Twilight on Dreamworld

"Don't call me Russ." He growls in return.

"Fine. Russell. Whatever." Osiris throws him arms up. "But you still aren't going. You're going to stay here and relax."

"Lo que' seo, man. All I know is, the sooner we hand Picasso over, the sooner we can get the hostages to safety." Alejandro opens his bag and begins suiting up. "But first, I want you to do us a small favor, mi amigo."

I knit my brows at him. "And what's that?"

He goes into his bag and pulls out a handful of wires and a small black box, along with duct tape and a bic razor. "A WIRE?? Are you CRAZY???" Osiris hollers at Alejandro. "You wanna get the poor kid slaughtered??"

"Osiris," I put my hand up at him and he quiets down, now just shooting looks of death in the cop's general direction. "I'll do it."

"See?" Alejandro smiles. "I knew you was a man of reason."

__

"Psst, is this thing on?" I whisper into the front pocket of my button-down shirt. I walk up behind the huge crowd that had formed around the monolithic courthouse. On top of it, the boarded up bell tower. Police and even a negotiator swarmed around the place like army ants. A battered SWAT team licks their wounds a block from the scene. I suddenly get this cramping fear in the pit of my stomach. "I really, really hope this thing is on, because then he wouldn't have killed me for nothing."

"Pardona meh." I hear a gruff, demanding voice from in back of me, and suddenly, someone very strong is grabbing my arm. "You no to pass here."

I glance up and gasp aloud, seeing my very oldest character and still very beautiful Motaau' Rides-The-Wind. My rough and tumble Mayan prince, the were-jaguar. He narrows his glorious yellow eyes at me and steals a sniff. "Hi, Moto. It's good to finally meet you." I smile wide when I face him fully, and those eyes of his dart open wide when he realizes just who he's talking to. "Santa Sagre!" He lets go of my arm and takes a step back, giving me a great view of his tight, muscular bronze-colored form and long, thick black wavy hair. When his jaw hits the floor, his signature sharply filed eye teeth appear. "I did not know! Lo siento mucho! Please forgive me!" His fingers lace and his expression is pleading.

I put a hand on the cuff of his deer skin shirt. "It's alright, Moto. Calm down. I'm here to get the hostages out."

He shakes his head. "Man muy dangerous. You must be careful."

Hey wait. Motaau' can heal people. "Moto, I need you to do me a great service."

He nods enthusiastically. "Anything."

"You know Osiris, right?"

"Si, big builder man. He nice."

"He's here. I need you to find him and ask him to take you back to where he's hiding Russell. Russell's been hurt bad and needs you to heal him." That kills two birds with one stone. I get Osiris out of the area, because he's too emotionally involved in this and might do something stupid, and at the same time, Russell will be restored. On the other hand, if I need a healer, Motaau' will be too far away.

Motaau' smiles at me in agreement. "I do this for you, no problemo." He puts a strong, long-nailed hand on my shoulder. "Good luck, and if need heal, take this." He hands me a small, but heavy pouch, winks, and then takes off into the crowd.

"I'll need it." I say more to myself than him. I take one more look at the ominous tower and swallow hard, putting the pouch away and gripping my sketchbook tightly, accepting this charge and walking forward into the unknown.

"Oh my god, is that…?" I hear someone to my left gasp when I walk by, heading straight to the negotiator with the bullhorn. The negotiator? None other than Quentin, my charming, I'm-gonna-knock-you-outta-the-closet-with-my-drop-dead-good-looks playboy. He could charm the socks off of the most hardened drill sergeant with ridiculous ease. He has his sleek back towards me, and all I see is a waterfall of his perfect golden locks that comes just short of his tight apple ass, encased in the tightest pair of leather pants I've ever seen. I had to admit, even I wanted to do him right then and there.

"Quentin?" I touch his slender shoulder and he spins around to see me. Oh, that flawless face, those beautiful crystalline blue eyes. Those pink, luscious lips. "Can I use that thing for a minute?" I wasn't so sure I was referring to the bullhorn, or something else.

"And who are you?" Those wide eyes narrow suspiciously at me. "What makes you think you can do any better than I have?"

"Because I'm your bargaining chip." I hold up my sketchbook.

He gasps, slapping a hand over his mouth. "Oh my god, get over here." He shoves the horn in my hands and laces one of his delicate arms around mine. Just his intense body heat and alluring scent was making me dizzy with desire. "The guy did it. I can't believe he actually did it. It took him almost 30 hours, but you're finally here and now we can finally do something about this." He smiles at me, and it takes all my willpower just to keep myself from grabbing him and kissing him. Instead, I nudge him away.

My mind is my own again. "Davis!" I call out over the bullhorn. "Davis Frisco! I'm here! It's me you want, let the others go!" My insides feel like silly puddy. I'm nauseous and I'm scared and I wanna go home. I wanna deal with my abusive mother and my hordes and hordes of meaningless junkmail. Anything but this.

"JASPER!!" I hear a voice; his voice, calling down to me from the tower. The hulking man steps out just barely into view, with something much smaller squirming in his hands. I squint and I manage to see a small, caped figure being carried into view by his neck, his legs kicking wildly. In Davis' other hand, a sawed off shotgun presses against the poor boy's head. Everyone armed down below suddenly aims up there at him.

"Hold your fire!" I hear someone else scream.

"GOOD OLE' JASPER COLLINS!" He chuckles maniacally. His booming voice could fill an opera house. "PLEASE TELL ME IT'S REALLY YOU!"

I hold up the book as solid proof. "It's me, Davis, I swear to you. Now let the hostages go!" I must be shaking noticeably, because someone grips onto my arm. Tightly.

"JUST LIKE THAT? I DON'T THINK SO! AS ADDED INSURANCE, I'VE SENT DOWN A FEW ESCORTS!" I turn to see who just grabbed me.

"Matthew Hurst." I growl, trying to shake him off. He was always a character I loved to hate. He raped people, he killed people, he used people and he enjoyed every moment of it. If anyone would be on Davis' evil wavelength, it would be him. Matthew just grins at me and grips onto me tighter. He wasn't designed to be all that big, but he was still slightly bigger than me.

"AND I TRUST THE POLICE WONT TOUCH THEM, SEEING AS HOW OUR FRIEND LAZARUS WOULD BE THE ONE TO SUFFER…"

I'm suddenly grabbed by the other arm. "You'd better do as the man says, Jasper." A sweet, innocent voice whispers to me. I turn to see my goodie-two-shoes character, Seth Mendle. Now this was a shock. Seth carried around the biblical sword of Michael, and only the absolute purest souls were able to wield it. I was baffled. He also wasn't the biggest, strongest character in the world, but between the two of them, they hauled me inside the courthouse. And the police couldn't touch us.

Once we get inside, I turn towards Seth. "Why? Why you, of all people?" He merely lowers his head shamefully and refuses to answer.

"He's gonna tear you apart, you little puke." Matthew cackles, reaching with the other hand to grab my crotch.

"Get the fuck off'a me, you piece of shit!" I struggle wildly against both of them. "I swear, I'll shove my foot so far up your ass-!"

"Shut up." Seth grits his teeth, squeezing my arm tight. "Don't make this any harder on yourself. Just put one foot in front of the other and do what Frisco wants you to do and we could all go home happy." His blue eyes look hard into mine, some blond hair falling in front of his face. He tosses his head back to shake it to the side and keeps me walking.

"Yeah, listen to 'im, for once, he knows what he's talking about."

Seth doesn't even turn to look at him. "You shut up too, Matt."

__

I'll never complain about the Statue of Liberty having too many stairs ever again. After going through this weird secret passageway, we end up in this dark stairwell with questionable support, dust and cobwebs everywhere. It's so gross, it makes me want to throw up. Seth and Matthew manhandle me the whole way and Matthew even grabs me inappropriately a few more times, for which I curse him out. Seth even said he'd let me punch Matt for the last one. Instead, I call him an Injun. I know he hates being called that. After ascending stairs forever, we finally come to a trap door. Matthew raps on it three times and it's opened. Before I have a chance to adjust to the new flood of light, I'm picked up by the back of my neck and lifted out of the stairwell.

"Ahh, if it isn't my good friend, Jasper. I'm so glad you could make it. I somehow knew that Arab guy would come through." My heart sinks into my feet when I'm face to face with Davis Frisco himself.

"Egyptian. Osiris is Egyptian." I choke out defiantly, still in mid-air.

"Whatever…listen, have we got a lot to talk about. But for now," He drops me and I land with an audible thud. "Take a moment to rest. The trip here must have taken a lot out of you."

I look around and see the rest of the hostages. Lazarus is bleeding in a corner being taken care of by Russ Benson and Dean Carlyle. A pair of newer characters I wrote a story about. They were still cute together. They looked scared, but relatively unharmed. Then there were a pair of older characters, Talis Vanguard and Craig Kitterman. Talis had a huge gash in his arm, he was shivering and looked severely dehydrated. Craig was far worse off, being the more stubborn type. He was long since unconscious with some serious head trauma. Base was curled up next to Daisy Katz, who had a huge crush on Osiris. I thought it would be funny to give Anubis some static. Speaking of Anubis, he was here too, comforting Steven Patterson and Pat Olmec. They looked alright, thank god.

There was another person here too. His name is Darryl Carpenter. He was a K-9 cop from Detroit, Michigan and a really sweet guy. He was lying on the other side of the room face down in a pool of his own blood. Most of his smooth, chocolate skin was exposed and he was obviously suffering from several puncture wounds. I rush over to see if he's still alive. Just barely breathing. Without even thinking, I open the pouch and take out the small glass vial that's in there. I pop the cork and lift Darryl's head just high enough to pour it into his bloodied jaw. I just about get the last drop in when Matthew kicks the vial out of my hand, almost breaking my wrist.

"What the fuck is your problem??" I scream into his face. He just turns away and laughs at me, walking back toward Davis. I ignore the sharp pains in my wrist and try to sit Darryl up, feeling his breathing regulate again.

"Well ain't that just the sweetest thing." Davis moves over to me, grabbing the hurt wrist and hoisting me to a standing position by it. I yelp out in pain. "Are you always this caring and selfless to your characters? I'm touched."

"Let them go! You have me, what more do you want?" I struggle weakly in his arms. He bends down and takes my beloved Book of Men that I had set aside when I healed Darryl.

"Give that back!!" I struggle harder now, at the threat of losing my pride and joy.

"Here, Anubis, hold that for me." Davis tosses it over to Anubis, who merely makes a face at it and frowns. "Matt, Seth, begin escorting the others out. I wont be needing them anymore." They nod and start the evacuation.

"Anubis, give that back! Please, you're on my side, right?" I reach out for the book. He stands there, just out of kicking distance, putting his head down just like Seth had. Anubis was a bad guy too.

"You presume too much, Jasper. Anubis works for me now. And as for you? You're reign over this place has passed. The book is mine now, and so is this realm." He grips onto me closely, squeezing me. I yell out raspily in pain, feeling as though my ribs would be crushed at any moment. I didn't know what he was talking about. What does the book have to do with 'ruling this realm'? He grins evilly at me. "And now…you're mine to do with as I please. Forever."

Still squeezing me, he presses his lips to mine, his tongue invading my mouth, feeling around for my throat. When he finally lets go, I begin screaming frantically. "Anubis, help me! Please, don't be a monster like him!"Davis punches me in the jaw and I go sailing into the nearest wall. I slide down the wall, feeling around to see if my jaw was still intact. It hurt like hell, but it didn't feel broken. I see him take out a pencil and take my book from Anubis. He flips to an empty page and begins scribbling in it.

"Let me demonstrate my power to you, so you understand the position that you're in."

"Fuck you!!" I leap up from the wall to lunge at him, and I'm yanked back by an invisible force. Shocked, I look up and discover that there are large iron shackles on my wrists that bind me to the wall. I shake at them for a few moments, testing their strength. I'm held fast and there's nothing I can do about it.

"Do you see now what I mean? I control this realm now, boy. And you're going to stay here and be my plaything forever." I'm suddenly at a loss for breath. I'm trying not to panic, but it's seeping into me like a bad summer cold. I should have seen the connection. I should have known the book would have power here, but I didn't, and now the whole dream realm is paying the price for my stupidity.

"You're never gonna get away with this! Everyone knows I'm here!!" I argue, my voice cracking from duress. "They're going to arrest your sorry ass and put you in jail for life!"

"They wont be able to touch me. They will watch helplessly as we make our getaway with you and the book. And then…we'll be free to do whatever we want. As for now, Anubis, why don't you leave us?" He nods and heads for the trap door.

"Monster!!" I call out to him as he walks out. "Traitorous monster! Osiris is going to hate you for selling us all out!"Davis smacks me again. When I open my eyes, I see that Anubis has stopped and turned to face me angrily. His dark eyes set on his wide, dark face boring into my skull. His shoulder length black hair was soaked with sweat and just barely blowing with the wind.

"I'm doing this for him. For all of us." He saddens again. "You couldn't understand now, but you will. You'll see." Davis tosses him the book and he puts it away. He then opens the hatch and leaves. He's right, I didn't understand. Was I really that bad of a dreamer? Was I a tyrant or something? Did I release starving dogs in the streets once a week? Did I cause them pain? What could I have done to make them hate me so much?

Davis grins wildly in my face and I burst into tears. He takes out a small knife and cuts off my shirt. I scream in protest. He responds by pulling my legs toward him and taking off my pants. I struggle and fight him with every shred of dignity I have left. He nibbles on my neck and I'm thrashing my appendages around, trying to get free. He rips of my underwear and pins my midsection to the wall, struggling with his own pants in the meantime. I ball my eyes out at him. This was wrong. I hadn't made him like this.

"You're gonna take it from me, Jasper. Go on, take a look at it. I want you to see what's about to skewer you like a pork roast." He grabs my hair and forces me to face the hugest dick I'd ever laid eyes on. It had to be at least ten or more inches. I was sure of it, I only made him up with eight inches. I watch in horror as he drools all over it and pulls my legs back so that my knees are touching the wall. I'm squirming and crying, begging him to come to his senses. He spears that thing into me and I swear, I've never heard myself scream so loud in my entire life.

I don't know whether my natural defenses kicked in, or whether it was a gift from some far off drawing god, but I suddenly go numb. He curls his body over me, grunting and panting like a dog. He thrusts in and out of me violently. I wasn't sure of much, but I knew this wasn't my character. Tears flood my eyes and cloud my vision. His grunting filled my ears so I can't hear anything else. Every so often, he'd groan out, "Yeah, that's it, Jasper. Take it from me. Take it like the little bitch you are."

And then there was a loud thud, and Davis collapses on top of me, then slides out of me and down onto the ground. I look down at myself and see blood. I was bleeding badly and all I could think about was he was going to get up and kill me.

"Jasper…it's alright. I'm here to get you out of here." I look up and see a pair of gloved hands pry at my chains.

"Lazarus…" I choke out, the intense pain of Davis' invasion returning in full force. "The book…" My knees buckle from underneath me and the chains are now the only things keeping me upright.

"What book? There's no book here." Lazarus looks around frantically, putting a pair of nun-chucks back into his belt.

"Anubis…the book…trapped…power…uhh…" I feel my eyes roll back into my head and then my whole world goes black.

__

I'm cold. My head hurts and there's something cold touching my bottom lip. My eyes flutter open and I see a blurry rendition of Osiris. He's putting a cold glass of ice water to my lips.

"Drink." He frowns, concern in his faded green eyes. I respond by crying. He puts down the drink and holds me tight. "It's okay, Jasper. You're safe. We found the passageway in and I cut you out of the chains with a laser pen."

"He got the book…" I trail off, wondering how I'm going to break it to him that his lover, Anubis is a traitor.

He just laughs. "Actually, Frisco just got booked. He's being held without bail at the county prison. Now all we have to do is capture Seth and Matthew. They tricked us. They let go a few hostages but transported the rest of them elsewhere. They still have Anubis."

I sigh and close my eyes. "You wont get Anubis back, Osiris, I'm sorry." I regret the words the moment they leave me, realizing how they could be taken.

"WHAT??" He leaps up, wide-eyed.

"No, no…Anubis is working for him."

"NO! NO WAY! I know my Anubis, and he would never do such a thing. Why would he be part in this??" Just then, I see Motaau' and Russell walk into the room. Russell looks much better, thankfully. Osiris doesn't even turn to say hello, he just keeps staring at me.

"I dunno, he said he was doing it for you. I didn't understand it either. And another thing. Davis Frisco isn't my character. I don't know who made him up, but I sure didn't."

All three of them glare and Russell sits down on the bed next to me. "So if he isn't your character, what's he doing here?"

"He is, technically my character, but he was ill-defined when I was dragged here. And he's…changed. Someone else changed him and I don't know who it was. I don't even know how." It was then that I look around and realize I have no idea where I am. "Where are we?"

"My house." A strong voice comes from the doorway. Russ Benson, the contractor. The tall, well-built tanned man sporting a full beard and mustache and messed up cropped dark hair glares at me coolly from where he stands. His steely-blue eyes gleaming. "Dean and I hid you, your friends and the hostages that managed to get away here in my cabin. It's out of the way and those jackoffs won't look for us here." He looks over to Osiris. "I'm sorry, buddy, but Jasper's telling the truth about Anubis. He was helping those bastards from moment one."

Osiris puts his head down. "No…" It was more of a whine than a protest.

"I'm so sorry, Osiris." My brows furrow in despair. I sigh, remembering the other hostages. "Who else is here besides us?"