Darkness, darkness, and then the light.
It came unwelcome and shy, pulling at my heavy eyelids and whispering about the dawn.
The dawn could go get fucked as far as I was concerned.
I was lying facedown on something hard and unyielding, wind whipping at my remaining hair and exposed skin. Somewhere nearby someone was arguing but who with I could not tell; theirs seemed to be the only voice speaking.
"I bloody well told you already, yeagnh? You get payment when I get my album finished."
I scrunched my eyes closed tighter, letting sleep sink their voice back into mumbled mist and shadow. I didn't care. Who could care? There was nothing left of the world anymore; Lou was dead.
Who's fault is that?
Guilt and wretched sorrow sliced through me like a knife at the terrible memory of it. As unconsciousness stole me away, I cried out his name into the unknown abyss stretching out before me, hoping maybe he'd hear. Hoping against foolish hope that perhaps he'd find his way through the fog and take my hand, and lead me away from this place.
Above me I heard a laugh. Then everything went back to darkness.
----------------
"Yes, I agree cyborg; she's definitely not as pretty as we were told."
No one had spoken, yet the nasally grunting voice replied anyway, cutting through the comatose bliss I had been basking in.
Wincing, I grit my teeth and pushed my face further into the folds of cloth I was resting on. I didn't want to wake. Once I opened my eyes, it'd be the first time I'd looked at a version of life without my brother in it.
I'd rather stay ignorant to what that would look like.
"Ehheh rise and shine sleeping... well, I can't really say beauty now can I?" Came the voice again, guffawing at their own joke.
I almost laughed bitterly as well, if only at how little I cared as to whether my unknown captor believed me to be attractive or not. My heart felt like raw and ruptured meat, an agony the likes of which I'd never known before. Everything else was numb and dull, pushed to colourless silhouettes of perception in the wake of the terrible grief eating me inside out.
"Aww, no hard feelings, love," the gravelly voice probed through the darkness, "I am terribly sorry about the manhandling that boogieman had to do to get you here, but face-ache needed some motivation and you seemed to be my best bet, ngghehh."
Face-ache?
"The worst bleeding shame is that bald patch. For lack of a better word, I'd say it makes you one of the most hideous birds I've ever laid eyes on; and I had it on with Paula Cracker herself hehhehgh."
Curiosity was getting the better of me, willing my eyes to open even just a crack.
"Ehh but with any luck 2D will still fuck you."
At the familiar name I snapped to attention, body freezing as I listened intently for the first time since beginning to wake.
Is he saying... 2D had me brought here...?
"Unghuhuhuh that got your attention," the tormenting voice chortled, tone dripping with self satisfaction.
"What the fuck are you prattling on about, you radge cunt?" I exploded, finally opening my eyes to glare at my malicious companion.
Shock rattled through me as I came face to face with the snaggle-toothed smile of a man whose skin could only be described as a decidedly rotten green. A greasy black bowl cut fringe came down to just above his hooded eyes, one of which was so infected and bloodshot that it looked as if it had been glazed pink. The bridge of his nose was a sorry state of broken, crooked affairs; bulging with badly-set shattered cartilage.
"Now now, there's no need to be hostile. I've been nothing if not hospitable to you since you arrived on my huhgng... wonderrrrful island," the green man purred, sounding more amused than anything else. He had a strange way of drawing out the end of his sentences, or adding in odd grunting groans for seemingly no effect other than to cast a slightly sleazy slant on everything he said.
I decided instantly that I didn't like him.
"Are you the father of that ugly gassy fucker that attacked me?" I asked him, voice falling into a deadpan that gave no hint as to whether I was serious or not, "Because I saw what's under his mask and you two look verrrrry alike."
Between the insult towards his complexion and my mimicry of the way he rolled his r's, I expected the strange man to seethe with rage or to even hit me for my insolence, but instead he merely froze, blinking at me for a second.
"... there's something... beneath the mask?" He muttered to himself, before clicking his fingers at someone behind him. I couldn't see past the doorway who it was, but the green man murmured to them just out of earshot whilst I took a chance to look around the room I found myself in.
It was a metal box, constructed from multiple pieces of scrap screwed haphazardly together. The bed I lay on was a twin-sized mattress, propped up on wooden pallets which stuck out slightly either side of the neatly made bedspread. There was a sink with a mirror above it, although it was hard to imagine what view I'd ever have of myself in it when having to look through the row of vertical bars that had been nailed into the wall across it, as if the interior decorator had taken inspiration from a prison cell.
Nothing else adorned the room, and I found my gaze tracking back to the green man standing in the doorway, dressed in a black turtleneck and a ship captain's hat for reasons I couldn't even begin to guess at. He finished his hushed conversation and turned back to me, smiling crookedly.
"Sloane love, we got off on the wrong foot. As you surely know, hngehheh, my name is Murdoc Niccals. Founding member of the world famous band Gorillaz, playboy, anti-philanthropist, bassist, satanist," he introduced himself, extending out a hand sporting long talon-like nails towards me and laughing heartily at my reluctance to shake it.
"How the fuck do you know my name?" I blurted in uncomfortable surprise, before clenching my jaw as he took great joy in mimicking me.
"Oooh, how tae fook dae ya know me naem?" He squeaked in a terrible attempt at a Scottish accent, feigning an expression of love struck wonder that I very much doubted I actually wore.
"Don't try me, I will ruin you old man," I threatened in a venomous hiss, but Murdoc only seemed to find my words deeply amusing as he covered his mouth with a moss-coloured hand and faked a yawn.
"I'm shaking in my boots," he intoned, before sniggering and stepping further into the tiny room so that a petite Asian girl could enter past him.
Choppy black hair hung messy over her eyes and stuck out in unruly spikes that only just brushed her shoulders, face flat and expressionless in a way that seemed unnatural for someone so young. She moved at a prowl towards me, and I found myself shuffling backwards on the bed in alarm until I was backed up against the wall in an effort to stay out of her reach. She didn't react, just merely placed the folded towel in her arms beside me and stepped away.
As she left the room, I let my gaze flick back to Murdoc, who was watching the girl leave with an unreadable look in his rheumy eyes.
"Well off you pop then," He said suddenly, attention back on me as he gestured towards the door. I cleared my throat, dazed and very confused at what exactly was going on.
"Where to...?"
"The bathroom you blithering dimw-" Murdoc began to reply in exasperation, before cutting himself off and trying again, "... Er I mean, lovely. We have to get all that dried blood off your face before I take you up to see your old flame."
Stupefied by his words, I fumbled to comprehend what he was getting at whilst my stalling instincts fortunately kicked in.
"Billy Jones, the Tesco cashier? We hooked up in the broom closet a couple of times but I really wouldn't call him an old flame..." I played dumb, speaking in a disinterested monotone as I tried to pry more information out of the strange green man. Murdoc for his part merely looked exhausted as I added, "I think he thinks I nicked his wallet as well."
"Yes, I have Billy whatever-his-name-is waiting for you upstairs, he's decided he loves you despite your early-onset balding," He snapped, rolling his eyes as he marched over and yanked me off the bed by my forearm.
"Oh good, I'll give him back his wallet then."
"You think you're verrrry clever, missy!" Murdoc sneered, shoving the towel and pile of toiletries into my arms as he taunted, "If you're truly so smart, then tell me exactly what it is you think you're here for? What purpose do you serve me?"
He pushed me roughly between the shoulder blades, the flat of his palm digging against my bruised spine as I was propelled from the room and into the hallway. My elbow was grabbed in a vicelike grip by the small Asian girl as I stumbled out into the unfamiliar space, holding me upright as I turned to reply to the jeering man.
"From what I've seen and heard so far, you got a creepy motherfucker in a gas mask to kidnap me and bring me to... an island, did you say?" I drawled, hatred burning like acid in my gut, "And for what? Not a clue. Is it because I used to know your radge cunt of a lead singer?"
Murdoc laughed low in his throat, shaking his head as if he pitied someone as stupid as me. His air of superiority had me fuming as the silent girl began to march me down the hall away from him, and it was only once we were about to turn the corner and be lost from sight that he finally called out his answer.
"No, no Sloane. You're not here because you used to know the face-ache," He sniggered, "You're here because when he cries out in his sleep, it's your name I hear most often."
Then the strange little girl was pulling me along with her down the next corridor and towards a brightly lit doorway at the other end, dizzying confusion flooding my senses. Closed doors were interspersed along the walls, with one open every now and then to reveal empty rooms that resembled the one I had awoken in. For a fleeting moment I thought I saw someone sitting on the bed through the small gap between the door and the frame of one room, but she walked too quickly for me to get a proper look at who it was inside.
I was bustled into what looked like a dingy public bathroom, with stalls in rows either side of the room. The only sound came from a set of taps that dribbled a constant stream of water into a cracked ceramic sink, echoing through the deserted space. The small girl marched me to the left side of the aisle, pushing me into a locker room styled shower cubicle.
"I'm fine without a shower thanks," I snapped, trying to dash out past her, but was shoved backwards as if I'd just tried to run into a brick wall.
She didn't speak, blinking at me without any expression whatsoever as I attempted to stare her down. A prickle of anxiety sparked through me, and I sighed in defeat as I threw the towel and toiletries on the little bench inside the cubicle and shut the stall door in her face. Despite the fact the wooden panel would have only been an inch from slamming into the girl's nose, she did not take even so much as a step back, her shadow hovering in the exact same place outside the door.
Shuddering, I tried not to think about her insidious presence as I began to peel the bloodstained clothes from my battered body. It all seemed too surreal to be anything but some terrible dream I was having, still lying shivering beside Lou, yet the pain stinging in every bruise and scrape I'd collected during the fight against the "boogieman" creature said otherwise. My ribs ached where they'd been punctured, and as I finally managed the excruciating task of pulling my sweater off over my head I was surprised to see a set of stitches in the pallid and bruised flesh of my torso.
Who...?
Four stab marks had rent the skin just below my lowest rib, black with dried blood and held together by someone's careful needlework. I brushed my fingers tentatively across the threads, flinching at the sensation whilst I wondered how long I had been unconscious.
Or maybe just how long it was since Lou had been killed by his own sister's weak incompetence. Lying as food for rats in a run-down Crawley apartment, left to rot until the landlord finally came knocking to see why we were late on the rent.
I put my hand to my mouth to stifle my own raw and aching sob at the thought, eyes squeezing shut as if I could block the image out. Yet still it crawled towards me, peeling back my eyelids and grinning with sharp animal teeth.
Your fault, yours alone.
Gasping for air, I wrenched the cold tap on full blast and stepped under the icy spray without bothering to undress any further. The water beat down against my skull, drumming out the imagined sound of Lou crying for help and drowning my own accusatory voice. It streamed down my face, stinging in the cut on my eyebrow and pouring into my open gaping mouth as I tried my best to breathe. All I could taste was salt.
Shivering uncontrollably, I grabbed for the bar of white soap that sat on top of the towel I'd been given, alongside a ladies razor. The cake lathered bubbles over my body and face as I dragged it viciously along the bruised skin, watching the bubbles go pinky red with flakes of dried blood. In a fit of sudden numb and empty anger, I crushed the bar in my grasp until it became imprinted with my finger marks gripped around it, before pegging it out of the shower cubicle. There was a loud bang as it hit one of the far walls.
Picking up the ladies razor, I turned it in my hands, considering the cold and shimmering edge of the blade whilst the salty water crashed down against my shoulders. There was a guilty whispering in my head, goading me as I stared at the sharp shard of metal encased within the plastic tool in my hands.
Your brother is dead, and it's your fault. If you hadn't been taken here...
Something far angrier than guilt stirred, lifting it's head to the surface of my consciousness as the memory of Murdoc's words echoed in the dark space.
Face-ache needed some motivation and you seemed to be my best bet...
The green man had had me brought to this strange prison-like place because he thought 2D wanted me in some way. In some way enough that I could... motivate him? But motivate him to do what? And how? He was the one who had pushed me out of his life, why in the world would he suddenly have me uprooted from my own and placed back as if the past five years hadn't happened?
It didn't matter, all that mattered was the fact that it was 2D who'd had me brought here. Confusion melted my turbulent emotions into a boiling maelstrom of discontent, outrage, and grief. I sunk to the floor, sitting under the unbearably cold stream of water until I couldn't feel a thing.
The razor was still in my hands, and in a moment of self-hateful spite I reached up with it and began to use the sharp edge to hack my remaining locks of dark matted hair from my head. In a sawing motion, I sliced away fistfuls as close as I could cut to the scalp without all-out shaving it and stared blindly at the tiles beneath me.
There was a knock on the stall door, Murdoc's nasal drawl calling out to me through the barrier, "Bloody well hurry up in there, I haven't got all day."
I ignored him, grabbing the last stray strands of black hair at the base of my neck and haphazardly hacking them off. Dropping the razor with a clatter, I rubbed my scalp with both hands, feeling the ridges of the uneven spikes of hair that stuck out less than a centimetre over my entire head. In a few spots the tufts were slightly longer, and I started to make a noise that I thought was a laugh before I realised it was a high, keening sob.
"Sloane?" Murdoc asked sharply, knocking again as he demanded, "Don't make me come in there, I'd hate to have to see you alllllll wet and naked henghheh."
There was a long pause as he waited for my answer, but I felt like I was choking as I cradled my prickly head in my hands, bare chested with my sopping track pants glued to me like a second skin.
I want to go home I want to go home someone take me home
"Hey, look love, I really don't want to see you naked. It'd be like the time Madonna flashed me her tits at the Grammys afterparty; unexpected, unpleasant, and unwelcome to say the least. Chassis like a beaten down old honda hehhgheh. Ghastly stuff," Murdoc continued uncomfortably into the silence, still grunting to himself at his own humour but sounding more and more tentative as he was met with no response.
I heard murmuring as he conversed with the strange little Asian girl for a moment, before there was the loud banging of a fist against the stall door.
"Sloane! If you don't open up this instant I will use your bald patch to buff the barrel of my cyborg's rifle, do you understand?" He snapped, and I flinched and cowered into the corner of the shower.
Cyborg...? Does he mean the little girl?
A second passed, a double beat of my rabbit-like heart before the door was blown inwards with a loud and echoing boom, splinters of wood raining down as shrapnel. I screamed, covering my face with my hands as a large piece of the door ricocheted off the wall just above where I crouched.
Distantly I could hear Murdoc swearing profusely in an angrily muttered string of words, then I felt the stream of icy water cut off. Looking up from the foetal position I'd curled into, I gulped back a yelp of fear as I was met with the sight of the little girl standing over me with one hand twisting the tap off, the smoking barrel of a rifle pointed directly in my face.
"No! NO! That's quite enough from you," the green man protested, flapping his hands to shoo the girl out of the shower cubicle as he jumped all flustered to my defence. He seemed for the first time sheepish as he shook his head at the carnage of splintered door and shattered tiles around me, scolding, "I told you to break the bleeding door down not blow it to smithereens."
He reached out to help me up, green hands gentle, but I smacked them away with a vicious, "Don't touch me."
Murdoc raised his eyebrows slightly so that they disappeared even further into his fringe but otherwise said nothing, holding out the towel and looking politely away while I shakily stood and stepped into it. Wrapping the dry cloth around my shoulders, I yanked my pants off from underneath and stepped out of them, leaving them wet and ruined on the floor as I strode past my two captors.
I didn't recognise myself in the scratched bathroom mirror; a barefoot girl draped in white terry-towelling, hair shorn to a messy blend of peach fuzz and prickly tufts that made her resemble a patient at a mental asylum. Along the upper bridge of her nose and up to her eyebrow was a thick gouge, scabbed dark red and ugly, and when I uncaringly dropped the towel from around myself to stand bare and terribly naked in the dim lights I could see a patchwork of bruises down the length of her slim body. The black stitching holding the skin together at the base of her ribcage was alike to something belonging on the body of Frankenstein's monster.
"Who did this?" I asked numbly, pointing at the medical work with a trembling finger.
"I did, and for the love of Satan please put some clothes on," Murdoc snapped, retreating from the bathroom with a green hand pressed over his eyes.
Feeling defensive, I rewrapped myself in the damp towel, dripping as I followed him down the hall with a sullen, "I don't have any, you dumb radge."
"Hmmph, I had some mailed here weeks ago, when I first sent out The Boogieman to track you down," the green man sniffed, as if offended that I thought he wouldn't have had the foresight to think this far ahead. Then, with a vicious scowl aimed at me he added, "And what the bloody hell did you do to your hair?"
I resolutely ignored him, clutching the towel closer to myself as he continued grumbling the entire way back to the cramped space I now supposed was my assigned room. There was a set of clothes laid out on the bed, consisting of a set of lacy black lingerie and hauntingly familiar dress, shimmering in baby blue satin where it draped across the sheets.
Puking up bourbon like black blood and crying out the question "why?" and knowing I was nothing I was truly nothing at all because he fucked her and her and her and everyone it seemed but me could see it coming that he was gonna fuck me up too but he wouldn't have to take my clothes off to do it-
"No," I said, voice as sharp as the knifelike memory that the mere sight of the dress stirred. On further inspection I realised it wasn't the same one, just eerily similar, but the damage had already been done.
"What do you mean, 'no'? I had to act nice to 2D for a whole hour to coax the description of this outfit out of him," Murdoc protested, seemingly floored by my cold response, "This is the kind of thing you like to wear, right?"
"Maybe when I was seventeen," I muttered bitterly, hugging my arms around myself as if to keep the onslaught of painful memories at bay. I'd been trying not to think about that awful night for years, and yet here it was waiting for me; the evidence of how truly unloveable I was and always would be.
"Well, there's nothing else hmmm? So you'll be either wearing this or nothing hnngheheh."
"Then I'll be wearing nothing," I snapped, fastening my towel tighter around myself as I shot Murdoc a venomous glare.
"Righto! Let's go play with loverboy then, shall we?" he asked cheerily, clapping his hands together before shoving me by the small of my back out of the bedroom and down to the opposite end of the hallway. Alarmed by his complete change of tone, I could only try my best to back-pedal as I was buffeted along towards a set of elevator doors.
A sharp-nailed green finger pressed the button for the lift, and the doors squeaked open as if the mechanism was full of rust. The interior was heavily graffitied, lit by a single bulb that flickered sporadically above. Murdoc pushed me inside despite me leaning my full weight against his hands to try and avoid entering the shuddering, creaking deathtrap, then joined me with his cyborg lackey as the doors clanged to a close.
I watched with a scowl as the lift rose, dinging brightly as we reached the floor directly above: B2.
The doors wrenched themselves apart with another screech of metal scratching against metal, and then before I could properly survey the room beyond I was shoved roughly into it, tripping as I tried not to fall flat on my face.
"Face-ache! After listening to you pining for weeks I've finally gone and collected your good old pal for you!" Murdoc called out from behind me, and I whipped my head around to fix him with a mutinous look. The green man grinned and winked as he added, "Out of the goodness of my heart, a gift for my favourite lead singer with oh, only a few strings attached."
"Uhh, what? What you sayin'?"
That voice.
Eyes widening, I turned to follow the lilting rasping sound of it, heart thudding hard. Memories of running soaked through the sunshine and lying under the stars atop a carousel roof flickered somewhere at the back of my mind as I swept my gaze across the cluttered room.
And there he was, sitting up slowly from the bed as his fathomless black eyes met mine, lips already beginning to curl into the smile that I'd looked for and found in no one else. Wide grin like all the world's joy held in a single body and being shared with only me for the briefest fraction of time.
"Sloane!"
I stood drooping, wilting with a breathless warmth I had forgotten the sensation of, and the blue-haired man was standing and running to catch me in his arms as if drawn by a magnetic pull. Everything was numb echoing shock prickling across my skin as he held me tightly, coughing as he cried out with wordless delight. He lifted me off the ground, spinning in a dizzying circle of exuberance before setting me lightly back on the metal floor, still grinning as he leaned forward to ruffle my newly cropped hair.
"For a moment there I fought you were Lou."
His words were light, laughing. He didn't know, he couldn't know. I felt my frozen form begin to thaw, rage sending me superheated and tight fisted as I listened to the sound of my brother's name echo from the very lips which were to blame for me being here.
And if I hadn't been taken here, I could have given Lou the naloxone.
"Lou..." I repeated, dazed and furious before my voice became a ferocious snarl, "... Lou would still be alive if it weren't for you."
And then my wrathful hands were around his throat and squeezing as hard as I possibly could, screaming every sad and angry thing I'd ever wanted to say to him except all at once so it made no sense.
"You were the one who left me, not the other way around! Promised it'd be fine but nothing was fine again-"
2D yelped at my sudden violence, black eyes flying wide like two deep holes in the pale expanse of his face as he scrabbled at my tightening grip with his clumsy fingers.
"- and I trusted you! With everything I had! And you took it all and then said it wasn't enough-"
Murdoc yelled something from the doorway to the lift, something that sounded like, "Ohforthesweetloveofsatan!" yet I was beyond listening as I increased the pressure in my stranglehold around his neck.
My face was contorted in white hot rage as 2D's began to turn red and then purple, horrific rasping sounds coming from his constricted airway as he fought for air. The hands on mine scratched and pulled, black eyes glazing over as they stared with pure panic into my own.
"- and I hate you, I hate you so fucking much it makes me fucking sick that I ever lov-" I choked on the end of my sentence as I was yanked suddenly backwards, 2D gasping as I lost my grip on his throat.
I snatched at the empty air in front of me, before screeching in bloodthirsty fury as my arms were clamped at my sides. Craning my neck to look over my shoulder, I scowled and spat at the small girl who held me with inhuman strength.
"Tch tch, spitting at my Cyborg Noodle? I might have to get her to teach you some manners," Murdoc scolded disapprovingly, walking from behind me and into view.
With a nod to his little minion, I shrieked in pain as she tightened her bear hug around my midriff. The pressure caused a few of the stitches in my ribs to rip from the skin, opening the claw wounds afresh with a fiery sting that left me gasping.
"Sloane, I don't understand," 2D was coughing out, holding his crushed throat in shaking hands, "What's happened ta Lou? Why'd you fink it's my fault?"
"Don't say his name! Don't you dare say his name!" I shouted breathlessly past the agonising constriction of my ribcage, twisting viciously in the cyborg's grip as I stared into the face of the boy I once loved and saw nothing but a selfish fool look back.
"Well! This has been wonderrrfully entertaining, but I think that's enough excitement for one day," Murdoc announced into the chaos, clasping his hands together with a smirk as he looked between the terrified blue-haired man and I.
"Murdoc, what 'ave you done?" 2D wheezed, backing as far away from me as the room would allow, "Why'd you bring Sloane here?"
"As a gift!" Murdoc jeered, rolling his eyes before holding his pointy chin and pausing for a moment in thought, "Hmm but this is better. The whale is enough to keep you in here but is clearly not enough incentive to get you to sing for me on the new album..."
"I did sing! I sang that one about the Stylo and electricity and stuff" 2D protested snottily, displaying a sullen attitude I had only ever seen him display once before, towards his father years ago. Murdoc visibly seethed at being spoken back to, and I watched his hand twitch as he just barely refrained from striking out towards the other man.
"One song, then weeks of complaints and excuses like the snivelling halfwit you are. Anyway! I thought if I brought you the girl you always used to blither on about back at Kong Studios then maybe you'd be more inclined to willingly participate," Murdoc explained through gritted teeth, rubbing the bridge of his lumpy and crooked nose in frustration, before brightening considerably as he continued, "Although clearly I hadn't realised that you'd of course already managed to make her hate you. Funny that, how every woman you've ever met ends up thinking you're repulsive."
"You're one to talk..." 2D muttered, but flinched and trailed off when the green man raised his hand towards him in an unspoken threat.
"Sloane, my apologies darling, but I was very intent on you being some sort of... shall we say, physical reward for our mutual disappointment 2D over there? Ghastly stuff I know, huhnhughhuhh," Murdoc addressed me, chuckling nastily before finishing, "But luckily for you, it seems you're more effective as a terrifying punishment."
Trying to ignore the slight sting in his words, I curled my lip in distaste as the man who seemed intent on being my jailer signalled to the cyborg girl with a careless click of his fingers. Still restraining my arms in her vicelike grip, she frog marched me back into the waiting elevator. We turned and waited as Murdoc sauntered after us, voice full of mirth as he continued to sneer towards 2D.
"I'll give you a day to rest up that bruised throat of yours, two dents, and then tomorrow I'll see you bright and early in the Plastic Beach recording booth."
The defeated looking man still cowering at the far end of the room ran a hand through his blue hair as he asked sulkily, "... and what if I don't feel like singin'?"
Murdoc's smile was sharp and gleeful as he joined the cyborg and I in the creaking elevator, calling out his reply as the doors began to close on our view of 2D.
"Then I'll be bringing Sloane back here for a friendly visit."