“Calm down, Benjy,” he told himself, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white. “Stay calm. You’re stronger than this.” However hard he tried to push the feeling down into the pit of his stomach, the higher it rose, coming ever closer to bubbling over. In frustration, he pushed his horn and listened, satisfied, as it blared over the cars in front and behind him. He turned the stereo down a notch as he slotted a cassette into the player and dropped his head back onto the firm headrest. Maybe he just needed to rest and take his mind off it.
That didn’t work and knew after a few seconds that it was pointless to pursue that method further. This anger that was growing inside him, filling him up, was unlike anything that he had ever felt before. No, this wasn’t just something that would go away after he had lashed out – he could feel it. It wouldn’t die – it would carry on growing until it took over. “Come on, Campbell. You just need to find your centre.” It sometimes helped if he pictured something natural and calming like a rainbow or blue sea lapping at the shores of a white beach. Not today. Calming images had no place in the bedlam, where no-one even knew why they were so angry. His eyes ticked over to a group of men and women who were causing a commotion in the middle of the street.
The two women were usually best friends and had no idea why they had suddenly turned on each other. All they knew was that they were angry and had to let it out. The questions of what they were angry at, and why, had no answers.
Both women knew that it was wrong to be so angry at each other, but no longer cared that neither of them had been wronged by the other. No, they were angry and that was the end of it. First, they tried to express their ire verbally by starting a slanging match where they called each other by every insulting name under the sun. “That didn’t help,” said the elder of the two women, glancing over at her boyfriend for non-forthcoming support. “Bitch!”
“Hooker!” the younger one spat back instantly. “Always got to run back to your pimp every time things get rough.”
“Hooker? Pimp? At least I look good enough for men to wanna pay for it.”
That very nearly hurt her feelings, but she had the perfect comeback for that – one that would really sting Carole. “I guess all that plastic surgery really works. Better thank your sugar daddy. Brunette Barbie.”
That did it. Carole jumped at her friend and they both went down in a tangle of arms and legs, using every trick in the book from scratching with fingernails to pulling hair. “I’ll teach you...”
“Chick fight!” bellowed the boyfriend and watched calmly while a small crowd assembled to watch. He wasn’t bothered about the safety of either woman and turned to his brother, who was also enjoying watching them scrabble around on the floor. “Cool!”
“Better than watching ‘em lez up together,” grinned his brother.
“Got some videos…”
Carole lifted her head to take a breath and saw that people had gathered to see her and her friend. She ducked her head back down and slapped her friend across her cheek. They scrabbled around for a few more minutes, pulling at each others clothes and shouting insults. Surely not everyone in this town could be so mad with rage…
Carly was slumped across the computer keyboard, asleep, finally asleep, while the game flashed GAME OVER where she had been playing an old shoot-‘em-up game for the past couple of hours. It helped just to have something to take her mind off of everything inside the house and the sounds she could hear outside.
Carly wasn’t even dreaming in her sleep, but relishing the mere feeling of being asleep and left alone. She was completely wiped out from her ordeal of the past few days and, not for the first time, found herself seriously doubting that she would get out of this alive. If her two captors didn’t kill her, whatever was driving everyone over the edge surely would. There had been dozens of reports of people dying or being seriously injured and Carly knew that it had well and truly got under way. “No going back now,” she murmured in her sleep. “Too far…”
She didn’t really know about the plan other than the desired effects of it and the bits and pieces she had overheard from her bosses. Her job was simply to transfer the information to disk, keep it in order, and take whatever measures were necessary to keep it safe. It wasn’t her place to read or understand the material she was given, but she knew how to unlock it for Mika and Robyn, who believed they would make sense of it and prevent it from coming to pass. They had good reason to do so, she supposed, wanting to protect themselves.
The computer monitor flickered away by her head as she turned over and sleepily brushed a stray lock of her hair from her face. Robyn had given her some clean clothes to wear in place of her own, which were torn and bloody. How could two such normal looking people be so nice to her one minute, then inflict so much pain the next? It made no sense to her whatsoever, but then nothing seemed to make much sense at the moment. People had been hurting each other for centuries, and the plan was supposed to stop that, not bring it out and multiply the violence a hundred times. Something must have gone terribly wrong for things to be like this. If she could just get a look at those disks…
Slowly beginning to wake up, Carly ran her fingers through messy, blonde hair and reached over to turn the computer screen off. Her eyes just could not take the fierce glare of the TFT display so soon after waking, and she squinted out even as she lifted the window blind to peer out at the ongoing anarchy. “What’s going on?”
“I hope there’s a method to this madness,” commented the shaman to Professor Wright.
“I think so.” He straightened his tie and cleared his throat, uncomfortably. “I admit, it seems pointless now, but in time you’ll see that this was pivotal to the cause.” God, how he hoped he was right and this would all come right in the end. If it didn’t, all their hard work would have been in vain and everything happening now would have been useless. “This was vital. Nothing would have worked without this.” He looked down at the dead body on the stone slab in the mortuary they were identifying and sighed. “It had to happen – it’s how it was meant –“
“Bull!” the shaman spat back. “He was weak, and you know it! He thought he knew what he was letting himself in for but he had no idea. When things started to heat up and the pressure got to him, he couldn’t handle it and…”
“That man knew everything there was to know about what we’re doing, and you’re telling me he wasn’t prepared for this?”
“You can be as prepared as you like, but you’ll never be ready,” he said, darkly and clicked his fingers to summon the attendant. The shaman straightened the hood of his heavy cloak and looked at Professor, who was picking up his briefcase and jacket. “It gets you when you least expect it.”
“Are you done, gentlemen?” the youngster asked. The professor vaguely recognised her as a student at the school near his home. “Were you good friends of the deceased?”
“He worked with us,” Professor Wright told the girl and looked once more at the body. “Just a colleague.”
“And you, sir? Shall I finish up, or would you like a few more minutes?”
The girl turned to the shaman and spoke evenly, apparently not noticing his rather… unusual attire. Good – that meant his protective amulet was working well. He had been afraid that it was broken after being exposed to so much magick, but he remembered that the amulet was generations old and had seen more of the supernatural than he ever would. “No, I’m done. Just hard to believe he’s dead. I only saw him the other day.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss, sir. Both of you.”
“Thank you,” mumbled the professor, shrugging his jacket on. “Thank you very much.” He picked up his case and walked into the harsh daylight, doing his best to block out the presence of chaos.
The young girl heard the door swing shut and played with her papers until the other man left the room by the stairs. Paperwork was not a big part o
f her job, only requiring her to fill in one standard form for each body, but she was very dedicated to her work and didn’t let herself get behind. She put the papers back down on the filing cabinet and walked over to the body on the slab. She felt an overwhelming sense of loss when she noted the age of the victim. Not because she knew him, but because he was so young and had so much left to live for. Such a waste of a beautiful young life…
Why did people have to hurt each other this way? She felt it too – the anger flying around. Not contained in one person but touching them all. People were angry for unknown reasons, and they were weak-willed enough to give in to it. But, while everyone else was giving in to this undirected rage, she was calm and did her best to maintain some order. She did so by helping everyone she could and by not letting the tiny bubbling of anger grow. Her amateurish dabblings in magick had given her the strength to overcome it and understand that this wasn’t right. “It’s not natural,” she muttered to herself as she searched for a pen on the desk. “People killing each other. Every deep-seated emotion brought out and amplified.”
Finding the form for her next visitor – an elderly woman seeing the body of her husband, who had died from heart failure – she found her biro and began to fill the form in. Tales of her long-dead aunt had encouraged her interest in the supernatural, and it was an easy conclusion to jump to that this was such a case. She also knew enough to know that one of the two men who had just been in was heavily into the dark arts. Not that she could somehow see through his spell, but because she had honed her senses enough to be able to feel a change in the atmosphere. “I don’t know about you,” she said to the uncovered dead body, “but this doesn’t seem right.” The girl closed her satchel and picked up the tiny plastic bags of herbs that had spilled out, figuring that she had just enough time to go out and grab a coffee before the old woman was expected. She popped out a name card, jotted something down on it and slotted it into the empth space on the metal panel as she covered the body with a sheet. “Not right at all,” she carried on as she pushed her way out.
Carly looked out at dozens of drivers honking their horns and dogs running around in a heated frenzy. Further away, people were screaming at each other and sounds of a fight reached her ears. Things around here were often pretty manic, but never before had it ballooned to such dramatic proportions. And, still, Carly said nothing. No longer could she bring herself to feel horrified at the scenes she had had a million chances to stop; or even to question why people were so crazed.
She heard a sound upstairs – one of the floorboards creaking, perhaps – and tilted her head upwards as she tried to catch a few words of what was being said
Mika sat up in bed and leaned back against the headboard. The pitiful sound of people screaming and crying seemed extra loud to him, amongst the other sounds from outside. The door opened and Robyn wandered into the shaded bedroom, sinking down onto the bed at his side. He turned his head a short way to look at her, reluctant to move further than he needed to.
“Mika?”
“You look happy, baby,” he murmured. “What have you been up to?”
“Mmm,” she grinned, sucking her fingers hungrily. “I’ve just eaten. Now I feel all warm inside.” She giggled as she ran her fingers over his lips, giving him only the merest taste of what he had missed. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“So sweet and…” Mika grabbed Robyn’s wrist and sucked her fingertip so gently it felt like he was kissing them. He didn’t bother to finish the sentence, grabbing Robyn and throwing her down onto the bed. Robyn lay there as Mika climbed on top of her and kissed her hungrily, desiring the taste of sweet blood as much as Robyn herself.
“Stop that! Dirty boy!” she scolded and pushed him off of her. “We’ve got work to do. We don’t have much time,” she added, noticing the spots of blood that had soaked through his bandages. When even Mika was suffering the unwanted after-effects of an assault a day later, it was time to worry. But, Robyn didn’t worry, she knew that it would akk come right in the end – she didn’t know how she knew, she just did.
“Did the stars tell you that?”
“No. Carly did.”
Uncomfortably, Mike shifted position, grunting quietly as his three open bullet wounds caused him twinges of pain. He noted with great relief that his wall-bearing hole had now fully healed, though his abdomen still bore a fleshy pink scar that should have faded away by tomorrow. “You know I don’t like you going out alone.”
“They’re too busy hurting each other to hurt me.” Robyn snuggled up to Mika and put his arm around her, erotically dancing her fingers over his bare chest, careful not to draw blood. “Taste?” She used her fingernail to create a long gash over the pulse point on her neck and thrust it in front of his face.
The temptation was too much and he lowered his mouth to the red… inviting… hypnotic blood. Robyn gasped in pleasure and pain as sharp teeth bit into her neck and drank from her. She felt the energy flow through them both and felt bonded to him yet more strongly. This was real love – sharing your life with that special person. Sharing life, sharing death, sharing everything that came in between…
He sucked fiercely at her neck feeling his body fill with an energy that both gave him fire and burnt him out. After a while, he ripped his mouth away from her throat and sat back, breathing heavily. Robyn looked at him, then closed her eyes and collapsed back into the pillows. They always ended up like this after one of them had fed off the other. The feeling lasted only a few seconds, though, after which it faded from pure bliss to contentment. Robyn opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, totally unaware of the blood dripping from her neck and staining the white pillow. Mika rolled over onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow, and used his fingers to lift a long lock of flame-coloured hair. “What are you looking at?”
“I can see the sky from here,” she told him, matter of factly. “It’s very pretty.”
“Baby? We’re indoors.”
“Everyone is coming out to play.” She stared at the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and, tenderly, put her hand to his heart. Robyn stared up at him, curiously. “What happened?” she asked. “You’re hiding something from me. I can feel it.”
Mika knew that it would be hopeless to try to keep anything from Robyn now she knew something had happened. “I can’t take it much longer, Robyn,” he said, sliding down the covers until his head was level with hers. “Not the nightmares.”
“No, not the nightmares,” Robyn agreed. “Seeing her…”
“Seeing them all. Remembering it.” Mika twisted her hair in his hands and stared up at the ceiling idly. He couldn’t see the sky the way Robyn could but was always prepared to listen to her. “It doesn’t stop… ever.”
“Until there’s nothing left.” They lay together in satisfied silence, just staring at the ceiling until Mika piped up again.
“The sky?”
The professor walked across the road on his way back to the university, not bothering to wait for the light to flash to say it was safe to cross. He stood as much chance of being run down when the light flashed as he did when it didn’t – no-one paid any attention to road safety any more. The whole street was just a crush of motor vehicles and scrapping animals. The scenes of heated emotion, which would normally have drawn his attention, held no interest for him being nothing out of the ordinary any more. Even the students at the university were in uproar for no apparent reason. That didn’t really surprise him as many of them were teetering on the edge over their final exams anyway. It was interesting to see that some people remained relatively unaffected by the madness, but he didn’t have the time or the will to investigate this phenomenon.
A bus swerved off the road and braked sharply, inches before it hit a lamp-post. Andrew watched casually as the double-decker skidded to a halt and walked on, not fazed by the accident in the least. Down a side alley, he saw a young man bea
ting on a woman he assumed was his girlfriend but didn’t stop to help. He heard a faint gunshot a few blocks away and walked on, completely ignoring the presence of chaos. If people wanted to shoot each other, why not just let them? He knew that there was a good answer to that - because innocent people were getting hurt – but realised that logic did not come into this. There was darkness in the air…
He made his way through the riotous streets and entered the calmer grounds of the Rashda Observatory. Most students were in lectures and the campus was calm and quiet. “Peace at last,” he sighed, setting his case down on a wooden bench. All of the worries of the last few days had been pushed away to make way for one firm belief: that all of this was paving the road for something better. He couldn’t expect to be part of a bright, new world without being plunged into the worst one possible. How else would anyone know how much they had gained without seeing how low it was possible for them to sink? “What’s that saying… it’s always darkest before the dawn.” In this case, it was true. Society was going to sink into the deepest darkness possible before they would see the light.
“Sorry, Professor, did you say something?” asked one of the mature students from the Economics class.
“Oh, no.” He sat down on the bench and looked at the student, clutching his folder to his chest. “I was just thinking out loud.”
“You don’t look very well. Are you okay?” The student – a man destined to graduate just 10 years before retirement – put his folder on the bench and bent down to tie his shoelace.
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.” He looked down at his dirty fingernails and used his other hand to pick at the ingrained dirt. “I’ll be fine.”
“Do you know why everyone is going mental? Is it just the pressure of finals, or something? But, I’m not taking my exams and I can feel it.”
“No. I’ve got no idea why people are going crazy.”
“Way I see it is they don’t know how good they had it. Well, I should go.” He picked up his folder, nodded at the professor and wandered off in the direction of the library building.
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