by E G McNally
Will assumed, while watching the memory, that maybe the man leading the group was a distant relative of Kam’s because of the astounding similarities in their features, and that maybe this was a memory passed on from his relatives. If it were, he could most certainly understand why it haunts Kam so frequently.
As he watched further, the posse silently drifted over the deep snow, into a small village where a large crowd had formed, confronting them. The villagers appeared very angry and hostile towards the beautifully cold statues, drifting to greet them. A man walked forward, out of the crowd, bearing a smelting hammer at his side, and a trinket wrapped in one hand, dripping with blood.
The man shouted something at the icy figure, which Will couldn’t understand, and held open the hand, carrying the trinket, in front of the elegantly composed icy statue. The possible ancestor of Kam, muttered a few incomprehensible words to the man in a sharp accusing voice, and then, from out of the village crowd, a woman ran at the handsome man with a dagger.
In a blurred moment, one of the gowned women, from behind the leader, slid beside him, and reached out for the woman’s arm. She wrenched the wrist carrying the dagger, and twisted her body around in such a way, that it shifted her neck between the icy woman’s cold grasp, and then with a quick snap, the limp body fell lifeless to the snowy ground.
The man carrying the bloodied trinket furrowed his brow in anger, and clenched the hammer at his side tightly. He roared a vicious command out, and then all the men and women in the snowy village brought to arms the poorly assembled weapons they had clearly struggled to find.
In one quick instant, all mayhem had broken loose. The elegantly dressed posse that had accompanied Kam’s ancestor, unleashed a furry of bloodlust. As if it were almost too easy for them, they delicately, but swiftly danced around the pool of villagers, literally eating the life out of them. Screams were mixed with roars of furry, as jugulars were torn out and throats ripped at.
The icy statues flowed from person to person unscathed, peeling back their lips and ravaging into the convulsing bodies of every last living being. Only one person stood by, and watched callously the slaughter of the village. He hovered over the man with the trinket in hand, who had fallen to the ground on his knees beside his wife. As he gazed down at the weakened man, the man tossed the bloodied trinket at his feet and cursed him violently in the unidentified language, and then groped his wife into his arms and sobbed hysterically.
The handsomely tall figure, brushed aside his embroidered coat, to reveal the golden and silver hilt of a sword, poking out past the sheath. In on graceful movement, he reached his hand down to the grip, drew the sword out, and sliced it straight through the space where the man’s head was sobbing over his dead wife’s body. The expression on the man’s face went blank and then his head rolled over his neck and off the back of his body, crunching into the blood stained snow below.
The cruel but handsome man barked some orders to the posse that had accompanied him, in the same incomprehensible language, and then turned away from the village and began to glide off. He stopped briefly to cleanse his sword in the earth, and then swiftly replaced it. He turned only once, after drifting away from the city, and Will could feel the sincerity of the sorrow that filled Kam’s thoughts, as the icy cold statue watched billows of smoke, funnel out of the cottages and shops, and a poignant stench fill the air, as the bodies of the villagers were hurled on top, of an already decent pile of burning carcasses.
It was then that Will had gained almost irrevocable control of his ability to block out Kam’s thoughts. And although he struggled greatly, to keep out the images and thoughts that haunted everyone else around him, he no longer had any fathomable desire to ever perceive Kam’s mind again. Ever since that disturbing night, he never attempted to infiltrate Kam’s conscious. As a matter of fact, he only ever uncomfortably spoke to Kam when he had an urgent question, or needed to collaborate with him. Kam was a very private person, and although Will didn’t understand a thing about him, he respected his privacy and allowed him his peace and quiet. Whatever troubled Kam was darker and more deeply rooted than any of the other kid’s darkest secrets, and Will didn’t want to know more than he had to, but unfortunately he needed to talk to Kam.
Cautiously, Will opened up his mind and reached into the protective sheen of conscious, gliding far below him underneath a deep thicket of evergreen trees, and briefly watched the images forming inside. It was apparent that Kam was reminiscing in the past again.
He stood just inside the door of a nicely built log cabin hidden in the woods. Nestled inside his pale icy hand, was a dainty white wrist, bent forward as he reached his face down to kiss it. The woman’s hand receded and then she nodded her head in approval, dropping her deep brown curly locks of hair forward, brushing against the sides of her face, and then gazed directly into his eyes. She muttered something, in that language Will didn’t understand, and Kam responded.
He was stunned, fixating on her cyan eyes. Little clouds of magnolia rolled around her irises, hazing the delicate cyan, and leaving a sensual mystery to her presence. A finely chiseled nose dropped down below her two perfectly placed eyes, and two luscious puce lips beautifully formed together, complementing the delicate features of her face, all accenting the pale pearl color of her skin. All her features so absolutely perfect, were still no comparison to the swirling magnolia mists shrouding her cyan blue eyes.
Now was the time to interrupt his thoughts, now before anything became violent and unnatural.
“Kam,” Will interrupted, breaking the trance that had held Kam’s thoughts in a lifeless suspension.
“Why don’t you get out of my head and speak to me on the ground, man to man.” Kam hissed.
“Calm down man,” Will replied.
“What?” Kam’s thoughts formed into a recognizable response clouded with resentment.
“Shyla will be joining us in the Kokrine hills, realistically she’ll probably make camp before we get there, and we’ll have to keep a watch for her. I’m sure she’ll hide us in a cave or something safe from aerial view.
“Now I know I haven’t given you very much information on the assignment, so I’ll do my best to fill you in. The professor wants me, you, and Shyla to scout out the Cyndac Oil Refinery. He’d like a head count of the guards and the scientists. He’d also like us to inspect the facility. If we find any children, he’d like a count on them and their health statuses, along with an account for any of the experimentations.” There was a pause in the flow of Will’s thoughts as he directed them to Kam.
“The professor doesn’t want us interfering in any way, only gathering information. That is why he wanted Shyla to join us. With her ability to create invisible shields, we should be able to stay completely hidden from any cameras or guards. But. . . the thing is, if we find any children there, I have no intention of leaving them there, and I can’t speak for Shyla but I’m sure she can’t either. We both know how she feels about children, and how much she hates Major Bradshaw.” There was another pause in the flow of his thoughts again, giving Kam a moment to process the information.
He watched the images fade one by one, over each other as they quickly slid out of Kam’s mind. First an aerial view of the facility. Strangely a fairly accurate view of the facility, but Will was under the impression that none of them had ever been out this way, and so Kam’s thoughts of the facility boggled him.
After the aerial view spun around the facility, giving a distant outline of the metal and stone structure, it was veiled under the next image of several men in white lab coats, cluttered together holding syringes and griping little squirming arms, arms of little children, children that were flailing and sobbing, crying for their parents, parents that had no idea where their beautiful little children had gone.
Then the thought was gone shadowed by guards in military uniforms, storming past gates and through doors wielding firearms and shouting fierce words to each other. The next vision made Will uneasy, know
ing that the possibility was out there.
The guards swarmed around three people, the first with blood stained tiger striped fur, and the fury of a tigress after her kill, was clutching a child, possibly no older than ten or eleven. The frail delicate little child, numb to the world around her, noticed absolutely nothing in the commotion, only gazing off as if she were stuck in a better place trapped within her mind.
The other was grasping at the floor, trying to stand up, as a guard pinned the end of his rifle directly over one of the battered light tanned arms of the victim. Seconds later the rifle ricocheted back from the recoil and a bullet splattered traces of skin and blood away from the newly shredded hole in the arm. The man gave up struggling on the floor, and grasped the freshly injured arm, scooting closer to what he now knew was Shyla clutching one of the children.
It was only moments before another image joined the unsettling one already lingering inside Kam’s mind. A picture of Major Bradshaw stepped into the other one, joining the two together and he saw as the guards parted around the Major, allowing him to present himself before the three bodies crouching together on the floor.
“Lock those two with the others,” Major Bradshaw commanded, as three men tightly gripped Shyla, unable to pry the child from her arms, and towed her away, away from the thought, outside the range in which Will could see.
“And so,” the major placed one of his feet, over the gaping bloodied hole of the arm, of the already badly battered man, struggling to sit up.
“Derek Ralph Willem, subject number 2 5 7, you’ve got something I want.” The Major’s words gushed with victory, as if he’d just won a bet and was owed a great deal of money.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Will tilted his blooded head up, spitting at the Major. The major glared at him for a moment, and then smashed down his foot hard on the injured arm, grinding it painfully into the floor. Will groaned in pain, struggling to bring about enough strength to fight back, but failed horribly.
The thought vanished away, covered neatly by a visual image of the snow covered ground and the dusted trees outside, as Kam swiftly passed around them, rapidly gliding below Will.
“Kam please keep those kinds of thoughts to yourself, I’m already very anxious. Anyway, I’m not forcing you to stay, but if we find the children, I would hope that you might choose to help. I’m not going to make you decide anything right now, just think about it please?” And then Will released his mind, never soon enough, closing the sheen of conscious, regaining control of his own observations, fully settling back into his flying, completely aware of his surroundings.
Will flew through the air with immense speed, utilizing every last gust of wind that might save him a beat or two with his enormous silver wings, much the way a crow would utilize the updrafts coming off of a forest fire to soar for pray. He barely rose above the glinting white treetops of the snow covered evergreens, making every effort to conceal being spotted in the air of the morning light. The sun was in a nine o’clock position, slowly rising to greet the day, it would only be too soon before the three of them were together, in the hills and setting up camp for the night. Luckily for all of them, they would have plenty of daylight to get comfortable, before the evening sun set.
He quickly tried to clear away the uneasy thoughts that preoccupied Kam, remembering back to the intense and inhuman mesmerizing gaze of the woman he originally saw in his thoughts. Who was she and why was Kam so hypnotized by her, he wondered. He’d remembered when Kam’s head was full of blood and lust and pure evil, and the way he had wanted so absolutely to be rid of his mind, but now he was intrigued. He was just as intrigued by the woman of Kam’s thoughts as Kam had been, but also terrified by the bloody pessimistic turns that his thoughts often took.
Will considered sneaking another look into Kam’s mind, but knowing how utterly fuming Kam would become, and unsure of the images that might be clouding his mind now; he decided that peering into his mind with his nerves already as agitated as they were was a bad idea and could wait another time.
Will was confused and alarmed, with all of the negativity that encompassed Kam it was a wonder people didn’t like him. He’d realized that no one in the Chateau ever gave Kam a moment’s notice. It was usual to ignore him, allowing him to go about his day, as if he didn’t exist, but that could probably explain his latent hostility and lack of desire to confide in any of the other affected. Aside from the strange but close connection Kam formed over the years with Esa Rosa, he might as well have never existed.
Of course Esa was a very considerate darling girl, and the years of torture and experimentations didn’t make her an angry resentful type of character, as it did the rest of them, and as a result the kindness and sincere relationships that she built with all of them, it was no surprise when she formed a close connection with Kam. And although Kam appeared irritated and annoyed by the presence of most of the affected, slightly less so by the professor, he really did appreciate Esa’s company and must have confided quite a great deal in her, this of course irritated Will. Of all the people that Will absolutely couldn’t read, Esa had to be the one. The one person who would have all the information he needed on any one of them, easily being able to explain Kam’s strange and pessimistic thoughts, and she had to be the closed mind, sealed like a book. She might as well have been a bank vault to him, for whatever reason he couldn’t read her mind.
Will paused for a brief moment, browsing the rough terrain ahead, interrupting the natural flow of thoughts streaming through his head, to realize that Kam had disappeared. He knew that Kam wasn’t crazy about going against the professor’s orders, and that he’d much prefer if they just scouted out the prison center, but he never imagined that Kam would ditch out on them.
As silent and mysterious as Kam was, Will always considered him a fighting warrior type, protect and defend sort, not a cowardly sniveling dog, running away with its tail between its legs. Something was wrong, and although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, he wasn’t practiced with Kam’s mind enough to find out where he’d gone. All those years of practicing keeping out of Kam’s mind, ignoring its every thought flow, and now he wasn’t familiar enough with it to find it.
Unsure of what to do, he reached out for the most familiar and most welcoming mind he’d ever viewed and spoke to, Shyla.
“He’s gone,” he alarmed Shyla, watching as a swirly haze of confusion swept over her mind.
“Gone, what do you mean gone?” The words formed across the haze of confusion.
“I was drifting deep into thought and when I browsed around, I’d lost sight of him.” He sent the words into her mind.
“Well, can’t you just find his mind and figure out from there, where he’s gone?” The words sped through her mind again.
“Normally I’d say yes, but in his case I’m not familiar with his mind, the fact of the matter is, I’ve been sort of training myself for years to ignore it, and now I can’t find him.” He answered, annoyed at himself now, more than at Kam for leaving them.
He could see the hesitation form in Shyla’s mind, the words “why have you been, never mind,” flowed quickly through her mind and then faded out.
“It’ll be fine, let’s just meet up like we planned and move from there. Who knows, maybe he’ll turn up, it’s not like he doesn’t know where we’re meeting.” She clearly thought, as Will read her mind.
“Alright, I’m not far off from there anyway.” He explained, the comment drifting effortlessly into Shyla’s all too familiar mind, and then added. “How about you, where are you at?”
As he was soaring silently, above a range of blue and white mountain caps, he watched in a half daze, both focusing on his flying and focusing in Shyla’s mind. A snicker rolled through her thoughts, and then a cliff side blurred into view. First, a cave popped into view, and then a distant view of the Cyndac Oil Refinery slid into her mind.
“What’s this, you’re already there?” He asked, surprised.
/> “Of course silly, we both know that I’m fast, and with my invisibility, I can take the most direct paths, without concern of being noticed by humans.” He read the words as they moved around inside her head, fading in as quickly as they faded out, leaving the clearly painted picture of her location as if he were looking through her eyes at the scene around.
Shyla and Will had always been very close friends, directly resulting from the painfully clear memories that haunted Shyla both day and night. Willem understood Shyla and suffered alongside her reoccurring memories always watching as they attacked her sleep. She found comfort in his knowing, and he ardently reassured her, always finding ways to make her feel loved. They loved each other greatly, but it was a love that a brother would share with a sister, only the deepest compassion and feelings of protection overwhelmed him.
As a result of their closeness, Shyla was extremely familiar with how Will read minds, and knew that he didn’t exactly hear what was being said in the mind, but that he saw the images better and could read what was being thought more clearly, if it was being thought into streams of legible writing. That’s why she would often imagine the words and streams of sentences when she responded to the thoughts, in his inquiring mind. Rather than struggling to listen to her thoughts, as quietly whispered sentences, barely understandable, he simply had to read the words she produced in her mind, making his job easier, as he found that some people naturally did.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you there then.” The words sort of muttered into Shyla’s mind as if he were mumbling in thought. Kam better show up, he thought, worried that what he saw in his mind, might have urged him to flee, and then decided that there was no sense in dwelling.
Will was getting close, he could tell by the familiarity of the terrain he saw in Shyla’s mind. He browsed the hillsides, scouting out his position, from where he had seen Shyla’s base camp. Even though he wasn’t worried about the townspeople accidentally catching a view of him, he decided he’d better play it safe, and hit the ground for the rest of the run. If anyone from the facility suspected that they were being watched, they’d check the air. It’d be the first place they’d look, so landing on the ground and running the rest of the way was safest for him.