Blue

Raining, Pouring

"Come on, it's easier to just... You'll see," Curtis said.

The hallways were more subdued this time around. They must really have been dense, Rose and Adam, to not notice this fact about the Ensigns. Adam knew that he hadn't been in the bunker for a particularly long amount of time, but if he thought back to the other trainee's faces. The ones that had been here for longer than Rose, there had been a tightness about their faces as they had shouted, a sort of dripping, unhappy feeling behind their eyes. Or maybe, Adam was just imposing his own feelings on his memories.

The mess hall was completely silent as they approached it.

Adam walked into the room first, that flower of unease that he was so familiar with taking root in his stomach again. There was something off here. He was quickly validated in his feelings.

The bodies of five Ensigns were laid carefully out on the tables, their bodies practically ripped to shreds. Their faces were wan, pale, and empty, like their approximate features had been shaped gruesomely with soft wax, and they were surrounded by a pool of water. There was no blood. On the table closest to Adam, Alvaro's face glared up at him, his eyes blank and his face twisted in a phantom pain that would never heal. He didn't quite look like Alvaro. Maybe a twin brother. A horribly strange Alvaro twin laid on the table before Adam, dead. He was missing one of his arms. The chestplate hung off him, at the side of his chest, the leather straps shredded. There was a jagged, messy, hole where his chestplate had been hung, right through his black undershirt. Long jagged slashes ran through both of his cheeks, like the siren had purposely ripped his helmet from his head in order to cut through those cheek tattoos. Adam stared at the mess, the terribly wrong version of what used to be Alvaro, laid out in all of his macabre on the metal table.

"Oh fuck. I was wondering why we had mess tables," a voice whispered from behind Adam. The trainees didn't need to eat. Adam had not had to consume a single bite of food since he had woken up. He hadn't considered why they would even have a 'mess room'. The name suddenly made him sick. He could feel his fingernails pressing relentlessly and painfully into his palms.

The other Ensigns were gathered in a tight line at the back of the room, their bodies making the same rigid stance: feet square, hands clasped at the hilt of their sword. Their eyes were fixed on the floor, their heads bowed respectfully. This was a funeral, Adam realized suddenly. A funeral for their fallen comrades. Perhaps a strange warning for Adam and the other trainees, but a funeral before anything else.

"So... what was easier to see?" Adam muttered to Curtis, not turning his head to look at him. Rose had walked away from the two of them, her jaw tight. She leaned over one of the dead bodies, her head lowered slightly as she hovered over them. Adam figured that she was praying. Or crying. Rose was really a toss-up sometimes. To be fair, Adam could hardly sort out his own feelings about what he was feeling, much less what some other trainee was feeling.

One of the Ensign's eyes flicked up suddenly, locking onto him and Curtis, recognition flaring briefly behind his eyes. He tapped his sword twice against the floor. Like trained soldiers, the line of Ensigns collapsed swiftly inward, forming a circle, their backs to the room. They stayed with their backs to Adam for only a few moments before moving quickly back into their line. The one Ensign, the one who had tapped his sword, moved forward, his footsteps falling heavily against the floor as he made his way across the room to Adam and Curtis. The Ensign dipped his finger into a small tub. Adam hadn't even noticed the tub at first. The Ensign's hands were bare, except for his pointer finger, which was black. He dipped his pointer finger into the tub, coating it with even more of whatever was dyeing his finger black. He looked up from his tub to make eye contact with Curtis. There was an imperceptible question, a silent ask playing around the features of his face. Curtis took a breath, shooting Adam a sidelong glance. Slowly, Curtis lifted his hand, turning it so that his wrist faced the Ensign. The Ensign rubbed a dark, black circle onto the skin of Curtis' wrist.