Plots and Changes

Back to the past... hehehe.

Laura crouched on the floor of her cell, feeling the ache from Kroenen's latest experiment deep in her flesh. Her fingers strayed to the sharp edges of the metal jutting from her ribs, her mind shying away from the agonising memories they evoked. She sighed, her chest tight, and dropped her hand to the cool stone floor. A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the slabs.

Laura's life had been a living hell ever since that fateful day when Karl had betrayed her and brought her here. She had become just another thing for his father to play with, to alter in any way he chose. Sometimes these changes worked, sometimes they did not, but so far none had malfunctioned badly enough to kill her. Occasionally she wished that this wasn't so; that she would at last gain the peaceful rest that would come with death's dark embrace, but still…

Laura's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the thick iron door swinging open. She turned swiftly; fear showing in her eyes, still crouched like a cornered animal. The Aryan woman called Ilsa was standing in the doorway.

"Komm," she ordered, beckoning for Laura to follow her.

"Yes mistress," Laura replied, hating herself even as she uttered the words. Once she had refused to degrade herself like this, but now she thought that she could not bear the extra pain that that would bring.

She followed Ilsa to Kroenen's laboratory, dread growing, a beast scratching in her belly. Nothing good ever came from that place.

When they entered, Karl's father was standing in the deep shadows next to one of his cold marble slabs. She knew they were cold from personal experience; she had found herself stretched out on them many times. There was a corpse lying on it, but Laura paid it no heed. Bodies were a common sight around here.

For a moment Kroenen did not speak. "I have bad news," he said lightly.

Laura blinked, slightly surprised.

Kroenen tapped the corpse on its chest. "Look familiar?" he asked.

She examined it more closely, and gasped as she recognised her father. She ran to him and fell to her knees beside the table, reaching up to touch his cold pallid skin. It seemed impossible that he could be here, that he could be dead.

Kroenen's shadow seemed to loom over her although he never moved. His voice reached her as though through a thick fog.

"He was lurking around in our basement, looking for you. He interrupted a very important ritual, but it has to be said it was not totally spoiled. There were…side effects," He paused. "I am extremely displeased with you Laura."

"Me? Why?"

His words sank into her like slabs of lead. "It was because of you that your father was here. He shot my son, Laura! It is because of you that your father is dead!"

"Karl was shot?" she asked, trying to keep the hint of vengeful hope out of her voice.

"Yes," Kroenen replied, "but he is not dead, and that is not due to my efforts either. As I said, there were side effects. In fact, it was Karl who took his revenge and killed your father." He turned away. "And of course, it's all…your…fault." His laugh echoed around the high stone walls.

Karl groaned slightly as he began to wake up. His side where he had been shot felt like it was on fire. He blinked a couple of times and raised his head. He was lying on his stomach in his room, the walls in shadow. There was a tight bandage around his chest serving a dual purpose; to protect the gun wound, and to protect the still-healing cuts where his father had punished him for his failure at Cambridge. That had been delayed only slightly by the killing he had done to earn his Iron Cross, but he had known that it was inevitable. His father did not forgive failure that easily.

Karl sat up, constantly aware of the pain, and ran his fingers through his hair. It was matted with blood, none of it his own, but he couldn't remember how it had gotten there. He knew that it had something to do with his injury and with the magick he and his father had been using in the basement. The whole thing was blurry though. He could recall only snippets of it. He sighed.

Karl felt odd today. Strange. As though he wasn't all there. Something was missing, but he couldn't work out precisely what it was. This was connected too, but how?

There was a knock at the door, and it creaked open. Franz stood there in the doorway.

"I heard about it. How are you feeling?"

"Pretty good all things considered. The only thing is, I can't seem to remember much of what happened…after I was shot I mean. I must have blacked out or something."

"Blacked out!" Franz laughed. "Nothing like it! You went berserk, from what Kroenen tells me; strode up to the guy with blood pouring out you and ripped his throat out with your bare hands!"

Karl listened to his account of what had happened with mounting horror, and also a deep realisation that he shouldn't be feeling like this. It wasn't like him. He had been surrounded by death ever since an early age; he was used to it, loved it, gloried in it. And yet… why was he repelled? Why was this not right? This was the strange thing; he was missing his bloodlust.

"Well, I won't bother you any more Karl. You must be tired still." Franz finished. "Mind you," he added, almost as an afterthought, "I did hear that your father is sending Laura to care for you until you're healed. None of us have seen her since you brought her here. I wonder what Kroenen has done to her?" He shrugged. "There must be another reason though. One of us could look after you. After all, Tomas has been up here every day since it happened to see how you were doing."

"How long have I been unconscious?"

"Almost a week, but since you were shot, that's not bad." With that, he left, leaving Karl to think about the consequences of all he had done.

Franz thought about his friend as he walked through the corridors of Schloss Unterholz. H found it odd that Karl had remembered nothing about what had happened to him, and his reaction when he had described it disturbed him. It had not been his usual cruel smile and laughter, but a worried and preoccupied expression. Kroenen ought to know about this. He knew more about the arcane effects of magick than any of them.

Laura opened the door to Karl's room a touch. He was asleep on his stomach, head resting on his arms. She quietly crept into the room and laid her burden down on the carpet by his bed. What now? she wondered. He would not thank her for waking him, but his bandages needed changing, and it would not bode well for her if the wound should become infected. As it turned out, she did not have to decide, for at that moment, Karl's eyelids flickered and he awoke with a yawn.

"Karl," she said, her eyes downcast, not wanting to see the one who was responsible for her daily torture.

"Laura," he replied, his voice strangely flat and choked.

"Your father sent me to change your bandages, and he gave me this cream for your wounds." She held the tub up. It was carved from some creamy white bone-like material.

"I see," Karl said quietly. "He is doing this to torture you even more, because it is my fault that you are here."

His voice seemed to hold a hint of kindness and sorrow in it, even though Laura knew that couldn't be so. She glanced up. He was looking down at her with a strange expression on his face. She distrusted it immediately. She had not forgotten what his father had done to her; how could she! The metal was still there under her skin, and jutting up from it in places. It was cold inside her, and she hated it. She hated Karl as well. He spoke the truth; it was all his fault.

"I know you hate me. I know there is no way you are going to trust me. But let me tell you this. Your father did not die in vain. The magick…has changed me. I am different now! I no longer think that I have it in me to be the merciless killer that my father intends for me to be. I am going to leave, and take you with me."

"You actually expect me to believe that! I don't know the real reason you would want to take me away from here, unless it's some trick to get my hopes up and then crush them again, but it can't be anything good!"

"It is either that or stay here, and there is only pain for you here. Do you really want to stay and be cut up and have things stuck into you by my father? I think not."

Laura thought about it. It was tempting, but she had no reason to believe that Karl would keep his word. He might say he had changed, but she had no proof of that.

"Look," Karl said, exasperated, "I'll show you why I have no wish to stay here. One of the reasons anyway." He reached around and started to unwind the long bandages that covered his chest. Before long Laura could see the pad which they were holding over his gun shot wound. He let the last of them fall into the sheets of his bed and stood up, wincing slightly. He carefully peeled the pad off, letting her see the ghastly hope there, oozing fluids. She also noticed an uncommonly large amount of bruising all over his sides. Surely that could not have all been caused by the bullet could it? Karl saw her confused expression and smiled wanly.

"This isn't the real reason," he said, gesturing at the hole. "It's this." He turned around and Laura gasped. There were deep cuts all over his back, so deep that through some of them, even though they were sewn up, she could see bone. They were long and thin, as though they came from a whip or a long thin knife. There didn't seem to be very much blood which was surprising.

"How…how…?" she stammered, shocked.

"A punishment for failure. Let us say that my father was less than pleased with me after I was kicked out of Cambridge. Do you still doubt that I want to leave?"

Laura shook her head mutely. She couldn't seem to be able to find the breath to speak. Finally she managed to ask weakly, "And…the bruises?"

Karl shuddered. "Ilsa," he hissed. "Not all the blood on those sledgehammers we were using when you first came here was that of our prisoners."

Laura sank to the ground. If this was what Kroenen did to his son, who had failed him only slightly, then how much more did he still have in store for her, who had caused Karl to be expelled from Cambridge? She made up her mind instantly.

"I'm coming with you." She said.

Pleeeeeeeeeeease review! Time traveling will make an appearance soon.