The Attack by William Bryden (you can read anyone txt) 📕

I sat on the bed and held Viviane in my arms.  I didn’t know what to do.  I hung my head down and tried to sleep.  I barely pulled it off, but when I did, it consumed me like a fire.
 
 

* *   *

 
            I was inside of a building.  It had concrete walls, concrete floors, and a concrete ceiling.  A warehouse?  This was really weird.  Viviane was lying on the floor a few yards away from me.  I approached her.  She was bloody with scratches all over her face and arms.  I picked her up and she muttered something.  I leaned in closer to hear her.  When I was an inch from her face she started screaming bloody murder.  I dropped her and backed away as I saw her body slowly transform into the skeleton figure from my first dream. 
“You have got to be kidding me!” I yelled.
“This is no game Michael,” the skeletal figure talked.
“What?!  How do you know my name?” I staggered back.
“Everyone in the future knows your name Michael,” replied the figure.  His eyes started to burn with fire… literally.
“Um… so what’s with the…”
“You must die!” the figure pulled out two swords.
            The figure started walking toward me.  He swung the swords in his hands like an expert.  All I could do was stare and watch.  His footprints left scorch marks on the concrete.  I backed up until I hit the wall.  The figure’s eyes burned even more and the rest of his body followed suit by engulfing itself in fire.  I watched in horror as his swords lit on fire.  The figure smiled a devil’s smile and looked at me with the deepest hatred.
            I looked around myself desperately for something to protect myself with.  I saw a lone sword lying next to me.   I could have sworn that it hadn’t been there a second ago.  I picked it up and faced the figure.  He didn’t falter in his march and he smiled even more. 
            I gripped the sword in one hand.  It felt perfectly balanced for me, like an extension of the arm almost.  I twirled it experimentally.  Perfect.  I had never used a sword before, but it felt almost as if I was an expert already.
            Suddenly my pocket started burning.  I guessed the bead.  I pulled it out and looked at it.  It was glowing white hot, but felt cold.  I tried throwing it at the skeleton but it stuck to my hand.  I looked back at the sword and saw the tip glowing white hot like the bead.  I looked at the slit and looked back at the sword hilt.  The very tip was sharp and looked like it could fit inside the bead’s slit.  I started to put them together and the bead instantly flew to fit on the tip.  Once they were together the sword started glowing black. 
            I looked at the skeletal figure, who was almost upon me. I had a huge surge of confidence and I stared him in the eyes.
“Come and get some!” I roared at the top of my lungs.
            This time the smile on his face was gone and he faltered in his march.  I used this to my advantage and lunged at him as quickly as I could.  I found one of his ribs and cut it clean off.  The bone flew in the air for a second and then vaporized.  The figure screamed and flared back.  He righted himself immediately and started running at me.  He lunged and I parried.  Our swords didn’t clang like normal.  They made sounds like bells… bells that warn or spread the word about death.  It gave me a chill and I stepped back to look at the sword.
            That was my stupid mistake of the day.  The figure swung his sword and I barely had time to react.  He ended up cutting my side.  I stumbled over and fell to the ground.  He just about ran me through, but I rolled right in time.  I got up and looked right where I had been.  There was a huge bloodstain on the floor.  I didn’t feel any pain so I decided to ignore any second thoughts and I charged toward the figure.
            The figure was waiting for me and pushed me away as I ran toward him.  I fell over, not from fatigue, or tripping, but to confuse the enemy.  It worked.  The figure walked toward me slowly, grinning, as I lay there fake panting.
            When he finally reached me he said something that made me shiver, “It’s nice to see you cower like the little insolent being you are.  Don’t worry.  I assure you it will be very gruesome, gory, and not to mention painful.”
            That’s when I struck.  I wrapped my legs around his ankles and kicked in opposite directions.  He stumbled over and dropped his swords.  I looked at my pants and they were burned along with the skin underneath.  I didn’t feel any pain though.  Perhaps adrenalin? I ignored the thought and stabbed at the ground where the figure lay.  My sword nearly reached his spine, but right before it did he vanished in a puff of golden smoke.  My sword clanged against the concrete floor.  I looked around for the figure but he was nowhere to be seen.
            I looked up and saw him diving down straight at me.  I moved over to the side right before he lunged downwards.  His body hit the floor and an earthquake ensued.  I fell over but righted myself quickly.  We stared at each other for a minute, and then he started walking toward me.  He swung his swords as I swung mine.  Our swords locked together.  It was a battle of strength now.  I put both my hands on the sword and pressed downward with all the strength I could pull from my already tired muscles.  The figure started to bend backwards under the might that I apparently still had.  How this skeletal figure put up such a fight without muscle I had no clue.   He didn’t even have organs or anything!  He was just bone!  I put my body weight into the struggle when the figure was bending over sufficiently.  This apparently was enough since it fell to the ground.  My blade cut his shoulder severing his left arm from the body.  
It uttered a shriek so severe that I fell back and clutched my ears trying, yet failing, to guard them from pain.  I saw the figure vanish and I looked around.  It was nowhere to be found.  I then heard a raspy voice that rattled with pain.
“You… you little son of a bitch.  I’ll get you...  I’ll get you if it’s the last Goddamn thing I do!”
“Oh yeah!?  Then come back and fight!  Come back and Fiiiiiiiiiiiigggghhhttt!!!…” I roared, but my voice started dimming into silence.  Black was engulfing me.  “Not… again.  No…” I fell forward as my vision blurred out.
 
   

*   *   *

 
“Michael!  Michael!  Where the hell did you get that sword Michael!?”
I was rudely awakened by the sound of Viviane yelling in my face.  I opened my eyes to see that she was in fact yelling in my face.  I felt something at my side.  I sat up and looked at my hip.  There was a sheath there with a sword in it.  It was the sword from my dreams!  But the bead… Where was the bead!?  I put my hand in my pocket and found that my bead was the only thing in it.
I pulled out the sword.  It wasn’t glowing.  I guessed it was because there was no bead on the end.  I put it back in the sheath and looked at Viviane.
“What?”
“Where the hell did you get that?” she berated.
“I… I don’t know.”  I replied stupidly.
“No. Give me a real answer. Now.”
“Or what?”  There was silence.
“Or…” More silence.  “I’ll quit talking to you.”  I thought it over for a minute.
“I’ll tell you if you tell me something.”  I said remembering her crying the night before.
“Ok.  Deal.  What’s your question?”
“What was your dream about last night?”
“What’s it to you?” she replied stubbornly.
“Nah ah ah…  Remember the deal?”
“It was… It was… about you,” She said turning her head.
“Go on,” I replied.
“Well you were… I was.  We had a fight… like a sword fight.  That’s why I’m so interested about where the hell you got that sword.  I don’t know how I got two swords, or why you were attacking me, or what I was even talking about when I blurted out that everyone in the future knows your name.”
I sat there in silence for a minute thinking it over.  So apparently Viviane and I had the same dream from two different perspectives.  Did this mean anything?  Why was she the skeletal figure?  What was going on?!
“Um… I got my sword from my dream I guess.  I just woke up and had it on me.”
“That’s a lie,” she said closing her eyes.  “That’s a lie… That’s a lie… That’s a LIE!!!”
“What?  No.  I’m telling the truth!  I promise you!”
“But you had that exact same sword.”
“In the dream?” 
She nodded.
“Viviane, do you see this bead?”  I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to her.
“Yeah.  It’s a golden bead.  What’s so special about it?”
“I got it from another dream.”
“Prove it,” she sniffed.
I took my bead, took out my sword, prayed that this would work, and put the bead on the end of the sword hilt.  The sword immediately started to glow black.
“Do you think this could come from anywhere, but a dream?  Or perhaps it’s not a dream at all…” I looked down at my legs and sure enough they were burnt.  "Viviane… something’s going on here.  This isn’t right.”
“DUH!!!” she yelled at me.
“No need to be a jerk. I don’t think these are dreams.  Look at my legs.”
She looked and saw the burns.  She gasped and backed away.
“What happened?!”
“The dream.  I tripped you over after faking my being tired.  You burned me because you were on fire.”  As I said that I noticed how stupid it sounded.
“Oh… My… God.”  She slumped over and fainted.
I barely had time to catch her.  When I did my legs were driven crazy with agony and buckled right as I caught her.  I let her land on me when we fell.  I couldn’t move.  My legs were useless and an unconscious Viviane pinned me down.
I pushed her off of me and laid her down on what seemed was a comfortable position.  I then crawled into the bed and stayed there thinking about what just happened.
Why was everything going wrong?  What was up with these dreams?  Why would whatever happen to me in the dream world happen to me in reality?  What was it with Viviane being the skeletal figure?  What was going on?!  I didn’t understand anything.  I just sat and thought. 
After what seemed to be a whole day of thinking, Viviane got up and started moping around.  I just watched her.  I couldn’t do anything except watch.  My legs were useless.  I could only move by crawling.
She walked over to the fridge and took out some cheese.  She stuffed it in her mouth and closed the fridge.  I closed my eyes and laid back.  I heard the television turn on a few seconds later.  After a little while I heard screaming.  I looked up and saw that War of the Worlds was playing.
“Viviane,” I whispered.
“Viviane,” I spoke a little louder.  Viviane jumped up and turned around.
“Startled to