Aftermath.... (PainSister & DarkSister)

The moment her fingers touched upon mine it sent a jolt through me that felt like my soul was being torn in half…the dark rage that had consumed me, the intense hate that filled me as I watched them bear down on her was now flooded by something deeper… something that ached at me and almost threatened to consume the delicate balance that was held in place… I felt a thin wetness in my eyes as we locked together… the silence between us immutable but seemed more powerful for it. As she rose my hand lingered against hers, my senses swaying at her touch… confusion over exactly why she was so important to me… though deep within I knew I held that truth.

Behind me Trey’s gun spluttered as the clip spent its final blow knocking the attackers of their feet, quickly replaced by another as Trey shouted across… “Get a fucking move on Ladies, this aint no shopping trip!”…

My eyes narrowed and I hissed.. “One more thing…!” I let the words hang in the air, their meaning clear as I tried to keep a control over the raging storm of emotions that buffeted me. I pulled her towards me then pushed her forwards as I made my way across to Trey, my mind was in turmoil… I hadn’t expected this to be anything more than the usual hunting mission, I felt so torn from the person that I thought I was… for so long I had kept my past buried deep inside but now it had been unleashed and had broken through those barriers my mind had constructed… I felt exhausted in mind and body… I glanced at her as I passed by, feeling that pang within me as I did so and knowing she was every bit as spent as I.

Something in Trey’s expression caught my eye as I walked towards him… he glanced nervously around, for a moment his gaze fell upon the young woman, but showed none of the usual lasciviousness that I had come to expect… rather a brief flash of fear. Trey turned his back on her as I approached.

“What’s up Trey?” my voice shimmered with exhaustion and the vestiges of the dark that had taken me.

Trey said nothing… but merely presented his forearm to me. The material torn and a thin pulse of blood oozed from the wound… “Fuck Celine… I think one of those mangy bastards got me..”
I took a look as the rain mixed with the thin trickle of blood that seeped from him sending a thin red wash splattering to the sodden ground… there was little I could do out here and I was filled with my own concerns that I too had encountered the infection…
“Don’t staunch the bleeding… we will get it looked at, we’re not far from the complex.” Instinctively my finger reached for my own wound… the cut I had inflicted upon myself in the midst of the dark grip glistened in the rain… I allowed myself a weak sigh before we set off once more, the rain beating across us.

Finally we reached more open streets and I quickly led through the detritus of a forgotten world… the rain came down hard… tearing at the ground… I glanced across and watched as she padded alongside us, my mind reaching out to those memories of what we shared…

The storm passed into a greater darkness as we finally spied the anaemic yellow glow of the spotlights that ringed the entrance to the complex… a shout went up as we were spotted through the raging tempest, and the air was filled with the deep rumble of the compound doors as they slowly opened bathing the three of us in its mechanical radiance…

The sudden shout and blast of bright white lights stunned me for a moment. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen such an array of lights…who the hell were these people…that they could use electricity so wastefully? Huge steel doors parted and beyond which a further set of doors opened showing a brightly lit corridor beyond.

I must have looked like some medieval peasant who had just been shown television because Trey laughed at me and trotted forward.
“Come on into hell you mad bitch…you’ll be right at home im sure”
I saw Celine bite her lip and shake her head before she pointed in the direction of the lights and I walked between her and Trey. The doors were huge and there was a constant blast of air that came from beyond…almost like the air that always came out of tube tunnels when a train went by…not that there have been any tube trains for….well, a while now.
My mouth fell open as we pushed on, down the corridor which sloped downwards at an alarming rate. We came to an area where there were screens and changing rooms and strange lights hung from the ceiling of the tunnel.
“Go behind there, get undressed and change into some of the clothes there”
I looked at Celine with alarm. Backing off slightly…what the hell was this…?

“No, no…don’t worry, it’s for disease protection. We burn all clothes brought in from outside…especially if they have,” she looked at the deep dark crimson stains across her coat and my jeans, “fluids from infected individuals. Please do as we say. You’ll find a shower behind there too…wash yourself off, then change into an outfit you find comfortable.”

I paused for a moment, before Celine began to pull her own clothes from her body, Trey having gone behind another set of screens…for a moment I considered crossing to join him there…unwilling to put myself at risk to this woman’s powerful abilities to…to…dominate my actions so completely. But I could sense that would have enraged her and quickly joined her in undressing. I lifted my gaze briefly, eyeing her body now so completely exposed as she entered the shower. She was beautiful. Stunning. Even though she was as bruised and cut as I…her body moved with a hypnotic power that had me drifting next to her under the warm water of the shower.

I lifted my shaking hands and…gingerly…reached for Celine’s back…the blood caked there wasn’t shifting…her back was to me…my fingers were so close…her otherwise pale skin drew me like a moth to a flame. But just before my fingers touched her, she turned and gasped…I pulled back instantly, returning them to my hair…my eyes cast down at the floor. My face flushed red in mortified horror at what I had nearly done. I washed my hair and felt dirt and blood seep from my long locks, my body covered in fresh bruises that seemed to highlight the many scars left from my rape and whipping those many years ago.

I crushed my eyes shut as I shuddered thinking about that awful pain…and my hands balled into fists. When I opened my eyes again I saw Celine staring back at me, her powerful gaze lancing deep into my soul and I wondered again about her own past. I risked a brief smile at her…

I began to pull my own clothes free, wincing as the material pulled against the dried blood from the wounds on my abdomen and breast, briefly my mind flashed back to our struggle earlier and the dangerous glow deep set in her eyes as she drove towards me with a shard of glass… the thin wound still ached with a glowing heat from the furrow it sliced through my pale skin… but that ache seemed frail as compared to the deeper ache from the darkness she had drawn from me… I dropped my top in the compartment for incineration and my jeans quickly followed this as I peeled them from my legs. For a moment I painfully aware of being naked… it wasn’t the actual act of being exposed to her… but rather the interlaced scars that crossed my pale body, I knew it would speak of a painful legacy for those who knew how to read it… And I knew that she could, I remembered her scars, her own imperfections, that, if anything made her more perfect in my mind…

I glanced back at her as I entered the shower, watching as she quickly shed her clothes… revealing her body completely to me; I was at once struck by a deep and tangible ache for her raw beauty that made my desires cry out for her… and she was so beautiful… I quickly turned my head away as she lifted hers, desperate that she wouldn’t see the unmasked need reflected in my eyes…

I was aware of her as she padded in behind me… I ducked under the steaming spray of warm water, my head back as it hit my face and cascaded down neck and body, trickling round the shallow curvature of my breasts… my eyes closed and my mind lost to thought as the humid spray peppered my skin. What had happened out there… I had felt everything in my mind come crashing down around me, for so long I had held my past at bay… now I felt so helpless… and yet… yet, something more than that…

…"Don’t run Celine… You KNOW it will only make things worse!!!”…. even now I feel him… reaching for me… a rage boiling over….

My eyes bolted open, I gasped and spun around… but only to be faced with her mortified look, my mind reeled as the fingers of memory pulled from my mind and reality once more asserted itself… I continued to glance at her as we washed, watching the traces of the outside pooling in the shower and washing away, revealing more of her tormented form…

I watched as she withdrew deeply into herself, fists clenched, her soft eyes crushed shut… her mind gripped by the recollection of something disturbing, something that had left its own legacy on her slender body… I felt a need to run my fingers over her body, to feel the history of her pain and draw it into myself… I felt a tear well in my eyes as I watched her, but safe in the knowledge that the flow of water would hide it. Her eyes opened and after a moment a small smile passed her lips… with it I caught a glimpse of a unique tenderness… I couldn’t help but smile back…

Her smile sent a shockwave through, a shockwave of realization that I felt a deep need of lust for the woman in front of me. But before anything more could be said or done, the moment was lost.
“Now, if only I had my camera” Trey said, with a huge leering grin on his face as he stood at the end of the shower walkway. He held a bundle of clothes and motioned them towards me.
“These are yours…when you’ve both finished having fun…” he said with a wink that I smiled at.
He moved away before Celine had cursed him, but she had seen the wink and my smile, the look in her eyes was dark and deeply disturbing. I dried myself off with the rough towel and tugged on a pair of black jeans and a tight green t-shirt that seemed to hug my every curve and bump. I was tying my hair back into its long pony-tail as Celine came out of the shower, her body glistening…her pale skin glowing under the harsh lights of the reception area. I tried not to stare as she dried herself, but she caught my eye, it was a different look than earlier…that hard glass barrier had returned and she stared at me with that cold, hard look that reminded me more of a scientist studying a specimen on a petri dish. The sudden difference from the warmth of earlier to this look chilled me to the very core and I forced myself to look away.

After she had dressed she moved to my side and as she pointed forward we set off, but not before I noticed the ID tag that she pinned to her chest. Dr Celine Grayson. She was a doctor? That made sense. We came to a door and she pressed her thumb against a pad that glowed briefly before the door opened and we were in a smaller corridor that was warm and smelled…like a hospital.

Many of the doors we passed simply had numbers on, a couple had names of people but we saw hardly anyone. Trey had vanished, no doubt off to explain how some mad woman had decimated his security team…I wondered about that. How would I be “welcomed” here? After a while we began walking by some glass walls…within there were labs. Cage after cage of rats sat along the wall of one such room. Celine seemed to quicken her step, as if she felt uncomfortable in me seeing these rooms and only slowed as we neared a door with her name on it.

“These are my rooms, I want you to rest for a moment…I need to go speak to someone and order us some food…”
She opened the door and I walked in unsure of myself…it was only as she shut the door behind me that I realized I had left my cross-bow and pack by the showers. I turned to say something but the door had been shut and Celine gone. I turned and looked around her rooms…they were Spartan, hardly any personal belongings at all to tell me who this strangely powerful woman was.

I turned and gasped, two entire walls were lined with books. Although primarily medical there were also rare editions of fiction and poetry throughout. I drew my fingers along one shelfs worth of books...gasping as my fingers paused on a book called The Historian...a book I had loved since first reading it as a teen. I smiled and turned to sit in one of her perfunctory chairs and almost instantly felt my eyes grow heavy. I was so tired. Perversely my capture, my impotence in any attempt to escape seemed to give me peace. My eyes closed once more and I fell into a deep sleep. The peace of submission.

My eyes locked against hers in that moment… I felt a deep shiver take my soul as, for an instant, I felt the flicker of need between us, a need all consuming and all-powerful. I ached to reach out to her… but the stilled air of promise between us was shattered as Trey appeared at the end of the shower, his eyes cast over us both as he spoke, then his gaze leached across her pale scarred perfection… I caught Trey’s wink from the corner of my eye and felt the dark boil of rage flood through me… but her playful smile that she returned left me gasping inside.

That single simple gesture between them sparked something that churned deep inside me… I felt the emotions that had flown through me so openly had begun to close on themselves. Watching as she passed by, my eyes drawn to the seductive slink of her body… despite the hard edge that she possessed, she was still so achingly feminine. I followed her out and reached for a towel, slowly drying my skin of the glistening water… I looked across, and once more our eyes met, but the image of her smile to Trey still coursed through me and for a moment I analysed her… burning the image of her into my mind and wondering just what it was that coursed through her veins and made her glow with this air of invulnerability.

I reached for a pair of black jeans, feeling the material hug tightly as I pulled them over me… then a black vest top that sat snug against my chest, before reaching for my ID badge which I secured to my top… I made a move towards her and pointed to a door set at the far side…

…“These are my rooms, I want you to rest for a moment…I need to go speak to someone and order us some food…” I spoke as I opened the door and watched her slender figure as she walked through, a figure that strained against her fresh clothes so perfectly… I closed the door softly behind her, for a brief moment I yearned to follow her in… to spin her about, drive her hard against the wall and look deeply at her with the dark passionate intent that surged through me.

I turned back along the corridor and made my way to one of the side laboratories… the door slid open, I stepped through and instantly met with a pair of eyes looking up from a ream of data… he looked through wire rimmed glasses and as I entered the room a smile alighted his face…

“Celine, my dear… it is good to see that you are back in one piece…” his own eyes narrowed as I closed to him… his look shifting from one of being pleased to see me, to being one filled with concern… “Celine? Are you alright… you seem…” he let the words hang in the air…

“I shall be alright Martins…” I tried weakly to smile, but his returned expression proved the unconvincing nature of my attempt… “I have a… guest in my quarters, can you see to it that some food is bought down here to her…”

He replaced the papers, smile and rose… “Of course Celine…but what of you” his faint smile seemed almost imploring… deep within I knew he could sense this unease within me, but he knew not to push it and after a few moments of silence that hung between us he spoke… “They have just bought down the specimen you took but I haven’t had he chance to run any of the tests yet…”

I smiled softly… “It’s alright Martins, I shall take care of it…” as he left the smile leeched from my face. I turned to face the blood analyser that took up most of the space on the far wall… my steps to the machine seemed so eternally tentative as my fingers brushed against the wound on my forearm. I took a pinprick of blood from my finger and set the machine running… watching as the automated systems whirred into life. So many times had I watched this, but never with my own blood and as such I viewed the display screen with a greater interest than I ever had done before, as the results slowly revealed themselves… as the test completed, my eyes narrowed against the blinking display as I read it from the screen….

…I cannot remember just how long I had been sitting there but I lifted my head from my hands; my eyes taking in the fullness of my laboratory… its cold, sterile and passionless world that had enveloped me… shaped me… even bound me… I shivered almost imperceptibly as my memories shifted and the depths of my mind breached my consciousness… the steel sluice table that sat central to the room seemed to shift and glow with a malevolence as it became linked with some deep memory now freed within… of him standing over me, his hand pressed against my shoulder as the point of the needle wavered inches from me…

“Hold still Celine… this wont take a minute… please… hold still!!! Why won’t you do as you are told bitch… you fucking bitch… HOLD STILL!!!”

I pulled my gaze away, feeling the wetness of my eyes and the gentle roll of a tear down my cheek… it was then my eyes fell upon the syringe filled with the blood that I had taken from her as we struggled in the midst of the storm, the one that raged both outside and within… I walked to the steel bench and reached out for it, but my eye was drawn to the side. Lying there was a knife… my fingers took to it, feeling the chill that emanated from it… I picked it up, feeling its weighted handle and watching the electric light glint from its perfect edge… and then my eyes stilled when I caught sight of the reflection of myself within it…

I didnt know how long I'd been sleeping...my dreams tormented and fiery...but I woke with a desperate hunger and I was surprised to see a plate of food waiting for me on the table beside me. For a moment I wondered whether it was drugged, but my need to eat soon overtook that concern and I ate quickly. The cool glass of water paused at my lips...I held it to the light, seeking any imperfection there...but seeing none I drank and drank.

I almost smiled as I slumped back into the chair, feeling a deep heavy weight take my muscles...should have guessed...the glass fell from my fingers and smashed to the floor as once more darkness took me into her deep embrace.

We’re back. Normal Service Will Be Resumed. x

...reflected in my eyes was a part of me i barely recognised, a flickering eddy of darkness that seemed to rise and fall with each slow breath. That part of me that had flared so openly in the raging passion of the storm above ground now seemed to have sunk deeper within me... perhaps the sterile world i had returned to had forced it back, but i knew that having tapped into this dark vein there was no coming back from its reverberating effects... with a sigh i walked towards a wall of monitors set in the far wall and slumped into the swivel char...

I pressed my thumb against the reader and the bank of monitors flared into life, i scanned across them until my gaze met with the object of my search... i smiled, a dark smile... she had drifted into a deep sleep whilst slumped in a chair... i rocked back in my own chair and rolled the knife around absent absentmindedly in my hand whilst i watched her gentle movements...


watching... waiting...




not sure that the word normal is the right one... but back is true enough x