Forces Chapter Eight
Suggested Theme:
Main Theme- Do You Feel It? By Chaos Chaos
Mrs. Kalinkas cries herself into a horrible, nightmare-fueled slumber. She sees the red demon, a bastard spawn of Chernabog and Satan, burning Cinderella Village with some monstrous robotic contraption spewing fire. She sees the winged demoness snatching up fleeing children and throwing them into burning buildings. She sees the blue and red, evil Mushu ordering faceless, red-armored monsters to tear apart the roads with hunks of twisted metal. She sees her son running through the fire, somehow immune like a dragon, and climbing up the robotic contraption to reach the red demon. The demon yanks Kaz by his collar and then enclose his massive red hands around Kaz's throat. Kaz's face goes white and then purple; his eyes are bloodshot and he's making strangled noises like a dying cat.
SNAP!
"AHHHH!" She screams her way back to reality. Her head bumps the underside of her desk, and she rubs the top of her head to soothe the ache. She crawls out from under her desk and stiffly stands up. She looks around to see that there is no one else in the office, unless they're hiding under their desk. She notices that all of the lights are out which means it could be a power outage. She also walks over to the large glass windows to see if the world is truly burning.
Outside, it's a dark night and the lampposts are on, so it means that there's still electricity going on. She does not see any cars on fire, looting, or people being shot. Nor does she see a congestion of cars getting the Hell out of Chicago. She sees people driving but not crazily like in apocalyptic movies and shows. It's like everything is a dream.
She runs back to her desk and gets her phone. She frantically checks for messages from Kaz, Buttercup, or even Tom. There's nothing, except the voicemail that Kaz left for her earlier. It was at 1:50 PM when she received the voicemail; now, it's 7:25 PM. She is reminded when she was informed of her husband's….death. She cried and then fell into an almost cationic state where it took her hours to get out of her state. During that time, she wasn't certain how Kaz took it, but he didn't scream at her for her neglect of him. In fact, she once woke up in her bed with little Kaz bringing in a tray of oatmeal and coffee for her. Kaz may not look it, but he is self-sufficient. However, she does call Kaz because even he fend himself from hellish monsters. Unfortunately, it goes straight to voicemail.
"Kaz, would you please call me back as soon as possible. Don't be a hero, and please don't come for me. I'll come for you, okay? So just stay with the Majors until then. Oh, I love you." She leaves a voicemail for Kaz and hopes that Kaz will call her back soon. She then shoots a couple of text messages at Tom and Buttercup in hopes that they might respond. She waits about ten minutes and gets nothing from either of them. Then, she calls the both of them and it goes straight to voicemail for them too.
"Okay, they might be in trouble right now and have to keep their phones off or something to get around said trouble. Because there's no way both of their phones can be dead since I did get Buttercup that car charger for her birthday last year. Or she's driving and she does have that insane rule of 'all phones must be off while inside the vehicle.'" Mrs. Kalinkas likes to talk out loud when she's stressed out. For her, it helps her organize the chaos going inside her mind from her stress.
"I'll just head back home and…get cleaned up. Maybe by then, they'll call me back." Mrs. Kalinkas finally decides to leave the office and head back to her home. Her home is a condo that is about five blocks away from her office. Considering how her work largely required her to be in Chicago, she bought a condo, so she wouldn't have to spend so much money living in motels and hotels. The four-story condominium looks like what a methodical child would make; each condo with a small balcony is framed with some sort of metal art that almost makes it look like colorless, fanciful building blocks. She has always liked this style because it wasn't loud and the metal frames do add a decorative feel to her balcony.
Inside, it is unusually dead. Usually, there are people in the lobby, usually about to head out for a night on the town. Or there was an obnoxiously loud party happening on the first floor. Instead, it is all silent like everyone up and let the building. Is it possible that everyone fled in fear of those monsters coming here? Those monsters are in Paris and Cinderella Village, and that's about it. But then again, if Kaz was here, I would've taken us all the way to Canada just to be safe. Mrs. Kalinkas sighs regrettably at her actions. She could've stayed home this month; Cheryl had offered her that option to work at home, back in Cinderella Village, but Mrs. Kalinkas refused because, truthfully, she didn't want to. Now, she has to hope that Kaz is safe with the Majors while those monsters destroy their little town.
She took the elevator to make it to her condo on the third floor. The elevator plays its usual repetitive music which is actually very calming for her nerves. At least, this is still the same. She smiles appreciatively but sadly. When the elevator dings, she walks out and hurries down the hall to reach her condo.
321S
She unlocks her white door with the black, metal lettering. Inside, she then bolts her door shut as if she expects a monster to come to her door. Paranoid, she does peek through the eyehole to see if any monster is there. There is none. She lets out a sigh of relief and turns to be greeted by her tiny kitchen and living room. Her kitchen is a checker of black and white colors with granite tops where she dumps her cellphone, while her living room is white with oak floors. She is tempted to turn on her plasma TV but decides not to. The news would just make her feel worse.
She goes to her room; her room is butter-yellow with the same oak floors as the living room. Her queen-sized bed with its blue comforter looks inviting; she almost goes over to her bed but decides to go take a shower. Her adjoined bathroom only has a porcelain sink with a marble counter with a square mirror, a small toilet, a towel rack, and a black and white checkered shower big enough to hold two people. She strips out of her clothes and takes her much-yearned-for shower.
Usually, she would bring some clothes with her to change into after her shower, so she wouldn't track water everywhere. This time, she breaks her pattern. She takes a cold shower, cold enough to combat any hellfire that a red demon can create. She then walks out and grabs a towel to dry herself. She wonders if Kaz even has a place to take a shower anymore. Once fairly dry, she leaves the bathroom and grabs some PJs from her dresser. She puts on an over-sized blue t-shirt and sky-blue loose bottoms. She feels clean and almost comfortable again, but she then hears her cellphone go off.
TWINKLE!
She runs fast, leaving behind faint, watery footprints and snatches up her phone from the kitchen counter. She looks to see its Buttercup who is calling her. She swallows down her disappointment but happily accepts that at least someone is calling her back. She finally accepts the call and turns on the speaker.
"Buttercup, thank God, are you okay? Is Kaz okay?! Are you away from that horrible place?!" Mrs. Kalinkas almost screams as she shoots out her questions like bullets. She has to clap hand over her mouth to prevent herself from asking even more questions. How else will she get her answers if she keeps asking questions?
"…I'm fine. I'm at the Madonna-Magdalena Mountains with my family. However, we're also with these Creatures known as OverWorlders who oppose these demon-like Creatures known as UnderWorlders. Apparently, the UnderWorlders are the ones who started the invasion or something. Anyways, they're going to be here with us…until they find a way back to their dimension. But first, they have to stop the UnderWorlders. If that's even possible…" Mrs. Kalinkas bites her forefinger to prevent herself from blurting out impatiently for Buttercup to get to Kaz.
"Look….I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but Kaz isn't with us. Tom tried finding him, but he didn't find him. I think he's still in Cinderella Village." Immediately, Mrs. Kalinkas ends the call. She then puts her phone back on the kitchen counter and slowly lowers herself to the cold floor. She wraps her arms around her legs and pulls them into her chest.
For the second time that day, she cries herself to sleep.
Author's Comments- Now, Mrs. Kalinkas is in the future versus the other three. Chronologically, it goes from Peyton to Tom to Kaz and finally to Mrs. Kalinkas. Eventually, they'll be set in around the same time barring time zone differences. Although, these past few chapters are taking place roughly in the same day. I also made a very slight reference to Silent Hill 4: The Room.
Again, Mrs. Kalinkas like anyone who isn't a Chaotic player is panicking. Granted, she sort of has a better grip on her panic than before but then finding out that Kaz isn't with the Majors pretty much knocked her back into her catatonic state. She's not an adept person; in fact, she's somewhat methodical (which is a bit of a reference to prototype Kaz in the Now or Never!) and does not like big changes. But then again, a normal person like her would pretty much have an emotional breakdown if the Earth was being invaded by basically aliens; it also doesn't help that her own child is trapped in a town with said aliens. Worse, said kid is stuck in a town with no way out now. Now, she's not exactly a fiery, kick-ass type of person who will just march back to her town and rescue her son; she's actually just a sane person who is very good at accounting. Basically, now, she has to form a plan and hope that Kaz contacts her very soon.