Episode-31: Lost Connections

Date: November 26, 3008
Time: 11:30
Location: GPS Error

~Damiver~

“NO! NO NOVA! NOOOO!” His screams reverberated off of the cold metal walls of his cell, pounding him with a never ending shaking. Tears slid down from his dark eyes, dripping abundantly onto the steel floor. As the monitor flickered off, so did his connection with Nova. Damiver pounded his fists on the metal door, wanting nothing more than to tear the man apart, limb by limb.

But the steel frame stood there, motionless, taunting him with a façade of bravado. Damiver slid down to a crumpled heap upon the floor, his body racked with sobs. His mind was in pieces, broken into millions of fragments, the shards disintegrated as the nerve gas rushed into Nova’s containment.

And then he heard footsteps, echoing, implanting a pulsating vein into his throbbing head. His eyes rolled back, and Damiver found his mind swaying in and out of reality, his breaths coming in ragged intervals. The footsteps stopped right in front of his cell with only a metal sheet separating him and another soul.

As the lock clicked open, Damiver suddenly snapped back into focus. His tears ceased to exist, and his eyes slid back into normalcy. The door opened a crack, flooding the cell with a daunting yellow light.

He sprang, feeling his hands close around the man’s neck and mouth. Damiver propped his foot up against the door, slamming it shut, then launched himself backwards, on top of the man. They struggled silently, the mute men’s brawl. But slowly and surely, Damiver felt the man’s lungs give way, his soul leaving with the last shallow breath, and his body was still. Damiver quickly snatched away the guard’s keys and pistol and quietly dashed into the hallway.

The corridor was lined with metal doors similar to his own. His gut told him Felix, Maldran, and the rest of the company were somewhere down here, in the same situation he was in only a minute ago.

Making sure the pistol was loaded, Damiver peeked around the corner, down the another passageway at two guards. They seemed to be standing sentinel over a reinforced steel sliding door. Their voices drifted lazily towards him, illuminated by an eerie yellow aura of artificial lights.

“Freaking A, those mother flickers never stood a frigging chance!”

“Tell me about it, those sons of bit**es are running now, mutating as fast as hell. Last I heard, Ellinia got it too. If the containment process fails, Perion will be next.”

“Holy damn, they move fricking fast! Think they’ll ever reach us?”

“Naw, we’re too heavily fortified. Those friggers come in here and they’ll be roasted into friggin oblivion!”

“Shh, did you hear that?”

“What?”

“I think I heard a clatter over yonder.”

“Naw I didn’t hear nothing. This guard work has started to get to your mind.”

“We need some friggin fresh air, know what I’m saying?”

“Hell yea, to hell with this sh…”

A single crack drowned the man’s voice out, and silenced him forever. His head snapped back sickly, spraying a mist of red onto the wall behind him. Just as the other guard reached for his own pistol, another exclamation resounded through the corridor, bringing a swift bullet through his abdomen. He keeled over, wheezing in pain, his gun clattering uselessly away from him.

Damiver advanced slowly, every footstep as a drum from hell. He reached the moaning man and stopped in front of him. The guard looked up in fear, fear that Damiver knew so well.

“Please, please no…”

“To hell with you…”

The last bang rebounded off the cement walls with impunity, and the man was still.

Damiver’s dark eyes flashed with a glint of mania as he blasted away the bolts on the sliding door. Four shots later, the gun chamber clanged empty. As the pistol dropped to the floor, the metal door fell forwards, smashing into the ground with a forceful impact. Damiver stepped through the threshold to meet the eyes of Naz, Russ, and Mikhail.

“About time you came,” Mikhail grinned heartily as he emerged into the hallway, squinting in the sudden intake of light. “Where are the others?”

Just as he asked, Naz blew open a nearby door with his mind, revealing Felix and Maldran sitting in opposite corners. They looked up simultaneously and started to bawl with laughter.

“I told you! I told you! You owe me a mocha latte after all this sh** ends!” Maldran shouted with glee.

“Yea, you told me alright!” Felix replied with tears of joy sliding down his cheeks.

As Russ and Naz went into help them up, Mikhail strode forwards to Damiver, who was standing by himself at the intersection of the two hallways.

“Where’s Nova?” Mikhail asked hopefully, but instantly stopped talking as he saw the tears in Damiver’s eyes. “Never mind that, old sport, where’s Lily?”

Naz walked back, rubbing his hands together, “Feels so strange without my blade, and that room! Damn I needed to stretch my mind.” He looked around at the almost reunited company, “Hey, where’s Lily?”

Mikhail looked back over his shoulder and shrugged. But right as he was about to turn back, the wall in front of him exploded in a shower of concrete fragments and dust. Damiver felt himself being blown backwards, sliding across the floor to join the two dead guards. Coughing profusely, he squinted through the murky grey and saw a slim, petite figure stride out amidst the rubble.

“No fricking way…”

The thin figure produced two long blades and held them at its sides. Without even noticing the thick cloud of dust, it strode forwards, revealing a head full of long, straight white hair. Her white overall and cape fluttered lightly the wind from the outside world. Lily’s eyes bore into Damiver’s.

“Lily! Thank god you’re ok!” Maldran rushed forwards, but then, Damiver knew everything was wrong. The next moment, Maldran was on the floor next to him, groaning in pain.

“Drop your weapons,” Lily demanded in a cold, monotonous voice. Her silver eyes were burning with a fiery electricity.

“What?” Felix began to ask, but was cut short.

“I said drop them now. You will comply.” Lily continued, her eyes fixated upon Damiver’s stolen pistol.

“Lily what is this?” Mikhail stepped forwards in defiance but was suddenly blown back as Lily jerked her head to face him. His body hit the ceiling above and he crashed down onto the concrete floor, groaning in agony. Naz rushed over to Mikhail, helping him up. Damiver could see they were just as confused as he was.

“Drop your weapon.” Lily restated bluntly, her attention once again fixed upon Damiver’s face.

Damiver furled his eyebrows and scowled, “What if we don’t?”

Lily gave an impatient sigh, and suddenly tossed both of her katanas into the air. They seared through the hallway, the blades reflecting brief glimpses of the yellow light above, and instantly halted a centimeter away from Maldran’s neck. The twin blades floated eerily in midair, like a couple dancing to a ghostly waltz. Maldran’s breath came out as a whimper, short and uneven.

“Drop them.”

Damiver’s dark eyes bore into Lily’s. For a moment, he thought he could see into her mind. A glimpse of twisted nerves and rerouted synapses plagued her head. And inside, deep within the confinement of her skull, laid something foreign. Damiver released his grip, and the pistol clacked to the floor.

“Follow me,” Lily whipped around and walked back through the hole she had blown open. Damiver, sensing all the other choices dead ends, had no choice but to follow.

She led them down a black hallway lined with picture frames. But as Damiver’s eyes narrowed upon one, he noticed there were no pictures inside of the ornate, golden rectangle. Every frame that hung on the wall bore no inhabitant. Damiver thought of an old abandoned mansion like the fabled haunted house of New Leaf City. A chill crept down his spine.

Lily halted at the end, where a plain white door met their eyes. She reached up and yanked something off of her neck. Damiver shifted to the side, and saw her insert a small key latched upon a necklace into the doorknob. The threshold opened with a squelch of escaping air. Inside, was nothing, save one.

“Thank you Project Lily, I will take it from here,” Fenris smiled, his fang-like teeth spread out in a devilish grin. Lily bowed deeply and retreated from the room, slamming the door behind her. “Please, sit.”

Damiver noticed six chairs in a perfect line awaiting them. Hesitating for a moment, he finally sighed deeply and sat down on the third chair from the right. Maldran set himself down on the third seat from the left, and Felix to his other side. Naz, Russ, and Mikhail took the ends.

“Good, now tie them up!”

Without warning, six long strands of rope swiftly emerged from the blackness of the confinement and wrapped themselves around their chairs. Damiver felt a tightness fold across his chest as his own rope secured him to the back of his seat. He tried to move, but realized the chairs were bolted down.

“What the hell do you want with us?” Damiver spat in disgust. He never hated anyone else more in his entire life.

“What I want, is none of your concern,” Fenris replied coldly, “What you should worry about is giving me the correct answer. I ask you a question, you give me an answer. I get a wrong answer, we’ve got a problem. And if we’ve got a problem, then you’ve got a problem. Is that clear?”

“Bite me you sonofa…” Damiver felt a sharp pain slam across his cheek, and tasted blood in his mouth.

“Watch your mouth,” Fenris shook his head in mocked revulsion, “Didn’t your mother teach you to respect your elders?”

“My mother told me to kill bast***s like you…” And then, a compression within his chest. Eyes dilating in horror, he felt Fenris’s boot stomp down on his ribcage, pinning him to the back of the chair. He could not breathe. Everything in his mind seemed to explode and shower down upon him as imaginary stars from the heavens. The blackness swirled around him, twisting reality into illusion. He could not breathe.

Nova’s eyelids flashed open. She exhaled painfully, and remembered she was still strapped down. There was a pain in her gut, but that was the least of her worries now. She knew Damiver was in trouble. Her mind was screaming with voices, voices of friend and foe alike. A heavy sensation bore down upon her chest. She could not breathe.

Thousands of miles away, another pair of eyelids fluttered open. Two emerald eyes contracted in shock and teared at the sudden breath of wind. There was a fresh scent about in the air as the palm trees rustled in the ocean air. Waves crashed down upon the beach, temporarily drowning out the pained screams and roar of flames surrounding her. Natalie could not breathe.