The first thing Desmond notices when his consciousness slips back into him is pain. A dull, throbbing pain seared on the back of his head. His eyes still too heavy to open, he focuses on feeling his surroundings.
He's lying down on a soft surface. From the feel of the cloth underneath him, it's probably a bed. His nose is too swollen to properly detect any scent; that combined with a sensation of soreness means it had been battered. His hearing is still fine, though. He can hear the rustling of his clothes, the creaking mattress beneath him, but nothing else. The last thing to hit him is a horrible sour taste in his mouth with a distinct metallic tang. The unpleasantness of the flavor is enough to motivate his eyes to open.
A blurred mess greets him, lazily stirring blotchy colors and indefinable shapes. He stares at the haze until it begins to condense into more palpable scenery. The end result is a ceiling, tall and held together by wooden exposed beams. Daring to move his head, he spots a small dangling chandelier, the room's only light source.
He's in a room?
He closes his eyes once more, now concentrating on what he had been doing before. It was a Friday night. Peter went over to his dorm. They fought. Has didn't answer. He went searching for Priya. He went to the garden shed.
The haunting vision of Peter's lifeless eyes galvanized him.
He lurched forward, sitting up and finding almost every inch of his body incredibly sore. With ragged breathing, he continues inspecting the area. No doubt, he's in a room. A bedroom. The bed underneath him should be proof enough of that. To his left, a wooden door reinforced by iron strips. To his right… another bed, squished right next to his, with Hafsa sprawled on top of the faded quilt.
Her face, like his, is swollen and bruised, though from the looks of it, she received a far worse beatdown. Her left eyelid is now tinged a hideous dark purple, puffy and twitching. Though her chest rises and falls, fortunately indicating she is at least alive, the deepness of her breaths shows she is far incapacitated than her sheep companion.
Desmond gets on all fours (though both his knees and shoulders nearly give in at the sudden pressure they are not prepared for) and crawls closer to the feline. He places a hand on her shoulder and gives it a firm jostle.
"H-Hafsa…" He croaks. Even his voice had taken a beating. "Hey, get up."
"She won't wake up for a while."
Desmond flinches at the shy voice behind him. Priya looks at him, her clear blue eyes dulled by a melancholy expression. He hadn't even noticed her enter the room. In her hands, she carries a small silver tray, which she sets down at the foot of Desmond's bed, revealing a glass of water and an apple.
"I had to drug her. She'll be pretty out of it when she does eventually wake." The tigress explains. "Sorry about the bruises. It was rough dragging both of you out of school. I tried my best to be delicate."
The ram launches himself out of the bed, spilling the glass of water all across the tray and quilt. While he aimed to tackle the carnivore to the floor, he ends up facedown there instead. Seems his legs muscles couldn't handle the pounce. Priya sighs at the sheep toppled at her feet. She ducks, prepared to help him up, but he quickly slaps her paws away and clambers up the bed once more.
"It really was you…" He growls. "You killed Isaac and Jasmine. You're the predator!"
She nods sadly. "That's right."
"Why? Why did you do… all of this?"
"You must know the answer to that by now, Desmond. We even went to the black market together."
"So… You're a part of that cult? The Kin of Luca?"
"Yes…" She twists the tube of her nasal cannulas in discomfort. "Actually, you could say I'm kind of the mascot. My parents are the founders of the Kin."
"You really are a hybrid. Your parents… they're sheep too, aren't they?"
She nods again.
"Peter was telling the truth…." As soon as the name escaped his lips, his eyes go wide. "Where's Peter?"
The tiger turns away. "He burst in on me handling Hafsa. So… I killed him."
Neither of them say a word for a while. Several emotions wash over Desmond's face, all in the span of seconds: shock, grief, guilt, disgust, and finally… rage.
He lets out a bloodcurdling wail to serve as his battle cry as he once again charges at Priya. He gets further this time, now weakly colliding with the predator's abdomen. He claws, punches, kicks, rams her with every molecule of strength in his suffering body. It's not even enough to make her lose footing. She doesn't step away from the punishment, instead letting every blow hit her with only a couple of grunts as proof of her endurance.
"YOU BASTARD!" Desmond howls. "I'LL KILL YOU! YOU BITCH!"
His pathetic frenzy eventually gives out once his damaged stamina fizzles away. The ram collapses onto the floor a trembling mess of tears, sweat and foamy spit.
"He was your friend…" He pants. "He adored you… and you killed him the second he became inconvenient to you. Like he's just… an object you can throw out."
"I—"
"The last thing he ever told me is that I lost his respect. Because I tried to warn him about you. He died hating me because of you. I can never… I can never gain his respect again. Because. Of. You."
Priya avoids the sheep's venomous glare. Silently, she recollects empty water glass and opens the bedroom door. "Someone… will bring you lunch soon."
With that, she shuts the heavy door behind her. The snap of a lock rings out from behind it.
I carried Hafsa's unconscious body in my arms to the shed. The drug knocked her out like a light, so I prayed that my excuse of "she fell asleep during our study session" was enough to satiate any curious students during the trek to the northeast end of school grounds. Luckily, most animals were either in club meetings, home for the weekend of safe in their dorm rooms.
Even if they got suspicious, it wouldn't matter. Not anymore. Now, nothing will ever matter ever again.
I knew it would be my last day at Noah's arc once Hafsa invited me to study. It could only mean she and the rest of the student council figured it out. It was only a matter of time, too. They were all really smart. I made a silent prayer as I passed by my beloved flowers. It was actually more of a farewell.
Goodbye, my dears. You still have a long future ahead of you. I hope you bloom into beautiful healthy plants. Stay strong during the winter.
I gently laid Hafsa down on the shed floor. A funny tingle of deja vu hit me then. I laid Isaac down just like that back in February. How time flies. Of course, I killed him right after, but Hafsa would at least be spared that for now. I began to tug at one of the colossal bags of mulch, trying to drag it next to the serval, but found it more than I could handle. Seems the dose I took earlier was starting to wear off. I reached into the pack attached to my waist, taking the small vial of sheep's blood out and uncorking it. In a swift swig, I drank the remaining liquid. That kept me going for the rest of the night. After the effects kicked in, I was able to easily drag the bag over to Hafsa and tear the top open, discarding the contents on the floor.
No point in pouring it outside. It didn't matter anymore.
"Priya?"
That was voice I wanted to hear the least. Peter's sheepish expression peeked out from the shed's entrance.
"What are you doing here?" I blurted out.
"I figured you'd still be here, you know—" His eyes grew wide at the sight of the unconscious serval.
"Is that… the student council president?"
"Peter, I—"
He trotted up to the supine cat and inspected her with furrowed brows. "Jeez, is she okay? What happened to her?"
"She, uh…Slipped on the mulch and hit her head." I lied, pointing at the pile of compost on the floor.
Peter sucked air through his teeth, wincing at the mere thought of such a fall. "Yikes. At least she's not bleeding. But she may be concussed. Let's get her to the nurses."
I smiled under my growing unrest. "I can do that by myself. It's best if you just leave for now."
"Are you kidding?" He chuckled, already hoisting Hafsa up by the armpits. "No way I'm letting you carry her by yourself. Besides, I'd actually welcome a distraction now. I just had the nastiest fight with the Cap and…"
He seemed to ponder that for a moment as he looked down at Hafsa's immobile face. He reached for the back of her head, feeling around for any sign of blunt trauma. Steadily, his expression grew more concerned.
That's when I knew it was over.
"H-hey, Priya…" He looked up at me with a quivering smile. It broke my heart. "She fell, right? By herself?"
I wonder what my face looked like back then. Because whatever my expression was, it terrified him. He put Hafsa down and tried getting up, but lost his balance and fell on his rump on the filthy floorboards.
"P-Priya… Tell me you didn't hurt her on purpose."
All my life I never had anything to look forward to. I knew that this life is just a temporary one, an incomplete one. Nothing I accomplish here would make a difference in the long run. I knew nothing mattered. Maybe that's why I liked gardening. Even if the plants didn't matter, I took care of them, and I got to see them grow, and blossom, and thrive into gorgeous, useless things. Sometimes, it felt like even if nothing mattered, that didn't matter. I was simply doing it for its own sake.
Peter was the same, but even more so. I knew that whatever rapport we established, it would be fruitless. I would be gone soon enough, and he would vanish from my life forever. Our friendship didn't matter in the slightest. But as he looked at me with those timorous eyes, as his voice was muffled by doubt and hurt… I felt like I had lost something. Something tremendously, irreplaceably valuable. Something I thought I'd never had the capacity to lose.
Even though the ever-present voice in my head reassured me: "It doesn't matter anymore", I knew that somehow, that wasn't true. This mattered.
He mattered.
"Peter…" My voice came out small and wavering. "If you stay a second longer, I'm going to have to kill you."
"What are you saying?" He bleated.
"Please… please don't make me kill you. Just leave now and don't tell anyone about this. Please promise me that."
"I don't understand!" Tears welled in his eyes. I'd never seen him cry before. "Just tell me what's going on and we can fix this together!"
My temper spiked. "How can you say that? Fix this? Do you even know what you're saying?"
"Clearly… clearly you did this for a good reason." He insisted. "So, just… talk to me. No matter what anyone says, I know you're not a bad person."
It was a sweet thing to say to me, maybe the most beautiful thing someone has ever told me. It was so sincere, and trusting… just like him. But in that moment, I felt a tremendous amount of rage at his words. Because… it wasn't true.
I am a bad person. His forgiveness, his absolution… it meant nothing to me. Even if he could forgive me, I couldn't. His mercy was just another reminder of who I really was, and how even until the very end, he never truly knew me. The most important person in my life… didn't matter.
As I grabbed his throat and pulled his neck closer to my jaws, I think I finally understood the true meaning of "it doesn't matter anymore".
Peter mattered to me, more than anything else. But now, at the end of my rope, nothing I hold dear will follow me.
Desmond gives up at trying to pick the lock. He knew it was a futile attempt, but one has to try every possible method of escape when one is being held in an unknown location by a murder cult. With no windows to try and open, and no other ideas at the moment, he grumpily sits back down on the bed and watches over the still passed-out Hafsa.
The sight of her soothes his heart slightly, and he releases a breath he didn't know he was holding. If only she could wake up soon. A somewhat selfish desire overtook him, and he reached for her hand. Ever since the first time he felt her hand in his, he's grown a little impatient to experience the unique sensation again, even if he did feel a little scummy about the circumstances. Surely Hafsa appreciates a little comfort even when comatose, right…?
His chest suddenly rattles with vibration. Even his elevated heartbeat shouldn't be this violent. That's when he remembered his Plan B.
He snakes his arm under his shirt and digs his fingers into his wool. After breaching several layers of thick fleece, he feels the cool metallic surface of his Plan B: his smartphone. Thank the stars it's still there after everything. Prying it from his wool, he retrieves the phone to find that he was receiving a call from none other than Solomon.
Just as planned.
He answers and brings the phone to his ears.
"I got your text." The caracal's solemn voice filters out through the speakers. Never would Desmond ever imagine he'd be so pleased to hear that voice. "It's been 24 hours. Is everything alright?"
Desmond flicks back to WuffApp and rereads the text he had sent Solomon while running to the shed Friday night.
"I think Hafsa is in danger. I'm going to her now. If I don't call in the next 24 hours, we're in danger and Priya was behind it. Call me then."
Solomon had apparently texted a barrage of questions and demands after that, but the ram was obviously in no position to answer. Desmond feels strangely touched that Solomon took him seriously, considering their history.
"Well?" The caracal demands.
"We're in trouble." Desmond affirms. "Priya knocked Hafsa and I out and took us somewhere. I have no idea where we are or even what day it is."
"Is she hurt? Can I talk to her?" Solomon asks with surprising emotion.
"Priya drugged her. She's still knocked out but fine. We're both a little scuffed up but nothing bad."
The feline makes disapproving sound, clearly dissatisfied with the response. "Right now it's Sunday, 11:52 AM. Did you just wake up now?"
"Yeah. Guess I was out for nearly two whole days."
"And you say you're being held somewhere?"
"Yeah, but I don't know where. Can you track my phone?"
"I'll try." Solomon lets out an exasperated sigh through the other end. "I can't believe this is happening."
"Yeah, I'm not loving this either. But… I really do need your help, Solomon. We need it." He squeezes Hafsa's hand.
"Of course. I'm not so cold as to leave you to die."
"I appreciate it." Desmond says with a lopsided grin. "Listen, maybe this will help you out. Priya is a part of a cult called the Kin of Luca. Have you heard of it?"
"Definitely not."
"They're big names in black markets, apparently. If that helps you find us…"
Solomon groans from the other side. "Are you seriously suggesting I go hitting up every black market in the city now?"
"I suggest you find a way to get us out of here."
"I…" He lets out another sigh, this one much heavier. "I may know a way to find you. While I think of a rescue plan, I expect you to pull your weight and try to find a way out yourself."
"I wasn't planning on taking a fucking nap."
"Well said." He chuckles. "Be smart, Desmond. And please. Keep Hafsa safe."
"I promise."
And he means it.
Solomon hangs up the phone, his eyes still lingering on the dark screen for a few moments. Seems Hafsa's pet theory was right, despite its outlandish nature. A deduction completely worthy of someone like her. He had prepared himself for bad news during the past 24 hours but this is possibly the worst case scenario.
No, no it's not. They're both still alive. And luckily for all three of them, Solomon may be the only person who can help. He isn't going to let Desmond hog all the glory. He smiles at such a childish thought.
Raising the phone up to his tufted ear once more, he makes another phone call.
"Hello? Please send a car to Noah's Arc. I'll be coming home for lunch."
AN: Thanks for reading! Not much to say... I just feel bad for everyone.
Take it easy and stay safe.