wouldn’t bother her so much, but they were everywhere, and she couldn’t break free from them, even with her full strength.  This isn’t happening! she thought.  It’s an illusion, has to be…oh god, they’re everywhere!  She cried out, “Girls!  Where are y—…”  As she shouted, she realized too late that opening her mouth in this situation was a mistake…she gagged and coughed, and thought, It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real…

Blossom felt utter revulsion at what was happening.  As the creatures crawled all over her, she clenched her eyes shut and just tried to ignore it.  They’ll go away, she thought.  Think logically…there’s no way this many insects could be here right now.  They don’t actually exist.  They’re just figments of your imagination.  She focused on these thoughts as hard as she could, until a sudden movement broke her concentration.  She felt herself getting swept along in a current.

Opening her eyes, she saw what looked like a giant whirlpool drawing her in, a giant vortex of the insects swirling around and dragging everything towards the center.  In panic, she tried to wade through the creatures in the opposite direction, but the whirlpool swept her in anyway.  A scream escaped from her, and she could hear two other screams as well…the other girls had to be nearby.  The whirlpool drew all three of them down, spinning rapidly, until finally, they hit the bottom…

With three distinct *thud* sounds, the girls each landed on the street.  They scrambled around for a moment, trying to get their bearings.  As they came to their senses, they realized the insects were all gone; it was just them once again.  Blossom and Buttercup looked at each other, and then both of them looked over at Bubbles, who curled up in a little ball on the ground and lay there, shaking and crying.

Bubbles can’t handle much more of this, Blossom thought.  To be honest, neither can I…

                Buttercup gritted her teeth in anger and suddenly lost her cool, throwing back her head and shouting, “C’mon, is that all you’ve got?!”  She spun around, looking down the opposite direction of the street, and yelled, “You heard me!  Bring it on, you spineless cowards!!”  She didn’t care what she was saying…all she cared about was getting to the bottom of this.

                “Buttercup, what are you doing?!” Blossom exclaimed, grabbing her arm.  “Calm down!”

                “No, don’t you see?” Buttercup said, her voice shaking with rage.  “We keep begging for this stuff to stop, and it’s not working!  We need to ask for it!”  Raising her voice again, she said, “Do you hear me?  Give us your worst!  I dare ya!!”  Her shouts echoed down the empty streets, leaving only a silence hanging in the air.

                For a long while, nothing happened.  Buttercup slowly smiled, and was about to say, “I told you so,” when something started happening to the buildings around them.  Everything began to stretch and warp slowly, elongating and curving over the street.  Bubbles sat up in alarm, wiping the tears from her eyes, and the other girls backed up next to her, away from the buildings.  As they reached each other, they grabbed hold of each other’s hands again.

                The buildings twisted around in a gross parody of their former design, like some abstract art drawing.  Parts of the street even began to buckle and warp along with it.  A strange, high-pitched whine filled the air, like a rushing wind.  They began to see figures moving towards them down the street.   As they grew closer, they became visible in the dim light of the streetlights…the people of Townsville.

                The Mayor was in the lead…he gazed at the girls and said, “How awful…to think that we’d be a nice, normal town without the Powerpuff Girls.”

                Ms. Bellum, next to him, said, “Yes, the girls should never have been created.”

                In shock, Blossom said, “N-no, we…”  But the two of them had already stepped aside.  Miss Keane, her eyes teary, stepped forward from behind them.  “Miss Keane?” Blossom said.

                Bubbles whispered, “No…”

                “Oh, girls…” Miss Keane sobbed.  “You showed such promise…what happened to you?”  She started crying, turning and running back into the darkness.  Bubbles held out an arm, like she wanted to tell her not to go, but Miss Keane had already vanished.

                Another shape drifted forward…the girls gasped, as they recognized it as the professor.  But he was a strange bluish color, and they could see through him.  Buttercup said, “Professor?  What h-happened to you?”

                “You happened to me,” he told them, frowning sadly.  “You weren’t strong enough to pull through this…not nearly strong enough…and so you lashed out.  And this is the end result…”

                “N-no,” Blossom cried out, “You can’t be…”

                “We…we sent you to the hospital!” Buttercup insisted.

                The professor closed his eyes and slowly shook his head in disappointment, “To think…my own creations were my undoing.  Kind of ironic in a way.  The Mayor’s right; things would have been so much better off if I had never…”

                “No!!” Blossom shouted, cutting him off.  She frowned angrily, “You’re not the real professor!  The real professor would never say anything like that!”

                “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” the professor said.  “And now, there are a lot of things you never will.  Farewell…”  He began drifting back.

                “No, wait!” Bubbles called out.  “Don’t go!”

                The ghostly professor started to ascend, when dozens of red arms, ending in sharp claws, snaked out from the ground and grabbed him.  The professor looked around in surprise, and the claws began dragging him down towards the ground.  The girls watched in horror as he struggled to get free, to no avail, and screamed, “Noo!  I should…never have cr-created…you…”

                All three of the girls yelled together, “NOO!!” as the professor was pulled into the ground.  He slowly disappeared, a look of terror on his face…the last thing to go was his arm, reaching out one last time as though pleading for help before it, too, vanished.  The other people of Townsville gathered around them and, pointing, started to shout, “You are worthless!  You should never have been!  The world hates you!  Everyone hates you!  You are the cause of all this suffering!  You!  YOU!!”

                They couldn’t believe it…their whole world seemed to be crumbling around them, and they didn’t know what was real or not anymore.  Buttercup grabbed the sides of her head and fell to her knees, trying to shut out the shouts of the crowd.  Bubbles fell to her knees as well, and cried loudly, tears rolling down her face in an endless stream.  Blossom, her whole body quivering, still stood, but it was still all too much for her…it was too much for any of them…

                Finally, she tossed her head back and, breaking down into tears, pleaded, “Enough!!  Please!!  No more…no more…please…we’ll do anything…”  She buried her face in her hands, and sobbed.

                At that moment, the voices of the people of Townsville stopped entirely, as a different voice spoke to them…a high-pitched voice that seemed to echo from all directions at once, “Aaaaaaaaaaanythinnnng?”

                Lifting their gazes, the girls looked around in confusion through their tears, trying to find the source of the new voice.  A second later, a plume of red smoke burst forth from the air in front of them, and a single figure took shape, smiling wickedly at them in triumph.  They recognized it immediately…it was the most malevolent creature to ever walk the face of the earth, the embodiment of evil itself, whose name alone could cause untold disasters to befall mankind if uttered aloud…the vile fiend, known only to the world as…Him…

 

TO BE CONTINUED…