Emily's Awesome adventure 5 (3/30/16)

Emily's Adventure 5

   A darkness that is not dark, a stillness that is not still, the walls seem to ooze and be dry, to be unmoving yet pulsating in the same breath. A heartbeat of un-tamed evil, walking through the veins of some unearthly thing from beyond the stars that would rest in the places between where light can never reach. A menace uncaring, the silence is only broken as Emily asks, "When was the last time you took a shit?"

   "What?" asks Vicky while going down the stairs that seem to be made of dried blood and blackened mucus.

   "Well," says Emily, "I've been eating and drinking stuff since I got here..and not once have I needed to actually go to the bathroom..it just occured to me."

   "It just occured to you..." says Vicky, "after a month and...wait..."

   Vicky darts her eyes about, "Huh...I...never thought of it before...weird. Maybe its these bodies...I mean we both know we definetly still have assholes...I mean these bodies arn't exactly like the ones we had back home..."

   "Super efficient," offers Emily, "maybe why we can heal like we do?"

   "Doubt it," says Vicky, "I know of people who refuse to eat anything here...something about a myth or something about eating food in the underworld...who knows.'

   Their contemplation distracts them as they reach the lobby on the ground floor. A grotesque scene illuminated by the light outside as the black and red abomination of structure meets with the normal front of a building, including a recepionist desk like an office building rather than apartment complex.

   "Well that was easy," says Emily, "I thought there was supposed to be monsters and traps everywhere...looked like there would be."

   "Maybe," says Vicky feeling her neck, "Last time I didn't run into anything until I went into an apartment...maybe the halls are designed to scare people into the normal looking apartments..."

   "Maybe," says Emily watching Vicky rubbing the blue circle tattoo on her throat and the black ornate lines.

   ******


   Upon leaving the building Vicky examines the tatoo on her neck in the window, "Ah shit,"

   "What is it?" ask Emily.

   "It just dawned on me," says Vicky, "if anyone sees us...if they see us they're going to think we're Trojans."

   "What?" asks Emily

   "These bodies," says Vicky, "they don't age...apparently don't pass waste... but everyone knows they don't have scars, peircings are just constant pain...and definetly don't have tattoos."

   "Huh..." says Emily examing her own throat in the window, "So...what's a Trojan then?"

   "Huh?" asks Vicky, "wow...guess I  never...okay if you're going to live out here you need to know the lingo...a Trojan is...a really nasty type of demon...monster...whatever...according to Bob and Hector they started to show up after they made their base...boarded off a few streets and all that like I told you before...what the...thing in the mirror...called the Scale of Escalation...the better armed you are out here...or the more people gather in a small area...this place starts to up its game. So while gathering people into this self made safe zone...shape shifters started to show up, pretending to be people. They'd get in...start causing havok on the inside. Like Trojan horses. Always had a tell though...glowing eyes, a scar, pupils wouldn't move, wouldn't blink...usually something about the eyes...but some would have a tattoo on them...which tended to mark where a small critter demon was piloting a zombie. Stab there and the body would turn back into a zombie, and pluck out the thing piloting it.:

    "Holy shit," says Emily holding her throat realizing the implication of what someone might try to do to them.

  "Well," says Vicky, "have to be careful I guess...that or hope we can explain it...they've never seen me...but they should know my voice and I can explain everything...I hope...just...let me do the talking okay...I've been talking to them for months..."

  As they walk down the street Emily asks, "So...any other lingo I should know?"

  Vicky smiles, "Well...for people we have New Arrivals...fairly self explanitory, just people we don't recognize and likely just showed up, they have teams scattered everywhere keeping an eye out. Lost Ones; which I told you about before...Runaways...I...really don't like that one...some teams are a bit...psychotic...which is why we are heading towards Bob and Hector's areas...less likely to be all...lock down...shoot on sight, forced labor slash human shields slash decoys....yeah...it means people who decided to flee and try on their own without helping anyone else...they really look down on that."

   Vicky *sighs*, "Better....there are also Loners...which I was...people who...due to that scale of escalation thing find it safer to stay by themselves. But also help...radio in sightings, snipers, set traps for the monsters and alert the teams to where the traps are, and such. Which pretty much covers people..."

   Emily is taking this all in as Vicky continues, "the monsters...different folks have different systems but usually we have...Critters...Undead...Stalkers...Slimes...Beasts...and...Alphas...."

   Emily stops and presses a vending machine to push out a coke.

   "What the fuck?" asks Vicky as Emily just casually drinks it.

  "Coke is Pepsi," says Emily, "I think there is a pattern...Pepsi was Sunny Delight...I wander if it changes?"

   "Wow," says Vicky, "That...is one hell of a gamble...those are listed as Traps...heard one guy got scolding hot piss and another sulferic acid..."

   Emily stops and has a worried look on her face, "Uh...did they say which flavors were those?"

   "No idea," says Vicky, "But...probably should reframe from our...habits...while out here."

   "Damn," says Emily setting the can down on a car.

   "Any way," says Vicky, "Critters...are the small things, those squirrels you told me about and the quilled rats count, lots of small horrible things like that. Undead...zombies, rotting things...also tends to be an adjective applying to other stuff as well...Undead Critters for example, hospital is full of them."

   Emily shudders remembering the mummified half cat that yowled at her.

   "Lets see," says Vicky, "next we have...Stalkers...pretty diverse group, its the sneaky stuff that hides...also an adjective usually...like Stalker Beasts which are the huge things under the grounds..lots of stalker critters...a pure one is this thing that looks like a black cloth covered in tiny razer wires that pretends to be a shadow and then rips you up."

   Vicky shudders, remembering seeing a man dragged under a bus by something like that.

   "Okay...where was I..." continues Vicky, "Already mentioned Trojans..so guess Beasts, Slimes, and Alphas...Beasts...big critters really...that bastard in the mirror I'm calling a Trojan Beast...something new...have to warn the others shit like that is out there, slimes are....slimes...all sorts, from little critter slimes..like acid tear drop shit that chases you clear up this thing that rips up the streets and changes shape...either into one really big thing or a bunch of smaller things when it surfaces...and sand worms...and slugs...the forests are full of beasts, why all these teams are scattered across the city...oddly its the safest place...so people tended to gather here...and then...we have the Alphas."

   Vicky gets a stern expression, "We were living with one...never..tell...anyone...about that. Well..."

  She feels her throat, "Maybe have to say one branded us, I know they saw you get carried away..."

  She laughs and says, "I wasn't here back when they had their fort set up, seen the ruins of it that they avoid thanks to the mirror. Its become the home base of an Alpha they call Moth Alpha....the factory outside of town is home to Spider Alpha, you've met River Alpha, we....know Sky Alpha...she's not the only one like her with wings. The Hospital is apparently home base to a red one....very lazily called Red Alpha. Weirdest thing is...the mirror wanted to call the animal like ones Great Beasts...and...come to think of it only sneered about the winged ones. I even mentioned that they might be two seperate things...they don't seem like they are part of the same team or all that similar other than...territorial...and...well they called them Alphas because they are insanely durable, strong, fast...and disturbanly intelligent...even the Trojans apparently weren't as smart...another tell I guess if you asked them enough questions."

   "So then," says Emily, "the train is what...Train Alpha?"

   "Eh," says Vicky, "these guys are insane about this stuff...they insisted on it being called a Mobile Trap...to be honest I doubt alot of their criteria and terminology...especially as I pointed out so much can be crossed over or doubled up...not to mention ignores their relationships to each other..but i think they find some kind of solice in giving things names...like it takes away from the horror of this place to give it a title to the face."

   "I can see that," says Emily, "writing classes in college said once you give the monster a clear apperance and a face it takes away the fear of the unknown...even if the reader or viewer doesn't really know anything about it."

   Vicky *scoffs*, "I can call a Bear a Bear doesn't mean I shouldn't still run...or that wouldn't still maul my face off and...hide..."

  They duck behind a car as they hear a *hisss* coming from around the corner of a building just down the hill that heads towards where Emily had been snatched up before. The creature emerges from around the corner, as out of place here as it can possibly be in the middle of an empty street devoid of man or beast. Its great red scalie serpentine body making its way up the street as it *hisses* through its semi-mammalian muzzle. It turns its all too intelligent eyes in the direction of the pair hiding behind the car, flairs out its quill covered hood and speaks, "Come out, come out my little treat....I have found you...no sleeping this time...you will feel my embrace little treat..."

  It slithers up the road only four car lengths away, "I am tall little treat, I can...see you."

  Emily stomps her way out from behind the car much to Vicky's surprise and says, "Yeah...well fuck you!"

   The serpent woman smiles and slithers towards her only to be taken back as Emily with a dead serious glare in her eyes storms up to the creature and points at her own throat, "You can't touch us bitch!"

  The black marks glow blue, and much to Vicky's surprise the snake woman backs up, shaking about and *growling* angrily. Emily raises her fist...and is smacked hard like a whip by the creature's tail sending her flying through the store window of a book store across the street.

  The creature *growls* in her direction, as it lifts it left wrist, a blue glowing ring upon, the symbols however are very different than those around the throats of Emily and Vicky. As it turns towards the broken window Vicky rushes out from behind the car and grabs the creature's tail still out in front of it.

  The creature *roars* as it sends Vicky into the air with its tail and smashes her into the pavement hard enough to leave a slight indention. The monster turns from the damaged Vicky towards the bookstore with a *snarl*.

   It stops however as it hears Vicky get on her feet, her spine and bones snapping and cracking back into place, "We...arn't done...yet....BITCH!"

   Vicky lunges into the air with so much force that her fist upon impact actually turns the creatures face, much to its surprise. Upon landing she hold's her hand as the bones fix themselves, and the skin heals from being scraped across such rough scales.

  The creature feels its face and adjusts its jaw, the look in its eyes one of pure surprise.

  "Not so easy when your prey can hit back huh?" asks Vicky not expecting an answer.

  The two slam into each other, claws ripping flesh, punches to the creature's gut, dodging its tail and bites, Vicky being slammed into a car breaking its windows before grabbing a piece of glass and jamming into the creature's eye as it comes in for another bite. The creature pulls out the glass from its bleeding eye, which heals almost instantly.

   "Wait..." thinks Vicky, "what?"

   The creature *ROARS!* and comes down on her with both claws, Vicky grabbing its wrists, surprising herself as her feet are planted. Both however freeze as a very loud *HOWLING SHRIEK!* shakes the windows, a red winged creature dive bombing their location, only to be intercepted by a black and grey version that smashes them both into a window. Vicky and the creature actually ease up and look up as windows shatter, the sounds of *HELLISH SHRIEKS!* echo across the city blocks and dust cascades out the bottom doors of the building as the two winged horrors are destroying entire floors. They both spin out of the building sixteen floors up, in each others grip, smashing through one building, and clearly by the sound and clouds of dust going right through it to the other side.

   The snake creature looks down at Vicky and plainly says, "I am blaming you for this?"

   "What?" says Vicky with a double take, "Wait...what....WHAT!?"

   The snake creature looks at the sky, dark clouds are rolling in as a circle sorrounding the city's sky, "If we don't stop them our masters could destroy this entire map!"

   The snake creature rushes away and looks back, "Come on already!"

  Vicky shakes her stupified head and runs, inhumanly fast.

   ******

   -Moments earlier-

   "Come in Hector, this is Becky, over."

   "I hear you Becky, and you don't have to say over."

   "Not playing the game," says Becky over her walkie looking down over the street from a building window, "Looks like we got two new arrivals, a blond and a brunnete, both women...although the brunnete looks kinda like that woman Sky Alpha took off with...and you arn't going to believe where they just walked out of."

   "Don't try to be suspensful," says Hector, "just tell me,"

   "No fucking way Tower," says Becky.

   "No fucking way..." says Hector.

  "Yeyup," says Becky, "and I don't mean ran out screaming or anything...looks like they're having a chit chat going down the street...too bad for them, looks like River Alpha is coming up the other way through the alleys. Peter's team was right, looks like its been exploring away from the river further and further...heh...might need to go looking for the new arrivals again...dumb bitches hid behind a car and....holy shit."

   "What..." says Hector, "did...."

   "Well..one bitch just got smashed through a window...she walked right up to it and yelled at...looked like she was about to....HOLY FUCK!!!"

   "God damnit Becky!"

   "I need a fucking camera! The blond...she's fucking fighting the fucking thing! I mean fist fighting...it...no...fucking..."

   "Alert Becky!" comes a man's voice, "This is Bob, Red Alpha is above you...I repeat she's"

   *CRASH!*

  "She's in the building next door," says Becky, "Sky Alpha and Red Alpha....I repeat Sky Alpha and Red Alpha are fucking fighting each other!...what the fuck?"

  She looks out the window as the black and red blur shoots across the street through another building and sees the snake creature and the blond woman give chase, together.

  "Uh...I'm getting the fuck out of here but...something fucking weird is going on...Bob, Hector, anyone got eyes on Blood Street....I'm...going to see if that brunnete is still in the book store."

   ******

    Windows are destroyed by stone and asphalt kicked up in a storm by the clawed feet of the two winged creatures as they spin through the street. They throw each other off some distance apart, the red one hunches over, eyes literally ablaze, fire issuing from its mouth as it brandishes is claws and *Snarls*, an inferno rises up around it. The black and grey one's eyes flash with electricity as it spreads it wings and *shrieks*, lightning shoots down from the sky and dances in its up turned claws. As the two prepare to attack one another Vicky and the snake creature come around the bend, "dear god," says Vicky as she quickly shakes it off and rushes beside the snake creature between the two. The snake coiled up and facing the red one, Vicky in disbelief of her own actions facing the black one. The two stop their posturing and stand erect, still, and eyes glowing.

   "What is happening?" whispers Vicky to herself.

   To her disbelief the snake creature answers, "this is what it looks like when they talk to each other...if I had to guess..."

   It flicks its tongue out, "It is about us...they don't like their pets fighting each other."

   With a sudden sonic boom both winged creatures disappear into the air and are gone.

   "To be fair," says the snake, "you two did attack me...instead of just showing your tags..."

   It glares and *snarls*, "that little one was tasty too...a shame...mmm...maybe lollipop treatment."

   "You don't touch her." growls Vicky, surprising herself she just threatened (River Alpha)

   "Too soon," says the snake monster, "a rematch someday little one. Till then, we should just punish sinners for our masters."

  Vicky stares off into space at those words...and the fact she's never even heard of this creature speaking so plainly before. Before too long it has slithered away.

  Vicky just stands in the street a while longer and *sighs* before shouting, "Come on out Hector I know you're there!"

  A burly man comes out of a nearby building holding a gun, "Who are you? and...what the fuck just happened? Better start talking before I..."

   "Don't recognize my voice?" asks Vicky, "I come out here looking for you guys after being cut off for only a fucking month and this is the reception I get?"

   "Commander?" asks Hector, "Holy fuck...wait...what is that?"

  He tilts his gun at the markings on her neck.

  "I'm not a Trojan," she says with a grimace, "We got somethings new to worry about...like this...I was branded...better get the others on the line...there is one other...her name's Emily she's branded too...and...so's River Alpha."

  "What?" asks Hector.

  "Like I said," says Vicky, "shits..."

   "Begging like a puppy," whispers Hector.

   "What?" asks Vicky.

   "We need to exchange notes," says Hector, "but no one's going to be easy with those marks on your neck better get someplace we can radio the others ahead."

    *****

   None of that is Emily aware of, as she is still digging herself out of a pile of bookshelves. As she digs herself out she caught to noticed that the words in the books are gibberish...or rather a mix of different languages, many if not most of which she does not recognize; not that she was ever a linguist anyway. By the time she has dug herself and looks out the broken window neither the snake creature or Vicky are anywhere in sight.

   "Oh no," whispers Emily, her mind displaying such vivid and horrible imagery of the snake devouring her companion.

   She exits the bookstore and looks down the street, the confidense she so displayed not long before now lost. The sky is darkening, night is only a few hours away and this book store is by no means a secure location. She imagines going back to the apartment...but the Mistress was always inconsistent on when she was there...and perhaps the horrors of the building may come out at night. She would not want to be trapped, sixty floors or more up in a building that looks like the hive of hideous monsters from space.

   "Oh God," she mumbles as she walks down the alley, tripping on a trash can.

   At once a thousand tiny vermin spring forth, biting at her clothes and legs as she *screams* and flees, the critters covered in quills that stick into her arm as she swats at them, the light of sun upon the street keeping them at bay. She can feel the quills stuck deep in her arm, some perhaps even in the bone as deep as they are. She looks at the alley, thousands of eyes inching at the edge of the shadows. When night falls they will be free to roam the streets.

   She runs down the sidewalk, eying each window quickly as she passes, imageing what horrors might await in each one, she doesn't know where she is going as her eyes well up.

   "Go back," she thinks, "Maybe...if I'm..."

   *Gun Fire* stops her dead in her tracks, turning to see a very large Hispanic man.

  He points his gun at her, "You're coming with me."

  "No..." whispers Emily looking past him up the street, seeing the building still in sight, thinking that perhaps if she (waits on the porch) she can get back in.

  "Not a request," says the man, "if you run I will shoot out both your knee caps and hog tie so they can't grow back right and drag your whore ass inside."

   Emily's face turns red with anger as she clinches her fist.

  "Jesus Christ," comes the voice of a man, as the man himself, a large soldier looking fellow, perhaps a mix of Latino and something else, "You know you just sounded like you were going to fucking rape her Jose."

   "We'll see," spits Jose, "look at her neck,"

   "Looks like what Hector reported," says the man, "So you're....wait...gonna be careful here...so what's your name?"

   Emily looks between the two large men and looks up and back at the, "Emily...please...I just..."

  "See," says the man talking to Jose, "I swear to God...ma'am...we arn't going to do anything to you..."

   "we'll," starst Jose,

  "Shut the fuck up," says the man, "but ma'am you do look like a trojan...if you don't know what that is.."

  "Emily," she says quickly remembering what Vicky told her earlier, especially the cutting the marks part, "my name is Emily," she holds her own throat covering the markings as much as possible.

   "Okay," says the man, "my name is Bob...this is Jose, we're all just a bit jumpy, don't know if you saw but we just had...some weird shit go down, and its about to be nightfall."

   ******