Minus Human

When Georgie was a little girl, her dad had read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to her. Her mother, Josephine, never liked the idea of reading ‘nonsense books’ to her daughter, as she used to call them, but Adam was more relaxed when it came to Georgie’s literary ambitions. Besides, he enjoyed those kind of books, weirdly enough.
Georgie used to love the story of Alice, who fell down the rabbit hole and entered a magical world. She always wondered how it must have felt, falling down that hole, miles and miles, feeling weightless, not knowing what was expecting her once she reached the bottom. She was so sure that it must be terribly exciting.

It wasn’t terribly exiting after all. It was only terrible.
Georgie didn’t know where she was, but she felt like she was falling deeper and deeper down a hole. She felt like she was in a state of trance but at the same time awake.
Her shoulders felt strangely light… She turned her head slightly, and even that tiny movement hurt. Her hair…there was no hair falling over her shoulders anymore. What happened while she fell down the rabbit hole?

And then, as if she just reached the bottom of the rabbit hole and hit the ground, a terrible pain rushed through her entire body.
Lenna!
Georgie wanted to scream but she was numb. Paralysed.
Her sister…Gone.
Georgie closed her eyes, trying to feel Lenna’s heartbeat.
Nothing.

“Lenna…,” Georgie whispered. The soft, little hairs on her arms stood up as a shiver went through her body, and then, out of nowhere, she felt another sharp pain in her stomach, as if someone had stuck thousand needles in it. She almost forgot to breathe.
No. This was not what she had expected to find at the end of the rabbit hole…

She knew her way around in the facility and she knew the way out. She belong to this facility it was her base but for the moment to get what she wanted she had to be the other one.




“DORDIE! DORDIE! Me no fishy, no fishy.” Elle is chocking on water. So much water, it is all around her. It is cold and wet but her lungs are on fire. It is dark. Her eyes are pushed into their sockets, the water is pushing onto everything. How do you breathe if there is no air but only water?

“I really don’t know what she sees in this yellow piece of shit. I mean look at it, it’s a traffic cone let’s do this.” Keres looked at the yellow car with disgust. Her cold blue eyes sparkled evil, she flipped her hand and the car just blew up. Every car-bomber would be jealous of the effect, there was nothing left of the yellow car.

"Geez, took you long enough, chica!" He shouted from below the window, then nodded to the car behind him. "What do you think?"


So much water. It was everywhere. But where is the top and where is the bottom? Where is the way out?

Keres got in the black standard SUV nothing special, no character, nothing that stands her out of the crowd. She put her hand in the black leather jacket and pulled out a drawing.
“This is more shit. Why would you keep this awful drawing.” The old piece of paper went off in smoke. Keres eyes were brightly shining another piece of Elenna Fee was erased off this world. “No one ever wanted you, and you know that. You drove them all away.”

Water is crushing down on her. It comes from all sides. There is no escape. How do you survive certain death?
What do you do in your last moments?
Who do you think of?
A sister?
A loved one?
Loving parents?
A lost brother?
So much water.

“They will break out, they are breaking out and all I need to do is meet them outside. But I guess I can’t look decent. After all I was tortured…” Keres looked in the mirror, she lifted her left hand and with one little flick she looked like she was tortured for weeks on end, like a broken girl, like the broken girl her friends they expected to see.

“I don’t know how I got out, I don’t know what happened.” Keres put on a pained and confused face, sounding out of breath. “I think in the confusion I got out, I was lucky I guess.”

---

OOC: Colour explanation the original page text colour is Keres, white text is Lenna.

He woke with another dude on top of him.

Not how he expected to wake up.

But he didn't know his own name so, hell, he might be gay?

Except there was too much--death, pain, blood, broken shit--around for this to be an amorous meeting. Still, "No homo," he felt the need to say.

"Come on, I'm getting you out of here," said the guy, brown hair and cowboy boots and about as familiar as country music to him, and only when the guy heaved him to his feet did he realize he couldn't walk. "I have a truck out back."

Of course he did. Cowboy boots.

"W-wait," he said, pulling against him, but the guy was determined to get him out, and he was too weak to protest. "There's--did I come in with...anyone?"

"Yeah. We can get them, too."

They struggled through the rubble and over people groaning and dying. Cowboy Boots hit shot at a door until it opened, and there--a familiar face! Blonde, not as pretty as she normally looked, he knew that--like, girl, where your Gucci at--but he knew her.

"Um!" he said. "I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you."

Cowboy Boots rolled his eyes at him.

She watched the confusion and horrors of the destroyed facility, people trying to save themselves forgetting friends and it made her smile. She looked like a broken girl but she was far from broken and not a girl anymore. A wicked smiled appeared on her dirty face, she lifted her right hand and caused a couple more explosions, roofs to collapse and if that didn’t help to kill of people crawling out she snapped her necks without touching them. It was the greatest pleasure to see all this death while she waited for her team -those moronic groups that SWORD wanted information on, and the child they created the newest and strongest weapon; how can anything be stronger than the angel of creation, she had the power to create and destroy the baby had not- she hated the idea of having a team of having to be with others. She hated humans with or without powers. But the two that had powers had to be deceived, the barrier to keep what was inside at its place was strong and could not be broken from the outside but she had to make sure that from the outside it didn’t look like a barrier. She masked it with an image, an image that would stop intruders from going any further.

After all who wouldn't stop at this?:

Georgie flinched when she heard a gunshot from the other side of the door, and when someone kicked it open she stepped back, already planning where to hide next but then she saw a familiar face. Two men showed up in front of her, and she briefly glanced at the guy who looked vaguely familiar before she turned her attention to Rome. She let out a sigh of relief when she realised he was still alive, even though he looked pretty miserable. She hadn’t seen him since…since when exactly? She didn’t know what day it was, how many weeks had passed…
She jumped forward and hugged him tightly, her heart racing in her chest. When she looked up she noticed a frown settling on his forehead.

“Rome…,” she said carefully, her eyes darting back to the other guy. What was he up to and why was he with Rome?
Rome looked like he was trying to figure out who she was. Something wasn’t right about the way he acted.

“Rome?” Georgie said, clearly irritated about Rome’s puzzled look. He seemed completely bewildered. What had they done to him? “It’s me, Georgie.”

Something flickered in his eyes, just briefly, but it looked like he was remembering at least something about her or this place.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” the other man said. “I’ve got my truck parked not far from here.”

Georgie eyed him warily.

“You can trust me,” he said calmly. “I’m on your side.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Do you have a choice?”

Georgie bit her lip, her glance shifting back to Rome. If they wanted to get out of here safely, they really didn’t have many possibilities left.
That same moment a sharp pain rushed through her stomach, which felt like someone had stuck a needle in it. She had felt this strange pain in her stomach area for a while now and was very sure those bastards had put something in her that made her feel constantly sick to her stomach.

“Are you okay?” The man next to Rome asked her.

“Do I look okay?” she snapped.

“Let’s get you all out of here,” he said, his voice remaining surprisingly calm in this situation.

Georgie looked at Rome one more time. There was something off, he didn’t seem like himself. But who of them really was still the same person they had been a few months ago?

This was going to be a headache. A massive, brain shattering migraine. The Remington kid wasn't even functional enough to walk on his own-- might've been drooling, Alex had no idea-- and the other woman looked about ready to keel over herself. He sighed and scrubbed his free hand through his hair.

"Alright, well... c'mon. Truck's this way," he said, nodding toward what had been the outside door. It was kind of... not a door, now, and he stepped over its remains with Remington. No one stopped them, which seemed odd to Alex until he realized there wasn't really anyone to do the stopping. Okay! So that was... terrifying. He tried not to think about it as they made their slow, annoyingly slow, painfully slow, dear God why were they so slow way to his truck where, surprise surprise, they had company. But she looked kind of like shit too, and she'd been with the others when they brought them all in, so Alex more or less wasn't surprised. He threw her a nod and went to unlock his truck.

"You girls in the back-- I'll keep an eye on the Jedi Master over here," he said as he led Remington around to the other side of the truck. "Put your belt on," he told him, and then slammed the door. He went back to the other side and yanked the door handle until it opened (the handle really did need replacing). He held his arm out to the two women, gesturing for them to climb in. "Just uh... shift that stuff. There's blankets on the floor, if you need 'em," he told them.

Keres grinned evil as she climbed in the back of the truck, nobody could see. As soon as she was sitting she looked pained and scared as Georgie climbed in after her. Rome in the front seat… well he was the cause of the destruction of the building so he looked pretty similar to the pile of rumble that was slightly smoking next to them. Keres knew they would go to a motel to lay low and decide what to do next. Keres looked at the radio for a while until… The SWORD guys that was committing treason by helping them -did he know what they did to the Fee girl, how they planned to turn her?- turned the key and the radio blared loudly what Keres needed, a commercial that she had created of a motel that had shut down the month before due to the death of the owners.

“Only this week stay at the motel that shuts down forever, come to The Little Corner Motel. We might be what you need to be away from everything.”

Keres let Lenna’s face look even more pathetic and pained before she started to cry and stutter. “M-maybe w-we c-could g-go th-there?”

“GEORGIE! ROME! YOU GOT TO HEAR ME! YOU GOT TO HELP ME OUT OF HERE! I AM STILL IN HERE! THIS IS NOT ME YOU ARE TALKING TO!!!” Lenna was hammering with her bloody fists against her prison walls, she saw what her body was doing but she had no control, trapped in her own mind, in a cage so well hidden and locked down that Lenna wasn’t even sure she ever could get out.


"Ich wünschte nur es wäre wieder du und ich, nicht alle anderen Rome.“ Lenna stuttered quietly. Keres shook and bit herself roughly on the lip hoping that no one heard the outbreak. It wasn't a good feeling when that little witch managed to break through the trap. Keres added another layer around her prisoner. A prison worst than any place on earth.


Oh my God! No, stop! Stop! Wake up! Wake up, Lenna, you're dreaming! Rome! Rome!! Wake me up!

---

OOC: Colour explanation the original page text colour is Keres, white text is Lenna.

His head hurt, but that wasn't the worst part. His nose was bleeding, but his body hurt and he was somehow exhausted by walking a few hundred feet--with help--and he was dripping blood all over the cabin of the biggest frigging Texas truck he had ever been in, and he couldn't even lift his hand to wipe his nose. But that wasn't the worst part, either.

Cowboy Boots was driving. Too fast, or else things were just moving slow for Rome. He lay there like so much dead weight, and couldn't buckle his own damn--whatever this was called. Seatbelt. And that wasn't even the worst part.

His own brother, his twin, whose name he couldn't even remember, had been possessed by a demon, helped to hunt him down and hurt him, and then had broken free of the demon somehow to save him, and now he was dead. But even that still wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was that the only name he remembered in the whole wide world was Lenna, his Lennie, his best friend, and she was dead.

((Note: Since Rome is kinda braindead, I may "move" other people's characters a bit to interact with him, and I'll write about things happening TO him rather than him doing things, for a little while. If you want me to change anything, let me know, or if you're an Admin, you are welcome to revise my posts going forward.))

Alex eyed the radio as one of his standby stations--the country one, but real country, none of that bullshit pop country garbage--played a commercial he'd never heard for a motel he was unfamiliar with. He briefly considered going elsewhere, but if he'd never heard of it probably it would be fairly quiet. And fairly quiet was just the thing for multiple super-humans and the biggest idiot ever to walk the Earth.

"Kid--come on, man, I said to buckle your seat," he said as they took a corner maybe a little fast and Remington slid precariously toward the middle of the old bench seat. Still driving with one hand, Alex elbowed him back into his own seat and groped briefly for the buckle. It was probably twisted, because the belts in this truck were perpetually twisted, but he managed to yank it over and buckle it.

In the rearview, both of the girls were, for the moment, quiet, though he supposed that could be anything from shock to terror to carsickness. They were alive, at least, because he could see occasional tiny movements--a twitch of a finger here, a slightly deeper breath there. He left them to it, returning his attention to the road and to driving.

When they reached the motel, he drove clear to the back, parked, and shut all the lights.

"Stay here. No...bein' weird. Just wait here," he told his three passengers before going and booking them a room, making up a story for the woman at the front desk about why he was out here driving on forgotten country roads in the middle of the night.

He got a room with two beds ("Sure, my suitcase will love not sleepin' on the floor," he'd jokes with the front desk woman) and headed back to his truck, praying it would still be there, be whole, and be functional. Not that any of the three escapees seemed fit more anything more rigorous than passing out, but Alex knew better than that. You just didn't trust the supernatural to ever pack it in for a few minutes while you did other things. That wasn't how life worked.

So he crunched back across the lot, whistling nonchalantly and flipping the key around his fingers, and prayed.

Alex Colt was good. She knew he booked them into a room, she knew the Remington kid was still not proper back in his boy and the blonde. She was in shock and the shorn hair didn’t make her look any better. Oh they are so easy to play, it is nearly too easy. Keres had to bite her lip to stop herself from grinning winningly. She closed her fist and it got so cold in the car, just to keep the blonde one and the Remington kid felt more uncomfortable.


“I don’t like it here.” Keres stammered with this wonderful weak and pathetic voice of Lenna, teeth shattering and general shaking. “Do you think we can trust him?”


Keres wasn’t even sure if the blonde even noticed who was sitting next to her.


Have you ever been at a dark place? Have you ever been in a fully black out? Have you ever been cold but knew nothing is there that can warm you up? Have you ever been trapped and didn’t know a way out? Did you ever drown but not die? What if you had a window in this room but no light would come in but you saw what was happening outside, you saw the people you love but they didn’t see you... Lenna was hammering against the window, trying to break it, trying to get out.

---

OOC: Colour explanation the original page text colour is Keres, white text is Lenna (not that anyone hears her)

“I must say, I’m disappointed you haven’t put the pieces together yet.”

Richard spun round in surprise, starting at the man with the well-trimmed beard and smart black outfit.

“Several months of memories nothing but a blank in your mind, and you do nothing about it,” the man continued.

“Hades…” Richard breathed. “I haven’t seen you since…”

“I know when,” interrupted Hades, a note of steel in his voice. “And I already know what excuse you are going to give, about reaching your quota.” Hades turned away, as if surveying something in the distance. “For once, there are more important concerns than the wayward spirts. There is somewhere you need to be…”

----------

Richard jolted awake in the motel room where he was staying. It took him a few minutes to regain his awareness of the surrounds. Assuming it wasn’t just some dream, that was the first time Hades had contacted him directly. His eyes landed on the map on the bedside table, and the neat writing next to an arrow saying ‘Go Here.’ Not just a dream then.

(Sorry it took so long)

"Richard," he said, with a small groan at the spike of that indicated a vision. That was a weird name to come up with. He wasn't even sure he knew a Richard.

The women behind him went quiet. "Who--where?"

The Cowboy yanked open the passenger side door for him to get out, but he really more melted into his arms, unable to support himself. "Richard," he said again.

And at that moment, a man that he felt must be Richard emerged from a hotel room, blinking around him and looking like he had woken up from a seven-year sleep.

Behind him, one of the women gave a cry.

((As always, let me know if you'd like me to revise any movement of your characters.))

Georgie didn’t know how long it had been exactly when they had last seen Richard, but even though he looked pretty rough himself a massive wave of relief passed over her when she saw him coming out of that motel room. She had no idea how he tracked them down and how he could have known that they were here out of all places but in that moment she didn’t even care.

Georgie gathered up her strength, jumped out of the car, passed Rome and the guy who had saved them and ran to her uncle who seemed a bit confused, as if he wasn’t actually sure what he was doing here. She didn’t even wear shoes and was aware that she most likely looked like a hobo – her favourite kind of look –, running over the parking lot barefoot and messy, but once again, she did not care.

“You’re alive,” she said while she put her arms around him. Without her usual high heels on she suddenly felt pretty short, and it reminded her of hugging her dad when she was a young girl. Of course Richard was in no way like her father but he was still family to her, and right now she was in desperate need of family.

She immediately pulled away from him when she felt that sickening pain in her stomach again that she had been feeling for a while now. It almost felt like something was eating her from the inside, sharp and agonizing. Rome and Lenna were too messed up themselves so she didn’t want to bother them with her own pain and tried to hide it but she had gotten to a point where she started to feel dizzy whenever the pain in her stomach grew stronger. She wanted to ask Richard how he knew where to find them but she was suddenly overwhelmed with dizziness and didn’t want him to see that something was seriously wrong, so she quickly turned the other way.
Despite the pain though she had felt something else. A strange energy, somewhat dark and sinister that rushed through her when she hugged Richard, which was also why she had pulled away so quickly. Suspicion grew in her, and she wondered what Richard had been up to while they were gone.

But nothing of it was real, Lenna wasn’t there anymore. Keres looked at the scene in front of her. Those hunters were really an odd bunch, it would be a pleasure to finish her job…

Alex found himself holding an armful of really wobbly, spaghetti-kneed Remington. This was not especially helpful to his being able to help the girls, though for what it was worth, the one took off running.

Not that he was going to be able to catch her, because see aforementioned Remington, who was probably going to melt into a puddle on the ground if Alex didn't continue holding him up.

Alex sighed, because of course this was his day, this was probably his entire life now. Maybe he would be stuck shepherding this lot around for the rest of eternity. It would certainly make his brother's haunting hobby a lot more boring for him. Maybe he would stop--not that Alex was entirely sure he wanted him to.

Though, apparently he didn't have to worry too much about chasing the girl down. Alex turned to look at Remington.

"So...is that Richard, or what? I hope it's Richard, or else your girl there might have a few screws loose," he told the younger man. Without waiting for an answer, he pulled Remington upright...sort of...for certain creative variations of upright...and nodded to the other woman.

"Look, I don't have enough hands, so either stay here and I'll come back and help you, or get up and follow us," he told her. And then he went after the other two, sort of half walking and half tripping as he dragged Remington along next to him.

"Yo, welcome to the party, I highly recommend doing back from whence you came before you get roped into being a part of it," he said to the man. "You Richard? 'Cause if not, this is gonna be really awkward. Like, "accosted by a hobo and her two friends and the guy who saved their assess," awkward."

"Here I am... now what?" muttered Richard as he dropped his pack on the motel bed. He'd arrived at the spot that had been marked on the map. This very motel in fact, but nothing seemed to be happening. There certainly didn't seem to be anything unusual in the area. Nothing that would get Hades so riled up to communicate so directly. Nothing to explain the memory loss.

He stepped out of the motel, trying to gather his thoughts. If there wasn't an obvious trail, he'd need to search for it. It wasn't as if it was just going to fall into his lap.

Lost in thoughts, Richard didn't she the disheveled girl until she was on top of him, and hugging him around the waist. For a moment he was about to push her away, but he paused. Something about her seemed... familiar... but also somewhat wrong.

She let go suddenly. Maybe he'd been wrong, and she was just drunk or crazy.

Then a voice spoke to him by name. A large man struggling to hold another up, and another girl hanging behind the others. Either they'd had one helluva party and just got his name correct by chance, or this was a hunt gone very, very wrong. And given the gap in his memories...

"Did I work with a group?" he muttered to himself, a little surprised. He shook his head then addressed the large man, the only one who didn't seem worse for wear. "I'm Richard. But I think some explanations are needed. Maybe from both sides," he said guardedly.

The youngest of the group sat down very slowly she seemed to be in pain all over. “Didn’t get that easy off did you? Can’t even remember your own niece? What did they do to you? I never knew you had special powers SWORD could use.”

She looked past Richard at Alex. “So you wanna explain what side you are on? I saw you, you were one of SWORD.” For a brief second the girls eyes flickered bright blue but not long enough to appear to be more than the light reflecting oddly. At least that is what the group would tell themselves. Keres knew Alex, of course she did but she wasn’t sure how much he knew of the plan of her.

Not long before the group got back together, when SWORD was still standing, before they ended up in a Motel, or Richard had remembered them “kind of” and Keres pretended to be her stupid, childish and silly little body’s personality.


Keres had driven not far from the SWORD headquarters to the kind of small town you can just find here in the US, all it had was a small superstore -you know the kind of store that is large enough to house the entire town population- and at least to bars. Keres was sitting in the smaller shadier one. The girl cleaning the tables looked barely older then the girl still screaming inside Keres head.

“If you would just shut up I would be able to think a lot clearer.” Keres snarled at Lenna.
“Ich glaube wohl du hast nicht mehr alle Tassen im Schrank, wenn du wirklich glaubst das ich so einfach aufgebe. Ich werde deine Migräne sein die niemals aufhört.” Lenna screamed back.
“Seriously? I am in your head you stupid piece of a girl. I can just as well German as you do.”

Keres followed the bar girl with her eyes. It was crazy that the girl was still in this bar. She could be so much more with powers like hers. Keres knew the girl was just about to go home and that would be her moment.

Yellow-Eyed did quite well with you, hasn’t he? I take my hat off for you Yellow-Eyed.

She didn’t have to wait long and the bar girl said her goodbyes and went into the dark night and Keres finished her scotch and followed her. Eyes bright blue and her hair look different to Lenna’s usual ones too, but it was not just that Lenna holds herself differently. Not shy any more -at least not all the time- but not like Keres. The SWORD agent is oozing confident and an I-can-do-anything attitude.

“Hey.”

The girl turned around looking a little bit surprised hearing the voice of a stranger but when she saw Keres, confident and high self-esteem but still 5’4” and not more than 100 pound small, the girl relaxed her stance.

Oh you silly girl, I might be smaller than you but even if you’d be able to control your powers you would be no match for me.

“Are you lost or something? The last bus left two hours ago and there won’t be another one until the morning.” The girl said, it was the type of small town where everyone knew everyone and if not by name they knew their face.

“No I am not lost, I am right where I am meant to be. Tell me, how does it feel knowing you are the reason why your house burnt down when you where six months old? Knowing that it was your fault your parents died and you are alive only by a freak accident and a burst pipe?” Keres snarled. Lenna could snap and manage to sound angry, she had a mom voice or a teacher’s voice but never like this. Keres sounded downright deadly dangerous.
The girl stumbled and didn’t know what to say, Keres was standing right in front of her now. A flicker of panic rising in the girls eyes, the air seemed denser all the sudden.

“Oh you can try girl, but you never used your powers and frankly it is not worth you trying. I will hunt all of his special children down. All including his favourite.” Keres lifted her hand and with a snip of her finders the girls inside turned to soup and she was dead. Sure Yellow-Eyed wouldn’t be happy about it but in the long rung she did him a favour and once Keres found him he would not have long to complain anyway. She would take him out just like she did with his little special child.

“Special my ass…” Keres laughed as she walked to her car. For once Lenna was quiet in her head, maybe seeing how easily Keres was able to kill now had shut her up for once. Keres knew Lenna wouldn’t be quiet for long.

Alex looked down at the girl on the ground and shrugged one shoulder. He'd have offered her a hand up, but he was still holding Remington up, so it didn't seem like a good option.

"Well, I could, but I'm sure not doin' it out here," he told her and Richard both, nodding to the surrounding parking lot. Empty or not, he wasn't about to discuss SWORD and freaky supernatural things out in the open where they could just as easily be overheard.

He adjusted his hold on Remington, who was slipping down slowly but surely, and turned toward the hotel room. "You're kinda heavy for a skinny little guy they were barely feeding," he muttered at the other man, not expecting an answer but just as loathe to turn and walk away from the group without breaking the awkward silence. He guessed someone else might have asked if the others were alright, or else tried to make small talk, but he already knew they weren't alright, and he wasn't great at making idle conversation with people he actually liked, much less a bunch of kids (and one old guy) that he had rescued from his ex-employers.

At least, not if they were going to make idle conversation back at him. Remington was clearly in no shape to do that.

"Are y'all comin', or not?" he asked, halfway across the tiny parking lot, when he didn't hear footsteps behind him, and he paused to look over his shoulder. "You wanted story time, right? It's not happenin' out here. Up to you, but even the cheapest dump in town's got better chairs and beds than you've seen in weeks," he told them.

Somehow, they end up inside a motel room, all four of them to sleep in two queens. It was a blur for Rome, and he felt like Cowboy, somehow, took care of everything with an air of someone who is doing this to atone but also wasn't happy about it.

Blonde hair, G--she ran straight to the bathroom, and the sounds of retching followed. Rome wished he could throw up. He'd probably feel better, too.

"SWORD," Rome said, slowly, when no one talked. "Supernatural, Witchcraft, and Occult Reconnaissance and Defense. It was on the walls of my...cell. They--wanted us. Took us."

Thinking was like running a marathon, and speaking was like trying to hold a conversation while doing so. But Rome's brain, overtaxed though it was, had all this information, and more, he just couldn't process it. "My brother..."

Was working with Holyfield. Betrayed us. Was, maybe, possessed by a demon. "Is dead."

Rome felt himself beginning to cry, but he didn't care. He felt raw and open, his mind as full of welts and sores as his body.

"L-lenna..."

He couldn't finish that sentence.

He didn’t see her, or didn’t want to believe she was there or rather didn’t think of her as corporeal.


Just the way it was planned.

Keres grinned, though only on the inside the body of the brunette just looked broken and distraught.

It was quite a bit of fun to trap your dear brother just like you little witch did so many years ago, though her attended was pathetic. He didn’t just walk out of it when I did it, slowly extracting any bit of water from his body. Not even you would recognize your brother dearestbrother dearest.

Keres had to test how much Alex knew about her mission, looking at the Empath it was a full success. The weapon they wanted was preparing.

“What should we do next?” What a pathetic voice the brunette had, it annoyed Keres to sound so weak. She was far from weak, if she wanted she could end all their misery lives with the wave of her hand. She was looking from Rome to Alex, she had to find a moment to catch him alone. He was clearly a deserted of the cause, she wasn’t sure what broke him but he was not with SWORD anymore… most likely.


It felt safe here, warm and she was alone but somehow she wasn’t? Everyone was there at least a ghost of them. Lenna was trapped -she knew in her own mind- but for now Keres or whatever this thing using her body called itself couldn’t pin her down in one place. She was sure the Keres could not find her but she couldn’t get out either. Once in a while like the speakers in a stadium were overpowering her defense at least so much that she saw what was happening and she saw Rome mourn her, not see her, why didn’t he look at her? However Rome ignored her she had hope that Rome was able to get in without Keres noticing, he was her savior, her hero. The one she trusted with her life. He’d come guns blazing like when the witch hunters had her. “Romeo!”

---

OOC: Colour explanation the original page text colour is Keres, white text is Lenna (not that anyone can hear her)

Not long after they had entered the motel room, Georgie felt her head spinning and her stomach started hurting again, like someone had kicked her in the gut. She tried to ignore it, bit her lip while she focused on the other guys. She tried not to be too obvious but she couldn’t keep herself from glancing in Richard’s direction all the time. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t seen her uncle in such a long time, but he seemed different. Changed. Something was off, and she had felt it the moment she had hugged him. The guy who had helped them – Max? No, Alex – was talking to Rome who looked like he was going to pass out any moment. Georgie took a few deep breaths, ignoring the growing nausea. Why was she feeling like this? What the hell had they injected her with? Had they given her rat poison while she had been unconscious?
She exchanged a brief glance with Richard, who seemed serious, almost grim, but then the nausea overwhelmed her and she stormed into the bathroom. She just about managed to put up the toilet seat, her legs and arms trembling. She hoped she would feel better after she’d throw up, but she didn’t. She got up slowly, her legs still shaky, and splashed cold water in her face. She grabbed the small towel next to the sink – normally she would have never used that towel without first making sure that it was clean, since she never trusted motel towels – but she couldn’t care less right now and wiped the water off her face. She slowly lowered the towel, looking at her own reflection in the mirror...
“OH MY GOD!!!!” she screamed, dropping the towel in shock. “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!!!”
It took only a moment for the others to show up in the bathroom door, Alex storming in with his gun raised.
“What is it?” He looked in all directions but couldn’t see anything.

“My hair!” Georgie touched her chopped hair. It was reaching just a little over her ears, and was definitely not cut by a professional hairstylist but rather by some blind-folded psycho with a chainsaw. Some of her hair was falling into her forehead, like outgrown bangs. It was basically a messy bob, and it was nowhere near as shiny and glossy and blonde as it usually was. It almost looked like a mousy blonde, but even that wasn’t the worst. It definitely was that terrible hair cut…

“Your hair?” Alex repeated, lowering his gun.

“Who did this to me?” Georgie turned around, trying to control her voice but it was beyond high-pitched. She was sounding hysterical. “WHY did they do this to me? I get the whole experimenting thing, but my hair? What the hell does it matter to them if it’s short or long or…or ginger or whatever!”

“G, calm down.” Rome’s voice was still weak. He was leaning against the doorframe, barely able to stand on his own. “It’s just hair.”

Georgie bit her lip, pushing past Alex and walked back into the room. She sat down on one of the beds, staring down at her naked dirty feet. She felt like a damn hobo. She sure as hell was looking like one. Of course at this point they should all be glad that they made it out alive but that didn’t change the fact that she felt hideous. She put her hand on her stomach. It still felt weird, and she knew that they must have injected her with something. She could just feel that something was wrong with her…

It was getting dark hours had passed. The traitor -or is he a double agent?- had gotten them clothes and food, they all got cleaned, the blond was asleep and Remington was well his drug cocktail that was to keep him sedated was slowly wearing off but that didn’t really seem to help him, maybe by taking down an underground bunker and a building on top of it with his brain fried it? Richard was pondering over the calendar that used to hang at the wall; he seemed to have lost a huge chunk of time.
The young brunette sat down next to him on the bed, Rome seemed asleep but something made her think that he wasn’t. Sure once in a while slipping in and out of consciousness but not asleep. In her best broken Lenna voice she whispered quietly, trying to connect with him telepathically planning to show him what they did to his best friend. “So what do we do now, Romeo? They will come looking. They want to make sure everyone is dead. We cannot stay here. Maybe the Safehouse is… you know safe?”

Keres used her powers and lowered the temperature around herself… just like a cold spot. It wouldn’t hurt -at least not her- to push the Remington boy a little further over the edge.

“Oh you really think that is going to work? He is not daft we hunted shit loads on ghosts he knows when it is a real cold spot and when it is not one.” Lenna yelled loudly, Keres slightly shook her head to get the witch back into her prison.

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OOC: Colour explanation the original page text colour is Keres, white text is Lenna (not that anyone can hear her)

The motel room looked more like a disaster relief shelter with all the first aid kits, bloodied bandages and other medical instruments scattered around. In the middle of it all, Richard moved from person to person, focusing on trying to fix their broken bodies. Their minds however, that was a different matter. Almost all of them seemed to be suffering from whatever they'd gone through. At least they were all resting now, that was good.

Not that Richard himself was in a perfect place mentally either. He was trying to take in everything the young girl had told her, Lenna she'd said her name was. That as a group they'd worked together, that the blonde girl was his niece, and that he'd trusted them enough to tell them about Erebus.

That last one was a clincher. No matter how wierd the other facts were, if they knew about that, it had to be the truth. Or they were so powerful that they knew the truth, and so for now the best bet was to play along.

He moved over to where Lenna was sitting next to the big guy. "They'll need rest for a while, and so will you. But after that, is there somewhere safe you can go? Somewhere where whoever took you won't be able to find you?" he asked. He glanced back towards the where blonde Georgie was sleeping. "Going by the symptoms, I might know what's causing your friend to feel sick."

Rome woke with a start, shivering. He felt a bit more clear-headed, though he was still seeing things, apparently, because Lenna's face was right there, fading in and out, combined with a telltale cold spot.

Great. It wasn't enough that his brother and best friend were dead, but now she was haunting him, too.

He sat up, rubbing his face. "We should get to--try to get to Tex...Texas."

He held up a hand at Cowboy, trying to interrupt before he got too excited. All Cowboys loved Texas, right? "Not the state. Not the...look, I can't call you 'Cowboy' all the time, what is your name?"