Stuff Of Legend

Chapter 23

The medics tried to revive him but it was hopeless. He had a false tooth with a capsule filled with poison in it, when he bit down on it, it burst and well, the expected happened. They've already identified of some other homemade poison, nothing like the drug, but just as effective.

It wasn't all a total loss. Platt was very indirect and nonspecific with his responses, but it was something to go off of. The drug was confirmed to be targeted at deviants. It hasn't been perfected, but Delton Slade is the first step to it becoming a success; whatever it is. Its focus is deviant powers, but what it does exactly isn't clear. And Platt confirmed that Kipley is indeed working on it, and that Delton won't be the last of these test subjects.

Piper left the building to let DC ATLAS clean up Platt's body. The group would head back to King's Valley within the hour; this was her only chance for a smoke. She bummed one off the guard outside and lit up. It's a horrible addiction, but King's Valley ATLAS and Rockwood have been helping. The beauty that surrounds her back there, all the trees and alive nature, Piper doesn't want to be the reason to burn it down. She won't smoke there; she'll keep the gross smoke away, keep it within the dirty city limits.

She sat down a nearby bench and let the smoke seep into her. It was relaxing, but troubling. She remembered her smoke outside with Katy.

Katy must have known what was happening to the other patients. Perhaps, during that period, she already had the drug coursing through her veins. Platt thought she was succeeding; she was the last one to die of the bunch. She must have been nervous, thinking about all the possibilities that could have come from that drug. She would have been scared in her final moments, knowing fully why she was dying, knowing her inevitable fate. It's a disturbing thought, but she must have known.

Lost in thought, Piper didn't see the mirror image sit down next to her. It was Skylar. Skylar Scott outside in the capital of America, outside in the open for the first time in seventeen years. Her dead hair was pulled up into a scattered bun on her head. She had applied a layer of makeup to bring some color to her cheeks, with a slab of red lip stick. The red lips hid her purple veiny mouth and the zombie look her normal skin is. She had on baggy blue jeans and a large plaid shirt, coaxing away her skeleton body. She looked like any typical teenager. That's another thing she and Piper share; on the outside, they appear as normal as the sun in the sky and the moon at night, but on the inside, they're as normal as a sea lion in a firetruck on top of treehouses. Looking normal and being normal are two different things.

"My first time being outside and I'm poisoned by you and that toxic air," Skylar pointed out, glaring at the cigarette.

"I'm more experienced in this world, and experience tells me that you need to find a way to take the edge off of everyday life." Piper replied nonchalantly.

"I'm still older than you by several minutes. Just looking after you little sis." Skylar joked.

"Oh really? Is that what you've come to do?"

"Not exactly." Skylar reached into her big pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "There's a mailbox number on it. I'm going away for a bit. This way, if you want to write or something, this is how you can contact me."

Piper sat up straight to look closely at her sister. "Sleeping beauty, you just woke up from a seventeen-year nap, and you're planning on taking a trip around the world?"

"Not around the world," Skylar corrected. "Just to the next state over. And for your information, I wasn't asleep the entire time. When I was awake, I was doing research, preparing for this trip. There's someone I'm going to see who's going to help me get better."