From s.phillips25@genie.com Tue Dec 24 22:16:08 1996 Date: Sun, 20 Oct 96 23:12:00 GMT From: s.phillips25@genie.com To: b5-creative@lists.best.com Subject: Missing scene from "Z'ha'dum". Here's something else from "Z'ha'dum". If you haven't seen it yet, it is definitely a spoiler. I hereby leave spoiler space. Standard disclaimers apply; all B5 characters belong to JMS and/or WB and Babylonian Productions. No infringement intended. spoiler space spoiler space spoiler space spoiler space spoiler space spoiler space spoiler space spoiler space Missing Scene from "Z'ha'dum" by Sue Phillips The ppg blast didn't hurt the thing, the absence where his senses told him something was. But it did provide a distraction, a scream in his mind, in the air, in the world. Sheridan dived for the door, trying to keep from touching the thing in the door. He wasn't totally successful. Cold. Mind-searing, body numbing cold. Something cqaught at him, knocked him down. He clawed his way up, feeling a cutting, a slashing. Heard a tearing...knew his uniform had gotten it. He ripped free again, knew the shoulder had split. Shouts from behind him, human shouts. Human voices. Human bodies. None of these people were human anymore. He could have laughed...if the situation hadn't been so serious. He'd wanted to know the truth. He'd walked into Z'ha'dum knowing that truth, knowing that Anna, the one person a part of him had wanted to see most for five long years, wasn't his Anna. Of course, there had still been parts of the puzzle he'd been missing. Sounds of pursuit, footsteps. Evil chittering noises moving faster than he would have thought possible. Sheridan ran. He picked a direction, running through the corridors of stone, the doors that growled when they opened. Why did they open for him? No time to consider that. He stumbled around a corner, fell. Grunted as his head caught an edge. He felt blood trickle down his forehead, began to wipe a hand over it when that formless form appeared behind him. He caught it out of the corner of his eyes, began to back away. Hoped it hadn't seen him. He'd wanted the truth, he'd come here for the truth. He'd found it. It wasn't the truth the Vorlons gave him...it wasn't the truth these things, these Shadows spoke through human tongues. The truth was somewhere between them. No, dammit. The truth was what they made it, what they, humanity, made it. That was what this war was all about. Self determination. Choices. And the freedom to make them. It got darker. What -- maybe he'd hit his head harder than he'd thought. Maybe it was Shadows. Then, he saw a light. Stumbled tiredly -- it seemed he'd been running for a long, long time -- into a huge open area. Onto a balcony. An underground balcony? He looked over the edge. There was no bottom. None that he could see. He looked up. A skylight, a window to the upper world. Why? Why would they....Light? For them? It didn't matter why. It would work. He heard them coming...he heard someone coming. A single set of footsteps, it sounded human. He looked up, decided. Touched his link, heard the acknowledging voice. Heard another voice, the voice that sounded dear. That wasn't her. It slid into his ears, crept across his nerve endings. They'd thought appearance, voice, body would be enough. Would be enough to make him believe. That and that he wanted to believe. But they had taken too long. They had waited too long. He loved Delenn now, loved her enough to doubt the evidence of his senses. Loved her enough to dare everything for them, for their life together...for the future. And then she made its last presumption. "I can love you as much as she did." And it held out a hand, a human feeling, human looking hand. They *still* expected him to follow them? But he was so tired. The timer was ticking...and he had nowhere else to go. "If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die." Kosh said that and now he heard it again in his head in memory. He heard it in memory? Or something else. It didn't matter. He heard the person who said she was Anna talking, telling him that it was true, confirming his doubts, his suspicions, his fears. And something else. That voice...but the Vorlon was...he was... "Jump." Pause, patented Vorlon conciseness. "Jump now." There was a rush as the White Star's death scream pierced his mind. And he decided.