Well, this is the new chapter 1 of ´WHCHP´… old story-line enriched with new ideas and wrapped up in my craziness that I keep calling my writing-style. Hope you like it!
"Oh fuck!"
It was Yohji who spoke out loud what all of them thought at that moment.
Weiß had been on their way back from yet another successful mission (most of them were now, since the downfall of Eszet and the traceless vanishing of Schwarz) when they'd stumbled over the first traitorous signs that had let them here in the aftereffect. Further inspection had led them to a rundown shack of a warehouse and inside it, by an secluded corner to prevent it from catching any passer-bys (obviously unwanted) attention, they had finally found it.
It being a bleeding boy caught up in a spider-like net of thin wires which resembled Yohji´s weapon of choice an awful lot. The wires were attached to a low, empty window frame and were so tightly wound around the boy´s body that the slightest motion of his would inevitably result in chopping himself into pieces. A slow and extremely painful way to kill the victim by using its own weight and increasing grade of exhaustion against itself, as several badly bleeding gashes all over the youngster´s body already proved. The boy himself - it was difficult to say anything more into detail beyond his bad state… he'd obviously been mistreated and the smudged layer of filth and dried blood that covered his visible bodyparts as well as a good deal of his ragged clothes didn't exactly help any further identification - was holding himself in an awkward half slouching -half standing straight sort of position that was already making the assassin uncomfortable by only looking at it.
He didn't look like he could take it any longer.
For an incredulous moment Yohji was wondering just what the hell had moved someone to do something like that to the boy - to anybody, really! There were even wires wound around his skull and over his eyes that fixed his head into an grotesquely reminding pose of that of jesus on the cross… the dark-blonde assassin felt slightly sick at the thought of what else he probably didn't see… when the seemingly consciousless body in front of the let out a slight, painfilled whimper. The sound was so soft that even Yohji, who was standing right in front of the spidernet-like construction and its victim, could barely hear it.
The boy had awoken to consciousness, thought.
The youth, who could barely be any older than Omi when the blonde had first met him, slowly raised his head and tried to turn it onto Yohji´s general direction little by little. "Is there-.." The croaking voice broke off and a bit of a reddish-pink tongue became shortly visible to wet the dried out and cracked open lips in a vain attempt to make speaking less unpleasant, "-Is anybody here…?" Something in Yohji twisted at the sound of the boy's asking voice. It wasn't sounding like dried sandpaper anymore, but what it had gained in distinctness, it had lost just the same in volume so that the boy's exhaustion was made even more clearly evident than in what his twisted, half-slouching stance had already hinted at before. Also, there was this distinctive note to it, a note that Yohji knew all too well. The voice the body was talking with was the one of somebody who didn't care what happened to him anymore - it didn't matter to him if Yohji was truly somebody new who could probably saved him or just his old tormentor that had come back for a final kick upon his victim's death… The boy was only speaking because the last flicker of that life-granting flame in him told him so, a last desperate rebelling against a fate that seemed already to be sealed.
Involuntary, Yohji stepped closer to the deadly trap, his mind reeling in a desperate attempt to find the weak point that would let him free the boy without triggering any sort of tightening chain-reaction that only would cause the boy even more pain. Reacting to the sound of his muffled footsteps, the boy moved his head against the wires more and even tried to open his eyes and look at Yohji directly. It stayed by a short blink of eyes, as the body inhaled sharply and quickly closed his eyes again, a new droplet of crimson red now adorning the outer corner of his eyes.
Yohji felt himself catching his breath. "Stay still.", he ordered with a calm, but audibly shaken voice. Doing something like that to a child just didn't seem right! Sure, he'd seen a lot in his life as a private eye and an assassin, but an unwritten code told him that children were supposed to be out of limits in this world of suffering and crimes. Whoever had done this, the Weiß assassin was determined to make sure he'd burn in hell's deepest fires for it.
The boy was still not willing to give up, though. Hearing Yohji´s unfamiliar voice had obviously refuelled him with new, deceptive power that sooner or later had to turn just as swiftly into an even deeper exhaustion than it had come to help him out of the first one.
Straining himself with an visible effort to stand less slouching and at the same time relaxing the wires a bit - not enough to give any chance of escape, but enough to be dragged from the cuts they had bit and at the same time placing them on new, vulnerable skin; ready for the next attack on their victim. Yohji felt the hate he'd started to feel against the creator of the trap multiple by several times at noting this.
Twisting a little more -as far as the wires allowed him to anyway - the boy met Yohji´s face as good as he could and whispered "…..please… Help. …..- I can't… hold my´se-.. any longer…" The words seemed to drain the last rest of the boy's elusively regained power in the face of his possible saviour and he fainted promptly. Gasping in shock, Yohji all but jumped forward and steadied the much too frail looking figure before the boy succeeded to slice himself to death for good.
"Bombay! Abyssinian, Siberian- ! God, just come here guys! Here's somebody that needs help, quick!" he shouted into the communication unit they all were still wearing, gasping as the slim body slightly slipped against his grip and warm liquid leaked between his gloves and the sleeves of his coat. Cursing, Yohji tightened his grip.
"Balinese, what-?"
"Not now, Aya, the kid's dying!"
There was no further questions from his team-mates and Yohji could practically hear them dashing towards him from where they had been searching the building. It could have only taken a few moments, but to the blonde it seemed like a medium eternity until he heard the rapid footsteps of his approaching comrades which were followed by two shocked twin-gasps from Omi and Ken. Aya didn't say anything, but then when did he ever? Instead the red-head directed the other two members of Weiß curtly to hold certain points of the wire and started severing the wires with his katana. All four together, they managed to cut the boy free from his net without inflicting anything more serious than some minor scratches.
It still left an considerable amount of varying deep cuts and gashes on his body that had already been there before. To make things worse, Yohji caught some fleeting sights of darker bruises against the boys pale skin, a sure sign that whoever had done this hadn't restricted himself to manhandling through the wires.
As soon as the boy was cut free, he collapsed forward against Yohji's shoulder. Ken swiftly took him from the other assassin and gently lifted him up with a firm hold. For a split second the blonde man had to fight a surge of anger against his younger friend. He couldn't help but feel that the boy had become his responsibly since he'd been the one who found him and Ken was now taking that responsibly from him against his will. But that was nonsense of course. Ken was out of all of them the most well-physically trained, and he'd been required very less for the last mission, meaning that he was also probably the most well-rested one. Not to mention the brunette's natural fondness of any sort of children.
Not catching the slight frown that had crossed Yohji's face at his actions, Ken met his team-mates with a worried look, carefully weightening the boy in his arms. For his size the kid wasn't very heavy. Smears of half-dried blood and dirt were already forming on his outfit as well where the boy's unconscious form touched it. Staring a helpless second at the body in his arms, he met his friends with a deeply worried expression.
"He needs a hospital."
Yohji only made a serious face, but Aya stated "The Kritiker one is too far away." He regarded the boy with a cool look, his face not betraying any hint of emotions at all. They all could feel his emotions boil beneath the surface, though. There was a rare glint of worry lingering at the corners of his eyes as he added, "He doesn't look like he'll be able to pull trough very long anymore."
Ken's face grew even more serious and worried.
"So to a normal hospital?"
There was little hope in his voice, knowing that the organisation they were working for wouldn't let them get through with such an act. Still, he had to try at least. The boy in his arms was dying!
"I don't think that will be necessary."
They all looked around at Omi, who was blinking that the boy in Ken's arms thoughtfully. Stepping a bit closer, the youngest member of Weiß seemed to make up his mind.
"The wounds are many, but they aren't really all too deep, I think. It's just the blood that makes them look like it." He paused, as if not sure himself of what he going to say next. "They need to be disinfected badly, though. I think we should take him home with us."
Yohji and Ken looked uncertain.
"Home? But when Kritiker finds out…"
Omi shrugged his shoulders, looking more firm and decided now that he'd said it. "It's a risk, but it's still better than bringing him up to just any hospital. There'd bee too many questions like that anyway. We've got enough medical stuff at home, we should give it a try."
They all silently gazed at each other for a moment. Then, Aya nodded shortly. Ken immediately rushed off towards their vehicle, Omi and Yohji following short.
Yohji still looked worried.
"Omi… If we're going home and he dies you'll be getting hell for it."
Omi didn't even look up at the open threat. "If he dies because of my idea, I'll be experiencing hell anyway."
They didn't exchange any more words after that, just rushing home and doing their best as far as they could.
As assassins each and every member of Weiß couldn't care less if they were to witness or cause any more men's deads. Witnessing an uninvolved child's death, however, was a completely other story…
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Bradley Crawford was dreaming, and it wasn't a good one either.
He was standing alone in a void of empty blinding white space, and somehow the precog couldn't quell the feeling that he was falling somehow.
Looking carefully around himself, the black-haired professional couldn't spot any reason for this particular kind of feeling. He stared a bit more, trying to remember anything helpful to pinpoint the source of the feeling.
The last thing he could remember was the fight with Weiß after offing the Elders, and then the feeling of being tossed around from a floor that had been bucking underneath him like a wild mustang. Then… -a short flash of memory about a vision formed before his eyes, and Crawford instantly pushed it away.
The American frowned, asking himself the reason for this kind of reaction. When he had a vision, he usually embraced it with all he had, not minding any kinds of cruelties it might be showning to him, but this one… There was nothing there that he could name, but something inside him feared what that vision might have shown. Feared it that much that it had caused him to immediately shut his mind into itself, trying to fool him into believing that there wasn't even any vision to begin with.
Crawford's frown deepened.
"Strange…"
He wasn't even aware that he'd muttered that single word aloud until another voice answered him.
"THIS IS VERY STRANGE INDEED, ISN´T IT? IT USUALLY ISN´T THAT WAY AT ALL WHEN I´M GOING TO MEET ANYBODY."
The voice trailed off with a strangely musing sound to it, that hinted at Crawford that the owner of that voice knew very well what was going on unlike him. Turning around the get some answers of whoever was speaking, the tall man froze in mid-motion.
Staring at the large, black-clad figure in front of him, Bradley Crawford couldn't help himself but gape.
"Fuck…"
The large, robe-wearing skeleton in front of him didn't seem to be perturbed by the muttered curse at all. Following a quick first examination the bony figure in front of Crawford had to be at least two metres tall (if not easily more, it was difficult to say with the horse.) The bones that weren't covered by a sweeping black robe were pristine white - a colour that never had been tainted by anything as alive as flesh- and two twin-stars of bright blue light returned Crawford's surprised stare coolly. Despite its fleshless skull being caught in an eternal grin the black-haired precog sort of felt it giving him a serious but not unfriendly once-over.
The large scythe it was holding with one hand didn't disturb him, but the horse it was riding definitely seemed wrong.
Like its unusual rider it was kind of oversized in an well-proportionized kind of way, and it was also just as white… But it was by no means any sorts of special. Aside of watching him with all too clever eyes for an animal, it was nothing more but a normal, healthy white horse, like one could see at an every riding school.
Feeling the skeleton's eyes grow expecting on him, Crawford decided to ignore the horse and re-directed his attention on its rider again.
"I assume this means that I'm dead?"
If his business-like tone any kind of surprised the horsemen it clearly didn't show it. It wouldn't have been able to show many emotions anyway, with the lack of flesh and muscles to do so. Instead the grim reaper only slightly cocked his head.
"IM NOT SURE ABOUT THAT."
Crawford blinked.
"Pardon me?"
Not getting any answer aside of an expressionless stare, he asked again.
"You're the grim reaper, are you not?"
"I AM. I AM DEATH, DEVOURER OF WORLDS, MURDERER OF UNIVERSES, FRIEND OF THE FRIENDLESS, THE ONLY TRUTH,…AND SO ON. YOU KNOW THE REST."
Crawford's irritation grew.
"So… Death" he began, feeling for the first in a very long time unsure about what he should say, "If I'm not dead as you say… Where am I then here?" ´And where is here anyway?´, he added mentally.
Death gave him a long look before answering.
"YOU´RE RIGHT NOW IN THE FINE GAP THAT EXTISTS BETWEEN THE PAST, THE NOW AND THE THEN."
Crawford gave him an incredulous look. "Between the past, the present and the future?" He didn't even try to keep the disbelief out of his voice. The giant skeleton made a careless little wave with its scythe-less bone hand. "YES."
Crawford still looked disbelieving at it, seeming to be more perturbed by this particular piece of information than the fact that it was a giant talking skeleton claiming itself to be Death that had given it to him. After a bit of silence, the black-haired man asked.
"So… It's kind of the place I'm visiting when I'm seeing the future?"
This time Death shook his skull instantly, causing the hood of its robe to almost come of. "NOT QUITE. THE PLACE THAT YOU USUALLY SEE IS OUTSIDE HERE." It pointed a skeletal finger at a place behind Crawford's back.
Instinctively the precognitive turned - there was little sense in being careful when you're just having a talk with the grim reaper- and barely stifled the gasp wanting to escape his lips. The scenery hand changed. He and Death (and the white horse he was riding on) were still surrounded by pristine white light, but it was only a corridor of about twenty feet diameter anymore. Outside that corridor a chaos of lines, flashes and colours was taking place. Bright lines that were resembling flashes of lightning and various thin threads and vines were constantly twisting in, around and out of each other before a dark lilac-purplish red background. The lines itself were changing their colours too rapidly for Crawford too pinpoint, although afterglows of neon blue, bright red and blinding electric white seemed to be the dominant colours. Despite the storm that was raging outside, it was ghostly silent inside the tunnel he and Death were in.
Oh, and by the way, Crawford had finally realize why he felt like he was falling.
He and Death were both plummeting with a far too high speed than anything alive should ever fall with (Did Death even count as alive? Crawford quickly pushed that thought aside.) towards the unseen end of the white corridor.
Irritatingly, the horse still looked as if it was rooted onto firm ground, and unlike Crawford's , Death's clothes didn't show any hint of the fall they were just experiencing.
Glancing down and not seeing anything but white underneath them, Crawford's face turned into a grimace.
"I'm not going to fall down this seemingly endless corridor of light and die there, am I?" he turned towards Death.
If it was even possible, the horsemen shrugged his bony shoulders goofily. "I HAVENT THE SLIGHTEST CLUE."
Crawford stared at him disbelievingly. "Gee, thanks." Somehow, the sarcasm didn't seem to be wanting to keep itself out of his voice.
"Let me count this all together. I'm here, lost somewhere between today, tomorrow, yesterday and whenever; you're Death, you're horse's name is Binky and I'm currently plummeting down a tunnel of light towards gods knows what." He gave the skeleton a look. " Oh, and not to forget the annoying question of whether I'm supposed to be alive now or dead."
If it would have could, Death would have given the sarcastic killer a reproachful look.
"I DIDN´T CLAIM THAT MY HORSE´S NAME WAS BINKY."
Crawford raised an eyebrow. "So it isn't?"
A long talkative silence stretched between them as they plunged another thousand miles.
Crawford sighed at the end of it. "Can you at least tell me what it depends on if I'm dead now or I'm not?"
Death shrugged again its shoulders. "IT DEPENDS ON THE DECISIONS OF THE FUTURES."
"The futures?"
The skeleton nodded. After another few miles of uncontrolled flight downwards, the precognitive shrugged his shoulders. All the anger that had fuelled his sarcasm had left.
"So you're here to take me on the way in that case that I do die?"
"YES"
The precog´s face became unreadable. "I see." Death seemed to take that as an invitation to keep talking.
"I TAKE CARE OF EVERYONE WHO DIES, NO MATTER WHEN, HOW OR WHO."
Crawford looked at him. "Sounds like a pretty tough job. Don't you ever get problems when too many people die all at once sometimes?"
For a split-second Death seemed sheepish again. "WELL…I DO HAVE SOME HELP WHEN IT GETS ALL TOO MUCH SOMETIMES." Almost as to defend itself, the skeleton added. "ABOUT ONCE IN EVERY THREE MILLIONS YEARS OR SO."
"Ah" Crawford nodded. "But for me you came personally."
Death nodded. "FOR YOU I CAME PERSONALLY."
Despite himself and the situation he was in Crawford felt his face tugging into a faint smile. "Thanks. I really appreciate it."
Death nodded at him in response.
After this another several kilometres of falling passed away in silence, before Death gave a sudden surprised start. Noting the skeleton's sudden unsettlement, Crawford rose an questioning eyebrow.
"What is it?"
A bone finger was pointed towards the ground that was infinite deep under them. "WATCH OUT FOR THE FUTURES."
"What? The ones you were talking about?"
"NO, THE OTHER ONES."
And with a jerk on the reins, Death and its horse suddenly stopped falling and Crawford found himself alone travelling towards the ground. Feeling slightly irritated, the precog decided to look downward, feeling that the source of Death's sudden leave could be found somewhere there.
Seconds later, he wished that he didn't have done it.
Underneath him, coming with an alarming rate closer, was what Death had so nicely called ´the other ones´ of the futures. Crawford cursed loudly. Whatever the walls of that corridor he was falling through were made of obviously didn't hold what it was meant to hold. Crawford was rushing at a sheer jungle of entwining and gritting lines of light and what looked a suspicious lot like electricity. It was the same things that he'd also already watched outside the tunnel, but now that he was falling directly into them, they looked a lot more intimidating to Crawford than they already had done before.
Crawford cursed again, this time only mentally, and made an desperate attempt of throwing himself around in order to direct his open fall somewhat away from the drawing-in danger. Crawford cursed even more when he realized that all his efforts had been good for had been of robbing him from his last bit of balance and firm stance, resulting in him plummeting now belly-first into the spider net of twitching lightning tentacles.
There were only a few metres left between the monstrous things and him yet.
Realizing that it had no use, Crawford ceased his struggling and watched the things rush closer with every second. He felt strangely calm now that he knew that he had no influence at all to the upcoming events.
The impact felt like nothing the precognitive had ever felt before. It felt worse. Crawford gasped as he felt like every string he was touching was burning his skin to the bone and at the same time sucking all of his life energy out of him. The threads were ripping against his falling weight, but instead of falling off like the laws of gravity would require they only wrapped tighter around his body, slowly but securely covering his body in a sticky, gleaming mass of textiles that reminded the precog an awful lot of a fly in a spiders net.
He kept falling and still more and more ´´futures´´ were twining themselves around his body. A heavy wave of nausea rose in Crawford, followed by a mind-crashing assault of vertigo that almost sent him into unconsciousness. The American fought it back, feeling for sure that, should he ever loose his consciousness here, he for sure wouldn't ever regain it again.
The fall didn't seem to have an end.
Slowly, but surely the pain the touch of the futures was bringing to Crawford ebbed away and the precog allowed himself another searching look around. He was still falling through the wild glowing and twisting lines, but now their touch didn't seem to face him anymore. On the other side, it had almost something cooling, smoothing against his skin. Skin? Looking himself down, Crawford realized that the wines had etched away all of his clothes. Only some sorry rags from his previous pristine pants had remained.
The glowing lines against his skin almost looked like a very complicated pattern of a tattoo. As if reacting to his thoughts, the shining lines glowed up once more in an intense, painful bright white light, and when the afterglow had gone and Crawford dared to open his eyes again, it actually was tattoos that adorned his skin instead of the ´´futures´´. The outlines of them were slowly pulsing in a shining greenish neon-blue light.
The physical feeling of wellness increased more and more, Crawford observed, as the lines of his newly acquired tattoos started to slowly change their colour from blue to red.
Crawford was just starting to wonder whether that was a bad sign when a violent shiver raced over his body and he awoke in a room that was most definitely not his own.
Fighting the urge bang his head against the headboard, Crawford scowled at himself. ´A dream… I should have known that. A talking giant skeleton with a horse named Binky…´ He groaned again, burying his head in the covers in the process. ´Let that be a lesson to you, Bradley. Don´t go around reading Discworld novels before going on high probably deadly killing sprees anymore.´ He slowly rubbed his head, feeling like an particular big and ugly dog had been chewing him in and out again. Wait, make that a dog of the size of Godzilla. Or the silly rubber-monster itself, if he was already at it.
Crawford slowly rubbed over his aching eyes. How long had he been out to be feeling that way…? The American's body felt like it hadn't been forced to move out of it's own effort since ages, any movements the precog made felt like pushing against several layers of straightjackets…
´Note to myself: Don't watch Nagi play any of his computer-games anymore. ´Devil may cry´ may sound impressing, but ´Death may be clueless´?´
Getting aware of what he was thinking, Crawford groaned again. He'd must have been hit on his head… He only hoped the others had been aware enough not to move into one of the safe-holds Eszet had provided them with. Speaking of them, it was suspiciously quiet. Deciding to better let them know that he was awake, Crawford started to blindly reach for the glasses that had to be resting on the nightstand next to him.
They weren't there.
Frowning and cursing Schuldig´s unfitting bouts of picking times to play, the precog reached further; trying to snatch his glasses from the most unfitting point of the little table where the German had placed them.
…They still weren't there.
Feeling slowly more than just lightly irritated, Crawford leaned off the bed and tried to fumble the awkwardly situated drawers open. Somewhere he'd have to have hidden that stupid glasses-! Getting more and more rough with his efforts on the stubborn drawer, Crawford didn't pay at his upper torso slowly gaining the upper-weight until his hand slid under him away and tumbled very elegantly and dignified out of the bed.
´Yeah, Crawford, very well done… Just as controlled and ahead of every situation as a real good leader should be.´
Crawford's string of angry thoughts was cut short by the sound of the opening door. Trying to fumble himself out of the covers that had decided to do an amazingly good imitation of a python throttling its pray, Crawford prepared his most scathing glare for whoever of his team who'd had the bad luck to stumble upon the precognitive in such an embarrassing situation. (Not that it´d work against Schuldig, but Nagi could probably still be impressed enough to not to mention the ´accident´ to the others. …or shocked by unusual, hand-picked choice of powerful course-words.)
What Crawford hadn't prepared himself for, though, was the fact that the assassin who'd just walked in on him wasn't from his own team, but of Weiß instead.
CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 2…?
PS: Reviews and constructive criticism are absolutely welcome. Just don't flame if you don't like it because I'll surely flame back. ;) (Instead, just stop reading.)