Chapter 2: The Snap

Allen had once taken up martial arts- and all other varities of hand to hand and fighting styles, his tutors had called him a natural. But the shifting hours of his work had made this an impossibility now. His boss was Anne Marie StClaire, a fat pig of a woman who spent her entire time leaning over people's shoulders in the cube farm of offices. Latte in one hand, and a doughnut in another she was a horror to find her shadow cast over you, criticisms spilling forth like venon from a foul serpent.

He liked to be left alone, left alone to work in peace without Anne Marie staring down over him, dripping latte foam and doughnut cream onto his shoulder and desk, and Peter in the next cubicle over forever "borrowing" things from his desk without asking. But he had remained calm against it all. A good thing for those drugs.

Yet again, came another challenge to test his paitence.
'So... What's all this then?'
'Finishing off that report you wanted on those missing people.' Was his reply, crumbs falling down from above and lodging in his keyboard, a large blob of cream landed on the right side.
'It's badly formatted, reformat it before sending it to my desk, or it's going straight in the bin.' Anne Marie, in all her overweight arrogance, felt the chance to humiliate him further.
'Hey, everybody, Mr Ashcroft's decided to try and get away with sloppy work once again! I expect everyone here to work double hard!'
He took a deep breath, heart thumping hard with building blood pressure.
His feather topped pen had gone missing too... Peter was using it!
Fury... Building...
The final straw was the droplets of her hot latte landing on his shoulder, sinking into his collar and scalding the skin beneath, by that point he didn't even feel it. Anne Marie had moved on to pester Peter, with shaking hands he reached for the pot of perscribed drugs, it felt light, he shook it. Empty.

Feeling another anxiety attack building, he stood up... to reach the restroom... Just... Just to splash water on his face...
Something inside him snapped. No, snapped was the wrong word. The anxiety attack turned into an abrupt tranquility, his blood aflame.
'Anne Marie.'
'Huh?' She looked to him, a foam moustache from her latte. 'Something you want, Ashcroft?'
'Yeah...' He strode fowards, one hand calmly on her shoulder-
Then slammed her head into a wall, hard enough to break her nose.

'W-What the hell's wrong with you?! Y-you're fired!'
He didn't answer her, striding past he turned his attention to Peter as he stood up, giving thumbs up.
'Dude, great move. Someone had to-Ugh!'
The punch he recieved dislocated his jaw and knocked several teeth flying.

At the same time as Allen's own freak out, James was experiencing some bizzarity on his own end.

'What do you mean Mr Waite won't be seeing me anymore?'

'He's going through a rough time. His daughter just died.' the blonde haired woman before him held a clipboard to her chest. 'City Guard say that he killed her, he's been arrested.'
'What?' James looked up. 'He'd never do something like that, I've been through his psyche profile several times, there's nothing here that would suggest he'd murder her.'
'It's what people on the street are saying... One more thing, Dr Arvoy. He told you to call this number.'
She held out a card, embossed in blue with a number.
'Please, leave me, Fiona.'
She did so, leaving him to call it up.

'Hello?'

'Dr Arvoy, please... Do not react to this message. I know that they'll try to get at me any way they can.. Soon. I don't have any will left to carry this fight out, and I... I hope that you can do it. That ornament I gave you... It has a key within it. That key leads behind the gold door in the City's Temple. I pray for your success...'
The recorded message cut off. James lowered the phone, staring at it with confusion. That ornament; the dolphin shaped planter. It was one of the very rare things that had not been broken in one of Allen's pre-drug rages and now James was about to break it.

With a sigh he smashed it on the floor. Amidst the shards of broken pottery, a golden key clattered across the carpet. The gold door in Anatoa's Temple. It was always locked.

What could be inside...?

'Doctor! Doctor! Dr Arvoy!'
Allen Ashcroft tackled him in the City Hall foyer, both of them crashed to the floor, Allen's glasses falling off and skittering away.
'I-I need... I need help... I lost it and punched my boss and a co-worker.'
'Mhmm... Could you get off me please, people might start to... wonder.'
The platinum blond stood up, looking around for his lost glasses. He finally found them a short distance away. A most curious thing... He squinted through the lenses before pulling them off again and blinking in surprise. His vision was clearer without the glasses... When did that happen?

Within Anatoa's temple, the walls were made of gold, inscribed with ancient texts that spoke of times long ago. A great statue of the Goddess formed from pure gold, a woman in flowing clothes, the tips of the clothes turning into tails or tendrils of some sort. James had always found it subtly disturbing in a way he could not explain. At the far end of the vast hall was a door that was always left locked, perhaps it was some sort of inner sanctum. The priests never went in there either- speaking of the priests... They were even weirder, tall, hulking figures clad in shadows and faded golden robes, they wore hoods to hide their faces and there seemed to be something unusual about the way in which they moved...

The key fitted the door and unlocked with a click.

Beyond the golden walls were covered in strange symbols not of this earth, in the centre of the room was a large pedestal, upon which was a most peculiar golden pyramid about the size of a ruubix cube. James was drawn to it immediatly, was it just his imagination, or could he hear strange voices whispering just out of focus.

'What could this be...?' James looked it over from a safe distance, staying outside the numerous golden rings on the floor.
Ashcroft was far more bold, surprisingly, he reached out and took the thing from it's pedestal. Surprisingly, nothing exploded or sounded an alarm. The presence in the air changed, but that was all.