In White Robes

Chapter 7 - Man in Black

They called him the Man in Black. The man who did not follow the rules and wear the masks and white robes, who did not carry around a rifle and the readiness to kill us, who did not travel the halls like the Concealed.

I knew him better as the Devil. He was the one who ran this system of kidnappings and imprisonment. I wondered, time and time again, if there was a heart beneath that suited chest of his or if he was just an empty shell of a man.

"Have a seat," he told me. Before I sat I observed his little office. Unlike the rest of the facility, the walls here were painted jet-black. His desk sat in the middle of the room; behind it were shelves filled to the brim with books, journals, maybe even diaries. It was so spacious.

I looked to his collection of paper for a long while, considering it. Evaluating it. Then he spoke again to refocus me: "Take a seat, Kay."

This time I did. I took one of the guest's seats at his desk. Across from me, he wouldn't take his eyes off of me. He was just forever gazing, quiet and still and creeping me out.

He looked at me as if he knew me.

"Yes?" I stuttered, uncomfortable in the small wooden chair. He blinked at me, folding his hands and blowing out air.

"I would like you to meet someone. Someone very special to me." Suddenly he was looking past me. Slowly I followed his eyes, turning in my seat to face the door we'd come in from, but I needn't look very far.

He was standing right behind me. The light-gray feline wearing white robes and the pink collar around his neck. I'd seen him in the past but no one could tell me his name.

Soon I found myself staring hard into his dead eyes. There was barely any color in them, barely any life, just two bumps in his eye sockets that watched me carefully. The look on his face reminded me of the Devil—both of them seemed to be empty beings. Totally devoid of emotion.

"Koko, introduce yourself, will you?" The Devil spoke, commanding the feline. Koko. That was his name.

Koko outstretched a hand to me, offering a handshake which was strange because I wasn't expecting anyone to be so formal down here. Feeling uneasy, I took his hand and shook it. He released me a moment later.

And then wiped his once-occupied hand on the side of his robes.

The gesture made me scowl. You handshake me and then wipe your hand off like I'm infected or something? What kind of logic was that?

"Your hand was sweaty," he said, deadpan. And that was all he said in his low, eerily calm voice before the Devil spoke again.

"That is Koko," he explained after seeing that the feline wasn't going to do so himself. "He's quite the character, don't you think?"

Clearly he was amused. The Devil had sunk into a low chuckle. But I was sick. The fear of being in the same room as the headmaster had not yet come into play—it was Koko. There was something menacing emanating from those cold, empty eyes.

It felt like, at any moment, he could grab my neck from behind and twist it off my head. But then I considered his robes. He wore what we, the subjects, wore everyday. Did that mean . . .

"Koko, here," the Devil went on, "is working with us here at the Anavió̱sei Facility. Be careful around him. He does bite, indeed."