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Becoming Elaine. |
| She was Janie. Or, more precisely, she was not. She was Janie in the fact that she was indeed her, existence-wise. She was not in that it’s where being her ended. For starters, her name was not Janie. It was Matilda. And she had not been left in a garbage can by her parents when she was three, in response to a threat of citywide destruction from hidden ones inside a stronghold of shadowed existence. No threats as such had ever been made. She had been born by her parents, and so she was raised by her parents. She never grew tough, of fast, or agile like Janie did. Matilda was raised to be a girl, and what a fine girl she grew up to be. She wore pretty dresses, and she never talked back, and she was polite and kind and sweet, and she wore just a little make-up, just enough to make her the prettiest thing the boys had ever seen. She was quiet, gentle, and just the slightest bit spoiled, and spoke with an accent. So, in that, she was not Janie Goodfellow, but rather she was Matilda Branson. That was the girl Janie would’ve been had that threat not been made so long ago, and her life not been altered in such a drastic manner for the short amount of time it was. Pity she would not stay Matilda Branson for long. It had been a peaceful day. A slow sun rose up above a pinkened sky, sending a warmth down the backs of any lucky enough to partake it. Several trees rang out with song, whether it be the twittering of squirrels, the chirping of birds, or maybe even the light playing of a flute from one strange woman who woke up early at least once every week to play during the sunrise. Reynold Bernstein had woken up early. With a groan, he got out of bed and threw on a pair of sweatpants, but he did not watch the sunrise. He was too tired for that. Instead, he went downstairs, started up a kettle of coffee, turned his kitchen sink to the coldest it could be, and closed the drain. After waiting for the basin to fill and turning the water off, he dunked his head under. He did not return up from the shock of the cold water like most people did. Instead, he held his breath and stayed underneath the water. He could not hold his breath forever, but even after releasing all the air he had in him, he held his head under. It traveled down his nose and into his sinuses, the cold traveling all throughout his head. Only then did he raise his head out of the water, very slowly even at that. He did not sputter, he did not cough, but he just smiled lazily and let the water pour out of his nose and mouth. He snatched a towel from the nearby rack, and dried his hair of a little. After he was certain he would drip only a little, he tossed the towel around his neck. The coffee was not yet ready. That meant he had time for the Invokement. Rey’s basement door lay right outside his kitchen entrance. It was usually locked, for he didn’t want just anybody to stumble down there. Master had told them it would frighten them and turn them against him. Well, that was destined to happen anyways, but it was better to prolong the betrayal. That way nothing would get in the way of his mission. As he reached the bottom, he groped the wall to his right for a dimmer switch. He would only need to adjust it a little. The candles lit up the place enough, but their light did not reach the bottom of the stairwell. There were two ways to go at the bottom -left to the boiler, fusebox, and other assorted utilities, and right to the Devil’s Shrine. He turned right at the bottom and quickly stripped off his t-shirt. Underneath he was well-muscled, but not well-kept. Many deep scars ran over his skin, each and every one of them in a symmetrical pattern. Right above his navel was a hideous scar left over from a burn - a self-branding shaped as an upside-down pentacle. On his shoulders were words of Latin, demonic incantations that were meant to protect him and make him strong. He took the barber’s one-edged razor out of his sweatpants’ pocket, flipped it open, and stood in front of the Shrine. It was constructed mostly of steel - a material that held something special for him, as his father was a steelworker, and had died quickly after falling in a vat of molten metal. Steel twisted everywhere, always maintaining perfect symmetry and a strange beauty meant for ornaments of other religious natures. Blood red and pitch black candles that never ran out decorated it in many places, lighting it up and making it shine like silver. In the center was another upside-down pentagram, formed from twists of metal with animal bone at the very center. In front and slightly below that was a stone statuette; it depicted a diabolic gargoyle, down on one knee with hands resting on the other, a dangerous snarl and bared teeth upon its bowed head, and wings curled closely about its body. Its bald head held mighty twisting horns that hid where its ears should be. “I dedicate this day to my master, the Alpha and the Omega of Earth, humanity, and the Universe that binds them together.” And so Rey began to cut himself. Each was slow, deliberate, and deep. He did not feel the pain and it did not burn, for it only tingled. Blood began to run down his stomach, sometimes dripping on the floor. Slice after slice after slice into his own flesh, hopefully one for each of the day’s victims. “Today shall be a day of great death. This city will undergo a purging like it has never seen before.” His voice did not do as much as quiver, keeping a single tone throughout his oration. “And so the Culling shall begin....” The voice was not his own. It came from all around the room, the sourcelessness of it making Rey’s spine quiver in delight. Blood began to drip on the floor. It came from the fangs of the statue. Rey outstretched his arms, like a deranged priest of self-mutilation ready to read a sermon. “And so I shall Cull the people of Carmadagas City. They will first sleep and will second die. The parents and the children will watch each other die in unison, as you see fit. I shall teach them what it is to stare at the very face of Doom, as you have instructed me, Master. Their blood will soak the floors and run the waters red.” “Good....” The wings of the statue spread outward, from covering its body to stretching behind its back, showing a great wingspan for a statue its size. For just a second, they held the leathery texture of bat wings. “You will find the necessary tools where you always find them.” Rey smiled for a moment. “Thank you Master.” The statue’s wings outstretched even further, curling around the pentagram and emphasizing it in a terrifying manner. “Then go forth, my son. Make them suffer. Make them bleed. Let the roads run crimson with their lives.” From all around him came the voices of laughter. The voices of wild children and insane adults lilted and echoed within the basement room. One or another would scream “Kill!” on occasion. “Yes master.” He shut his eyes and bowed his head. The statue’s wings folded around itself again. Rey raised his head. The laughing continued. The statue had stopped moving. He was still bleeding. He put on his t-shirt, and went back up the stairwell. The aroma of coffee was the first thing to greet him once he was upstairs. He took a cup, added some milk and sugar, and drank it down. He welcomed the heat. He had to continue preparations. A half-hour later, all that could be heard from his house was his own laughter. The sound of a door opening and shutting. The brisk shuffling of concrete against cement. Deirdre O’Reilly looked up from the bench she lie on, to see Reynold Bernstein walk in. She sat up and waved to him weakly, not even bothering with a hello. He was late. Over his eyes was the ratty old hat he always wore to work, the brim not succeeding in hiding the large sinister grin he wore. Rey was strange like that. Always had been. She could usually catch him muttering to himself. She actually thought it was pretty funny. They worked for the local telephone company. That is to say, they were janitors, and resided in the boiler room when there was nothing to maintain or clean up. It was a slow day, and it was boring to be alone. She closed her eyes as he began to shuffle around the place some more. Dear Lord, she wished something would happen. She ignored the sounds of a toolbox being opened, the tools within being moved around noisily, and yawned loudly to no one in particular. She opened her eyes just in time to see the largest pipewrench in the boiler room descend towards her face at a terrifying speed. Needless to say, it was not terrifying for long. Rey smiled over her twitching corpse. It was truly beginning now. He walked to the supply cabinet, and took in a deep breath. The proper tools would be in there. They always were. His Master never lied, never failed. He was not anxious because he worried His Master might fail him, he was anxious because of what might lie inside. His breathing was slow and rhythmic as he opened up the cabinet. He looked within, and it boggled his mind. The inside defied physics - there was more storage space within that there was without. Someone could fit a large tank inside if they so desire, though getting it out of the cabinet doors would be another question entirely. It was a treasure trove, containing packets of C4, grenades, restraining devices, gas masks, tanks filled with what he would assume was heavy tranquilization gas.... And at the very end, standing in front of a space where logic would state a wall might be, was a row of dead-eyed soldiers, all awaiting activation and his instruction. He stepped inside to examine the soldiers more closely. They were His Master’s creations, beings wrought of flesh and metal, looking perfectly human yet devoid of the workings that made humans alive. In the center of the row was a small space where another soldier should’ve been. Through that space, seemingly endless rows upon rows of automatons could be seen, all waiting for the one word in their ear that would flip their minds on and make them unwaveringly await their orders. In that space was pedestal with a knife lying on the top. He reached out and grasped it. Merely touching the handle make his spire quiver in delight. It was a demonic blade, scales upon the handle, bat wings shooting off the sides, and a lifelike bloodshot eye serving as a pommel. He did as much as touch the tip and it drew blood. He turned his back towards the soldiers, and let the elegance of the plan soak into his mind while running a thumb over the flat side of the knife blade. His Master supplied him well. Things would be set in motion tomorrow at the latest, after it was all organized and prepared for. The Culling would go unimpeded, it seemed. ...until she could stand it no more, and just had to wake up. She turned from her side unto her back, slowly opened her eyes, and looked up to the ceiling. She was still smiling. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t help it at all. The smile turned into a grin, and she burst out laughing. She felt it in her bones, deep down in the pit of her stomach, and rushing along the entire length of her spine. Today was no day for sleeping. She had to get up, and she had to go wake up everyone else in the house so they could enjoy the day with her. Matilda sat up, propping herself up with her hands against the bed, and looked out a window. ‘Oh, what a lovely day it’s going to be!’ And it was. The sun was already out in full force, making the trees outside shine like emeralds, and a soft breeze blowing amongst all the buildings, making even the short grass sway like river reeds. She heard not car, nor clamor, nor rattle or shout, just the breeze and the songs of whatever creature laid awake outdoors. She threw the sheets off herself with a great huff, nearly sending them to the floor. Leaping out of bed, her feet struck the floor ever so lightly, almost as if she was in no hurry at all. The closet doors were thrown open, and a nightgown and a pair of slippers were put on - she always changed into her day clothes after breakfast, on any day she knew she didn’t have school, anyway. Striding out of her room, she saw her alarm clock out of the corner of her eye, the alarm off because it was Saturday and she always woke up early on Saturdays and Sundays. It was 9:34 AM. Late. And her parents hadn’t woken her up. That only meant one thing. She grinned, and made for the master bedroom. The door clicked, sliding open slowly and just enough for Matilda to fit her head in. There were the two of them, side-by-side and fitfully sleeping away. She grinned slyly. She would be giving out wake-up calls for once, and she was going to have just as much fun as her parents sometimes did. Slowly she crawled onto their bed, starting from the foot and carefully making her way upward towards their heads. Matilda sat in between them, being very cautious not to stir them, and leaned over her father first. She gave it a brief thought, and then began to blow lightly up his nose. He snorted and shifted to his side, only to shift back and continue sleeping. “Wake up, Daddy....” She plinged him lightly across his nose. He snorted again. Matilda, bent on waking her father up, grabbed a lock of her mother’s hair, and began to brush his face with it. Lightly at first, then going faster and faster until he began to twitch and then stir more and then start into a sneezing fit. Matilda began to giggle unstoppably as her father slowly began to sit up and her mother moaned sleepily and began to stir. “...m...a...t...i...l...d...a....” She was very tired and did not feel like waking up, yawning before beginning to drawl again. “...what time is it?” Matilda gave a quick glace at the clock, almost unable to suppress her own youthful energy. “Quarter ‘til ten, mummy!” “...wha?” She slowly began to sit up. The father rubbed at his nose, trying to get it to stop tingling. Matilda tickled her mother’s nose with a lock from her mother’s own hair. “Shame on you for sleeping so late on a beautiful day like this. Time to wake up....” And so she rushed them through the steps of the morning: helping wash her mother’s face and shave her father’s, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and so on. She hurriedly read her parents the newspaper as they ate, before eating breakfast herself and rushing off to get dressed in her finest daywear. It was a beautiful day, no reason she shouldn’t match. After all the preparations were made, they went out to walk the streets. It was such a gorgeous day. Lots and lots of people were out. Matilda insisted that they go to the street markets, and then go to the local park for some ice cream. Her parents found no reason to argue. But, as always, Matilda received the strange glances from other people her age, usually classmates also enjoying the day. All of those people at school, the ones who wore make up and had strange hair and called themselves ‘punks’ or ‘goths’ all considered her a priss, for she always wore pretty dresses that looked hard to afford. She liked being ladylike ever since she was a little girl, with the tea-parties with imaginary friends and the long beautiful dresses and constant lack of anything resembling pants in her dressers. Some of the boys were enamored with her, and some of the girls were jealous or envious of her. It was only proper to say ‘some’, for assuming that all of them were so would be rude. They didn’t like her bubbling enthusiasm or her constant happiness or her gleeful appearance. If they didn’t like her, fine. She was always nice, and therefore did not have to try to be nice to them. Just because she was always nice didn’t mean they shouldn’t like her. It didn’t bother her anyways. She had better things to think about, better things to concern herself with than their petty opinions, anyways. It was too good a day to do that. They could do almost anything otherwise, other than chase hurricanes and watch thunderstorms whist rain pelted down upon their heads. Maybe they’d find a public swimming pool, or go find a lake where they could swim. They’d have to go back to get their swimming clothes first. Sadly, they would not even get the opportunity to do that. It started in the street market area of Carmadagas. They walked down the road in droves, the ones clad in black, the ones that looked human but had no souls to speak of. Their faces held no expression and their walk was like that of all the others around them, the soles of their shoes hitting the asphalt of the ground with a rhythmic staccato that made all ears perk up and all eyes turn towards the source. Most, if not all, the people anywhere near the initial approach found their attention turned to this approaching mass of black, not knowing it was metal underneath almost all of the flesh and clothes. There was only one set of footsteps that was out of sync with the others. He moved slightly faster than all of them, had a unique beat to his movements, and was the only one with any facial expression at all. Reynold Bernstein’s lips were drawn tightly against his teeth, in a truly frightful smile that gave some indication that he was in charge of the steadily advancing army of foot soldiers behind him. Some people already began to step away. Some others found the nearest heavy objects they could find. The vendors very quickly began to close shop. It had been a good day for business, and they did not feel the need to be recompensated for the day’s work. Rey raised his arm up, and pointed at the thicket of the crowd. With a harsh cry, he belted out three orders. “Seize them all! None are to be spared! Make haste!” It began, just like that. From behind him, the wall of black tore forward and started to work. They flawlessly wrapped people around their waists and hauled them off their feet. Some fought back, but their efforts only delayed the inevitable. Physical blows mattered not, those who gave resistance as such only ended up hurting themselves that way. Wooded weapons acquired out of ingenuity only bounced off and rattled painfully or broke. Pipes reverberated and bent. Even guns were worthless. One man stood his ground. He stanced himself in the center of the street, aimed true, and shot out the right eye of one of the soulless abominations. It fell down, but it did not die. It did not bleed, it did not squirm, it did not cry out in pain. It just slowly got back up, regained its bearings, and continued to approach. It frightened the man so that he lost his courage and began to slowly lose his ground. He continued shooting, most of his bullets finding their target, but some missing and striking another soldier, one unintentionally grazing the forehead of some poor confused sir who was visiting for the weekend. The day went from beautiful to frightful to pathetic. One man, a lean unshaven man with enough fright-induced agility to avoid the wave of soldiers ran up to Bernstein, dropped to his knees, and begged for mercy. “PLEASE! I’ll give you money, I’ll give you my goods, I’ll even give you my wife and kids, just leave me alone!” Bernstein’s smile did not waver. He placed a finger underneath the man’s chin. “Why do you offer what I assume everything dear to you so you can be spared?” His eyes teared up, cheeks soon soaked with premeditated drops of saline. “...I... I don’t wanna die....” Bernstein closed his eyes and shook his, smile loosening slightly. “Such a pity then.” He slid his knife out of the sheath strapped to his leg, his other hand going from merely touching the man’s chin to gripping it powerfully and painfully. “We all die eventually.” The man began to panic, tried to stand up, but was held fast to the ground. “It’s just that you’re going to die sooner than others.” He placed the knife against the man’s throat, and drew it slowly across. Very slowly. He let the man feel his flesh sever, let him feel the knife slowly advance towards his jugular, and then finished with a burst of speed that broke the vein and windpipe. The man tried to grasp at Rey’s arms, tried to stop him, but he wasn’t nearly as strong. Rey let him fall to the ground, clutching at his throat and trying to stop himself from bleeding to death. It occurred to Rey that it was an awfully pathetic sight to see. He held the knife between two fingers, and tossed it at the bleeding man. It smashed into his forehead, cleaving it clean in two, giving him an instant lobotomy, and poking out through the back side of his skull. Rey approached the man, slowly becoming a mindless, bloodied corpse, placed his foot upon the man’s chest, and gave the blade a good twist before yanking it out of the man’s head. The knife was sheathed. The smile drew tighter, just for a second. He shook his head, standing alone as he watched his soldiers scoop up people and run back from whence they had come. “Such a pathetic human being. Moreso than even the rest of these wastes of flesh.” Maybe he thought he was speaking to his Master. The man standing behind him holding a fencepost sure didn’t think so. His name was Leonard Branson. He had a wife and a single child. His wife was Kathy, his daughter was Matilda. He was the oldest of his parents’ children, henceforth he was given the responsibility of the family business - Harry Branson’s Sundae Shanty. He was the latest family member to own the family’s humble shop, and he most certainly didn’t want to be the last. His family had been threatened, and so hadn’t the rest of the damn city. It was time to play protector, and he was going to start by taking out the commander. Without a sound to be heard, Branson swung the post at Rey’s back. It shattered into many splintering pieces upon impact and forced Rey down to one knee. He wasn’t expecting any resistance of any sort, never mind one that dazed him and made black swirl in front of his eyes for a moment. He forced himself back onto his feet as he felt a well-muscled arm wrap around his neck. He could feel someone’s stinking breath just whispering across the right side of his neck. He drew back his left hand, clenched it into a fist, and struck over his shoulder. The arm around his neck removed itself as he turned around, only to see Branson staggering back and holding his face in surprise. He could’ve sworn he heard a cry of dismay echoing in his mind, though he was still too dazed to actually remember where it came from. Rey didn’t give Branson any more time to recover, rushed forward, and drove a bony knee into his gut. Branson’s body couldn’t take the ridiculously powerful strike - he bent in two, fell on the ground, and hoarsely began trying to gasp for breath. Pain shot through his gut and kidneys. His diaphragm refused to work. His mind turned to one thing and one thing only. He cried out with the little power his body allowed. “RUUUN!!!” Immediately Rey heard a scrabbling from behind him. Voices lingered in his aural memory, as if he had heard someone in his daze, though he couldn’t recall it well. He turned around and scanned the buildings, looking for swaying doors, shutting windows, someone disappearing around a corner.... He caught two people running down an alley just before they turned around the back of a building. Long skirts and flowing hair. Two women. One was probably a wife and the other was probably a daughter. With a single order and a hand pointing in the proper direction, he had a single soldier after them. He looked down to pathetic Leonard Branson, curled into a ball, lying on his side, and wheezing in pain. Unsheathing his knife, he stepped over, grabbed him by his bloodied collar, and hefted him up off the ground slightly so he could look him straight in his glazed-over eyes. He slowly drew the blade down the side of Leonard’s face, drawing just as much blood than what came forth through his mouth and nose. “That was a very foolish thing you did. Not brave, not heroic, just foolish. Because now I’m going to punish you. I’m going to make sure that one person will suffer beyond anything any human has suffered through before. There will be pain, and it will be magnificent, and it will be the only thing on that person’s mind before they die. And it’s not going to be you.” Rey let go of Leonard’s collar, and signaled to a soldier somewhere within the horde of stumbling bodies and broken market good, only one of them somehow recognizing that it was being summoned. It walked over with a monotonous even step and a single person over its shoulder, and hefted Leonard up. Then he began to run for a single destination, where every single soldier had been bound for beforehand.... The two of them ran for their lives. Tears were in their eyes, for both because they had just been forced to leave the man closest to them in their lives behind. Matilda cried more though - her mother was running too fast for her. She clutched furiously at her mother’s hand, stumbling and tripping behind her like she had been handcuffed to the fender of a rapidly-accelerating truck. The alley they ran down was not a clean one. The ground was completely obscured by trash at places. When her mother jumped to avoid, so did Matilda. Her tears of grief and terror soon mixed with those of fatigue and pain. She could not keep up the pace for long. Then it appeared. The black-suited soldier with no soul to speak of. Its boots slapped against the concrete with a frightening absence of sound, its pace remaining even and steady despite the many pieces of garbage and debris lying in its path. With movements lacking any sort of human grace it dodged and leapt, but never weaved. It stayed on a straight course, and it never faltered. The soldier was much faster than any athlete, so it was faster than Mrs. Branson and much faster than Matilda. The gap between them closed very quickly. Matilda felt an arm clamp around her free hand. At times like these, one would think they should not look back, but she did anyways. It held her in an iron grip, pulling her towards its being with ease. Its shoulder went into her back, and she was lifted off her feet. “Momma!!!” Her mother did not notice until she heard the cries, and even then it wasn’t any help. She looked back for just a moment to see Matilda reach out towards her, like a seven-year-old torn from her parents’ arms by social workers. In the span of that glance, the soldier rushed forward even more, and hefted her up with the very same ease it had Matilda. Upon having both women over its shoulders, the soldier turned on its heel and ran for whence it came. It left the alleyway they had tried to escape into, and very abruptly stopped. There stood Rey, smiling a smile that could not be said to be gentle nor vicious. But his eyes showed something in them. Matilda and her mother could tell. He wanted something. Something that most likely had to do with them. It made them shiver. Rey raised an arm, and pointed at Matilda. “Put the younger one in the main office and guard her.” Matilda began to shake her head and moan. Her mother’s lips began to move uselessly, as if she wanted to say something and the fright that had just entered her heart wholly prevented it. Dread crept upon the spines and faces of the both of them. “Keep her away from the others, and make sure she does not leave. But first put the older one in the boiler room, with the man that attacked me. Go now.” At with that, it ran off again. It ran past block after block of houses, past the commercial district, past the offices and shop and hospitals, heading for a destination unbeknownst to its passengers, entirely unwilling as they were. Its grip was like that of steel, but Matilda’s mother still fought. She raged and kicked and screamed with all of her might, until that might soon dwindled to freneticism and that dwindled down to fatigue. And once it did reach its destination, she had no rage to fight with anymore, and her fists and feet and arms and legs were sore from beating a creature that wasn’t exactly soft flesh and muscle. She had the will to fight though she lacked the energy, but it was no use to strike something that didn’t seem to be very easily hurt. Matilda, on the other hand, cried. Her daddy had just been beaten with ease in her witness, and now she and her mother had been kidnapped by the grunts of a frightening man who didn’t seem to have anything good in store for any of them. She didn’t want to die. The soldier ran to the same place all of the others had run to when they had snatched up all the people they could carry - the Tillerman Sanitarium. All had wanted it as far away from their homes as it could be. A place that doubled as an asylum was not a place for children to grow around, whether the walls were reinforced concrete or not. The doors were wide open. The soldier ran in with no decrease of speed. The hallways were empty. It only moved with caution around corners, and even then it was only the slightest bit. It came to a stone staircase leading down into darkness. There was no way to see its footing, yet it showed no hesitation when it came to where it put its feet. It was only a single flight before it went down a small hallway and into complete pitch. The frightened moaning of one and the uncontrollable sobbing of the other silenced its quiet footsteps. It abruptly halted, opened a door that couldn’t be seen in the dark, and cast the weight off its right shoulder. Skin and bone greeted concrete with a sickening thud and a harsh cry. Matilda did not hear the words of her father as the door was slammed shut and rebolted. She couldn’t have heard them if he hadn’t shut the door so quickly anyways. She was crying too loudly. It turned around, and headed for the light of the stone staircase. Once back on the ground floor, it continued to tear through the sanitarium. It went up empty staircases and through empty hallways, occasionally passing another of its kind, some running inside with their human cargo, others running back outside to pick up some more, until it came unto the top floor. The hallways were lined with heavy doors. They fell into a pattern - a door, a space the width of a door, a door, and so on. Not a sound was made after the initial thump of a few people being thrown to padded ground and the heavy door being shut tight by a soldier, not even cries or fists batting against a door they couldn’t possibly hope to knock down by themselves. Perhaps a face could be seen from the portholes built into the doors, but that face would never stay for long. The first several were closed. Even more others were open. Sometimes doors would be opened, revealing multiple unconscious people within, only to have another batch added to the group. The vacant rooms all held a canister, a tank of something that was opened when a room became less than vacant. In the center of the top floor was a hallway. It lead to a door made of wood instead of metal, that had a nicely-finished knob looking of gold instead of a heavy bolt. At once the knob was turned and the door was opened. Matilda was cast to the ground, back slamming full into thin carpeting. She stopped her sobbing, her mouth wrenched open as she tried to cry out in pain. Her thoughts were only momentarily forgotten in her writhing, but her pain persisted alongside her suffering, adding anguish to injury. Eventually, the pain subsided. She slowly pushed herself up on her hands much like she did when she had woken up, but now she did not have visions of a glorious day that would be remembered beyond all days to come. Instead, it began to dawn on her that this might be the very last day she would ever have. The irony of her expectations did not strike her, all she thought about was what was happening. What was going to happen? What did that evil-looking man with the authoritative voice have planned for everyone? Was he going to hurt anybody? How many people were going to get hurt? Were her parents going to get hurt? Was he going to kill them? Were all of them going to die? Why now? Was she going to die? Her cries and sobs had only been ones of fear before. Fear of the unknown. She did not know what was going to happen. But now it occurred to her what might happen. It made her very scared and very sad and very afraid for her life. She was heartbroken and terrified and suddenly felt very alone and very cold. She began to cry again. She held her hands up to her face and cried into her palms. She slowly fell onto her side and began to shiver and curled up into a loose ball and started to cry out for her mommy and daddy. Matilda did not want to die. And while she suffered, the soldier looked on without a conscience to be apathetic with, standing in front of the door and making sure she did not try to escape. It would be against orders to do otherwise, and it couldn’t very well have that. No one could tell how many hours had passed by the time Rey’s soldiers were done collecting most of the people of Carmadagas City. It was mostly due to the unconsciousness of the several hundred people now inside the building. For the four that remained conscious within, however, none of them could tell how long it had been because Rey had disabled the building’s master clock. Normally he would’ve gone through the trouble of disabling all but the second hands of the clocks, but that kind of anxiety torture was of no real use when all those within were supposed to be unconscious. Supposed to be, anyways. There were only three people within that were actually conscious besides him. Two of them had been in a place too dark to see a clock, though Rey delighted at the idea of them being able to hear it tick away, and the third had been in a room with perfectly functioning clocks. All the better, he supposed, since she did seem to be the frightened, doubting kind in situations like these. Rey was currently sitting in a room he had handpicked from all of the other ones within the sanitarium. The floor was tiled entirely in a flawless black-and-white pattern. The black was so black that had it been made out of some rough material like brick, it would almost seem to suck in light. The white was so incredibly sterile that it had to potential to hurt the eyes if enough light were reflected onto them. He liked that the walls and ceiling were of that exact same sterile white; it made it easier to look at him than it was to stare at the walls. There was a steel table in the center of the room, with one chair on each end, and two chairs at each side. He did not sit on a chair, rather he sat on the edge of the table, staring down at the two he had on the floor. Leonard and Kathy Branson were bound with steel manacles on their wrists and ankles, and a large brace around each of their midriffs. The braces were chained to two fixtures that had been recently driven into the wall by Rey himself. The tools sat underneath the table, awaiting his use if he felt the need. He was smiling lightly now, with the knife in one hand and an apple in the other. After the marketplace had been cleared, he stood and marveled over the work done. Every single cart was empty. Oh, he loved that. Not a person to man them. There weren’t even birds or dogs or any sort of animal silly enough to be around and make a sound. Perfect harmony. He had been broken out of his reverie when something thudded against his foot. His first instinct was to raise his foot and smash it flat, but when he looked down he saw that it was inanimate anyways. Just an apple, and a crimson, plump-looking one at that. Only capable of making a sound if something else acted upon it. There was no use in killing such a delicious-looking thing as that. Might even come in handy. So there he was now, with the apple in one hand and his knife in the other, slowly and deliberately cutting off a thin slice. He slid it between his lips while it still held to the blade’s edge. He even chewed slowly, knowing he had an audience. The husband and wife were looking at his feet, not willing to give him the regard of eye contact. Her eyes refused to stay fixed upon his feet, however, and would occasionally wander up to greet his face. Each time she saw him, he had on that same smile, unless he was sliding another piece of apple into his mouth. Rey didn’t even look the least bit devious. “I know what you want to ask me. I know you want to ask me what you want to ask me.” Not a trace of a smirk on his face. “So, go on. Ask. There’s no harm in asking.” Yes, he was saving all the harm for later. Leonard Branson was currently fiddling around with the bleeding gap in his teeth. He hadn’t landed very gracefully when he had been thrown onto the concrete floor of the boiler room. His tongue jiggled a nearby loose tooth before he opened his mouth. He didn’t feel afraid. “Where’s my daughter?” Rey carved off another piece of apple before answering. “Here, in a minute.” He then pointed to the wall to his left. There was another shackle, large enough to fit around the midriff of someone small. The two stared at it for a few moments, the pause broken by Rey. “Now, I think I know...” they slowly looked back at him. “...what you’re thinking. ‘You have something in mind?’ Yes, yes I do.” The nigh-undetectable door to Rey’s right swung open. All instinctively looked, the Bransons with a glimmer of hope, and Rey with sudden anticipation. A light smile came to his face as a soldier came in with a tired, crying burden over its shoulder. “Matilda!” Kathy was the first to react. She tried to jump to her feet, managing to get up about halfway then fall down again. The shackles were heavy enough to warrant her crawling to her feet. Leonard managed easier, slowly getting up instead of jumping. They reached for Matilda as the soldier passed them by on its way to the free shackles at the other side of the room. Rey unsheathed his knife, grabbed Leonard Branson by the hair, and slit his throat with a single graceful motion that momentarily left Leonard wondering why his neck had suddenly started to hurt. Within the second, he was on the floor with his hands clasped tightly around his neck, trying desperately to prevent himself from bleeding to death. There was a reason for it, of course. For the few seconds Matilda had to look at her parents before being put down and shackled to the ground, she couldn’t help but smile. She was a nervous wreck, panic rolling off her like so much sweat, but it was gone for just a moment. She felt safe upon seeing her parents again. Rey could see that. It wouldn’t do at all. Happiness was not an option. He had to take that away, or else his Master might be just a bit displeased. Rey also had a debt to repay. He watched on with a smile on his face as it all sunk in. Leonard’s lips snapped shut and his eyes went as wide as could be. He could feel the blood traveling all around, down to his stomach and up into his mouth and nose. He had no chance, though he continued holding on. He looked up to Rey who was looking down at him. Rey merely shook his head, still smiling. Kathy went down with him, trying as hard as she could to think of a way to stop the bleeding, panic soon devolving to tears. Matilda tried to jump out of the arms of her captor and into her father’s, almost as if she didn’t realize it was snapping a shackle around her waist. Her arms were extended out as far as they could go. She looked like a six-year-old being held fast by a babysitter as Mummy and Daddy drove away to some fancy restaurant. She sounded like one too, screaming away with a cracking voice. Rey laughed at that. The soldier with no soul behind its eyes had finished shackling her. It was just a matter of getting itself unentangled from her reaching arms. Had it the brain of a human, its ears would be shrieking at the moment. Matilda had been screaming at the top of her lungs. She was just crying now. It turned around to walk to the door, when Rey raised a hand. “Stop.” He looked to it for only a few seconds before turning back to the wife and her now-dead husband. His hands had let go of his throat - the knife had hit his windpipe so he had been doomed from the start anyways. She was just clutching onto him for lack of any better ideas. Without a second more he brought the hilt of the knife down upon her head, knocking her out of consciousness and making her let go of her husband. He looked back to the soldier. “Keep her eyes open and make sure she doesn’t look away.” It had been several hours since Rey had slit her father’s throat and skinned her mother alive. It had taken about a half-hour for her mother to stop screaming and moaning in pain. A few minutes after that, she died. Matilda had stopped screaming a half-hour after he and the solider had propped their dead bodes on chairs, making sure that their lifeless eyes stared directly at her. She had stopped trying to scream just several minutes ago - her vocal cords had given out after her mother had finally died. All that screaming was music to Rey’s ears. It meant he was performing his duties appropriately. Matilda was curled up in a ball, sitting in the corner farthest away from where her parents’ corpses sat and sobbing in great gulping spurts. It appeared that she was unable to shut her eyes, bloodshot from crying. Rey hadn’t bothered turning the chairs around to face her again. Instead, he ordered the soldier to dispose of the bodies and get someone from one of the locked cells. No one in particular. He also hadn’t cleaned the room up. There was an awful lot of blood on the ground. There was the danger of slipping on it, but Rey had always been a careful man. The soldier brought in the newest prisoner. He was some teenager, blond hair, green eyes, sturdy of build. Looked like he might play basketball or some such. He was still unconscious. Rey sat backward on one of the clean chairs, head resting on arms resting on backrest, merely staring at the girl curled up in the corner. “Put him on the ground.” He hadn’t done so much as look. But she had, just out of the tops of her eyes. She moaned in dread. Rey smiled. He loved it when people gave him cues. “You know him?” Her face came up off her knees. It wasn’t possible for her to look any more afraid than she already did. Her head shook violently for a few seconds before returning to her knees, eyes trying to avoid Rey’s gaze. “Now now. Honesty’s your best policy.” He stood up. The boy was showing some signs of rousing, but it would still take him hours to actually wake up. Rey slowly dragged him closer to the table, and then placed his foot on the back of the boy’s neck and began to apply pressure. He weighed quite a bit, but not enough to crush the boy’s neck. It only caused the boy to moan in pain and stir slightly from his prone position on the ground. “It’s actually THE best policy. For instance, I can’t really do this with nothing to brace myself off of. So I’ve moved him over here so I can get a better handhold.” So he got off the boy’s neck, held onto the table, repositioned his foot, and began to apply more pressure than before. The boy roused, beginning to flail and trying to cry out. Rey clutched the table, glancing to the screaming boy for only a second before looking back to Matilda. “So, what’s his name?” Matilda squeezed her eyes shut and banged her head against her knees. “I... I dunno....” He grimaced and shook his head. “Stupid girl.” The boy’s neck began to crack under the strain. She gave a sharp cry with every disgusting breaking sound. “Tell me. What, is his name?” She raised her head and gave a pitiful bawl that was meant to be an anguished scream, voice still raw from the last screaming session and breaking down into sobs. More cracks. The boy began to whine pathetically, quickly getting louder and louder. “You can make th-” “Weh-WESLEY! Wesleeeeey, ST...stop now pleeeeease...? Duhn wanna, I... please....” Her speech was slurred. She had broken down crying before she could complete her sentence. He grinned in approval, nodding his head. “That’s much better.” There was a loud snapping sound after Rey grit his teeth, reasserted his grip on the table, and pushed down incredibly hard. The boy’s neck gave way instantly. He stopped moving and stopped whining. For one moment, Matilda froze. She had barely heard the snap over her own pathetic cries. Rey knew what she was doing. “You want to know if he’s still alive, don’t you?” She was listening for the sounds of his breathing. “Don’t worry, he’s not.” He lifted his corpse off the ground by the armpits, just enough for Matilda to see over her own knees. She stopped breathing when she saw poor Wesley’s loll around, the only thing holding it onto his shoulders being his skin. Rey grabbed onto his hair, lifting it so she could see his dead eyes and gaping mouth. “Handsome, isn’t he?” She couldn’t even scream anymore. She just banged her head against her knees and tried to cry quietly. Seven hours had passed since Rey had shackled Matilda in that room. Within those hours, Rey had murdered her parents, a handsome boy she had once had a crush on, three girls she went to school with, their parents, and that nice lady who played flute with the birds early in the morning. Matilda was still curled up in a ball. She lied on her side, unaware of the discomfort the shackle caused, and staring ahead listlessly. She looked tired. She didn’t appear to notice that the floor was by this time covered in blood, and that she was lying in it. She had also forgotten that her parents weren’t there anymore. But she could still see them. They were still there, sitting dead in the chairs across from her. There was a pile of vomit at her feet, the stench of bile permeating the room. Rey sat across from her, on the ground with legs crossed. He looked complacent, peaceful almost. His bloodied knife was sitting on the table, the surface covered in bits of damp clothing and unidentifiable pieces of human matter. Skin, organ, coagulated fluid, it was hard to tell now. In the room was something new, the sounds of gurgling and cooing. Upon Rey’s lap was a one-year old boy. Rey was holding the boy gently by the shoulders with one hand, stroking the tufts of blond hair atop his head. “I bet you wished you had a little brother like this.” Matilda didn’t respond, instead continuing to stare ahead. “You wish you had someone as delicate and beautiful as this. That way you could take care of him, love him, and make sure nothing bad ever happened to him.” The child began to cry as Rey’s grip on his shoulder tightened. “It would devastate you to see harm come to something so pure, so....” Rey’s hand went down from the top of the baby’s head to his face, grasped tightly, and.... Snap. “...fragile.” Rey looked to what he held in his hand. He marveled for a moment at how easy it came off. He looked to the rest of the baby’s body, and stood up, standing over Matilda. She stirred as he emptied the child’s blood on her, beginning to complain weakly and quietly. “Noooo.... No more?” “But it doesn’t make a difference to you now. You don’t even care anymore.” Rey shook his head disdainfully, hiding a grand smile that would’ve startled hyenas. Her quiet blithering sounds broke down into quiet wretched tears. Thirty-eight hours. Several hundreds of people were dead at this point. Neither Rey nor Matilda had gone to sleep. Rey had slaughtered with a ruthlessness and creativity unmatched by anyone in the city, and Matilda had been watching every second of it. She wasn’t aware she could close her eyes and stop watching anymore, instead just looking around dazedly, sometimes crying. She began to blither quietly again, the sounds coming from her mouth nonsensical and miserable. Rey, meantime, was tending to some woman shackled to the wall, where Matilda’s parents had been moments before. He was dousing her in gasoline, making sure he didn’t leave a bit of her dry. The smell of it was rousing her from her unconscious sleep, like smelling salts or camphor. Rey tossed away the gas can, took a pack of matches from his pockets, and waited. The woman gagged at such an unpleasant smell. She began to go into a fit, coughing until her stomach hurt. It took her a minute or so to stop. And when she did, she saw the pair of legs in front of her. She looked up, and saw the man they were connected to. He struck the match against the packet. At once, it clicked. The smell, the matches, the smile on his face. She screamed. And then he dropped the match. And she continued screaming. Rey turned to Matilda, breathing in deeply. “Mm. The smell of cooked meat’s a lot more appealing than the reek of fresh retchings, don’t you think?” Matilda was still blithering away quietly on the floor. Sixty-one hours. Rey had gotten tired, and decided to rest for awhile. In the meantime, he had some soldiers stay in the room and tear people apart. Sometimes one body part at a time, other times all at once. It had been a deranged production line of sorts, beforehand. A soldier would drag a person in, Rey would murder them or at least mortally wound them and let them die a slow painful death elsewhere, and another solider would come in with someone fresh, leave them there, and remove the new corpse. Matilda had stopped caring a long time ago. All she did now was breath and slowly thump her head against the floor. She reeked of blood, vomit, and excrement. Eighty-nine hours. Rey had taken another nap earlier. Matilda had tried to sleep too, but the sounds of joints being ripped out of socket and bones being rent apart kept her awake. In between his first and second rests, he had begun to cover Matilda in some of the remains of the victims the soldiers had torn apart. It had been an ordeal to get it on her, at first. As soon as he touched her she began to thrash and scream, but he and the soldiers were much stronger than she was. They restrained her, and played a game she hadn’t played since she was six - dress-up. She currently had a lengthy piece of small intestine wrapped around her neck, a liver somewhere in her shirt, and various other organs tucked away in pockets, in her skirt, and tied in her hair. Rey was performing open-heart surgery on an old man, still dressed in his business attire. The man was screaming and struggling violently, though he was easily held down by his legs, arms, shoulders, and hips by five of the soldiers. “You can scream all you want. It won’t make it hurt any less.” Eventually, he did stop screaming. He either died because of blood loss, shock, or having his heart completely removed. Rey looked towards Matilda, considering the heart he held in one hand. He wondered where he should put it. An idea struck him, and he approached the quietly convulsing girl. He would put it close to her heart. He reached out for her collar, and.... One-hundred and four hours. Rey suddenly wasn’t the only unrestrained person in that particular isolated section of Carmadagas City. Somewhere in the northern area, a single car slowly parked in an apartment garage. The car lurched before coming to a full halt. The engine went off, and the door slowly swung open. A single leg came out of the door, groggily followed by another. A man stepped out of the car that could very much be considered his, slammed the door shut, and began to stagger his way to the apartment’s entrance. He walked past the lobby and went straight to the stairs. He never checked in. The man at the counter was always a rude bastard, so they didn’t bother to keep track of each other’s activities. He staggered up several flights of steps, until he made it to the fourth floor. His apartment was directly to the left of the stairwell. Hollow footfalls were the only sound within the entire building, save perhaps the buzz of electric wires outside and whatever appliances that had been accidentally left on. The hall was dark. He didn’t notice the wreckage littering the hallway, doors torn off their frames, water from overflowing sinks staining the carpet, and pieces of shattered furniture from those who tried to resist. No, he noticed none of that. He was focused on one thing and one thing only. A few seconds of fumbling with a set of keys was followed by the click of a lock, the creek of an opening door, and the crack of it slamming shut. Shoes slid off feet, and sweat-damp socks were cast to some obscure corner of the apartment. A belt was undone, and a pair of mud-stained jeans fell upon the floor, shortly followed by an equally-stained black shirt. After a few more moments of staggering, Henry Oscard collapsed upon his couch and fell asleep shortly thereafter, completely oblivious to all the goings-on of the past several days within the City of Carmadagas. Written by Ren Start - 07/22/2002 End - We shall see. Ah. The first truly canonical writing. It is under construction, and still needs to go through the vast amounts of editing and polishing I put most of my things through. Hence why I write, and not draw.
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The C. Force © 1996-2002 Matt Laskowski --- The R. Force and other assorted crap © 1995-2002 Ren