Writer: So, in the last chapter, I mentioned that Meg knew Abe was staring directly at Theo even though she can't see. Now, normally when I make Meg do things or notice things you'd think only seeing people could do and notice, I have there be some sound or vibration on the floor or something that tells her, and that way it's more obvious. Like this, this is what I should have put: "I hear the soft breath of rustling fabric coming from Abe as he leans forwards, putting the book back on the rolling shelf. His face seems to be boring onto Theo's small form..." I put something like that in it normally. I guess I just forgot to. Maybe I would have toned that down though, seems exaggerated. Thank you to Epalladino for reminding me about that, and for everyone reading this, I'm just going to say that with blind people, especially people who are born blind, they can really do absolutely anything a seeing person can do (if anyone says 'drive a car', yes, I know that's an exception) and there are ways to tell everything about a person from sound, probably more since people disguise their faces more then their voices. If you're blind, all your other senses are heightened, so you can hear things really well, like the mouth pulling back when people lie and wet hair squeaking against each strand. So, really Meg can do anything, and in this story she definitely believes it. Not that any of these are excuses for not putting in why she knows these things, most people don't know this about blind people and even if they do it's not good for a writer to leave out details like that. Well, here's the end of this long writer's note. Maybe I should just start saying "Here's story, go."
Disclaimer: ...I can't think of anything remotely witty to say. Hellboy's not mine...
I
sit down on the couch with an oddly satisfying plunk as some bit of
metal on the inside of the couch resoundingly bangs against another
piece.
Everything is silent in the world, or my world
at least. I don't even know what to think anymore. I
hear Abe swimming around inside his tank, a gurgling noise as the
water moves so his body can push through it, and wonder vaguely if
people can read your thoughts when even you don't know what they
are.
All I can think of is that little kid, my
brother, turning his head away...
"Sorry Meggie..."
He
shouldn't have to be sorry.
Why do I keep him with me?
It's not for him, obviously. It's for me. It's for
stupid selfish monster and monster-attacking me. What the hell
is wrong with me? How could I even think of keeping him here
after what happened before. I had been considering sending him
away, but then I convinced myself it was all solved, everything was
solved because we had a place to stay. It was the place Theo
had been kidnaped from to begin with, too.
"Meg?"
I
lift my head quickly. I'll never get used to that.
Always I'm expecting there to be foot steps before voices, not
splashing and gurgling.
"Hey, Abe."
There's a
long silence. Then I stand up awkwardly to turn the stupid
pages to the flat blank paper books that he can read through a wall
that's just as solid and claustrophobic as metal to me. God,
I have to get rid of this stupid attitude. Seeing wouldn't do
anything, anything to help me. But still, whenever I get into
some depressed stage over something like this, it all goes back to
what I definitely can't have. Sight. A normal life.
Or, at times, fairly stupid things, like private islands or jets.
No, not just those things were stupid. It was all stupid.
I didn't need any of it.
"Meg, I don't think Theo
meant what you thought he did when he..." Abe starts through
the glass. I hear a hand come up against the smooth surface for
a moment, and my head turns away before I can think about it. I
remember sobbing in a chair saying "no no no..."
It
makes me feel pretty stupid, remembering that. Don't take my
mind, don't take my mind.
There's a long pause that
seems to stretch out for more time then it should, just this strange
silence. I hear the tiny sounds that you find in libraries, the
ticking of some old clock, the rustling of some small insect's
wings in the corner. And then there's footsteps from outside,
and Hellboy walks in just as a blaring yet somehow smooth voice comes
over the loud speakers.
"Code Red, Code Red..."
"Why
don't they yell "Code blue" or something? Hellboy mutters
as he walks inside. "Or code white, or code brown, or code
tan or some other color... do we know any green people?"
I
smile slightly. "They're being very discrimatory, you're
right." I say with some slightly forced snicker.
"So, what's the problem?" I need a distraction right
now.
Abe has already climbed out wherever that large fish
tank thing lets him out, somewhere at the top, and has came down to
join us. "Twice in one day?" He says sounding a
little surprised.
"The annoyingly large community
of freaks beckons us, come on." Hellboy says, sarcasm
positively dripping from the words.
As we're
walking down back outside to the truck, I hear smaller feet walking
with us, behind Hellboy. I know he's trying to hide behind
Hellboy's loud footsteps, but I still hear him shuffling along.
I'm not saying anything though. If he's staying with us,
he's not running away. I feel a twinge in my stomach though
as I realize I'm not sure which one's worse.
---
"So,
what's up now? Because really, it better be something good.
This is kind of starting to piss me off."
Abe turned and
glanced at Liz, who was glaring coldly at Manning. Hellboy was
standing next to her, wearing the same expression. Myers had
somehow gotten out of coming here because of some relative or
friend's birthday, something Hellboy had been incredibly angry at,
especially since there had been occasions on his birthday when he
still had to work. (well, his 'come to Earth' day, anyway.)
For some reason Theo had abandoned standing behind Hellboy and now
seemed to be glued to Abe's side, the small boy's hair brushing
against his arm. He was staring pointedly at Abe, as though he
were trying to tell him something, but Abe really wasn't prepared
to deal with the wrath of Meg if he were to read her little brother's
mind. Theo didn't seem to be thinking of this however.
Abe blinked at him, and regretted it slightly a moment later when
Theo nodded, as if he saw the small movement as some kind of sign,
and turned away.
Not reading people's minds was incredibly
annoying.
"Ok, everyone just be quiet for a while, I get
it, no one is happy about having to go on another mission, but this
one seems to be connected to the last one, so it's more like one
mission continued." Manning said, quite obviously just as
pissed off and tired as everyone else. "As soon as the
alchemy corpse exploded, no less then seven calls came in at the
local police station that people had seen a similar explosion here at
exactly the same time, and there was no known reason for there to
have been an explosion here. We wouldn't have even come,
except that the local police wouldn't go in. Something about
it being haunted. Which, while we're here, we could in fact
check that out too."
"No known reason? Are you
sure there's not construction going on here? Because this is
the city, there's always construction going on somewhere. Or
maybe just a friendly gang of soon to be incarcerated kids.
Just because we hear about it doesn't mean it's not a perfectly
mundane coincidence." Hellboy said in a sarcastically hopeful
voice. There were a few chuckles. Manning, with a strain,
ignored him. Though a muscle did twitch in his eyebrow
angrilly.
"So we're just going to take a look around,
make sure there's not another one of those freaks, and go back, got
it?"
There were a few collective mumbles and somebody
sneezed.
"Got it?!"
"Yes sir."
Shouted the human agents, minus Liz, and if she counted as one, Meg,
who was standing in the corner of the truck. Her face was
turned away from Theo, as though doing so would make her stop hearing
him.
The doors opened with a resounding clang, the metallic
reflection of the lights in the truck flashed across Abe's vision
for a moment. They piled out, Hellboy, as always, leading the
way, but with much less spirit then was normal for him.
The
sight that met them was a dilapidated old apartment complex on a
street that looked like someone had gone through it with paint bombs
that exploded into words that Hellboy used and all sorts of nameless
grime in every corner. The other agents ducked into the
darkness of the inside of the apartment building, their frames fading
to shadows for a moment. Theo tried to push his way out to the
front, but Liz caught his arm and held him back. A small child
coming didn't seem like the kind of idea Manning would approve of,
and even besides that, if he had to be here, he should at least be
out of the way in case there turned out to actually be something
inside the old building.
Shafts of light came down from the
ceiling, showing themselves from the clouds of dust that seemed to
rest on every layer of air. At first glance, it seemed obvious
there had been some kind of explosion, there were rocks everywhere,
crumbled into the floor like ashes, and old unused pipes fallen
down. Almost every piece of visible metal was rusted through,
looking as frail as the edges of burnt paper. It looked almost
as though the core of the apartment building had rotted down like
fruit, and by looking up you could see right up to the top, where
there was a skylight shimmering in the waves of city heat from
outside on what used to be a roof, the floors of the upper rooms
crumbled away from age. The only problem was, there was simply
too much of the walls and ceiling that had fallen down that they
couldn't tell which part had recently exploded.
"Ok,
I've checked all three floors, there's nothing here."
Hellboy said, looking up through the large hole down the middle of
the building.
Abe picked his way carefully through
the debris, trying, and failing, to keep from stepping on many of the
annoyingly sharp stones. He wondered vaguely why Hellboy
managed to get specially made keyboards for computers and he still
couldn't get any shoes.
He turned his head
instinctively as another bit of rock on the far side of the wall
crumbled, and then blinked slowly at what he saw.
There
seemed to be some sort of design on the wall, in frayed and ancient
paint. Great arching lines he could see behind where the small
piece of rock had crumbled away, the paint appearing aged as though
the drawing itself, whatever it was, had rusted like the many pipes
littering the floor. Abe stared for an instant at the familiar
symbol, the alchemy he had already seen that day.
"I found
something." Abe said, picking his way over to the wall.
The other people in the room shuffled in his direction. Before
he could stop him, Theo crawled over the rocks right up to the wall.
Meg turned her face up sharply from where Liz was helping her across
the field of shattered rock as Theo's footsteps raced by her.
"What is it?" She asked Abe, the shell of her ear
still facing where Theo had just ran by, so she spoke to him at a
strange angle, as though someone had forcibly twisted her neck
around.
"It's some sort of design on the wall. I'm
not sure, most of it is still covered, but it seems to be the same
one on the corpse from... from..." Abe slowly dropped down on
all fours, taking off his gloves quickly and placing his bare hand on
the ground, ignoring the feeling of the small sand of rock sticking
to his fingers like splinters as the overwhelming feeling of a
presence came over him, a feeling like he was being stared at from
eyes he couldn't see. "Does this place have a basement?"
He said quietly, his fingers splayed out flat on the floor.
"No.
We got a blueprint of the place. It had a small underground
room for storage and crap, but that was on the other side. Why,
what is it?" Hellboy asked, picking his way over to where Abe
was standing and staring down at the ground as though he could see
through the rocks to what Abe was sensing.
"Well... there
are... life forms down there." Abe said, squinting slightly,
and then abandoning this when he realized there really was no point
in him squinting, it didn't do anything for him besides make the
part of his eyes covered see things in blurred shadows. He
wondering what exactly had inspired him to try for a moment, but it
was incredibly irrelevant, so he abandoned this train of thought
quickly, feeling the almost claustrophobic feeling of someone else,
their emotions spinning through his head, practically pressuring his
scull with extra thought.
"Life forms? Like from old
alien movies? Or are you just being dramatic about creepy
humans or huge mindless monsters being controlled by the creepy
humans, the usual kind of crap?" Hellboy asked, shifting his
weight.
"Wait, one of them is looking up at... I think
they know we're-"
He didn't get to finish his sentence
though. He heard someone let out a cry and he looked up,
realizing that the floor seemed to be rising up around him. He
felt Theo's hand grab his shoulder, and then Theo himself falling
on top of him when trying to pull him up didn't work. He
looked up, seeing Liz's eyes widening as the rocks crumbled in a
circle around his knees, Manning with his mouth hanging open, Meg
with a look of utter confusion, and then he didn't see anything but
a large red hand reaching up from behind him, trying to grab the
floor above them in one swipe, rock rubbing against rock as he
missed, reaching again to try to grip the surface world that was
slowly slipping away from them. But it was too late, he heard a
great rumbling sound as the rocks below him shot upwards in line,
sliding along the inside of the floor like a snake, and filled in the
hole where the floor he and Hellboy had been standing on had been.
He fell, Theo still gripping him for dear life.
"Not
again, oh shit..." He heard Hellboy yell, the words echoing
off the floor as walls on all sides of them as they were swallowed by
an unknown darkness.
Writer: Ok, I need to apologize for a few things. The first one is I'm sorry for always leaving long Writer's notes. Another one is I'm sorry for pretty much abandoning this story for months. I'm also sorry that this story is really not as good as Thelodus #1. I'm just not enjoying writing this one as much as I did with Thelodus, and I think that's why this one isn't exactly written that well at all. Probably just because I hadn't reached any for of actual excitment in the plot yet though. (Also apalogising about shortness of chapters, there's a big long chapter coming soon, don't worry.)