So what do you think of the story so far guys? Let us know huh? Thank for the reviews!
LK
Sabrina half opened her eyes. There was a parade of light colours screaming in front of her. She shut them tight.
She couldn't remember why she was there, or who she was in the first place. It was just a floating sensation, an absence of everything.
She wondered what was going on, but logic didn't accompany for long. She felt lost in some kind of hallucination.
A hallucination in which colours mattered more than sounds or forms, replacing smell and touch.
There was a small thumping in her ears but only that. She started walking among the colourful drops sinking like the inside of a colourful lava lamp.
From the steadiness of the thumping she realised that this was her heart beat.
The colours were falling from above, seething mid-air, changing form. Colour started changing, mostly to red. It looked like forming and unfolding bloodstains. She felt like she was inside the lava lamp once placed on her office. She used to look at it, until she could no longer see it, until colours mixed and her vision blurred. But that was so long ago. So painfully long ago.
Now she felt that she herself was turning into molten wax inside a huge lamp. She felt as if she was turning into liquid. The sound of her heart beat was steady. Another sound had emerged. A distant sound of water. Or, wait, no, it was the sound she used to hear while diving. The pressure of water against her ears. The colour, harsh red against snow white started to seeth and stir again until it billowed and drowned her.
She was now surrounded only by red colour, striking her nerves just as a bull's.
And then there was a shocking light and her surroundings changed. She was at the agency. She looked at the desk. Bosley's pocket watch was lying there. She picked it up but it turned into ashes. The lamp changed colours frantically on the desk, just as she remembered it. With a sharp sound the wire holding the painting on the wall severed and the painting, Munch's Scream, fell on the floor and turned into ashes.
''Sabrina?'' the voice echoed. ''What are you doing...doing...going?''
''Sabrina ...-ina...-ina...''
Sabrina turned around to face Kelly. She stretched her hand to touch her friends shoulder but it burned into ashes too, as the slender form became erased.
''NO!'' she could hear herself scream and she fell on her knees trying to get hold of the grey dust. She got to her feet, still with the sound of water.
The watch was intact on the desk. Again. She grabbed it and it immediately melted in her grasp, slipping through her fingers, like Dali's painting.
The lamp kept stirring in a wild rythm, but the watch was burning hot now. She let go and it fell on the floor and shattered like it had never even melted at all.
She took a step back, stumbling on the small coffee table, knocking over a cup of tea. She watched stunned as it gathered its pieces from the floor and returned to the table ...only to fall again.
The painting was hanging from the wall again.
The watch on the desk. It's hands reached twelve and instead of the bells Sabrina heard a piercing scream.
The Screaming Man was opening and closing his mouth. The voice, she knew the voice. It was Kris. No, No, No.
''STOP!'' she yelled and the sound paused.
The cup stopped mid-air, half formed and half gathering its pieces. The painting was endlessly falling and the watch was half turned into ashes.
She could see the broken pieces of the cup floating on the air, the tiny bits of ash too.
The only thing in the room moving was her. And that lamp.
The phone rang. Instinctively Sabrina looked at the black leather office chair waiting for Bosley to pick up.
She was facing the back of it.
A hand touched the phone and the speaker.
''Good morning Angel.''
''Huh?''
The voice repeated itself faster and faster with the static of an old recording.
''Good morning Angel.''
The hand touched the speaker again and the voice increased in volume. The man sitting on the chair swayed back and forth and turned to face her. He was wearing a Venice carnival mask with three faces, each representing one feeling.
Anger, terror, joy.
But the thing that made Sabrina flinch in terror was that the masks were changing expressions constantly. Now there was whispering. Intense whispering. She could only make out some of the words. Who was talking?
''Back... go... back... leave... alone... forget.''
''What?!'' she asked the man. ''What do you mean?''
''Look at her... look... look!''
It seemed as the faces were whispering to each other.
''Look at her... look... forgotten...'
She took a step back and was sucked into black oblivion.
Kelly almost stumbled out of Rose's office, but recovered enough to close the door behind her. But then, what the hell did it matter anyway, she thought to herself, in desperation. If Kelly herself hadn't of found Rose, someone else needed to. It didn't really matter, she realised. S he immediately left the situation behind, utterly bewildered and numb with shock, and headed up towards the Governors office.
Numbness. Greyness. It seemed the same. Silence. A stone cold surface. Numb skin on stone cold concrete... a floor...
Kris somehow found the strength to pull her eyelids up and allow any ... any kind of sense dammit.. to infiltrate her utterly exhausted mind. But... nothing. The silence continued. The greyness however, seemed to have altered somewhat, she perceived. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered what it would be like to wander through a long rail tunnel, where no trains ever ran... where only dankness and greyness would be your companion...
She blinked. The thought persisted. Tunnels. Then her lip curled in some semblance of a grimace. The light at the end of the tunnel... the light... a light...
Well Kris... don't expect any light any time soon...
Another thought fluttered through her sandblasted mind...
Jill...would she ever see her sister again...? Jills smiling laughing face hovered through her consciousness, a taunt, it seemed. Kris fled. No. That wasn't Jill. She wouldn't laugh at her.
Kris decided then that she would be better off digging herself back into reality than allowing bubbles of senselessness to overpower her. She groaned and tried to roll onto her back, the damp stone floor and cold atmosphere helping to feed her senses with an armoury of the required information.
If that phrase ... "The Walls are closing in" flitted through Kelly's mind once more, as she hurried up to Helens office, she would definitely smack something. Or someone, if they happened to pass her on her way.
Without even realising it, she was suddenly back outside the big ornate doors. Only...they didn't seem so beautifully ornate any more. To Kelly, now, they appeared to be a grotesque parody of grandeur.
She knocked rapidly, impatiently, finding her trepidation on this side of the doors taking second place to her fear and agonising consternation of everything that was going on around her.
From neglected, lifeless, dreary, low lit cold corridors, into a warm heaven of pretend peace and tranquillity, Kelly stepped across the thresh hold, and closed the door behind her, a fight welling up... one that just refused to go away. "Governor...I need to talk to you!" Kelly barked, as soon as the door clanged shut. She approached the desk that she had previously found so intriguing but now saw as a pathetic excuse of an attempt at hierarchy.
The chair was turned to the wall, so that she could not see Helen, but she knew she occupied the chair, and up until now, had paid Kelly's entrance little heed.
"Governor?" Kelly strode with purpose up to the desk. "Governor!" She rapped her hand on the desk, not caring at all now about protocol. The last thing Kelly now cared about was Helens damn hypocracy.
The chair squealed a little in resistance as it's occupier swivelled and returned the chair to face the opposite direction.
And quite suddenly, all the fight drained out of Kelly. The figure in the chair that now returned her face to her... was... somehow...Kelly struggled to find the right word
Lost? Was Helen... losing it? Kelly's demeanour changed down several gears and she once again, found herself pitying the person that now confronted her.
The woman behind the desk now rose.
The woman that Kelly had been under the impression that had complete and utter rule over everything going on in here...now seemed totally unsure of herself.
Helen turned to face the person that had completely disrupted her agitated thought process. The thoughts were now thrown and blown away like detritus on a breeze. She faced Kelly and stood up, trying to regain some of the posture that usually help her employees captive. But even as she rose, Helen realised that this one before her knew something. Knew something that she herself was not yet ready to admit.
"What do you want?!" Helen shouted out in her own anxiety ridden moment. "Did I bid you to enter?!"
Kelly heard and felt an edge to the womans voice that she had not yet heard since her arrival. Something was definitely off with her. Was it something to do with Rose, she wondered. If it was, what the hell was she doing hiding up here? Wasn't Rose her right hand ... woman? This thought reverberated through Kelly's mind now like a snarling beast let loose from a cage.
Kelly acquiesced then, and lowered her gaze, suddenly realising what slippery ground she was on.
"Oh I am sorry Governor...I just...needed to speak to you about the... prisoners who are unable to work at present..."
Helen, still standing and clinging on to her desk for support, Kelly noticed, blinked rapidly, as though to clear her mind a little. Kelly pressed on.
"Governor... I hear reports of things that are going amiss among your staff..." Kelly tested the waters. Helen blinked once more, as if still unsure of where she was or what was going on.
Then even as Kelly began her next sentence, a familiar light crept back into her governors eyes.
"Kelly...what are you trying to tell me?!"
The question came out from Helen as if everything...was quite normal again. As if... Kelly had not even just witnessed her governors sudden absence of ...self. Kelly was at once ... feeling cornered...but yet... also free to roam. She took the latter option.
"Governor... I hope you don't mind me bringing this information to you but..." Kelly stood erect and looked her boss straight in the eye. "As I have been doing my...rounds... it has come to my attention that many prisoners whom have been deemed ..." at this Kelly coughed slightly, " ..unfit for duty...have just been left in their cells to..."
"Rot?" Her boss finished Kelly's sentence for her.
"Well - yes." Kelly agreed. "And...permit me to mention Governor...that this is a complete waste of...resource...?"
And suddenly Helens eyes widened with some recognition.
Kelly pressed on again.
"Look, I know it really is none of my business here...but...I see that we have prisoners who are lying around...unproductive..." Kelly tried to emphasize this last word.
And it appeared to attract the Governors attention.
"Really...? Kelly... please explain!" Helen, despite her anguish and all encompassing emotions surrounding her current predicament, found her interest piqued.
Kelly saw the shift in her bosses emotions and continued to drive her point home.
"Governor...the prisoners who have ... received... some kind of injuries...are lying doing nothing! They are an unproductive part of our workforce!" Kelly warmed to her subject. "If we rehabilitate them through the infirmary... then our output would increase exponentially!"
Helens eye's narrowed in thought.
"So why Kelly...are part of my work force being held back... can you tell me this?"
Kelly watched as her boss stood further erect, still using the desk as a means of support, but leaning over and eying Kelly with some disdain as she did so.
"I gave you ... responsibilities...did I not?!"
"Of course Governor!" Kelly at once agreed. She returned her gaze to the desk. Somewhere neutral.
"So ... would you prefer me to ... rehabilitate the .. latent prisoners, Governor?"
"Oh course Kelly! Make use of every single resource we have!" Helen seemed suddenly to come alive then, almost with hope and with her own intrinsic value for life.
"Do whatever you need to do Kelly!" A light now danced in Helens eyes, making Kelly shiver from head to foot. She watched as her boss then sunk back into her chair, seemingly exhausted.
"Governor?" Kelly dared to question once more.
"Yes Kelly?" The favourable tone in her governors voice gave one last hope for Kelly.
"What about Scar...she is also... a ... resource..."
There was a silence then. A silence borne of ... something not quite agreeable to the situation. Kelly knew without a shadow of a doubt, that Sabrina had caused more than her fair share of trouble...hell...
...more than ever... her fair share of antagonism to the ones in charge. She knew this instinctively.
"Governor...please..." Kelly re-iterated. "We need every resource..."
Kelly waited. Helen looked beyond Kelly. To the far fall. In some kind of retrospect. Then finally, Kelly found the nod she was hoping for.
"Get every ailing prisoner...including ...Scar... into the infirmary...!" The Governor pressed. She didn't quite understand why, just now. She just felt...some how ... it would prove ...fruitful.
"Get every ailing prisoner...excluding...Scar... into the infirmary...!" The Governor replied.
Kelly's heart plummeted.
But she didn't need to question this...just now.
"You may take this ...exceptional prisoner some medical items and administer whatever medical attention you see fit."
Helen then gave Kelly a cold look. One of pure hostility.
"But you will leave her isolated in her cell at all times. And... if she does become fit again..." Helen paused, her attention slightly distracted for a moment as her thoughts wandered momentarily.
Kelly cleared her throat.
Helens attention snapped back into the room.
"I DON'T even want her to ever see the light of day!" Helen suddenly shouted vehemently, leaning forwards on the desk.
Kelly straightened her shoulders, feeling the unbridled animosity for Sabrina seething forth from this vile woman. Even now, Kelly's pity was rapidly evaporating. There was something very wrong going on in this womans head and all Kelly wanted to do now was get the hell out of this place, taking everyone she held dear, with her.
"Yes Governor!" Kelly replied, keeping her face as neutral as possible.
"Well what are you waiting for?! Dismissed!" With that, Helen returned to her seat, a look of misery now transforming her features, so that she once again, looked to Kelly like a tired, beaten, frail thing that had nothing much left to give. But Kelly's pity wasn't going to be wasted here another moment. She turned and hurried from the office, and headed for the infirmary first of all, to see what supplies she could lay her hands on.
Then after helping herself to basic first aid supplies, morphine, a few antibiotics and even a small stash of valium she came upon by chance as she rooted, Kelly then hurried immediately back down towards Sabrina's cell. She hoped and prayed that Sabrina hadn't already succumbed to the damp conditions with such appalling injuries...and was now possibly contending with pneumonia. She didn't think Sabrina would last more than twenty four hours in that condition.
As she got to the bottom of the stairs leading back down to the cells, she only narrowly missed bumping directly into Jason, coming up towards her.
"Hey... Kelly... " He began, holding his arms out in a small gesture of defensiveness. "...look I am so sorry .. I..." He stuttered, unable to find the words to apologise.
Kelly eyed him suspiciously.
"Sorry Jason, I don't have time for this..." Kelly was about to leave him standing, when a thought occurred to her.
Jason saw the bag she was carrying, saw that it was one of the medic bags from the infirmary.
"You're going to ... see to...?" He tried to sound concerned. Kelly flashed him a warning glance.
"If you want to help... you can find the cell where Kris Munro is, and check on her. If she needs medical attention, get her to the infirmary..."
"What?!" Jason immediately stepped back in complete surprise.
"I can't do that..." he began, placing his hands on his hips.
"Yes you can...and you will...Governors orders now!" Kelly snapped back.
"And then you can get everyone else in this stinking hole who requires medical help...up to the infirmary! Okay?!"
Jasons jaw dropped. He really did not believe what Kelly was now telling him.
Kelly saw the uncertainly in his face.
"Jason! Do it - now! Governors orders!"
"Are you...?"
"For Gods sake Jason...do you want to go back up there and ask her yourself?!" Kelly was now almost at breaking point.
"N-No!" He stammered. "Alright! I'm going!" He turned with her, as she now hurried on, walking briskly to keep stride with Kelly 's quickening pace.
"Uh...who did you say you wanted me to find?"
Kelly answered without slowing.
"Kris...Kris Munro. Small blond girl. Cute. Big smile." Kelly's heart lurched at the distinct possibility that she might never see Kris smile again... no Kelly stop! She kicked herself mentally. Kris was alive. Here, somewhere...and alive. She hurried onwards towards Bri's cell, a million anxieties spreading themselves flatly through her mind, threatening to smother all her hope of getting all her angels out alive.
Her anxiety arched as she slid the key to the lock and removed the bars. She saw Tiffany gasp at the sudden noise. She felt a bitter taste in her mouth seeing Tiffany like this. She went close to Sabrina's battered form on the wall and *avoided to see the state she was in.*
"Its me" she said to both and fished a set of keys from her pocket. She unlocked the chains that bound Sabrina on the wall and she fell heavy on her shoulder.
She lowered Sabrina gently on the floor and glanced at Tiff. God she was shivering so much! Her shirt was covered in blood and soaking
wet.
Kelly took off her guards shirt and wrapped it around Tifany.
"Its okay." she said softly and took the small torch she had in her bag.
She flashed the dim light across Sabrina's body. This is bad ... she thought, seing the odd angle of her wrist. Yet without being entirely sure of what to do, she dipped a gauze pad into alcohol and dabbed gently at her lips and then her face. Kelly took no sign of any pain and kept going. At this point she realised she had to check for internal injuries and bleeding. She looked briefly at Tiff and rolled Sabrina's shirt up. Only a small percent of the skin still sported its healthy colour. At the right side of the stomach she could see a heavy dark patch different that the other bruising. She decided to check on it later. Kelly then ever so gently rolled the inert body on the other side. A nasty line of messy deep scrapes covered her friends back.
She tended to each one carefully, tenderly, and cleaned them with alcohol, and this time a few faint moans escaped Sabrina.
As Kelly tended to Sabrina's wounds, it seemed to Tiffany that there was no one else in the room. This was of course, only natural. But Tiffany crept closer. She was infinitely aware of the unbreakable bond between Sabrina and her very close knit colleagues. Yet... she desperately needed Kelly to know right now... how much she herself was also here...right now... for both of them.
Kelly continued to dab away with the alcohol at Sabrina's immediate open wounds, infinitely mindful of the other injuries she had likely sustained.
"Oh Sabrina...!" Kelly uttered in grief, without even thinking.
"Kelly..." Tiffany's soft, gentle voice slightly drew her attention. Oh my God. Tiffany. She had ... almost forgot. Kelly turned, in the semi gloom.
"Shhhh Kelly, it's okay...huh?" Tiffany edged herotself next to Kelly...and next to the poor, humiliatingly abused and left for dead mess that was no other identity known to her now, than Sabrina Duncan.
"No, dammit, it's not ..Ok, Tiff!" Kelly bit back, as she tended to the awful wounds before her.
Tiffany of course knew this, but what she wanted to say had just come out wrong. She cursed herself silently.
"I-I'm sorry Kelly...I meant... you don't have to feel... you don't have to ... I mean... I'm here too okay?" She squeezed Kelly's arm in a way in which she hoped Kelly hoped she would understand.
Kelly continued to dab at the welts that viciously sliced the delicate skin on Sabrina's back, mindful of every pain this must be causing. But she was finding it ever so difficult to concentrate on Tiff's words right now.
Tiffany allowed Kelly this time to vent and give some little voice to the anguish she must be feeling. Even though Tiffany had grown used to a very closed up Kelly Garrett, over the time she had spent with the Agency this last year.
Tiffany watched with utter sadness and depth of feeling as Kelly did whatever she could to ease her good friends suffering. And as she watched, she heard small sounds escaping Sabrina's lips. Sounds which, she was sure, was tearing Kelly apart right now.
"Kelly..." Tiffany reached out for her friend to comfort her, to offer support, but Kelly now appeared to have closed down...Tiffany realised that...once again...there was only Kelly and Sabrina in the cell. Tiffany drew in a breath. It was going to be such a long journey back, for the both of them, she knew. So...Tiffany was patient. She remained right beside Kelly, watchful and waiting... ever ready for ... whatever came next.
And in the deep dank gloom of the cell, Kelly finally heard something she had been half longing...half expecting to hear...yet almost fearing to hear...
A whimper...
Kelly stopped.
Tiffany froze.
"Sabrina...?" Kelly asked, so very very softly in the gloom.
She didn't dare move. Her hand...with another piece of cotton wool in it ... laden with alcohol... halfway to Sabrina's back, suddenly stopped in it's path...
Kelly then lowered her hand to the floor.
"Please... Sabrina...can you hear me...?!" Kelly spoke softly into the darkness, trying so hard with her voice to let Bri know that ...she...Kelly...was there...right by her side. And was now...never going to leave ...
It wasn't just the pain...overwhelming though this was... she realised...it wasn't even the the thought that God himself was taunting her, she decided, in her completely unravelled mind... it wasn't even the cold.. the damp... the excruciating pain, the ever present danger of harm to pronounce itself unbidden any time... no...none of this was the problem right now...
the thing that broke her heart over and over and over and over again in the space of a heartbeat was the self surpassing thought that...
her mind was conjuring up the presence of... something... someone... a real life memory of... someone who...ever gave a damn about her..
...Yet...in her heart right now, Sabrina knew...oh..she knew..this was all just a dream. A ... Godforsaken nightmare even. Her hopes had been killed off too many times, she knew. Her ... inner core... her... inner being... had long since been destroyed. All that was now left...was a husk. A shell. And ... as she listened to the soft gentle lulling voice now calling her name, she once again decided to blank it out. It was a lie. A disgusting, appalling lie. She heard herself whimper out loud. But she didn't care now. It was all over. She was giving up. End of the road..
Kelly looked up at Tiffany, suddenly aware that ... something had just... changed.
"Kelly...?" Tiffany urged, trying to peer at Sabrina in the semi-darkness.
Kelly quickly checked Sabrina's pulse...
"Oh my god...!" Kelly moaned. She redoubled her efforts to find the precious beat of her friends heart. ''Sabrina! SABRINA!''