Bad Moon Rising

Rating: Mature
Characters: Jason Morgan/Cordelia 'Cordi' Roberts (OFC); other various characters
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from General Hospital, One Life to Live, or any other network soap opera.
Prompt: Seeing yourself in the eyes of another.
Premise: While searching for her missing sister, a reporter unwittingly becomes embroiled in a deadly mob war and stumbles across a mystery far deeper and more sinister than she ever anticipated.

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Prologue, The End of Days:

"Neither enemy faces, nor the mothers that love them, come to mind when one is thinking of nothing but endeavoring to survive." - Linda Berdoll

The smell of blood tainted the room.

Standing in the middle of the floor in the tiny shack, surrounded by blood and the smell of decaying bodies, her hands shook and she dropped the weapon she carried to the floor. It hit the dirt floor with a muted thud. Nausea began to coil in the pit of her belly, rising up through her quickly and threatening to spill. She had never felt so sick in her life. Every nerve and instinct in her body was commanding her to run. To run as fast and as far as her legs could carry her. The tears brimming in her eyes threatened to spill but never did. Just as if she was, they froze in place.

For the moment, everything was still.

There was not a sound heard over the roaring of her blood. Her shallow, raspy breaths were unsteady and hardly provided her lungs with the nourishment they craved. Her brown eyes scanned the room slowly. Body after body lay on the floor, friends and enemies of her plight. Though the room was quiet, she could still hear screaming. Could still feel the pain her enemies inflicted upon her body. Could still hear the gunshots and smell the blood.

Suddenly, she dropped to her knees and vomited. She cried out, her voice breaking off in a shrieking sob, as her senses overpowered her. Feelings of anger, rage, sickness, hatred, depression and pain... She shut her eyes tightly as another wave hit her. Her mind was swimming in a sea of despair and she was content to die in that spot in that moment.

She almost wished for it...

Then something deep inside her told her to move. Fierce propulsion started in the pit of her stomach and she stood. Night was falling across the horizon and she had to get out of there soon. If she had any chance of surviving, she had to leave now.

Despite her initial revulsion, she took the boots off one of the dead soldiers and hurriedly placed them on her own feet. She wore a pair of ragged pants covered in blood, but she figured they'd be warm enough to sustain her. She highly doubted the soldier's pants would fit even if she tied them securely. She didn't have time for that at any rate. Nothing could slow her down. She took another soldier's jacket to cover her arms. She knew from experience the desert grew cold at night. After gathering water in a few canteens, she picked up as many firearms as she could carry. Including the one she dropped from her hands moments before. Picking up a flashlight and ammunition to stuff in her pockets, she left the shack without so much as a glance back.

However, the faces of her friends, as well as her enemies, left in that room would haunt her forever.

She barely walked a quarter mile down the only road she could find when she heard the tank. Every nerve in her body sparked fear and trepidation. She looked around quickly for a place to hide; then ran quickly to the dense shrubs spotted a few feet away, making sure she was covered from sight behind them.

When the trucks grew close enough to see, she saw the American soldiers and relief flooded her system.

Running from her hiding place to the middle of the road, she flagged them down. The large, looming trucks and the tank stopped a few feet from her and she couldn't remember a happier time in her life than this.

One of the soldiers jumped down from the armored truck and ran to her. "Ma'am, are you hurt?" he asked her. She couldn't help but notice that his voice and the rest of the surrounding sounds were distorted. "Ma'am, is the blood yours?"

Blinking her brown eyes slowly, she watched the sun set against the horizon. "No," she answered resolutely.

"Are you in any pain?"

"My ribs…a little," she answered as he helped her toward the truck. She looked him over, for the first time really paying attention to him. He was young man with friendly blue eyes; blue eyes that reminded her of the ocean.

"Can you tell me your name?" the soldier with the friendly eyes asked her as he helped her into the truck.

"Cordi," she muttered softly. Fatigue was beginning to settle in her body. "Cordelia Roberts."

The soldier beside the one she had been speaking with clicked the radio attached to his shoulder holster. "Lieutenant," he called. "We've found her. We have the reporter who was captured."

Cordelia barely heard the lieutenant's response. As soon as she stopped moving, and the fear had subsided, her body reminded her just how tired it was; and just how much it had been through because of her capture.

"Ma'am," the blue-eyed soldier was speaking to her again, but she was having a hard time focusing. "What about the other captives? Were there any others?"

"Dead," Cordelia muttered in response, her eyes half closed as sleep engulfed her. "They're all dead."