"Okay, I'm approaching the City Hall, Jules," Kenna informed via her communicator, her eyes on the lookout. "Are you sure that Castellanos has stabilized the place?"
Kenna crawled under the hole cut in the chainlink fence with a cautious tread, her gloved hand clutching tightly to a dead man's Colt M1911 pistol that she had found in the Marrow where his head was splintered into two in the most atrocious way. She would have vomited had she had eaten anything, but after spending hours and hours inside this wicked and egregious version of Union, she had somehow learned to tolerate the atrocity.
"Positive. O'Neal already confirmed that the Stable Field Emitter had turned back online just before Sebastian's disappearance," Juli answered from the end of the line. There was a brief pause before she spoke again. "Why?"
Straightening her posture, Kenna dusted off her washed out jeans and the oversized black leather jacket that she was starting to regret wearing. She was practically sweating underneath it, she remembered the weather in Union had been this January-esque chill with gentle winds, hence, she wore a jacket. Kenna also remembered the trees, how they swayed gently from the breeze as spring was in full swing. Now, what was left of them were dead and twisted branches like distorted limbs.
But again, it seemed five years changed a lot so much. Kenna barely recognized everything anymore.
Well, everything except for that flimflammer bastard, the Administrator.
When Kenna had been brought to the facility with Juli and her goons, she expected nothing less. He was there to welcome her, of course, like an old acquaintance as if all the chaos she'd ensued years ago never happened, although Kenna knew better that this was only a charade for their momentary synergy. The man was a manipulative miscreant that if deception was an art, he would be the master.
He had been her worst nightmare, someone she truly frightened of and now, as she'd watched his mouth kept oozing sore of empty promises and boring ambitions on how he wanted to create his own vision of serenity; paradise, which was something she had heard millions of times before, Kenna wished nothing more than to punch that disgusting smirk on his face. She forgot that he had the penchant of reminding people that he was in power; that he could turn someone's life upside down with a flick of a switch or whatever methods he had in mind just for his goals for MOBIUS. He would do everything even if it meant using his own agents as expendable pawns.
And Kenna was beyond glad she had removed him and MOBIUS from her equation for good.
Yet here she was again, doing another one of their dirty works just because of a man's ego trip that went too far. If it hadn't because of Juli and the payment that left her flummoxed, she would pretty much have told them to fuck off.
"I don't know it doesn't look set to me," Kenna said again, feeling uneasy as her nostrils picked up a foul stench in the air. She gave a grimace once she found it source.
There were corpses lying at the entrance of the courtyard, dozens of them, bedraggled in god-knows-who's enormous pool of blood. Their condition was horrifying, some had their limbs torn off from their body, one devoid of his entire mouth but the worst one, in Kenna's opinion, were the ones who were infected by the strange disease. They looked like the worst imaginable humanoids one could ever think of, with their bubbling and mutated skin it was hard to think that these creatures had once been humans despite their human clothing.
And their behavior showed little of human in them as well; they were feral and insane and cannibalistic. It was as if they lost their way on what it meant to live. Kenna thought it was mercy by putting them out of their miseries.
Then Kenna circled around the water fountain at the center, where an angel sculpture stood in the middle of it and an overturned truck laid a few meters away from it. Keeping her best to steer clear from the bodies and blood, she made her way towards the main building.
There was not a single soul in sight— or at least, as far as her eyes could see since there was very little lighting in that place and the sky was the blackest black, devoid of the moon. Though she could see the theater from here, floating upside down in the air like some kind of mad man's phantasmagoria, above it, stood a massive, glowing blue camera-like creature where its tentacles embedded to the ground. Kenna simply hated looking at it. It made her feel like she was being watched.
But that was impossible. Distant-wise, the thing could hardly see where she stood right now.
And yet why did this uneasiness still linger? More importantly, why suddenly she felt like someone was watching her?
Kenna breathed hard, she could feel chills ran down her spine. "I don't like this. Shit, I don't like this one bit, Jules."
"What's wrong, Ken?" She could hear anxiety at the tip of her tongue.
"I don't know," Kenna grunted as she made her way towards the door, still, her eyes kept glancing over her shoulders for no obvious reason. "I just feel like I'm being watched. Call me insane or paranoid or whatever, but you know my instincts are rarely wrong."
"They never wrong," conceded Juli. "Christ, be careful, sis. Once you found a clue about Sebastian's whereabouts, just get the hell out of there."
"Yeah, you don't need to tell me that twice. But I'll be careful, I promise." Kenna was planning on seeing another day, anyway. As she stood by the doors, she sighed. "Okay, I'm heading inside this goddamned place. Going radio silence just to be safe."
"Alright. Give me a quick update if you find anything. Good luck, Kenna."
"Thanks. I'll be needing that."
With that, Kenna attached the communicator back to her belt and stepped inside.
The first thing she immediately picked up once she was inside was the classical music; Tchaikovsky would be her best bet if her ears weren't deceiving her, where it soared throughout the vastness of the entrance hall like a bird on an up-draft, muffling her very steps. Although if there was a stereo system somewhere in this room, Kenna couldn't see one.
What she could perceive in the dimness, though, was the sight of the red liquid on the floor; a blood trail, marring the pristine linoleum floor with a dark and thick path that led all to the way to the other end of the room. The color swirled in her mind and soon, her curiosity piqued. Kenna crouched to take a closer look at the shoe-prints; male, average size, as her head trying to paint a picture of what had happened from a large amount of the splatter beforehand. It was fairly obvious this didn't come from a finger cut or bleeding nose.
Whoever these prints belonged to, it was fairly obvious that he could be very much responsible for this murder.
Well, it was a good thing Kenna came in armed when she did.
She drew the gun as she cautiously followed the line. Kenna knew it was highly unrecommended for her to meddle in whatever-the-fuck was going on in here, but she was out of choice. She could be walking into her own pitfall or the only lead that could help her find the Castellanos and end this topsy-turvy once and for all. It seemed Kenna would have to just bite the bullet.
The trail of blood disappeared behind the large doors. Subsequently, she pressed her ear against the door, trying to listen closely to any movement from the other side of the doors but heard none. The music somehow perfectly shrouding the whole building.
Wasting no time, Kenna tried the doorknob and the heavy wooden-bound doors swung open. What she saw in there was enough to make her mouth fell open.
Kenna couldn't even begin to intricately describe what it was, the imagery before her looking straight like a violation of scientific law. There was a blonde woman with a knee-length puffed sleeve blue dress and a pinafore worn over the top free falling inside some sort of a time field and looping endlessly in slow motion. Her body was suspended in mid-air where various objects such as an armchair, books, a teapot, a handheld mirror, a gilded pocket watch, an antique Victorian bedside lamp surrounding her in the same movement, her face was wrecked from a lousy surgical operation with blood spraying out from her eye sockets and mouth whilst her arms held out open. It was very symbolic and transmundane; the music, the display, the lighting, they all very aesthetically on point it left her jarred.
Whoever behind this must be an avid fan of Lewis Carroll, she thought. Well, in a twisted and sadistic way.
Skimming down her eyes from the ceiling, Kenna saw a small piece of paper on the carpeted floor right under the hovering spectacle. She squinted. Had it always been there? Was it meant for someone to see? Either way, Kenne decided to retrieve it.
So, Kenna unfolded the paper to see a very neat cursive handwriting before proceeding to read the content.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
"Another Alice reference?" Kenna muttered in confusion. What the fuck did these things had anything to do with all of this?
She was about to decipher whatever the sender had wanted for her to understand when all of the sudden, the ground tremored violently. Panic quickly transformed the curiosity in her face, the gun was quick to fall from her grip and her anxiety spiked. Kenna's mind was screaming to get the hell out of that room, but her feet wouldn't budge. They felt as if someone or something holding them down to the ground, she could only shriek in terror.
It all happened so fast. One by one, Kenna watched as the floor unraveled and collapsed before her eyes, creating a massive pit that was spreading to her standing point until there wasn't any left of the ground for her to tread.
In another moment, down went Kenna into the dark abyss.
Dun dun dun, down went Kenna into the abyss. Next up, we'll get to meet our favorite serial-killer! Woop! What would ever happen when Kenna and Stefano meet? Stay tune, and don't worry, I'm planning on writing the chapter longer that this one. And I promise I'll try to update some time this week (wish me luck, this damned writer's block is just the worst).
Do leave a review, yeah? Whether you like this story or not, your input will be much appreciated :)
Oh, and happy Halloween, y'all!