|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 8:39 pm
Departure, part I
"There's no way to convince you to stay, huh?"
Ethan paused, the half-folded shirt still in his hands.
"No, Crow," he said, looking over his shoulder at her. "I'm sorry."
Crow shook her head, sitting on the arm of the couch and regarding Ethan quietly. Her eyes were glazed with tears she'd been trying to ignore.
"You know you might not be able to find the way back here," she said. Ethan flinched, then nodded.
"I know."
The decision had been one of the most painful things he'd done in his life. But it was sound. He'd nearly died, and he needed to see his family again. Homesickness plagued him until the life he'd built in Gaia was a hollow imitation of what he'd left behind. He felt heartsick for leaving but doubly so for staying.
"I'll miss you," he said, voice catching. "All of you. Julian, Liam, Malachi, Len, Rabid...Björn...."
His voice shook and he blinked rapidly.
"It's not too late to change your mind," Crow said, her hand resting atop his. Ethan smiled ruefully.
"I need to go home," he said. "I didn't decide it lightly."
"I know," Crow said, ignoring the tears that had started burning down her cheeks. "It's just not gonna be the same 'round here without you, Ethan."
She hugged him, clinging very tightly. Ethan hugged her back, murmuring his farewells.
"You never called me Kristof," he said, wondering. Crow grinned slightly.
"I like Ethan better," she said.
----
Ethan's first memories of Gaia were terrible, and he didn't visit them often. There was too much pain there. There always would be. But he thought about that morning, and every memory since. He was alone now as he had been then. His family, his friends, he hadn't wanted them to come. He couldn't hurt them by asking them to come along when he didn't know whether or not it was the last time he'd ever see them. Crow had done him a kindness and looked up the transportation beforehand, laughing at Ethan's stunned surprise that it was so simple.
"Ticket, please."
Ethan blinked, shifting in the train seat.
"One second," he said, rummaging through his pockets. His fingers scraped against the dulled edge of a metal feather, and his heart nearly broke.
"Just take it," Lenore said, pressing the razor feather into Ethan's hand. "I won't say something stupid like this is so you don't forget us. Got it?"
"Got it," Ethan murmured. The conductor cleared his throat. "Sorry. Here."
The ticket was clipped twice and torn in two, the stub handed back to Ethan. He looked at it silently, and pocketed it again. The train began to roll out of the tiny, out-of-the-way station, following tracks rusted and seemingly unused. A ghost train. That's what they'd called it. Another impossible thing, another mystery. Resting his head against the window, Ethan took off his glasses and cried.
---
"Sir? Excuse me, sir? End of the line."
Ethan sat up straight, blinking. He didn't even remember falling asleep. He looked around frantically. He wasn't on the train. He was on a bus.
"Where am I?" he asked in English. The bus driver eyed him oddly, shaking her head and saying something else in Slovak. Ethan went still. He hadn't even realized she had been speaking his original language.
"I'm sorry," he said in Slovak hurriedly. "I...I fell asleep. Where are we?"
"Bratislava," the driver said. "End of the line."
Ethan hurried off the bus, feeling the driver's curious stare behind him. Hoisting his bag and the suitcase Julian had given him, he looked around and felt his knees buckle. Bratislava. The capital city of his country. His own town was less than an hour away. He felt dizzy, very dizzy, and sank onto a sidewalk curb, tears blurring his eyes. Home.
But it didn't feel quite like he'd thought it would. Dismissing it as shock, he got up and dragged his luggage along, looking for a payphone. He spent a good few coins before he could punch the number in the right way. He prayed, mouth moving silently to shape the words as it rang.
"Hello?"
Ethan's heart jolted.
"....Dad?"
The other end was silent for a good long time. When the voice on the other end of the line finally spoke again, it was shaking with fear and terrible, aching hope.
"Kristof?"
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:42 pm
Departure, part II
It felt every bit like three and a half months had passed. Homecoming had not played out like Ethan - Kristof again, as it were - had imagined. His family had spilled out of their ancient crooked house and clung to him, yes. They had wept, yes. They had shouted and celebrated and he had been happy, yes.
But now he just felt out of place.
Life had faltered when he had disappeared, but then life in the Cebcharik household had gone on, albeit with a heavier heart. His sister Alzbeta was married and pregnant, due in the fall. His brother Konstantin had gone to finish college. Jozef...Jozef was the same, cold and rebellious. Mathieu and Lenka still getting into impossible trouble with the least effort. His mother and father, working themselves ragged to support the gigantic household.
Amid all the company, Kristof felt helplessly alone. They had not changed. He had. He was body-shy, hiding his scars after the first time his mother had seen them sent her into a dead faint. He didn't practice with his knives, for fear Lenka would spot him again and the look of shock would mar her features, making her look so terrified of him. It hurt, more than he cared to admit, that his family had liked Kristof so much better than Ethan. He didn't know what he was anymore, let alone who.
"You've got the look again."
Ethan looked up from his favorite nook of the house, the crumbling paved square that they pretended was a patio. The house sat on a high hill and overlooked the town and the lonely road that stretched before, through and past it, and he had always loved to watch the cars going by.
"What look?" he asked, polishing his glasses listlessly on his shirttail. Jozef snorted and lit a cigarette, blowing smoke defiantly at his brother.
"The look you always had before you took off for Germany," he replied, sitting down beside Ethan.
"I wasn't aware I had a look."
"Mm. You look like the braindead puppy someone left by the side of the road."
Ethan rolled his eyes, ignoring the second plume of smoke that hit him in the face.
"What happened to you, anyway?" Jozef asked, plucking at Ethan's sleeve.
"Nothing you'd ever be able to handle," Ethan said coolly. Jozef made a face.
"Give me a break," he said. "I'm not the one ********' being an emo-s**t ever since everyone stopped treatin' you like the big goddamned hero just for being able to crawl back home with your tail between your legs. For all I know you took off to Amsterdam, been gettin' ******** and stoned this entire time and leavin' us hanging."
Ethan's mouth twisted.
"Spoken like a true loving brother," he said flatly. "I am not a hero, Jozef, I never asked to be treated like one. I'm just...I'm..."
"You're what? You're....bored? Spoiled? Grumpy? In need of gettin' you diaper changed?"
"You know what," Ethan said, standing and glaring. "I didn't do anything to piss you off, so why don't you just-"
"Kristof," Jozef said, drawling his brother's name. "The favorite son, wayward and found again, and everyone falls over themselves to greet him-"
"You were there too! Jozef-"
"- and EVERYONE must acknowledge how much they missed you, how much they love you-"
"Will you just stop-"
"No! No, I will not stop, Kristof, not until you admit this entire ********' escapade was your way of rebelling and nursing your own favorite-son ******** ego-"
Ethan, angry beyond words at the unprovoked baiting, swung back a fist and punched Jozef in the mouth. Jozef's head snapped back and he stumbled, falling onto the concrete. He stared up at his brother, fishing the broken bit of a molar out of his blood-reddened mouth.
"You hit me," he said, disbelief shaking him to the core. Ethan blinked.
"I did," he said.
"You never hit me. You never had the...you never had the guts to hit me."
"Now I do," Ethan said, going back inside, cradling his hand where the knuckle had split wide open.
---
"You're going back. To Germany."
"Yes."
Strom Cebcharik was unshakably calm. So when he regarded his son, his only reaction was slight discomfort.
"You were badly treated in that place, Kristof."
Ethan flinched.
"I can't stay here, Dad. I'm not...."
"The same," his father supplied, and there was noticable regret in his voice. "I figured somewhat, when Jozef came in with a broken face."
Ethan squirmed, shamed.
"I didn't mean to," he muttered. Strom said nothing.
"You will break your mother's heart," he said eventually. Ethan ran his hands through his hair, grown longer and wilder in the past months. He'd had to start tying it back to keep it out of the way.
"I thought coming home was the right thing to do," he said, voice anguished. "I wanted to see you again. I had an accident, and when I got better, all I could think of was coming home to see you."
"To do what, Kristof? To say goodbye properly?"
Ethan paused.
"I don't know. Maybe."
Strom nodded slowly, getting up out of the ancient leather chair and sitting beside his son.
"I saw the shadow on your face when you stepped back into this house," he said. "Like a light that flickered out in you. You don't want to be here."
"I don't belong," Ethan said, face hidden in his hands. "I don't know where to go. I thought I didn't belong in Ga- in....where I had been staying. And now I don't belong here. I don't know where I fit."
Strom shushed and gentled his son, waiting out the sudden tears with that steady unshakable patience. When Ethan had calmed he looked at his father, despairing.
"I can't stay," he said. "You....you all moved on alright without me. And I'll keep in touch better this time, I promise it. I just...I don't belong here anymore."
"I know," Strom said, voice heavy as his heart broke. "I wish it wasn't so. But I know."
----
When Ethan had said his goodbyes to his family - not to mention multiple apologies to Jozef for the result of his temper - Ethan left home again, bags packed and feeling lighter than he had in months. It was eerily similar in circumstance to the first time he'd left home, but this time around he had the bitter knowledge of experience, and hope of going home. As the bus pulled into the station, he looked behind him for what he was almost sure would be the final time. The nostalgic moment passed, and he got onto the bus.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:58 pm
Departure, part III
Ethan had figured retracing his steps from when he'd been captured would be difficult. He hadn't counted on the possibility that it would be nearly impossible. He'd been drugged almost senseless half the time to remain compliant, but there'd been moments when he'd been lucid enough to attempt escape. He shuddered, the memory of old wounds flaring up with the echoes of pain at the thought. His piecemeal memory had lead him everywhere over Hamburg, to his former school, his old dormitory, the diner he'd worked in...
Three weeks of living wherever he wasn't at risk of being run over had made him look wild, and he was fairly certain if he couldn't find the path back into Gaia he'd lose what grasp of his wits he had left and fully look the part. More than once he'd been thrown pocket change from pitying passerby.
By the time he found the warehouse, Ethan had begun questioning his sanity in earnest. Despairing of the terrible choice he'd made, longing for home, he found the building that conjured up terrible memories with such startling ease it frightened him. Sick with unneeded dread, Ethan hefted his bag onto his shoulders and picked up Julian's old beaten suitcase, and went boldly forward.
The inside of the warehouse set off such a wave of terror Ethan had to stumble out again to be sick. By the time he'd finished vomiting, he was quaking with old terror he couldn't repress. He breathed deep, trying to will the fear to subside. It did, bit by bit, leaving him cold and ********," he muttered, shaking his head hard and going back inside. The warehouse was out of the way and had been scheduled for destruction for nearly twenty five years. No one seemed to want to be bothered with it. It was small, and cold. There were stains on the floor and walls Ethan could not even begin to bear trying to identify, and as he wandered deeper into the complex the urge to be ill began to creep back. Memory upon memory of his drug-soaked captivity leached into his thoughts as he tried to concentrate on somewhat else, trying to find the way back home.
"I know it's here," he said, pitching his voice loudly. Tears stood in his eyes and he ignored them, determined to find the way back. That memory, at least, was clear. It had terrified him out of his wits, being pushed through the door and simply falling...
The warehouse was significantly bigger on the inside than it looked from out on the street. Ethan realized this after two hours of patient searching and one hour of raging cursing and kicking of random objects. By the time the fourth hour had rolled around and Ethan was hopelessly lost, he'd resolved to find the door until he faltered and passed out from exhaustion. By the fifth hour, he was beginning to wonder if he'd go past exhaustion and just up and die.
By the time he found the door in a small office, he was simply irritable.
It was warm to the touch, and sunlight poured from the cracks. It was also chained shut, and no amount of pounding, cursing or hammering would open it. Ethan sank down in front of it, fresh in despair, and paused as he looked around the dank office, looking for something, anything...
"Hmm. Office chair."
It took a few tries and more upper body strength than Ethan had thought he possessed, but with the ancient chair in hand he smashed the door open. Brilliant sunlight flooded the office and blinded him temporarily. Stumbling forward, he looked down into what just looked like more warehouse. Hope died, and Ethan sank to his knees in disbelief.
"No...no, no. Please..."
Picking up his bags, forcing himself up, wandering through the door, Ethan looked around desperately. The empty warehouse echoed with his footsteps. Tears blurred his eyes and Ethan shouted a river of curses, voice ragged. He couldn't find the way back. He was trapped.
"PLEASE! NO!"
His legs gave way and Ethan sank to the ground, grieving. He'd lost both homes, now....
Tictictictictictictictic-
Ethan's sobs faltered, and he looked slowly over his shoulder. His eyes widened and he pulled a knife from intangibility, working on sudden panicked instinct.
"Return to your cell!"
The skeleton rig of wires and rusted body evaded Ethan's defensive attack, bringing up one taser-pronged hand and jabbing it into his chest. The shock sent him reeling and consciousness shorted out, and Ethan's last moment of awareness was full of only ironic amusement.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 12:22 pm
Departure, part IV
"I...should have expected that..."
Lying on the concrete floor of a makeshift holding cell less than seven paces square, Ethan stared at the high ceiling and wondered what Björn would do, wishing so badly that he was there with him.
"Gods, but I'm a fool."
But most warehouses on Earth lacked taser-armed robots, didn't they? Perhaps it was a good sign. Sitting up, ignoring his swimming head, Ethan listened to the distant roar of traffic and clanking of machinery. The warehouse in Germany had been isolated from any roads...the previously dead hope began to revive a little. Pulling himself up, fingers threading through the wire of the fence that built his cell, he sighed. Some homecoming. The ticking noise came again, and he cringed, looking up. A legless rig attached by the head to a pulley on the ceiling looked down at him.
"Hey. HEY! Let me OUT!" he shouted. The rig ticked and continued on its path, uncaring. "Hnf. Tin can b*****d."
Sitting crosslegged, looking around, Ethan was reminded of kennels. They were all empty, but all bore the traces of past habitation. There was defiant scrawlings on the floor of some, stating their names, cursing their captor...
"Piper."
The word alone made a knot of ice form in Ethan's throat, and his heart beat faster with fear. He'd stumbled into one of Piper's old holdings. Sickened, Ethan stood and kicked at the door of his cell. He needed to get out. He had to get out.
"Come on...come on!"
The door held. Ethan leaned against it, panting, looking at the scrawled words in the cell beside his.
You don't scare me.
Shuddering, Ethan rattled the wire fence door, cursing. What would Crow do...or Julian...
"Or Len."
She'd cut her way free. Cursing himself for his own stupidity, Ethan reached into intangibility and drew out his best knife. He took dubious pride in it, keeping it honed to a razor edge. He ruined it, sawing his way free, breaking off the serrated teeth and snapping a good quarter of the blade off. But it freed him. Slipping free of the cell, Ethan took off running, looking up, around, all over for more of the rusted biped rigs. Discarding the broken knife, he took two more free from intangibility and ran, keeping to the shadows. This warehouse was larger, but not as big as the one he'd left behind in Germany. He could see the door, see the way out...
...tictictictictictictictictictictic....
"No, no, come on...."
TIC. TIC. TIC. TIC. TIC.
"Return to your cell!"
The rig, the first rig, clanked and wheeled its way down the ceiling, sliding free of the wall and landing in front of Ethan, blocking the way. The other rig, the one hanging from the ceiling, whirred over and watched, ready to give ineffectual support. Ethan was ready this time, raising his knives and waiting.
"Come on."
"Return to your-"
"No! I will NOT return to my cell!"
"Unacceptable response. Use of force ******** you."
The rig wheeled towards him, arms outstretched. It was rusted and stiff from long disuse, and its attacks were floundering now that it didn't have the option of surprise. He cut off one arm, then the other. The rig foundered, trying to swerve and attack with its rusted skull-head. It was cut free from the neck, spurting sludgy oil like blood and clattering with a fantastic clash to the floor. Ethan smirked.
"Anticlimactic."
The ceiling-rig whirred and ticked, but its arms were little more than stumps and it could not remove itself from the pulley. Ethan looked up at it, grinning savagely, and looked down at the first rig. How many had suffered because of these things?
On a whim, Ethan twirled the knife in his hand and kicked the destroyed rig's torso over and plunged the blade in, cracking it open. He wanted a trophy, and damn it all he was taking one. The gears and cogs inside the torso still turned, clockwork running down at long last.
The heart of the rig was a perfect glass gear, inlaid with spiralling wires. It was beautiful. Prying it loose carefully, Ethan held it up to the light spilling in from the high windows, admiring it. Maybe Emmy would like it. Throwing it into intangibility, Ethan spit on the remains of the rig and stood, looking around for his bags.
---
The city of Aekea was heavily industrialized, and it showed in the brown-hazed sky, the unhealthy plants. It was an ugly city. Ethan, splattered with oil and lugging travelworn bags, believed he had never seen anything more beautiful. He was on the borders of the city when he found the skull-faced dog rooting through a dumpster.
"...huh."
The dog was vividly colored, a tail like a cat's twitching and waving behind it.
"Hey. Hey, dog."
Long ears perked and the creature looked 'round, blinking its one bright yellow eye. The other eye was blinded, the lid dragging down in an old scar.
"ROWLF," it said, tongue hanging out as it barreled towards Ethan, cat-tail waving joyfully. Ethan touched its head, wondering. It was bone, fleshless and skinless, but it wasn't an injury.
"C'mon, dog," he said. The "dog" followed, bumping into a parked car on the way and stumbling, though no less cheerful for it.
Ethan grinned slightly, rather amused with himself. The dog-creature blinked its solitary eye up at him, and gave another bark.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:54 am
Death
Liam sat on the couch, Emmy's head in his lap and facing Crow.
"So, yeah. It'll be kinda weird. Siblings-in-law and whatnot."
Rabid snorted, leaning her head on Julian.
Crow lounged on the couch beside Liam, picking absently at the upholstery.
"I suppose," she said. "At least technically it isn't incest."
Julian, reading a dated medical journal with half a mind, just rolled his eyes and slung his arm around Rabid."He's not even technically my brother," Rabid said matter-of-factly as she snuggled against Julian.
"I might as well be!"
"True."
It was quiet with no kids but Emmy around. Really quiet. All of the others had pretty much moved on with life, but Emmy had refused to leave the house. Poor thing.
"...hey, did anyone else hear that?"
"Hear what?" Crow asked, looking up. Julian just shrugged, giving the room a cursory glance for anything suspicious.
"Am I crunching too loud?" Jeddeth asked from his corner, clumsily pushing the drooping hood of his sweatshirt away from his face.
"Depends. What are you crunching?"
"...nothing.""Nah, it wasn't you," Rabid said quietly, standing and peering about the room. Huh.
"You shouldn't be crunching anything, young man," Liam said, craning his neck to look at Jeddeth, "You're not a monster any more. Bones and wood do not--"
Hellis bolted from the hallway then, breathing hard and looking frightened. There was a small cut on his forehead that probably would not have been noticed had it not been for the blood. Liam immediately rocketed to his feet.
"Hey! What's wrong?" Hellis only gave an ascending squeal, pointing back toward the hallway.
Crow bolted up, alarmed at the sight of blood, fishing a old handkerchief and pressing it to Hellis's injury on instinct. Jeddeth reacted on instinct of his own and put himself in front Julian and Rabid, teeth bared in defense. Julian pushed him patiently aside, getting up and looking to the hallway.A hand met Julian's face. A large one, sitting there like some kind of deformed facehugger.
"...Björn?"
"Hardly." The voice was and was not Björn's. Although it had the same distinct tone, it was slightly more pitchy and strangely...British?
...oh, <******** style="color: blue">William, you let him go." " Only if you ask nicely." Rabid immediately moved to hide behind Julian. Well, crap. And she thought they'd gotten rid of him! I suppose I've had this coming for a while, Julian thought. There was distinct fear, of course, beneath the resignation that he'd brought what he knew would be a messy, painful death upon himself. Yup. I am a class A idiot.
Jeddeth hissed, lips curling over his teeth and ready to spring. Crow held him back and looked up at Björn-that-wasn't. ********. ******** style="font-size: 9px">I suppose I've had this coming for a while, Julian thought. There was distinct fear, of course, beneath the resignation that he'd brought what he knew would be a messy, painful death upon himself. Yup. I am a class A idiot.
Jeddeth hissed, lips curling over his teeth and ready to spring. Crow held him back and looked up at Björn-that-wasn't. ********. ******** style="font-size: 9px">"Long time no see."
"Years."
"Mm. I would have liked it to be longer," Liam nodded as he ever-so-slowly reached around into the back of his uniform.
"That's just how you are, too! So disrespectful. You wouldn't be what you are today if it wasn't for me!"
"You still owe me a foot and a half."
"Hardly. Height doesn't matter when compared to this body," Björn-that-wasn't said simply, dropping his hand from Julian's face to give an elaborate sweeping arm movement, "It's hard to get used to, I must admit, but it will make things quite a lot easier."
"You're a douchebag, you know that?"
Björn-that-wasn't took a step forward and to the side.
"What have you got there?"
"Nothing," Liam said quickly as he removed a hand from behind his back and transferred something from that hand to the other. He knew he was risking his life, but hey.
Hellis whimpered and scampered to Jeddeth, crouching a bit to hide behind him.
Julian wasted no time in backing away a reasonably healthy distance, trying to take Crow with him and met with silent, though rather violent, refusal. The girl stood with her hands locked around Jeddeth's arm to keep the kid from doing anything stupid. The boy had been on the brink of going feral before Crow hissed a rare order to stay put, so he made the best of the situation and warded Hellis, waiting for his next command."Ooooh, I know what you're thinking..."
"Do you."
"Oh, yes. You're me, remember."
Crap.
Crow always disliked admitting she was scared, and even moreso when it showed how frightened she really was. She had no doubt Björn...no, no, William...would draw out their deaths for as long as it kept him amused. Wishing she knew what to do, she just shrank back a step, then two, until she found herself behind the increasingly-agitated Jeddeth."I wouldn't do that if I were y--"
Too late. Liam had already flipped open the three soul orbs, which immediately began draining soul from the body.
"It's your funeral," William coughed before being completely removed, all three orbs snapping shut.
"...his eyes..."
"s**t!"
Hellis shrieked.
Looking on in bewilderment, Crow looked to Björn uncertainly, wringing her hands in long absent paranoid distress.
And somewhere outside, coming closer, a dog barked, and a low tired voice hushed it.Liam choked and nearly dropped the soul orbs, having to take a moment to place them on the coffee table before approaching Björn, whose eyes had suddenly gone from their soulless black back to brown, pupils dilated horribly.
The larger man held up a hand to stop him.
"...um..."
Björn's chest heaved and he leaned back against the wall, sliding down to the floor with his eyes closed. This wasn't how he'd imagined it at all. Not with people around. Not for such a random reason.
But here it was. He was dying.
"AH!"
The cry escaped Crow before she even realized, and Jeddeth grabbed her, unwilling to believe the threat was gone. Julian cursed, having already seen Vavvian deaths before and knowing what was going to happen. The voice outside faltered, and there was the sound of someone running onto the porch and a weak, hesitant knock on the door that turned into a pounding as they worked the knob and entered.
Crow's heart jumped into her throat as she met Ethan's stricken face.Emmy suddenly leaped to her feet from her hiding place on the couch and rushed to Ethan, grabbing his arm.
"Ethan! Help! HELP!"
Oh, s**t. Ethan too? Björn's nose had started bleeding, so he reached up and wiped the streak away, clutching something beneath his shirt and leaning his head against the wall. He choked and grimaced, a bit of blood bubbling up between his teeth. He opened his mouth, trying to breathe, and found that he could no longer.
Ah, Christ, not in front of Ethan...
And then he went suddenly still, hand falling to his lap.Ethan, pale and expression dazed in shock, stumbled forward a step, only able to focus on what was directly in front of him. Everything else was white noise, and he couldn't make sense of Emmy's words, anything. He could only focus on that one thing.
Too late. Too late. No, no, no...
He staggered forward, feeling both heart and mind break cleanly in two.A sudden spasm wracked Björn's body and he purged, blood dribbling from eyes, nose, and mouth. His lips pulled back and he certainly seemed like he was alive to someone who had not seen a Vavvian die before, but he most certainly was not. The spasm died as suddenly as it had arrived, but the trembling muscles convulsed again. More blood, this time erupting from the scar tissue running in straight lines up Björn's forearms.
And then nothing.
Hellis screamed and rushed forward, throwing himself at the limp body and smearing himself with brackish black blood. Liam stepped forward to pull him off, but received a swift punch to the face. Emmy buried her face in Ethan's shirt, sobbing uncontrollably.
"...what have I done..."Crow gave a terrible shriek, half-muffled as she clamped her hands to her mouth and turned away, unable to bear looking. Julian's head bowed down as his sister clung to him, and Jeddeth cringed, crouching down on the floor, not understanding.
Ethan, swaying, felt tears leak out of his wide-stretched eyes, head empty of thought as his legs give way. He landed hard on his knees, mouth working soundlessly."Get off," Liam requested quietly of Hellis. When there came no response, he kicked the young man hard in the ribs. So hard that he toppled to the ground, holding his side, "GET OFF!"
"DON'T DO THAT!"
Liam ignored Rabid's plea and placed a hand on Björn's already-chilling shoulder and disappeared in a burst of air, returning through the front door not a minute later.
"Nobody go in the shed."
"THE SHED?!"
"SHUT UP!" Liam shrieked, pointing accusingly with tears standing out in his eyes. Hellis continued to be a quivering, suffering mass of flesh and tears on the hardwood floor. Not again. He'd lost him again. Forever this time.
Shuddering violently, Crow pressed herself against Julian, who held on steadfastly in a pure loss of what to do. Jeddeth, making himself as small as possible, looked at the blood with a strangely sick expression on his face.
Certain if he tried to speak he'd only scream, Ethan rocked back into a kneel, wishing Emmy would get off. He should have come sooner. He shouldn't have left. He shouldn't have come at all.Emmy didn't leave. She needed someone to hold onto, and the only person who'd let her do that was now only a puddle of blood on the floor.
"What do we do? What do we do?"
"
"Fix it!" Emmy yelped, lunging for the soul orbs on the table and mercifully leaving Ethan alone.
"DON'T TOUCH THOSE!" Liam shrieked and snatched them away, "He's not in here any more." Lower lip trembling, he held the orbs up to the light. The swirling black masses almost seemed to mock him as he took them outside and buried them.
Back inside, Rabid fell hard against Julian.
"What do we do?"
Julian shook his head, starting to tremble from the shock. He tried to speak but no sound came out, so his only answer was the vaguest of shrugs. Crow looked to Ethan, the mask-blank expression on his face making her highly uneasy.
"Ethan?" she said, voice quiet. Ethan's eyes flicked up to her, hollow and gaunt. He looked away again, brushing Emmy's solidified tears off his shirt almost in annoyance.Liam looked to Ethan, and then back to Crow. He shook his head and moved to her.
"Don't."
He figured that conveyed the message well enough.
"...what do we do?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:15 am
Aftermath
Sitting back in the apartment, the one-eyed dog beside him oblivious to everything, Ethan tried to ignore the buzz of white noise in his head that had taken the place of thought. The bone-deep sickness of grief had not yet settled, and tears still spilled freely from his empty, staring eyes. The dog nosed at his hands, tail flicking cheerily. He wanted to swat the animal away, but he had no energy at all. It wasn't the dog's fault, anyway.
"Heya, dog," he said, voice little more than a hoarse breath. The dog yipped. The sound made him flinch and he settled into the beaten armchair, looking listlessly out the spiderweb-cracked windows. There was nothing left to do. Nothing left to say. Regret choked him. He closed his eyes, and hid his face in his hands.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:54 pm
Return
A plot had been bought and a funeral arranged, and now the priest had gone, leaving the muddled gang of mourners to their misery.
The grave itself was not quite a grave, but a hole the grounds-keeper had dug and simply allowed them (with the help of wind magic and telekinesis) to dump the 500+ pounds of dead weight inside. Björn had been wrapped in a sort of burial shroud, stained with his blood, as nobody had the balls enough to clean it off.
Rabid sighed, clinging to Julian like a sad puppy and staring into the grave. Malachi stood beside her, holding Dezzy on one hip and clutching Clemmie's hand. Both little girls had hidden their faces. Emmy, streaks of gold running down ehr cheeks, clung to Hellis, who was entirely emotionally shut-down and staring at nothingness, absentmindedly playing with an arm of Björn's sunglasses. Liam heaved a sigh and tossed a bullet casing into the grave, saluting weakly. God damnit.
Ethan was separate from all the others, looking into the grave with his hair hanging over his face, obscuring it. Lenore had tried to stand next to him but he had shunned her company, so she had wandered over to Ike and looped her arm loosely through his. Crow stood by Liam, staring at the grave through exceptionally blurry eyes. Julian stood by silently, head bowed respectfully.
Watching the ground with one metal finger being nibbled, Eri occasionally looked up towards the grave. And then she'd look quickly back at her feet and nibbled more. No tears. She just looked somewhat confused.
Joe just stood there, staring at the "coffin" of bloodied rags. The inside of his head just swirled with emotions. Anger, for not being there. Sadness, for knowing he could have done nothing. Finally, despair, for this loss. Joe may not have always been able to visit Björn much, but this was all like a heavy cinder block to the chest. Probably worse. All of it was just too much to think about, yet it couldn't be removed from thought.
So Joe stood there, petrified. Occasionally moving to wipe away the tears that creeped from his eyes.
So that was it, then...wasn't it? No more prayers, no more talking. Just...silence. There would be a grieving period, Liam figured, and then they'd just have to move on. But would they ever? Björn's presence was a hard one to get used to, and thusly a hard one to forget. He grabbed Crow's hand and squeezed, trying not to cry and failing miserably.
---
"YOU MISERABLE WRETCHES! CATCH HIM! CATCH HIM BEFORE HE ******** that. Clawing, climbing, good god, he could hear the surface...
Crow squeezed back, knuckling her eyes harshly. Her breath caught in a sob and she choked on it, turning away from the grave and resting her head against Liam's shoulder. Ethan, still standing silently very close to the grave, was white as chalk, looking down with glazed eyes. It felt like he'd never stop grieving. He'd never, ever felt so lonely before, and what was worse was that he wasn't sure if it would ever go away. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed at his eyes in exhaustion, head bowing down further.
Looking up at the other people for a moment, still nibbling. At the sight of Liam, she quickly looked down at her feet, blinking rapidly. Oh, my. No tears. No, no. Still, she couldn't stop them, now that they were apparently allowed. Oh, Björn... She would've done anything if she could have.
The faint sound of most everyone crying could be heard, ringing in Joe's ears. As it built and grew louder, it just became hard to remain composed and the tears came more easily to Joe. He reached for his pocket and grabbed a few handkerchiefs, bring them to his side and raising him arm slightly, dangling them for those who might need them. He didn't bother wiping his own tears, for he knew they wouldn't stop.
He closed his eyes tightly, just taking a moment to try to recompose himself. Joe only ended up yelling at himself, inside his head. "How could I have not been there?! WHY wasn't I there?!" were only a few of the haunting things that violently echoed inside his mind.
The being that approached the group carefully was and was not Björn. The face was the same, but it was...smaller. Less bulky. Its eyes looked entirely human, thought were still brown, and its hair had streaks of grey. Speaking of hair, its was braided, hang to the ground, and then looped back up to meet his head again. After 20,000 years, hair grew.
Dezzy gasped and pointed. Nobody paid her much attention.
And so it approached, grabbed a handful of Ethan's hair, and pulled the young man's head back, smiling the fanged grin.
"Nice hair. Looks a lot like mine, though."
Head bent back at an odd angle, Ethan stared up, going if anything paler. He could only make a choked, gasping sort of sound, eyes widening impossibly. As his shock-numbed brain processed the crack about his hair, the faintest of blushes tinged the paper-white paleness of his face.
"I didn't feel like cutting it," he said belatedly, voice a thread.
Crow's claws bit into Liam's arm and shoulder as she sought to stay upright, face going slack and jaw hanging open. Lenore and Julian behind her made identical sounds of astonishment.
There was a lot going through Eri's mind. Not any of it was really being paid attention to. She looked at the Björn-thing for a moment, then back at the grave, and returned to staring. Nibble, nibble. And then she apparently decided that the Björn-thing was an apparition. But it didn't stop her from staring.
The sounds of shock and awe, as well as the familiar voice, were all it took to have Joe crane his neck in the general direction of the noise.
It was Björn. Wasn't it? He looked like Björn. He sounded like Björn. He was as tall and most similarly as buff as Björn. But... how? Aside from a few cosmetic differences, it looked exactly like Björn. These questions plagued Joe's mind as he just stared in bewilderment, with moments of confusion floating along his face. He could do nothing but just wonder and fall promptly on his a**. So he did.
Björn snorted and shook his head at Joe while he released his grip on Ethan's hair. He turned back to the young man then, smiling slightly.
"I missed you, kid."
And Hellis suddenly lunged forward, half-missing and catching Björn around the waist. He stood slowly and went up on his toes, grabbing Björn by the back of the head and bringing him down to kiss him hard. Once he let go, Björn's face was streaked with tears.
"Yes, yes, I missed you too. Thought about y'all every day."
"Like...eight-thousand years!" Liam suddenly interjected.
"Trust me, I know, and the last thousand or so were spent fighting and hiding to get back here."
"I love you, man!" Liam shouted as he ran forward, hugging Björn about the waist as it was as high as he could reach. The larger man still clung protectively to Hellis with one hand on Ethan's shoulder.
"OH, GOD!"
And then the children catapulted forward, not noticing that Björn was crying. Not noticing that he was trembling from the cold. He was back!
While the others hung back, unsure what to do, not wanting to intrude on the family's reuniting, Ethan drew in closer, tears streaking down his face. He was fairly certain Björn's hand on his shoulder was the only thing keeping him upright.
"You're shivering," he said, his voice unable to rise above that shock-ridden thread as he looked up at Björn, worrying.
Nibble, nibble. Apparently, the other people could see the not-real Björn. She edged closer to the grave and looked in. Mmhm. Body. Strange.
Well, there was only one way to see. Eri rather calmly walked over and gave a free part of Björn a poke. Well. Solid. That ******** up her current thoughts on the situation. Because if he was solid, and looked like a Björn, and talked like a Björn, there was a fifty fifty chance that this was just a weird dream, or he was really alive.
So, she chose the best option. Eri joined in on the Björn love fest. Hooray!
"Buh... How...," was all Joe could form, still in a decent amount of shock. He was pretty sure he wasn't doped up in one way or another. He began to get up but stumbled a little before getting all the way up. He just ran at Björn, leaped and aimed for the least person-infested area he could see and wrapped his arms as far around Björn as he could.
"Is it really you?!," he cried as he hugged tighter, the tears from his face still there, but now out of joy.
Oh, God. So much love. Björn tried to stop crying, found he couldn't, and gave up, throwing his arms around the mass of people and kissing the top of someone's head. He was pretty sure it was Eri.
"Yeah, 's me," he nodded, and then turned back to Ethan, remembering he'd made a statement, "Hell's hot, kid. Real hot."
Hellis perked up.
"I said 'Hell is'. Two words."
The young man resumed his cuddling.
"So...yeah...I don't mean to break up the hug-orgy,but I'm ******** cold, and ******** tired, and I could really use a ******** drink."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:35 pm
Family Reunion
After the relative period of peace and calm, Julian should have known it would all come crashing down around his ears at some point. He knew better than to be optimistic.
And yet here it was.
It had been a slow night at the hospital, all things considered. Doing rounds, Julian reflected, was rarely that interesting unless someone was going into seizures, cardiac arrest, or belching gemstones as the result of some half-baked attempt at sorcery. His attention was so intently focused on wondering what was on television in the break room, he didn't even hear Dr. U'maaki talking to him until she kicked him sharply in the shin.
"NNGHF!"
"Finally," U'Maaki said testily, glaring up at him. Julian looked down at her with an expression akin to a scolded puppy. "Oh, don't even try it, Adyamaur. I paged you three times. What goes on in that woefully tiny brain of yours to distract you?"
"Not much."
"I figured," the tiny woman said, arching an eyebrow. "So. Now that I have your undivided attention. Your father's here, said he wanted to talk to you, apparently there's been a death in the- ...Adyamaur, are you all right?"
Julian had gone stiff, his face turning steadily more gray by the second. His mouth was working, but no sound came out for a moment. U'Maaki contemplated kicking him again before electing to just shake his shoulder. Julian jolted as though she'd struck him across the face, blinking dazedly.
"He. He's. He's here," he said. U'Maaki nodded slowly, giving Julian a piercing look.
"Adyamaur...I can tell him to go," she said carefully. Julian shook his head violently.
"NO! No. No. Where. Where is...where is he," he rasped. U'Maaki stared at him warily.
"He's...in the foyer," she said. "Insisted on wandering around looking for you, but Garland told him to stay put....Adyamaur, what on earth-"
"Nothing," Julian mumbled, pushing past U'Maaki and heading towards the elevator. "Nothing."
---
It was very late, and so the foyer, usually empty but for a few lost visitors and the half-vegetative receptionist, was deserted but for one man sitting and browsing well-aged magazines. He was covered head to toe, his body oddly lumpy and misshapen under multiple layers of clothing. His face was covered.
"...Lord."
The man looked up and turned slowly in his seat.
"Nahalthes," Yagadath Haderka said icily, standing up. His back was hunched and his right leg twisted under his weight, making his walk ungainly.
"What happened to you?" Julian asked, not caring in the slightest in terms of familial concern, but merely morbid curiosity.
"Your b***h of a sister, that's what happened," Yagadath spat. Julian flinched, eyes narrowing.
"What do you want."
"Needed to discuss some things with you."
"Go ahead."
"Not here. Somewhere private."
Julian stared at his father through still-slit eyes, utterly mistrustful. Yagadath waited impatiently, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
"The clinic's closed for the night. It's quiet," Julian said finally, turning on his heel and pushing open the double doors. "Come on."
No one made any comment about the malformed man trailing behind Julian. It was the night shift, after all. They'd all seen their share of the strange, disturbing and downright unexplainable to be perturbed by a few deformities. Julian nudged the door to the low-income care clinic open, switching on a light switch.
"Sit," Julian said, grabbing a chair from one of the bedsides and kicking across the floor to his father. Yagadath stayed standing. Silence spiraled out across long minutes as the pair regarded one another. A nurse walked by outside, her shoes squeaking faintly on the linoleum.
"You came back," Yagadath said finally, voice gravelly. Julian nodded.
"Like you give a ********," he replied. Yagadath shrugged.
"I did, at one point. That time's passed, I assure you."
"My heart breaks. What do you want."
"Your mother is dead."
Julian felt a brief icy clenching in his stomach, and then it passed.
"How?"
Yagadath shook his head, waving a crooked finger at Julian as he strolled around the clinic, examining a neatly ordered trolley stocked with clean scrubs and gloves.
"I'll get to that in a minute," he said mildly, picking up a box of linen bandages and sniffing at it. "Well. Haven't you come up in the world."
Julian tried to resist the urge to grind his teeth.
"Yeah. Amazing what you can do without stealing and ruining people's lives to make your own comfortable, isn't it," he said, willing his voice to remain even. The hatred he felt for Yagadath was dizzying - he doubted he'd be able to keep up the calm for long.
"Hnn," Yagadath said dully, throwing the bandages back onto the trolley and moving on to peer into cabinets and drawers. "Your words wound me so terribly, Nahalthes. I have certainly seen the error of my ways. I should crawl on hands and knees before you and cry out my repentance."
Julian ground his teeth so hard it felt like he'd cracked four molars.
"Yagadath, I've gone through too much bullshit as of late to even have the faintest wish to continue such a masochistic conversation. So Lady's dead. Woo. Thanks for telling me. I'll send flowers. Goodbye."
He made as though to leave, but Yagadath's sudden grip on his arm was like an iron vise. He winced, looking at his father.
"I'm not done talking to you," Yagadath snapped, pushing Julian fiercely away from the door. Julian shrugged indifferently, leaning against the counter and eyeing Yagadath's mutilated face.
"Gods, but you've seen better days," he said. Yagadath twitched.
"You're sister," he said, a note of rage tinging his voice. "She brought that...that thing into my house. My. House. And she...he....he did something....my body...."
He trailed off, raising a grotesque hand to his face almost unconsciously.
"Besides the point. Everything went wrong. Money gone. House gone. Your mother and I turned out on the street. We had to...to survive...couldn't go anywhere without more bad things happening. Cursed."
His words were manic now, flying from his lips with venom. Julian eyed him like one would a potentially rabid animal.
"So then...we had an idea. Get back into They-That-Watch's favor. Give them another child. Feriska got pregnant three months after the whole fiasco with the brat-"
His words were suddenly cut off as Julian seized him by the collar and slammed him against the counter.
"You were going to do it again?" he snarled. "AGAIN? You disgusting, evil, twisted-"
Yagadath punched Julian hard in the stomach, making him double over and stumble back.
"I'm not finished!" he spat, waiting until Julian had straightened again before continuing. "She got pregnant. Nine months we waited. We would trade the new one for a second chance. Maybe even you, or what was left of you. Remake you. Something better this time, not the insipid wool-brained disaster this model turned out to be."
Julian flinched as though Yagadath had struck him again, unable to keep from looking down at the floor in shame. Yagadath gave a gravelly chuckle.
"You don't like me saying it, do you. You're not a real person, kiddo. You're a pet. A customized pet."
"Where's the baby."
Yagadath looked at Julian, startled.
"What?"
"The baby," Julian hissed, advancing on his father. "What did you do with it, you disgusting piece of s**t."
Yagadath suddenly tore at his hooded head as though in agony.
"The worm! The tumor!" he said, voice escalating in fury. "It came out breech! Breech! We couldn't get to a hospital - no one would help - Feriska was screaming, she was in agony, and then she just - she just-"
Julian felt the strange knot of ice form in his stomach again.
"The baby," he said again.
"Dead," Yagadath said bitterly. "Purebreds aren't meant to give birth naturally. Her body wasn't suited to pregnancy. You see how scrawny and weak the b***h is. The creature came out weak and sick. Died."
Julian clenched his fists, trying to remain calm.
"She isn't weak," he hissed. "She's braver than you'll ever be. She's good, she's kind, she's-"
"Dead," Yagadath murmured. Julian went still.
"What did you do."
"Nothing. Nothing yet. But I will be doing a great deal of things very, very soon. This is all the b***h's fault. I am going to kill her."
"No you won't," Julian said, thinking of Liam, Lenore, Ethan, Jeddeth, every single person who knew Crow and would protect her. "You won't even get near enough to spit at her."
Yagadath grinned like a skull at his son.
"I found you and got you alone easy enough, didn't I?" he said silkily. "Ungrateful mongrel. Shame of my blood."
Julian leaned against the counter again, tapping his fingers on the cold tiles.
"If all you've come to do is taunt and insult me, I assure you I don't give a ********," he said, voice steely. Yagadath laughed, pulling a hand out of his filthy jacket. Julian didn't even realize the knife was in his hand until Yagadath plunged it awkwardly into his gut.
"You disgraceful, miserable excuse for a dog," Yagadath whispered as he jerked the knife cruelly as Julian slid to the floor in shock, grasping at the knife hilt. "Animal. Toy. Fake, pathetic imitation of humanity."
Yagadath removed the knife, and swung his arm up to strike again. Julian flung an arm out, his hand grabbing hold of one side of Yagadath's face. He clutched at flesh and felt himself relish the tormented pain in Yagadath's voice as fire sprung to life and scorched the skin crisply away from bone.
"b*****d! Whore's son!" Yagadath shrieked, staggering back in agony. Julian grasped blindly at the counter and found a syringe, sterile and packaged, set out for use the next day. He ripped the wrapping off and drew back the plunger, sucking air into the tube.
"You will never," he hissed, advancing on Yagadath with the syringe in hand, "EVER, hurt her again. You will never lay another hand on her, and you will never bother us again."
Yagadath swung the knife blindly, catching Julian in the shoulder. Julian was faster, and buried the syringe into Yagadath's throat. His eyes met Yagadath's for the briefest moment, and he pushed the plunged down viciously. A good deal of air was suddenly forced into Yagadath's blood stream, the air bubble traveling into his heart.
Julian was not truly aware of what he had done until Yagadath crumpled to the floor with a heavy thud. He looked at the body as it began to wither, as all Rijani bodies did after death, turning to dust.
He stared at the empty clothes that had previously covered Yagadath's mutilated body, and at the knife that was stained with Julian's own blood. He stared at the little syringe, so unexpectedly deadly.
I can't....what have I done? I've killed him. I just murdered someone...
"Oh... gods...."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:52 pm
Admission
It was late morning when Julian had finally been able to work up the courage to go home. He hadn't changed out of his scrubs, which he knew made him look conspicuous walking home. And besides the fact, he was sure that bloodstains from two stab wounds didn't help matters. Wishing very badly to find a comfortable closet to hide in for the remainder of his life, he staggered into the house, every thought bent on cleaning up and trying to reason out what he'd done.
He just hoped no one was home.
And nobody was. Not obviously, anyway. It appeared that the house had been abandoned for whatever reason. Perhaps an empty fridge, an over-excited child. Who knew?
Grateful for the quiet but half-wishing Rabid was there to provide some kind of comfort, Julian went into the kitchen, leaning over the sink and feeling very sick. He fumbled for the water and scrubbed viciously at his hands, but it felt like the powdery grit that Yagadath had decomposed into wouldn't come off. He needed a shower. A scalding hot shower.
"Hnngh."
Unzipping the sweatshirt, looking down at the bloody mess of his shirt, he shuddered. It had been blind rage that had made him do it. He'd been threatening Crow...and that poor baby.... another child his twisted parents had sought to bargain off for their own benefit. Yagadath had deserved everything he got. Hot, sick loathing roiled in Julian's gut as he went into the bathroom, stripping off the sweatshirt and going to the sink again, trying one last time to get the horrible feeling of grit off his hands under the scalding water.
And then a person showed themselves. Kind of. The shower curtain peeled back and out peeked a very familiar black-haired head with an eyebrow raised, followed by a smaller, fuzzy one.
"...Julian? Rabid's...not...here...?"
Julian jolted with a strangled curse, whirling around and staring at Björn in unreasonable alarm. His face, already paled, had turned corpse-gray. Too late he tried to cover the bloodstains on his shirt, and he bolted for the door.
And Björn stood without hesitation, leaving Hellis in the tub of water, and met Julian about halfway down the stairs, catching him by the back of the neck. He was quite literally steaming as the water evaporated off of him.
"Woah, there."
"I didn't have a choice!"
The words exploded out of Julian before he could stifle them. He blinked, confused by the desperation in his own voice, and he shuddered under Björn's grip. His head bowed down, face still an unhealthy gray, and he went dead silent.
Björn turned Julian around, grabbing him by the shoulders and craning his neck down to him, brow furrowed in concern.
"Didn't have a choice in what?"
Julian shook his head hard, certain he would finally be sick if he dared to open his mouth. He gestured helplessly at his bloodied shirt, and slowly reached into intangibility to pull out...a syringe. He hadn't dared leave it at the scene in the hospital.
He shuddered again and dropped the syringe.
Oh, good God. It didn't take much more than that to realize that a, Julian had killed someone trying to kill him and b) this person's now non-existence made him feel guilty. Poor guy.
And then came the paternal instincts again. Damn them, and damn them to Hell. He gave a little noise and hugged Julian gently, not wanting to break anything.
"It's okay. I believe you."
Shocked senseless at first that Björn, who he had been so certain had really loathed him, gods knew why, wasn't regarding him with utter disgust, Julian couldn't really do much but stand there for a minute. Something in him broke a moment later, and he hung onto Björn in misery.
"He wasn't my father," he said, a note of desperation in his voice. "N-not. Not really. He...I was...he was going to hurt Crow. I couldn't let him do it again. He. He would've made her suffer, he was a monster."
The desperate tone had turned nearly manic now as Julian tried to explain himself, forgetting Björn had already said he'd believed him. A wild half-laugh escaped from him as he looked at the syringe.
"I had to," he said. "I had to."
"I know you had to," Björn nodded, "You did the right thing." And he believed it too, although he was already missing his target of hatred.
Hellis was standing in the ajar bathroom door now, dripping and watching the events playing out before him.
Julian's legs gave out from under him. It just sort of happened, and he was surprised by how he suddenly stumbled against Björn and sank to the floor. It was not grief that gripped him. He didn't know how to feel, outside confused and oddly frightened and quite sick.
OHJEEZE. Being so tall, Björn was forced to go down with with young man, and so sank to his knees and pulled Julian to him, trying to comfort him in every way he knew how, one hand rubbing Julian's back.
"It'll be okay."
Julian nodded mutely, rubbing at his inexplicably burning eyes and trying to hide that he was crying. He didn't know why. He honestly didn't. He'd hated the man the minute he'd seen him raise his hand to Crow.
"The first time I'd met Crow, she was running for her life from Yagadath," he said hoarsely. "The second time I met her, he'd nearly beaten it out of her. I don't care that I killed him. He deserved it."
So why did he feel so ******** sick?
Björn's face contorted further. ******** beat Crow? If he'd known that before Julian'd gotten to him, he would have done it himself. The man sighed and closed his eyes a moment, giving Julian a brief kiss on the top of the head.
"It's natural to feel like you do," he nodded, "It's remorse. You took a life, you feel bad about it. It doesn't matter who it was. I get the same way."
Julian nodded again, eyes still fixed on the floor. Incidents of cutting throats and razing an entire city to the ground while under the influence of pure evil notwithstanding, Julian had really only ever killed two people. It was a terrible feeling to try to get used to.
"Doesn't get easier, does it," he said, not asking, merely stating. He moved as though to stand, but couldn't do it. He contented himself to lean against Björn and tried not to pass out, feeling rather disgusted with how weak he probably seemed.
Relieved that neither man was regarding him with the revulsion he'd expected, Julian simply sat there, silently contemplating a small spatter of blood on the hem of his shirt.
"I sh...I should. I should go home," he managed, finally. "I need to clean up. Before...before Crow gets home. I need to..."
He swallowed hard.
"I should tell her. Later."
Björn let go and pulled back.
"You can get cleaned up here, and be careful who you tell," he said seriously, "What some people don't know...won't hurt them."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:56 pm
Dissection
Adult content. Read at your own discretion, because I don't want to hear any whining.
Julian was deeply involved in studying anatomy, mostly to keep his mind from wandering back to the murder he'd committed less than a week ago. He was poring over aged and new books obsessively, taking extensive notes, sketching out muscles and bones and paths of nerves. He stayed up late and got up early, throwing himself into his work to get some semblance of peace.
All things considered, it was working rather well.
"I wish there was at least something on Vavvian anatomy," he said idly one afternoon, mostly to himself, reading three books at once and taking more notes than was necessary.
Liam wandered by, peering over Julian's shoulder.
"Nobody knows we exist," he said after a bit and dragged a chair over, straddling it backward.
"More's the pity," Julian said absently, carefully sketching the inner workings of a satyr heart from the grotesque picture in the leather-bound, rather evil looking book in front of him. "Just wishful thinking. Vavvians are interesting..."
Finishing the sketch, he moved on to a bigger book, obsessively flipping through it and scanning the pages.
"Hhhn..." he sighed, sitting back and cracking his back. "Need reading glasses..."
A sudden idea struck him, and he glanced at Liam.
"Wouldn't be possible to snag a Vavvian-written book on the species, then, huh?" he asked casually.
Liam shook his head, smiling slightly.
"If such a book exists, you'd need to find someone to read it to you. Why not just...autopsy one?" His intentions were not clear but, from the infection in his voice, it was clear he had some.
"Mm, yeah, there's that," Julian said regretfully, knuckling at an eye. He laughed slightly, grinning ruefully at Liam. "Would if I could. A species no one else has studied..."
He sighed again, looking absently into the distance. The research opportunity was painfully tantalizing...and it would give him something to occupy himself with, rather than stew over the irrevocable. He gave Liam a mild look, smiling a little.
"Offering a minion? I'd pay you back. Er, well...you could take one of the donated bodies from the university morgue, overstocked since some nasty highway accident last week..."
Liam's smile grew and he shook his head again, slowly.
"It's much more interesting when they're alive, don't you think?"
Julian looked at his book again, frowning slightly.
"In theory," he said eventually. "Seeing blood flow, how the heart would work...it'd be..."
Julian trailed off as a strange notion dawned on him. He looked at Liam speculatively.
"It would take a while," he said, carefully keeping his words casual and without implication. "Hours. Very precise dissection. Possible removal of organs for measurement and specimens."
Liam's smile just broadened further and he arched a brow, bringing his chin up to rest between his thumb and index finger. Need more be said?Julian regarded Liam coolly for a moment, mouth scrunching to one side as he thought it over.
"Okay. But we do not, under any circumstance, ever tell Crow. She would kill me with fire and burning."Liam grinned now. It was a slightly unnerving expression, but it was there nonetheless.
"Mum's the word," he nodded slowly.
Julian nodded once, and hopped up from his chair, rescuing his beaten coat and bag from under a teetering mound of books.
"Alright. C'mon, if we go now we'll have time to get dinner later."
Liam nodded and slid from his chair.
"The digestive system is just as amazing. You owe me food while we're there."
--
It was only once they'd reached the halls of the hospital that Liam began feeling a little...wary.
"How, exactly are we go--room 16, dead--gonna get in there? I don't exactly look like a doctor. Corpse, maybe, but not a doctor."
"I got it covered," Julian said with a small smile, though he looked warily into room sixteen and winced at the sight of weepy family members hovering over a man that was undeniably dead. "Oof. Mister Garret, no one could catch pneumonia at that age and survive..."
Walking casually through the halls towards the morgue, they had nearly reached the double doors leading into the basement when a familiar voice piped up behind him.
"Adyamaur. For heaven's sake, can't you take a damned day off?"
"Sedra," Julian said, looking around and then looking down. A particularly tiny woman glared back up at him, dressed in surgical scrubs. She glared at him.
"New intern," he said pleasantly, pointing to Liam. Sedra glanced at him, nodding once.
"Pleasure," she said, instantly looking back up at Julian. "Don't do anything stupid. I know it's a challenge, seeing as you function on unheard-of levels of idiocy, but please try it."
Julian snorted.
"Sedra U'Maaki, you have no faith in me at all," he said with a grin, waving goodbye and leading Liam along through the corridor and through the double doors.
"Wow," Liam snorted, "Who pissed in her cheerios? Have fun trying to explain why the 'new intern' never shows up again."
"Hnn? Oh, heh, that's just how she is all the time. She's kinda sweet, once you get past the terrifying way she brandishes scalpels at you when you misfile paperwork," Julian said with a wry grin. "Though she'd probably be less bitter if they'd just give her the chief of surgery position...gods know, it'd make working with her less frightening."
He paused, thinking on how he'd have to explain away the lie.
"Damn. That's probably gonna cost me an eye..."
As they approached the morgue, deeply out of place loud rock music echoed down the brightly lit, obsessively clean corridor. Julian sighed and pushed the door open. A gangly scarecrow of a man was singing off-key and bobbing his head as he finished up with a largish corpse, covering it up with a sheet and stripping off his bloodied gloves.
"Andy," Julian called. The gangly man didn't hear. "ANDY!"
The man jumped, looking around, and bent over another shrouded body, lifting the sheet to see if it was what had made the noise. Julian clapped a hand to his forehead.
Liam laughed. Loudly.
"I should. I so should."
He liked this weird guy already. Bizarrely-proportioned, listening to good music, and working with corpses. Perfect.
"Nooo. Don't you dare, Andy does not need another zombie incident," Julian said, trying to sound stern but laughing anyway.
"Julian! Jeez, you never come down here, less'n U'Maaki has ya on stiff-duty," the man called Andy said jovially, washing his hands and wiping them dry on his jeans. He was youngish, with thick glasses and a distinct air of one who didn't much care for going into the sun. "Not looking for another coma patient ended up in the wrong wing, are ya?"
Julian laughed again, shaking his head.
"Nah. Showing a new intern around. He wanted to get in practice, but the Schoolhouse is full. Any unclaimed lying around?"
"Lying, sitting, and curled up in the fetal position," Andy said, pointing to a sad little cluster of shrouded gurneys. "Damned mass cult suicides. I was gonna pop out and get lunch anyway, see if I can't sneak into Schoolhouse and steal one'a those little French cookie things they always have for afters."
"Don't steal their food, Andy, the sorostitutes always nibble all of them and spread their mouth-herpes."
"Mm. Delicious, delicious herpes," Andy said dreamily. "Anyway! Have fun," he said to Liam with a grin. "Nobody's gonna make much fuss if ya have a little study-session with our dearly departed Church of the Great Wool Handkerchief or whatever the hell they were."
Liam laughed near-hysterically and entered the morgue without a care, inviting himself to peer in at various corpses. Hmm...too old, too small...too rigor-mortis-ed.
Waving Andy off as he set off cheerily upstairs, Julian wandered into the morgue with a slight smile.
"So. Yeah. That's Andy," he said, turning down the blasting stereo a few notches, so that he wouldn't have to shout. "You can have one after we're done. Go for one of the Does, though, no one with any positive ID."
Going to a clean table, he took a notebook and recorder from his bag and set them on the trolley beside it. He left for a moment and returned with a surgical gown, a visor pushed up on his hair and a mask clenched in his teeth as he awkwardly tied the gown up.
"Okay. Andy's lunches last ages, so we'll be good for two hours or so," he said, donning gloves. "Ready?"
Liam nodded and pulled his shirt off over his head, leaping on the table, starting to unbutton his pants, and then putting his hands in the air.
"We goin' all-out here?"
Busy examining a bonesaw as though debating whether it was necessary or overkill, Julian glanced over his shoulder at Liam and gave a mild shrug.
"Sure. If you get uncomfortable I can give you a cloth to cover up with," he said, dragging the mask over his face and adjusting the visor.
"Pretty sure I ain't gonna freak out on ya," Liam laughed and stripped down. And so he realized that his girlfriend's brother had seen more of him than his girlfriend had...and he laughed as he laid down.
"Have at it, Kevorkian."
Julian smiled a little, though the mask obscured it, and turned on his recorder. He picked up a scalpel, and drew a long line down Liam's chest. He adjusted the recorder's microphone and spoke softly in Rijani, working steadily and stopping here and there to make exploratory cuts, examining with infinite interest.
Nothing out-of-the-ordinary yet. Normal flesh, just like a human's...but no blood? Clearly Liam was holding it back. It was only when the delayed sting of the cuts hit him that he laughed, fitting his head better into the corpse-hold.
"Yenno, they should make these things more comfortable."
Julian gave a snort.
"I'll be sure to pass the request onto Andy," he said mildly, peeling back a layer of skin and making a small notation in his notebook. "He'd probably knit something for you."
He pointed at Andy's office on the other side of the morgue, a brightly lit room with a mound of yarn and an unfinished blanket huddled in one corner.
"Alrighty. Gonna break your sternum, hope you don't mind," he said then, putting the scalpel down and picked up the neglected bone saw, turning it on and cutting carefully. Feeling distinctly creepy for a second, wondering what Crow would do to him if she knew what was going on, he rummaged around for clamps. "Hnn. Here a second ago..."
So far, so...well. Bad. Nothing exciting, and nothing even exceptionally painful. Flesh wounds. Eh.
"Feel free."
A moment's more rummaging yielded the elusive clamps. Victorious, Julian turned back to Liam and set to separating the ribcage.
Just like surgery, he thought, as another pang of discomfort nagged at him. ...without anesthesia. Besides, not like I'm torturing him. He volunteered.
Why Liam had volunteered was beyond his reasoning, however.
There were a few moments of plain discomfort as the ribcage strained...and then it popped open. Liam gasped and his chest arched hard, and then he gave a little noise and relaxed slowly, jerking with each breath, eyes half-closed and rolled back in his head. And he was...grinning?
Ah. So that was why. Julian eyed Liam's expression in morbid fascination for a moment before looking down again, picking up the scalpel. He paused, adjusting the overhead lamp and looking at Liam's innards with something quite akin to awe.
"Wow..."
"Sorry," Liam finally managed to whisper.
Vavvian innards were...interesting, to say the least. The hearts were abnormally large, and the entirety of Liam's blood seemed to be pumping in a continual circle around his, avoiding the rest of his body, save his brain. And yet he was still alive? No kidneys, no liver, no pancreas of any such silliness, two lungs that led separately to the gills, and a pair of entirely useless intestines.
Highly-evolved creatures, these were.
"Don't be," Julian said eventually, tearing his eyes away from the the lungs and resisting the temptation to start cutting into it. "No...you're enjoying it, that's what's...wow, Liam, I didn't know you had two hearts..."
Trailing off for a beat, he started speaking rapid-fire Rijani into the recorder microphone as he scribbled notes, he wished bitterly that he'd thought to bring his camera along. Contenting to sketch quickly, he examined the intestines and cut experimentally into one, peeling back the wall of tissue to look inside.
Entirely clean. Nothing had ever passed through said intestine. Ever.
"Mmhm," Liam nodded, slowly gaining control over himself again, "And watch." And the hearts began pumping at odd rhythms, blood circulating now to both arms, and only the arms. He wiggled his pink fingers at Julian.
"Woogedy."
Julian watched with distinctly childlike interest, scribbling page after page of notes almost giddily.
"Never seen that kind of control over body function before," he said, marking down lines and dashes in a manic attempt to map out the heart rhythms. He went on in Rijani at length, closing the hole he'd made in the spotless intestine and moving on to poke at a lung.
"Careful. You take both'a those away and your living specimen becomes very quickly dead," Liam nodded, "D'you have any food 'round here? Got 'nother trick for ye." He tried to sit up, found that amazingly painful, and decided to lay back down before he lost control.
"Oops! Right, right, I'll leave those alone," Julian said quickly, quickly drawing away his scalpel with a morbid twinge of disappointment. At the question, he glanced 'round towards Andy's office. "Probably. One second."
A few moments of rummaging in the office yielded a box of gummy bears, a bag of pork rinds, and fruit roll-ups. Julian returned with his dubious offerings, shaking his head slightly.
"Can't for the life of me understand how he can live off this crap," he said, sniffing at the pork rinds investigatively.
Liam wrinkled his nose. Ugh. Whatever. Food was food. He stole a gummy bear and popped it in his mouth. Chewed, swallowed, and pointed to his chest. The colored bit of gelatin could actually be seen in a small bulb beneath his heart. The flesh was clear there, and the thing dissolved...and some kind of clear goo rushed through previously unexplained tubes in his arms, wrists, and...sweet Jesus. The goo pooled in his hands and he held one up to Julian.
"Body absorbs what it needs, excretes the rest. Much cleaner than you humanoids, I must say. Like...fish-mucus. Kinda gross, but not as gross." He kept his hands cupped so as to not accidentally spill unexplained fluids. THAT would be a bit hard for Julian to explain away. He thought for a moment.
"OOH! OOH! Another trick. Smother me."
Taking notes so quickly the pen flew out of his hand at one point and he had to go running to find it, Julian gave Liam a look that said clearly this was the equivalent of getting a diamond-encrusted magic puppy for his birthday.
"It's so efficient," he said ecstatically, doing squiggly sketches of the tubes. He was considering asking to take a sample of the goo as a specimen when he suddenly balked. Smother? Oh...but...but the last time he'd done that...
The sudden unwelcome memory of Yagadath crumpling dead onto the floor was coupled with the vivid recollection of Liam thrashing and dying by Julian's hand, and he had to take a second to collect himself. He was glad his face was obscured by the mask and visor.
"Okay," he said, cupping his hand over Liam's nose and mouth warily. After a beat he pinned the gills down as well.
Liam shook his head, placing one of Julian's hands over his nose and mouth and the other in his 'hair'. He had no problem covering his own gills. And so, nose, mouth, and gills covered...his lungs still inflated? What?
"Huh! How did...but... Liam, how'd you do that?" Julian asked, the momentary disruption of traumatic memories instantly forgotten. It didn't make any sense at all, and it thrilled him to be faced with such an interesting puzzle.
And Liam just nodded up toward Julian's hair-hand. Wait, what?
Julian regarded Liam blankly for a second before it clicked.
"Gill filaments," he said slowly. "Your hair...wow. Jeez! That's...Liam, that's so ******** cool!"
Liam laughed.
"'S why it doesn't grow," he shrugged, "You cut it, it stays cut. Much more effective under water, though. You can see the bubbles n' s**t. Now, that's all I have to show you. You may go back to prodding."
Nodding vigorously, filling up ten pages with notes in a space of five minutes, Julian set to cutting and prodding again. There were a few specimen bottles on the trolley, and he cut a small sliver of intestine off and examined it very closely before sticking it into the waiting container.
"Tch. Wish we could've done this sooner," he said, mostly to himself nearly an hour and an extra twelve pages of notes later. His liking for Liam, which had hovered around polite civility for close to two years, had skyrocketed into admiring affection in a short space of time. "Feel like wrapping up?"
Liam gave a nervous little breath and nodded.
"Sure. Just don' drag it out too long."
Julian just nodded, cheerily slicing open a lung and taking fifteen minutes or so to do a quick diagram and take another sample.
"Well, that'll do it," he said, screwing the specimen bottle's cap back on tightly. "Which leads to the question, how do we fix the absolute trainwreck I've made of your organs. And skin. And muscle tissue."
He paused, looking at the mess speculatively.
"Gods, Crow would bash my head in with a baseball bat for this."
Liam gave a weak laugh.
"Your choice. Stab me through the heart or remove the brain. Up to you."
Julian hadn't counted on this part. In all truth, he hadn't even thought that it would come to killing Liam again. With a slight shiver that he was careful not to let Liam see, he raised the scalpel again.
"Heart, then," he said, keeping his voice calm even as his insides suddenly began to roil. "We can go get dinner after I clean up."
And without another moment's hesitation, he stabbed Liam through the heart.
Liam sat up suddenly, giving a painful-sound cough. Clearly Julian hadn't thought too hard on seeing his body deprived of blood in deciding to...remove the blood. The color slowly drained form his face. Painfully slowly. It was that discomfort again, and a tear or two ran down Liam's cheek. ******** then his eyes closed. Fingers scrabbled at the table a moment...and then?
"Well, that was fun!" Liam took a hesitant poke at his still-erect body before starting to get dressed, "Your treat, right?"
Flinching but making himself watch, Julian took a few more notes before the newly-resurrected Liam popped out from under the table.
"Yup," he said, stripping off his gloves and pressing a hand to the old body's face. Fire blossomed and crawled all over the corpse in unnaturally controlled paths, burning white hot and tidily destroying the evidence of the past few hours activities. "Anywhere you like, excluding fast food."
Liam pointed.
"That is so ******** cool...and hold on. I wanna pick a new baby first." And so he went back, searching through the body bags until he found that perfect someone to minion-ize. A "doe", just as Julian had instructed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:22 pm
Abroad
Jeddeth was terribly bored.
It was a pleasant enough day, true. There was plenty to do around the grounds, but after spending a good deal of time living in the woods like a feral animal, Jeddeth had had his fill of the great outdoors to last a while. Lenore and Ethan had plenty of video games, but they were mostly horror titles and Jeddeth had had his fill of that too, over an eventful span of over eight hundred years. Besides, his fingers were too long and it made holding the controllers awkward. And there were books, but they were all either World War II history books or novels or medical journals.
Jeddeth was not interested in either of these subjects.
So, he sat on the couch that still served as Julian's bed - Crow had never gotten around to telling the poor man that it folded out into a mattress - and scratched at his scaly arms where they were shedding.
"I am bored," he announced to the room. The only thing to hear him was Cole, who pricked his ears at Jeddeth and ambled over.
"Grnnf," the zombie-like dragon said, blinking smoldering ember-like eyes at him.
"Cole. Find me something to do," Jeddeth said imperiously. Cole's ears set back and he dissolved into shadow, sliding across the floor and nesting in a corner of the ceiling. Jeddeth frowned. "No fair."
After an hour or two of throwing things at the Cole-shadow splotch on the ceiling, trying to coax the dragon down, Jeddeth gave a long sigh and got up, pulling his hood over his head. Time to go outside.
---
"I don't remember the sun being so bright."
Talking to himself since there was no one else around, Jeddeth squinted and shielded his still-sensitive eyes, dragging the hood lower over his face. He wasn't sure if he liked the sunlight or not. All he remembered of sunlight before was a dim, greenish shine that passed almost seamlessly into the brighter, beautiful night. Here, night was sorely disappointing. But then, Jeddeth reflected, it wasn't like he'd ever really seen the stars at night, right? He still wasn't used to the pair of jelly-like blobs that flicked around in his head. Sometimes their dizzying movement would make him feel ill, which in itself was something new.
Absorbed in his thoughts, trying not to feel nauseous every time his eyes moved in his skull, Jeddeth plowed right into another boy on the sidewalk.
"Watch it!"
"I'm sorry," Jeddeth said, not really meaning it. He continued on his way, but felt suddenly unpleasantly choked as the teenager grabbed him by his collar and dragged him back a step. The boy's clothing was soaked with cola and a hotdog that had been on its way to his mouth had been introduced to his shirt instead, leaving streaks of relish and ketchup.
"Look what you did!" the boy hissed angrily. "Gimme that ******** sweatshirt so I can cover up!"
"No," Jeddeth said, tone mildly surprised. Why would he give up his shirt? He didn't much care for clothes, but Crow had told him wearing shirts and pants was important, even if he didn't see the ******** you! If you'd been watching where the hell you were going, I wouldn't need it in the first place. Give it to me, you mangy s**t!"
Jeddeth regarded the overblown abuse with disinterest; it did little to rattle one who'd been whipped with chains until he was little more than a quivering lump of meat and had his tongue impaled for making mild remarks about the weather. Being called a few ugly names meant next to nothing.
"Unhand me," he said calmly, "Before I gouge out your eyes with my fingers and forcefeed them to you."
The boy hesitated. Jeddeth flexed his long, long fingers, and wiped one across the boy's shirt. Some relish came off, which he sniffed at before tasting. A tongue forked like a serpent's darted out between his lips and licked his finger clean.
The boy Jeddeth had bumped into decided to walk in the opposite direction very, very quickly.
---
An hour later, eating relish out of a jar he'd bought at the supermarket, Jeddeth wandered along feeling oddly content with the world. He passed two bickering men on the sidewalk, one barely older than eighteen and the other managing to look young and rather elderly in a mean sort of way at the same time.
"Isaiah, for the last ******** time. If you're gonna play bloody knuckles, you can't jerk your hands away when the quarter comes at ******** off, Oliver. I didn't want to play this goddamn game anyway."
"Then why'd you ask to play it?"
"Shut. Up."
The older-but-younger man made to reply, but noticed Jeddeth looking at them. He gave a cool stare, one corner of his mouth tweaking in an unpleasant expression.
"What."
Jeddeth shrugged.
"Nothing."
The younger boy, Isaiah, punched the man called Oliver in the shoulder.
"Can you be civil to random passerby for like...five minutes?"
"Why? We eat them."
"OLIVER."
Jeddeth left the pair to their bickering, stopping only to catch a rock that a little girl in a hooded sweatshirt of her own had throw experimentally at him. The child regarded him silently, odd purple tendrils of light wavering behind her like a mutant shadow. Jeddeth bit the rock in half.
"Cool," the child said.
"Sometimes," Jeddeth replied, spitting out a broken tooth.
---
Another half hour's worth of wandering brought Jeddeth to a rather arty sort of street, filled with restaurants and overpriced shops. A hole-in-the-wall record store caught his eye, mostly because of the man sitting out in front of it on a milk carton, playing a battered guitar. He wore aviator sunglasses and had long, messy dreadlocks, the latter of which sat slightly crooked on his hooked nose and the former which sometimes got in his guitar's strings.
"What are you doing?" Jeddeth asked curiously.
"Nothin'," the man replied, untangling his hair from the guitar patiently. "Sittin'. You?"
"Asking you questions."
The man gave a curious half-grin, as though he was too lazy to form the expression all the way.
"Got me there."
"Darry," a shorter man said, poking his head out the window of the record store. "You want lunch?"
"'kay. Throw it."
"Catch."
The shorter man threw a badly-wrapped sandwich at Darry's face. He caught it, smashing it against his nose. A bit of mayonnaise geysered out, but Darry was unperturbed.
"You throw like a girl, Roman."
"Better'n you, noodle-arms."
Darry snorted, and licked some mayonnaise off his hand. He tore the sandwich in half and offered it to Jeddeth.
"Want some?"
Jeddeth brightened, nodding silently and sitting on another milk crate, eating the sandwich wrapping and all.
---
By the time Jeddeth got home, the sky had darkened and fireflies were wandering dizzily around the grounds. Worrying the empty spot where his broken tooth had been, already itching as a new tooth had begun to grow, Jeddeth clutched at his milk crate that was now stuffed with old records and tapes Darry had slipped to him when the moody, shorter man called Roman wasn't looking. Another bottle of relish was clutched like it was a precious treasure in his other hand. Humming an old Ularna aria as he kicked the apartment door open, he felt, for the first time ever, really, like a normal person.
It was a rather pleasant feeling.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 7:40 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 5:13 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
