Dawn.
The cool mist slowly settling on a beach somewhere, somewhen.
The only sound coming from a scavenging Blue Crab, slowly searching for snails and juicy worms.
As if knowing the events to come, the crab hunts for a long while, killing a huge amount of the unsuspecting snails. Then it settles down and starts it´s orgy in culinary delight.
Maybe some instinct told it that this was the final day of it´s existence. Maybe...it sensed the horror approaching from the twisted corridors of the space-time continuum, maybe...it was just exceptionally hungry, for reasons that were not complicated at all, and frankly not very interesting if you weren´t a Blue Crab.
Two observers watch it from a nearby rock, drinking water from a small military issue flask.
"Just look at that, Hanna. That crab is in heaven right now. All the food laid out like a smorgasbord, with no one trying to steal it from him." Jackie Munroe, the former Ameristar, smiles at the blond short girl that most people know as Crasher.
"Don´t call me that." Crasher replies with a moody tone. "You know that I don´t like it."
She looks at her taller, lightbrown-haired companion with eyes that are full of hidden repressed anger and hurt.
"Aww, come on, Hanna. Its just us here. No one can hear us. Most likely there is no one for hundreds of miles that would even think of coming here."
"Probably not,but anyway...please, I ask you. Hanna died a long time ago, and I don´t want to be reminded of that past. Or that place."
Jackie shook her head, frowning.
"You can´t live like this Hanna. This has to stop. Look at yourself."
Crasher rose with a angry look.
"I said...don´t call me that!!" She turned and walked down to the edge of the water.
"Geez&...I´m just saying that maybe you should start thinking about what you want to do about it , instead of just sulking. Ok...I agree, and I sympathise. You were abused in the worst manner possible. It was terrible. But you have to move on. Hell...I have to move on, home that is. The pains are getting worse everyday now."
That stopped Crasher, and she looked at Jackie with concern.
"Is it the chest pains again?"
"Yes."
"But..." Crasher looked around, searching for something meaningful to say.
"But, going back there will only remind me of all the awful things that happened, the humiliation, the anger, the helplessness and the dark months afterwards before we came here. Wherever that is. I don´t think I could handle that."
Jackie walked up to her and looked straight into Crasher´s fear filled eyes.
"Maybe confronting your fear will take away your angst? You know I would be there for you, to help with anything you might need to accomplish that."
Crasher gave Jackie a shocked look.
"Are you crazy? Confronting...him...is suicide. You know how dangerous he is."
"Well, yes." Jackie said, apparently in deep thought.
"Then you know perfectly well that if I would even glance at Jack again, he would kill me. And probably even you. Easily."
"Hmm, well...we´ve been discussing that."
"And when you mean "we", you mean that weird entity within you, that "inner voice"; you keep talking about?"
"Yes."
"Hells...you don´t even know what that is! It could be anything. A villain sending telepathic messages, a demon from another dimension or...a figment of you own mind..." Her voice was subdued as she said the last words, knowing quiet well that the "entity" was a lot more than a hallucination.
"True, but I sense nothing that would indicate that it would be evil. More like...a mother, a soft warm feeling every time it communicates. That is until we came here of course. I haven´t heard a word from it."
"A good thing too, I don´t want that...that thing whispering strange advice on my private affairs. Who knows wh..."
"Crasher! Listen. I think I have a way to neutralize Jack´s power. If you would just stop and listen."
