What was life worth? No really? How does one answer that? Everyone says life is precious and meaningful and some other sappy happy nonsense. Everyone has a purpose in the world and there is only one of each person in the world, which makes each person unique and valuable. What does that even mean? How can ever single person on the planet, billions and billions of people, have a purpose? That doesn't even touch the unique part. According to statistics there are between 5 and 7 people on this planet that are almost exact look-alikes of each other, not including twins. Okay, so people aren't physically anything special and the odds of everyone having some super purpose are slim...did matter? Did it matter that no one was entirely special or unique? Did it make their life any less meaningful? Would their losses still not be felt by someone, somewhere? Despite the fear of oblivion, no one just disappears. No matter how much they want to. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So while Rene may have tried to pretend ending of life was nothing to her, the decease of a life would never be just nothing.
The doors were solid in their sentence. They resealed the hiders within the gym like it had never happened, save the bullets holes and now runaways...it might not have. Rene stuttered forward, her legs spindly spiders moving in disjoint by some unknown brain. She was a terrible hero.
Rose blinked slowly up at her, eyes wide and anxious. The lights reflect in the small girl's rectangular lenses. There was a small scratch visible when Rene tilted her head. "Your new glasses."
A dark hand reached up and adjusted them. The shaking, bouncing push by her fingers seemed to make them more unbalanced then actually fixing them. "It's f-fine...I can still see."
Pain radiated in her chest and not just from the bullet wound. What had she done? These people were all getting punished because of her actions. Life at the asylum had never been easy...how much worse though had she made things by trying to be a one woman army of change. She wasn't an army. She was barely an arm right now. Her whole side became a penetrating numb as blood slid down her skin to skip across the ground. They were bright red spots of blood like stickers before they absorbed deep into the cement. Forever marking that Rene was here and perhaps here she would die.
No...she couldn't think like that.
Rene reached her stiff fingers out then slowly wrapped them into a tight fist, trapping within her palm the bits of her life that she could.
"Ehhm."
A swarm of faces met her as she turned towards the noise. She couldn't really tell where it had come from. They were all buzzing, turning into a nonsense of sound that made her feel like a person who just whacked down the hornet's hive. She was no queen. Rene was a walking disaster, nothing more than a worker bee with a broken wing that flies awkwardly in circles trying to be useful.
"I..."
SCREECH!
A heart skipped and thudded back more forcefully than before. A kick-start as it was punched by the sound. It began picking up speed, racing away to the finish in some unknown race. That sound, that screech, she knew it all too well.
SCREECH! SCREECH!
Another siren joined in the wail of death. Multiple fire alarms had been activated. A flickering and groan above the group, was the only warning before a stream of hard pelleting water rained down on them. The water was stained with rust, splattering their skin and clothing with what could be mistaken as dried blood with its brownish red tinge. Strobe lights flashed through the red, giving depth to the horror show. She was watching the world fall apart in seconds of broken motion. People shrieks joined the sirens, soon a lament that rose to overtake the halls. All around her patients were falling into the depths of their minds.
Ballerina girl sang between fits of laughter her head tossed back in the air, twirling in time to the sirens' songs. Shaved head had returned to hide in a corner, shrieking with their ears covered, completely ignoring the companion's attempts at comfort. People clawed at walls and themselves, huddled in fettle positions, screamed, ran, stared blankly, and tried to hold onto their humanity. It was chaos; even those not suffering inside their mind just seemed lost in the sudden disarray. They had tried to escape and stand up to the wrongs of the world. The world had answered them with screams and something that in all appearances looked like old blood. It was definitely an ego deflator. Rene hiccupped a strangled sob, digging her good hand into her crusted hair coated with rust.
Oh God, what was she going to do? What had even happened?
She turned slowing, taking in the nightmare of crazy and hopelessness. Her lashes were heavy with the water and a red haze had formed in the air. A loud cracking and explosion could be heard, making her ears feel as though they had been popped. The building shook as darkness flooded everything. It was as if it had become too much for all the patients' minds to hold and had decided to break loose into the world instead. The darkness of the halls was now only revealed to show their pain with the brief bursts of lights. Lighting in the night, Rene was reminded of how really big a storm she was in with each strike by the fire lights.
"Rene!" Rose shouted, a shaking hand pointing down the hall.
Down hall where they had come from, stood the boy who had accused her of working for them. His hand was bloodied from where he had punched through the emergency glass to set off the fire alarm. Her eyes widened, a sickening cold of despair worming its way through her heart, a parasite that ate away all her strength. They must have set off one in the gym as well. Two locations had to be set off to make the sprinkles let loose their tears. And here she was thinking that they, the ones who had decided to stay in the gym, were going to be the ones who were screwed.
"We...we need to move." Rose's glasses were plastered with the brownish-red and had been pushed up to rest within her dark matted curls. Rene stood there, frozen in the downpour staring at the boy she couldn't save...the one she really didn't even try as his mouth was open in a slight laugh that couldn't be heard above the sirens. "Rene!"
The streaks of water painted Rose's innocent face with tears of blood. Rene tried to lift her leaded arm to wipe off, her mind screaming at the imaginary.
Rene!
Her barely moved limb fell back down, defeated. Aching fingers were pried away from her skull, with one last run over her hair as though it would help the mess she was. Karo and Kai had called her by her name...they had yelled Rene...
A hoarse whisper was all she could manage. "Let's go."
Harsh breathing pounded inside her head as she focused on just the sound and putting one foot in front of the other. Rose, Rene, and maybe fifteen more had managed to peel away from the insanity hole that had sucked in everyone else. The decent into madness had swallowed so many of them. Even those that it hadn't consumed were too caught in its pull to leave the others behind. It had been true and utter chaos back there. Rene had thought she loved chaos that she revealed in the madness...but that...that had been terrifying. Madness may not be bad, but that proved it wasn't good either.
The group bounced off the walls and down the halls in the flashing lights. Rene splashed around a corner and tried to skid to a halt. A slick floor sent her slipping, and with a flop, she landed on the ground. The cement grated against her cheek and exposed arms in the tank top. If only she could hydroplane. A boot slapped onto the ground inches from her face, sending a cascading splash of the rust over her face. She could barely move and her one arm refused to help her up. Propping herself up with the other, she followed the boot up to a sneering guard. Screw it. Rene shoved herself forward to propel herself into the guard, to which, she opened her jaw wide and latched onto, sinking her teeth into the soft flesh of their shin. She was so going to have to wash and burn her tongue after this to sterilize all the rot that must come out of a human this vile.
Teeth worked deeper into the skin looking to engrave themselves permanently on the SOB that was going to kill her anyway. The guy swore, screaming blood murder as he shook his leg doing the hoke-pokie to try and remove the leech on his leg. Spots swarmed her vision as her neck snapped to and fro, whip-lash in the making. Blood quickly began slipping through her teeth and she couldn't stop the gag reflex. Rene unlocked, rolling away from the stomping boots. She spit back the guard's blood onto their feet.
"There you go. Spit-shine with a little something extra, no charge."
Her head snapped back painfully as a leg was swung right up into her chin. Rene fell backwards only to be saved from cracking her skull against the cement by Rose. The small girl struggled to catch her and ended up pinned beneath. Gasping for breath, Rene flipped off her onto her stomach. She laid her stinging skin against the cold cement and chilling layer of water.
"Rather ironic Miss Sparks, considering you were the one wondering if I was a vampire."
Angry words and witty rant.
She couldn't even think of a comeback...she was so dead in the water.
She shrieked. A pointed heel came down to dig into her bullet wounded shoulder.
"Dr. Laurel was talking to you, you pathetic little ingrate. Show some respect." Miss Rachel's precious inches dug deeper into Rene.
"Now, now Miss Rachel. Miss Sparks here is just exhausted; after all it has been such a long and grueling day. In fact, it has been a bit of a long day for all of us. Why doesn't everyone head back to their rooms for some sleep and we can discuss this all in the morning like civilized beings."
A smattering of ripples appeared as puddles were dredged up by movement through the water. The guards converged to grab the other patients. Rene shot out her free hand, holding onto the ankle of one as they tried to pass her. Her nails scrapped and buried into their skin.
No words would form. Still, she clung to keep the others safe. She hadn't been able to save everyone, but she needed to at least save someone...anyone at all.
A crushing weight smashed down on her hand crunching the small delicate bones that allowed for such nimble dexterity humans were so proud of. Rene was deconstructing into just a pile of mushy flesh right there of the ground. Her hand fell limp to the cement. So she swung out a leg, managing to trip one of the grounds and spend them sprawling. About half of the residents had taken the chance to run, only to be cut off on the opposite end by another group of guards. Most of them had already been apprehended. What had she done?
"It was a very valiant effort Miss Sparks, but as mentioned you are not the hero of this story." Rene's eyes were the only thing that could follow Dr. Laurel who walked up to one of the captured patients. "I am." He smiled, pulling a bolt of electricity out similar to a stray hair. A twitch was all it took for it to travel to the boy...the same one with the straggled hair who had wanted to see the sun. He collapsed effectively tased by the doctor.
She bucked underneath Miss Rachel, too weak to move more than a couple centimeters. Rene was a dying fish that could only watch, gasping for breath while the doctor continued his electrical stunning parade. How he wasn't getting shocked and everyone else in the falling water was beyond her.
The last eyes to close were Rose's big brown ones. They remained locked on Rene the whole time, almost defiant in their stare until they fluttered shut.
Worthless...pathetic...crazy...
"Please escort the patients back to their rooms. Give them all shots of medicine. I wouldn't want anyone to be traumatized by tonight's events."
Mad...weak...
Dr. Laurel calmly and deliberately approached her pinned form. A frog ready for dissection, pinned down and everything.
"Miss Sparks, pop quiz. What is it called when the creature is still alive during the operation of scientific research? Don't know? I suppose I shouldn't expect you to. The correct answer is vivisection."
Insane...
Rene fell deep within her mind. Deep, deep down into the shadows and darkness that had formed the last time she had felt this helpless. The last time someone had carved her open while she had been forced to just watch.
Kai, Karo.
Young One.
Fledgling.
The two presences loomed within her mind, powerful and ancient as they had ever been. It seemed silly now to conceive them as anything else then what they claimed to be.
You have two options here. Either one of you comes out or you get ripped out by the doctor.
It would kill you. Karo hissed.
I'm already dying. It's either die under his knife or die by you saving everyone else. You said without me, you aren't connected to this world. That just means I need to hold on long enough for you to destroy this place. I can do that, hell I've been waiting years for that. I can stick around a bit longer for it.
Young One, is life truly worth so little to you?
A shift in her mind, a wave of anger and defiance. Karo seemed to be pacing in the black.
What happened to surviving, to living beyond this little game of yours?
I don't want to die, but I won't be the reason everyone else dies.
From within the darkness, Karo and Kai emerged uncoiling behemoths of monsters. Legends of concepts that balanced the world. Chaos and Order.
Kai floated close, his gold eye glittering. As soon as your last breath is breathed.
We shall be forced from the mortal plane. Karo finished wrapping tightly the opposite way.
Then I won't die, not until you are finished. Just promise me, you'll finish it.
Karo snorted puffing smoke at her. I'll never understand mortals.
No perhaps we never shall brother, though despite all their faults. Humans do have a light that shines in them and luckily for us, this time we got a bright one. Kai brought his snout to rest against Rene's forehead. She stared deep into his golden eyes letting them consume her. A light started radiating from within her body.
Promise?
Promise? A dragon's word is far better than any promise, Fledgling.
The light grew to blinding, in bursting waves, in time with her laughter at the biting remark. She rode it to be flung back into her conscious thoughts. The emergency lights were no longer flashing and sirens had been shushed back to sleep from their wail, even the sprinkling of rusty rain had ceased. The lights currently blinding her were the standard fluorescent bulbs that greeted her harshly back to reality with an unwelcoming sight. Rene was strapped down to a table. Metal pressed against her skin and thick leather straps held her straight, ready to be flayed. She could barely feel the firing of pain neurons to remind her she was alive and still had a place in her body.
"Good you are awake, Miss Sparks. I was worried you were going to miss the making of history. Wouldn't that have been disappointing?" Dr. Laurel turned his back on her. His pulsing blue hands played with different shiny tools picking out just the right one to cut her open with.
I'll make you perfect again.
"Did you hear what I said Miss Sparks, I'll make myself perfect with your help."
One heart beat...two heart beats...three...
"There's no such thing as perfect." Rene croaked. A twitch of finger on her left hand was the only indication of movement as the smell of smoke rose in the air. "And even if there was, there is no way in Hell it could ever be you."
"Well, that is your opinion Miss Sparks..."
The tools clattered to the ground, bouncing like skipping stones in the standing water.
Kai rose above her, a towering pillar of ivory shining in the room, glinting and glittering more brilliantly than all the carefully polished metal. His golden eyes large pools of gold that would have made Midas jealous. Gossamer wings floated him up and down, more powerful and magnificent than any angel she had ever imagined. While Karo was deadly and beautiful, Kai was graceful and lethal. Opposite sides of a coin. Yin and Yang. The dragons of chaos and order.
"As my brother would say, burn mortal." Kai opened his mouth releasing a stream of blue fire towards Dr. Laurel, who barely managed to dodge.
Scrambling and clanking could be heard around the lab as Kai started to give chase right out the door.
Remember our agreement Fledgling.
Rene didn't answer; instead she focused on just remaining awake, staring at the ceiling. Life was funny, years ago she thought she'd die in a very similar position and here she was again...well, maybe not funny haha. The building churned and groaned, bits of dust cascading down onto her. It stuck into the blood and mess canvas of her skin, only adding to the distorting display of mangled art her body had become. Kai was taking up right where Karo had left off.
Funny...
A roar echoed down the hall.
A loud crash resounded on the edges of her consciousness.
"Next time I'm driving!"
"No way, I totally called dibs."
"Would you two shut up or I swear I will turn this car around."
Rene turned her head, a creaking slow movement that reminded her of a possessed doll.
A giant truck was sitting in the wall, wheels spinning for traction as the driver tried to back up.
"Wait!" The passenger door was flung open in hast to a stumbling pink head jumping out.
"Cassie." Rene whispered before her eyes slid shut.