Suddenly I wake, hearing the phone ring. I moan softly as I sit up and in
the darkness, my hand fumbles for the receiver. Picking it up during the
third ring, I bring the receiver to my ear.

"H-hello?" I speak, my voice hoarse and groggy with sleep, propping myself
up with my other elbow.

"Anna? Anna, sorry to have to wake you at this hour, but there is an
emergency that requires your clearance level and we can't get ahold of
anyone else." I hear a familiar female voice.

"Uh," I hesitate, try to form the right words in my still sleeping mind,
"I will be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you Anna, I will alert security." The woman's voice returns and I
hear a click at the other end of the line.

I place the receiver back on its holder, missing the first time, then I
roll back upon my bed after turning the lamp beside the bed, on. Then I with
a sigh, I roll back onto my side and rise to my feet in one swift motion.

Stumbling slightly, my legs reacquiring themselves to gravity and my
weight upon them, I head for the step-in closet.

I turn on the light and remove a sleeveless long black sundress and a
pair of black heel less sandals. But if the emergency is worse than I think,
there are jumpers I can change into, besides, it is a hot sticky early
summer morning and I want to stay as cool as possible.

Once I slip into the dress, disregarding the under things except a pair of
black undies, I strap the sandals secure and begin to brush my hair as I
make my way down the hall, into the livingroom.

"Glad I left a light on in here." I think as I find that I would have
walked right into the end of the sofa had I not.

I enter the kitchen, setting my brush upon the dinning room table as I
pass it; I grab a glass and the carton of orange juice from the
refrigerator. Quickly, I drink down a glass, replace the OJ back in the
fridg, put the glass in the sink and I make my way back into the living
room.

As I grab my car keys, purse and work case, I glance at the nearby clock:
3:02 am. I grumble under my breath as I step out the front door, locking it
behind me.

"Just lovely! Now I am not gonna be home until I have to be at work!" I
think aloud as I unlock the driver's side door of my new car – a sleek,
metallic silver 2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse.

Within minutes, the car pulls out of the driveway and heads down the
street, taking a right at the first street it comes too.

***********

"Out of the burbs and into the wilderness." I remark, turning the stereo
on to keep me awake as I drive my car down a narrow windy road that leads
only in and out of my place of work.

I am second of five in charge of a high security, high clearance, and
top-secret military facility where numerous scientific experiments take
place.

At the moment, we are working with a microscopic organism that appears to
possess vast amounts of energy, and that it survives through symbiosis.

That, I discovered on my own while doing some research experiments on
myself without the knowledge of my colleagues or superiors.

Now, inside my body, as happy as a clam in a shell, are millions of the
microscopic creatures, multiplying every few minutes so that they are in
every single cell that makes up my body.

I must say though that after injecting only one of the organisms into my
body, I feel stronger, my senses more keen and alert than ever before, and
sometimes – which is occurring more and more lately, I hear voices. I feel
healthy and more vital than I think I have ever felt before, and I am quite
pleased with my findings.

Also…I was desperate.

A few months ago, I had seen my doctor about a few strange pains I kept
feeling in my chest – where my heart is located, and I received a call to
come in and see my doctor right away. And that was when I learned I was
dying.

Anyone desperate enough to live would have done what I did, and I do not
regret having done it.

Suddenly, snapping out of my reverie, my senses – that other than sight,
sound, taste, and touch, alert me of something. It is faint – just a quick
flash and then it is gone.

I rub the temple of my forehead with my fingertips, believing that it must
be loss of much needed sleep. Thus, I continue driving my car along the
dark, narrow, windy road out in the middle of virtually no where.

The car rounds a sharp, blind turn and instantly I cry out in terror and
attempt to swerve out of the way before I hit what I saw standing right in
the middle of the road.

Quickly, I slam on the brakes as my car begins to loose control, despite
counter steering when I should.

Instantly my life flashes before my eyes as the front wheels of my car go
over the edge of the hillside road. I wrap my arms about myself as I see the
trunks of numerous trees flying toward me.

Then, all is dark as silence falls over me, and unconsciousness takes
over.

************

All that can be heard is the still running engine and a spinning tire
against the trunk of a pine tree.

Coolant, oil and fuel can be smelled in the air as it leaks from the
engine compartment, and a small fire is sparked, and slowly it begins to
spread toward the flammable liquids upon the ground.

A twig snaps, the sound echoing through the forest surround the car and
its unconscious driver.

Another snap, this time closer…then another.

Then, with a groan, the driver side door of the car shudders, creaking as
if being pulled. The groaning and cracking and popping of breaking metal can
be heard, the door fighting to keep closed, growing louder by the moment.

Instantly, as if ripped off its hinges with invisible hands, it flies
through the air into the darkness of night, making a loud noise as it lands
upon the ground some distance away.

A dark figure appears, moving toward the car to stand beside the now open
cabin of the heavily damaged vehicle. Hidden eyes looks the unconscious
woman over, placing the fingers of a black hand upon her forehead for a
moment before slipping his hands behind her back and under her legs.

Time is of the essence, for the fire is almost to the slowly growing
puddle of flammable liquids, and the vehicle may erupt into flames…possibly
explode.

With great care, the figure removes the woman's body from out of her seat,
and out into the open, lying across the figure's arms.

Then, turning, the figure moves with haste from the vehicle, the fire
coming in to contact with the fuels and fire quickly intensifies and
flashes, racing with lightning speed across the surface of the puddle,
toward the car.

And the instant flames begin to consume the once beautiful sports car, it
comes to the fuel tank…explodes.

The car leaps from its resting-place into the air in a ball of fire, smoke
and flying debris, lighting the forest with its brilliant fiery splendor.

But without flinching, never breaking stride, the figure continues on,
following the path he had taken in the darkness, the body of the unconscious
woman lying over his arms.

Title: Detour – Scenic Route
Author: Sythe aka Dawn
Rating: NC17
Characters: M/F
Category: het, smut, romance, seduction…a little song, a little dance,
Batman's head on a lance hehe *eg *
Feedback: Yes please!! (TELOXI@hotmail.com)
Disclaimer: I don’t own em, I just borrow em for my fics. I received no
money in its creation.

Black smoke can be seen billowing into the early dawn sky, and sirens can
be heard racing toward to blaze. The sense of danger rises with the coming
dawn.

The dark figure growls deep in his throat – it had been close, she could
have died, and that is not what he had wanted. He had wanted to scare
her…but had not anticipated her reaction.

He looks to the sky, dark blue becoming mid then light blue, silver-white
clouds lacing the sky like a harold announcing the return of day. Then he
turns his eyes to the woman lying across his arms.

She is injured, internally, and he can visibly see the scrapes and still
drying blood upon her pale cream skin, the crack of a wound upon her bottom
soft rose lip, blood soaked hair sticking together in gathers, partly to her
scalp.

She must be healed, and quickly, for he can sense the cold grip of death
closing slowly about her. And he can see the paling of her skin already.

Death will not have her, he will not allow it – she is too strong willed,
too stubborn to let it consume and capture her last breath from her lips…she
is too important.

No. She will not die. She will live…and never look at the face of death as
long as she takes breath.

He quickens his step, moving through the forest in the direction he had
first come, moving faster as he feels her life slowly slipping from her
body.

He hears her moan softly, taking a coughed breath, and softly shifts in
his arms. She will return to consciousness at any time.

**********

Suddenly I wake with a cough, but immediately I gasp for breath as pain
surges throughout my body, whimpering softly as I feel my body shiver for
the cold brought on by fever. I lie motionless, my entire body aching as if
I had been run over by a heard of elephants – feels like they are in my
trampling in my skull too.

I dare not even to open my eyes, knowing that the faint light showing
through the backs of my lids would send a razor sharp flash of pain straight
to my already throbbing head.

What happened? I can barely remember a thing…except seeing
that…black…thing in the middle of the road…

"My car!" I exclaim aloud, suddenly realizing what had happened, my eyes
shooting open only to quickly shut with a groan of pain – feeling the flash
of pain I was hoping to avoid, making the throbbing of my head pound harder.

I place my arm over my face, blocking the faint light coming through my
eyelids, hoping that it would dim the thrumming of my head. It does not help
much.

I sigh softly, my mind a mass of images, memories and thoughts. The phone
call in the middle of the night, driving along the road to the facility,
suddenly seeing whatever it was in the middle of the road, causing me to
swerve, then last seeing the trees flying toward me as I covered my head
with my arms.

What was it that I almost hit? I can't remember, except I saw a hint of
red and yellow, and lots of black. It could have been the lights of my car
reflecting off of whatever was in the road, making me see the red and
yellow. I don't know, but I wish I did.

For what seems hours, I lie upon what feels to be a bed beneath me,
thinking, wondering, my body sore and aching. I move my arms from over my
face, feeling the throbbing of my head slowly fading and I place my hands
upon my stomach, wincing slightly as I find a bruise where my hands lie.

"I wonder what it was I would have hit had I not driven my care off the
side of the road." I think aloud in a soft whisper, and then I hear a soft
sound, almost mechanical. Quickly I silence my mind, listening with my new
senses for whatever it might have been. But all I hear is silence.

"Must have been nothing." I think after a few minutes, but then I hear
another sound, this time closer than before. And immediately I feel myself
surrounded in a thick cloud of darkness, my senses feeling the darkness in
the air, filling the room I am in with its intensity. Then, I sense the
presence of something…someone, for I can feel the life of it, and just its
presence makes my strength grow and a strange energy flow through me unlike
I have ever felt before.

Instantly, my breath catches in my throat as I feel what felt to be
fingertips run over my forehead with a feather light touch, feeling the
burning of my skin due to the fever inside me.

I cannot help the trembling of my body, fear coursing through me – fear of
the unknown, fear of who had touched me, where I am. But I also cannot help
it for I shiver due to my fever, my skin on fire, yet I feel so cold. And I
cannot help the moan that escapes my lips.

Again, I feel the fingertips run across my forehead, then a hand – a hand
with long fingers, and I can feel the callus of them. And suddenly I let out
a breathed gasp, feeling a strange heat…no, energy pass through the hand to
the skin of my forehead and into my skin.

It feels so strange, yet so relaxing and good, and a sense of ease comes
over me as I feel the warm energy travel down my neck, chest, arms, stomach,
legs, feet, moving through me what feels like soft smoke cause in a current.
The energy seeps into every part of me, becoming part of me - body and soul.

I feel my entire body relax, every muscles lax, all tension slipping away,
out of me, carried along the warm currents of energy traveling through
me…taking the pain and ache away, making it fade to nothingness.

I let out a softly shuddered breath, what I feel is so foreign, yet
familiar, and almost has an euphoric quality to it. And even as I feel a
hand gently rest upon mine on my stomach, I feel no fear, no pain…just the
touch of two hands upon me, and the energy moving throughout my body and the
ease it brings me.

I feel the tug of sleep pull on me, but I fight it, wanting to feel this
wonderful sensation inside me, its warmth. I don't want to sleep, I just
want to lie here and feel what I feel, the gentle hands upon me…

"Sleep, my precious Little One, sleep." I hear a most beautiful deep dark
liquid velvet voice speak in a whisper…a male voice. The voice…it slowly
wraps the arms of sleep about me, embracing me in its darkness and before I
can fight, before I can think, the dark abyss of unconsciousness consumes
me.

~Continued in Part III~

Updated 1/13/03