07-09-2019, 12:57 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-10-2019, 08:29 PM by Jay Carpenter.)
((uh, everyone moded with permission. Otherwise this would take a year to get through.))
The terror of chaos sewn, Zacarías ran through the burning building, seeking his daughter's silhouette in every room. Her watch led the way, but the smoke jumbled her signal. Sweat poured from his brow, and wet rings darkened his collar. Ash clotted his throat as he feared the worst.
A gunshot. He halted, eyes wide as moons. Turning, he sprinted, toward the sound, only to slide to his knees at the doorway. A girl's hand lay limp, fingernails decorated blue and silver unicorns. The hair, black as midnight, matted to tangles of congealing blood. Strings of his mother's tongue poured from his soul as he grappled her body close. How? Why!? He demanded angrily, but Alana's silence was deafening.
Then he sought her killers, and the devil within sprang to his eyes. He'd crush their skulls with his own hands. A daughter for a daughter: he rushed. Screams pulsed the air, hands thrown in tangles as the stronger of them grappled Cayli's wrist, wrenching her into his chest. His arms snaked her throat, crushing and squeezing as though the ferocity would reinvigorate his own child’s lifelessness.
Cayli was lost until a deep voice broke through this circle of hell.
"Drop the kid, Amengual," the voice commanded.
Zacarías paused, finding the end of a rifle aimed his way, but with the little girl held like a shield, he laughed despite himself. "Go ahead Axel, you traitor. Shoot us both and do me the favor. She has a thick skull," he laughed again. There was enough life left in the girl to claw at his arm, but he wrenched her neck aside, teasing her feet toward the door. Axel of course blocked it, and there were no other exits. "Or we can stand here and do nothing while we all burn to death. Either way, I am the victor."
The fucker was right, Axel realized. He had no clear shot without threatening Cayli's life. These rounds would punch right through her ribcage, though and drop the druglord instantly. It would only take a couple. Cayli's pain would be short. His jaw clenched, rifle steady as shoreline against his shoulder. The smoke was too close. His eyes already burned. They'd only have a minute or two left before the future Zacarías described came to pass.
Another night. Another girl was held hostage by another Amengual. That time the rifleman was Carpenter and Axel the witness. He remembered the moment that a flicker of hesitation flamed Jay's brow from the heartless meatsack of an operator to a human-fucking being. One shot ruined all their lives, Axel's included, and the loyalty of brotherhood was decimated. Now, he found himself in the same position, but this time the shot would be his salvation. He told himself not to look them in the eyes. Men, women, children: didn't matter. They were obstacles and enemies, not people. Not daughters or sisters or friends. Something to remove.
He silently told Cayli he was sorry, and refused to see the tears welling her eyes, when he realized a voice broke the demons wrapping his mind.
"Axel! You might get your beach, but you'll never find the peace you want," the preacher's voice stabbed knives in his mind, and Axel glanced the barest angle at his side. The man was nodding emphatically like he really believed Axel to be capable of something heroic.
Amengual saw his opening, and shoved Cayli into them. Axel caught her while the enemy sprinted into the smoke. As swiftly as Axel caught Cayli, he shoved her toward Jensen and chased after Amengual, disappearing likewise into the fires of their hell.
With nothing to wrap around his face, he hurried, choking, through the school, following the swirls of movement and the shadows of a silhouette ahead. The exterior door broke floodlight of sunshine and light-blindness, but expecting it, Axel cautiously approached the fresh air. He dropped to a knee, coughing, and searched the exterior yard, but Amengual was nowhere to be seen.
Frowning, he exited carefully, shoulders slumping with defeat, stifling coughs, but the man was gone.
Then he was falling into a spray of red. Concrete slammed his face. He barely looked up to find Amengual standing overhead, and denial gripped the seat of his spine as darkness painted the beaches he'd never see a charcoal black.
Gasps wracked his lungs. Brightness flooded lights into the bowels of a black mind, and Jay bolted upright. His heart raced, his head swirled. Woken from nightmares, he was shaking all over, but with jaw clenched and fists pawing for solid reality. He found golden tresses and pulled them close, burying his face in their downy safety. She was here. She was real. They were real. "I was really sure I was dead that time," he whispered. Slender arms wrapped him, but they jolted stings like a thousand bees stinging all at once. He winced and pulled away just in time to look around.
Jensen stood over Cayli, easing her to her feet. Jay grinned despite the horrors around them, specifically ignoring the dead body at their feet, and drank in the sight of the one still living. Jensen hurried close, but Jay lifted a hand, "I'm fine, preacher. Let me go," and he slipped from his grasp to cuddle up against Cayli. She touched him gently, hesitantly, and Jay looked down to understand why. Maybe he wasn't that okay.
He swallowed, kissing her gently on the top of the head.
Jensen explained, "The only way out is a locked window. The fire is too thick to navigate.” No problem, Jay thought, looking around. It was a simple wall. Be like knocking over a leaning-tower of red solo cups with a ping pong ball. Jay reached outward, only to find a well of nothingness. Memory of a sharp-chinned woman in a white coat returned, and he frowned. Frustrated, Jay grabbed a chair and lifted it like it was a bag of feathers. Funny how a few minutes ago he couldn't stand, now he was throwing furniture. Would have been a handy trick that one time he helped Anna Marie's grandparents move across the county. He thought for sure he was going to collapse from exhaustion by the end of that day. Grandma Marie probably would have not taken kindly to him throwing her chairs, though.
Luckily, before he tossed a chair through what would be a bloody mess of glass, he sensed the radiation of their doom pulsing from the nearby preacher. Funny how that power was such a familiar friend, but also one that wanted to destroy them all at the same time. Shit but he missed it. That was a good sign at least: he could still feel another power user.
"Knock out the wall, Jensen," he said, right as rain despite the red streaking his eyes, and a moment later they all climbed over the debris.
Fresh air and freedom greeted them. Jay was never so happy to see a blue sky and feel the sun sizzle his skin. Actually, he could do without skin sizzling for a while. He smelled like roasted pig. Strange how it hurt to breathe but he felt amazing. He smiled eerily at Natalie, who seemed more concerned than ever, and offered Cayli a hand as she picked her way through rebar and cinderblock. Apparently, there was some sort of car nearby. Jay was all for leaving as soon as possible.
They were steps from the building when an all too familiar chill crept the back of his neck. A moment later, a curtain of black rain fell. He grabbed Cayli, yanking her forward, away from the gunfire. They ducked around a shed. Someone was yelling something, but over his own heartbeat, he couldn't hear. Palms to his eyes, he thought frantically. It had to be Amengual firing at them. Knowing they'd come out the window, the murderer waited, looming and waiting for easy marks.
He peeked around the edge as sprays of wood took the air. Jay winced, but saw enough. "He's alone," Jay said, nothing his location, and seeking a path to safety. "Jensen? Can you take him out? Jensen?" he turned to get the preacher's attention but he was hovering over Cayli, a mass of power sizzling and churning like a storm.
Jay released a tiny hand from his own, finding it red with blood. He held it up, disbelief shooting broken vessels across his already crimson eyes, and looked to Natalie like she held the answers to this confusion.
When Jensen sat hopelessly back upon his knees, Jay crawled around them, oblivious to the pelts hitting the grass at their side, and beheld his baby sister’s. Cayli's eyes were blue glass. Her cheeks porcelain. Golden hair streaked with ash and blood; face frozen with fear. A cry shook the seat of his soul that stole the breath from his lungs. He put his palms to her cheeks. Dipped his forehead to hers. Hands snaked through the mess of hair always forever tangled.
At some point, he found himself on his feet, skin numb, and turned to leave them behind, only for a hand to grip his own. Whether it was Natalie's, Jensen's, or the ghost of Cayli's shell, he didn't know, but the hand stopped him. He tried to hold back the storm breaking within, but everything flashed floods through his mind, sweeping them all away.
The warmth of a watery embrace filled his soul, stitching together what was ripped at the seams, but never quite the same. Jensen’s power receded as he whispered, “he was walking dead, Natalie. I don't understand how he was standing."
Strength infused, the redness washed away. The burns smoothed over. The holes filled. The angry lines tamed to forks across his skin. What was wasted away was reformed, but when the man that was Jay knelt fresh over the body of a girl who deserved every breath Jay stole from fate, it wasn't to ask for forgiveness. He'd never ask such a thing.
He peered around the shed again, but no gunfire sprayed fresh rain. Amengual moved on, knowing they were unreachable, but he was out there, somewhere. Somewhere to hunt.
They found Axel at the front door. Shot in the back. Jay knelt, only to mindlessly take the abandoned rifle and check it for damage. He didn't say goodbye. No mournful moments to remember a life lost. Just another silent promise as he counted the remaining rounds. He spoke to the weapon in his hands, refusing to look anyone else in the eye as he did, "I recommend you go to the car and get out of here if you've seen enough blood today."
He rounded the building like a ghost with a mix of caution and carelessness that promised deadly intent. The first person he saw went down in a flutter of white coat. Another white coat followed. Then a guy in a utility uniform. Hands were thrown up, cries pleading mercy, but they didn't last long.
Finally, they came upon the yard filled with mindless children. There was no hiding. His own gaze skipped from adult to adult, seeking one specifically, but for each that went unrecognized, he shot them down without a second thought. The kids just watched, dozens of witnesses careless to the evil walking among them.
Then she appeared. A woman that flung herself in front of the children with open arms like she was their salvation. "No more!" She demanded. Diaz, Cayli's murdering doctor, hovered behind her shoulder.
He had zero regret sending Diaz to his grave. The woman, though, the director that shot him up with all those drugs in the basement, was another story. She screamed at the sudden noise, hands thrown over her mouth like she was truly horrified that all her doctors and staff were dead. She was the last one. Her and her broken victims.
Jay lowered the rifle and closed the space between them in seconds. She backed away, but he caught her up and locked her in the same grip Amengual once held Cayli. The same grip from which Jay liberated Alana all those years ago. She struggled and squirmed. Jay wondered what Natalie and Jensen would think, but his world was already filled with darkness. Another shadow made no difference.
"What did you give me?" he asked.
"I won't tell you," she sputtered, and Jay's grip tightened.
"Tell me and I won't break your neck."
She was silent, not because her throat was crushing, but because she finally came to the right decision: "A serum that blocks the channeling sensors in your brain."
Smart girl choosing life. "How do I reverse it?" he asked.
"You can't," she replied, and panic gripped his chest. "But it will wear off in a day or so. That's why it had to be continuously administered." He glanced outward while the woman twisted and writhed. All those children wore a matching device. Continuously administered. That's why they wanted Cayli. To experiment on her. Diaz wasn't giving her different cancer drugs, he was giving her different channeler blocks to find the one that made it permanent. Maybe--apparently-- they succeeded.
He shoved the director to her freedom, but when she stumbled to her knees, he raised the rifle at her back. He promised he'd not break her neck. One of many promises he'd made that day.
Empty eyes followed the woman to the ground, only to turn to those whom remained on their feet for guidance. Empty gazes sought him out, but there was nothing he could do.
Endless glass eyes.
Endless promises broken.
"I can't save you," he said to the void, chasms snapping inside. Raising the rifle, it ended quickly. They didn't even run.
The only thing that remained was the hot weapon in his hands, and Jay held it carefully a moment longer, seeking the horizon for Amengual just in case he witnessed his death aimed. Behind them the building consumed with flames.
The terror of chaos sewn, Zacarías ran through the burning building, seeking his daughter's silhouette in every room. Her watch led the way, but the smoke jumbled her signal. Sweat poured from his brow, and wet rings darkened his collar. Ash clotted his throat as he feared the worst.
A gunshot. He halted, eyes wide as moons. Turning, he sprinted, toward the sound, only to slide to his knees at the doorway. A girl's hand lay limp, fingernails decorated blue and silver unicorns. The hair, black as midnight, matted to tangles of congealing blood. Strings of his mother's tongue poured from his soul as he grappled her body close. How? Why!? He demanded angrily, but Alana's silence was deafening.
Then he sought her killers, and the devil within sprang to his eyes. He'd crush their skulls with his own hands. A daughter for a daughter: he rushed. Screams pulsed the air, hands thrown in tangles as the stronger of them grappled Cayli's wrist, wrenching her into his chest. His arms snaked her throat, crushing and squeezing as though the ferocity would reinvigorate his own child’s lifelessness.
Cayli was lost until a deep voice broke through this circle of hell.
"Drop the kid, Amengual," the voice commanded.
Zacarías paused, finding the end of a rifle aimed his way, but with the little girl held like a shield, he laughed despite himself. "Go ahead Axel, you traitor. Shoot us both and do me the favor. She has a thick skull," he laughed again. There was enough life left in the girl to claw at his arm, but he wrenched her neck aside, teasing her feet toward the door. Axel of course blocked it, and there were no other exits. "Or we can stand here and do nothing while we all burn to death. Either way, I am the victor."
***
The fucker was right, Axel realized. He had no clear shot without threatening Cayli's life. These rounds would punch right through her ribcage, though and drop the druglord instantly. It would only take a couple. Cayli's pain would be short. His jaw clenched, rifle steady as shoreline against his shoulder. The smoke was too close. His eyes already burned. They'd only have a minute or two left before the future Zacarías described came to pass.
Another night. Another girl was held hostage by another Amengual. That time the rifleman was Carpenter and Axel the witness. He remembered the moment that a flicker of hesitation flamed Jay's brow from the heartless meatsack of an operator to a human-fucking being. One shot ruined all their lives, Axel's included, and the loyalty of brotherhood was decimated. Now, he found himself in the same position, but this time the shot would be his salvation. He told himself not to look them in the eyes. Men, women, children: didn't matter. They were obstacles and enemies, not people. Not daughters or sisters or friends. Something to remove.
He silently told Cayli he was sorry, and refused to see the tears welling her eyes, when he realized a voice broke the demons wrapping his mind.
"Axel! You might get your beach, but you'll never find the peace you want," the preacher's voice stabbed knives in his mind, and Axel glanced the barest angle at his side. The man was nodding emphatically like he really believed Axel to be capable of something heroic.
Amengual saw his opening, and shoved Cayli into them. Axel caught her while the enemy sprinted into the smoke. As swiftly as Axel caught Cayli, he shoved her toward Jensen and chased after Amengual, disappearing likewise into the fires of their hell.
With nothing to wrap around his face, he hurried, choking, through the school, following the swirls of movement and the shadows of a silhouette ahead. The exterior door broke floodlight of sunshine and light-blindness, but expecting it, Axel cautiously approached the fresh air. He dropped to a knee, coughing, and searched the exterior yard, but Amengual was nowhere to be seen.
Frowning, he exited carefully, shoulders slumping with defeat, stifling coughs, but the man was gone.
Then he was falling into a spray of red. Concrete slammed his face. He barely looked up to find Amengual standing overhead, and denial gripped the seat of his spine as darkness painted the beaches he'd never see a charcoal black.
***
Gasps wracked his lungs. Brightness flooded lights into the bowels of a black mind, and Jay bolted upright. His heart raced, his head swirled. Woken from nightmares, he was shaking all over, but with jaw clenched and fists pawing for solid reality. He found golden tresses and pulled them close, burying his face in their downy safety. She was here. She was real. They were real. "I was really sure I was dead that time," he whispered. Slender arms wrapped him, but they jolted stings like a thousand bees stinging all at once. He winced and pulled away just in time to look around.
Jensen stood over Cayli, easing her to her feet. Jay grinned despite the horrors around them, specifically ignoring the dead body at their feet, and drank in the sight of the one still living. Jensen hurried close, but Jay lifted a hand, "I'm fine, preacher. Let me go," and he slipped from his grasp to cuddle up against Cayli. She touched him gently, hesitantly, and Jay looked down to understand why. Maybe he wasn't that okay.
He swallowed, kissing her gently on the top of the head.
Jensen explained, "The only way out is a locked window. The fire is too thick to navigate.” No problem, Jay thought, looking around. It was a simple wall. Be like knocking over a leaning-tower of red solo cups with a ping pong ball. Jay reached outward, only to find a well of nothingness. Memory of a sharp-chinned woman in a white coat returned, and he frowned. Frustrated, Jay grabbed a chair and lifted it like it was a bag of feathers. Funny how a few minutes ago he couldn't stand, now he was throwing furniture. Would have been a handy trick that one time he helped Anna Marie's grandparents move across the county. He thought for sure he was going to collapse from exhaustion by the end of that day. Grandma Marie probably would have not taken kindly to him throwing her chairs, though.
Luckily, before he tossed a chair through what would be a bloody mess of glass, he sensed the radiation of their doom pulsing from the nearby preacher. Funny how that power was such a familiar friend, but also one that wanted to destroy them all at the same time. Shit but he missed it. That was a good sign at least: he could still feel another power user.
"Knock out the wall, Jensen," he said, right as rain despite the red streaking his eyes, and a moment later they all climbed over the debris.
Fresh air and freedom greeted them. Jay was never so happy to see a blue sky and feel the sun sizzle his skin. Actually, he could do without skin sizzling for a while. He smelled like roasted pig. Strange how it hurt to breathe but he felt amazing. He smiled eerily at Natalie, who seemed more concerned than ever, and offered Cayli a hand as she picked her way through rebar and cinderblock. Apparently, there was some sort of car nearby. Jay was all for leaving as soon as possible.
They were steps from the building when an all too familiar chill crept the back of his neck. A moment later, a curtain of black rain fell. He grabbed Cayli, yanking her forward, away from the gunfire. They ducked around a shed. Someone was yelling something, but over his own heartbeat, he couldn't hear. Palms to his eyes, he thought frantically. It had to be Amengual firing at them. Knowing they'd come out the window, the murderer waited, looming and waiting for easy marks.
He peeked around the edge as sprays of wood took the air. Jay winced, but saw enough. "He's alone," Jay said, nothing his location, and seeking a path to safety. "Jensen? Can you take him out? Jensen?" he turned to get the preacher's attention but he was hovering over Cayli, a mass of power sizzling and churning like a storm.
Jay released a tiny hand from his own, finding it red with blood. He held it up, disbelief shooting broken vessels across his already crimson eyes, and looked to Natalie like she held the answers to this confusion.
When Jensen sat hopelessly back upon his knees, Jay crawled around them, oblivious to the pelts hitting the grass at their side, and beheld his baby sister’s. Cayli's eyes were blue glass. Her cheeks porcelain. Golden hair streaked with ash and blood; face frozen with fear. A cry shook the seat of his soul that stole the breath from his lungs. He put his palms to her cheeks. Dipped his forehead to hers. Hands snaked through the mess of hair always forever tangled.
At some point, he found himself on his feet, skin numb, and turned to leave them behind, only for a hand to grip his own. Whether it was Natalie's, Jensen's, or the ghost of Cayli's shell, he didn't know, but the hand stopped him. He tried to hold back the storm breaking within, but everything flashed floods through his mind, sweeping them all away.
The warmth of a watery embrace filled his soul, stitching together what was ripped at the seams, but never quite the same. Jensen’s power receded as he whispered, “he was walking dead, Natalie. I don't understand how he was standing."
Strength infused, the redness washed away. The burns smoothed over. The holes filled. The angry lines tamed to forks across his skin. What was wasted away was reformed, but when the man that was Jay knelt fresh over the body of a girl who deserved every breath Jay stole from fate, it wasn't to ask for forgiveness. He'd never ask such a thing.
He peered around the shed again, but no gunfire sprayed fresh rain. Amengual moved on, knowing they were unreachable, but he was out there, somewhere. Somewhere to hunt.
They found Axel at the front door. Shot in the back. Jay knelt, only to mindlessly take the abandoned rifle and check it for damage. He didn't say goodbye. No mournful moments to remember a life lost. Just another silent promise as he counted the remaining rounds. He spoke to the weapon in his hands, refusing to look anyone else in the eye as he did, "I recommend you go to the car and get out of here if you've seen enough blood today."
He rounded the building like a ghost with a mix of caution and carelessness that promised deadly intent. The first person he saw went down in a flutter of white coat. Another white coat followed. Then a guy in a utility uniform. Hands were thrown up, cries pleading mercy, but they didn't last long.
Finally, they came upon the yard filled with mindless children. There was no hiding. His own gaze skipped from adult to adult, seeking one specifically, but for each that went unrecognized, he shot them down without a second thought. The kids just watched, dozens of witnesses careless to the evil walking among them.
Then she appeared. A woman that flung herself in front of the children with open arms like she was their salvation. "No more!" She demanded. Diaz, Cayli's murdering doctor, hovered behind her shoulder.
He had zero regret sending Diaz to his grave. The woman, though, the director that shot him up with all those drugs in the basement, was another story. She screamed at the sudden noise, hands thrown over her mouth like she was truly horrified that all her doctors and staff were dead. She was the last one. Her and her broken victims.
Jay lowered the rifle and closed the space between them in seconds. She backed away, but he caught her up and locked her in the same grip Amengual once held Cayli. The same grip from which Jay liberated Alana all those years ago. She struggled and squirmed. Jay wondered what Natalie and Jensen would think, but his world was already filled with darkness. Another shadow made no difference.
"What did you give me?" he asked.
"I won't tell you," she sputtered, and Jay's grip tightened.
"Tell me and I won't break your neck."
She was silent, not because her throat was crushing, but because she finally came to the right decision: "A serum that blocks the channeling sensors in your brain."
Smart girl choosing life. "How do I reverse it?" he asked.
"You can't," she replied, and panic gripped his chest. "But it will wear off in a day or so. That's why it had to be continuously administered." He glanced outward while the woman twisted and writhed. All those children wore a matching device. Continuously administered. That's why they wanted Cayli. To experiment on her. Diaz wasn't giving her different cancer drugs, he was giving her different channeler blocks to find the one that made it permanent. Maybe--apparently-- they succeeded.
He shoved the director to her freedom, but when she stumbled to her knees, he raised the rifle at her back. He promised he'd not break her neck. One of many promises he'd made that day.
Empty eyes followed the woman to the ground, only to turn to those whom remained on their feet for guidance. Empty gazes sought him out, but there was nothing he could do.
Endless glass eyes.
Endless promises broken.
"I can't save you," he said to the void, chasms snapping inside. Raising the rifle, it ended quickly. They didn't even run.
The only thing that remained was the hot weapon in his hands, and Jay held it carefully a moment longer, seeking the horizon for Amengual just in case he witnessed his death aimed. Behind them the building consumed with flames.
Only darkness shows you the light.