"I need to eat! Now!" she shrieked, her voice muffled as her face was still being pressed forcefully into the floor.
After she spoke, she felt the pressure on the back of her head weaken, then completely pull away. Shortly after, she felt the knee that had been buried in her back release her. Then, the hands that held her wrists also released their grip.
When her wrists were free, she rolled over, but was barely able to complete the movement. She was tired. She was starving...
She stared up weakly and saw Aaron standing above her.
"I know you're starving..." he whispered. "That's normal, and I have food for you. Come with me and I will feed you. I promise."
Madeline didn't have the strength to nod in reply. All she could manage was a weak moan. She was so exhausted that even looking up at Aaron took every ounce of her strength.
"C'mon, I'll carry you to the food..." Aaron whispered as he bent down and scooped her up into his arms. Then, he turned and walked through the front door of her home onto the oddly desolate and empty Grand Promenade.
"Yes," Madeline hungrily whispered. "Bring me to the food..."
Chapter 53
Darkness surrounded Alice, and it was a familiar place.
During her time as a taxation enforcement officer, she would drink, and when she had clumsily rampaged her way through enough liters of alcohol, she would go there. On nights when she had been entirely consumed by guilt, she would find that place by whatever means she could. Usually, by inflicting pain on herself.
It was the only place where she could find a semblance of peace. She had gone there many times when the Council had held her following the Ganymede incident. She had gone there to avoid the daily routine of cutting, sawing, and pain as they ripped into her and extracted samples of her flesh, her liver, and her brain,
It was strange, though, she thought. In the past, when she had found herself in that place, she had been alone. But now, there was someone else there, and she had to find him.
So, she started running through the darkness to search for him. There was no wind there, and no air, so she didn't feel the breeze blowing on her face like she would if she was on terrestrial ground. Still, she knew she was moving through the vast expanse at an incredible speed.
Her legs worked furiously beneath her as they chewed up kilometer after kilometer of lightless terrain. Her arms pumped rhythmically at her sides as she worked for even more speed. He was there somewhere, and she wouldn't stop running until she found him.
She ran for an eternity, though time was meaningless there. She never stopped, never rested, and never wavered on her path. As the years or seconds, or eons passed around her, she never had a moment of doubt. She could feel him, and so she would find him, and that was all that mattered.
But, she didn't find him. No matter how fast she ran and how much exertion she forced into the darkness around her, he remained hidden. Though she could feel him close by, he never materialized before her. His love never found its way through that bleak but peaceful land to make its home in her heart and breath life back into her.
Still, she ran. She pushed even harder, sprinting with even more effort until even in her mind, she could move no faster.
A million years flew past her, or none at all, and slowly but inevitably, her resolve began to fade. Even though she struggled with all her might to stave off the doubts that began to cloud her certainty, they found a way to infiltrate her mind.
Perhaps he wasn't there, she thought. Maybe it was all in her head, and the presence she felt was only her desire to see him. Perhaps she was only feeling her need to have one last moment with him. And for what? To say goodbye? To tell him she loved him? To say she was sorry?
No, he had to be there. He had to be there... And so, she kept running.
But she was so tired, she suddenly realized. She had run for so long, and she was getting so, so tired. Though she wanted to keep going, she eventually slowed. Then, though she knew if she could keep searching for a few more minutes, she would find him, she finally stopped.
And so, she stood there in the darkness, alone, until even the feeling of his presence left her. He wasn't there, and he never would be. He was dead, and she had killed him.
"Oh, Alice," he suddenly said behind her. "I thought you'd never stop running..."
His words warmed her soul as they flowed into her. She wheeled around, and the sight of his face breathed joy into her heart. It was Shonn, her Shonn, and he was smiling at her with amusement. She returned his smile and love came back to life within her.
"I knew you were here... Somewhere!" Alice shouted as she took a step toward him.
Suddenly, he raised his hand. His palm was flat and faced towards her. She quickly understood the gesture, and halted.
"You knew I was here..." he replied, "but not how to find me. You've always been stubborn, Alice, and to be honest, I admire that about you. It makes you tough, it makes you trustworthy, and it makes your love mean something."
"Why can't I be close to you?" Alice asked, slightly hurt from his rejection of her embrace.
"I knew the exact moment that you loved me for the first time," he wistfully announced, ignoring her question. "I remember it like it was just now. You didn't say it, of course. You never said it until the end, but I knew."
"When?" Alice demanded. "Where?"
"Stubborn Alice..." Shonn replied with a shake of his head. "That doesn't matter in the slightest. What matters is that I knew you loved me at all. Yes, your stubbornness is your biggest strength, but it also holds you back. It keeps you from living. It keeps you from moving on. It keeps you from the peace that you crave so dearly."
Alice was speechless. She was stunned that her long-awaited reunion with the man she loved had suddenly turned into a stern talking-to.
After a brief pause, and a sad look, Shonn continued. "You find your goal, and you chase it with abandon. You searched for me with every fiber of your being, but did you ever consider that I might be behind you? No, you never did, and so you wasted what could have been an eternity here together. Instead of spending all that time with me, you wasted it by assuming that you knew the way. You thought that you had the answers, and pursued that path until it almost killed you."
"I'm...Sorry..." Alice gasped, her voice breaking with emotion. He was right. She had searched in only one direction. She had never changed her path, never looked behind to see what she had missed.
He gave her a caring smile. "I know, Alice. I know... You pursue your path with single-minded zeal. Whether it's pursuing the will of the Council, drinking yourself to death, or trying to save humanity. You are an amazing woman, but you have to accept that you don't have all the answers. Your grief, your regret, and what you now call your purpose... You will never find the answers within those sad, pointless pursuits. You have to stop running, Alice!"
"Please, Shonn..." Alice sobbed. "I'm sorry..."
Shonn's expression softened and he took a step toward her. "Oh, Alice. Don't you realize? I had already forgiven you even before you killed me! The universe offered you forgiveness even before you were born!"
"I..." was all Alice could manage in response. She had no words to communicate the cascade of emotion that was building inside of her.
"There's nothing you could have done differently..." Shonn declared when she failed to come up with any response. "And, all in all, things have worked out pretty well. We are many, but soon we shall all be one... We will be one, Alice!"
"What?" Alice asked, confusion piling on to the emotions that roiled within her.
"Here," Shonn answered as he stepped toward her and reached his hand toward her cheek. "I love you, and I always will."
When his hand touched her face, she felt the touch of his smooth, warm skin for a fraction of a second. But then, he blinked out of existence. He vanished into the darkness to leave Alice all alone once again.
With a shuddering, agonizing roar, Alice screamed, but no sound came from her mouth.
She tried to run, but her legs wouldn't move. She was now stuck, frozen in place as if bound by some unseen bond.
She screamed again, this time in frustration over being unable to move. And this time, a voice came from her mouth, but it wasn't hers.
"Wakey, wakey..." a slithering, coy voice said from her mouth.
Alice recognized the voice, and reality began to crash down around her as memories started to stream through her mind. Then, with a rapid rushing sensation, the darkness fled away from Alice, and she slowly opened her eyes.
Blinding white light flooded her vision, and she turned away from it to avoid damaging her sight. She then blinked several times, and as her vision cleared, she was able to take in her surroundings.
She was naked, and she was sitting in a cold white chair, just like the one that sat in the middle of her ship's medical bay. Its familiar form against her bare skin was unmistakable. Unfortunately, she was bound by white manacles around each of her wrists and ankles, and they shackled her to the chair in which she sat.
The room around her was pure white, and its walls were bare. It reminded her of her ship, but it was not her ship. There were no rooms in the Epiphany as large as the one she found herself in. It was at least twenty meters wide, but her restraints prevented her from determining its length.
She could see one thing of note, however. She could see Leo.
He sat, bound and unclothed, just as she was, in a chair identical to hers. He was only five meters from her, and facing her, although his slumped head and closed eyes showed him to be unconscious. Alice thought briefly about shouting to him, but before she could voice his name, a slimy, slithering voice whispered into her ear.
"There she is! I thought for a moment that I had destroyed your brain with my foot. Wouldn't that have been unfortunate?"
As Thrall spoke, he walked from behind Alice, and by the time he finished his second sentence, he stood fully before her. The left side of his face was charred black, and emitted the sweet stench of burnt flesh. Nevertheless, he smirked down at her gloatingly as he spun a small knife between the fingers of his left hand and stroked his chin gently with the stump of his other.
"I'm over this already. Do your worst," Alice grunted as she stared up into his glistening, eager eyes.
"You didn't answer my question," Thrall whined, disappointment creeping into his voice. "Wouldn't it have been unfortunate if I had killed you?"
"I don't care," Alice hissed. "What's done is done, at least as far as you're concerned. Kill me, cut me, eat me, it's all the same to you in the end."
"Awww. You're acting courageous!" Thrall exclaimed in a mocking, sing-song voice. "That's so adorable..."
Thrall stopped speaking and and began to inspect Alice. He eyed her naked body for several seconds, then stopped spinning his small knife and held it loosely in his left hand.
Then, like a snake striking, he jabbed the knife into her left shoulder. She felt the knife cut through her skin and painfully chip the bone in her upper arm. As quickly as he had struck, Thrall pulled the blade out, whipped it upwards, and thrust its point just a millimeter away from her right eye.
Alice felt the pain of the knife cutting through her flesh, but she made no sound. Instead, she stared up at Thrall with mild disinterest and stayed stubbornly silent.
He smiled down at her as he held his blade above her eye with exacting stillness. "Ohhhh, I'm going to have fun with you... I may have finally found a piece of meat that knows what pain is. A knife in your shoulder doesn't seem to move you, and you've obviously experienced much worse. So, we'll have to move into the more profound and real types of pain. Your eyeball being cut out of your head, for example."
Thrall leaned closer to Alice until his face was only inches from hers, and she could feel his hot, moist breath on her stubbornly pursed lips.
"After we get through that little jewel of pain, well..." Thrall whispered. "There are other things I will do to you before I allow you to die. Things that even I find too disgusting to put into words. If you were to speak of them, they would sound vile, and evil, and it would be an insult to their true beauty. Words can't even begin to capture the true meaning of such acts."
"You're pathetic..." Alice whispered back to him.
Then, with a burst of power, she thrust her head forward and smashed the hard bone of her forehead into Thrall's soft, vulnerable nose. She didn't have much power behind the blow because she was restrained at the neck, but she still generated enough force to make him recoil and squeak in pain.
"Gah!" he squealed as he stumbled backward. "Ouch!"
Thrall stumbled around the room, cursing to himself as he clutched his now bleeding nose. Alice watched him with disdain, but her attention was drawn away from him when a different noise began to intermix with Thrall's quiet cursing.
Across from her, Leo had opened his eyes, and he laughed raggedly as Thrall wobbled around the room. Thrall stopped moving and shuddered when he heard Leo's laugh, then wheeled around and slowly walked toward him.
"Uh, Thrall?" Leo jeered as Thrall approached. "I wouldn't fuck with Alice anymore, if I were you. I think she's had about enough of you..."
Thrall said nothing and glared down at Leo, who leered right back. Leo kept chuckling, and his eyes flashed with amusement as they stared eachother down.
After twenty tense seconds, Thrall looked away from Leo and turned to Alice. He was no longer smiling; his face now wore the twisted flesh of pure rage. His eyes were narrow, and a fire burned within them. His lips turned down, and his nostrils flared as his chest heaved in and out.
Thrall stared over his shoulder at her for a few seconds, then turned back to Leo and brutally smashed his stump into the side of Leo's head.
With a vengeful fury, he then began to beat Leo with his stump, starting with several vicious blows to Leo's head. Thrall was careful not to knock Leo unconscious, though, and quickly moved down his body, hammering him ruthlessly in his liver, then his solar plexus, then his ribs. Alice heard one of Leo's ribs crack as Thrall unleashed a particularly brutal blow to his right side, and heard Leo grunt in pain as it landed.
The beating lasted an eternity to Alice, and she wanted more than anything to shout out and interrupt it. However, during the entire course of Thrall's savagery, Leo kept his eyes locked onto her. His eyes never left hers, not even once, as he absorbed his punishment, and the meaning in his look was crystal clear.
I can take it.
Though it pained her, Alice respected Leo enough to heed him. Thrall would use each of their pain against the other. Only by torturing one and making the other watch would they ever break to his depredations, but Alice wouldn't break. She wouldn't disrespect her pain, or Leo's, by giving Thrall the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt them in ways beyond the physical.
And, Alice suspected that Thrall would only kill them once he had mentally broken them. That was where he got his satisfaction. It was the mental anguish he fed on, not the pain itself. That was why he taunted and that was why he laughed at them. As long as she and Leo kept their courage, Thrall would not grant them the mercy of death, and they would would still have the hope of being alive.
After over a minute, Thrall finally ceased his vicious beating of Leo and backed away. Thrall had worked himself into a sweat and breathed heavy, deep breaths as he doubled over and tried to recover from his exertion.
After a few seconds, he turned back to Alice and grinned. Then, he brandished his stump, which was now covered in Leo's blood, at her, swaying it back and forth playfully.
"See? I told you! It's so useful!"
Chapter 54
Annabelle huddled quietly in the storage compartment where Leo had left her.
"Stay here. I'll come back for you after I find out what's going on."
That's what he had told her before he had kissed her and left her there, alone. She had been waiting there for over an hour, and the fact that he hadn't yet returned meant only one thing: He was either dead or captured.
Her assumption was further reinforced when, an hour prior, she had heard voices through the walls of her little compartment. There were four of them, and though muffled, she had made out one critical word.
"Thrall."
There had been no mistaking that name, and hearing it made the situation crystal clear to Annabelle. Thrall had taken the ship, captured Leo and Alice, and soon, his cronies would search the storage compartment she was hiding in.
The fact that she hadn't yet been discovered seemed odd, mainly because they should have detected her life sign immediately. Perhaps there was something at play that was hiding her presence, she thought, and maybe it had something to do with the thousands of voices in her mind.
Yes, Leo had left her there alone, but she wasn't actually alone. Others were keeping her company, and she could hear them clearly. There were too many to count, and their droning voices had been incomprehensible to Annabelle an hour before. However, in the previous fifteen minutes, she had begun to make sense of them. She had learned how to move among them, isolate one or two among the horde, and listen to what they were saying.
So, as she remained hidden, she swam through the voices in her mind, listening in on each of them and trying to find anyone who could help her. There were voices on Oberon, and Titania, and others farther away. She could tell where the voices were by the words they spoke.
"Oberon is many..."
"Callisto is all..."
She quickly grew frustrated, though, as she fruitlessly tried to refine her search and find someone close to her. There were no voices who spoke of Desdemona, and none who spoke of Thrall.
Still, she searched, for it was all she could do. Blinded as she was, she wouldn't be able to put up any other resistance to Thrall's demented acolytes.
Then, through the whispering breeze of voices, one word began to override all the others.
"Exony."
Thousands around Annabelle said nothing but that one word. They spoke it rhythmically and in unison, like a religious chant.
The Ganymede Legacy Page 44