Sirens blared across the underground facility as blast doors sealed themselves shut. Claire grabbed Ashton, pulled him under a metal table, and the lights went dark.
“Get out of here, Ashton,” Claire said. “It’s what your real sister would have wanted.”
[ cut to: ashton ]
It was night, raining, several hours since my confrontation with Brooklyn on the roof of the MooreTech building. I was sitting in Scarlet’s car outside of the hospital, anxiously awaiting any news about my sister’s condition.
“They’ll probably let us in to see her soon, right?” Scarlet asked. He was worried, looking to me for guidance. He was what, five years older than me? It’s not his sister that got her throat slit and her eye gouged out, but I guess he cares about her too. Did I ever really care about Claire? I always denied caring about anything. I was such an idiot.
“I- I hope so.” I checked my phone’s messages. The hospital said they’d send us a notification when we could see Claire. There was nothing.
“I tried to heal her, but there’s only so much I could do. Even Eden couldn’t fully undo the damage without putting his own life at risk,” Scarlet said. “I think she’s going to make it; I hope.”
“I don’t want her to die,” I said weakly. I hadn’t cried about this yet, it all happened so fast. The reality that my sister could be taken away from me was just finally setting in.
“Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right,” Scarlet said. He wasn’t good at keeping his emotions hidden, and I could tell he was on the verge of tears. Maybe we’re more alike than I thought. No, we’re opposites, that’s the best way to make sense of it. I blame the world around me for all of my problems, and he blames himself.
I was sitting in the passenger seat. I didn’t want to let him know that I was hurting, I didn’t want to show weakness, but no matter what I did it was going to happen eventually. I just had to last long enough to not be the first one to cry.
“She cared about you more than anything, I can’t imagine she’s thinking about anything other than whether you’re safe,” Scarlet said.
“Yeah.”
“You’re the reason why she works her ass off every day to keep the house, why she decided not to join DEED with Blaise and Eden and I. It’s because she doesn’t want you to be alone, abandoned,” Scarlet continued. Damnit, he’s trying to make me cry, isn’t he? “She didn’t want to leave you without a family.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think you’re running from that, from the fact that people love you. Noe certainly did, Claire does, and in her own sick, messed up way, I think Brooklyn does too,” Scarlet said. “I can’t necessarily say that I do, but you’re not an unlikable guy, I don’t hate you. I don’t think anyone does. I want you to know that.”
“Th- thanks…” I said between stilted sniffles, barely containing the waterfall of emotions I had bottled up. I felt a tear finally graze my cheek; I had lost the battle. I closed my eyes and let it all out.
“I’m… I’m sorry! I should never have stabbed Eden, or said all of those terrible things to you, or tried to kill myself.” I cried. “I’m sorry for everything. I did it because… because… because I hate myself. I should never have- have…” My words became incoherent.
“It’s fine, I forgive you,” Scarlet said calmly. He still hadn’t broken yet.
“Why?! Why do you forgive me after everything I’ve done?! Why don’t you hate me?!”
“I… I don’t know,” Scarlet said. “I guess it’s what God would do.”
“That’s stupid! Why would He have done that?!”
“I don’t know! I can’t tell you that!” His words were punctuated by miniature slams against the steering wheel.
“Why?!”
“BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW!”
Scarlet was crying too at this point. We were both sobbing messes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him snap before, he’s always been at least somewhat calm or anxious, never frustrated. I don’t think he’s frustrated with me. He’s covering his eyes with his hand and crying into them, leaning onto the driver’s door window. Did I hurt him? Was it my fault that he’s crying?
“I’m sorry,” I tried to compose myself, but I spoke quietly. Scarlet didn’t reply.
It was in that moment that I heard a low hum, a buzz resounding from the car’s radio. It sounded like something was playing from it, but I couldn’t fully hear what it was. I reached over to the dial on the car’s dashboard and turned it up, which was when I heard her voice.
“Ash, I hope you’re not going to hide from me…”
It was Brooklyn’s voice. Even though the radio was choppy, I could clearly know that. Her inflection, her tone. It was her.
“Very soon, a lot of people are going to get hurt. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
It’s just the radio. She doesn’t know where I am, right? Everyone in the city is probably hearing this. They’re all terrified too, after what happened earlier today.
“That mark on your hand, it’s not just so we could be together in the end. I can see your every move; I know exactly where you are. I can even tell what you’re thinking if I try hard enough.”
It’s not real. She’s just taunting me. There’s no way she’s telling the truth. If she could read my thoughts, there’s no way I could have gotten the upper hand on her.
“I’m not just taunting you, Ash.”
“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”
I stuck the off button on the radio with precision, startling Scarlet with my shout and gesture. The low buzz of the radio didn’t stop, it was still on.
“What are you doing?” Scarlet asked, his speech still stifled.
I repeatedly slammed my hand onto the button, but nothing worked.
“The car isn’t on,” Scarlet said.
“What does that have to do with this? You can hear her too, right?”
“The radio only works when the car’s running,” Scarlet explained.
I stopped. The voice was in my head all along.
“Very soon, all of this will come to an end. When the curtains close, you’ll be right by my side where I want you, right Ash?” Brooklyn’s voice said. It reminded my so much of Noe. Noe’s gone. Claire is dying. It’s all because of her.
“Of all of my powers, there’s one you still don’t yet know,” Brooklyn said. “I possess only one of my eyes, the one your sister once held. The power I used to kill all of those people is one that only I alone can hold. You are marked, just as all of the victims once were. In 9 hours’ time, 12 hours since you stared into my eyes, you will be claimed by death itself. Your resilience is shocking, most mortals only fare seconds after my gaze, but the end will come all the same.”
The buzzing stopped; her voice vanished.
If what she says is true, this is it. This is our limit. In 9 hours, it’s over.
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“We have until around six AM tomorrow, that’s when it’ll be too late,” I said.
“What does that mean?” Scarlet asked. He had finally composed himself once more.
“Brooklyn got inside my head and told we that I’m going to die at that time, she’s going to finish this before then.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“I know her well enough. This has all been about me from the start.”
I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but Brooklyn, no, Abaddon needs me for something. I’m a part of its plan somehow, which means we have until I die to find out what that is.
[ cut ]
Ashton didn’t run, he couldn’t run. He was frozen in place underneath that table, listening through the still darkness. It felt like hours had passed, but eventually the blast door opened. Someone just beyond the doorway was hyperventilating, limping their way in. It was only now that Ashton finally took action, taking his phone out of his pocket and turning on the flashlight. His visitor was Claire, or more accurately, what was left of her. Her clothes were a tattered mess, looking like they had been sliced and charred to pieces over and over again. Through various parts of her body were impaled heavy, metal stakes that weighed her down. She was bleeding profusely from every part of her body. It was hard to believe she was even alive at all.
“Ashton… You’re still here, aren’t you? Can you- can you hear me?” Claire said, coughing up blood between breaths.
Ashton couldn’t speak, but Claire knew he was there. His light was shining right at her.
“I’m… I’m not going to make it. I’m sorry, I can’t keep my promise to her,” Claire continued. She collapsed to the ground. “Ronin’s… he’s already dead. Blaise and Eden too. I’m the last one to go.”
Ashton trembled as Claire pulled herself across the floor towards him. She moved unnaturally, dragging a pool of blood around her as she advanced.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this… but there’s no other choice,” Claire said. The words almost poured from her wound, each one containing a fraction of her swiftly ending life. “Only you can stop that thing. She has one weakness, her eyes. If you can steal her eyes, you can fix everything.”
“I… I- I don’t…” Ashton muttered.
“Put your trust in your sister, I knew her, she’d believe in you,” Claire leaned up against the legs of a chair. “If I can do one last thing for you, I want to give you hope. Not just hope in me, not just hope in the world, or in God, but hope in yourself.”
Claire opened up her hands. Cradled within was an eyeball with a reddish glow, covered in blood like her entire body was.
“This eye is my hope in you, that you can save us. If you can get the others, you can go back and change history, you can save everyone from this fate,” Claire held the eyeball up to be level with Ashton’s own.
“I’m sorry, but this will hurt a lot,” Claire said. “Try not to blink.”
[ cut to: ashton ]
Scarlet and I stood at Claire’s bedside. One of her eyes was heavily bandaged, as was her neck. She was hooked up to an IV and blood bags. The doctor told us the news: she would live, but her visual cortex was permanently damaged, she would never see properly again. The other damage to her brain was minimal, but injuries like this take time to heal. She’ll be stuck here in the hospital for weeks, if not months.
I could tell a lot by looking at the medical equipment Claire was hooked up to. Her heart rate was fine, she wasn’t actively losing blood anymore, but she was unconscious from anesthetic. They said they were going to keep her under until she could move without reopening wounds, however long that would take.
“At least… at least she’s alive,” I said under my breath.
“Yeah,” Scarlet seemingly heard me.
Part of me is so happy, I’m not going to lose my sister, but I’m also afraid. What if the doctors are wrong? What if she doesn’t live? What am I going to do without her? How am I going to survive?
“Claire told me a long time ago that if anything were to happen to her she wanted me to take care of you. I don’t intend to break that promise,” Scarlet said. “I’m not going to let you die, I’ll make sure of that.”
“She’s really held on well, I’ve seen people die from worse,” one of the nurses who was in the room with us said.
“Of course she did, she cares too much to die on me,” Ashton said. “She cares too much to die on anyone, that was always what frustrated me about her, she always cared.”
“You lie to yourself so much, you’ve always cared about them too, haven’t you?” The nurse replied.
“I recognize your voice.”
“Of course you do, Ash,” the nurse said.
I turned around. It was Brooklyn, no, Abaddon. There was no nurse, it was always her.
“Ashton, what’s going on?” Scarlet asked.
I started approaching Abaddon, she stepped back tauntingly.
“You can’t run from me, no matter what you do. I’ve always been a part of you. That hatred for humanity, it’s what we’ve always had in common,” Abaddon said.
“I’m going to stop you! You’ll pay for everything you’ve done to me, to my sister, to everyone!” I shouted.
“Ashton what the hell are you doing?! Stop! Now!” Scarlet grabbed onto my arm and stopped my approach.
I looked back at Scarlet, then back to the nurse. There was a nurse there, she looked terrified.
“Everything’s okay, Ashton, calm the hell down. You’re seeing things,” Scarlet said.
“I’m- I’m sorry, so sorry,” I said to the nurse. She was still frightened.
“We need to go, we can’t stay here, Ashton,” Scarlet said. “You’re not right in the head.”
I started to feel dizzy, my head was spinning. My eye throbbed with pain. That was the price for my fight with Abaddon, it was finally kicking in.
[ cut ]
I was standing in a train, an elevated train in motion. Everyone around me was unconscious, some dead. In front of me was a body I recognized. I knelt down to turn it over. Eden. It was Eden, dead.
I stood up and turned back toward the doorway. Through the glass, I could see something, two people fighting. The interior of the window on the other side was covered in blood, but I could make out who the people were. It was Brooklyn and Scarlet. In the blink of an eye, a shot rang out. Brooklyn, who was previously standing her ground, wielding a giant scythe like earlier, was now holding out a revolver. Scarlet fell to the floor, a bullet wound in his head, and in an instant dissolved into a pool of blood that covered the car’s entire floor, leaving only his clothes behind.
What was this? The past? No, this hasn’t happened yet. This is the future that awaits me. Brooklyn then looked through the window and locked eyes with me. This is how it ends.
[ cut ]
My mind was numb, slowly recoiling from a blanket of darkness. I was moving, in a vehicle. This was Scarlet’s car. He must be driving me away from the hospital after what I did to that poor nurse. This was my fault; I couldn’t control myself.
When I finally opened my eyes, my suspicions were confirmed; this was indeed Scarlet’s car. Scarlet was in the driver’s seat, eyes on the road.
“I… I saw Brooklyn, that’s why I-“
“I know, I believe you,” Scarlet said. “It’s just like two years ago.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think it’s time you hear the whole story from my perspective,” Scarlet said. “I know you’ve heard bits and pieces, but there’s always been a lot more going on.”
“Okay, I’m willing to hear you out.”
“There’s been a lot of parallels between these killings, the New Pentagram Killings, and the Pentagram Case two years ago, but the public doesn’t know about what clued us off about it in the first place.”
“Which is?”
“Two years ago, Fr. Joseph predicted everything. Nobody believed him, but he said that the Angel of Death would return in two years’ time. Of course, he was right, but not in the way we expected. Claire was kept under close supervision by DEED after the Pentagram Case because she was the vessel of the demon that caused this whole mess, just like Brooklyn is now. We expected the demon to take back control over Claire’s body, but that didn’t happen.”
“Wait, does that mean there’s still a chance to save Brooklyn?”
“I don’t know. The situation that saved Claire isn’t something we know we can replicate; it was practically a complete accident. The responsibility fell to me to bring an end to her life, to stop Abaddon from completing the killings, but she somehow survived. We know now that it was caused by a cognitive projection, but humans can’t create them.”
“I can.”
“What?” Scarlet was genuinely surprised.
“It’s Noe’s eye, the one she left behind for me. It lets me rewind to a point in time, just like how a demon can manipulate a cognitive projection.”
“That’s something we’ll have to keep in mind, but Brooklyn might still have to go. She doesn’t have a soul, or so Noe apparently said. Eden probably knows more.”
“Either way, about two years ago.”
“There were two hosts to the pentagram killer. One was your sister, but she was only possessed after the death of the previous vessel. Investigator Schultz was the first vessel, the perpetrator of the original Pentagram Killings, as well as the person who brought us together. I don’t think he knew until the very end what his purpose was, he tried to turn himself in, but it was too late. Before the demon could do any real damage in his body, as far as we knew at the time, Ronin killed him. We were allies back then, friends, all of us.”
“What do you mean by ‘as far as we knew’?”
“Brooklyn was conceived less than a day before Schultz’s death. We thought nothing of it at the time, but the demon probably had a way of making her into a vessel from birth.
“Does that mean that the Brooklyn I knew was _______ the whole time?”
“What?”
“Brooklyn was always _______, that’s what you’re saying.”
“Brooklyn was what?”
“_______, that was the demon’s name!”
“That thing’s still inside your head, it’s stopping you from saying its name out loud.”
“Of course, it can stop me from saying its name.”
“Two years ago, I started seeing things just like you are. It all started after Schultz died, but for me, it was Claire. That demon preyed upon my insecurity, my unwillingness to take responsibility and do what had to be done. It’s fitting that finally pulling the trigger was what put a stop to it.”
“You killed her, my sister. You shot her, didn’t you?”
“I pulled the trigger, I saw her die, a bullet in her head. After that I blinked, she was fine.”
There was silence in the car for a bit as Scarlet drove into the DEED HQ elevator. It gave me time to mull over my thoughts.
“I know where the final killing is going to be,” I said. “I saw the future while I was unconscious.” I considered telling Scarlet that I saw him die, but it wasn’t important right now. “We’re going to fight Brooklyn on the el-train in-“ I checked my watch. I was unconscious for about an hour. “7 hours. That’s where and when. She’ll be there, I know it.”
[ chapter end ]