Breed and Burn: Faceless

Chapter 1 - Hold Your Breath

A pair of blinking  eyeballs darted towards Axel. They could hardly be called eyes since they seemed to have no owner. They belonged to a mass of shadows. 

It stretched its arms towards him. When Axel knew he could not fight for his legs ached and his body was blue with bruises, he wished to run away, but the iron bars prevented him from doing so. Instead, he pressed his body against the wall made of ancient stone brick which was as strong as the day it had been built. Yet fear did not strike him for he had been waiting for this day for a long time. 

The cage was no brighter than the gathering gloom of dusk which he had not seen for a long time. Even watching day become night had become a pleasure.  No sound, no light, no furniture and only one way in. The only thing he could do was press his hands and face against the cool wall or bars but even those were smooth. Nothing to subside the hollowness in his soul. This was total isolation.

Even when Axel squinted, the place behind the bars was complete blackness which never seemed to reach the cage. It was no longer a cage. It was a coffin with headroom and the only light was what crept from the floors. The air was different here and Axel never knew why.

"Sit," she said, gesturing to a table with a chair on either side that had not been there before. The cage had been naked and the figure had not been there moments before. Things like that no longer surprised him. They had a habit of travelling through the shadows so not a human eye could see them. "I said sit. If you refuse to comply, your passing will be much faster."

The sound of her swinging her Faceless gun on her fingers filled the room, sounding close to a death note. Faceless guns were not just made to kill but to torture. On further inspection, Axel realised there was not one but two guns in her hands. He had often seen her swinging guns before but never this loud. Perhaps this room amplified it. Although he was supposed to be scared, he was utterly numb.

With his chin buried into his chest, Axel did as he was told without much of a thought. No matter how hard he tried to claw into the hollowness that was his mind, he could not find a single thing that would lengthen his wretched existence. Not that he wanted it to last any longer but this was an end he would not wish on anyone perhaps apart from the figure.

The clicking balls were now across from Axel, boring into his skin like it had become transparent and it was now reading his every thought. Dread filled every inch of his body and he found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

"I know what you did," said the figure. "And what you did will be condemned by death." 

Colour drained from his face. There was hope before. Just a flicker against the wind. Dying embers quickly became consumed by the cold howls. 

"Axel Channing, sixteen years old, has been charged with the murder of thirteen-year-old, Trent Arden and of his doppelganger, Subject Twelve. The trial was rather short since it was just between me and Seven but something still bothers me. Me more than Seven. I watched you pull an arrow on Trent, squarely in his chest. He was one of your closest friends. May I ask why you did so?"

"The voices...they told me to," said Axel, in between his grinding teeth. "I'm telling you they're real."

"Ah, a classic. Voices. It is always the voices. Those voices in your heads manipulate you into you thinking they are real. Many of Faceless experience this. But you are not Faceless."

Axel had a real reason as to why he killed Trent but no one would believe him. No one ever did. He did what he had to do. Even heroes had to get their hands dirty even if that meant going against everything they stood for. His eyes sunk further into skull as he recalled what he had saw Trent doing. Although it was just an echo in his memory its had the power to tear down walls that he has spent his entire life building.