The camera in the corner of the room moved imperceptibly. Just enough to better center the group of men huddled in the center of the room. At the edges, desks could be seen pushed against the singular pair of doors in the room. Only half of the overhead lights were on and those that were on were dim and flickering. There were 8, no 9, men in the center of the room, some sitting, most standing. Some wore suites, some wore decorated military uniforms, and some wore lab coats. And all but one of the men were old, wrinkly, and gray.
The one young man amongst them had messy brown hair and stubble on his chin. His lab coat was wrinkled and the badge hanging from his breast pocket was plain and cheap looking. Despite every indication that he was the lowest ranking person in the room, he appeared to be the center of the rather hushed conversation. At first, the discussion was too quiet for the far away camera to pick up. Then suddenly one of the men in a military uniform grabbed the young man by his collar and hoisted him out of his chair while shouting, “how dare you put your life above your country! You call yourself a man?”
The younger man glared up at the elder, “you do it then.”
A lab coat stepped up and put a hand on each of their shoulders. Looking at the young man he said, “you’re the only one it trusts. The only one who could get close enough to him.”
The young man snorted, “and whose fault is that?”
A loud banging from the door stopped any retort to the young man’s comment that may have been forming. The doors in the desks rattled. Another bang and one of the desks slid a few inches across the floor with a loud scraping sound. Each of the men stood, backing away from the door. Another one of the lab coats pressed something into the young man’s hand, his words drowned out by another bang and metal shrilly sliding across the floor. A few more of the lights flickered out and at least one light bulb exploded. One of the suits pulled out a hidden gun, he did not get to fire it.
The doors burst open, desks were sent flying with far more force than should be possible. One desk slammed into the suit with the gun, turning him into a red smear on the rough carpet floor.
There was a glitch and then a pure white, naked with hair down to the floor, wrapping around its thin limbs appeared in the room.
For a few seconds there was absolute silence and stillness. Then one of the military men took a step towards the figure, mouth open to speak, face red. His chin tipped forward, touching his chest. Then his head rolled right off his shoulders.
Stolen story; please report.
A lab coat soiled his pants and dropped to the ground in a shaking heap. A suit tripped over his own feet as he tried to back away and fell to the ground. The other military man pointed a gun at the figure even as a lab coat was grabbing his arm and yelling at him not to.
The figure raised a hand to the two, palm out. And then there was a rather large hole in the two’s chests... And the head of the suit that was trying to sneakily crawl away behind them.
One of the suits tried to pull a gun from under his suit jacket and it exploded against his chest. Two lab coats tried to make a break for the open doors, their legs cleanly separating from the rest of their bodies. The figure merely looked at the man on the ground who had soiled his pants and the lab coat slumped, no longer shaking.
And then, within a minute of entering the room, the figure was alone with the young man.
The young man was trying to back away towards the door, having been tacitly allowed to get as far as the crushed suit. The man slipped on a spreading blood pool and crashed to the ground, drawing the gaze of the figure as if it had just noticed him, however improbable that was.
The small, childlike figure took a step towards the man. The man scooted back, smearing blood into the rough, gray carpet. “End!” The man practically shouted at the figure, lips quivering, “I know you’re angry! But you need to stop this before you do something you regret.” He raised his arm in front of him in protection, fist clenched tight, as the figure slowly approached.
End planted a foot on either side of the man’s hips and bent down over him, the ends of his long white hair getting dirty with blood. The man tried to shrink away, but End merely bent down more, taking the man’s face in his hands to keep him still. End’s mouth started to move, voice too quiet to be picked up by the camera. He tilted his head down, his hair now falling into place to hide his face from view.
However, the growing horror on the man’s face as he looked up into End’s eyes was plainly visible. With a desperate scream, the man swung his arm at End’s thigh. He didn’t make contact.
The offending limb fell to the ground with a splatter of blood, separated at the shoulder, the fingers uncurled just enough for a glint of a needle to be caught by the camera. The man’s scream of pain quickly petered off into whimpers and End’s words were finally audible. “The only thing I’ll regret is trusting you.”
End straightened up with a snap and a tear, the man’s head coming with him, the body hitting the floor with a dull thump. End raised the head to eye level and the neutral, straight line of his mouth slowly curled up in a smile. He hugged the head to his bare chest, letting the blood dripping from the neck roll down his stomach and stain strands of his hair.
He turned to face the camera, looking directly into its lens. With a wink and a glitch, he disappeared.