BREATH . OF . LIFE . ~ { ReGenisis Chronicles Book I }

Chapter Eight [Part 3/3]: One More ReGenisis To Chronicle

                      -Jake Aylesbury -

I finally allowed myself to rest. A moderate sized room, with uncomfortable bed and some of my personal effects. My living quarters for more than five years.

A dull place. Where I found myself surrounded by reminders of a cold home I used to know, empty space filled with necessary darkness. Now, its replacement, just as cold, only the darkness is more literal.

 All the warm things seem to pass away like ghosts through the walls. The good memories worse to remember than the waking nightmares. The nightmares never threatened to disappear. Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that what I still had to hold on to was in the balance, soon to become fading images in time.

In my mind I had pictured Rin's face as Mead's hand pierced her side, over and over. Unable to quell the thought that she couldn't have survived. With it came flashes of Amy's last moments, how cold I'd had to be, just to hold myself together. To cut off the pain.

I had barely any peace when I got the call to the old lab. I looked at my bedside clock, I'd peered at it many times as I tried to shut the world out and each time I was disappointed that in a blink, hours had not passed and some secret sleep hadn't befallen me whilst I wasn't paying attention. I'd had an hour at most and it was broken between thoughts and memories and the hard thud of my heart thrumming through my skull like a kick drum. The building pressure of my sadness turning to anger as I pictured myself ramming my hand through Mead's chest and doing to his heart literally, what he has done to mine figuratively. 

Still, I had to answer the bleep of the intercom.

I sighed, sitting up with the ache of a body not being given a chance to renew itself. My weakness meant I couldn't avoid feeling wear and tear from time to time. I pulled the thin scratchy blanket that had become entangled with my legs in my futile search for sleep and got up. The voice on the other end was Angelica Martello. She wanted to get Helen Tryst's ReGenisis started sooner than later. Where there were other Nocturnals to choose from, she wanted someone she trusted better to be there in case Helen woke up too quickly, or too violently.

 After a shower to wake my mind and divert it from the treacherous path it was walking, I went straight there. Miss Martello was filling in forms at her desk, Tryst's details with plenty of room for a brief study on her ReGenisis and its effects on her. But there was another file out for a more in depth study of that.

I turned to look at Tryst, laid on the little metal bench inside the observation room. Her skin was so pallid, but turning yellow. Around her eyes, the skin had become dark.

"Serves Trinity Science less than two years in total, only a major Unit member for one, still manages to get approval for ReGenisis serum." I mumbled to myself, eyes narrowing until my focus had shifted to the glass in front of me. My reflection contradicted my being, a Nocturnal is not supposed to look ragged. But I had managed it, my sleeplessness showed. But perhaps it was simply my eyes picking out the small details since the last time I paid any note to it.

"Hmm..." Angelica Martello hummed as before, still engrossed in her paperwork before she brought her head up. Eyes on me, then on Helen through the glass. "Yes, but Helen Tryst listened to orders, stuck to protocol and kept her nose well out of business she wasn't cleared for." She shot me a look, one I couldn't decipher. Then she sighed and placed her pen down next to the files in front of her. Pushing her chair back to stand, she kept glancing away from me, perceiving whatever expression I was making threateningly. I could tell I was frowning, but maybe I had thunder written over it. Tiredness kept me from being sure.

"Aylesbury," She crossed her arms, eyes still averted as she figured out how to move her tongue in order to form the right words. "I understand you're upset," Angelica began, forcing me to huff a breath of understatement. "Many of us know very well that you and a few others would have Amelia Norton a Nocturnal. But it was out of my hands, the decision was final three years ago, the moment she secured you, Rin and Griffin alive. If it wasn't for Nicodemus Garner and Miss Swan, she'd have been executed, along with the three of you at the time."