Author note: I do not own Count Cain: Godchild. Nor do I own the book that inspired me to write this, 'Project Cain' by Geoffrey Girard. Nor do any of those 'Let's Play: Outlast' videos that I watched on Youtube that also inspired me to write this.
...Why horror? At Christmas? I don't know how these ideas get into my head. The reason why I'm writing this fic is partially because of the fact that you guys have voted for something VERY DARK to be written-and that's rare coming from me because I usually write the general fantasy/adventure/drama-filled/lots-of-yaoi (I swear, only a few of my fanfics have het pairings...)/violence-filled stuff. But no, there's probably no chance of pairings here-and this will be my main fic to be working on besides 'Neverland' and 'That's How a Carnival Grows.' As for my 'Wonderland' AU, I will sporadically post up oneshots from that 'verse if any come to mind, but we'll just see how it goes. Again, don't expect any of my fanfics to be updated often-the only reason I'm able to do so now is because of the Christmas holiday season...
The main reason why I'm writing this fic is because I just, well, NEEDED TO WRITE IT. I don't like it when ideas as gripping as this get away from me, so I need to basically write it down ASAP before I end up mentally throwing the idea into oblivion. hopefully this will turn out well...
Main characters for this fic, by the way, are Gladstone and Leroy. ...This should be interesting, considering that I've never written anything that heavily involves the latter, but this also means that any constructive criticism regarding characters would be very nice. (I mean, I don't even know how old Leroy is...probably older than Maryweather, so perhaps twelve or thirteen?)
Warning: Dark fic (as dark as I can do it without scaring myself), so that means violence, gore (not too graphically described) mental/psychological stuff maybe, AU (It's kind of a modern AU, but obviously with a supernatural thing to it like 'Project Cain,' so...Modern Horror AU? 0_0), OCs, first time writing Horror stuff in a long while so please no flames if I'm screwing up something that should be scary, and...that's it for now.
Constructive Criticism would be great, and I hope that you read, review and enjoy! Thanks!
Nightmare Factory
Leroy noticed the white-haired man with the black sunglasses for the past few times that he went to play in the defaced playground with Yuna, on the nice days when they didn't have to go pick-pocketing, fortunetelling or begging to get their money. He almost considered not taking his little sister to the park, because it was dark outside today and he feared that the strange sunglasses man would be around, but Yuna had insisted and he just couldn't say no to her. He wanted to make her smile, because their mother-possibly dead from over-drinking-couldn't provide for them.
He knew his life wasn't the greatest life to have. Pick-pocketing and begging were not honourable things to do. If he could, Leroy would try to get a job. The last time he did, though, he nearly got himself involved with shady drug dealers. That had given him the obvious idea that it was a bad idea to go looking for a job on the streets. Really bad idea. And so he had no choice but to pick pockets and beg other fellow civilians for money.
Looking around, he watched his little sister swing back and forth, laughing merrily. He took a step forward, to join her because it would be sad if he didn't play with her, but he felt something underneath his feet. Looking down, he caught the glimpse of a bill. A twenty-dollar bill, to be exact.
He couldn't believe his eyes at the sight. Picking it up silently, he examined it carefully. Money at this amount was not easily found on the ground or lying in the trash by someone else's mistake. He could buy some food with this, or maybe a cheap blanket to wrap Yuna with to help her keep warm. Winter was coming, after all, and he didn't want her to freeze to death.
A van door slammed itself closed.
Leroy was suddenly aware that there was no laughter of Yuna's resounding. He looked up, hastily stuffing the bill into his pocket, and realized that Yuna was-
gone.
And a white-haired man with black sunglasses was walking around from the back of the van to the front, and Leroy swore that he heard muffled little screams coming from inside the van.
"Yuna!"
The man turned, took an apathetic look towards him, and then went inside the driver's side of the van and shut the door. The engine began to roar to life, and Leroy could do nothing but try to run after the van, no matter how stupid it looked like. He was not going to lose his sister. Never.
Leroy didn't bother screaming for Yuna-instead, he just kept running until his legs felt like they were on fire, invisible flames licking at them for a taste of his tired flesh. All the boy could hear for what seemed like eternity was his feet pounding against the pavement and his shallow, fast breathing, lungs dying for a real breath of air.
And then, after finally collapsing to his knees, he found himself in front of an old factory building, abandoned long ago. Or so it seemed in the beginning, at least.
He remembered walking past this building several times-and too many times he swore he saw flickering lights. He just thought that a bunch of drug dealers made their business there, or threw drug parties there or whatever it was that they did. But then he saw someone in the window-at least, he thought he did. He could never figure out of this person in the window was a woman or a man-seemed almost a blend of both genders...but back then, Leroy swore that it was some stupid trick of the light, or of his mind, because there was no way that such odd-looking ghosts (or any sort of ghosts for that matter) existed.
But now...he was starting to get a little creeped out by the looks of the place. There were more flickering, bright lights, and as far as Leroy knew now...well, flickering lights were never good things from the beginning, after all. Wasn't that what predicted something bad about to happen in the movies? (Yes, Leroy had gone to the movies once with Yuna-they'd snuck into the back seats to watch what they soon realized was a horror movie, and Yuna had nightmares since.)
And as far as he knew-that van, parked in front...-Yuna was probably in there by now. Looking around, he didn't see any guards. He didn't even see anyone watching from the-
...Scratch the last thought. Someone was watching from the window. Leroy rubbed his eyes, pushing coarse locks of his dirty-blond hair behind his ear, before looking up again. No one was there anymore.
A trick of the light, he finally decided. Just a trick of the light...right?
He decided not to linger on those thoughts anymore. He had to bust into that building, find his sister, and get the hell out of there before anyone else that belonged to that buidling found out that Yuna was out of their grasp. There was no way he was going to lose her to whoever lingered inside that place-never.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it..."
It was at a time like this when Cassandra couldn't help but wonder why he had decided to do this (definitely stupid, in his honest opinion) plan of sneaking into that old, abandoned, factory building that was definitely not abandoned, as soon discovered earlier after he climbed into the build through a window. The window had shut afterward, and he cursed-as far as he knew so far, that had been the only way out of the factory. Now he had not just the objectives of investigating this place thoroughly, but now he had to find a way to get out as well.
He wouldn't have investigated this place in the beginning. Never. He would have sent a private investigator to find out about this place-and thus, he did so.
The investigator never returned.
A human arm, however, did-right on his doorstep a week later.
Cassandra didn't call the police. Sometimes, he felt that he should have. Instead, he just studied the arm carefully. Whatever had cut off the arm had used a serrated knife-he was sure of it, from all of those mystery television shows he watched late at night, to all those forensics books he borrowed. At least, he thought it was close enough. What kind of serrated knife? He would never know.
He was no official detective-he was just simply interested in all of this 'Nightmare Factory' business because no one had ever really figured out what they did. Some claimed that they did illegal experiments behind the government's back, and others claimed that they were working with the government, but Gladstone could never really be so sure. Between work at the office, eating, and sleeping for the past three months, he'd been doing nothing but simply investigating the background of the 'Nightmare Factory' as much as he could without anyone noticing. He couldn't let anyone notice, because that would mean they would be suspicious of him, and he was sure that keeping a dead arm in his home and breaking into a factory were both illegal.
Of course, the fact of that being illegal didn't stop him. No, he wanted to know more. That was why he sent that investigator (probably now dead, by his judgement) to break into the factory. Gladstone had been ready to pay a tidy sum for that-all for the sake of information. Of course, that investigator was dead (and damn it, it was so hard to get a hold of that one-how hard could it get to find another-) and so now he figured he might as well do it all himself.
Hence the break in. Hence the recording camera he carried with him (and it was on night vision mode, too, so he could see better in the dark), as well as the fact that he was now running for his life.
He was so sure someone was following him. Someone had to be-he swore something was breathing down his neck.
What it was, however, he didn't know-he did not wish to look back to see a possibly half-dead thing running after him. There were rumours that those half-dead, half-alive (Zombies? Was that even possible?) were lingering around the factory, forced into insanity by possible experiments that the scientists of the 'Nightmare Factory' performed on them, and that they ate people alive. Cassandra did not wish to be eaten at any time now. He just wanted to find some evidence, and then get the hell out of this place. That was all he needed, all he wanted, and nothing more.
He ran into the nearest room, thankfully empty, and then saw a nearby locker. Hesitating for a moment, he figured he might as well try to stuff himself in there-just in case whoever it was pursuing him came into this room... It was risky, but he had to take a chance. Struggling with the locker handle, he jerked the door open and nearly threw himself into the surprisingly spacious locker, closing the door afterwards.
His heart hammered in his chest-and he tried to tell himself to breathe, to calm down, but it was extremely hard to and-
The door opened.
Not the locker door, of course, but the door that gave entrance to this room did.
He went completely still, nearly holding his breath. Closing his eyes, he didn't try to see his possible pursuer-instead, he listened. The breathing of the other occupant of the room was ragged, shallow, as if it had just finished a rough desert marathon. Cassandra after a moment finally, mentally, told himself to 'man up' and he let his eyes flicker open. It was silent, now, and perhaps whoever had been here just left-
-Big mistake.
Two gaping, wide orbs burned into his vision, irises a translucent beige. The figure seemed almost colourless, save for the long, ash-blond hair that trailed far past its shoulders. Gladstone wasn't sure for a moment whether the figure was male or female-even if it was completely in the nude as he suspected... The skin was a ghostly, creamy colour-and those hands-were those hands/talons/claws-
His stomach nearly turned over at the hands, dripping a dark red. This creature, this thing had killed something or someone earlier. Was it bloodthirsty?
No, no, no, no, no... Gladstone knew he was no religious man, but he prayed in his head anyway. He did not want to die, he did not want that creature to open up the locker he was residing in and rip out his organs like all supernatural things did in those dreaded horror movies... (Gladstone swore that those horror movies were getting to his head-too many times lately he'd been waking up screaming and that was not good...unfortunately, it seemed to be the only way for him to gain endurance in preparation for all the gore and violence that could await him in this rundown factory, considering how busy he was with work and all.)
The figure made a small sound, as if it was smiling, and he heard a small tap. The figure was poking the locker with one long talon. His locker.
He closed his eyes, expecting the worst to happen.
Nothing did-actually, something did happen, but it was not what he predicted. The figure merely placed something on a nearby table, and then slowly sauntered out of the room.
He stayed in that locker for a while, unsure of whether the creature would come back. Finally, he opened the locker door and climbed out, heaving a deep sigh of relief as he let a hand brush through greasy brown locks (and he reminded himself to wash his hair later once he got out of this damned place and back home-if he ever got out, that is). Glancing at the bottle, he read the label carefully...
"Drink me." He let out a groan, laced with disgust and confusion. "Don't tell me this is some screwed-up Wonderland in that thing's eyes..." He tucked the tiny bottle into his front coat pocket-it could be evidence, he convinced himself-and he took out a notebook and pen from the inside pockets of his coat. Thank goodness he was prepared. He hesitated, before beginning to write.
Just got into this damned factory. Window shut itself when I got in through there-couldn't open it, so I need to find a way out...something ran after me only minutes after starting this investigation and I was stuck in a locker for a good amount of time...it's gone now. For now. Can't waste time here-need to find as much information as I can and get the hell out of this place.
...Can I even find a way out in the end? ...I don't want to know the possibility of failure here. Whatever the creature was that nearly killed me, there are probably more out there and I have to avoid them. Good thing I'm armed-if worst comes to worst, I'll have to shoot. If those things aren't vulnerable to bullets...
...Well, if that's the case, I'm screwed already.