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Chapter 25; Am I Not My Brother's Keeper?
Harold La Fleur was a lead scientist… And here he was being manhandled by a guy with blue hair and eyes that matched…
Humiliation swept through him as he led the man down the hall, cupping his bruised genitals taking wide seesawing steps because it hurt.
His mind formulated many plans as he walked, catching the eye of the security cameras, knowing that they were being watched, and help was on the way…
Although, he wasn't that worried about the help… If this idiot wanted the Thirteens he could have them… Troublesome little brats they were, nobody had been able to get close enough to their room to turn on the gas flow to kill them, forget about getting close enough to poison the bastards…
The Thirteens were two of the most acute failures he'd ever seen. Also the only two failures who nobody could kill BECAUSE of their failure…
Anybody who got within six feet of their room dropped over sound asleep… And the robots were instantly destroyed if they got anywhere near them…
So far, the only one who'd ever gotten near their room was the cook… And that old bitch had been too soft hearted to simply put arsenic in their cereal and let them choke to death…
It was as if the little creeps could tell… Like they could read your mind…
Dangerous freaks…
So, they'd opted, once they'd received the directive to ship their successful experiments to Germany, to simply let them starve to death. The cook was laid off, her rotting corpse adorning some highway by now… And all that was left to do was wait until the little things died…
If this man wanted to get in there with him, Harold La Fleur wished him the best of luck…
The man would get within nine feet of the door and drop over like a dead fish, after that, all that would happen would be, Harold would then tie him up to a chair, and retaliate for his bruised ego and privates… The castration and paralyzing the man had spoken of seemed a little tame in his eyes. Yes… He'd get this blue haired man into a chair and show him the true meaning of the word suffering…
The room containing the Thirteens was set apart from the others, through an atrium you could see into the room through a small viewing window… If you were lucky enough to stay awake long enough to get near it…
Harold smiled as he presented the room with a flourish of hand motions and bowed slightly.
Bernard grabbed him by the collar of the shirt and dragged him forward into the atrium, his stomach a knot of worry.
It was too quiet… And the pins and plates in his legs and back were beginning to ache, almost like they did before a storm. Almost as if they were magnetic, drawn toward something… But that was absurd… The alloy that had been used in him was new, experimental and non magnetic…
Pushing Harold before him, Bernard entered the atrium…
It was as if heat shimmered around him, like a curtain and everything felt slightly off…
Harold was laughing under his breath, his body slowly sagging and Bernard released him, watching the man crumple to the floor… Where he promptly began to melt like an ice cream cone. His skin pale peach color with red bleeding through, pus yellow and green popping out as his eyes burst, his bones blackening like coals and ashing away…
He clapped a hand to his mouth, retching into his palm at the sight and the smell…
Oh, dear GOD the smell! Like rotting broccoli and road kill with a little hot septic on the side.
He stumbled backward, into the wall, staring in rapt horror as his own left hand began to decompose at a horrifying rate before his eyes.
He didn't feel any pain from it, but the lack of it hurt worse than anything. His eyes wide, mouth dropping open, Bernard screamed, watching his flesh melt, his bones burn from the inside out and his body fall apart around him…
And then there was pain… A blow to the side of his head, hard… So hard it could only have been a hard soled shoe, and his ear began to ring…
He couldn't see his attacker, couldn't hear anything but the sizzle and slop of his own body as it putrefied, but he could feel… And it felt like he was taking a savage beating.
Closing his eyes tightly Bernard lashed out, grabbing, tearing, kicking, punching, biting with limbs that he'd seen only seconds before waft out of existence.
Where was Aaron? Oh, GOD!
But then there were hands, one tangled in his hair, pulling and he lashed out at it with the rotting, nonexistent stump of his left hand, fingers that he didn't believe were there tightening around a thin bony wrist and he felt himself being dragged, his invisible assailant still beating and pounding on him…
But then his head popped out and he heard a mad noise, like a rabid animal attacking a corpse and pried one eye open.
He saw the ceiling, saw the door, and the hallway… He kicked and clawed a bit more, scooting backward into the hall and huddled against the opposite wall in horror, staring into the atrium of death where Harold La Fleur was, quite whole, fighting still with someone, or something that wasn't really there at all… Pounding his fists into the tile and literally foaming at the mouth, his eyes wide and filled with a blank, blind hatred.
And Bernard just sat there staring wide eyed, shivering, hugging his knees…
Aaron was beside him, holding his head and petting his hair, sobbing helplessly in words that weren't really words, but were more like infantile whines.
He sat like that for a long few minutes, until his crotch started feeling cold, and he looked down to notice he and Dr. La Fleur now had a matching disposition…
"Aw shit…" He slurred, pawing at the wetness curiously, his tongue feeling thick and slimy, he ran a trembling forearm over his mouth, clearing it of thick, foamed strings of drool and shook his head to clear it. Telling himself over and over that he wasn't hurt… He hadn't started melting… Whoever, or whatever was in that room had caused him to see it…
Whoever or whatever was in that room shared his DNA…
It frightened him deeply that someone who could cause such a violent, sick reaction could be related to him… Could be his offspring.
Well, now what… He thought to himself, still shaking like a sick old man, or a newborn deer. Too horrified to move, too sick with realization to try and approach again.
He was stuck… Utterly, and completely stuck.
Not by a door, or a pass code he'd been unable to dig up… But by his own children's power…
He hadn't really considered this when he'd decided to save them, as if it had been a conscious choice to do it… But, he hadn't thought of what he would do if the child was too powerful to handle…
Kitty's powers alone were frightening… Her unearthly strength when angered, that uncanny ability to calm him simply by touch, or to simply look at a bird, ANY bird, and somehow get it to do her bidding…
But this… Dear God… He couldn't do anything…
Aaron wiped at his face with trembling hands and turned his face toward the door, and the thrashing growling man in the atrium. His hands flexed nervously into fists and his jaw tightened…
And before Bernard could do anything at all, other than sit there and stare at him, Aaron was on his feet and standing in the atrium, head bowed, body trembling…
Bernard felt it like a wall crashing into him…
A chill went through the air and Aaron shivered violently, almost like a seizure, but he didn't fall down… Didn't start screaming or anything… He just stood there for a long while… Then calmly took three steps forward… And opened the door…
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Aaron wasn't trying to be brave, not at all… He was scared to death in all actuality… But, he'd been able to read the hopelessness rolling off his father's form. The despair that he'd lost… That he wouldn't be able to fulfill his promise to Kitty… That he wouldn't be able to save their children…
And Aaron couldn't stand it…
The next thing he knew he was walking forward, and standing in the atrium, fully expecting to feel excruciating pain or shocks from the floor… Something…
Instead something cold had hit him in the face, stealing his breath and for a moment it felt like he was going to pass out…
Cold tentacles stabbed into his brain and images flashed in his head… Followed almost simultaneously by another cold wave… And quiet…
Fear gripped him so tightly, had there been water in his bladder it would have released just as his father's and Dr. La Fleur's… But, thankfully, he was empty…
He pried his eyes open, one at a time and blinked out hesitantly, expecting a hand to fall… To crush him or hit him…
But nothing happened…
So, he stepped to the door and twisted the knob…
Right into a strange, twisted cartoon world or bright colors, sketched trees and finger paints…
He had never seen anything like it, never expected to, and for a long while he stood in the doorway staring at it all in awe…
"Hello?"
He called, hearing the cartoons eat the sound as soon as it was out of his mouth…
The cold tentacles in his brain drew him forward, gently, coaxing, and planting seeds of suggestion…
And there, amid the cartoon, sketchy rose bushes, was a child in a long, pink cartoon dress… Her hair splayed out on the pillow around her, sleeping peacefully…
He approached slowly, entranced by the child's beauty and his hand lifted to touch her rosy cheek…
And that's when everything changed…
Suddenly the cartoons melted and were replaced by blackness and clawing clutching shadows and a black ghost leapt at him from the corner, sharp evil teeth bared, eyes glowing red and evil, needle like claws scratching and pulling…
Aaron didn't so much as scream, as he released a shrill wail and launched himself backward against a wall he hadn't known was there, hadn't seen, and slid down, knocking over canisters, tearing open cabinets he couldn't see as the black THING attacked him, tearing him open and ripping out his insides.
He lashed out, slapping and clawing himself, his wings ripping through his t-shirt and fighting as well. Hitting with the broadest part, pummeling the demon…
He was knocked to the ground, weight on his chest and everything flashed painfully behind his eyes in a stab of white and blue…
He covered his face with his arms, pulling his wings over his head for added protection… And everything ground to a halt…
The weight on his chest was shivering… And behind that there was a shrill beeping noise and the rolling noise of something round spinning against tile…
Aaron slowly opened his eyes, curiosity getting the better of him and he peered out from between his feathers, fully expecting to come face to face with the demon again…
But what he saw instead almost stopped his heart…
There was a child sitting on his stomach… A thin child with greasy stringy dark hair and a filthy tear-streaked face…
Aaron's wings dropped open in shock and he raised up, eyes wide… Staring.
The child was wearing a torn hospital smock with a strip of IV tubing tied around its waist like a belt, a plastic bag tied around its neck like a cape…
"A-are y-you the prince?" The child said in a small, shivering voice…
"Carla s-said that someday… The Prince would come and wake her up…"
Aaron blinked in confusion, afraid to speak…
The child, as if sensing this, climbed to small dirty feet and padded across the room, behind a tattered stained curtain.
Hesitantly, expecting danger, Aaron climbed to his feet and followed, wings raised to land blows… He peeked around the curtain again and spied a sick parody of the sleeping girl he'd seen in the cartoon world…
She was wearing a ruined pink hospital smock, lying on soiled sheets… A crown of bent metal and tubing rested on her dark, dirty head, and her sunken eyes stared blindly upward…
The two children looked nearly identical, save the fact Aaron could now see that the child with shorter hair was a boy… But the girl…
She was skeletally thin, her joints drawn up in rigors. Her head lying crookedly on her thin neck… chest rising and falling unsteadily…
Aaron had seen other experiments before… He knew the signs, and the deep scars marring the small girl's frame made him shudder and clutch himself.
She was very, very sick… This girl.
Aaron felt a wail building in his chest and he opened his mouth, the sound coming out in a helpless cry. "DAAAAAAADDYYYYYY!"
And in the hallway Bernard, who'd risen to his feet and was standing helplessly in the doorway to the atrium, too afraid to press forward even to help his own son get past whatever monster was in there, gave a mournful howl and lunged across the threshold and into the room, tripping over the now unconscious and snoring form of Harold La Fleur.
He burst into the room and his eyes locked on Aaron where he stood at the foot of a filthy bed and gasped…
The smell in the room was wretched. Sickness, sweat and old bodily excretions…
He walked forward like a man being lead to the gallows and covered his mouth at what he saw on the bed… Unable to even so much as make a sound or tear his eyes away…
The boychild petted the girl's cheek gently and turned his dirty face from the visitors to press a kiss lovingly to her forehead, "Your Prince is here Aurora… Everyth-"
He didn't even get a chance to finish his sentence… Instead his eyes rolled back up into his head and he crumpled lifelessly onto the pillow beside his twin…
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