Silent Ground: Part 1

by Quil Carter

  Oh fuck, Sasha cried. Oh, fuck. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

  ‘Don’t make me tell you again,’ Kheva’s voice growled, a voice so clear he was sure Kheva was speaking it out loud and not just inside of his head. ‘You will never earn my trust again if you fail me tonight. Remember that, nightcrawler.’

  Sasha’s eyes closed tight, his shoulders trembling and his hand grasping the whip hard.

  ‘Remember––and don’t forget.’

  With a cry, Sasha’s eyes snapped open. He turned to the chained man, staring up at him in fear and false hope, raised his arm into the air.

  Then Sasha struck him with the whip.

  The man screamed, the blow leaving a strip of red on his shoulder. He ducked his head down between his outstretched arms, and attempted to shield himself.

  Sasha raised his arm and struck him again, and again, and again. With Kheva standing beside him, a satisfied smirk on his face, Sasha rained blow after blow down on the screaming man, creating bleeding lacerations that made his shoulders and back look like claw marks from a large cat.

  At first, Sasha’s eyes stung with tears, the guilt consuming him and making him want to scream that he was sorry. But soon Sasha found that every contact the whip made with the prisoner’s skin, every hallowed shriek that echoed throughout the empty garage, there was a small shred of him that was enjoying the pain he was inflicting on this defenseless creature.

  It was small, but it was there.

  And Sasha knew that once the adrenaline wore off, he’d be consumed with guilt.

  But for now, he let that shred glow bright inside of him, and continued to mercilessly whip the screaming man.

  The screams… why am I getting so much satisfaction, so much pleasure from making him scream like this? I’m dominating him––and I love it.

  What’s wrong with me?

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  Kheva smiled at the scene, the club he was holding smacking against his palm. He began to pace around Sasha and the man who cowered below him, drinking in the scene with bright eyes that absorbed every movement and reaction coming from both the punisher and the victim.

  Then he raised his hand, and Sasha stopped.

  The man sobbed, his brutalized body in a twisted heap. His eyes were shut tight, his arms covering his head. The lacerations that Sasha had made were collecting blood, but only some were openly bleeding; the others stretched across the man’s skin like ruby necklaces, the blood pooling and shining from the bright lighting above.

  Kheva’s smile turned almost proud, then his eyes lifted from the unfortunate prisoner to focus on Sasha. “Make him scream some more, nightcrawler,” Kheva said. “I want to see just what you can do with that head of yours.” He stepped back then, the club still smacking against the palm of his hand.

  Sasha nodded, the hesitation he was feeling now gone. The prisoner made a pleading noise then, his head continuing to shake back and forth as if it were a tick more than a visceral plea.

  “Don’t do this,” he cried weakly, the whites of his eyes making two crescent shapes as he looked up at Sasha. “You don’t have to do what he says.”

  Yes, I do.

  Sasha drew up his abilities, that control panel in his mind that he could pull from Silent Ground.

  He’s my master.

  And an enemy of him…

  …is an enemy of mine.

  Sasha saw the beacon of the prisoner right in front of him, and for the first time he realized just how different they were from a nightcrawler’s. Whereas Kheva’s was bright and powerful, a living sun amongst a dark universe, the beacon of a normal human was a grey light, a pathetic disruption in the air that added nothing and took nothing. It was only existing, barely that, and it seemed so frail, Sasha almost expected it to die at any moment.

  It was… fascinating. Sasha walked around it, prodding it with his mind to see what would happen. He almost expected to fully be able to see this man’s thoughts, to be able to control him like a puppet, but on further examination, the frail grey was like a thick putty, hard to infiltrate, a hardened mass that was merely existing.

  Kheva chuckled. “I told you,” he said with amusement. “They’re different from nightcrawler’s aren’t they? Do you understand why now?”

  Sasha nodded. “I do,” he said. “We’re like clear water; they’re full of muck.”

  “Indeed,” Kheva agreed. He walked to Sasha and stood beside him. “It’ll take a lot of training for you to be able to enter them, and even more to control and cause them pain. But he’ll be good practice, and I am going to need you soon. Very soon. Put everything into hurting him. Everything, nightcrawler.”

  Another nod. Sasha took in a deep breath, his eyes seeing the grey matter instead of the pleading man, and pushed his energy into this grey beacon, trying to force any disruption he could from it.

  Kel’s seemed so simple to disrupt now. But this man? How can a weak human be so immune to the most powerful men in the world?

  “Even the most fluent speaker of the English language wouldn’t be understood by those who only speak German,” Kheva replied. “It’s merely another language you will learn. I’ll teach you, once I feel you’re ready.”

  Then there was a yelp. Sasha pulled back and his eyes returned to reality. He looked to the prisoner, and found himself smiling when he saw a spring of blood now dripping down the man’s nose.

  “That’s what I was looking for,” Kheva said with a chuckle. Then, strangely, he paused with the smile still on his face.

  And it widened. “He heard you,” he said.

  Stranger still… the prisoner let out a disheartened cry, and buried his face into his arms.

  Kheva chuckled at this, then, so quickly Sasha could only gasp and flinch away, Kheva raised the club he was holding and slammed it down onto one of man’s arms.

  The crack of bone echoed on the walls, and even Sasha gasped and put a hand over his mouth. For a brief moment, the prisoner was silent, slowly unfolding his arms, but then the shock wore off and the pain hit him… and he howled.

  Kheva dropped the club and reached into his pocket. While the prisoner sobbed, clutching his broken arm to his chest, Kheva leaned down and unlocked the padlock that was chaining the man to the truck engine.

  The chains fell to the ground loudly. The man looked down at them, his red, swollen eyes confused, then he sniffed and looked up at Kheva.

  “Run,” Kheva said lowly. He took the cigarette from his mouth, down to the filter now, and flicked it away. “Run as fast as you can.”

  The man whimpered. “You’re going––”

  “RUN!” Kheva suddenly yelled, making even Sasha jump high up into the air. The man then scrambled to his feet, his breathing just gasping cries, and with no last parting glances, he shot towards the open door and disappeared into the night.

  The smile returned to Kheva’s face. He leaned down and put the club back into the duffle bag, then took the whip back from Sasha and placed it there too. With a casual air, Kheva zipped the bag, picked it up and swung it over his shoulder.

  And he walked to the garage’s side door and he too went into the dark night.

  Sasha followed, not a word said. As soon as he was out in the cold night, he looked towards the dirt road and saw the naked prisoner stumbling down it, his hands clasped around his body and his whimpering cries visible.

  Kheva casually sauntered over to the truck and threw the duffle bag into the back, then he headed towards the road.

  “Follow,” Kheva called. Sasha obeyed, and sprinted towards Kheva until they were walking side by side.

  “Tell me where he is,” Kheva commanded. “He’s close. Locate him.”

  Sasha knew he didn’t mean the prisoner. Kheva… Kheva was using that man as some sort of lure. The nightcrawler he was trying to attract… Sasha had no idea who he was, but apparently, he’d pissed off the wrong person.

  Was that why Nik and Sterling had visited Kheva? Because he had lo
cated the person that Kheva had wanted to find?

  And as Sasha walked beside Kheva, the Master’s strides long and his pace quick, he felt a familiarity to what he was doing. He was walking down a lonely dirt road, the moon shining above them, in the middle of the night.

  But no longer was he the prey being stalked. This time…

  …this time he was the predator.

  “Feels nice, doesn’t it?” Kheva said in a cold whisper. “To finally be the hunter instead of the hunted?”

  Sasha looked ahead, the stumbling silver figure still visible in the far distance but quickly becoming swallowed by the night. There was shame inside of him for feeling it, but it did feel good. He hated himself for it, he should’ve done something to help. That man was innocent, his only mistake getting involved with someone Kheva had a vendetta against, but there was no denying how he was feeling. It was a lot harder to deny your own inner emotions when you had an audience watching.

  “Yeah,” Sasha said breathlessly. “It does.” He drew up his abilities then and stepped far back into his mind, to the dark corner they called Silent Ground.

  But then Kheva grabbed his arm. “You don’t need to retreat so far back,” he instructed. “Make your abilities come to you, that way you’ll still be able to see the world around you, or some variation of it. Drag your abilities from Silent Ground to the fronts of your mind and look for him there. You’re advanced enough that you should only need Silent Ground when you need to enter someone’s head or converse with us.”

  He felt Kheva’s presence inside of his mind, and like he was helping Sasha pull a rope, they both pulled up that intangible control panel to the front of Sasha’s mind.

  Sasha drew up that strange ability, one that he could only describe as a search function.

  He was pleased and proud of himself when the world around him dimmed, but he could still see the road, the trees, and the silver moon shining above him.

  “This is kind of like what you did on that cliff,” Sasha whispered. “Your Silent Ground looked like the spot we were standing in in reality, but you tweaked it slightly to make it your own.”

  Sasha looked over and saw Kheva as a brilliant white light, but then found that with a slight alteration, the beacon melted back into Kheva so he was back to his physical form.

  Kheva nodded. “Yes, everything can be manipulated,” he said. “There’s a thousand ways to do a thousand things in your own mind. Your mind is like clay, nightcrawler, and with training, you can make the entire world, even your own physical self, mouldable as well.” He looked ahead. “Project yourself, find the nightcrawler. He’s coming and quickly.”

  Sasha, still walking side by side with Kheva, pushed his mind out, and like they were little tendrils, small feelers that could touch and analyze everything, they shot forward and swept the area around them. Sasha pushed past the prisoner, stumbling and crying with his arm throbbing from pain, and sped down the road like he himself was in a vehicle.

  He carried on, seeing nothing but darkness. However, the farther he got, the more he began getting the hang of what he was doing. It was like literally searching for a glowing needle in a haystack, but instead of using his own weak eyes to find it, he was a bloodhound.

  But there was also a drawback, the further Sasha looked, the weaker he could feel his tracking. It was difficult for him to use these abilities long distances.

  “The more powerful you become, the further you’ll be able to go,” Kheva explained beside him. “He’s coming towards us, you’ll––”

  Then, like a burst of sun over a world of eternal night, Sasha saw him. Far off in the distance, but he was there.

  Sasha’s senses suddenly flooded. He felt fear, obsessive worry and guilt, and anger… Oh the anger.

  That anger, the most potent emotion of them all, was focused solely on Kheva.

  “I found him!” Sasha hissed. He felt Kheva’s tendrils follow his own like a yellow brick road, and beside him he heard the Master let out a low laugh.

  “Good boy,” Kheva growled, his voice suddenly plunging to dark rolling waters. “Pull back, quickly.”

  Like an elastic band snapping after too much tension, Sasha’s tendrils pulled back, the force of the quick exit making his body physically jump.

  The muted darkness that had covered the forest disappeared instantly, and the force of full-blown reality, the cold air, the sore muscles in his arm, even the old wounds he’d acquired back at Ciel Lake, hit him like a punch in the face.

  Sasha gasped and held his chest. “Wow,” he whispered. “Coming back takes some––” His mouth clamped shut when Kheva raised a hand, and he looked at the Master for further instruction.

  But in that silence, Sasha picked up a noise…

  … it was a vehicle engine.

  And that was quickly followed by screaming from the prisoner.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Gavin!” the prisoner screamed, and sobs carried on the night air. “GAVIN!” The last one was a hysterical shriek, one so unhinged it could’ve only been drawn from a man who’d been tortured by Kheva Swift.

  Kheva’s hand grasped Sasha’s arm again and they both ran off of the road and into the woods. Moments after concealing themselves behind a grove of trees, Sasha saw headlights flood the lonely silver-lit road.

  This night, it reminded him so much of the first time he’d ever met Kheva and Kel. That was him wandering on the road, but he’d been going for a casual walk after needing some air and a break from waiting in Jobe’s car.

  Now, Sasha was the predator. He was the nightcrawler stalking his prey, and he felt so alive in his moment he thought his feet would lift off of the ground. Either that, or he’d go into full predator mode and pounce on top of the prisoner and go for the throat.

  ‘Walk quietly,’ Kheva said inside of Sasha’s head; the yellow in his eyes soaking up the light the headlights were giving off. ‘Stay close to me.’

  Sasha nodded, then turned when the noise of the truck’s engine began to slow. While he walked with Kheva along the inner belt of the trees, he saw the dark silhouette on the road, drowning, but not fully, the cries of the prisoner as he spoke rapidly.

  A break in the trees then gave him a clearer view. A man who appeared to have medium-length dark hair and some trimmed facial hair, was holding the crying, naked man in his arms. His eyes were scanning the treeline, going in all directions, but they didn’t focus on them.

  There was something else Sasha was sensing too… and he immediately responded to the intangible presence of a nightcrawler by dimming down the beacon of light that he knew the other nightcrawler could sense.

  ‘I’ve already dimmed you,’ Kheva said, his voice was low and calm, but the Master’s already gravelly tones had picked up even more friction. ‘But that will be your first reaction when you sense them. Quiet yourself, then call me. No matter where you are, or how far away you are from me, those are your orders.’

  Okay, Sasha said, and even though he was talking to Kheva inside of his own mind, still he whispered.

  ‘Prepare yourself,’ Kheva said quietly. ‘When I give you an order, you will obey me. You’re past threats now, Sasha.’

  Holy shit, he called me Sasha, not nightcrawler.

  ‘––So obey me to the letter.’

  I will. I will do whatever you want me to do.

  ‘You fucking traitor,’ Rob hissed. ‘You fucking shit-eating traitor!’

  Kheva’s eyes widened, and his jaw set. ‘I have no time to deal with you,’ he said venomously. ‘I’d run and hide now, parasite.’

  ‘You should be the one running and hiding, Mr. Madden.’

  Sasha’s teeth clenched. He dove inside of his mind to search for Rob to shut him up, but when he began to look around, furious that Rob would disrupt him at a time like this, Kheva grabbed Sasha and pulled him back to reality.

  And then the Master began to walk towards the truck, the dark-haired man, called Gavin by the prisoner, helping the naked prisoner s
lowly walk to the passenger side of the truck.

  Kheva’s pace quickened and soon they were sprinting through the forest. Sasha’s boots crunched against broken sticks, slipped on moss-covered branches, and buckled from the occasional rock, but he managed to remain standing when Kheva slowed down. The Master didn’t stop however, once slowed, he turned and began heading towards the road, a smooth transition from forest to dirt road, not even a slight incline or a ditch.

  Sasha followed, but Kheva raised a hand, signalling Sasha to stop. ‘Stay hidden,’ he instructed. ‘You’ll know when to emerge.’

  Sasha did as he was told, excitement electrifying his blood. There wasn’t an ounce of fear inside of him, he knew he had nothing to fear when he was with Kheva. The man was just… something else.

  “Gavin,” he said, bells of amusement affixed to each octave. “I knew the shark would follow the bait.” Sasha looked towards the truck and saw the man with the dark hair close the passenger door with a glaring look, his lips pulling back against locked teeth, anger clear in his eyes. He then stalked around the front of the truck, the anger accelerating to a lethal level, and stood on the edges of the headlight beams.

  And for the first time, Sasha got a good look at the man.

  I recognize him, he whispered to himself. Why do I recognize him?

  He was sure he’d seen that man someplace. But where?

  Sasha waited for Kheva to answer him, only to realize he could no longer feel his presence. The Master had untuned himself from Sasha’s mind.

  “How did you find me? How did you fucking find him?” Gavin growled, his entire body was glowing in the headlights. A black jacket over a white shirt, and black pants. Even seeing him in full light couldn’t pinpoint just where Sasha had seen this person before. “You’ll tell me who betrayed me, or I will have you pinned underneath me.”

  Kheva suddenly flinched, but whereas Sasha looked on with alarm, the Master only chuckled. “That’s really all you have? How embarrassing for you.”

  Was… Gavin attacking Kheva’s mind?