by Ellen Curtis
“Alexi, they’re half rotted. It’s not gangrene, or some flesh eating disease. He’s experimenting on corpses, making them come back to life. I saw one of them, submersed for two days in a tank of water. Two days. Do you have any idea what a bloated corpse looks like?”
He shook his head, brow furrowing.
“Well soon you’ll get to see one talking. Now mind you, they don’t say much that’s overly pleasant to listen to. Mostly stuff about how they’d like to eat me when Scorpio’s not looking.”
“What do you mean, ‘When he’s not looking?’ He can’t be around all the time, and I haven’t seen any cameras.”
Cassidy stopped walking and turned to face him. “It doesn’t matter if he’s here or not. There are no cameras, but trust me, he’s always watching and he always knows.” Her voice had gotten quite quiet, and fear had sprung into her eyes.
“Then what will happen if he knows I know that they’re all...” He searched for the word. “…undead?”
“Who says he doesn’t want you to know?” Cassidy began walking again.
She came to a door and Alexi was surprised to see that it had a number pad next to it. Cassidy quickly punched in six numbers, and the door opened.
It was dark inside at first, until Cassidy flicked on a light switch. It was then Alexi realized he hadn’t seen any windows since he had woken up. “Are we underground?” he asked.
She nodded curtly.
He looked around and did a double take. They were in a lab, or perhaps a mortuary. A cold stainless steel operating table was in the middle of the room, and various desks, shelves, and workbenches lined most of the room.
Cassidy led him through that room though, and down into a wide hall. It was pitch black, and only when he heard a feral growl did he realize they were walking past cells.
“Casssidyy. We’re sssoo hungryy. Why don’t youu come over closer and let us have a look at youu?”
“Whosee the new one? Food? Is he the food? Massster wouldn’t let us have any todays.” The voices followed them down the hall.
“Stick close and don’t pay any attention to them,” Cassidy muttered. She pushed open another door, and suddenly they stepped into the light again.
They were in a communal shower.
“Hurry up and get clean. There’s a change of clothes waiting for you by the sink. I’ll guard the door.” Cassidy had taken on a brusque, prison guard type persona; and for a brief moment Alexi wondered if he could really trust her.
Still, he did as he was told. There wasn’t much sense arguing when Scorpio might be watching. Alexi shuddered, remembering. They were in a shower, for god’s sake. Wasn’t anything sacred anymore? With that in mind, he shed his ruined clothes in a hurry, not caring when icy water hit his bare skin, and caring even less that he still didn’t really feel clean when he turned the water off. He toweled himself off quickly, practically running toward the pile of clothes, which to his relief, actually fit quite well. “Where are we headed now?”
Cassidy glanced up. She had had her ear to the door, listening, and motioned for him to be silent. After a moment like this, she finally straightened up and regarded him at last. “You’ve made them restless. Seems they think you’re dinner. Through the next door, if you please.” She pointed to another door, leading on from the showers.
Alexi regarded her for a moment, trying to see what had gotten in to her before he went on. He realized it was fear.
-?-
She led him through the tunnel into his room. She hated doing this to him. It was bad enough Scorpio had made her take him here. She hated dealing with demi-gods, mind you, Alexi wasn’t bad. She guessed that had to do with the fact that he still didn’t know. In her opinion, it was better not to.
They crossed the threshold into his room, and once again she felt his eyes on her. It was different than when Scorpio looked at her, that was for sure. When Alexi looked at her, she wasn’t just a piece of meat. Not that that could ever mean anything though. She couldn’t let it, and she knew he never would either, not if he found out who he was.
“So you can sleep here. No one will pester you. Scorpio will come for you when he needs you. I’m in the room down the hall, knock if you need anything. We’ve got internet down here, so you can search up stuff if you want, but he’s got something done to the machines that won’t let you access chat sites or anything where you can upload data. Basically, he’s got nothing enabled on there that will let you go running for help. Not that we’d get any anyway. We’re too far below ground, and the tunnel system is like a labyrinth. I’ll let you get some privacy now.”
Alexi couldn’t find the words to say to her before she turned and left. He was taken aback by her mood swings. Leading him all over the place, she had seemed like some crazy headmistress, and now she was turning into a timid servant, like the kind his ‘parents’ had employed. It was a weird feeling.
Pacing the room, which was slightly larger and much comfier than the previous rooms had been, Alexi felt cold. This ‘brother’ of his most certainly was not normal, and he intended to find out what his deal was. He wanted answers. Following a hunch, he whispered into the silence. “Scorpio, if you really are all seeing like Cassidy said, come here. I want the truth.”
Nothing.
He waited for a minute. “Lousy bugger. I knew it couldn’t be true.”
“Well I beg to differ, little brother. Now what is it you want so desperately from me that you decided to talk into the night like a madman?” Scorpio other worldly voice floated to Alexi’s ears. He spun around to face him.
“How’d you do that?” Alexi yelled crossly. He scowled at Scorpio with contempt, willing answers to flow out of him.
Scorpio just laughed. “I did that, just as you could too, if you bothered to try. All you need to do is open yourself to the possibilities, and they become wide open to you. If mother hadn’t sent you off, maybe you would know that.”
Alexi cringed. He hadn’t expected the last part. “And why would mother have sent me away? To avoid becoming like you?” He asked, his voice shaky and defiant.
“Maybe,” he winked. “Maybe she just wanted you growing up with a human perspective, so you’d identify with them. Unlike me, who she outcast for my ‘un-godly’ behaviour.”
Alexi’s jaw dropped as he began to put two-and-two together. “Wait. Ungodly? Do you mean…?”
“We’re demi-gods brother. And mother seems to think that I’m the bad child.” His eyes were literally sparkling as he watched his brother taking-it-in in amazement.
“So where do we stand? What good is telling me this going to do? What if I find the ability to overthrow you? Where does Cassidy fit into this?” Alexi was shaking as he asked this, voice raised.
From the next room, muffled voices assaulted Cassidy’s peace and quiet. So he finally knew. There was no hope now. He would find the power, just like his brother’s, and his fate would be sealed. Two demi-gods residing on the same planet, let alone in the same city, would certainly be disastrous. She listened harder, catching her name.
“Well, my little Alexi, Cassidy, as you know, is human. She is therefore expendable. Perhaps not to you, though I do believe you will begin to see things my way, but she is expendable to me. Furthermore, she is of little use, so don’t count on her to get you out of this. Remember, I have the upper hand. That’s something she knows, and something those friends of yours, Rochelle and Thomas, knew all too well. A little consolation though, you could save them eventually, if you do enough work for me that would get them the full cure. That’s your choice though. Even then, they might not be to your liking.”
Scorpio’s words hit her like bricks. Expendable. That’s all she was to him. Even after all she had done, after he had hand picked her, she was still just a pawn in his crazy game of chess. What was worse, she knew he was right. Some day, Alexi would see her that way too. Her last chance was to help his friends. They had been the bait, but all a ‘cure’ would provide them was a return
to death. Cassidy knew too well that once one of Scorpio’s projects died, they were nothing more than a corpse, even if they could walk and talk. It was nothing more than a synthetic existence.
She heard Alexi’s door close, and footsteps retreating down the hall toward Scorpio’s room. There was a chance, albeit a small one, that together she and Alexi could take out Scorpio. He would be too powerful for the two of them alone though. They needed help, and getting it would be difficult. She peeked her head out the door and checked if the coast was clear.
That Scorpio was omniscient was actually a bit of an over-cautious lie. He could tune in to conversations, yes, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once. Her plan would require the best of timing. Hurriedly, she dashed towards Alexi’s door, flinging it open; then shutting it tight behind her again.
“Alexi, you have to listen. I have a plan.”
-?-
It was a clear outline, with little room for error. Cassidy would do her part, and Alexi his. Then, they would rendezvous back in time for the ‘big finale’. Neither of them could know if any of it was actually possible. They had to have hope though, Alexi thought. Without it, what chance did they have? Cassidy took one long look at him. He wouldn’t have agreed to the last part anyway, so it was better to trust her instincts. She had for most of her life, and right now, they told her to forget her love for him, and concentrate on saving him, and possibly the rest of the good world. “I’ll be right back, kay? This shouldn’t take too long. If it does though, start without me. You’re the last hope.” She fought back tears, smiling almost convincingly.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek sadly. “You better come back.” He said it as though he knew she wouldn’t, holding her gaze and filling her with his sorrow. Already in her eyes, he had taken on a sort of glow, and she knew she had been wrong about him turning out like Scorpio. When she could take his gaze no more, she tore from the room.
Through the tunnels she ran, through the showers, and straight into the holding cells, locking the door firmly behind her. She flicked on the light, and simultaneously hit another set of switches. The glass of the holding cells opened, as did the door to the lab. She was now the bait, but hopefully it would be enough.
Scorpio sat up in bed, screaming in rage. It was an un-earthly noise. He dreamt of her always, his pet Cassidy, and now she was doing this to him. To them even. Feeding herself to his experiments and trashing his lab. She must have snapped. He had heard a lack of sunlight sometimes did that to humans. Nevertheless, she was his. He propelled his mind towards her and materialized amongst chaos.
Alexi touched the part of his mind he now knew had been kept dormant. The part his true mother had made sure only love could unlock. He could now get there. Into the darkness, he whispered, “I need you now.”, and a pair of bright white wings exploded from his back as the room burned in a white light.
“Mother. I need you now. Your son continues to stray.”
An ethereal being stepped forth. “Then you’ve found it in yourself what needs to be done?” Alexi nodded. “And you’ve made your choice?” Again, he inclined his head. “Then I will give you my help.”
Another light blinded his eyes, and he was released back to Earth.
-?-
The corpses fell, pristine and as undecomposed as they had been the day they were first killed. Cassidy lay in a heap on the floor, no longer attacked by undead animals tearing at her flesh. Blood caked the room, but strangely, it touched neither her, nor one of them. The only evidence in the room of the epic struggle that had taken place was the charred skeleton standing statuesque over the girl, skeletal wings attempting to shield her from the onslaught of dozens of brilliant souls being freed into the sky. In another room, just down the hall, a new demi-god awoke. He was not the hardened and blackened soul that had been sent to Earth as a lesson to himself, but rather he was the one who had been sent to teach love, through adversity in the hardest situations, to himself and others.
Alexi floated through the tunnels, nearing his destination. He glided through the doors that had been blasted open until he came to her. Entering the room, the skeletal angel crumbled into ash, blown away by an unexplained wind. He then went to her, broken on the floor. Gently cradling her in his arms, her eyes flittered open. “How are we even here? I thought I was going to die.” She forced out the words in a whisper, weak.
“We’re here because I chose you.”
-?-
falling into fire
There was nowhere left to go. It was as if the Earth had shattered and left us all standing there, in the stain that had become our existence. I remember the feeling perfectly. It was like falling into fire and ice all at once, and then realizing that every fiber of your body was about to explode. That was how it felt on the day that he left us.
The staccato crash of running pierced the hall, annihilating any silence that had previously existed there.
The figures emerged from the smoke, gasping for air and getting nothing but burning, smouldering smoke. They held their sleeves up to their faces and pressed on, plummeting toward the end of the hall.
There were three of them, one man and two girls; one no more than five. Their eyes stung and watered feverishly, sending floods of water down their cheeks and making it impossible to see.
Blonde hair escaping from her braid, the older girl bolted ahead of the others and reached for the doorknob. She let out a shrill shriek and withdrew her hand, now sizzling and covered in pustules of raw skin. The smell of burnt flesh mingled with the odor of chemicals and her eyes began to water even more from pain and the stench.
“Damn it, Lil!” The man hissed, pushing his glasses up before helping her to her feet. “I told you they would burn the labs, too. They don’t want it to survive. They never have.”
The small girl sobbed, golden tears falling down her flushed cheeks.
“Aisli, stop blubbering and start running!” He ordered, pushing Lillian and Aisli back down the hall and toward a smoky stairwell they’d emerged from. It wasn’t long before they were again gagging on the thick black cloud that made its way throughout the facility and into their lungs.Lillian pulled Aisli behind her, trying to see through tears and smoke, all while fighting the throbbing pain that had become her right hand. Eyes burning and almost blacking out as she attempted to climb the stairs, she neared the point of breaking. “Robert, I can’t do this anymore, we need a way out now!” She screamed, pulling as much oxygen in as she could from the smoky interior before starting into a fresh coughing fit.
Robert turned to glare at her over his shoulder for a moment, then pulled them both into his arms and continued up the stairs and into the smoke.
“We can’t get out this way,” she said, struggling to find the breath for each word. “You’re going to get us killed.”
The child’s eyes widened, and more tears came.
“The only way we can go was up into the smoke,” he said, not bothering to stop or even look at her when he spoke. “Down would mean going through sector D, which should be filled with flames. The only way out is up through the smoke, through a window or an exit.”
If Lillian still questioned this, she did not say so out loud.
Robert did though, although he tried his best not to show it. He’d seen the effects of fire on human flesh before and did not want to experience that for even an instant; but he’s also seen the bodies of people who’d died from asphyxiation, their lungs drowning when there was no water in sight and burning when there was no flames near. It wasn’t much of a choice either way, and certainly not one Robert liked to make. Despite the fact that the man seemed to be indifferent to the suffering of his companions, Robert had worked at this facility since its first walls had been put up. It was his entire life, and now that life was quite literally in danger of being ended. Maybe if things hadn’t gone the way they did, maybe if he hadn’t been so adamant on completing the project even once they realized it was a failure, the building wouldn’t be burning and t
hey could have started over from the beginning.
But it was too late for that now though.
After what seemed like forever stumbling through poison, they reached an unlocked door. Robert noted that Lillian’s wheezing had all but stopped and that Aisli had ceased sobbing. Lillian’s breath had become harsh and ragged, and was becoming fainter by the second. He flung the door open and dashed inside without bothering to check where exactly they were heading. As long as it meant breathable air, he didn’t care.
He eased the girls to the floor, then shut the door behind them in a vain attempt to lock the smoke out. As the door latched they were plunged into darkness. The soft plinking of water on tiles filled his ears, and his smoke filled nostrils were suddenly alerted to a sickening scent that the recesses of his mind quickly identified.
“Activate lighting system,” he whispered, and like magic the room was bathed in an eerie violet glow. He swore softly under his breath as he took in the surroundings.
The mess hall was filled with bodies. Dozens of people lay dead, spread across tables and strewn over counters, some face down in overflowing wash basins. The bulletproof glass that had once stood between the service area and the lines lay shattered on the ground and driven into a teller’s body. Blood was spattered onto the white walls of the room like lipstick on a mirror, reflecting the devastation that had taken place. Without realizing, Robert sank to his knees in a pool of half-congealed blood, soaking his already soiled lab coat in a fresh layer of filth. Until now, it hadn’t even occurred to him that the violence had struck during the mid-day break.
“Robbie, why aren’t we moving?” Came a soft whimper from behind him.
Startled back from his reverie, Robert turned to face Aisli. She was clambering to her feet to better see around the room. The child’s lilac eyes stood out against her pale skin, startling and foreign looking on an otherwise normal face. That is, if a child with such striking features was normal. Her high cheekbones and wispy body gave her the appearance of a faerie changeling, and her small red lips made her appear Geisha-like. The combination had been blinding to Robert when he had first seen her, and still was.
