Tempest of Emotions: Chapter 16
Burial of Hope
Zack stared dumbly at his little sister. No, she did not just say she wanted to march back into the place where she was being held captive only an hour ago and no, he was not losing his mind for not thinking she said just that. Wait, that's exactly what Max just said. He stared at her dumbfounded.
"Are you crazy?! You can't go back in! You'll be caught, for sure." He exploded.
"I have to go back. No, we have to go back." She insisted, emphasizing heavily on the 'we'.
"No, I got you out and I am not letting you go back in there. You're going to get yourself killed!" He tried to keep the emotions from straining his voice. He could hardly believe his ears. Was she really so stupid as to dare to risk her life and even his to go back into that forsaken lab after they just got out? Perhaps she was more insane than he would like to think.
"I'm going back, with or without you." He sighed heavily. He could hear the same steely determination in her voice. She was still just as stubborn as before, if not more. Had she learned nothing from the past years? Escape and evade, that was the only sure way to stay free. This plan was completely illogical. What could possibly be in the lab that she justhad to go back for?
"Why?" He asked finally.
She smiled grimly, "They've got bodies. Bodies of friends, close friends" Zack nodded his head. He lowered his head in deep thought.
"Besides, if White decides to take some tissue samples, who knows how he's going to use it against the rest of us?" She persisted.
He lifted his head and stared into her brown eyes. Determination and an almost invisible flicker of anger stared back at him. She wanted revenge, he could understand that, but getting that revenge could get her killed along with it. She needed someone to help her. He nodded his head slowly, convincing himself that going back was not an incredibly stupid mistake.
"When?"
Max almost jumped up to hug him. In the fervor of escaping and seeing him again, she had almost forgotten her injuries. Now in the sticky and uncomfortable mud, the pain of a few broken ribs and other wounds came throbbing back. She clutched her side for a moment, willing her mind to remember the lessons she learned long ago.Pain can be controlled by the mind. She repeated the simple phrase over and over until a slow numbing sensation settled over her body.
"Max?" Her eyes snapped over at the touch of his hand on her shoulder. She did not even realize her eyes were squeezed tight.
"As soon as we're rested. It would be easier for us if White hasn't notice us gone yet. A quick in and out." She spoke quickly, telling both herself and her brother how simple this plan would be. Yet, even as she spoke, her mind wondered if she was not a fool for storming a place where she was held captive for just a few dead corpses. That's all they were, a couple of corpses that neither held the determination or joy of the essences that once inhabited them. If either she or her brother were to die in the effort, then everything would be in vain. And she didn't know how much more death she could handle.
She glanced at the grey and forlorn sky. It seemed to match her mood perfectly; dark and gloomy with a storm brewing in center the threatening clouds that loomed over their heads. The rising wind tousled her hair, making strands of it blow aggravatingly into her face. The wind blew harder, a bone chilling breeze sent goose bumps all over her skin. Max tugged on her shirt hoping to find some more warmth. She curled up into a tight ball with her hands encasing her knees, drawing them as close to her body as possible. Shifting her body to one side, she settled down to rest before the next ordeal. Beside her, her brother was doing the same thing. In fact, he was so restive that a few snores escaped his nose!
Max smiled, genuinely for the first time in what seemed to be an eternity of hopelessness and pain. Observing him closer, she found Zack's face to not be the same one that greeted her only a year ago. A year? Could it be? So much had changed in that year and now, he was back by her side.
She would remember that smile for a long time, for it would be while before she really had anything to smile about.
With the small changes, he looked almost older. His hair was slightly shorter, his face was gaunter and a few lines marred his stony feature. Yes, he had suffered too since the last time they met and yet, she could not figure out how he remembered everything. Perhaps a certain person decided to tinker with Zack's brain. Her fists clenched tightly until they were white with anger and hatred. So much suffering and all because of him.
"I'll kill you if I ever see you again. And this time, you won't live to escape again. You will never be allowed to hurt anyone I care about anymore." Max swore slightly under her breath and relaxed her clenched fists.
Her brother stirred, "Max? Did you say something?"
"No, go back to sleep. We need to head out soon." She turned on her side and pondered on the past month and the impending reentrance of the lab. She started to question her own motives. Whydid she want to go back for? What was she hoping to find? Nothing except death would welcome her and yet, something else beckoned to her. A nagging feeling in her gut told her that everything was not as simple as it seemed. Dismissing the annoying thought, she closed her eyes and attempted to find sleep.
Entering a highly guarded facility was hard and entering a highly guarded facility where you just escaped and now were reentering for the retrieval of a few bodies and trying to do so while escaping detection was twice as hard. But for some reason, Zack did not have much trouble sneaking himself and Max back in. In fact, everything went along extremely smoothly. The few guards placed scantily around the perimeter were quickly and silently killed by strong and swift hands. A quick flick of the wrists and all was quiet again. Their deaths were so sudden that the guards did not even have a moment to think, much less protest.
Again, Zack led while Max guarded the rear. The pair slowly made their way through the dim and quiet hallways. There was little noise with the exception of faint sounds a pair of shoes clicking against the floor in the distance and the eerie call of the rising wind reverberating within the hollow halls.
Max felt the small hairs on her neck rise up as an unknown and unseen terror seemed to grasp at and squeeze her heart tightly. She shook her head to try to banish the fear rising from her stomach, but it was so dreadful that she was slowly paralyzed by the creeping panic. Her breathing grew quick and shallow as she could almost feel a million eyes piercing the silence. She had not felt this scared in a long time and it made her even more frightened. The uneasiness grew exponentially until Max was absolutely sure that they were being followed and that the halls were not nearly as empty as they seemed.
"We're here." Zack whispered, startling her. Max forced her legs to move once more and shuffled across the hallway. They stood in front of a set of white double doors. Max glanced around furtively while Zack broke the lock.
The two entered what could only be termed as a massive room filled with sturdy grey cabinets stacked against the wall. The room was cool and dimly lit, even after the lights were switched on.
"How many you think they got?"
"Couple hundred, at least. Well, let's get going. We don't have much time."
A strange and almost stifling stench permeated the air. Max coughed softly and took one side of the room, while her brother took the other. Together they quickly opened and closed the steel doors and studied the bodies within. Most of the corpses were in bags, a few bags were opened and a few were completely empty with the exception of a black plastic container. Max was the first to find one open bagged body and barely contained her shock in a stifled gasp. Zack hardly glanced in her direction; studiously searching. Max quickly shut the door and proceeded to the next.
After a short search, they found Alena and Ernie's bodies; in fact their bags were labeled with their designation. Max nearly choked on her tears and anger when she unzipped the body bags to verify the body. They were all cold to touch, but then that was to be expected. However, search as they might, they could not find the body of 494.
Unwittingly, the breaking in and entering of the morgue triggered a silent alarm. As the transgenics searched frantically, guards were being armed and drawing nearer and nearer. Radios crackled to life as the once empty hallways filled with heavily armed people, each with an order to kill all but the target. Stealthily they crept down the paths where the pair was only a short time ago.
Max knew something was wrong when the dreaded silence of the hallways was replaced by a soft thudding noise that sounded almost like the trending of boots in the far distant. With her bruised skull, she could not be sure, but the sense of unease would not leave her. It would seem that the facility was not as empty as it once was. Apparently Zack felt the small disturbance too. He glanced over at her with a look that told her, time was almost up.
"I'll create a disturbance while you keep on searching." Max said while Zack nodded and continued to look. Her eyes scanned the lab for anything and an idea popped into her head; she thought of the perfect plan. She picked up three large brown jars of chemicals and set them on a nearby table. Next she started rooting in one of the large grey cabinets. Finding what she needed, she hurried to place them on the same table. Now, all she needed were matches.
"Hey Zack, which do you prefer? Chemical or just your everyday trashcan fire?" Max asked with a hint of mirth in her voice, holding up a brown jar in one hand and a small trashcan in the other.
Zack paused and looked. "I don't know. Pick one." He shrugged and went back to searching.
Max looked at her supplies, muttering to herself that she would make a masterpiece of a conflagration that would raze the whole accursed lab when it was done. She uncorked one of the bottles and hurried to pour some of the volatile liquid on the small mound of papers she stuffed in the trashcan. She set it up in one corner and hastened to open another bottle and poured its clear liquid liberally over the floor near the trashcan, making sure that the two flammable chemicals did not touch each other and spark a flame, yet. Next, she took the remaining bottle and carefully splashed some of its yellow contents on the walls. She set the bottle with its remaining liquid near the double doors; when the fire hit that bottle, there would be a nice explosive surprise for anyone who just happened to blunder in. Finally she made a trail of paper leading to the trashcan and struck a match. It crackled merrily in her hand. Lifting it to her face, she stared into the orange-yellow flame with a hint of blue in its depths. The bright light of the flame spread over her face, casting flickering light and shadows on it, making Max resemble a Jack-o-lantern. Max smiled at the small amount of heat the flame gave off. Its warmth seemed to pour into her skin and made her extremely content for the moment.
"Max, you might want to see this," Zack's voice carried a hint of foreboding. Max looked and took a sharp intake of air when she saw Zack holding up two body bags with their designations marked on them. She hurried over and touched the bags, as if to see if they were real and not fabrications of a tired mind. They were real.
"Where did you find these?" She asked when she finally tore her eyes off the morbid objects.
"Here," he pointed to a large white cabinet. "Guess these are the ones they were preparing to use."
"Did you-?" Max started to ask when he cut her off.
"No, I didn't find one for him," Max nodded and continued to search. While her hands moved mechanically, her mind was else where. Her face was drained of all color and she truly resembled a ghost with the exception of the smudges of dirt she recently acquired. All she wanted to do was hang her arms in defeat; the hope of Alec being alive dwindled into nothingness.
'Now I have to find his body. And we have to get out here alive and also not get caught. My distraction should- She suddenly remembered the lighted match.
"Max! Look at this." Zack's voice came urgently. Max twisted around to see him hold up a body bag marked in bold letters with the numbers "X5-494"
"Where's Alec's body?! It could not have vanished!" She screamed against the roaring flames. The fire had spread and had quickly engulfed the room; soon, everything would be aflame. Still she ran around the room, searching.
"We don't have anymore time! We have to leave! NOW!" Zack cried, unsuccessfully dragging Max away from the remaining cabinets.
"We can't leave! We have to find his body!"
"They probably took it for experimenting. Look, if we don't leave now, we'll be caught between the fire and the guards!" His voice was desperate. Max finally stopped fighting and allowed herself to be pulled away from the burning room. "Come on, Max, I found a small window- we get out through it." Zack's voice grew softer. He coaxed her to the window and after she went through, he followed quickly.
Nearby a large group of guards clothed in black garbs silently approached the lab door. Their radios were turned off as their leader raised her hand for them to follow her at her signal. Their hearts beat grew loud; pounding fear into their brains. With a quick flick of her wrist, a guard kicked down the door. A burst of flame and volatile chemicals came erupting into the once calm hallways. Before any had a chance to react, a secondary burst of fire followed. Larger than the first, its tendrils of flames stealthy climbed the walls. Eagerly the tongues of flames licked the ceiling until the dark hallways became bright in its brilliant orange-red luminance. Smoke poured into every room and soon many collapsed from it. The conflagration quickly swallowed up the compound like a hungry predator devours its prey in a moment of bloodlust and hunger. Within moments, the relatively small fire grew large until it became a giant. Soon, everything crackled merrily in flames. The blaze soon spread to a few trees nearby as people who escaped the fiery oven found themselves confronted with yet another burning barricade.
Zack looked back at the inferno and stately very calmly, "Perhaps you shouldn't have made it a chemical one."
Max nearly snorted with mirth while Zack permitted himself a very small smile. "This isn't exactly the time for this!" Her eyes were momentarily bright and happy once more. It was so strange to hear her stoic soldier of a brother tell a joke or even something dangerously close to one.
"Let's get out of here."
Thunder boomed nearby as the rain went pitter-patter on the muddy ground. Two shadowy figures moved silent in the rain, even as it started to rain harder. Each holding one end, they slowly lowered two body bags into a shallow grave they had dug with their bare hands. One of them bent over and picked up an empty one labeled with bold black letters, 494, and threw it into the small pit. Not mindful of the rain, the figures began to fill the grave. When it was done, they stood silently over the fresh soil. Finally, one turned to leave and seeing the other stand still, tugged at her arm and left her alone. She stood there silent, her tears mixing with the rain. She walked away, turning back she whispered into the rising wind, "Good-bye. Forgive me." She joined the other person, together they walked away, blending into the dark sky and driving rain.
They had stolen a car somewhere, somewhere back the road where they buried the bodies. Her brother was driving and as he was concentrating on the road and making sure they weren't followed, he was not very talkative. She leaned back on the seat and let her mind wander. It had struck her as peculiar that they didn't find Alec's body. They searched all over the morgue and had even found two body bags reserved for them, marked in the same bold letters, 452 and 599. The images made her shudder, knowing she was so close to her own demise.
Home lay somewhere in the north, the far north. It was a strange feeling that she was going home to friends and her life as she knew it, but it was no really the life she knew. Someone would be missing and his absence weighed heavily on her mind. The city of Seattle called to her with its familiar skyline and places fondly burned into her memory. And yet, it would be different. She had lost three friends, all precious and special in their own way while she barely escaped the same fate with a part of her family. How strange it was for her to be reunited with her brother by the hands of a most loathed and hateful enemy. Her heart ached with the impending emptiness and swirling flames of hatred. She wanted to both weep and kill at the same time, but found herself unable to do either.
She glanced at her reflection in the dirty window. Even though it was blurry, she could still see how much she had changed. On the outside, she was merely bruised and a little thinner than before- the slop they gave her could hardly be called 'food'. But on the inside, she was broken. She brushed away streaks of dirt on her face and almost smiled as she wonder what Original Cindy would say if she saw her at that very moment. No, she wouldn't say anything. Cindy would gather her in her arms and squeeze her in a warm hug. All she wanted to do now was sleep. She was physically and emotionally tired. Curling up into a protective ball, her mind drifted off onto thoughts of home and friends. How she missed them all.
A/N- I know the humor is a little misplaced, but I'm tired of all the morbid-ness- the characters need to smile once in a while and so do I!
A/N2- I should have put up a warning earlier, I like epics and I think this is going to turn out to be one. Review plz and I'll try to write more!!! And is evil b/c it won't let me use those signs I'm so fond of! Great, now how am I gonna show breaks in the story? And sorries for the multi-mistakes I made in this!!! A sheer travesty to the English language!=]