A Dyad in Time

by D. D. Prideaux

  * * *

  I wake with a start, that giant clearly having stamped on me again, and remember the state I’m in. I’ve suffered worse injuries in the past, but I’d had help then and now... Now, the alarms are going off. There’s also something else going on, something darker, something poisonous and vile. I can sense a deeper wound that’s slowly draining me. Bit by bit, muscle by muscle, cell by cell I can feel my fire dying out. I blink some fresh tears away, feeling the trails they leave behind on my skin and wonder at how much I can take. My thinking is broken by the trails picking up a cool breeze from somewhere and breathing a little hope into my soul. I can still feel things. I can still move. I can still think. I just have to focus. Dig my way out of this fog, visualise each step and then take them. One-by-one.

  I had passed out near where I woke up originally and saw the new additions to the pile of meat and bile from earlier in my foreground, everything else blurry and lost to the depths of my vision. The fuzziness of my sight stops me from seeing more than six inches in front of me until I see a flash of neon red behind the human mulch. Laughing to myself I thanked my brain for finally picking out something important, mentally patting it on the back with a soft squelching noise. Important objects or things will visually punch me in the face with vivid colours and other extreme effects when I need to focus on them. This skill has kept me on point and kept me alive before. It might just have done the same here.

  I plough every ounce of energy I have into my eyeballs again, begging, borrowing and stealing from every other body part to see what caught my eye. I can actually feel my pupils dilate, the lens in my eye shifting focal points and I feel dizzy as I see the object. It’s not neon red at all, as I’d suspected, it’s just a regular red and a familiar one. A symbol I’ve seen in both the wars. One that warms me - the little red cross of a med kit. I hear a weird noise escape from me then. A gargled, wet, choking sound that punctures the darkness and silence awkwardly. It’s a laugh, I think. I’d nearly killed myself patching up wounds with rancid bits of cloth and there was this life saving piece of kit sitting three feet away from me the whole time. Annoyed at the waste of time and energy from earlier I know its contents would still be useful so I develop a new mantra; move the mulch; pull myself towards the kit, open it, pull on the gloves, take off the body armour, remove the gun holster, pour the iodine solution and Quick Clot over the worst wounds, lay the gauze across the deepest gashes, use whatever compression bandages, tape and healing kit there is to piece myself back together, put the armour back on, rest. It’s a long mantra and I struggle to remember the steps at first, a maddening laugh in the back of my head distracting me more than once.

  I close my eyes and repeat it back to myself over and over again. Visualising each step. I imagine what it’ll feel like to swipe the human flesh out of my way. The feel, the sound, the way it would move. I think about opening the kit, hearing the Velcro and zips, seeing the clean tools in the bag. The clicking noises of the armour and the rasping, screeching exclamations of the tape. I calculate each moment in the process and think about backup plans, contingencies and how I’d get to the end of it all quickly and efficiently. The laugh gets quieter as I find the mantra easier to recall. An old military phrase replaces the laugh, bouncing around my mind, bringing peace to my frantic thoughts. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Earlier on I was reacting to the moment and not planning on how to get out. I just needed to survive then, but now, I know what’s coming would make or break me. Be the deciding set of events on whether I get out alive or not. So as much as I work over the positive steps towards getting through, I know there will be pain. Torture and paralysing agony. I sit with how things had felt earlier, exploring every nook and cranny of my body and soul. Experiencing how each micromovement shot fiery threads of molten nightmares through me. How even thinking about doing something felt like an inhuman, skeletal, icy hand was slowly crushing my being, scrunching it up into a ball like discarded tissue paper. I close my eyes to see a normal version of me tossing the paper back and forth with him-myself, maniacal muttering flowing easily from his-my lips.

  I want to prepare myself as much as possible before I dare open my eyes, happy to watch the mad juggler for a little longer. I smile at my own little deception, realising that my desire to plan and puzzle out all outcomes is driving me to inaction. I don’t want to go through all of that pain and suffering. The fear of what I have to do cripples me and then, before I know it, I’m moving. My body’s clearly had enough of being inert and is frustrated with my brain. I’d agonised over it for so long and forecasted the crucible I was about to crawl through enough, that things just start happening. I move the meat, hear the Velcro, se the tools, feel the bandages, but time doesn’t feel real whilst I’m mechanically going about my business. I sense every bit of searing torment as an eternity and the blink of an eye. Each, brief, painless respite feels insignificant, like the smallest fish, swimming in the deepest ocean of pain. When I’m done swimming, and the whole thing felt like I’d time travelled through a dream-nightmare. Illusions and images waft in front of me, mixing with reality and distorting the room, my body and my heart. I re-feel the pain, tortured movements and hallucinated seeing familiar faces, old foes and imagined beasts of terror. Colours had become sounds, sounds become feelings, smells melted parts of my mind and the miniscule pores of my skin bound me to the floor and the air. I was glad of the confusion though. I’m lying here in the aftermath, grateful to my brain for disassociating me from the task and drying in the heat after my long swim, when my distracted mind allows my eyes to casually wander around the room. I can’t really focus again, objects drifting in an out of sight when I feel and hear my heartbeat in my ear. In time with the beats, a new object was suddenly surrounded with shouting colour and fuzzy edges. A table, then darkness.

  * * *

  My eyeballs hurt. My brain is throbbing. Every part of me is asking for attention, but I’ve adjusted. My base levels of pain and discomfort have become the new norm. I don’t know any better and can’t remember what not, being in pain feels like. I know constantly passing out is a bad sign, so getting to the table and starting to figure this mess out feels logical. Maybe the table holds secrets. Maybe the table will talk to me. I pour myself into staring at it, willing it to walk over to me like any courteous table should do. It can see the state I’m in, so why doesn’t it come over and aid? Smiling at the thought of the wooden piece of furniture speaking with an accent, rationality sets in. I know it’s just a normal table and my mind is playing tricks, tossing the paper back and forth. Nothing about it screams mystery and intrigue though, or gives me clues as to what accent it has. Nothing about it gives me any hope for getting out of this room or how it’ll waddle over to me and help, but it must be there for a reason. The room has nothing else in it bar that table. Why is it there? What was on it? Is it important? Why is it tipped over? I hated that table. I narrow my eyes and stare at the decrepit, simplistic, dull piece of furniture that’s taunting me from across the room. It feels like it’s mocking me, but it has no right to. It thinks it’s better than me. It thinks it’s better than the ornate door and that it’s such a special table, neither the door, or I, would ever be allowed to sit at it. I’ve had enough. I’ve done the hard work and patched myself up. I’m fighting fit. Could the table do what I’ve done? Could the table throw paper to itself? Anger swells in me. It’s a powerful ally when you know how to use it and it fills me with purpose.

  I chew the inside of my cheek to cough up some blood and spit that I fling towards the table in a majestic arc. I want to watch the fluid travel through the air in an act of defiance towards the wooden monstrosity. I imagine the red flehm mid-flight, turning into a little face and smiling as it heads towards the table with a silver spoon crammed up its behind. My fire’s raging though, and I don’t have time to watch my masterpiece fly. I master myself and before the salivary red devil lands on the table I’m on my feet. It was a pathetic attempt at spitting anyway, the glob of f
luid landing nowhere near the mocking table’s surface. Still stiff and bleeding I shuffle towards it, doing my best impression of a zombie and trying to confuse the table with what I am. Must keep up the act and surprise it. I think about the few times I’ve encountered the undead, remembering their shambling gait and strange sounds. The wet, rasping and alien noise I made earlier escapes me again as I have a moment to reflect on how I’m thinking. I’m losing it. Considering what a zombie would do when confronted with a table my toe hits the wooden, tiresome piece of furniture that’s been mocking me and we both groan. A lighting strike of pain shoots through me and the gruff, animalistic noise I make is all I can do to help manage the annoyance and discomfort at the table getting one over on me. I couldn’t have cared less for ‘her majesty the table’s’ sound or discomfort as she scraped across the concrete and my groan turns into a little chuckle of delight, ribs hurting with the movement.

  “Serves you right.” I cough from somewhere in me. I sound bad. Whatever came out of my mouth wasn’t me. It was from a very black and hateful place and I grit my teeth against the anguish of hearing myself. Thoughts race as I wonder how long’s left before my mind breaks, when I notice a small piece of paper on the floor with splashes of blood scattered across it. The paper is the whitest white I’ve ever seen, looking completely out of place next to ‘Queen Wooden Legs’, and as it lays on the cold, stained concrete I can swear it’s speaking to me. My body’s doing things without telling my brain now and before I know it I’m reaching out with my hand. There’s no writing on it. Shaking all over I reach out towards this island of colour and odd piece of pulped tree. My hand, which doesn’t look like it’s attached to me, touches the corner of the paper and I force back retching as I flash back to what happened in the room earlier. There’s evidence of what I’ve done to those people splattered across the note. It’ll have to wait. I can relive that horror when I’m out of this chamber of death. Delicately, my disembodied hand picks up the white and red scrap, finding that my other hand is caressing it, treating it with respect and admiration. Slowly, achingly so, I turn the paper over and in beautiful, scripted handwriting there’s a word, hovering right in the middle of the mess. Untouched by the blood that soaked everything else it just says, Torbjorn.

  CHAPTER SEVEN - MONITORING

  A lone man counted down the minutes until his shift ended, sitting in a grey room, entrenched in greyness. The desk was grey, the chair was grey, the walls were grey, the computers were grey. Even the monitors and their pictures were grey. This kind of surrounding made for a dull life and an even duller mind. A mind that doesn’t mind the monotony. So, when the purple light exclaimed violently with horrific screeching noises, the unassuming attendant, who just wants an easy life, spilled his grey drink, out of his grey mug, onto his very grey overalls.

  “Skell-” He started but was transfixed by the screen and why the alarm had gone off, hot liquid seeping into his grey underwear.

  “It can’t be.” Panic reverberated through his body, shaking his bones and boiling his blood. “ORANGAAR!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. He heard footsteps from outside the room and turned to see a grey door fling open to reveal his overweight Orc partner, covered head to toe in grey, looking exhausted from running down a grey corridor.

  “What’s the problem Drülach?!?” Orangaar exclaimed in furious Orcish.

  With shaking hands, Drülach rewound the footage on one of the screens, pressed play and silently pointed at the scene in front of them. As the events unfolded in front of them, neither Orc could believe their eyes, which widened with every passing second. Once they had seen it, both slumped back into their chairs, slightly rolling back on grey wheels, along a grey floor, before they painstakingly turned to face each other.

  “We have to inform the Overvåking.” Drülach whimpered.

  “Those Nameless freaks and their Våpen?!?!” Orangaar squealed.

  “You know we do. It’s protocol.” He said, dejected.

  “Fine. But if one of those Tarkkailija, or watchers, or whatever they like to be called, turn up to make me into Fuegen food, I’ll be furious.” Orangaar wasn’t done, feeling the need to re-visit old opinions on the matter, often discussed over grey drinks that weren’t grey. “And don’t get me started on those Våpen skells. They’re just the Watchers bounty hunters. I’m not even sure which one I’d rather turn up and show me to the endless sleep.”

  “That kind of talk will get you turned into Fuegen food Orangaar.” He managed a small laugh before seriousness took over. “Get me the Porträlen.”

  Hesitantly, Orangaar got up from his chair, walked over to one of the grey walls and placed both his hands on the cold surface. He closed his eyes and whispered into the bleak colour. Once he had finished, seams appeared in the wall and a small door slid down from an invisible space, revealing a dark red box. He closed his eyes, bowed his head and said to himself, “Surelikai protect us.” before opening the box swiftly and grabbing the contents. The gloves were of incalculable beauty and value. A faint purring noise emanated from them and they looked like they were made of Quicksilver, purple light dancing across their surface with the alarms relentless barrage. He sighed and then casually tossed them towards Drülach who managed to catch both items in a fluster.

  “Careful you idiot. You know how rare these are.”

  Orangaar ignored the telling-off before sighing again and saying. “Make the call.”

  * * *

  Gerard let that last sentence hang in the air with no intention of speaking any time soon. He wanted his prisoner to imagine what would happen to his eyes and the consequences of taking the man’s very soul. Letting a person stew with their thoughts was an excellent technique to get them to talk. Open threats wouldn’t work with Sylvane and he didn’t want to conscript any of his usual colleagues for the interrogation. Getting a Reaper here required too much red tape and too many prying eyes, so Gerard wanted to rely on his wits and his Sløv before resorting to more severe treatments.

  As he was thinking this, the attendee behind him began to move. Fortune was his most trusted of the three orphans he chose to work with, and after many years of working together they had formed a strong partnership. Somehow the large, athletic man could read the room almost as well as Gerard, anticipating his master in ways he didn’t even know. Dressed in a modern Kimono style outfit, he slowly walked past Gerard whilst performing a few simple hand movements and uttering a short incantation. “Whispered night, failing sword. Craven light and enduring fire. Form.” Saying the last word, he brought his hands together and then pulled them apart horizontally to form a near invisible energy shaft which he then held in his left hand, like a sword. As he let the tip drift down towards the floor it began to burn white hot and Sylvane could feel the heat as Fortune continued towards him. All eyes watched as the fiery energy was moved closer and closer to the prisoner’s right eye. As it got closer, Sylvane tried to struggle away but his head was held fast by extremely strong hands from behind, reminding him that there was no escape. He could feel adrenaline pulsing through his veins, screaming at him to get away, but there was no use. He was going to lose this fight. Gerard’s story about one of his Werewolf kin’s madness and deformity rippled through him, tearing holes of fear in his being. The same was going to happen to him. They would take his eye and he’d descend into partial madness before they took his other eye as well.

  “My friend always made the best smores. I could never get it right, but Fortune here. He is very good at making them. They always pop just right when you taste them.” Gerard was casual, threatening. Sad too. At the last moment before the white-hot poker got too close to Sylvane’s eye, the door behind Gerard opened with a start. Even with the disturbance, Gerard didn’t take his eyes away from the prisoner as an urgent voice called out from over his shoulder.

  “He’s awake sir.”

  The smallest fraction of annoyance flickered across Gerard’s face before he calmly uncrossed his legs and stood up, st
ill maintaining eye contact with his prey. “How fortunate for you that some other business of mine needs concluding before we continue.” He said with a heavy dose of self-importance before turning away. “Don’t go anywhere.” He added as he left the room, frustrated at being interrupted and safe in the knowledge that he’d get the answers he wanted eventually. Patience Gerard. The door shut behind him and as it clicked, he deftly turned on the man who barraged into his interrogation. Casting a dark look over him, he calmed himself before pleasantly asking for the update.

  “He’s awake sir.” The man said sheepishly.

  “I know Haverforth. You informed me of this development whilst I was asking our other guest some very serious questions.” Gerard said sardonically.

  “Of course. Sorry sir.” Haverforth looked at his feet, embarrassed. His father would’ve been embarrassed too. ‘Just a book worm’.