V-00000.5 - Stolen Light

My stride was breaking, my pumping legs that carried the sprint were slowing to a jog as my balance failed me, and eventually I was brought to a limp as I forced myself forward through sheer stubbornness as the remnants of my body’s natural painkillers drained out of me, my head throbbed, and my vision was blurred. Every noise came like a screaming demon as my brain failed to regulate the volume in my head, everything hurt, every joint in my feeble body groaned with the effort of breathing, and gravity hung over me like a reaper trying to push me into the inevitable.

Dazed I continued my death march, forcing my body to keep going even as I was barely conscious of where my feet carried me. Hours seemed to pass by the time my senses snapped back into focus, looking around the streets where covered in broken glass and overgrowth. Familiar destruction met me as I stared upon the massive abandoned building. It was several stories tall and bigger than a hospital, with its gray bricks faded and worn by years of weather. Shattered glass surrounded the building; blown-out windows covered it like acne on a teens face.

“You’re going to kill yourself if you go in there, Viktor; you’re barely even standing, and you’re not 14 anymore.”

“I’ll be fine." I breathed out harshly with the pain, “I’ve got a little left before I’m burned out for good.”

I chuckled softly; the sound was hollow and followed by coughs as my unconscious words reminded me just how close I was to fully snuffing the embers of my fading strength. I could feel it in every step I took; the will, strength, and youth I’d hoarded like a greedy dragon were rapidly draining from me.

“This isn’t just pain; you dumbass, you’re hurt.”

I cracked my neck, the feeling of my spine realigning sending a shudder through me and waves of pain as my nerves were once again allowed to send their signals unabated, approaching the door to the only building I stepped into the hollow metal frames that once were glass doors.

Forever is never very long, Viktor... Just one last thing, then. I swallowed hard, choking down bloody spit, air, and a host of emotions I couldn’t handle right now, including the rest of that thought.

Walking through the dilapidated halls, I could feel my memories and senses guiding me towards an old lecture hall. I could explain fully why, but I felt certain she was there. Me and the crew had used the room for storage enough that it felt reasonable they’d be holed up back there. The smell of rain, mold, and rot haunted my steps along with something else, something familiar yet alien, like a black cloud. It seemed to follow my wake; it felt wrong yet oh so welcoming.

I had no time to focus on this strange, invisible yet visible sensation that trailed me as I had reached my destination. A large, rotten door stood between me and my destination, the half-destroyed label reading “ture hall 1.”

Steeling myself, I swallowed the pain, anger, and dread that was creeping up my back. I pulled on the door; it glided open with an eerie ease as if expecting and welcoming me, and within the destroyed room, beyond the ripped apart chairs and exposed wires was Alice; her pale skin was dirty, her hair a tangled mess with her thin wrists tied down to the arms of a chair, tape pushing in on her soft skin, her eyes rolled up from the ground to meet mine, and my heart sank as her look of relief was immediately replaced with one of... regret. Sadness? I wasn’t certain.

I was torn from my thoughts as the heavily concussed rational part of my brain kicked in, reminding me that there was someone else in the room; his eyes were locked on me, and his hand rested on a knife at his hip.

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He was really tall and skinny with the expected lank; so many people his size had his hair slicked back and black, and his scarred lip contorted into a snarl. I felt the ringing in my ears clear slightly as my brain decided having my ears was important again, and I realized he was speaking.

“Fuck back, you fucking White Walker.” I cocked my head to the side for a second before stepping into the room, and his raspy voice raised again with his knife.

“I SAID STAY BACK, ILL KILL HER, I SWEAR TO FUCK, I WILL.” His knife was high and hovering above Alice from across the room, and suddenly I felt my senses fully react; the fog in my head was evicted with terrible speed, making me almost recoil as the weight of the situation set in. I froze in place, raising my hands in a calming gesture.

“Hey relax, we don’t have to do this... She’s safe; nothing needs to go down here; you can just go, man.” My thoughts were scrambling as I tried to string words together and find any combination of words that would make him put the knife down and step away from her.

“Just stay back... Don’t take another fucking step, Viktor.” Some innate sense told me he was terrified that he was scrambling just as much as my concussed mind was, and I could feel it he was weak, that this was his only play.

“Hey listen, I’m complying alright, not moving. Just tell me what you want to do.”

He raised a hand and swept it through his short brown hair before backhand wiping the sweat on his brow. “Get away from the door I’m leaving and... and she’s coming with, I uh... I’ll let her go before I’m gone, but she’s coming, and if you try to follow... just don’t follow me, Viktor.”

I took a step to the side of the door, keeping my hands raised and stepping deeper into the room as I did, moving around the chairs that crowded the entrance.

“You can go, man, but you can’t take her with you. Just let her go, and this is over. Alright, no more bad blood, you understand.”

He grabbed her and cut off the tape binding her to the chair before dragging her up, pressing the knife against her neck. My heart leapt into my throat as I watched him press the blade to her and steadied as I saw him stop before hurting her.

“No way… You think I don’t know who you are... Everyone’s heard the stories; you twisted fuck your... You’re never going to let this go. People told me what you did to that kid who mouthed off to you. No, you can’t lie to me. YOUR GONNA LET ME GO AND SHE’S COMING UNDERSTAND.”

His voice became shakier, more manic, and desperate before turning to shouts, and he started dragging Alice forward. I could see the terror in her face as she got closer; the tears spattering her reddened eyes and the trembling in her legs and lips twisted my heart into aching knots. I felt helpless as new pain carved itself into my heart, making my chest tighten.

I stood there watching him get closer and closer, my heart throbbing with every step like he was driving that knife into my chest over and over again. My mind raced, discarding thought after thought when suddenly my hair stood on end when he was only a few feet away from me. My instincts were going berserk, warning me of danger. Everything in my body was telling me to react, and when he stepped towards me again, I reacted almost against my will. I stepped back, and he lashed out with the knife, missing me by inches.

Panic filled his eyes. As he watched his own arm arc out and miss me, I saw it all in slow motion. My body felt heavy and stuck in molasses as I watched him hurriedly pull the knife back. Then reality sped up, suddenly leaving me to handle the whiplash. I watched Helpless as his arm blurred the knife slamming into Alice’s neck as he tried to reposition it to keep threatening me.

My mouth gaped as my jaw and eye twitched. My heartbeat fell silent. I felt the breath slip out between my lips as I lost the strength to keep it in my lungs. Watching the knife slide across her neck and her face as she stared at me only added to the horror. The look of relief in her eyes, seeing that the blade had missed me, as if she hadn’t yet realized what happened to her, slowly her eyes widened, the lids peeling back as her lips parted to a silent mouthing of the words.

“I love you.”

Blood sprayed from the spreading wound in her neck, the feint red line turning into a jagged slit that coated the long black blade in red, the man’s skin being dyed. In Alice’s life, flashes of images and sounds hammered my mind; memories played in slow motion; her face smiling down upon me after I woke up on a park bench; her shouting at me mixed with flashes of white from the hospital room I was in superimposed over reality.

The memories began to fall away as the weight of my beloved’s death settled onto my shoulders, and like the straw that broke the camel’s back, every emotion, memory, and dream—all the pain I had swallowed over the last few days—flooded back to me as impulses and raw hatred. I wanted to scream, cry to fall apart, and most of all to leap at the troglodyte that had stolen my reason for living, yet I didn't. All at once, my trembling stopped, my muscles relaxed, and I shifted into a predatory stance with a deathly calm hanging over me.

Memories of Alice’s voice drowned under a quiet ringing in my ears that was slowly increasing in volume. The flashes of imagery were fading as a red fog settled over my eyes. The mists of hate seemed to filter everything out except for My Prey.

The last words that made it through my memories before the ringing became a scream.

“You’re not a monster.”