I have several ideas where this is headed and none of them are too sane. May change the rating on it to an M in later chapters for excessive explicit content. Or I might not. Reviews will read, advice acted upon and flamers used to cook marsh-mellows.
Oh, and I apologise for the crappy spelling in advance. Its one of those things. People say 'If you know you are going to make it why do you not try and avoid it? To which I reply 'If I knew what it was meant to be I would not have made it.'
Thank you for reading.
Torren lay there on his bed staring up at the cracked ceiling from his pit of misery. He did not stir when it started to rain through the broken window in the high walled room. After all, what would be the point? He had stopped being able to feel anything. Not the warmth of sunshine or the bitter wind from the north was his to feel. Not anymore.
He had given her everything. Everything. His heart, his time, his soul even his dreams at night were no longer his. No longer his at all. Where once had been the joy of seeing her, and she will remain unnamed, there was now just the bitter ends and loose tatters of nightmares where once had been the joy of life. And yet... and yet... he could not hate her. Not yet. A little piece of him, the piece that was most like he had been, still hoped that he could wake up, and all of this would have been a nightmare. It was the only sensible explanation. He had loved her, loved her utterly. Beyond what he thought it would be possible to feel and remain sane he had loved her. He had done everything properly; he bought her gifts (mostly the shiny soft yellow metal with precious stones in it), he had given her a rose (that he had spent goodness knows how long growing, often feeding it his own blood to make it's flower red), he had taken her out to all the place she liked and then just as he was about to ask her to marry him... she had rejected him. Because she had found somebody else who was better. The faithless bitch!!!
No, no. It was wrong to be angry. Best not to be angry. Anger is a terrible thing for one such as he. Best not to be angry. Ever.
The sun was nearly rising. He would have to get up soon and go to his job at the Adeptus Mechanicus re-supply port. No, wait. He wouldn't. They had got rid of him yesterday for turning up and looking drunk.
But he wasn't drunk. It was three days of sleep deprivation, hunger and de-hydration. No point in eating. No point in drinking. Sleep was less restful than lugging the munitions from one crate to the other, which was his job in any case.
Should he get up? Should he get up to go and look for a job to afford... what? Food to eat, so he could see one more day with out his beloved? Should he even rise to go to the blood bank to give blood? Should he rise just to give the world one more chance to open up the heart of Torren Brierstone and rip his mind to shreds with what he saw there, and who he saw holding it.
The astropath. The thought struck him like a lump of lead dropping from the five hundred foot above the ground window the rain was getting in through. He had seen a picture of a wristband that his once-dearest might of liked. So to save time in saving up for it he had got a part time job in the early hours of the morning. He still had to perform that duty. And if there was anything Torren Brierstone was, it was a creature of duty.
The streets along the main market square were always at there emptiest at this time of the day, you could acutely walk without being barged into if you were careful. The snow was falling again, and then he realised it had for sometime. It was bitterly, limb numbingly cold. So cold in fact that the legion of pick pockets and other parasites that normally infested this area acutely had their hands in their own pockets.
Suicide was wrong, he knew that. And he knew the difference between right and wrong and the reason to always try to do what is right. It seemed to be a built-in thing, not some half-baked flim-flam that the adeptus ministrotem preachers spouted. He had never made a bad comment to anyone in anger, because that would be wrong. He had never harmed another person, because that would be wrong. He had always worked for the happiness of others because that was right. He had fallen in love because that was the epitome of rightness. And he had courted and taken care of his dearest to the best of his abilities, she had never wanted for anything. Except a big strong guardsman of the PDF with a shiny uniform, a face and body more pleasing to the eyes and a higher wage.
A single tear fell from his chin and landed on the snow where it froze almost instantly.
He ascended the in-adequately salted slippery steps. And then the shorter second flight just before the door to the adeptus telapathica owned building in front of him. The doors to the main lobby hall were huge and imposing and there specifically to say 'we are so rich and powerful that we can afford to pay for fifty foot bronze plated plasteel doors, now get on your knees and grovel or be shortened some other way'. As he was passing under them he received a shoulder barge from the guard who had had to step nearly two foot to his right to do so. Torren staggered and fell to the ground in an unceremonious staggering trip. The guard sniggered.
"How you doing Feth Face?" inquired the guard in tones of mockery.
Torren recognised the voice. It was a bully he had gone to school with. His name was Garreth. He had stolen his dearest. A brief flicker of homicidal rage flashed briefly across Torren's otherwise kind, if somewhat unremarkable features before his usual blank expression re-emerged.
"I am glad to be working. How are you Garreth?" asked Torren. If you are too poor to have good manners, his mother had always said, then you are too poor to be human.
"I'm just fine Feth Face. Getting married in a couple of weeks." He said glaring maliciously. "Would you like an invitation?"
"I believe is shall be busy." He said and waked away.
The automated supply closet where the data-slates were kept requires that you put your password into it at the right time. It was all part of the crack down that his superiors were having on laziness. If you were late it would not open for you for the rest of the day and if you missed a days work for a no good reason like not being able to get hold of a data slate then you had to find a new job. He was five minuets late. But that was easily solved by waiting till somebody else opened the door and then getting your own data-slate and hoping that no one saw you.
He was just walking away from the door when he heard the all too familiar voice of his boss shouting for him. He was right behind him. He had been caught.
"What is the meaning of this!" The large red faced man shouted.
"Of what do you mean, good sir?" replied Torren.
"Not only do turn up late, but you trail in mud and grime into the Emperors" here he made the sign of the aquilla "holy work place! Explain yourself!"
It was useless. He knew what was coming next, so there was just no point trying to avoid it. "I apologise, good sir. I had not realised"
"Then maybe you will not notice that you now have to find a new job!"
"Please may I be allowed to complete this task first, good sir?"
Here the master of the schola telapathica lowered his voice to a threatening hiss. "Just so long as when you leave I never lay eyes on you again, boy."
"Thank you, sir." Replied Torren to his ex-boss's departing back.
By now his mind had gone numb, as if some mental parallel to the mortal coil was running down. He ascended the twelve flights of stairs between the main hall and the cells where the astropaths were kept.
The corridor looked nothing more than a prison when he got there. All heavily bolted doors and small room. Featureless grey rock-crete walls, and hard ugly lines. A sharp contrast to the splendour of the main hall. There was also the message in that; 'We value the process more than the people, we care not for you, only what you can do for us.'
The 15th door along. Name plate reading Rosolind Thorn. He opened the door and beheld another insult to his revenged mind.
The Adeptus Tellapathica made use often of 'Untouchables'. Blanks who actually possessed a negative of a warp presence. They were a safety precaution in a building with so many psykers. They maybe strong enough to send a message across the inter-stellar gulf but if one of these people stood to close to them they were blinded and crippled and often in a lot of pain.
This one was holding Rosolind's arms roughly leering at her in a disturbingly hungry way. His eyes so intent on her near naked form as to be almost trying to consume her, body and soul. An intimacy that is forced, is as the intimacy of a killers blade. He also knew this to be true.
Maybe if he had not been so intent on violating the young blind woman he might have noticed Torren before he swung the date slate with skull smashing velocity and venom.
The body of the Untouchable crumpled to the ground dead, as indicated by the massive dent in his head, as a stone. It took nearly five seconds for Torren to realize what he had done. He had just committed murder on a high-ranking member of the establishment. The blood and chunk of scalp on his data slate were testament to that. The blood that smattered his clothing was definitely a give away. And yet... he was in a place beyond caring. In this past week he has had everything taken away from him. His love, his faith, his duty. Everything about him he ever thought of as worth keeping. All he was left with now was himself.
Who are they to judge me. Who are they to tell me what is right and wrong, as if they were some sort of malleable substance that they could bend to their will.
"Are you harmed good lady?" he asked the blind astropath as he knelt down to unfasten the Untouchables dark blue and black jacket.
The only response he got were sobs of fright.
"Good lady, I do not wish to cause you further distress but I suggest that you don these clothes. We are leaving." He handed her the clothes and turned his back for decency's sake. Torren had often heard that such sins happened in these bleak and terrible places. The screams of victims often ignored by the other denizens of these abominable places for fear of becoming the next victim. This place was evil, a place where minds were stolen and spirits broken and monsters were on the payroll.
Torren risked a discreetly peered behind him to see if she was yet fully clothed. She had not moved. She was just sitting on her bed crying into her hands, her ruined torn clothing smattered now with tears that mingled with the blood of the monster in human skin.
"Good lady, I do not wish to hasten you unduly, but we must depart."
"Why?" The response was quiet and small. A broken thing of a voice.
"Is not the answer obvious? Because they have proven themselves unworthy of looking after you, because they tried to do you harm. So, and I wish I had not to say this, if you do not hasten slightly in the donning of this garb then I shall have to cover you in a sheet and carry you over my shoulder. But as this would be uncomfortable for you and taxing for me I would prefer it if you would accompany me willingly." He then turned around again out of propriety and waited until there was no more rustling of clothing.
As he turned to grab her arm, knowing that all astropaths were blind, she asked if she looked all right.
"Good lady," he said, taking in her long if somewhat messy blonde hair, her deep blue almost purple if useless eyes and rose pink lips "I think it would be deemed impossible for you to be anything less than most fine to look upon." He glanced down at the corpse of the abomination and could not help but wonder if this misbegotten wretch had thought so to, or if it was just random chance and wandering that had brought him to this door at this time.
Avoiding the security patrols of the Astropathica was almost laughably easy. Press every lift to descend to the ground floor simultaneously and then descend the fire escape and slip into the labyrinthine network of back alleys that made up the dismal contrast to the buildings impressive facade.
And now there was a duty, a new duty. He had someone to care for, life was suddenly slightly less uncertain.