The lights all beckon and flicker. It's a soft white dipping into the silencing black. You know how it goes...
It's not raining so we get to miss out on that cliche but it's the middle of the night. That's when the story is at it's best. At lease a writer would think so. She doesn't look too excited; notice how she's running. Oh, and the blood on her pretty clothes. Whatever is the matter with that one?
Look, behind her. Here comes the monster. Luceria, you dog. What is this?
Zoom in. Right there, look at that face. A pupil blown. There's a cut above the left brow, her breathing is all guttural, this poor creature is being attacked and I doubt it a mistake to assume Luceria's the culprit. Oh, but why?
"Hey Friil." Says the security guard as he's watching the camera on which all of this is happening.
His partner, who had been filing some documents and sending important emails, looks over to acknowledge her.
"Who is the victim?" She asks.
Friil answers almost lifelessly, "Her name is Carla."
"We're not done." In an instant Luceria was on her.
Slamed to the ground Carla knew she'd be no match for what was about to happen. The corridor of the underground was loud in it's echo and Carla was able to take in a breathy gasp as a hand snaked into her long blonde hair and pulled tight like a rope around her neck and she was dragged kicking and screaming back into the room she had almost escaped.
Thrown backwards onto the table she bounded once and every bone in her spine felt the impact.
"Typical caught cheating situation. Her fiancé, three years' worth of knowledge, trust, and conversations in the dark, all those moments, gone in an instant. She's very young, you see. Love is so frail and thin in this world that it can snap and slice without notice the very fabric of our sanity." Friil was always so tragic with his words.
The straps pull tightly, the knees rise and slam back down to chink and bink the clink of the metal slab.
"Por Que! Por Que!" Cries Carla in her tongue.
Luceria rolls her eyes, "Don't be stupid bitch. You wanted to hurt me and you did."
"I didn't ruin your life?" Shouts Carla, "I didn't kill you."
Luceria's dolled up face swims into view and she looks at the terrified expression on a young blonde girls face, "But you did."
Straddle the lap, unsheathe the blade.
"Get ready." Says Friil, "We need to be precise in our documentation. No matter what the camera cannot stop recording. Come hell or highwater we get this footage."
Somewhere deep inside the facility...
Ander lies on his back feeling his own steady heartbeat. He's cold. The room is swirling with the familiar song of death and all his friends. He was there when they circled the halls in his home where he took care of his grandmother hand and foot till the last breath even after battleing the same cruel parasites. How, can it be that he's so young and already so ready for the moment. Everything changes so quickly in a place like this.
A soft small hand finds his wrists and he looks up at the sweltering bright sapphire eyes of a little girl just a weeping. Is she real? Is she alive? Choking on his own blood he struggles with this perception. On the scuffed knees of her little red pants she crawls over to the side of his stomach. In the darkness of an empty silver lobby of a buried cities airport she finds only metal furniture and fake plants. Not even a single pamphlet would be found in the flaps on the backs of still seats nor discarded coffee cup in the trash bins bolted to the ground.
Her tiny little fingers find the bloody holes in his belly and he screams. She only cries harder and whispers, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just hold on okay."
The bubbling is worse that peroxide in it's sting. The agony is abundant in the reverb off the walls. Then all at once he's gone quiet. Only soft steady breaths. Her hand is on the surface of a bloody mess but the wound has seemingly vanished. She scoots away from him and her long red locks fall in ringlets over her itty-bitty face as those owl eyes peer at him through the slits inn a curtain of hair.
"I'm very tired, tiny human." He manages to say and then his puppy like eyes bat heavily and sunken down the way he is he sure does appear a lot like an old hunting hound who's outlived his owner. He drifts so easily into sleep and the child's eyes close like ancient stone walls sealing off the chamber of a hidden cities most valuable jewels.
All throughout the airport comes the soft steady hum of the air conditioning unit. It's almost a lull to those who can hear it. All but Carla. Who's now missing a total of four fingers scattered across both hands. Fingers that once so delicately wrapped around toys that weren't hers to play with.
Security Guard Anna Prinsky is new to the force. This isn't exactly a fun time for her and it isn't for Friil either but she's under the false hope it will get easier. These are children. That's the scariest aspect of all this. These are children. Adherently sexual, overcompensatingly curious, and dangerously attached to things people were never meant to hold onto.
True love would never lead to this. Something worse lives in Luceria. Something these adults are forced to document rather than eliminate and as the entire left ear get slowly dissected from its spot on the side of Carla's face, pulling apart in nasty pieces of yellow cartilage, their pens move furiously. Perspective is in fact, everything.
Luceria comes up short. There's a sound, a buzz. Someone is trying to get in. In her blood-soaked jeans and 'Lindonna' T-Shirt she steps away from the table laying down her blade. She takes a moment to consider what she looks like and then decides it does not matter and makes her way out into the corridor as Carla pulls back and forth against her straps crying out in her pain and sorrow.
Towards the enterance to sector B she goes leaving behind a trail of red footprints in the thin ugly blue carpeting of the airports uncomfortable floor and peers through the small window at to who's standing on the otherside of the door. Everything in her body goes cold and she steps aside to gather herself before opening the door.
There is Guzman in a suit and tie. Looking just as handsome as he did before she found new love. A love that held her and hurt her but never destroyed her came before the monster that created this moment. Guzman of all people should never see her like this. He's not as shattered as Luceria. Oh, but he pushes right through and past her on a mission. He already knows.