Our story begins in a large room. In this room there is a man wearing a pair of blue jean shorts and an emerald green short sleeve shirt. He was wearing a pair of plain sandals on his feet. He looked to be twenty-five and his hair was jet black and short. He has just finished dragging the unconscious form of another man into a circular area against one wall. This other man had brown hair kind of long and was wearing a grey short sleeve shirt, blue jeans, and blue shoes. This guy appeared to be about thirty years old and he was tied up. The first guy left the room and soon returned carrying an unconscious girl. The girl appeared to be about ten years old with long pale golden blonde hair. She was wearing a white short sleeve dress that came down past her knees and white sandals. She was also tied up and the man placed her beside the other man.
With a smile the first man went to part of a huge machine and started pressing buttons. After a few moments he began to mutter, “Those simpletons will see just what I can do with my machine. “You can’t transform anyone,” they say. “It’s impossible,” they say. Well I’ll so them. I’ll show them and then the name Marcus McKnight will become famous. I’ll be hailed as a hero for pushing science as far as transforming people.” He laughed long and hard for he was evidently mad.
As Marcus continued to push buttons a cylinder lowered into place around the man and girl. Inside that the man and girl were just starting to wake up. They noticed a low glow coming from several rings of light tubes. They were still groggy and couldn’t talk. Presently the light grew brighter as outside Marcus continued to push buttons. A low hum could be heard which grew louder as the machine climbed to operating power.
Outside the building a fierce thunderstorm was moving in. Lighting flashed between the clouds and ground with great frequency. Inside Marcus was completely oblivious to the storm. He couldn’t hear the thunder or the wind as the hum of his machine grew louder. Inside the chamber the lights had grown so bright that the man and girl had to close their eyes. They also felt a warm sensation pass through them which seemed to comfort them and send them back to dreamland.
As the machine was nearing capacity for the transformation a bolt of lightning hit the building and overloaded the machine. Sparks flew from panels violently as components within blew. “No!” cried Marcus as the panel he was at blew violently tearing the panel to pieces and stripping flesh from Marcus’ bones. He also received quite a few burns in the process and the damage was so severe that Marcus died instantly.
Inside the chamber the light quickly brightened and then they blew. Most of the debris managed to avoid hitting the two but some of it did hit them. Mostly it was minor cuts and they would have survived had not a few pieces found the veins in their necks and slashed them open.
The surge of power had set off the fire alarms and the fire department was dispatched immediately. When they entered the room they were met with a gruesome sight. On the floor lay Marcus half his face missing and showing bone. The other half was burned. His right hand showed little but bone held together by strands of tissue. His right arm had several chunks missing as well as his left leg. They could see his ribcage through the missing flesh in his chest. The rest of his body was covered in burns except for a few areas. They didn’t have time to really look at him at first though since there were some small fires in the machine which the firefighters quickly put out. After one firewoman noticed blood seeping out from under the chamber and called attention to it. In a few minutes they had cut the chamber open and found the bodies of the man and girl.
Meanwhile in dreamland Marcus sat up and looked at himself. “I’m alive,” he said in an awed voice. “But I can’t be. I shouldn’t be.” He heard a groan coming from the chamber and he quickly raised it. Inside he found a sixteen year old girl with long golden blonde hair wearing a white dress and sandals just like the ten year old girl had been. She didn’t look injured at all unlike him. “It worked!” he cried lifting his arms up and looking toward the sky. “I’ll be famous now.” Looking at the girl again he asked, “What’s your name?”
The girl opened her eyes and grew terrified of what she saw. She backed away as much as she could until she hit the wall and said, “Stay away from me!”
“What’s your name?” Marcus asked again getting a little angry. “Tell me your name.”
“El… El… Elizabeth,” the girl said shaking in fear.
“Come here Elizabeth,” Marcus commanded. “Come give me a kiss.”
“NO!” Elizabeth shouted and threw up her hand. When she did it was like a ball of air shot out of her hand and hit Marcus throwing him back.
“That wasn’t nice,” Marcus growled and raised his own hand toward Elizabeth. A bolt of energy emitted from his hand and struck her but instead of dissipating it continued and he lifted her up with it. “Looks like I have a little something extra now,” he said in an amused voice. “I wonder if I can transform you further with it.”
Elizabeth looked at Marcus and emitted a bolt of energy of her own from her hand. The energy bolt he was emitting vanished and she dropped to the ground. She got back up and screamed, “GET AWAY FROM ME!” She threw her hand up again and once again the ball of air left her hand. It hit him once again and threw him back but this time it was through an outside wall. As she looked out of the hole she asked herself, “What in the world?” For outside wasn’t a city but instead a shifting landscape. At one point it was a city and then it was an underwater scene. Then a prairie then a desert. One scene seemed to be an underground maze and another seemed to be inside a hamster cage. “This can’t be real,” she said to herself, “it has to be a dream. I should wake up anytime now. What shall I do until then though? I wonder where that monster went too.” Marcus had indeed become lost in the shifting mass of dreamland.
(AN: Elizabeth and Marcus are trapped in dreamland since their bodies are dead. Elizabeth is the combination of the man and girl that were in the chamber. The machine had started to combine their minds when the lightning struck. Marcus being mad goes around in people’s dreams transforming them however he sees fit. However it also transforms their physical bodies. He gets power from the fear and despair of his transformed victims and a big boost if they die while they’re transformed. Elizabeth goes around trying to undo what Marcus does. She gets power from the gratitude and happiness of those she’s able to rescue. Each one has to learn what they can do and they cross paths once in awhile Elizabeth trying to stop Marcus once and for all.)