Endings: Book One

The cold

The past haunts us enough times for it to become our true weakness.

-Adrian Legacy, Scars to behold.

Four years ago.

The room was cold, really cold. The air conditioning was more fierce than the neon lighting in it. It was so still that he dared not to speak, for he feared that the perfect balance would have been disturbed by anything audible. In contrast, the quiet atmosphere generated the same gloomy tale the room always told, one he'd gotten used to.

Adrian switched his gaze to the window on his side. It revealed a garden, which seemed delicately handled but it was far from being a pleasant sight. It's efforts to provide the serene gesture needed was dully noted, though the fact that it was failing miserably was so too.

He guessed that it was all an effort to ease the tension present, have their thoughts diverted from the wretched nightmares of their lives. But it's effects turned out to be rather temporal, it had only numbed the thoughts for a few seconds.

Or is it just me...

Rather than contemplating further, he glanced at his wristwatch and found that he couldn't make out the time. The arrows and the numbers they were pointing to were blurred. He was in a daze.

Maybe it's just a trance...

It never really mattered to him anymore. He couldn't tell the difference between either. He had felt that way from the moment he'd first walked into the place and he had every right to blame it on the damned air conditioning. The chill it conjured ran across his spine in a nervous tingle, numbed his delicate fingers and made his hands clammy. It never failed to dry his lips or stab his nostrils. It made him helpless, a feeling uncommon to him.

And she knows it.

Stupid Air Conditioning, he cursed again, this time a scowl on his face indicated how uncomfortable he had already become.

But she still sat there, pencil in hand, notebook on lap, a curious look surmised by a friendly smile reserved for only a few people, undisturbed, perfectly at ease with herself and her surroundings, which only darkened his mood more.

Adrian refused to look at her, they'd done this before, there wasn't any point in trying. His pride against her unnerving patience, a long raging battle. So he concentrated on how cold his leather-cushioned seat had become and how she didn't seem to notice that until now he hated the place.

He turned his attention to the wallpapers plastered across the remaining three walls of the cubed room. They depicted a serene forest, a scene involving early morning rays of sunlight cutting magnificently through the translucent leaves on the rather tall trees and onto the damp, dry-leaved ground. From that point, it dawned on him that it was a little bit past dawn on his side of the world too.

Thereafter, he made a careful deduction, everything in the room and around the entire facility tried desperately to calm an individual. But he didn't feel calm or warm or welcome, he just felt agonisingly cold. And he knew she knew it, she'd been doing this to him for a long time now.

"I don't like it here" he uttered.

He glanced at him and their eyes met. "Good, you're not supposed to"

Silence.

"Can I leave now?"

"Only if you start talking" she replied rather sternly. He looked at her intently, she was just the same way she'd always been. The only good thing about the place was her. Her scent filled the room like a summer breeze. Her presence though, and the words she kept saying to him, kept driving him crazy.

He turned to look at the window again.

"There's nothing there, Adrian" her voice confirmed his suspicions.

"I know" he answered, but didn't make any effort to turn away. He wasn't going to let her have her way. Over the past hour, his stubbornness seemed to have prevailed over her patience. It had been rather effective for the past few months. But he'd had enough...

"It's cold" he finally said, turning to her ever so keen fiery golden eyes.

"Is it?" She inquired, keen to make the conversation last longer than usual.

What the hell is wrong with you.

"Yes"

He didn't say anything else.

"You know, we can do this all day" she pointed out. Sometimes he wasn't sure if she was as pissed as he was or was she actually enjoying it.

"I didn't know that part of the day included freezing me to death!" he finally snapped back.

She pursed her lips at the remark, he was closing all doors again...but she wasn't going to let him do it all over again. She'd had enough too. She picked up her glasses from the table beside her and framed them delicately over her eyes. She then, for dramatic effect, slowly lifted her notebook and pencil in mid-air for him to see.

"You don't talk, I write"

At that, he crumbled. She had played the magic card, one that always pulled down his walls. He didn't want her to scribble away his chance at liberation, not when his entire life depended on it.

"Wait-"

She tilted her head slightly to look at the defeated expression on his face. He didn't seem pleased to have it on. She smiled, she liked that look.

"I'll talk" he said between his teeth.

She only smiled, she'd been practically praying for the day to come. She crossed her legs and set her deadly weapons aside. He only sighed, his walls failing him as they did with jericho.  It couldn't have been more poetic he decided as he finally thought it was time to open up.

The look on her face was one of satisfaction. Nothing could take that away from her.

"Now, we can do that all day too".