When Marcus cracked open his eyes again, the wood floor was gone. He was flat on his face, a pool of drool extending from his open mouth along a filthy, once-white floor. He checked his hand and arms first. No cut on his palm. No blisters on his arms. Groaning, he rolled onto his back, getting a better vision of the room as he did.
The Reserve.
The normally spotlessly clean containment field room looked as if a stampede had gone through it and then got abandoned. Time, dirt, and grime conquered its tipped over daises, and exposed wires sprung from the walls where monitors had once been. The doors were all open, each of them leading into an endless gray field rather than a shimmering portal.
Getting to his feet, Marcus turned to the closest door. Norah’s enclosure. He tried to take a step and let out an audible grunt. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t seem to be hurt from the ritual, but he felt heavy. Like he was made of stone.
Lightning cracked the ground close enough for him to smell it in the air. Ash and rock flew in all directions from the impact to his left. It was her enclosure, but something horrible had happened here. The mountains in the distance were the only recognizable feature. Ash coated the ground where lush, mossy grass should have been. The trees were bare, shooting upward to the sky like skeletal claws.
His feet knew the way, the steps branded into his mind. Somehow he knew, despite the hellscape this had turned into, despite there being absolutely no signs of life, she’d be waiting there for him. Howling wind buffeted against him, the only noise the enclosure produced as he approached the fallen tree.
His jaw quivered as he approached the only source of color left in this place. The blue and orange fur slowly rising and falling on the other side of the trunk. The smell was there, but muted, like his nose had grown used to it. Black veined eyes met him as he took the corner, viscous fluid leaking from the corners and out her nose.
“Norah…” he whispered, kneeling beside her. “I’m so sorry.”
When he reached for her, the rimeclaw recoiled and managed an exhausted growl. Her eyes met his again and words filled his mind. How could he let this happen to her? What had she done to deserve a fate like this?
“Norah, it’s not your…” He reached out again to touch her face, but as his hand closed in her eyes liquified with rot and her body decomposed before his eyes. Within seconds, nothing was left but the smell of rotting flesh and a pile of bones.
Marcus stumbled back, reaching back to brace himself on the ash-covered ground, but he never found it. He fell, tumbling end over end. Norah’s enclosure vanished from sight, and his unnatural feeling weight sent him hurtling into the unending dark.
Solid ground formed from nothing beneath his feet, and he was walking, a spell carbine in his hands. Two men in front of him were dragging James’ limp body by the arms along a metal grated floor. Ahead of them, a familiar door sat, and beyond it he knew who would be waiting.
He tried to fight against it, but he had no control over this body. It didn’t even feel like him. The door opened to Yuri’s emotionless bald head, slightly tilted, framed by purple buzzing lamps designed to dampen magic. Yuri’s mouth moved, but it was blurred, like his mind was trying the censor the conversation.
Then came the violence.
Whatever Yuri had asked for, James remained defiant, even after the knuckle dusters came out. Yuri ripped James off the chair, slammed him down onto the table and delivered a strike to his core that cut through the buzzing silence loud and clear. The impact. The breaking bones.
Marcus tried to will this body to move. To do anything! But to no avail. He could only watch as his brother-in-law, his best friend, was pummeled until he broke. Finally, James got a hand up long enough to sign the contract. Two of the other guards dragged his broken body out of the room, but Marcus followed Yuri.
They took an elevator up, the same elevator they’d taken when Arcanex let them out of the facility, but this time it didn’t stop on the ground level. All the way to the top floor, where Yuri walked to an office with his nameplate on the door.
Yuri dissolved into nothing as the two of them stepped through the door and what should have been an office turned into a modest kitchen/dining room. Marcus froze. The wall was at his back again. A quick glance showed Victoria to his left, across the void that was the doorway leading into the room. The beam of a flashlight rhythmically lit the threshold.
Not again.
He couldn’t do it again.
The barrel of the carbine crossed into view, sweeping toward Victoria. Marcus was already moving when she threw her arms up to redirect the gun. There was no hazmat suit barrier this time. His hand gripped the back of the helmet, fingers flexed around the metal curve, and he slammed forward with all his strength.
The sound of the helmet’s visor cracking echoed through the eerie silence. Forcing all his strength into each and every thrust of his arm, the sound shifted from synthetic material breaking away to flesh and bone. The body crumbled to his feet, chills running through him as the helmet fell away leaving what was left of a human skull leaking fluids onto the kitchen floor.
Wide-eyed, he looked up to see Victoria slowly backing away from him. She stopped at the back door for a moment, a frown tugging at her lips as her eyes shifted from his to the body and then back to him. Then she turned and left him there.
Marcus called out for her, but produced no sound. He ran for the door, but when he threw it open and stepped out…he was in front of the Harris Townhouses building. Dark clouds roiled over head, lightning spidering through them. The windows shattered, darker smoke than he remembered billowing from them. Then she jumped. She hit one shimmering platform, then a second, all the way to the ground where she sprinted in his direction.
There were no golden shields this time. Three neon yellow lines of magic burst through her chest, and she hit the ground with an unceremonious thud, papers flying out of her hands and scattering about the street. Marcus ran to her even with his legs refusing to work properly. When he scooped her up and turned her over in his arms, all that met him were lifeless pools of blue.
He squeezed Ophelia to his chest and let out a silent yell to the heavens. The heavens answered back with another snap of lightning that spidered out through the clouds, creating an image. His father staring down at him. There was no trace of the warmth he’d ordinarily feel from the man. Michael’s expressionless face simply stared down. Judging him.
Lightning again, and his father was gone, replaced by his mother. Then his brothers. One by one his family’s faces appeared in the sky like cruel gods watching him fail and doing nothing to help. The longer he stared, the faster they rotated, wearing down what little resolve he had left until finally…the lightning stopped. For a few merciful seconds, he held Ophelia in what was the closest thing to peace this place could muster.
The sky lit up in one last brilliant light show. All of their faces simultaneously bore down on him as the lightning arced to the ground, striking mere feet in front of him. Calliope stepped out of the smoke, her eyes puffy and bloodshot, though she carried the same emotionless expression as the rest of them. She slowly moved closer, her gaze averting focus from him to Ophelia in his arms.
She squatted down in front of them, her hands reaching out to push Ophelia’s eyelids closed before she looked back up at him. “You okay, little brother?”
Her words echoed through the empty streets, bouncing off buildings and careening back at him. He gripped Ophelia tight as his lungs refused to work. His pulse heightened, the sound of his beating heart and what had once been a question of concern the only sounds. Then Ophelia’s body burst into ash in his arms.
He fell forward. On his hands and knees now, he tried to scream, but his lungs refused. Even if he could, what good would it do? Marcus looked up, silently begging his sister for help.
Calliope reached out and touched his cheek, gave him a sad smile, and then, starting from the fingers, dissolved into ash herself. He collapsed onto the asphalt, iron will broken beyond repair.
“Marcus, honey?” Cool skin touched his face and his eyes shot open. Chills brought goosepimples to his skin. He was back in the office. Still hardly able to breath, his eyes snapped up to his mother’s face hovering over him, face creased with concern. “Marcus?”
He lurched away from her in quick, jerky movements. Finding his feet again he scurried to the other side of the room, pressing his back to the wall and moving to the side until he found a corner. His chest rose and fell in sharp bursts.
The faces.
They were all staring at him still.
“Marcus?” Nicky pushed through the crowd at the door and took a step into the room. “You okay?”
Why? Why was this happening? His muscles tensed. His body shook. Marcus’ eyes flicked back to the door behind his brother.
His siblings looked on a mixture of shock and horror on their faces. His father pushed his way through the crowd to get into the room, and as the crowd parted, he caught a glimpse of Ophelia and Victoria. They stood side by side, each with worry etched on their faces.
“Son…” Michael lifted a hand to him like he was about to wrangle a wild animal. “Lets get you out of this office, huh? Get you some water? Some fresh air?” He took a couple slow steps closer.
No.
He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t take the weight of their disappointment anymore. There had to be a way out.
His eyes frantically searched the room, but keeping his father in front of him. Then the last rays of sunlight caught his attention, coming through the office window.
Window.
His head snapped to the side, and he took two leaping strides, throwing himself through the glass. Screams sounded behind the shattering as he fell and landed in the garden below, shards of glass embedded in his back, shoulders, and legs. There was no time. He had to get away from here.
It was a limp at first. His fingers dug into fresh wounds, ripping away the larger shards of glass. He needed to get them out, but they were coming. He heard Calliope call out his name. Then Victoria.
With blood pumping from his wounds, Marcus vanished into the woods. She was fast, but without magical assistance…he was faster.