Seventh by Heath Pfaff Page B

behind me, and I knew without trying that I wouldn't be able to turn and go back the way I'd come.  I grit my teeth and walked forward with determination.  I had no way of knowing where I was going, but it didn't matter.  It wasn't long before another set of footfalls joined mine in the hall.  I glanced over my shoulder, not sure what to expect this time. 
                Hobbes was behind me, his head no longer sporting the gaping wound that had misshapen it so thoroughly not so long ago. 
                "You're still not real."  I told him, but I did not slow my pace.  The hall had to lead somewhere, and I didn’t intend to let any hallucinations slow me down. 
                " Here I am real, James.  That's why you came back.  Once you went out there, you knew that only coming back could make you feel real again.  Only coming back here could restore what was lost."  His reply was impassive, yet ominous.  He was speaking cryptically.  I felt like I should know what he meant, but I just couldn't get a grasp on it.  I was filled with the frustrating sensation that full recollection, full understanding, was dancing just beyond my comprehension. 
                "Where is here, Hobbes?  Where are we?"  I asked.  I didn't bother to look back at him.  I still wasn't exactly sure what he was.  I wanted to write his entire existence off as a figment of my imagination, but I was somehow carrying his steel pipe, his med-kits were strapped to my belt. 
                "We're now at the edge of darkness.  From here we can almost see it, but – what really matters – is that it can definitely see us.  You should know that.  You were the only one out of all of us who had been here before.  He needs you to find him.  He needs you to let him come home."
                I stopped and turned to face the hard eyed Shock Trooper.  He stopped with me, maintaining a distance of three or four feet. 
                "Who is "he", and what is the edge of darkness?  I've never been anywhere like this before.  Are we even onboard the Odyssey anymore?"  Keeping my voice calm was a struggle.  The words wanted to pour out of me to the beat of my pounding heart. 
                "He is the Worm, and the darkness is his place.  It wasn't always, though.  He wants to go home, but he needs someone to find him.  …Someone who can carry him out of the void.  It can't be just anyone."
                "Worm.”  I said the name out loud, and then a recollection came to my mind.  “I met him, near the comfort center.  What is he?  Why does he need me?  How do you even know all of this stuff, Hobbes?"
                "I'm not Hobbes anymore, and you haven't met the Worm yet… only his shadow.  You need to remember, James Wright.  You need to remember why you came back."
                I was about to yell at him, to try and force him to tell me what I was supposed to be remembering, but a female voice from behind me broke my attention.
                "James, I didn't expect you home for another week!"  It was Odyssey, or at least it sounded like Odyssey, but now her voice wasn't coming from the implants inside my head.  I spun to face where the voice came from and suddenly found myself in a different setting.  I was in a house that looked vaguely familiar, and I felt strangely heavy.  This was the pull of a true planet’s gravity, not the centrifugal force gravity of a ship.  The air smelled of plant life and a perfume scent that triggered sparks of emotion that I could feel only distantly. 
                The voice had come from a petite brunette woman with a warm smile and beautiful brown eyes. 
                "I had to leave quarantine."  I heard myself say the words, though I didn't intend to speak. 
                "But I thought quarantine was mandator- James, is that blood