FicWad

Thanks so much to all my awesome reviewers! You guys are the best! Last three chapters draw near... but it's not over yet. I've had people asking me about a sequel. At first I had no plan whatsoever to write one... but I am now. 'Awake in a Dream: From Heavens Above' will be the title, but I might not update it as much because I have another long ride story planned out, 'The Cold Side of Heart'. I might post it before this is over. So don't be so sad when this story ends, I have TWO long ones coming up. This chapter has slight reference to chapter 4! Thank you and enjoy. -Nuuoa Eclaire

"Why do we suffer? Why does she have to sacrifice? Haven't we all been through enough pain to last ten lifetimes!" -Atlanta
"Atlanta... remember what I said not so long before all this began? ..." -Archie

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Khalil panted a bit as he moved in wobbles to yet another room. Why was the shadow wolf panting, you might ask? Because he was carrying around over a hundred pounds of purple that's why! And not even a nice dark purple... no... bright neon purple! And human no less! And you might ask yourself, why on earth is he carrying Archie around? (A/N: How'd you know it was him?) Well... because he was a fool, that's why.

Khalil had been running a long time. Trying to escape his fears and pains... it was all too real. It hurt, it stabbed and it made him bleed. And then before long the tears that he had kept in for so long streamed down his face, he was tried of losing everything. His tribe, his life, Theresa, Jay's friendship however strange it was, and in the end himself.

"Atlanta!" his ears perked up slightly as he rubbed a large paw against his face, wiping away remains of salty tears. He knew that name, again a male voice cried out in panic.
"Atlanta!" A cry, pain and then the smell of blood.

Like a torpedo Khalil burst into action, racing towards the sound and faint smell of the human, he pounced forward and leaped amongst the gapping darkness of the particular section, and finally looking down at a strange white male.

His nose looked a bit crooked as far as humans went, and his hair was even stranger. Purple and very bright at that. He couldn't help but wonder if this poor thing had been dropped into a pool of purple die as a baby. How unfortunate. Then the putrid smell of blood entered his nostrils. And he couldn't help it; maybe he was becoming too soft... but he picked up the boy and dragged him out of the room.

So here he was limping around to an unknown destination looking for something.
"You're the descendant of Achilles aren't you?" he asked the unconscious Archie not expecting much of a reply.
"Theresa told me about you." He sighed remembering his friend; "You're the one afraid of water."

Archie cried out in his restless sleep, causing Khalil to stumble even more. He remembered this from what Annabelle Windlow had told him. When you fall asleep in the presence of the beast your nightmares come to haunt you... the worst thing imaginable... it probably had to do with the key word. His biggest nightmare... water.

Suddenly like a ghost a new smell entered his nostrils the smell of a spunky redhead... not the first, but the second. Atlanta raced around the corner sweating from her core, bands melted into her forehead.
"The beast." She wheezed out. He drew over to support her weight, "I know."
"And Archie." She tried to point over to her restless friend.
"What's wrong with him?" she fell down onto the floor and placed an unsteady hand on his back, eyes downcast in worry.
"When you fall asleep in the presence of the beast you relive your nightmares... we can only hope that his dreams don't scar him... and neither does that wounded heel.

"What happened?" her voice overlapped with concern as she leaned over his clenched face.
"Can't say... I think he was looking for you." His green eye smirked at her as she turned beet red.
"Oh." Then Atlanta clung to his hand and looked deep into his panicked shut eyes.
"Wake up."

At first he did nothing, the throbbing in his head numbed his body, but slowly he opened steel blue eyes and met a pair of twilight.

He said nothing; a haunted look took over his face, as if he was trying not to remember something.
"Arch?"
"Yeah."
"Are you okay?" she asked in general confusion.
"Go find Theresa."

Atlanta looked sadly at him.
"Archie..." Khalil scrambled to his feet as he growled at them, "She's alive! Get up!" Atlanta stood reluctantly and brought a cross Archie to his feet... An Archie that she only remembered when she first met him. Distant and mad.

And so they raced away to find Theresa... and avoid the shadows that lurked freshly with the beast... and orange eyes.

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"Where's Theresa going?" Odie demanded at his newly rejoined partner Jay.
"To die again!" he snapped at them.
"What!" they gapped, "Why?"
"Because it is my fate." She stated calmly, her voice sounding like Annabelle's, cool, hard and accepting.
"I can't say more... it's complicated."
"No it's not." The titans jumped up in shock as Khalil loomed out of the shadows with Archie and Atlanta, eyes brimming with bitterness.
"Jay made the wish so that you can only live if the beast is alive... but you can only use your wish to kill it... kill yourself."

"Wish?" Neil raised an etched eyebrow at the small wolf.
"Blood streaked tears... a wish that two people get every thousand years. I used mine unexpectedly to get Theresa back." Jay sighed, brown looks falling over his eyes.
"And we can't wait a thousand years... Which is why I choose to do this now." Theresa stated crossing her arms over her chest, as if this was an everyday thing.

Atlanta remained silent next to a distant Archie; you couldn't tell what she was thinking.
"This is twisted." Herry fell onto the floor, not believing that you can get and lose somewhat in under an hour, get and lose them three times in a week.
"You can say that again." Odie rubbed his glasses furious trying to clean them, tears brimming at the ends of brown eyes. Herry looked at him in puzzlement.
"This is twisted." He sighed again.
"I didn't mean it that way!" Odie snapped.
"Hey don't talk to him like that Atlanta joined in matching Odie in height.
"Well I'm sorry! But this is kind of a sad and difficult situation here!"
"Hey!" Khalil ran in, "Theresa is going through a hard thing right now! She needs quiet!"
"Yeah!" Neil shoved his mirror into his pocket.
"Yeah!" Atlanta cried though her hands, "YEAH!"

"ENOUGH!" Jay called out at the top of his lungs; the topaz walls shook with the force. Jay motioned over to Theresa who sat in a corner staring at the wall, long red hair knotted from everything, back slouched from exhaustion and eyes fluttering closed. She was exhausted from the life that gripped her.

Jay walked over to her, the sound of his worn shoes clacking of the floor was the only sound in the silence.
"Theresa I want to understand and find a solution." His voice was barely audible.
"But this is the only one. We can save the world and beat Cronus... just like you always wanted."
"That's not what I want."
"Do you know what I want?" she smiled up at his with raindrop orbs shining down her cheeks.
"No. But I want too."
"Well you won't know."
"Why not."
"Because," she smiled sadly again, brushing his cheek with a cold hand.
"I can't have it." His heartstrings ached as she rose to meet him in a heated stare.
"So let me fulfill the wants of someone else."

Archie pulled a sobbing Atlanta away from the group and made her face him as tears continued to spill out of her eyes.
"Stop it!" he snapped.
"No!" she wailed, "Why do we suffer? Why does she have to sacrifice? Haven't we all been through enough pain to last ten lifetimes!" Archie's expression softened a bit, and the cloud of darkness that had hung over him dampened a bit.
"Atlanta... remember what I said not so long before all this began? 'What ever happens is inevitable, but we will be there and fight for our friends and loved ones." he look towards Atlanta with longing for the millionth time... but it was more subtle and less important after his dream.
"We are hero's! The world depends on us and I believe that with all my heart, look people will die but if we don't do something more will die, understand?" He quoted his exact words from the day in the park, the day she had began to feel for him... but everything was so different back then.

She nodded and found her way into his arms and snuggled in closer, Archie smirked sadly at this and stroked her hair. It was so different back then... because now he didn't want to want her. He would hurt her... like he did everybody else.
"Come on." He said darkly, "Let's go." And so she followed him back to her friends, meeting grief.

They joined the offside group, formed of Neil, Odie and Herry... Jay and Theresa were off to the side talking.
"What are you thinking? You could live with us forever... with me." His voice cracked as he tried to fight the aching that took over him.
"And what?" she yelled, "And have millions die because of my selfishness! This has always been my fate Jay... I can't fight fate... no matter how much I want to live. I can't do that while other people die Jay... I need to sacrifice. Besides," she tried to smile, "dying a third time isn't so bad. Please."

He couldn't cause her more pain, it wasn't worth it... and he knew he needed to sacrifice too.

"Do what you must." Jay sighed embracing her fate as his own; she touched his cheek briefly before pulling away. She looked like she was about to say something, green eyes brimming bright with pain.
"Thank you." Was her simple reply instead, as she took a step towards the roar of the beast that and yet to meet, it seemed she was floating above the air. And then the beast came.

Cronus laughed beside it, red eyes oozing with hatred and death. A shadow loomed over everything and it was the 'Scio Havarti'. Orange eyes of evil flared in it and teeth materialized in the air... the titans held their breath at the presence, fear and smell... they couldn't meet it's eyes without freezing.

The beast was roaring its head back in furry, orange eyes burning with the only hate it ever knew. It yelled and shadows grew thinker as the heroes and Khalil hid behind large rocks, shivering with the cold.

Theresa smirked as the beast oozed out its poison gases at her, the very thing that had started everything.
"I-" Khalil gnawed the rock as the first word left her mouth, she was taking a heavy step with each new confident word that left her mouth.
"Wish-" Cronus stepped beside the beast trying to understand what was happening.
"That-" Atlanta grabbed dearly to Archie's hand and shut her gray eyes tight.
"The Beast-" Odie and Herry fought back tears.
"Was-" Neil tried hard to turn away from the sight before him, but couldn't stay glued to the mirror in his hands.

Theresa stopped, barely inches away from yellow razors of teeth and a deafening scream, orange eyes ever peering. She hesitated at the last word glancing back once more at her friends. She looked into warm chestnut eyes, 'And that was all every single one of them can ever be.'
"Dead."

Her words cut like hot iron as Jay screamed out, "NO!" his blood went cold. A vortex swept over them as Theresa stepped back out of her body, spirit floating over the ground.

The beast roared in pain as the portal moved faster and faster, everyone holding on to each other for dear life, it threatening to absorb them too.
"Atlanta!" Archie cried through the wind, "grab my hand!" Atlanta pulled against the heavy tornado and clung to him, staining his sweater with whipping tears. Jay could only watch as the beast screamed the scream of all the dead he had ever consumed. At last he was dead... and Cronus went in with him.
"NOOO!!!!" the immortal God cried with his last breath n earth. Immortality had no means in the place he was going, but he laughed.
"I may have lost Jay! But you lost something too!" And it was over. Finally over. The fighting, the war, the world's doom... Theresa's life was too.

And like a dove she took flight, heavy wings beating reluctantly as she looked once more at her old life. Hair flew in all directions, sunburst blending into the radiant glow of light, hands spread out to the grasp of destiny. She said it was her fate, but he thought it was always choice, sometimes you just need to let go. And as Theresa became one with the great sea of blinding light she smiled. Rich and pure and full. Barely seen in her last second, but it was there. And Jay couldn't help but smile a bit too, his love for her growing even stronger then the light. And then like nothing had ever happened she was gone. Gone.

Unexpectedly the long absent Hermes raced into the room staff in hand ready for action, Persephone and the other Gods not far behind.
"Bring it on Cronus! Sorry I'm late the portal broke and..." He whooped enraged, and then he stopped and looked at the sad smiling faces of six teenage heroes, plus one wolf.
"Uhh... Something I miss?" he stared at them in perplex.
"Just a little." Jay glanced at the lifeless corpse; Atlanta nodded resting her head against Archie's shoulder, his head turned down covered by shadow.

Jay couldn't be sad anymore. Did it help that she gave up her life on her own this time? Maybe in the end her whole life had been about sacrifice. Maybe it was her purpose? It didn't soften the blow.

'They say it's better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all.' He thought somewhat of a smirk spread across his face in the irony. But Theresa wasn't lost, Jay knew exactly where she was... but he could never go get her.

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Can't think of much to say, don't think you guys like me very much. Seriously how many times will I kill off Theresa in a story? It's unnatural! And what's with Archie? Hope you liked it, and don't forget about reviewing... you know the drill. -Nuuoa Eclaire