Aftermath.... (PainSister & DarkSister)

I glanced across to the clock… it was a little after four in the morning, not that time really had the meaning that it once had, but today was a day of note as it would mark one of the few occasions I had to leave this complex… to see the ravaged world outside the sterile confines of this almost enforced imprisonment…..

….Fifteen years ago the orbital path of the Earth took it to the very fringes of a comets tail, I was just a child then, I don’t recall much but I remember my parents taking me out into the garden of our Notting Hill home and we all stared up in wonderment as the twilight skies glowed an incandescent reddish green… there were of course the doomsayers and the false prophets who immediately proclaimed this as divine judgement, using the opportunity to spread their poison that this was indeed the end of the world and that the apocalypse was upon us… as fate would have it they were right but for different reasons of course.
The proximity of the comet caused a global electrical storm that at first knocked out communications satellites and then produce an electromagnetic shockwave that took out anything electrical… plunging the world back into the dark ages. But it didn’t stop there…

As the comet passed, something got trapped by our atmosphere… something microscopic that bonded with and mutated one of our most innocuous and common pathogens, creating a virulent disease which we had little way of combating. More than two thirds of humanity was wiped out in less than a month, causing a worldwide firestorm of panic. My family were some of the ‘lucky’ ones, my father was a renowned Biogenetics professor and he was quickly hurried away to this complex which I now called home… others survived too by all accounts, those who lived in small isolated communities where the disease moved slowly as compared to the big cities with its dense population that would be wiped out in a matter of days sometimes…

For nearly six years my father slaved away trying to find a way to counter this disease, taking me under his wing, teaching me all that he could… but it was all for nothing, after six long years of pain staking research and futile experiments he died a broken man… I had nothing left in my life but to continue with the work he started… at first it was merely a way of marking days of the calendar, until the chance discovery of a mutated T cell… that not only slowed the ravages of the disease but also actually seemed to fight back. The mutation seemed naturally occurring, and despite our best efforts we couldn’t replicate it in our facility… we needed to find a pure strain of it… we needed people from the surface who had come into contact with it and had produced this strain of T cell.

The world above was far removed from that of my childhood… London was a virtual wasteland, a battleground of civilisations… a place that either shimmered with a tropical heat, or was ripped asunder by violent electrical storms.

The last expedition above ground had proved fruitless… all those that they bought back bore none of the genetic material that I needed… it was a week ago that I made the decision to join the next available hunt, hopeful that my experience would seek out what had so far proven so elusive.

My thoughts were suddenly shaken as the alarm clicked over to 4.30 and the shrill alarm shattered my contemplative silence… I quickly quieted it and set about trying to prepare myself for what was to come… pulling my leathers from a drawer I shed my robe and began to peel the figure hugging black across my naked body feeling its coolness against my skin… as I prepared my mind for the hunt…

I had been 14 when the disaster began. We had recently moved from our home in Chelsea to a small village in the Chilterns. I had hated it. All my friends, my hangouts…everything that made me, me had been left behind. The quiet nights had kept me awake at night, the only thing that kept me sane were the long hours I spent hunched over my laptop on the net and my mobile phone. Then the Comet came. So spectacular was it as to bring me out of my hormone driven dive and stare up at the sky with my parents. We had climbed up onto a nearby hill just out of the village with the few other families that resided there. We barely noticed the lights going out in the valley beneath us until we began to wind our ways home.

The chaos that soon swept the countryside seemed…removed and unreal to me…until people began to die. Mother was violently ill just days after our nearest neighbor came down with the mystery sickness people had spoken of. She was dead within days. Soon after that trauma laid me low my Father began to show similar signs. I wanted to take him to the nearest hospital but no cars had been working since the comets passing. He died a day after the first columns of refugees came pouring north out of London and surrounding towns. I pulled Father down the stairs, dug a ditch next to Mother and buried him. I didn’t cry until I went back inside the dark house. My pain private and shocking.

The weather became crazy soon after…torrential rain that just kept coming. I would sit munching at a cold tin of beans or the remaining vegetables that I retrieved from the garden. When food became scarce in the house I began to scavenge from the now quiet and still homes of the village. Nearly two years of survival by myself. I hadn’t seen more than a dozen other living human beings in all that time and food was now becoming impossible to find. The weather had destroyed the growing seasons and I had gazed in shocked disgust when I awoke one august day to find a foot of snow laying on the small garden of vegetables I had been nursing and praying for survival. I had lost so much weight…my long black hair hung over my near skeletal form like a shroud…I dare say I had gone a little mad.

It was five days before my 16th birthday when ten men came into the village, they had no trouble in capturing me. I was raped, repeatedly and violently…then naked, tied to the tree on the village green and whipped with a piece of cable. My skin split and bled…I howled my pain out to the empty village as they laughed their cruel pleasure, some of them coughing and obviously sick with the disease. My screams became desperate and harsh…I lost consciousness…perhaps giving up. I never have believed in a greater force…or fate…but it was certainly lucky that I was discovered by some kind strangers and taken to their settlement.

I haven’t spoken since that day. It was almost as if I’ve forgotten the ability to speak…I rarely made any noise at all. I had taken lovers since then…my silence would often spook them away. I learnt basic medical skills from the doctor that had been there and when he died I had taken his place. But it often meant I had to take long journeys scavenging for medical supplies. Now, thirteen years later, I was on another of these journeys. A fresh wave of the Comet Disease had broken out in the village and I was worried.

It had been raining heavily for three weeks now. The ruined streets of London were choked with debris and resembled rivers. Most of the city closer to the Thames was constantly under water now of course, but buildings stuck up out of the swirling brown waters like stone obelisks. I hated the city. I hated coming into any of the larger towns that rotted around the country. But sometimes it became necessary…like now. I sighed and pulled my body from the relative shelter of St Paul’s Cathedral and moved towards an impressive looking office block.

I glanced across to the clock… 4.45am, a solitary red light blinked away the passing seconds… I rested against the faux window set in the far end of my quarters, designed with the intention of giving those individuals who spent the long days underground some comfort as it was supposed to mimic natural light… it however, served as a stark reminder of what had passed as our planet passed through the comets trail, our sky no longer blue… rather it burned a deep orange, as though it was lit by the fires of hell, but even that ochre glow was a thing of memory at the moment as we had been gripped by a virulent storm that had showed little sign of abating… I sighed, my fist clenching against the fake window to which I delivered a hefty thud, turning away I continued with my preparations for the hunt…

The mirror caught me as I moved across the room, my eyes narrowed as I stared at the sorrow filled figure before me… I reached up and ran my hands through my hair… drawing it back, collecting it together and securing it tightly… as I did so my eyes were drawn to the ugly scar on my wrist, a stark reminder of a dark past… for a moment my heart stilled and I could feel that darkness brush against the outer reaches of my mind, that same impenetrable black that had almost consumed me in the early days after the comet fall at a time when all hope seemed lost. I sighed and hastily tied back my hair, desperate to push those memories from my mind. I turned to a door set in the wall, I pressed my thumb against it, just long enough for it to register my print… a click and then the door opened. I reached inside and took out a small ebony chest, flicking the catch I opened it and took stock of its contents… a thin knife and several syringes… I picked up one of the syringes and held it up against the light… the liquid inside cast a green glow. I reached to take my long coat from its hook, slipped the syringes inside and slid the knife through my belt, then left the small room behind.

I moved silently and swiftly through the sterile steel corridors as I made my way through the labyrinthine complex underground, my mind lost to thought as I instinctively made may way past the laboratories that had been my home… rounding the corner and taking the stairs that led to the despatch area. The rest of the team had already assembled and were awaiting me; we exchanged terse greetings and their leader, Trey, walked up to me, regarded me for a moment then spoke…

“The storm shows no sign of letting up, but we cannot delay… we have had report of significant movement around the complex behind the old criminal courts, could be something… most likely nothing, but be vigilant we have already lost one this week and we can ill afford to lose you Doctor.”

He motioned for the rest of his team to move out and slowly the huge steel shutters were cranked open, I felt my heart begin to beat faster as the cold air hit me, reminding me of how long it had been since I last exposed myself to this wilderness

I took a deep breath and then stepped out into the storm as it tore at the ravages of London… the grey black of the clouds lit occasionally with a resonating flash of lightning as the storm battled across the sky… I shuddered for a moment and almost wished that I was back there in my room in the glow of that awful fake light. I watched as the rest as the rest of the team began to fan out over the open ground, their eyes alert to the possibilities of attack. Slowly we began to pick our way through the rubble of the city. For an eternity it seemed that our only company was each other and the fierce lash of the storm… the track seemed torturous as we clambered through the rubble. It was some time before we reached the shadow of St Paul’s, I looked up at the great dome, now cracked partially torn away… my mind drifted to how it had appeared in childhood, how the great swathes of people would be forever bustling before it paying it scant attention, much like any other great building in the city.

I lowered my head with a sigh and began to follow the rest of the team… from the corner of my eye I caught sight of a shadow that quickly melted into the storm, fast and precise… I spun about, my eyes narrowed and searching out the faintest signs of life… I shouted across to Trey, who immediately trained his gun on the surrounding area, but nothing showed, and with caution we began to move away. I felt my hand slip into my coat, resting on one of the syringes… a curious choice of weapon perhaps but far more effective at close range than any of their guns and it gave me some small comfort to have it there. Then there was a burst of action as one of the team unloaded their weapon into the shadows… causing the others to train theirs on the noise… my eyes too were drawn.

As I turned something drove hard into me from behind… I desperately tried to balance myself with my hands, dislodging one of the syringes that was sent clattering to the rubble… my shoulder jarred heavily on the ground as I twisted to see my attacker bearing down on me… his eyes red and wild, twisted by the disease that ran unchecked through him… I was dimly aware of Trey’s voice above the howl of the storm as he cried out that they were all around us.. the thunder was accompanied by bursts of gunfire… for a moment I panicked, fearful that I fall behind and I kicked out at this wretch as he advanced but undeterred he launched himself at me, bearing down his weight… I braced my arm across his throat as his foul breath choked at me… his body on mine prevented me from drawing my weapon, and desperately my head flicked from side to side as I tried to find the syringe that I dropped… my heart rose as I saw it less than an arms reach from me… I scrabbled against the dirt as my fingers clawed furtively for their salvation, my heart fired as the cool touch of it hit me, I clawed at it, pulling it into my hand before bringing it up hard…the needle piercing his neck and the plunger thrusting the contents deep into his blood stream… concentrated formaldehyde… for a moment it seemed ineffective and then his eyes widened as the substance began to burn through his blood… each rapid beat of his heart bringing his death closer… his grip on me weakened and I was able to kick him away, rising swiftly to my feet I heard Treys frantic call for retreat as more and more of them seemed to pour from out of the ruins of the old city.

I returned my attention to my attacker… no longer any threat… he staggered backwards, his fingers clawing at his chest as the fluid burned through him passing through his heart … I watched as his body spasmed and dropped… dead before he hit the floor. Cries went up around me as I saw more of them come from the shadows… quickly I started over the uneven ground, feeling the bursts of gunfire as they drew masonry dust around me… as I reached Trey, he said nothing but motioned towards an office block that might provide cover from the attack…

We weaved across the land… gunfire covering our escape as each man cycled their turn to fire. We burst through the doors to the building, remarkably they were still intact and efforts were made to brace them against the onslaught. There were sporadic crashes against the door but so far it seemed impenetrable to them…

“We had better find some other exit while they are concentrated here..” Trey spoke and his men interpreted his orders as they sought other exits from the lobby… two disappeared down a flight of stairs towards the underground car park whilst the others made their way to the back of the building… I pressed my back against the wall.. and listened to the desperate howls from outside, my hands drifted to the hilt of my knife as I sought some comfort from it….

I pushed through the doors and marveled at how the pot plants of the lobby had become a lush jungle like growth. A foot of water covered the ground floor and I quickly found the stairs, checking the office map on the wall. Five first aid stations were marked on the twenty story building. I sighed as I began to climb the stairs to the first floor. Although, intellectually, I knew the stench of death and decay was long gone…the building seemed to reek of it to me. I slipped along the corridor until I found a door marked with a green cross. Glancing back over my shoulder and down the hall I pushed through the door and my heart sank.

The room had been ransacked. Rolls of bandages and cotton wool were scattered across the floor. I moved into the small room and picked up the odd medicine missed by the previous ravagers. I kicked an empty bottle of paracetamol across the room and span on my heels to leave. As I did so my eyes registered something and I reached for my back and I pulled the crossbow I carried there quickly in-front of me. Cocking it as I moved…and stared into my own face. It was a large mirror. I gazed at myself…my long black hair had now been left growing for nearly 12 years. A long pony tail that reached my butt…it was sodden and hung heavily against my back. I couldn’t remember the last time I looked in a mirror…and I touched my face, as if to remind myself of what I looked like.

I slid the crossbow back over my back and pulled my rucksack off instead. Stashing the few remaining medicines and supplies inside its waterproof interior. Leaving the room I wondered whether to bother climbing the stairs to the other rooms. Clearly this was a known scavenge spot. I decided to cut my losses and quickly began the descent. There was a noise in the lobby, a splashing sound of movement and I froze on the stairs. Voices…men…I pulled the crossbow from my back once more, sliding a bolt into place and knelt to ensure I had perfect aim for the corner of the stair well and the lobby.
“We had better find some other exit while they are concentrated here..” The voice brought me up sharp. It was a strong male voice, one of command. This wasn’t a mere band of crazed scavengers then. In fact, they seemed to be hiding from whatever was screaming and slamming outside the lobby doors.

The first lumbering fool came round the corner, he held a gun in his hand and he wasn’t really looking my way as he seemed more concerned with the noise banging against the front doors of the place. He gasped as he saw me squatting there…and lifted his hand quickly. I didn’t pause for a second and my finger released the trigger. The bolt leapt through the air and slammed through his neck. The gun fell from his hands and clattered down the stairs as his hands went to his now spurting wound and fell backwards.

Fortunately he fell onto his companion and in the time he took to register his alarm and then take aim I was able to lock and fire another bolt. He screamed and leapt backwards…but not before the bolt pierced him high in the thigh. His yelp of pain was closely followed by a bellow of rage from another down in the flooded lobby. I smiled a tight small smile.
“You fucking BITCH!” the wounded man screamed back.

I moved a little further down the stairs, careful not to slip on the blood still pumping from the big man that had fallen and listened to the others in the lobby. The wounded one cursing and swearing as his compatriot undoubtedly pulled him out of range. I wondered at my options, I suppose I could go down into the car park levels…but surely they would be flooded and offer no escape. I could try the roof, the buildings around this part of London were so closely packed together I might be able to jump…but, that seemed impossible too. So I picked up the dead mans gun and pocketed it…and moved closer to the lower steps into the lobby. Would these people give up and move out or be incensed by my actions and come for me?

It was getting darker in the lobby as the rain clouds above the building seemed to gather even further. I lifted the gun, more for effect than action and peered carefully around the corner. I couldn’t see anyone at first and then a spear of lightening lit everything up like a thousand light bulbs. A burst of gunfire tore into the wall next to me and I leapt backwards and scrabbled back up the stairs…I needed time to think.

It was only after I moved into the third floor office my brain caught up with my senses. There had been a woman down there. Her eyes seemed…broken…no, no that wasn’t right. As I moved a heavy desk against the door to the room I was hiding in I tried to capture the right word for what I had seen in her wide eyed stare. I had seen plenty of broken people during my life since the disaster…but…her eyes held something else…something altogether more frightening.

damn double posting

“You fucking BITCH!”

I jolted when a cry went up from the stairwell… my first thoughts were that the pack of diseased scavengers had found a way to breach the building, or worse still that we had inadvertently stumbled into their enclave… my grip tightened on my long knife and I pulled it free… Trey slid his weapon from his shoulder and trained it onto the door of the stairwell and motioned me to stay back as he made use of the wall as cover as he advanced… he reached the door and kicked at it, it swung hard and crashed against the crumbling wall… the flashlight on his gun giving him a perfect halo of vision as he heard the wounded man cry out, demanding all sorts of vengeance be bought to bare… Trey quickly grabbed his shoulders and dragged him back towards the lobby, allowing his gun to swing wildly from his shoulder casting a riotous symphony of shadow that flickered across the grey walls conjuring all manner of spectres…

I watched as Trey dragged the soldier through the water that covered the floor of the lobby, I rushed in to help him as he tried to lay him across the remnants of a table to keep the fetid water from tainting his wound… his thigh cleanly torn my a metal bolt, the wound pumped with blood… though I was sure that it had missed the major vessel, it could still be enough to finish him off especially if it became infected… I returned to Trey and with deference to his companion I whispered…

“We have to find a way to get him out… the wound itself wouldn’t ordinarily be fatal but in these conditions and without any proper medical equipment he is on an hour glass.” I cast a furtive glance back to the soldier

By now the rest of the team had returned from the far reaches of the building, having come running at the sound of the air being punctured by their comrades agonised cries… and moved to regroup with their commander, their hasty conference was quickly disrupted however…

There was a sudden crack as though the heavens had exploded overhead… I flinched at the noise as a sudden bolt of lightening tore across the sky like a shattered ribcage and in that moment London seemed illuminated… the ruins of the criminal courts highlighted against the blackness… the massing clamour that besieged the lobby entrance cast in silhouette as the blast flared through the glass roof of the lobby chasing away the darkness for the briefest time and showering us in a burst of white light… my eyes were already trained on the open doorway, and my expression faltered as my eyes fell wide and locked on the eyes of another… a woman

My mind turned over a thousand things a second as she remained locked with my gaze… she had the look of someone who had learnt to survive this nightmare… she was dishevelled but carried a certain air about her… but more than that… she looked free of disease… but there was something else, a revelation inside that shocked me to the core… a torment that raise up within… my mouth fell open… but I hadn’t been the only one to have seen her…

Trey screamed suddenly and as the flare from the lightning faded the room was suddenly relit by a burst of gunfire that thudded into the wall drawing a great cloud of dust and plaster…

“NO!” I screamed and threw myself against Trey, throwing his aim off as his bullets ripped through the far wall… he turned and faced me with a raging look

“What the hell is that about!”

“You didn’t see her did you? You just reacted to her… she wasn’t one of them, she was free… we have to stop her…” I had already started towards the stairwell before Trey grabbed at me, his eyes calmer now

“Now look who’s reacting… she has already demonstrated that she has no fear of us… she has probably been surviving like this for months, years even…” Trey signalled the remainder of the group to take point… “She can’t have gone far, and I doubt that she would want to face that horde outside any more than we do… she would have gone upwards…” with that he motioned with his finger pointing towards the ceiling…

My fingers of my free hand drifted into my coat as I touched against the collection of syringes that nestled in their custom design pouches… my touched glanced upon the last one and for a moment my heart stilled… and the feeling that flooded through me as my gaze locked with hers returned to me briefly… it was a few moments before I had composed myself enough to follow Trey through into the stairwell….

The desk wouldn’t hold them for long…and I could hear them coming now…the office I was in was huge, but little cover for me to hide from. Whatever was about to come would be done quickly one way or another.
I moved a little further back from the door, placed my bag on a desk and pulled out the few remaining bolts for my cross-bow. The gun was in my pocket…I’d never fired a gun and I felt pretty sure I’d blow my own hand off before I shot anyone.

I crouched behind the desk and placed the small pile of bolts next to me and slid onto the floor, my aim perfect for the door into the office. I could hear foot falls on the corridor outside and closed my eyes briefly to bring my breathing under control.

The handle moved and the door pushed against the heavy desk…followed by whispered commands that I couldn’t hear clearly. The door exploded in a volley of gunfire that startled me momentarily and three men burst across the desk. My first bolt scored a direct hit in one of the men who had been standing by the door. A large red mark on his leg with a piece of cloth tied around it gave me a moment’s recognition that he was the guy I had shot earlier…this time the bolt struck his stomach and he dropped quickly to the floor. A cloud of dust from the ruined door and wall around it obscured my view for a moment but also that of my pursuers.

I pressed my body tighter to the damp dusty floor of this once busy office and saw two sets of legs. I fired at the first legs. The bolt skipped off his thick leather boots and he yelped and moved, but not enough. I slipped another bolt into place, aimed and fired a little higher. This time the bolt slammed into the muscle of his lower leg, which brought him screaming to the floor…a burst of gunfire from his compatriot was sprayed my way. But the nearest bullet struck the carpet well out of way.

As I reloaded my bow my eyes caught the now writhing mans eyes. A moments pause, then as he fumbled with his semiautomatic gun, bringing it round to face me I let the bolt fly and it struck home with a wet hollow noise as it punched through his chest. His eyes locked with mine and I shook my head trying to say sorry…but that moment took my attention away from the other gunman and he leapt over the desk in front of me and sprayed the desk above me with bullets that tore through the wood easily.

I felt a burning sting cross my thigh and I grunted and whirled away, one hand grasping my crossbow the other reaching for the remaining bolts. I rolled across the floor and pulled myself behind a support column next to the window. The rain continued to roll against the glass and I pressed my forehead against the cool surface and then brought my leg up. Blood seeped from a thin tear in my trousers and inwardly I cursed. It was only a scratch but…infection was something dangerous…very dangerous these days. I had three bolts left and fitted one into the slot and waited for the remaining gunman. His head appeared briefly and I let loose the shot, it missed him as he ducked down and I was furious with myself that I had wasted a bolt on such a cheap shot.

He poked the snub metal gun around the corner and fired of a wild spray of bullets that shattered the window next to me with a great explosion that shocked me. The wind and rain tore into the building and nearly pulled me out with the glass. He roared and came running round the corner and aimed directly at me. I fired a bolt that struck him in the upper thigh which sent him spinning to the floor. Writhing and rolling back and forth he was screaming.
“TREY…TREY…TREY”
I had no idea what he was saying but I had to shut him up. Picking up my final bolt I slotted it into place and moved towards him slowly…my foot resting on his gun wrist. His wild eyes stared up at me and I shrugged and fired. The bolt slammed into his face and I looked away in disgust. I crept forward carefully, hearing the noise of running footsteps and grabbed my bag before moving back, deeper into the large office.

Sitting down behind another desk…the footsteps paused at the door and then went on up the stairs…higher in the building. He must have thought I had escaped and gone up too. I closed my eyes and attempted to drive the thoughts of what I had just done from my mind…trying desperately to bring my breathing back under control. In my mind I was standing in a large field…it was snowing…so peaceful…so calm…

I opened my eyes and standing not more than six foot from me was the woman from the lobby. My hand went to the gun in my pocket and I pulled it out quickly. Aiming it at her face. My hand was shaking badly…something that disturbed me more than how close she had come to me without me noticing. Her eyes burnt into mine…she might have been beautiful…the scar not withstanding....but…
I pulled the trigger…nothing…the safety catch was still on. Her eyes flashed and I knew I was in trouble.

The stairwell was alight with the flash and resonating echoes of gunfire… only occasionally pierced by agonised screams as flesh was torn from bone. Trey was a few paces ahead of me as he now powered his way up the stairs encumbered a little by his heavy equipment… I tried to call after him as he rushed ahead but a red haze had descended across him and he no longer acknowledged me as he rushed to the aid of his team… more thin screams reached my ears… the explosion of glass, though in itself not loud was noticeable by the sudden roar of the elements as they hammered the building, the storm now violently tearing the heavens open…

I rounded the stairs leading to the third floor and saw Trey pause for a moment, his expression intense and brimming with a need for vengeance… he hissed a little to himself before striking out upwards to the next floor… almost breathlessly I reached the landing and was stilled by the sight of the commando who had earlier been hit in the thigh. His body was still and a second bolt protruded from his stomach, a deepening pool of blood marking the perimeter of his cooling corpse. My hand gripped hard against the handle of my knife, for a fleeting moment it felt a little inadequate… I had a feeling of admiration for this woman, such rawness to her power… that not only could she survive in this wasteland but also she had so far bested all but Trey and I. I turned back to the stairs… Trey must’ve thought she would try to flee by going higher… for a moment I thought about following him but then turned my eyes back to the door that ran with the sprayed blood.

I rose to face the door; my fingers reached out and ran down the wood, my eyes closed… I couldn’t hear any sound from within as it was masked by the raging storm outside the building. The warmth of the blood against my fingers… my eyes snapped open… for a moment I though about calling Trey back, but I knew that would only alert her to my presence… then I looked down at the gun at my feet, a thin wisp of smoke still coiling from the heated barrel and thought perhaps I would be better served with that at my side, but I wouldn’t feel the comfort with a gun that I did with my weapons of choice and so it would probably be far less effective… my fingers tensed as I gingerly pushed at the door… it swung open gently… only coming to a halt when it tapped against the boot of another of our team, almost unrecognisable as a result of the bolt that had thudded into his skull, crushing the bone and covering his face with a rich red mask that still leaked from him…

Slowly my eyes worked their way across the room searching out for the slightest movement… the walls were peppered with bullet holes… shards of glass from the shattered window reflected each shockwave of lightning as it ripped across the sky, the wind howled and blew a fine rain into the office… I closed my mind of from the storm and slowly crossed to the middle of the room, my blade withdrawn and held at my side…then I saw her… from the corner of my eye she was huddled behind a desk, her arms around her knees and the crossbow by her side… I silently made my way in front of her… as yet she had failed to notice my entrance… her arms embraced her knees as she sat hunched… her head resting backwards and her eyes closed as her breathing rasped against her chest… she seemed so deeply lost in her own mind, fighting against something I could not know…

Her hair was tousled and her clothes bore the marks of battles… both fresh and those lost to timeless memory, her pale skin shimmered with the backlight of the storm, despite the grime she had an almost ghostly beauty, but there was something more… something deeper that made my senses charged in her presence… something that perhaps even shocked me…

Her eyes bolted open and for the briefest of moments we were locked in each other’s gaze… I saw her hand dive for her pocket and my grip tightened on the blade… she pulled the gun out swiftly and easily lined it against me, her hands shaking and her eyes running with such a confliction of emotion… the air stilled…it was as though the storm itself had quieted against the storm of feeling that ran through this woman… my senses burned and my eyes flared at her as I was torn with an intensity that I so rarely felt… to be facing death, made me feel more alive than I had ever done…

I saw her body tense and she pulled the trigger… the gun clicked… and her expression wavered. A thin smile crossed me… I knew little about guns but I knew to check the safety, one of the first things they taught us back at the ‘warren’. My eyes flashed as I bought the knife more clearly into view, the storm erupted behind me… the glow of the lightning played across its edge as I drive forward… my forearm braced against her upper chest as I hit into her pitching her backwards onto the desk… the gun bouncing from her grip… her hands automatically rose to defend herself, her eyes flared with a deeply awoken primal instinct… my knife hovered above her and she struck out grasping my wrist tightly, trying to force it away… I was a little taken aback at her sinewy strength as she powered underneath me and we both rolled to the floor… my back crunching against the fragments of glass… as we fell I thrust out with a leg and continued the roll and bought her across to her back… our gaze fused as our battle of wills and bodies raged… I raised my position a little and bought the knife back but this gave her enough leeway to force her knee between us and pitch me overhead landing with a crack against the floor… she sprang to her feet, and I saw her gaze shift to her crossbow as I rose to mine….

system freeze and double post...

“IDIOT” my mind screamed in the nano-second between trying to shoot her and the way she drove me against the wall. My eyes locked onto the glinting steel just inches from my face, she had opportunity to plunge the knife into my eye…but when she hesitated I looked back at her with a question in my stare. As we slammed to the floor my hands gripped at her arms, desperate to try to keep the hideous looking knife away from me. Our strength seemed well matched but the wound in my leg put me in the disadvantage…that and the fact the scared woman had the knife of course. She backed off a little and I lunged forward with my knee, pushing her from me.

Still I had made no noise, no curse, no grunting or screaming in effort. I got to my feet and my eyes went wide as I saw a single spare bolt within grasp…I scooped it up and leapt towards my cross-bow…she was close behind me so I had not opportunity to aim. I just slammed the bolt into place and swung the bow around and fired. The bolt leapt away and sliced a line along her abdomen. She paused, her eyes wild and staring at me in outraged shock. She threw herself at me just as I ran off at an angle, her body clipped mine and sent me sprawling. I slammed into the glass strewn floor. The wind had blown the heavy rain into the destroyed window and had made the floor around it slippery. I felt my body skidding…sliding towards the cavernous hole out into the wild London weather.

I spread my legs and awkwardly stopped myself from sliding out the third floor window and onto my death far below on the flooded street. Suddenly someone grasped my pony tail and pulled me viciously back away from the window, I turned my head and saw the woman staring back at me…was that a smile on her face…I was exhausted. The emotional and physical strength I had spent in the fight before she had turned up was taking its toll. I tried to flip and wrench free of her grip but she held me firm and brought her foot round hard. Kicking me in the side with a vicious power that drove the air from my lungs. She did it again…perhaps angered by the lack of vocal response I made. It wouldn’t be the first time someone beat me harder because I refused to scream and beg for mercy. It wasn’t because I wasn’t in pain or inwardly pleading for them to stop. I just couldn’t do it out loud.

She pulled me into the centre of the room and squatted next to me, her eyes staring down into mine and through my hard breathing; desperately trying to bring air into my lungs…I felt the power in that stare. Something deep within me stirred and I blinked…who was this woman…and why hadn’t she pushed me out the window…what did she want with me?

The silence from her was immutable… not even a grunt from the exertion of our struggle passed her lips. She was on her feet a fraction before me and I followed her gaze… drawing me to the single bolt… she flicked at it and caught it with her fingers drove forwards… I knew that to try and run would present her with an easy target, I had but one choice, to go for her and hope I could reach her before she loaded..

I sprang to my feet, the blade gripped tightly as I charged at her… my defiant cry ringing in my ears… I drew back the blade as she spun about…the crossbow bought to bear, my eyes fell wide as the weapon clicked and the bolt was ejected towards me… I tried to twist away but I was too close and a sudden pain like fire sliced across my abdomen, I gasped hard, my hand raised to meet the thin bloody trail carved through my skin, a flesh wound perhaps… but these could be fatal in the current climate.

My eyes flared as highly charged mix of pain and anger flooded through me, she suddenly started off to run and I launched myself at her and drove her off balance… she spilled across the glass strewn sodden floor towards the great rent in the wall. The force of the impact had caused me to stumble and for a moment I watched as she tried to regain her footing as she teetered on the edge… a fall like that on to the flooded rubble strewn streets would have surely been fatal, and if by some chance she would survive the impact then it wouldn’t be long before the hordes would circle her and descend on her… the last image that would burn into her brain wouldn’t be pleasant.

I rose quickly and skittered across the treacherous ground, I lunged for her the moment it seemed that her balance had tipped… my hand wrapped tightly about her ponytail and I pulled her sharply backwards dragging her across the floor, she turned slowly and our eyes met… I tried to suppress a thin smile on my face… had she been what I had been seeking all this time? I felt my shoulder wrench as suddenly started to put up a struggle, the day had taken its toll on my own body and I was unsure as to how much I could resist her, I drove my foot round and felt it bury hard against her side... her body buckled under the strike, but no sound escaped her lips… just the reflection of pain that coursed over her face and then her wild eyes locked deeply with me again… I felt some deep emotion grip me; it was as though her expression mocked me more than anything she might say… rage flashed across my face and I slammed my foot hard against her again…

I hissed with frustration and dragged her further into the shattered room then lower to my haunches next to her… it was clear we were both spent from the struggle and neither of us made a move in aggression to the other… the wind tore about the room, my long coat caught in its grip as my eyes just stared at her… there was something so captivating about her… she looked so delicate and yet carried such an air about her… deep within I felt something stir, thoughts that I had long since cast aside… it took a moment or too more to shake my gaze free… a thin smile played on my lips…

I reached into my coat and felt the cooling brush of the syringes… my fingers counting along each one until I reached the one I sought and pulled it free… her eyes danced with a primal panic as I raise it to regard the empty chamber… then my gaze dropped to hers… “I think you have something I want….” I whispered… but there were disquieting thoughts running through me, on one hand there was the very tangible possibility that this woman had the ‘holy grail’ pumping through her veins and she didn’t know it… but deeply I questioned if this was the priority that now guided my actions. I moved to sit astride her, as I did so she tried to struggle against me, reaching up and trying to smash the syringe from my hand, I pressed my weight across her and with my free hand clamped it against her throat… my intention wasn’t to cause her damage, rather to hold her still as I leaned over her… the thin needle pressed against her skin. Her eyes flickered through a field of emotions as I took her eyes to mine… the needle depressed against her until I suddenly felt her flesh give way and the steel punctured her, slowly I began to withdraw some of her blood, my eyes watching the richness of her fluid as it swirled in the chamber. Still she struggled and I tried to hold her down a little longer… finally withdrawing the needle and holding it between us… a single drip of blood caught at its end suddenly fell against her cheek… My gaze was drawn to it, the deep red against her pale skin.

I felt my heart pounding against my chest as I took in the sight of this woman beneath me… trying to understand the feelings that swelled within me… my attention was diverted as my mind sorted through a barrage of sensations… my mental distraction didn’t go unnoticed as I suddenly felt her strength swell beneath me as she sought to benefit from it.

The woman slumped down upon me, I was vaguely aware of the heat of her body pressed against me…but it was the look in her eyes that caught me. I was still struggling to breathe properly when she brought the syringe out from her jacket. My eyes wild and I struggled as much as I could, but my body was still cramping from her kicks. Her hand on my skin, so warm and strong as she held me down…my panic rising as the scratch of the needle entered me and I felt her drawing my blood. I was as still as I could be but couldn’t force my mind from struggling…and wondered at the meaning of her words. The ease she handled the syringe and needle spoke of someone with medical background…perhaps a doctor...but, she had a manic look no doctor I had ever seen held.

She removed the needle and held it between us, my eyes wide and desperate. A splash of blood dripped upon my cheek and her breath caught as she stared down at me. A glaze seemed to drift across her otherwise powerful eyes. My hand had come to rest on a glass shard which I now grasped tightly.

Feeling it slice into my fingers as I held it so tightly…but this was my moment and I lunged up, the syringe spilled from her fingers and dropped to the floor as I brought my hand up in a quick swing. She yelped as I drew the shard down hard into her right breast. I realized it hadn’t punctured very deeply; her thick coat seemed to take out most of the impact. But she was off me and I rolled her away, her hand went out and clasped my top, ripping the material away from my breasts exposing me. I swung my foot at her head but she threw her hands out and caught my foot, twisting me over and smacking me down again. What kind of doctor knew these moves?

I scrabbled at the ground, pain aching throughout my body but she was upon me once more…this time her whole weight pressing down upon my exhausted body. Her eyes were a fiery red as she pulled her coat from her body, revealing the blood that seeped from her breast. She looked from it to me again and again…and I knew I could do no more to resist her properly. Her fingers went to her wound...and I shivered at the smile that lifted her lips.

Her body tensed for a moment beneath me, her eyes burned in our locked gaze and I didn’t see her flash of movement until it was too late… her arms scythed through the air, the syringe falling from my grasp… I yelped out as the thin tip of the glass sliced across my breast, a thin furrow of heated pain following quickly in its wake… I gasped as the feeling flowed through me, instinctively I pulled back from her… she began to roll from me but I was desperate not to let her gain any ground on me and I lunged for her, my fingers clasping against her top with force enough to tear it free of her… my eyes fell to her body, here soft pale skin and smooth firm breasts… her skin, though marked with the occasional scar and bruising held me for a moment with its tormented perfection as I hastily tried to make sense of the conflicting torture of my own mind… her foot moved quickly and almost through instinct I raised to block her, twisting it around and driving her to the floor… she dropped with a heavy crack.

But it wasn’t enough to keep her down as already she was attempting to rise to her feet… I drove forward bringing my weight heavily across her and thrusting her back down… my fingers reached out and for a moment traced the slender lines of her cheek before pulling back and shedding the heavy coat from my body… I inhaled deeply and my chest was wracked with a shrill jolt of pain… my mind flared as my thoughts reeled from the memories dredged from my deep past as the pain unlocked something deep… something dark…

“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!!!”

my eyes bolted open and fixed deeply on hers… I pulled my top from my body, wincing slightly as it peel from my wound… my chest revealed to her, each breath taken heavily… my gaze dropped to the thin gash in my soft flesh and then to her repeatedly… my mind tormented by its darkest secrets….

“Bitch!!… Why wont this work… its all your fault bitch… why are you such a failure!! I wish you were dead!! Its all your fault…”

M fingers rose to the wound… the tips tracing a line across the cut, smearing the blood on them… my eyes burned as our gaze locked… a dark smile awoke upon my face, I saw the chill that glimmered in her eyes… my fingers rose to my mouth and softly I touched the blood upon my lips, allowing the rich scent to be taken by my breath and its distinctive taste seeped into my mouth.

My fingers reached down to her and whilst they were still stained with my blood I delicately traced across her breast… her soft skin at my touch bringing an almost primal need welling up inside me, a need that hadn’t been sated in so long… I leant over her, my face mere inches from hers, our breasts pressed together with each breath we took… the mark of my fresh blood against her pale body… as my lips moved against her, the primal storm outside reflecting my own that raged within…

I allowed a gasp to escape me as she drew her bloody fingers across her lips, oh god…she’s mad…and then another gasp as she drew them across my skin…across my breast…her touch so delicate and contradictory to what had just gone before. The cold wind blowing in from the broken window was taking its toll on my now exposed breasts and as she leant forward her own warm chest brushed my own. Both of us were breathing hard and her gaze locked onto me, her eyes were fiery and passionate. Her breasts pressed harder against my own and I felt my nipples stiffening, inwardly I groaned at my bodies quick betrayal and instantly I was thrown back to a dank winter six years ago….

“Come on Serenity, let yourself go…”

Those whispered words…the man that had been my adoptive father, lover and advisor…both aroused and sickened me. I struggled weakly under this wildly powerful woman, but my arms felt like lead weights and my legs were weaker still. The fight seemingly sapped from me at last…

The fire within her eyes seemed to change, an acknowledgement of my unwilling surrender beneath her. My body may have failed me, but I would be damned if she was to take my mind too. I closed my eyes shut…refusing to allow myself to sink into her powerful gaze. But there I was assaulted by the mocking voices of my past…I tore my eyes open and once more gazed into the depths of my attacker…she seemed to blink, recognizing something within me and we both seemed to shudder in the power of the moment.

I felt her heart beat, fast and hard, against my chest as she pressed tighter against me...and for the first time in many years I realised how I longed for the warmth of another human being against me...

The thunder cracked across the wrathful sky, the air seemed charged and my skin prickled as the lightning flashed outside the shattered building, the conflict outside almost matching the intensity of my own… her eyes burned with a determined resolve, but one that seemed to speak of something deeper as she lay beneath me, her body heaving with each breath she took… my own eyes flared at the sight of her soft face so close to me… her lips… her breathing softening. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had physically been so close to someone… I watched her eyes shut tight before me… her face screwed up with defiance… my mind was shaken as I looked down upon her…

Fingers tightening around my throat…“Damn it Celine!… why was I ever cursed with you… you have never bought me anything but pain.” Holding fast against my skin, as I felt my mind taken with a dizzy haze… “You whore…don’t defy me, don’t look at me like that... you will not fail me AGAIN!!” the feeling of being thrust away… the pain and the wetness as my head struck the wall… the cool of the floor as I fade from the waking world…

Her eyes jolted open with suddenness that shocked my mind back… my gaze faltered momentarily as our eyes locked intently, I shuddered a little, it was as though something from her reflected back at me… and for a moment it stilled me, its presence burning inside…

I pressed myself tighter against her, feeling her breath on my face, as I knew she felt mine, my heart pounding against my chest as our breasts crushed each other and our warmth mixed… my hand moved to her face, my fingers gently brushing her tousled hair from her, I felt a deep burning as I gazed at her… feeling within that I was increasingly losing control over, needs and desires that had taken second place in the battle to survive now flared deeply within, burning like I had never felt before…

“You think I don’t know Celine… you think I didn’t SEE!! You owe everything to me… you live because of me and you repay me like this?”

No… I had felt something like this once before but not with the insane intensity that fuelled me now… I needed to feel the warmth of another… but more than that I needed this tainted angel at my grasp… I reach a little further… her lips so close to me, I press tightly against them… my heart spiking at the touch of another woman’s lips… I pull away slightly and regard her face for a moment before tracing my fingers down her face and across her slender neck… I feel an urge rise within me as my fingers tighten a little and I feel the pulse of her blood beneath my palm.

I hold my hand against her throat to still her as I lift from her a little, moving down her body bringing me to her breasts… her chest still heaving. I bring my free hand around the outside curve of her soft mound… trailing my fingers upwards across her breast, tracing close to her nipple… my eyes flick to her, gauging her reaction… still part of me cannot believe that I am taken by this deep need… but I am lost to this pull now, with my eyes still fixed on hers and my hand still resting tightly against her neck I bring my lips down towards her nipple… my tongue flicked out across it, encircling her sensitive flesh before drawing it into my mouth where my tongue continued to play over her….

The soft touch of her hand upon my face, the almost casual lover’s way in which she moved some of my loose hair from my face, her gaze still hard and strong…I felt a deep powerful shudder within me. It was a feeling of need. This crazy, impossible situation…and yet…oh god how I savored her touch…the heat that I could not now ignore deep inside me.

Everything seemed to slow…the rain and wind blown through the broken window seemed to pause and in my mind a piece of music began to play. I couldn’t place it at first…something distant…from my teens. Something that I would play again and again in the last few months of…of normality. As her hand moved to my neck I found I was struck by the fire within her eyes once more. It came in a constant stream that bathed my mind with light and dark desires…I had already surrendered and now her fingers closed around my thin neck. She wasn’t crushing me…just…sending a message of power. I wanted to resist, oh god, I wanted to resist…but the moment her fingers lowered and I felt them brush my flesh once more I surrendered. I was powerless…the fire had swept over me. I needed this. I wanted this. If I was to be killed, then I would let this insanely powerful woman use me…for she was already driving a heat within me I could not remember.

Her eyes flicked back to mine and I felt tears well in my own under the gaze that seemed to impale me to the floor and hold me as tightly as her hand around my neck did. Why was I not fighting? What power did she hold over me…I opened my lips…my tongue dry and cracked…I tried to mouth words but still they would not come and I felt bitter frustration force the tears from my eyes so that they rolled down my cheeks.

The song…the song was requiem for a dream…I remember it now…her gaze drifted away from my eyes and her head lowered. I crushed my eyes shut…unwilling to watch…but unable to resist the pleasure of her touch. Her tongue so warm and delicate, her lips…drawing me into her mouth, where her tongue circled and lashed down upon me again….I arched my back from the floor, sending fresh waves of pain rolling through my battered body. The pain and pleasure raced through me, battling with one another until my eyes flew open in shock of purest sensation. I felt my hands go out flat on the floor beneath me, my fingers digging into the hard carpet as my mind began a desperate mantra…resist…resist…resist…

My mind is ablaze with the conflict inside as I catch sight of her own moist eyes that maps out some deep turmoil that courses through her, I watch as her mouth falls open… my heart spikes for a moment as I catch a breath of something within her… but her silence remains, for a moment I feel my mind reach out to her… what is this within me that aches like this…

Beneath my touch I can feel her nipple swell… her soft brown flesh stiffening with each delicate flick of my tongue… drawing it in and softly pulling on the softness of her yielding breast… my hand reaches towards her other mound, feeling the warmth of her body at my touch in spite of the cold that whips around us. I feel her rise under me, as I take her nipple between my teeth and gently roll it before almost tenderly biting down… her back arching before dropping and softly crushing against the shattered glass around us… I can sense the resistance still from her as it is spoken strongly in her tearful eyes, as she is so conscious of each fresh sensation that jolts her and of her body’s betrayal and her frustration in her inability to resist perhaps…

I pull from her, releasing her nipple and trace a path with my tongue towards the centre of her chest… my eyes locked upon her as her head rolls and her gaze glances against mine, the look deep within her eyes triggers something deep inside me, feelings that I thought were lost to me… desires that seemed a world away from my enforced existence underground… a deep part of me exalted in this woman, though mindful of the horrors she would have faced, she possessed the one thing I did not… freedom… even in this tortured world.

Tentatively I release my grip from her neck and hold her at her sides as I continue to glide my tongue down her torso, feeling her gentle movements beneath my silken touch, the tip tracing over her pale flesh, feeling the imperfections of the scratches that pepper her perfect body… my tongue touches upon a rift of scar tissue, my eyes flick upwards… watching her as I run my tongue along its length, feeling the touch of knitted skin… trying to reach out, trying to share in the pain that would have coursed through her… mindful of my own deep scars and the depth of the pain that ran from them… pain that tortured my mind more so that my body…

Standing over me… his eyes burning with a secret hate as he picks the blade from the floor… its edge glistening with a deep scarlet… “Stupid bitch!… can’t even do this right…” the pain of his words ringing through me…

Gasping, I pull away from her, sitting astride her crotch… my deep hidden heat crushed against her… the storm continues to tear at the heavens in the same way that being in the presence of this woman is tearing at my senses… there is a deafening rumble of thunder overhead… the building seems to shudder from its touch… the lightning rips a path around the building and for a moment we are both bathed in a flood of light and our pale bodies glow with its touch… my eyes brimming with tears, they trickle down my face, forging a path down my face and falling to my breasts… I see her eyes tight against mine; the turmoil is a torrent within me as my mind is flooded with a darkness that I was once able to lock away… a deep part of me that once threatened to destroy me utterly. I feel the deep flash of pained memories as the layers fall away from my mind…

‘Forgive me’ I whisper as my eyes narrow and burn and I lower towards her…

I am immobile under her caress for a moment…then her tongue traveled across my skin, my imperfect skin and the tears fell from my eyes. How could I expose my body to anyone when they are instantly reminded of how damaged I am? Her tongue seems to pause…to actually trace the lines across my abdomen and sides…why was she doing that…what possible pleasure could she find in my scars.

Whip her…look at the little bitch, yeah, scream for us whore, scream…hit her again, again…harder boys…rip her open…let us see the blood fly…

I crushed my eyes shut as once more I was back, tied on that tree, a young, scared teenager…semen and blood still running down my legs from the brutality of earlier that day. But…this bitch, this woman who sat astride me seemed to be lost in an almost admiration of my suffering. My eyes flicked open once more as her tongue purposefully followed the lines the cord had torn in my flesh…sparking deep sensations within me that I felt unable to differentiate between…were they pleasure or absolute horror. I arched my back as she brushes her lips across my skin from one side of my abdomen to the other. Her gaze reaches for mine and I see something there I finally can read clearly, its recognition…a shared understanding of something dark within and instantly I understand that she was a woman on the edge.

As the storm built and crashed around the building the light would flare and the room light up. The lightening came quicker and more urgent. And suddenly she gasped…as if a knife had been plunged between her breasts. She stares at me, into me, seeing far beyond the surface of my eyes…into my soul and deep into my memories. Fear now swamps me…what is this woman, dear god, what is she. The tears that rolled from her cheeks, across her breasts and then lower only deemed make her more powerful for she seemed to be on the edge of an abyss that screamed insanity but…something else too. I register her whispered words, "forgive me", and feel the heartfelt honesty behind them. A deep dark fear sweeps across me as I see the black fire that burns through her gaze. I struggle to find the strength to resist once more but I am paralysed by my own morbid thirst…she dipped towards me and I braced my body and closed my eyes…

I was so close to her, not quite touching but I could detect the faint scent of her intimacy as my face hovered a little way above her navel… though masked somewhat by the electrical tang of the storm and the smell of our sweat it pierced my mind and left my senses reeling at its intoxicating caress, a sensation that grew deeper within me with each consecutive breath… I lift my head a moment and gaze at her, her eyes tightly closed, her slim body braced against me… her fragile beauty radiating in the passionate spark of the tempest that raged about us…

I rise up, still sitting astride her… my gaze obsessive as I look down at her taut figure, my mind is a maelstrom of turbulent thoughts that make no sense and continually trip over each other… the edges of my sanity battered by dark memories of my that threaten to drown me… I feel so lost to rationality and the normal austere sense of balance that I shroud my self in…

…his hands against my throat… his eyes bulging with an impassioned rage that feeds upon itself… there’s nothing I can do to stop him… his eyes speak deeply of an intense hatred of me, an irrational disgust at everything I represent… “Bitch…BITCH!!”…

I cant control it as it takes hold, this rage… this all consuming hate that twists and distorts me…fearful of what I am becoming, my fingers instinctively seek out my knife… the blade pressed hard against my forearm, my eyes regarding it with a baleful look, I grit my teeth and quickly whip the steel edge across my skin as I cry out, more from an intense frustration that from actual pain…almost instantly I am rewarded by a warm ache as the cut is filled with a thin ooze of blood… my breathing harsh but I feel the blackness that swirled around my mind slowly recede to its fringes… I discard the knife that clatters across the debris and slowly I return my gaze towards the woman below me. Her eyes now fixed and staring, I can see her mind working deep within them… regarding me with a look of horror, fear perhaps… but for a moment I think I see a flash of understanding…

I drop to my hands, my face inches from her powerful scent… my mind still consumed by this almost insane need that floods through me… my fingers reached to her waist and I tug and struggle at the fastenings, wrenching at her as I pull downwards, exposing her as she tussles against me… finally I pull her clothes free of her, tugging them down her soft thighs, the silken pale flesh of her crotch, lined with scars, draws me in… my breathing shallow as I press my lips against her and taste her for the first time…

The woman above me has changed from dangerous woman into an almost inhuman monster, her little growls and purrs mark her as something more than the usual ‘damaged’ survivor. I try and keep my eyes shut, unwilling and unable to stare into the depths of her eyes. But as she moves I can almost feel an electric wave of emotion explode from her as if she too were omitting cracks of lightening and my eyes sprung open. The sudden glint of metal on the knife and momentarily I fear for my life, but she slashes at her own arm and I gasp. The wound shallow, but real. Speckles of the blood spray across my face and chest. My eyes remain fixed and wide on her. Her gaze returned to mine and I saw something I hadn’t expected but understood immediately.

The fiery turmoil seemed to have faded to a controlled glow. Still dangerous, still powerful…but now under control…and her need for the self wounding became clear. My mind flicks to my upper thighs and the marks that are so far hidden there beneath my clothes. My eyes flicked between her face and her bleeding arm, watching the blood well and flow down her arm. I jump as she throws the knife aside, the noise and actions shocking me. She was weaponless…if I could pull myself up from this floor I felt sure I could overpower her.

Then, as if she had just read my mind, she began to pull at the waist band of my jeans; I found an ounce of strength and twisted in protest…desperate to stop her from completing my humiliation. But it was useless…her renewed strength gained from the cutting of her arm gave her the edge and she knew it. She pulled and pulled, I felt the cool air whip around my now exposed centre, my legs…she paused as she no doubt saw the wounds and scarring upon my thighs and groin. Yeah…some of them were torn from my young body when I was raped, but others…she would know that some of them were newer, fresh…

I tried to pull my legs together, I glanced down, using what strength and fight I had left merely to lift my head just as she pushed forward spreading her legs…and dipping her head. The sensation of her tongue against my centre drives my head back and my back into a curve…such gentleness, tenderness…and yet…oh god…I want to rip my body away from her, but…instead I find my hips pressing forward into her eager tongue…

I pull back from her exposed lips for a moment her taste still lingering on me and breathing deeply of her soft scent that drew me with an almost primal desire. I position her legs either side of my own as I shift between them… my gaze rises to hers, still I can feel that deep dark flicker within me… now restrained by the release I found at the edge of the knife but ever present, if I were more lucid I would have questioned the sanity of so willingly exposing myself to the infection that had laid waste to our world.

My fingers drift to her soft thighs… streaked with scarring, each one with its own secret history…I allow my fingers to trace along one that seemed so recent, perhaps a week or so, my mind feels detached as it drifts over my own legacy that patterns my body… as well as those scars that run deeper, those that cannot be seen… I try and shake my head free of the nightmarish fingers that claw through my deepest memories, instead I open my senses to the untamed beauty of the woman that lies prostrate beneath me. My eyes glimmering with a wild untamed fire that seems to reflect against her own untamed nature…

My arms hook over her strong thighs, the slow trickle of blood from my fresh wound seeping down onto her snowy flesh. I pull her towards me and at the same time lock her down, her soft-scarred thighs brushing against my cheeks… I feel her hips push… for a moment I wonder if she still intends to struggle, but a shiver runs through me as I feel her press against me, her heat sparking something deep within me as I flick my tongue out and trace the cleft of her opening on the upstroke, flicking the tip across the fleshy hood of her bud… momentarily drawing it in to my mouth, my senses exploding at the taste of this woman’s softest flesh as I gently roll my teeth over it… her hips shift against me a little, I release her bud and slip downwards with my tongue, slipping its tip a little further between her lips… the softness of her muscular walls sparking a surge within my own tight centre and I gently sigh against her, my tongue glistening with saliva as I tease deeper into her tight centre…

The brilliant flash of light from the electrical storm dances across us, illuminating us in this beautiful etheric embrace… my focus on this gorgeous creature is absolute and I don’t notice the figure that is suddenly silhouetted a short way from us…

There came a metallic click as a weapon primed behind me…

“Fuck Celine!!”

Having search fruitlessly through the floors above, Trey had returned to his fallen comrades, the sound of the storm having covered his entrance… at first he hadn’t noticed us, as we were partially hidden by the shattered desks and the presiding gloom, but the flash of light drew his gaze and shocked him at what he witnessed… slowly I pulled away from her…my eyes still burning with that dark intensity that had taken me, my breathing shallow as I slowly turned my head and regarded his wide eyed expression… his gun wavering as he pointed it at us both…

My mind whirled with the madness of the situation…the utter lunacy of my submitting to the mad woman’s desires…but still I could not find the strength to resist. It would be so easy to lift my legs and twist to kick her hard in the face, perhaps snapping her neck…I could escape…now…right now…but…

Instead I pushed my head back into the sodden carpet of the office floor and closed my eyes with a deep sigh of abandonment. Feeling her caress of my scars, her finger trawling across the most recent…a result of two weeks of failure to stop the recent bout of the plague that decimated our settlement…impotent rage flooded me and I found myself alone in my room. The scalpel in my hand and a rage that boiled within me that found release only as I slid the metal against my thigh, feeling the blood well and flow from the wound. No noise, no fuss…just a great release that I had needed to wake the next morning and begin again the useless battle against the illness that struck down my fellow villagers.

My throat constricted in desperate need as I felt her tongue slide within me, parting my lips with her eagerness. Again her tongue probed and slid across my most intimate areas. Tasting my heat and scent…her arms locking around me in that provocative manner made me shiver once more. I could feel her blood flowing across my thigh, onto my hip…this also an intimate act. Her tongue lapped at me, skilled, knowingly she teased at me. So much better than any before her…again the storm crashed around us and my eyes opened just in time to see one of my pursuers standing beside us. His eyes wide and filled with…shock certainly…but also a deep personal lust in what he saw.

“Fuck, Celine!” his choked off bark startled me and brought an instant reaction from the woman…Celine…between my legs. She lifted her head, her saliva and my own wetness glistening upon her lips as the lightening lit us up once more. Her eyes still glowing but already something else, a curtain descending over her inner thoughts and emotions was obvious. I crushed my eyes shut as reality smashed back upon me and any thought of immediate escape evaporated…and the gnawing at the back of my mind began again, what did they want with me?

Trey’s harsh strangled cry of surprise came like a punch against my mind… a veil fell across the dark centre of my primal desires as I regarded him with a narrow stare… I watched him intently as his eyes flicked from me to the woman that lay on the floor before me and then back again, his gaze first crushed against my naked breasts and then to her lithe pale form that seemed to glow with each flash of lightning… deep within I could still feel the ache of my body at being so close to her tainted scarred beauty. I caught sight of a lust that welled up in his eyes… and it was then that another feeling flushed through me, a feeling that seemed to pitch my stomach forward… jealousy, my god I was feeling jealous at his lustful gaze of her…

Slowly I stood, picking my top from the floor and gingerly slipping it over my head and pulling it down over my still heaving chest, wincing a little as the leather pulled at the thin wound at my breast. My eyes fell to the gun that even now still pointed at the two of us… my hand went out to the barrel and I pushed it aside…

“Don’t ever point that at me Trey…” I could feel the darkness that had gripped me so intently still bubbled under the surface and it was a great exertion of will to keep so level… I turned and looked down at her near naked form… running my eyes from her slender pale neck, down her soft yielding mounds, her scarred abdomen and her slim soft parting between her legs… for a moment I sucked on my lips, her deep taste still prevalent and I was taken by an aching longing for her that it almost threatened to double me up. My eyes met with hers… hers were so dark and deeply scarred by what she must have had to witness in the years since the comet fall.

“I think she is the one Trey…” for a moment I felt his eyes burning through me as if he was carefully searching my statement. “She carries none of the marks of the disease…”

…Her only marks were those that spoke of a darkness that had taken her life since the fall, her etheric body a relief map of torment…

I returned my look to Trey, his expression spoke for him and I waited to see if he would follow up with some smart remark… which perhaps he would have, had he not seen the look that burned in my eyes…

I pulled my long coat up from the floor and lay it across the table, removing the syringes and their custom holder and attaching it to my belt, then remembering the syringe filled with her blood I retrieved it and held it up against the half light of the storm, regarding the rich red fluid for a moment, I felt my mind pulled between my need to investigate and my need for her…

…this revelation startled me for a moment and it registered momentarily on my face… flashes of the darkness that flowed through me still glimmered against the twilight of my emotions and I battled to make sense of it…

… I looked down at her as she made a tentative effort to rise, and I held out my hand for her to take… for a moment her eyes regarded me with uncertainty, and I wondered for a moment exactly what she had seen in them when I had been lost moments earlier… before I felt her slim fingers lace with mine and watched her rise… her muscles traced through her lean body.

I half watched her as she pulled her trouser up before motioning towards the table where I rested my coat; her top had been shredded in the initial skirmish…

“You can use my coat…” and I tried to smile at her, but I was sure that my expression looked awkward from the look on her face as I tried to reign in the turmoil within me.
I forced my gaze to break from her and walked across the room where I stood at the shattered wall, my hand against the masonry for support… my eyes intense as the storm raged… I sighed, I could still feel my own storm raging, my own tempest that had taken control and

I turned to Trey… “So what are our options?”

Trey snorted a derisory laugh… “Options? We are flat out of options, there are no other points of access but for the one we came in… the back of the building has taken too much damage, we can’t get through that way. They do seem to have dispersed a little… but thanks to your ‘friend’….” His eyes regarded her with mixed emotions for a moment before he continued… “…We are down on manpower and have little chance of maintaining a sustained fire fight, even less if we are escorting a captive…” he motioned towards her as she covered up the last of her lithe body…


I sighed and clenched my fist, driving it in frustration against the wall… “We have to take her with us Trey…” I turned around to face her… “I’m not leaving without her…”

Her hand in mine was both strong and gentle, helping me up from the floor and I glanced up into her eyes. Startled by what I saw there…what I thought I saw there. A conflict of fire, hatred, rage and lust and…something else. The look made me shiver in fear rather from the cold, but she pointed to her coat and brought a half hearted smile to her lips that fooled neither her nor I. Gratefully I pulled the long warm coat around my shoulders and slipped it on. I smiled over at Trey, his eyes had not left my breasts and naked body since I rose, and I slyly closed the coat in a way that gave him a lingering look. Instantly I was availed of her deep, powerful scent which had a disturbingly intoxicating effect on me. And I glanced over at her, wondering if she had seen my obvious flirt with the man.

I paused for a moment, gathering myself and marshalling my thoughts. Observing them from the other side of the office I was able to hear their conversation perfectly. I looked over at the broken window…and the building across the street…if I ran hard enough…I might make it. But I shook my head, I was exhausted and whilst the paralysis of earlier, under the caress of the mad Celine, had faded…I was just too tired.

Treys comments came to me. I crossed the floor slowly in order not to alarm them. Nonetheless I felt them both watching. I picked up my cross-bow and tugged some more bolts from the bag. Trey lifted the gun quickly, pointing it at me. I stared at him and lifted the bow to my back, resting in place there…shaking my head slowly. I nodded towards the open window, indicating the infected mass around the building. Would they trust me to help them get free from the building? Frankly if I killed these two, my position would be worse if I tried to escape this alone. But he had no reason to trust me since I had slaughtered the rest of his men.

“Fucking speak you dumb mute bitch!” He screamed at me, still waving the gun at me.
I stared back at him, carefully, I wondered what the odds were of me being able to draw my cross bow, aim and fire at him before he filled me with bullets were…probably slightly worse than 50-50. But my eyes drew to her…that damn woman again…what spell did she have over me? I saw the stern look…and the power of the gaze drove any thought of attacking him out of me instantly. I lifted my arms half heartedly, rolling my eyes sarcastically. Then pulled myself up onto a desk, sitting cross legged as I stared back at the two of them, waiting for them to decide my destiny. I could escape at some point. There was no doubting that…but another look at Celine fed an uncomfortable doubt…what if I didn’t want to?

My gaze fixed on the shattered land that was once one of the most cosmopolitan and vibrant cities in the Western world…The lightning flared deeply across the rolling sky, the flash lighting up the room behind, the glowing reflection caught in the cracked shards of glass that jutted from the broken frame… in an instant my eyes narrowed, drawn by the sight of that woman… my heart struck by some force that seemed so out of my control… something so deep… something so needful. I caught Trey’s barely concealed lustful gaze, something I expected from him… and something else… a soft sweet smile that played on her lips momentarily as she gazed at him. I felt my heart pitch forward and had to steady myself against the outcrop as my eyes met hers in the reflection in the glass. My mind reeled from the effects of such a simple gesture on her part, but it had such a profound impact on me. This day had seen many emotion rise within me, this perhaps was the most unexpected one of them… jealousy… a deeper darker part of me regarded Trey as something more than just a hired thug, I saw him as a threat… very real and pronounced.

…It was at that moment that something clicked over in my mind and a darker primal resolve set in motion in my mind…

My eyes were drawn to her as she slowly reached for her weapon, her gaze regarding us both for any signs of aggression towards her… Trey, perhaps through instinct slide her gun to hold her in its sights, I watched her graceful movements as she motioned towards the wretched hell that surrounded us… I knew that whether any of us liked it or not, our survival… slim though the chance was… depended upon us allowing some form of cooperation. Trey glanced to the shattered bodies of his men, already cooling.

The suddenness of Trey’s outburst shook me for a moment…

“Fucking speak you dumb mute bitch!”…

I watched as her eyes flared, wondering how many times she had faced such a situation before, and how many times her victim had underestimated her… only to be left cooling themselves in a puddle of blood. Her gaze then shifted to mine and I found the look in her eyes ignite a little of the fire that had burned in me earlier, I watched… captivated almost… as she pulled herself onto the desk and sat regarding us. My gaze seemed reluctant to shift from her sight… I felt that darkness swell within and leach from my senses, and despite the danger I could think of only one thing… her…

A sudden grinding crack broke the silent triangle between us… Trey was the first to speak as the noise echoed through the empty stairwell, quickly followed by a chorus of guttural cries…

“FUCK!!!…

Trey ducked from the room and cast his gaze down the stairwell, the cries increasing with the footfalls as they wound their way towards us, their crazed shadows falling across the steps a couple of floors below… he returned, a look that mirrored the haze that had fallen across him earlier in the wastes. He watched as pulled the knife from the wood of the table, gently running my fingers across the sharpened edge, feeling the cold touch of death that held such promise within its folded metal…

“Oh for fuck sake Celine… I mean seriously, what do you expect to do with that fuckin pig sticker!” Trey sighed and bought his gun to bear as we heard them reach the floor below…

I glanced across at this woman, her beauty seemed to radiate with the danger that rushed towards us, I wonder how many times she had felt the rush of adrenalin as she had faced the innumerable threats that were testament to her survival, how many had lain battered and bleeding at her hand…her eyes glanced to mine, I saw an echo of her past as her mind seemed to measure the threat that closed in on us…

I watched her deftly un-shoulder the cross bow and quickly thread a bolt into the groove before locking it down. I winced as I remembered the path of fire that skipped across my abdomen as she had used the self same weapon against me. I flipped the knife around so that the blade pointed behind me, my fingers tightly wound around the shaft as my other hand pulled a syringe free from its housing… I felt my mind close around itself as I braced for the fight, the intoxicating rush of facing a possible death almost shocked me… but the barriers of my staid existence below ground fell away and I almost envied her this life… I knew the last vestiges of the darkness that had fallen across me still clawed at the farthest reaches of my mind, the battle deep inside seemed to be at the point of tearing me apart… I felt her gaze fall across me and quickly twisted to lock my eyes on hers. I wondered at her thoughts at the shadows that etched themselves across my face…

I was jolted from her as the door was hefted open… the fingers of the electrical storm lit the room, reflecting in the eyes of this wretch… eyes that burned red with the disease and the madness that tore at him, a pitiful and tormented sight but no less dangerous for it… as the lightening glow faded the room was suddenly lit by the violent flash of the gun muzzle at Trey’s hand… the room filled with the whining rumble as the clip emptied heavily into his chest throwing him backwards, his body dancing in a macabre ballet. Trey screamed out as the rage flooded through him and more moved to fill the doorway, the weight of their numbers in this confined space allowing them to quickly force their way into the room. A click from Trey’s weapon was followed by a quick curse as the spent clip was ejected and a new one driven home… but by now they had closed in on him and he was forced to use the weapons butt as a makeshift cosh.

A glance to my side and I saw as this woman deftly poised against the backdrop of the storm raised her crossbow and slipped her finger against the trigger….

I spun about as a shadow loomed towards me, feeling the dankness of his breath as he clawed for me, his fingers reaching out… I whipped the blade about; the sharp edge cleaved the tip from an outstretched finger as the point cut cleanly across his throat… I winced as the thin spray of blood splattered across me, suddenly I was feverishly aware of the cut in my forearm… a wound torn as the darkness bit deep into my soul… but my rational mind screamed at the risk of infection… I felt the rage fill me as I drove the blade deep into his chest and forcing him backwards into another of the scavengers that bore down upon me, wrenching the blade free as he pitched backwards… Trey stepped back with a guttural cry, making some space and his gun once more sparked through the room… the wall exploding in a cloud of rubble and blood spittle as the bullets drove mercilessly through flesh and bone…

I twisted as a flash of gunfire highlighted a fast moving shape that kicked off from the table and launched into the air, I spun as his pitched scream filled my ears and thrust forward with the syringe… releasing a lethal dose of Pancuronium bromide into his system… the dose was large enough that his muscles had siezed and paralysis had set in before he hit the floor and I plunged the blade through the vertebrae of his back, ensuring that he would never return to his feet…

My eye caught the woman who had been the object of my earlier dark needs as she spun about… her crossbow pointed directly at me… a thin clunk sent the blot screaming towards me… I felt it flick at my hair as it passed by the side of my head and came to the gurggling halt buried in the throat of an attacker that had come up behind… the thin spray of red filled the air as he dropped. We exchanged a glance, her eyes burned with a depth that threatened to swallow me… and my thoughts were only broken by Trey as he called out….

“We have another group coming up… move now while they are thinned out!”

I had been careful to watch the first group coming, more out of interest to see the methods my two captors would use during a close fight like this. Trey was as predictable as any man seemed to be. Spraying bullets this way and that with an almost gleeful grim smile upon his face. I almost fired the first bolt from my cross-bow not at the screaming horde at the door but at him as he barely missed firing into the back of Celine. But I held back and watched.

I felt a deep stirring within me as I watched her fight, she was not a natural fighter perhaps, but she had the fire and skill to hold her own…and more. Since my choice of weapon was running low on ammunition I prolonged the moment I joined into the fray further. I was watching the woman who had captured me fight for her life so perfectly. She kept glancing at her arm, as if something was there and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize what she was concerned with. Infection…I smiled without humor. Something we all faced and yet I had never suffered a day’s illness for as long as I could recall. She moved with such self-assuredness and boldness of stroke that I felt a heat growing within me despite the carnage.

Trey was in the middle of changing his ammunition clip just as another two of the monsters burst through the open doorway. I dispatched one with my first bolt and inwardly cursed as I lost sight of the other. Quickly I reloaded and swung towards my left. As Celine lifted from her latest kill, knife still red and her face twisted in a way that both frightened and stirred me I saw the second beast. I lifted my bow and aimed. I was aware of Celine staring at me. She made no move towards me or motion to alert Trey and I let loose the bolt. She did not flinch as it flashed through her hair and into the man behind who went crashing to the floor. My gaze remained locked with hers I had saved her life…would she do the same for me? Why did she want me alive…why was she and Trey so white, yet…otherwise so healthy? I wanted to reach into her mind and grab the answers I desired…but her depths were locked shut once more with Trey’s shout.

She broke away and we both moved towards Trey’s position by the door.
“Which way,” Celine asked quietly.
I pointed to the floor plan across the hall…and twisted my head in frustration when they didn’t move. I pushed through the pile of still twitching bodies that Trey had shot down and pointed to the emergency staircase on the outside of the building. The fire exit door was about fifty feet further down the corridor. Without further consultation I began to move towards. It was padlocked and Trey pulled me back and pulled a gun out to shoot away the lock. He kicked the door open and then bowed slightly indicating I should go out first. This time I made sure Celine saw the shy grin I gave him before stepping out onto the steel landing of the stairwell. I looked out over flooded London and the air was torn away from my mouth by the storm.

Together we began a slow descent of the stairs…

For a moment I hesitated in breaking my gaze, held captive by her eyes perhaps, or maybe captivated by the thin taste of the darkness that still lingered within me… faint but all powerful, just as her own taste lingered on my lips… I sucked on my lower lips discreetly for a moment before pulling my gaze free and spoke quietly to Trey…

“Which way?” … Trey didn’t answer he was too focused on the stairwell which rung with the sound of them as they flooded the lower reaches of the building… drawn by the gunfire and the smell of blood. I glanced at Trey, for a moment he looked lost in thought, drawn perhaps by the fearful consequence that we would end our days amongst the litter of corpses around us. I caught sight of her as she pushed past us and motioned towards the wall opposite, my eyes narrowed as I tried to work out what she meant… she moved further and tapped in frustration on the map she then turned away and set off towards the end of the corridor, I tapped Trey and motioned him to follow… I remained stationary for a moment consumed by the recent memories that had burned deeply, stirred only by the anguished howls as they reach a floor or two below us.

I reached the fire exit just as Trey shot away the lock, his heavy boot kicking hard against the heavy door. The air suddenly chilled as the fire door swung open, a thin wisp of smoke curling from the blackened lock, the force of the storm threatening to tear it free. I watched as she grinned at Trey and his almost sickening smiling response to the attention, my chest felt like it was suddenly struck by a crippling pain that threaded through my heart, why did this weigh so heavily on me, this sudden power she seemed to hold over me took me by surprise and I had to turn away… partly to free my gaze of the scene, but mostly so she hopefully wouldn’t see the expression on my face as my mask of reservation fell away and I suddenly felt so exposed and alone.

My eyes were turned towards the corridor we had just walked; thin shadows flickered on the walls of the stairwell as they rounded the last flight of stairs, I felt my grip tighten on the hilt of my knife as I stepped out onto the stairwell… the storm continued to crack overhead as my eyes searched for once familiar sights… in the distance the remnants of the parliament building was visible, flooded and derelict, I glanced back through the open doorway…seeing the shadows breach the corridor and take on a defined form as an angered and anguished horde entered the corridor.

Years of battling the elements had taken their toll on the steel stairwell, with each step we took the structure seemed to grind and crack… in parts rust had eaten great holes through it and the further we descended the greater the threat that it would give way. I found my gaze drifting past Trey and captured by the figure of her leading the way, even wearing my long coat I could see the seductive movements of her hips as she continued assuredly downwards… a sudden noise caused me to lift my gaze and cast it upwards… our scent had drawn them to the fire escape and they had begun to flood the unstable structure… I pushed hard against Trey’s back with the flat of my hand…

“Move it!” I shouted above the roar of the storm… our pace increased as the stairs began to creak and shudder around us… the frail metal barely able to withstand the vibrations of so many footfalls… on the ground below I could see that we had attracted attention, but they were as yet thinly dispersed. We rounded the last corner and sped down the last flight as the air filled with a twisting screech… the frame began to buckle around us, the air filled with showers of rust as the wails from above took on a more desperate air… I felt the structure shift hard as it pulled from the wall as it began to overbalance, the weight causing the staircase to topple… I drove forward at Trey as we three reached the last few steps; we fell into a sprawled heap as the last bolt attaching the steel to the building sheered and against the backdrop of the tortured sky the staircase pitched backwards, their shrill cries filled the air as they fell.

My eyes flickered to hers as I struggled to catch my breath, then my gaze lifted slightly as I saw shapes moving in the darkness ahead of us… the change in my expression registered with her as she followed the line of my sight… the lightning flared through the sky and lit up their faces, twisted by insanity and the disease as they closed in on us…

As we pounded down the stair well I scanned ahead, looking out at the threats ahead. The stairs shuddered once more and then we were falling. The screams of the infected matched the scream of metal from the falling stairs. As we landed Trey collapsed upon me and Celine above him…our eyes locked for a moment and I saw something said there. What was this womans spell upon me? But her gaze changed direction and her face hardened and horror showed there in those eyes of hers. My body ached all the more, but the fresh, wet cold air of London gave me a burst of energy.

We pulled each other up and gazed behind us at the growing crowd of the infected that moved towards us.
“This way I think” Trey said quietly, indicating the opposite direction of the main crowd. The narrow road that lead away from the building disappeared into darkness a few hundred feet away, but the storm lit up twenty or so of the diseased.
I checked my cross-bow, worried the fall had damaged it, finding it was fine. I pulled six bolts from my bag and tucked them in the coat Celine had given me and cocked the bow with another. We moved off…Trey in front, me in the middle and Celine following closely behind. Trey opened fire and cut down three of the monsters before we had gone ten feet. I waited…I was dangerously low on bolts now and each shot had to count.

A beast leapt from the building opposite from us and I turned and fired before either of the other two managed to…we pushed through to another road and it looked clear. Trey picked up the pace and I found myself running along side him…I looked over my shoulder and found Celine staring back at me. Her eyes seem to burn in the gathering darkness and I shuddered…escape…again the thought crossed my mind. Perhaps I could duck down in one of these old shop doorways and they would lose me quickly…but before I could do so, we were suddenly pitched into a group of fifty or so of the diseased, howling beasts.

Trey turned his gun on the leading edge, mowing down row after row…but we were soon overwhelmed…and I found myself clubbing body after body with my crossbow. In the corner of my eye I saw Celine whirling and kicking…her knife slashing in her hand and I felt a deep dark desire for her once again…that fire within her seemed to lift her when she needed it most, gave her a power…

It was for this reason I missed the two huge men that leapt upon me…snapping and screaming in a stream of abuse…I held my crossbow between me and them as a shield but I couldn’t hold them back for much longer. I wanted to scream out…but the noise wouldn’t come…I was growing weaker by the second...

We dragged ourselves up, my hand fleeting clasped against hers as I helped her to her feet, the touch between us sparked a flash of the intensity that flared earlier within me, and for a moment and my eyes shimmered against hers…
I as shaken into breaking my gaze as the infected seem to melt from the shadows and surround us in increasing numbers… for a moment true fear flashed through me, perhaps she had seen it… perhaps not
“This way I think?” came Trey’s call… I followed the invisible line from his finger to a narrow road ahead… I ran my fingers across the syringes, three remained and thankfully all had survived the fall, but the feel of the blade in my hand gave little comfort against such numbers.

We set off with Trey taking point… and me bringing up behind, my eyes seemingly fixed on this woman between us who had sparked such emotion within me… the air around us was suddenly lit by the flare from Trey’s gun and the howl of those that he cut down. The dark shadows of the damned closed in around us, my sight drawn to the side by the limp body of an attacker felled cleanly by a bolt, we pushed onwards. Trey had become surprisingly limber on his feet and had moved a little way ahead of me…they both had, there was something about seeing them in such close proximity that seemed to flare the most intense and irrational emotions within me… she turned her head catching my eye… I felt something register in her expression as she saw me, my eyes betraying my emotions…

We pressed on turning into another side street…the lightning flashed but down here it seemed only to lengthen the dark shadows that enveloped us all… the dark rumble of the storm was suddenly overshadowed by the wild howl of the pack as they descended on us… I heard a quiet curse from Trey as his gun lit up the darkness… the heavy thud of his weapon able to drop some of their number but they had us surrounded and closed in quickly

There was a howl from behind, I twisted as a group bore down on me.. the lead of their number drove forward crushing me against a wall, my arms braced against him as his fetid breath caught in my face, his wild desperate eyes clawing at my mind as he forced towards me… my body and mind had already been driven to such limits and deep within I felt a bubbling darkness… born from the depths of my hate… memories of my past, of a time when I felt so powerless…

… “Dammit Celene! Your so worthless… pathetic”… his hand clasped at my throat… eyes burning with such hate… my slim body held tight against the wall… my hand clasped against my fathers arm as he choked the air from me… tears in my eyes... I couldn’t stop him…

My expression twisted and contorted as he pushed towards me, I felt the cold stone building on my back… I felt a deep haze descend over me as I drove him backwards thrusting the blade deep into his gut and wrenching it upwards… more of them closed in on me, unconcerned of the fate that befell the first, but I was too lost in the dark to recognise the danger and seemingly the more blood that spilled the deeper the darkness in which I felt myself sinking… the expression in my eyes as twisted as those I felled, the blade seemingly filled with a life of its own as it let me on devastating dance through the night…the once silver blade now coated in a deep red…

Once more Trey’s gun bought light to the shadows and the flare illuminated the two infected that had bought her down and she desperately tried to hold them back, but I could see her strength failing… a deep wave of panic took me as I started towards her… rational thought was lost on me, but in a more lucid moment I would wonder whether I was driven onto her by the possibility that she held the key in her bloodstream… or by the deep driven desire that I felt for her, that would ache in my heart… I reached her quickly and lashed out with my foot, the heel cracked hard against one shattering his nose and staggering him back a little… I whipped behind the other and dragged his head back… he was still snarling as I drew the blade across his throat, his blood spray coating us both… for a moment I panicked as she was spray with his infection, but I probably had more to fear than she did… his body dropped limply to the side as a guttural cry came form behind, with blood streaming down his broken nose he charged me… my fingers dropped to my belt and felt out a syringe… he struck out, his nails perilously close as I ducked sideways and drove the needle into his skin pumping a high concentration of hydrogen cyanide into his diseased blood… his eyes fell wide as his body contorted under its effects… he dropped to the ground gasping.

I was dimly aware of their shrill cries as more of them poured towards us… Trey’s bitter cursing as round after round tore through the air… breathing heavily I held out my hand for the second time that night, a maelstrom of emotion in my eyes as in my heart I hoped she would accept my gesture…

My heart pounded as she burst against my two attackers...she was almost as silent as I but the power she had within her was let loose like never before. I scrabbled free just as she sliced the neck of the man above me, a great sheet of blood showering across us. I blinked away the hot sticky fluid from my eyes as it ran down my face and blinked up just as her hand reached for me.

I looked up, staring into the blood flecked face of this woman who had crashed into my life so utterly. I clasped her fingers with my own, hers red with blood that had ran down the knife she had wielded so excellently and lifted up next to her. Her eyes were still flooded with rage and a dark fury that pulsed there. I sensed it changing though, our touch seemed to act like a lightening rod for her to discharge the rage that she held. My eyes were locked with hers and I found the change in hers startling...shocking. Our hands seemed reluctant to part…but as they slid away I felt…I wasnt sure, a static charge that seemed to revive me and sent my memory back to the moment she had said "forgive me"...

The crowd had thinned somewhat, whether they had found fresher, easier victims elsewhere or just grown tired of us….who knows. Trey was still firing at them, replacing clip after clip of ammunition in his rifle as he impatiently waved at us.
“Get a fucking move on Ladies, this aint no shopping trip!”
My eyes drew down in anger and I heard Celine mutter something… “one more thing…” and she pushed me, aggressively, in front of her as she moved quickly towards Trey.

I was getting tired…I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours now and my body had been put through a hard fight. I glanced at Celine once more and could see her mind working furiously. She saw my plaintive glance and obviously understood, probably feeling a little of the exhaustion herself.

I lifted my hand and wiped the blood from my face as the rain came down even harder…the water sloshing around our feet was growing deeper. Trey said something to Celine I didn’t catch and we moved off once more.

This time Celine and Trey were in front of me and I once more considered just slipping away into the shadows…but I was too tired to care for any attempt at escape. Instead my eyes locked onto the swaying form of the woman in front of me. The very way she moved spoke of a power, an inner strength that kept me captivated. We rounded a corner and the road opened up onto larger boulevard. I kept pace with my two captors…my destiny was in their hands…I found the thought both disturbing and intriguing. The rain fell harder still as it grew darker and darker.

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