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March 7th, 2082. 8:41 pm.
The New University of Toronto stood tall and silent between the high-rises of downtown. Janitors had left many hours ago, performing only a quick sweep before locking up for the night. Not much thought was put into the security of public buildings. As long as they remained empty through the dark hours of the night, they would be untouched come morning.
And since its restoration and opening to the general public, N-UFT had always remained empty come sundown - no one crazy enough to remain in such a unprotected building after curfew. But tonight, the ring of pacing footsteps against tile sent rats scuttling, a burning cigarette glowing brightly in the shadows.
Travis Avery’s eyes were shifty and uncomfortable, glinting darkly with hidden resentment. He didn’t want to be here tonight, alone, vulnerable in a risky and unfamiliar building. Then again, he thought bitterly, it never really mattered what he wanted. He was a sheep - just like the rest of them.
Travis took the liberty of flicking his cigarette ashes into a open locker, just to give himself a bit of satisfaction. The night was making him jittery, and feeling jittery made him all the more irritable.
Dressed in black from head to toe, a wool cap pulled down over his ears, Travis blended right into the shadows of the hall. Nondescript clothing was not his thing, nor was keeping his long hair tied back. But rules were rules, and night meant a certain level of self-restraint. Did he have to be happy about it? Of course not.
Pushing up the sleeve of his black turtleneck, Travis took a sullen look at the glowing faces of his many watches. The watch with twelve numbers and two hands read 8:43, while a strange, blank watch buzzed urgently. Seventeen minutes. Would she be late? Would she show at all?
Travis blinked, his irises taking on the glow of night-vision goggle as he peered through the shadows. No sign of the rookie either. Travis leaned against a locker, weighing his options. If he left now, he could make an easy five blocks before hell let loose for the night. If he stayed, he faced the possibility of dying alone, surrounded by the stench of teenage sweat. Now... how much did he trust his partner’s credibility?
It was as he was thinking this that Travis felt a tap on his shoulder. Instantly, his hand went to his gun.
“Easy there, Travis. We don’t want any mishaps tonight.”
His mouth twisted in half-smile, though his Glock hand relaxed only slightly. “Katya. Thought you wouldn’t show.”
The blond woman returned the smile, patting him playfully on the cheek. “No, you didn’t.” Katya stood at least a head shorter than her partner, but could easily kick his a**. So she was tolerated.
Travis raised his eyebrows. “Says you. For all I knew, you could have hung me out to dry, just to watch me squirm. Not like it hasn't been done.”
“You think I’d do that?”
He shrugged, peering over her shoulder. “If the rookie with you?”
“No. I haven’t seen him.”
“Time’s almost up.”
“He’ll be here. He’s a good one.”
“Right.” They lapsed into silence.
Travis pulled out his gun, checked the bullets, then shoved it back into its holster. “It’s going to be a rough night,” he said.
Katya nodded pensively, fiddling with the white Yang pendant hanging from her neck. “Mm.”
“We shouldn’t be out here. It's dangerous - stupid.”
She sighed. Travis was in one of his moods. “This needs to be done, Travis.”
“You do know that a couple of new recruits aren’t going to-”
“We’re trying.”
He raised an eyebrow, turning to look her in the eye. “Are we? Are we really?” He kicked at a loose tile. “We’re falling apart, Katya. We're out of ideas. And no one wants to admit it. Just send in hoards of new recruits, everybody! These kids will save us! ”
“Travis.”
He didn’t hear her. “And what about Joel? Don't act innocent, I'm not completely stupid. I've heard the whispers.”
“It’s just a possibility that we’re following up on...”
“Christ," Travis spat. “A possibility. Have you people already forgotten who this guy is? You know what he's done. What makes you think he'll do anything different this time? Trust me. The moment you let the nut out of his cage, we won't even have to worry about the breach anymore. It'll be the end. 2012 all over-”
“Travis!” Katya burst out. “I don’t need this, alright?” She raised a hand to her forehead, taking a calming breath of air. “Not tonight.”
Travis opened his mouth again, then wisely shut it. Neither said anything more on the subject.
When the front doors of the school burst open, Katya snapped to attention. She leaned over to Travis. “Is it the rookie?”
He turned his glowing eyes down the hall. “Yup. Just made it.”
The gangly boy with spiky black hair barreled down the hall, a half-dozen duffle bags hanging from his narrow shoulders, a full arsenal of weapons slipping around in his arms. He skidded to a stop a couple of feet from the pair, his arms buckling, and dozens of handguns, rifles, swords and daggers raining to the floor. He turned his wide eyes from Katya’s relieved smile, to Travis’ disgusted scowl.
“I brought the stuff!” the boy gasped.
Katya instantly bent down, gathering up the dropped artillery. She shot a look at Travis, who exhaled noisily, but dutifully relieved the rookie of some of his bags.
Once everything had been collected, Katya pushed into a nearby science room, and the two men followed. Dumping everything on a table by the window, Katya and Travis gravitated to behind the teacher’s desk, and the rookie found a seat.
Travis found a meter stick, and wrapped it against the blackboard with an air of great irony. “Hello,” he said, his voice low and dramatic. “and welcome to Beasty Busting 101. My name is Travis, and I’ll be your wise mentor tonight.” He took a sweeping bow, gesturing at Katya to continue.
She rolled her eyes. “Alright. I’m Katya...”
“I know you!” the rookie piped up. “My teacher talks about you all the time. He says you’re a real hero.”
Katya blushed prettily. Travis raised an eyebrow, but didn’t speak.
“Well, thank you very much," said Katya, "but we really need to get going. We only have-"
“Ten minutes,” Travis supplied.
“Ten minutes before we need to head out. Now, I trust you’ve been through the weapons training program?”
The rookie nodded. “Top of the class,” he said proudly.
Katya smiled. “Very good.”
Travis rolled his eyes, turning to the board with chalk in hand. With a few quick strokes, he formed a crude picture of a stickman blasting at a generic monster with a machine gun. “This,” he said, pointing at the stickman, “is you, fighting one of the beasties. Very heroic. Nice stories to bring home.” He erased the figure, drawing another one, this time with x-eyes and a tongue hanging out. “This is you is about five seconds flat if you ever try that.”
The rookie sat with saucer eyes.
Travis continued. “Rule number one. Don’t confront the beasties. If you came here excited to go all Buffy the Vampire Slayer, go home now or get killed out there.”
The kid looked blank. “Buffy the...”
Katya grinned. “Travis here has been around for a long time.”
The rookie fell silent for a moment, then raised his hand. “I don’t understand. I mean, we have all these weapons, we did all this training, but you said we don’t confront-”
Travis snorted. Katya cleared her throat. “Yes, we have weapons,” she said. “You need to know how to use them. If worst comes to worst, they buy us time. But we don’t go picking fights.”
“We save the damsels in distress, but we run like hell when the dragons come,” Travis clarified.
The rookie looked indignant. “What do you mean? We aren't going to fight these guys? How are we going to get rid of them?”
Silence.
"Get rid of them?" Travis stared, then started to laugh. "Get rid of them? And how do you propose to do that?"
"I don't know. I thought that's what we were learning to do at the academy!"
Travis was tossing around a plastic apple from the teacher’s desk. “Yeah, everyone wants to be a hero. But really? Pure propaganda, kiddo. Would you have tried so hard if you knew what you were really going to do all night?”
Katya gave Travis a scandalized look, then turned to the rookie. "I know we all want to get rid of these things. And we try, when we can. But right now, we just don't have the power for that." She walked over to him, patting his shoulder reassuringly. "That's why we need people like you."
The rookie was silent. After a moment and some thinking, he said, “Well, I suppose we're still doing people good, right? Protecting them. You still get to be a hero. Right?”
Travis chucked the plastic apple at the rookie’s desk. It bounced high, smacking the boy in the chest. “That’s the spirit!” Travis said.
His voice had drifted down to me through the one night, sleepy and slow. “Joey, what do you want to be when you get bigger?”
I studied the nightlight by my wall, thinking hard. “I dunno. I think I want to help people.”
“Help people? Like a police man? Or a firefighter?”
“No. Maybe... Sorta like a... a superhero.”
He’d laughed then, and I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. “Yeah?” he said, “Well, I wanna be a unicorn.”
I lowered my eyes, twisting at the corner of my blanket while he continued to chortle. He laughed and laughed until he finally fell asleep, leaving me lying quietly in the dark.
 Twisted Black Roses · Sat Sep 19, 2009 @ 08:55pm · 0 Comments |
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The organization that I belonged to liked boast of their air-tight secrecy, and information was kept firmly in small circles. But still, secrets of the magnitude we dealt in were nearly impossible to keep. There were always leaks.
For a long time, these little breaches were never a problem, just snatches of blurry info sold to tabloids. The public remained mercifully oblivious to the Other World, their own stubborn nature refusing to accept the signs. Thousands of generations kept our secrets safe, suspicion and questions never escalating into anything more.
Then along came little old me, and our organization was nearly torn apart at the seams.
I was the new atomic bomb, the new level of power that everyone needed to get a piece of. People that were supposed to keep me safe suddenly had their own agendas. I couldn’t count the number of people that tried to lure me to them, or tried to force me against my will.
Somehow, word of my existence spread through dark alleys like wildfire. Suddenly everyone knew about me, from local mobs to back rooms of the government. There was nowhere I was safe.
It was crazy. Years and years of unflinching loyalty and secrecy had suddenly burst into flames over this shiny new toy. People from within the organization were taking bribes, or trying to snatch me up for themselves. We were quickly falling apart.
The government – or some part of it – came to us once, with an unfathomable sum of money on a ready-to-sign check. It took a lot of willpower to refuse, but the Boss has always made the right choices. We all knew that this kind of power was never meant to be loose in the world.
The suits left with neutral faces, but we knew they weren’t happy with losing their prize.
I never knew if it was them that returned later, they that set off the... the carnage... the genocide.
But I suppose that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it happened.
March 7th, 2082. 7:10 pm.
The woman sat in the corner of the white room, legs crossed, briefcase of her lap, face miserable. What had she expected? That Joel would cross an impossible mental barrier at just the sound of her voice?
Yes, she thought. That’s exactly what she expected, and she was an idiot for that. She’d gambled everything on her foolish fairytale idea. She shouldn’t have come.
She’d tried to talk to him. She’d tried to remember everything she’d written down. But then she’d looked into those lifeless, unseeing eyes, and couldn’t find her voice again.
The woman slumped there, feeling utterly sorry for herself. She’d come here full of resolve, but that had crumbled in an instant, seeing Joel again, seeing the state he was in.
She’d aged while he was gone, slower than the average person, but faster than he’d ever. He was still young, and man barely out of his teens, while she was a decade beyond. The chance they might have had was gone... even if he’d ever return to normal.
Looking at him now, she knew he wouldn’t. Not with her help, anyway.
She glanced at her watch, and a pang of panic shook her out of her thoughts. She had less than two hours before her chance was up, and the Boss would take over. For Joel’s sake, she couldn’t let that happen.
The woman scrambled to her feet, cursing and shaking herself out of her slump. How had she gotten so weak so fast? If the Boss could see her now... her cheeks burned.
Composing herself, rewriting her appearance, she gathered up her bag and strode over to Joel's cot. Face business-like, she pulled out a glossy image from her case. She held it out in front of his face, took a deep breath, and began.
“The dark magic uprising of 2014. Two years after you left.” She placed the photo beside Joel on the cot. “You know the state you left the world in. Those were difficult times... the organization was already at the breaking point. We could barely keep order in the streets. We tried to get help from the white Wiccans, but no one trusted us anymore... not without reason, I suppose.”
The woman pulled out another photo, feeling stupid, but unwilling to give up again. “June, 2017. The Leeches... or vampires, as the public prefers... joined in the anarchy. Absolute nightmare. We were able to bribe the sovereign bloodsucker in the area into controlling his group, but there are still feral vampires out there. We don’t have enough night watch to control them all.”
The next photo. “Fire demons didn’t like the vampires running free all over their streets. They decided that our authority was lax, so they took law into their own hands, none too discreetly.” She pointed at the picture – a three block downtown area, in ashes. “This is what happened when civilians get in the way.
“After that, it was complete chaos. We were struggling to maintain any sort of order, and the public were crying Apocalypse. Any kind of creature you can imagine – everything we tried to keep from the human world... they all rushed into the fray like it was the hell-demon fourth of July. Sewer dwellers, night spirits, poltergeists, the shade, the Fae... all kinds of demons, ghouls, gargoyles, furies, behemoths, harpies, imps... a nasty Lilith in Europe that nearly wiped out a country – she was dealt with, thank God. There was even a dragon sighting in Brazil. Hell on earth, complete disbelief, leaders good for nothing but pissing their pants. It’s a miracle that we survived those years at all.”
The woman spread the two photos out on top of the first. She fumbled in her bag for the next image, and paused, biting her lip. Finally, she pulled it out.
“And then, twenty years ago, it stopped. All of it. People were coming out of their homes in the morning to find demons and night creatures strewn all over the streets. Dead – without explanation. We took them into our labs and studied them for months, with no avail. All we could tell was that all the creatures' major organs had just... failed. Just like that, en masse.
“We were scared, but the public saw it as some glorious miracle. They didn’t care what had happened – just that the creatures were gone. Everyone was happy. Religious belief rose. There were prayers and parades in the streets, for Christsakes.
“But still, we kept looking. Even the underground demons, the ones who hadn’t caused any trouble. Dead. Even the white witches were...” The woman’s voice caught. “Slaughtered. Only a dozen or so of the elders across the globe survived. Tania... do you remember Tania? She was a friend of mine. She was... I found… she didn’t escape it.” Tears suddenly rose, and the woman fought hard to force them down again. She hated crying in front of him, even if he wasn't listening.
The woman forced herself to move on. “And then, after a full year of silence. After a full year of peace. The breach.”
The woman stopped. She put a hand to her face, and closed her eyes. Without thinking, the hand left her face and found Joel’s shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. A flash of memory shot through her head – a sunny field, and blue sky. Joel, cupping the head of a small withered flower in his hands, grinning softly as it returned to life.
The woman opened her eyes, and took a deep rattling breath. “Oh, God. We really need you now. Wake up. Please.”
There’s something wrong. I can feel it. A prickling unease oozing through the nothing of my mind.
The earthy woman comes to me. She smiles, beckoning me forward. “Wake up, Joel.”
I hear a gasp, in my voice. My mind jolts. Lights spreads through my head.
“Wake up, Joel.” She’d fading away as the blinding white takes over. I try to call out to her, to tell her to stay, but I can’t.
I feel something on my shoulder. A hand.
My shoulder? My body... I...
“Wake up, Joel.”
Twisted Black Roses · Sat Sep 19, 2009 @ 08:46pm · 0 Comments |
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Years are gone. Maybe decades. I just don’t know anymore.
I don’t remember names, but I remember faces. Hundreds of them, thousands. They flash by in a steady stream, each and every one blurred in pain and fear, their screams always shrilling at fever pitch. If I were human, I would have lost my mind already.
But then there’s the woman, earthy and warm, wearing clothing from another time. She is the one that comes to me most often, and the only one who smiles. She speaks a forgotten language, one that I myself can barely recall.
She appears from time to time, whenever I feel I can’t take it anymore. She smiles at me, and I try to smile back. Then, I see her inevitable end, forced to watch her pretty face freeze into the identical terror of the others, sinking back into the screaming swarm until she is unrecognizable from the others.
I don’t know who she was, and more than any of the other faces, I’m sorry that I was the one to cause her pain. So ******** sorry, but what difference does it make?
March 7th, 2082. 7:13 pm.
Darla Andreev pushed out of the stifling air of the diner, sweat collected on her brow from the crammed, over-heated environment.
She’d entered the joint by recommendation of a friend – one she’d surely not trust again – dressed appropriately for the chilly March weather, but found herself peeling back layers as people bumped and jostled her from all sides. She’d wanted nothing more than to dash outside with her greasy food, and down it in the cool of the street - but squeezing through the crowd proved more difficult than sitting in it.
Now, as she strode down the sidewalk, she treated herself to deep breaths of cool night air, wool coat still over her arm, letting the frustrated heat evaporate into the dark.
This was her favourite time of the day – the tantalizing bite of night air mixing with the glowing traces of day. Darla took steady strides down the sidewalk, high-heeled boots clicking like a drumbeat, feeling her muscles relax, the agitated crease between her brows smoothing.
She tilted her face towards the sky, watching the CN tower flash cheery colours overhead, spotlights dancing between the faint stars. This is home, she thought. This is where I belong.
Life had been difficult for most of Darla’s life. People had changed – the world had changed. Something like hell had been unleashed on gasping and defenseless children. No one could possibly have been prepared when things only from the wildest imagination became flesh, and brought down their fires on the Earth.
But still, humanity endured. Scrambling, screaming, but still with uncanny instinct for survival. Still, they did not escape unscathed. For life, a price was paid.
Darla’s grandmother spoke of a time before this all – a time when all was as it should have been. So many people! Billions of them, she said. Living, thriving, walking the night without fear. There were flowers, trees, animals...
The night. The night used to mean so much – yield so many possibilities. But now? It was snatched from them, and ruled by the frightening dark.
Darla shook herself from her thoughts. She was young in the last city in the world capable of a little fun. Lights still flashed in the sky, people still laughed with the sun on their faces. Who could ask for more?
The smell of food poured into the streets, and Darla let it all wash over her, easily restoring her optimism. She couldn’t help but glance into every restaurant window, melancholy over all the food she could have enjoyed tonight instead. She felt like she’d wasted her evening... but was more determined than ever to redeem it.
Darla glanced at her watch. She had a good hour and a half left before lights out. Her eyes scoured the streets for the perfect way to enjoy herself.
There were clubs, places Darla knew well and could list the quality, atmosphere and available booze of each and every one. She spent many of her evenings here – a horrible dancer, but completely proud of it. Tripping over her own feet also brought many a helpful man to her arm.
She loved these places like her own home, particularly the exclusive Azrael on Woodland Road. These were the places where Toronto thrived to its fullest, and places where the gloom and doom of the modern day disappeared for a while. But they were rarely places she visited solo. People had become dangerous. Life… was dangerous.
Whatever they put me on... I still wonder about it. It’s amazing that they finally found something that could contain me – but I suspect they had a fair amount of time to come up with it. A half-century at the very least.
It’s a miracle drug, casting my mind from my body and locking it away. I could think, but I couldn’t do, and soon I became so detached that I no longer felt my body is a part of me. I know this should be maddening, but a large chunk of my brain urges me not to care.
I wonder if I’m insane yet... and I wonder if I’d be able to tell.
They started lowering the dosage. I could feel it, if not see it. They’re scared that they’ve shoved me over the edge, and I’m not coming back. Whatever monster I am, I’m still their little science project, the closest to divine power they’re ever going to get on Earth. They want that power, whether to control or worship it, that’s their prerogative. The former is wishful thinking, the latter is futile and bordering on Satanism.
Either way, they don’t want me gone. They’re trying to ease me back into their reach, leaving out a breadcrumb trail of regained power... but really? I don’t think I want to come back.
7:56 pm.
Darla circled around the four block area she frequented, seeking a place spend her last few hours in the nightlife, but nothing seemed to catch her interest tonight. Still, she kept walking, growing increasingly agitated as the light faded, and the evening slipped away. If she returned home now, this night would be an unforgiving failure after a horrible day.
She glanced at her watch, and frowned. The hour was nearing a close, and she’d have little time before the city curfew set in. Already, people were bidding hurried goodbyes and hustling away, giving themselves a safe chunk of time before they had to be home. The neon signs in store windows began to flicker off as their owners closed up shop, adding to the settling gloom.
Darla plopped down on a sidewalk bench, knowing she’d wasted precious time. There was nothing left but to go home and board up for the night.
She heaved a sigh, and picked herself off. If she went now, she could walk leisurely and get home with time to spare. Might as well.
Darla was two-thirds home when she spotted the glowing lights of a convenience store – seemingly the only one still open. She started towards it, then stopped, with another glance at her watch. Could she make it?
Sure, she thought. Plenty of time.
And so Darla set off for a chocolate bar to condole her crappy night.
It was as she was crossing the street that it happened. A stupid thing – something that happened all the time, but no one ever thought it would to them. She saw the headlights, she heard the squeal of the tires. A moment after she’d realized what was going to happen, it did, and she was flying.
She wasn’t killed, not even badly hurt - just skimmed and shell-shocked. But all that mattered was the moment her skull connected with the pavement, and the crushing dark that settled into her mind. The dark that kept her from running home with everyone else as the final minutes ticked away.
When Darla came to, she opened her eyes to a new kind of darkness. The city was plunged into shadows, every light off, every window boarded up tight. No dogs barked, no people laughed. The empty streets rang with silence.
No, she thought, scrambling to her feet, her palms bleeding but gone unnoticed. No. NO!
Her head swung - from the blow, from her own terror.
She'd the missed the curfew. She'd missed the last half-hour countdown, the final hysterical rush for home, the siren and loudspeaker warnings. Instead of being holed up in a house that could have survived a nuclear holocaust, she was out in the streets where no one would open their doors.
Could she run? Hide? Would she have time?
All Darla could hear was her own frantic breathing, as crushing, binding panic set in. Her wide eyes searched for... something, anything. A unexpected shelter. A selfless good Samaritan. An act of God. Anything. Anything!
A phrase came to her suddenly, a phrase so clichéd and laughable, its meaning had dulled. But now it hit her with painful force because tonight, it was true.
All hope is lost.
Twisted Black Roses · Sat Sep 19, 2009 @ 08:26pm · 0 Comments |
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A Different Kind of Angel |
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The night is not a place for you, child
Stay in your sunshine, your happy, your home
Do not go willing to darkened places
There is more to this world than you wish to know
Time moves slowly here. A meaningless blur, dripping by like molasses. I don’t remember any day from the previous. I live my life like an outsider, watching my own time slip by. I stopped counting days a long time ago. I don’t know what day, what month, what year it is. I don’t know my own age.
I suppose I’ll die here. But that will be a long time from now, and in the meantime, I’m still here. Slowly rotting.
I live here without thinking - without caring. The things that used to mean the world to me... now mean nothing. I feel a faint stitch of panic far down inside me, fear of losing my last thread connecting me to the human world. It twitches, and it aches, and then it's consumed and replaced by calm indifference.
There was a time when I couldn’t stand this place. I’d scream, thrash, break down into my little episodes causing damage. I’d try to escape. I’d hate the staff for keeping me here, and I’d hate Them for putting me here. That hate had brought up things I’d fought hard to control. People had gotten hurt.
And then suddenly, the crushing waves of rage had stopped. It might be the drugs. They never told me what it was. Tranquilizers? Something strong. Something special, just for someone like me. Whatever it is, it works. I don’t have episodes anymore. I don’t get angry, I don’t get sad. I haven’t been happy for a long time, so that wasn’t much of a loss. I’ve stopped caring – about anything, or anyone. It’s much better this way.
In time, I’ll forget who I am, what I’ve done, why I’m here. I’ll sink into a blissful nothing. I’m already halfway there.
The world will forget Joel Ridley, and the destruction he left in his wake. They’ll have a deep wound to heal over, but time heals all. And we have time.
March 7th, 2082. 6:50 pm
The woman strode down the hall with stiff legs, arms held closely to her sides. Her eyes locked straight ahead, fearful of making even the briefest contact with the people who lined the walls.
She donned a sleek navy suit, her auburn hair pulled tightly back in a professional bun. She carried the air of an aristocrat, which contrasted with her athletic form. She was obviously uncomfortable in her surroundings and the people that came with it – walking faster than necessary, taking special care not to touch anything.
She’d entered the building into a cheery reception area, bright with evening sun, marred only by the heavily locked steel door to the right. Cutting off the receptionist’s greeting with a flash of her ID, the woman gained entry to the hall behind the door.
The hall started out just as cheery as the reception room, large (though barred) windows lining the walls between room doors. Patients in off-white milled around outside the rooms, chatting and seeming almost normal.
Five minutes and another barred door later, the atmosphere went downhill.
Windows shrunk, walls pressed together, and the air turned stale. Wild eyes stared through slots in the doors, and the laughter bouncing off the walls was more crazed than cheery.
The woman shivered in the sudden drop of temperature, her mind flickering to the jacket she'd left in the backseat of her car. She could almost see her breath rising from her mouth.
The walk was silent for minutes. The woman's hand squeezed at the handle of her leather briefcase nervously. The end of the hall seemed nowhere in sight.
Finally, as another door came into view, so did a lone, hunched figure. He shuffled along towards the woman, muttering under his breath. “Death. Death inside.”
The woman kept wary eyes on the man, shifting her briefcase to her other hand, out of this newcomer's reach.
As the patient reached the woman, he stopped, turning towards her suddenly with a raised fist. She gasped, stepping back involuntarily, her back hitting the wall.
The man tracked her face through a curtain of greasy hair. "Scared of me?" he growled. "There are worse things here. Death behind these walls."
He raised a hand to her face, running a finger down her cheek. She shuddered, turning her face away.
The man stepped closer. She could smell his sour breath on her face. "I'll tell you what you should be afraid of, little girl." His rough hand found her throat, and grabbed hold with a rough jerk.
The woman's face burned, her ears pounding with a sudden rush of adrenaline. Her hand found her pocket and stealthily slipped inside, gripping cold, slim metal. This man was strong, but she could be faster. She pulled out the blade, heard the soft snikt as it slid open. She tightened her grip, ready to swing upwards, then--
"Get away from there!" A new voice. Hurried footsteps.
The patient was distracted for a split second, his grip loosening, allowing the woman to shove away from him. She turned to see a doctor hurrying towards them. He halted a few feet from them, the patient and him frozen in a silent standoff.
"You should be in your room, Moscovitz," the doctor finally said. He had snowy white hair, neatly cropped, and a matching beard. Though he was of slight build, he carried himself in quiet authority.
The patient looked back with a defiant expression. "I don't feel like going to my room, doctor. I don't think I will."
The doctor grimaced slightly. He muttered something under his breath, and sliced his palm through the air. The patient suddenly stiffened, and just as suddenly began walking away, swinging his arms like a toy soldier.
The doctor approached the woman, who was still plastered against the wall. "I'm sorry about that," he said. "We’re having a bit of trouble with the patients tonight. Restless bunch. I’ve been rushing around all evening.”
The woman took a deep breath, brushing at her clothing. "It was nothing."
"Really, I'm sorry. Moscovitz here is a little disobedient. We were sure he was in his room."
The woman shrugged distractedly, eyes on the retreating patient. "I should be going. Business to take care of."
A nod. "Yes. You're the woman from... well, that company. I know where you're headed. I'll escort you if you like."
"Alright."
They set off in silence, through another hall with no windows at all. Somewhere in the distance, the woman could hear horrible shrieking. She forced herself to ignore it.
They reached another massive door, this one thicker than the other, towering up to the ceiling. There were no locks and bolts on this one, just a huge slab of smooth metal. A sign on the left wall read Special Treatment.
They stopped outside.
"I don't know why you people want to bother with this one," said the doctor. "He's been unresponsive for years. We've been lowering the dosage of his treatment steadily over the months, but still. Nothing."
The woman's expression didn't change. She recited the words the Boss had said. "He might respond to a familiar face."
"Oh, I don't know about that. His mind... he seems to be completely detached. Withdrawn from his physical self."
Something like uncertainty clawed at the woman's stomach. She locked eyes with the doctor. "We have to try."
The doctor shrugged. "Well, have a go if you want. I'll be in the third ward." He muttered something again, and the door rose from the ground with a clang, retreating into the ceiling.
The woman blinked in the sudden white light that engulfed the hall, momentarily blind. She paused, arms outstretched, trying to blink away the spots dancing in front of her eyes. When they finally cleared, she stepped forward into the final room. The door slammed shut, sealing her in.
The room was no larger than seven feet each direction. The floor, the walls and the ceiling, all padded with thick white material. A deafening silence hung in the air.
The only colour in the room was the man’s shock of golden hair, hanging limp around a paper-white face. He sat on a small cot at the far wall of the room, done up in a complex straightjacket. Strange metallic ribbons slithered like snakes up and down his arms, binding him to his cot.
Familiar violet-grey eyes lay open, bloodshot and unseeing. He didn't notice the woman. He barely seemed to breathe.
The woman’s heart broke instantly. His appearance shocked her, a far cry from the vitality that had once shone from him. He was still young, but solitude and some unknown torment had done its damage. This man was a stranger – a shadow, a living dead man.
It took full minutes before she recovered her voice. “Joel?”
He did not respond. They had warned her off this – she’d known that he might not even remember who she was. Still, she'd let unreasonable hope slip into her mind. So sure that their closeness would have stood up to all those years.
“Joel? It’s me.” Her voice came out too high-pitched, little a small girl. She cleared her throat, battling down her rising emotions. Disgusted at herself for weakening so easily. “Do you remember me?”
No response. They were too late, she thought with a pang of fear. He was already gone.
She forced herself to get a grip and be professional. She tried again.
“Joel... listen. We need you back.”
Twisted Black Roses · Sat Sep 19, 2009 @ 08:24pm · 0 Comments |
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