Brand new chapter! I really enjoyed writing the end of this - it's the first time I've been able to properly introduce The Trio and this is where it starts to get dark. Prizes for guessing their Other names. Enjoy :)
It has been two weeks since Lea and Isa had left to go and look for Ienzo and the others and it has been a two weeks since I had heard anything from either of them. I hadn't really expected Isa to get in contact with me (unless something happened to Lea that is, as I'm listed as his 'in case of emergency') but the fact that I hadn't heard anything from Lea had put me on edge. When he had left he said that he would call me if he found anything and that he would keep me updated that he was alright. He had sent me an amusing text on the first day saying that he hadn't realised Isa's snoring was so bad but I had heard nothing at all from him since then and I was beginning to worry.
At first I thought the silly tit had forgotten his phone charger (not that he would have found too many places to charge it depending on where they were staying) but when I couldn't find it anywhere in his room or the rest of the flat I realised that he hadn't. I kept rationalising reasons why he hadn't contacted me; there was no signal, he had run out of calling credit and was too lazy or skint to top up his phone, he dropped his phone in a river and an alligator had eaten it and a number of others, each crazier than the last. Arlene kept reassuring me that he was fine and that I would get a message from him tomorrow saying sorry for not being in touch sooner.
This provided some comfort but after a few more days I began to grow more and more convinced that something had happened to the both of them. It just wasn't like Lea to completely disappear off the face of the earth altogether. Sure, he had been away for work before but he always made a point to either send me a text or email me every day (as pathetically co-dependant as that sounds). I just couldn't believe that he would be gone for this long and I wouldn't hear from him unless something had happened to him.
Since Lea and Isa had left Radiant Gardens no one else from the town had gone missing and some people were beginning to relax, thinking that the strange disappearances had stopped now. Others were still looking for their missing loved ones; Dilan's wife and Ienzo's mother were among them. I had even joined then on occasion and at one point had even gone to the police about Lea and Isa but they had said that there was nothing they could do when they had people who had been missing for longer that they were searching for.
It really said something for the police force in the town when they were only beginning to search for Braig and Dilan when they had been missing for nearly two months now. I had heard people around the town talking, saying that the police were a joke and Ansem should do something about them. I had also heard that Ansem was trying to do something about them but Xehanort had taken over the case of dealing with the police so of course nothing was going to get done. Despite what Arlene had said about my, as she called them, 'crazy theories' I knew that Xehanort and those three weird girls he hung out with had something to do with everyone going missing.
Once it became publically know that Isa and 'that kid with the spiky red hair' had gone missing as well those who had begun to think it was over were immediately on edge. By eight o'clock the streets were practically deserted, apart from the odd stragglers making their way home from work but they were usually in groups of at least two of three, and everything came to a standstill once it got dark. I could hardly blame people for being scared; if I cared anymore I would have been the same but since I had lost my oldest and best friend I just couldn't bring myself to worry for my safety.
I did however worry about the few friends I did have left. I had asked Cid how Aerith was if I ever went to the pub; I rarely saw her around town these days but I assumed that was because Cid was keeping such a vigilant eye on his daughter since two more young people had gone missing. He said that she was in safe hands; he had asked one of the lads who worked in the pub (some blonde hair guy named Cloud) to stay with her when he wasn't at home. I couldn't imagine Aerith was particularly happy with this arrangement, as she liked having her own space, but I'm sure Cloud would have made up some excuse for why he was with her all the time to cover his tracks.
I had also taken to walking Arlene to and from work every day, which was virtually the only time I ever ventured out of the house. Since Lea had disappeared I had become even more of a recluse than I had been beforehand and it wasn't as if I was sitting inside holed up with my laptop, writing. I had tried but I just couldn't make my brain work and I had no motivation to try and make it. I knew that Lea would tell me to just get on with it but without him to perk me up I just couldn't seem to stop myself from worrying about him and focus on writing. So I had gotten into another unproductive rut but at least this one didn't leave me talking to myself like some kind of paranoid schizophrenic.
Arlene had tried to cheer me up and a couple of times she had stayed at mine so that I wouldn't be alone and miserable. I'll admit that when she was with me I did feel better. If nothing else we had grown a lot closer as it was now just the two of us and she was doing her best to try and make me smile, I just could bring myself to get that excited anymore. Before I would have given anything to spend time alone with Arlene but it just didn't feel right somehow; it felt wrong that I had the prospect of happiness when I should be out looking for my missing friend.
I voiced the idea of going to find Lea and Isa to Arlene and she told me it was a ridiculous idea. If I went looking for them was there any guarantee that I wouldn't end up missing or dead as well. No, she told me to 'wait it out because he'll text tomorrow'. I knew she was right (not about him texting me the next day but about it being pointless to go looking for him) so I continued on in my new routine of walking to Arlene's, taking her to work, going home and bumming around for hours until she finish, picking her up and taking her home before going back home myself. Weep, sleep and repeat.
As I walked the back streets from Arlene's house to mine, on and evening just like all the rest, I was weighing up the pros and cons of going out to search for Lea again. I kept my head down, looking at my shoes, as I thought. These days I had made this trip so many times that I didn't need to look where I was going, my feet just took me there. I had voiced the thought to Arlene again saying that if Lea was going to get in touch he would have done so by now and I should go look for him. She had told me this was a stupid idea as I didn't even know where to start! She had a point, I didn't.
I hadn't left hers on bad terms but I was still thinking of ignoring her advice and going to look for Lea anyway when I ended up walking into something solid. I looked up to see a guy, about the same age and height as me, with a messy sandy blonde mullet. He looked vaguely familiar – I think I had seen him in the pub sometime on the very rare occasion that Cid decided to host a karaoke night. If I remembered rightly this guy was usually the first, last and only person up on stage singing. I thought his name was Myde but it might have been Mark or Matt or something else beginning with an 'M'.
Sorry, man." Myde/Mark/Matt said rubbing the back of his neck.
"No, it's my fault." I told him. "I wasn't looking where I was going."
"Ah well sorry anyway, dude." he apologised again. We shared an awkward smile before we each carried on in our separate directions; I carried on towards home and he went wherever he was going in the opposite direction.
I had just rounded the corner of the next street when I heard a loud shout of surprise followed by a crash. I recognised the voice immediately, having spoken to the owner only a second ago, and turned back in the direction of it. I went back the way I had come, following the path I thought Myde, or whatever his name was, had taken and was about to round the corner at the end of the street when I heard his voice come around it and he didn't sound as if he was alone.
"W…who are you?" I heard him stammer. Trying not to attract the attention of whoever he was talking to I peeked around the corner and saw Myde cowering against the wall of an alleyway, three hooded figures standing in front of him.
"We are The Trio," one of the voices said, introducing themselves to him. "and we're here for you, Myde Masterson." I could feel my eyes widen in surprise; judging by the appearance of the figures and who they were attacking I had expected them to be male but the one that spoke was definitely female. The one nearest to me pulled down their hood and a shock of green curly hair fell about their shoulders and dying sunlight glinted off the multitude of piercings that decorated their face.
"I'm Lexxa." she stated as the one furthest away from me also pulled their hood off to reveal the large sunglasses and purple curls underneath.
"Djarnox." she introduced herself and I watched in rapt horror as the tallest one standing in the middle pulled their hood off to reveal sleek midnight blue hair tied back in a high ponytail.
"And I'm Cassijxe." she finished flicking her hair out of the confines of the black hooded cloak they were all wearing. As her hair moved away from her neck I had to stifle the gasp that would have given me away as I saw a thick black 'X' tattooed on her neck. I had been right all along; standing in front of me, cornering a terrified and trembling Myde where Xahanort's aids.
"Wh…what do you want with me?" Myde asked his quaking voice unable to hide his fear as he shock before the three girls.
"Are you sure this is the right one?" the one named Lexxa asked ignoring Myde and tuning to the tall one in the middle.
"Yeah, he doesn't look like much." the other one, Djarnox, added.
"Master Xemnas said it was him." Cassijxe stated. "Although I must admit, I honestly would have thought he'd be bigger."
"Doesn't look very strong, does he?" Djarnox commented.
"You've got the wrong guy; I swear I don't know any Xemnas!" Myde cried almost as if he was reminding them that he was still there.
"He's not too bright either." Lexxa observed.
"True," Cassijxe replied. "but he is the one we were told to retrieve." Ha, I thought, retrieve! I knew they had something to do with the disappearances and this as good as proved it. Clearly they had 'retrieved' Even when they left his office in a state and they had probably 'retrieved' the rest of the people who had gone missing as well. So this Xemnas guy was recruiting people for something. What that something was I still had no idea but maybe if I kept listening I would find out.
"Look," Myde said sitting forward and staring up at the girls with a crazed look in his eyes. "if it's money you want I can get it for you."
"Ugh." Lexxa snorted in disgust. "Can't we just kill him and be done with it?"
"Superior said he wanted him alive." Djarnox stated airily, looking at her surroundings as if she wasn't really paying any attention to what was going on. I couldn't tell where she was actually looking because of the huge sunglasses she was wearing but there was something about the way she spoke that suggested that she wasn't altogether there. She seemed a lot madder that the other two but they seemed more dangerous.
"Please," Myde said quietly in a shaking voice and I thought I could see tears beginning to run down his cheeks. "please don't kill me. I'll do whatever you want me to just please don't kill me."
"He's pathetic." Lexxa spat, glaring at the cowering man in disgust. "I can't imagine what Xemnas wants him for, let's just kill him."
"We can't kill him." Cassijxe stated, calmly folding her arms in front of her chest. "If the Superior says he wants this one then we take him back alive."
"But what if we…" Lexxa began about to argue again. Before she could finish what she had been about to say Cassijxe grabbed the front of Lexxa's cloak and pulled her close to her face, glaring at her.
"The Superior wants him alive," she said, her voice dangerous and menacing. "so we take him back alive. Or do you want to be the one to tell him that we didn't retrieve our target because you didn't think he was what we were looking for." Lexxa averted her eyes and pouted slightly.
"No." she muttered defeated.
"Good." Cassijxe said and let go of Lexxa's robes. Lexxa glared at her before turning away in a childish strop. "Now that we're all agreed…Djarnox, if you would."
"Sure." Djarnox said smiling a smile that chilled me to my very bones and I watched as she fluidly pulled off the sunglasses. She shook her purple curls out of her face and opened her eyes and I had to fight the urge to gasp in surprise again. Her eyes were huge and glowed a faint purple, a similar colour to her hair. She knelt down on the pavement and crawled towards Myde, that same disturbing smile still on her face.
"What are you doing?" Myde asked, trying to get away from the girl advancing towards him but only succeeding in backing himself further into the wall. "Stop!"
"Relax," Djarnox said in an attempt to be soothing but her chilling voice made that virtually impossible. "this won't hurt a bit."
She placed her hands on Myde's shoulders and straddled his hips staring into his eyes all the while. She locked her gaze with his and Myde stared, transfixed and open mouthed, into her eyes. I also found myself unable to look away from the scene in front of me as Djarnox seemed to cast some sort of spell on Myde as he stopped struggling and fell limp against the wall. Djarnox turned back to Lexxa and Cassijxe and smirked putting her sunglasses back on before getting off Myde. Whatever she had done to him had apparently worked; he didn't try to get away once she was no longer on top of him. Once she was standing beside her comrades again Cassijxe turned to Lexxa.
"Lexxa." she said gesturing for her to approach Myde. Lexxa smirked and went over to the man crumpled against the wall. She roughly grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet before slamming him into the wall. With one hand on his shoulder, pinning him to the wall Lexxa pulled off the glove of her left hand with her teeth.
I watched, holding my breath, as she plunged her hand into Myde's chest. As soon as her hand pierced his skin the spell Djarnox had placed over him was broken and Myde began to scream loudly in pain. His screams echoed off the walls around us and I wondered if anyone would hear him but 'The Trio' (as they called themselves) didn't seem to be too bothered. A few seconds later Lexxa pulled something out of his chest that was red and dripping with blood and I gagged silently as I realised that what she was clutching in the palm of her hand was Myde's heart.
I found myself unable to tear my eyes away as the heart began to slowly turn from red to black and once if was completely black she plunged it back into his chest. As Lexxa's hand entered his chest for the second time Myde's screams of pain began again until Lexxa pulled her hand out and let go of him. He fell to the floor in a crumpled heap and Lexxa flicked the blood off her hand so that it splattered up the wall before pulling her glove back on. Cassijxe stepped forward and a black cloak, exactly the same as the ones she and the other two were wearing, appeared in her hand out of thin air.
"It'll take a while for you to get used to it but it'll stop hurting in about an hour." she told him. Her words would have been caring if she hadn't have been sneering at the man lying at her feet as she spoke. She dropped the cloak on top of him and it covered most of his body as he began trying to struggle to his feet. "Thanks for joining The Organisation." Lexxa and Djarnox laughed at her words; as if Myde had had a choice in the matter.
"We're done," Lexxa stated looking up and down the alleyway as if she was only now worried that someone would have heard Myde's screams. "can we go now?"
"Yeah," Djarnox said airily. "it's no fun now he's on the floor." Cassijxe smirked.
"Take him back to Xemnas, he can decide what to do with him from there." she told them. "I'll follow."
"See you back at The Castle." Djarnox grinned.
"Don't stay out here too long in case someone sees you." Lexxa cautioned but Cassijxe just smirked in response.
Taking an arm each Lexxa and Djarnox picked up Myde and I watched as strange black cloud enveloped the three of them before disappearing leaving the space where they had been standing empty. Cassijxe smirked again and then looked over in my direction, whether she knew I was there or not or she was just checking the entrance to the alleyway I didn't know and I didn't want to. If she knew that I was there then there was a chance that she might decide to get rid of the witness to what she and her comrades had done. She smirked at me as the same black cloud that had swallowed the other two began to swirl around her.
"Eight down." she said as she was swallowed by the darkness and disappeared completely. I stood transfixed; all I could do was stare at the place where she had just been and try to stop my heart hammering against my ribs.
...uh oh