Chapter Twenty-Eight: Banshee

I mentally went back to the nameless boy, the pain he experienced until he forgot himself, begging for it to stop. The memories scraped against the glass that was keeping it from spilling forth and drowning my own thoughts. Screaming out into the dark wishing for an end...an end that I gave.

Isn't there another way? "Can't we reverse it?" I ask. What would happen if this person was exactly like before?

Seth mulls over my question but as the frown didn't shift from his face, I expected his answer, "There isn't one. Only death."

"They aren't willing victims!" I snap. Who in their right mind would agree to turn into a black sticky mess that make people insane?

"...the way it affects a person is like frying an egg. The cells are too denatured that it can't be undone. It's not just the physical characteristics that are changed...DNA structure, brainwaves right done to the molecules...Hanna has looked into this for years, the change is too great."

I look down the tunnel, unable to process anything anymore.

Rain came by and checked the tunnel that we were in front of and turns to face Seth, "The first two tunnels have a stable saturation of about twenty to twenty-six percent but it seems to be climbing...As for these two," he motions to the two closest to us, "They are a bit more erratic, bouncing between twenty-eight and eighty percent. It looks like the pipes come from the same source."

"X?" Seth sighs.

X looks down the tunnel, almost as if he could see down there perfectly. "I can risk it."

"...Alright. But you are only going down there to check. Do not engage." Seth's eyes then wondered to me, "That goes double for you. Especially if X cannot handle the fluctuations. You're only getting a visual. I don't want to have to explain to Siem that I got Hanna's toy killed."

Aaaannnd identity crisis. "Wait. You aren't coming?"

"Unlike you, we are normal human beings," Rain snips. "We do not have the heavy gear with us to walk on in there. So we're stuck with you."

Then why didn't you bring the 'heavy gear', you ass? I wanted to growl at him but kept my mouth shut. He has a gun and was still looking for an excuse to use it. But I couldn't completely keep the glare out of my gaze and he returns it like a laser beam was going to shoot out of his eyes any minute and I would melt into a puddle of sludge on the floor. Quite frankly, I would welcome it.

"Okay, kiddies. That's enough," Seth pulls up his hand between us to break our eye-locked battle. "As Rain states, even though we're trained to take on this sort of shit, it's the unstable fluctuations that will get us long before it will affect X. And I for one do not want to experience the idea of cleaning up the aftermath if that happens. Siem would have a fit at the damage."

"Clean up?" my frowning became a little less irritated.

"It would be easier to put me out of my misery," Seth states his demise like he was commenting on how dark it was in here, without batting an eyelid. "Believe me."

I did...there was something about him...how he moves was similar to X...something 'broken' inside him. I was starting to put the pieces together and became suspicious that Seth and many of Siem's 'secret police' didn't properly fit the mould that these 'Cities' had and what exactly that might mean, as Mist had said...but I didn't really think about it until I was standing in front of Seth and receiving so much animosity from Rain.

Actually that makes me wonder about how little I knew about what happens inside the walls...at how much Cody resented...was it worth it? Was it worth all of those years of anger and envy, gazing at these blue snow-globes from a distance?

I let out a breath, these thoughts were barbed and circular. No answer, just irritating. And good at fucking with my head.

X suddenly steps into the wide mouthed tunnel, waiting for me to follow.

"...Be careful," Seth adds as he reaches into his pocket for another smoke.

Simply nodding, I quickly fall in line behind X, realising that neither of us have a torch and begin to panic as the darkness feels like it's pressing in on the walls as the opening disappears behind us. I don't want to stumble in the dark...and it's wet, I can tell that it's rushing by my ankles.

X stops, causing me to collide into his back, wondering what's going on. Just as I was about to protest that if he was going to go breaking my nose, he could have at least warned me, I feel his fingers slide something into my palm. It was a cylinder. I knew it was a torch and straight away twist the top to let the tiny light break the dark and a little relief comes along with it.

I notice his fingers linger a little on my wrist before turning back to the front and continue on, without a word between us. Was he...trying to reassure me? Even though he let go, I can still feel the liquid burn tingling on my wrist...bizarrely.

He is seriously one of the most awkward, frustratingly confusing people I have ever met.

As we silently wade our way down the tunnel, I begin to hear something in the distance. At first I couldn't distinguish it as anything more than a vibration in the air, softly cutting into the sound of the water trickling through the hollow tunnel. But as I concentrate, I come to realise that it was someone screaming. Screaming and screaming out into the dark, ricocheting off the thick walls, bouncing until it hits my core and fills me with dread. The screams were of pain and insanity, continually calling out, echoing on and on until it barely resembled a human's voice.

I really, really want to go home.

The soul-wrenching wails continue out like a call. I stop, frozen at the thought. The person was calling out, the sound was piercing and frightening that had a strange mix of allure and repulsion. I wanted to bolt in the other direction but at the same time to come closer. ...I would really suck in a horror movie. I feel my teeth grinding together as I clenched them hard, trying not to think too much, trying to ignore it...I begin to wonder if I need to get rid of the torch so that the thing can't see it.

A sudden gasp of hard breathing draws my attention to X. I quickly flick the light so that I could see him fully and notice the pain etching its way through his body. "Are you ok?" Stupid question; but I tend to do that on impulse.

His stares dead ahead as he tries to control his breathing, "Getting too close," he murmurs, shutting his eyes slowly and opening them again. "Too many voices. Round and round. Death. Joyful. Sweet songs...Can't listen...Round and round. ...Bright red. The taste...pure red of blood...It makes me thirsty." His eyes shut again. "Don't listen."

...I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the 'suicide or gruesome killing' effects options that this 'baby' Queen has on X, I'm going to go with the 'brutally murdering everything in sight' one. I look at him fully, wondering what I should do. I'll admit I'm just a little scared of the idea of going on ahead by myself and facing whatever this thing is.

Wait. It's really quiet all of a sudden isn't it?

It's stopped screaming.

The deafening quiet was making my ears ring.

What does it mean if it's stopped screaming!?

"Run."

I look up at X as his eyes suddenly snap open and his body moves at lightning speed to push me to the side and I trip, dropping the torch as I felt something rush passed. Something cold collided with X as he grunts and both he and the thing disappear in the dark, leaving me to fumble for the torch.

Grabbing it, I flicker it in both directions and notice that I'm completely alone...and drenched.

I get to my feet and make the stupid decision of going after them. What's happened to X?

I frantically power walk, heading further down the damned tunnel than I was comfortable with. I was crushing my molars, swallowing back the impulse to scream out X's name and flail my arms everywhere. My breath is shuddering as it escapes, the panic was beginning to set in as I feel like I've gone on for hours but still haven't found any sight of him.

Sounds of screeching and water splashing draws my attention up ahead and I half let out a breath in relief that I at least found something. But that gets sucked out of me as I realise that there was light further ahead. It was synthetic. Pale orange from dull lights.

As I step into it, I see that it was a replica of the weird capture-chamber that we left Rain and Seth behind in. This time, the water was higher and looked like it was covered in black oil that barely seeps out from the big capture camber. Around the edges I saw veins growing out of the water along the cement walkways but have yet to reach the walls or the tunnels. I see that the high ceiling had the old lights baring down on us below, revealing a set of stairs that lead to a sealed in metal door.

Looking down at my feet, I realise the black slime that has been lining the drains...all the way to the start.

A screech draws my attention completely as I see X struggling against something...'monstrous' didn't even begin to describe it. Crystal spikes jutted out of its back, much like a Hexer but the front was different. It was like two bodies were stuck on top of one another...The 'human' part was this naked girl's torso hanging off the neck, chest and stomach of a bigger, black slime and crystal monster. The girl's eyes were covered by black slime slashed across them like a blindfold that melded in with the flesh of the beast's neck. Her hair drapes down to her chest, barely covering her breasts on her sickeningly white skin. Her arms and legs disappeared into the monster, swallowing her forearms, hands and legs from the knees down. Her body slouches forward as the beast swerves to take a swing at X. It looked almost like a lizard...but without eyes or a mouth, just a general shape of a head and most of its body was a strange combination of mush and crystal and only had two front legs. The back end ended as a strange formless tail that melded in with the oil slick of the water and the slime that covers all the tunnels.

I'm utterly speechless.

This was a 'juvenile' Queen!? I am so fucked. At least in Bellasera it was immobile.

I must have let out a breath as the girl, who looked like a lifeless hood ornament, shifts slightly, sniffing the air and her head turns in my direction and opens her mouth, letting out another one of those strange off-human wails that leaves my ears ringing again.

Yep.

Fucked.