Albino Child

Twenty One

To put phase 'S retrieval into motion', I began by formulating a plan internally as I walked across my home, 'it' was on the other side of this building and underground to ensure easy access was not available to those like him who may want to steal the property off of me; my footsteps were light but frantic as I scampered to the talc-white door frame with much haste and upon reaching the entrance to my destination, I grasped the sides of the jutting structure and held on as I breathed out heavily, my spin curling in as incoherent rambles curdled in my lucid conscience. I smiled thin-lipped as I resumed a normal standing position and inserted the aluminium plated key into the grimy, mildly rusted iron counterpart; the door was unlocked as I twisted the trinket sharply anti-clockwise, tenderly uncovering the entrance to let myself onto the smooth cloudy-concrete steps I promptly shut the door once again. The steps were shallow and small, as if made for a younger child rather than a full-sized person such as myself, the ceiling was low and I had to stoop over and hunch my back just to amble down; I accidently tripped upon the small steps and fell roughly a meter down before I became stationary, grumbling at my misfortune I cursed the designer of this building and slid down the rest of the staircase; upon reaching the clothed base of the ramp, I once again stood up and strolled to the washing machine. This was not a secret base or any form of particularly specified area, in truth, it was a cleaning area and the maid quarters for the aristocratic student that lived here previously, I had converted the space into a more average style by separating the basement into another office, a cleaning room filled with washing machines, dishwashers and an ironing board, and a utility room; the office was rarely used due to its inconvenient placement, however, did become a room dedicated to file, book and item hoarding but it would be too obvious to keep 'it' in there. Heading to the washing room instead, I turned on the dim energy-saver light bulbs and harshly shoved open the poplar-wood door and crouched down to open the hatch to the stunted washing machine - it was significantly shorter than the rest of the clothe-cleaning equipment due to its antique, industrial-revolution-made design - even though it was not the best decision in the design and could only manage four shirts at a time, it was a useful pigeon hole for the precious 'it'.

I placed my hand into the caving mouth of the machine, careful not to catch the fragile epidermis of covering my hands upon the jutting teeth that lined the internal frame of the cleaner, out of the grotto containing many shards of glass and blunt tarnished nails I revealed a lead box with many indents due to the damage caused by the tragic event that occurred many clock-turns prior; I had scavenged it and curled it tightly to my abdomen that fateful night just as I did right now - I had furled to switch to a foetal position while adrenaline rushed through my vascular system as metaphorical machine-gun fire shot automatic rounds of memories into my mind; the voices were violent and frightening. I felt like a foolish child as I clung tightly to the box like a baby to its teat.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhh, you leave us A, why A? Why? You promised to look after us and now you're abandoning us. Traitor! Drag the traitor! We're going to hell, he should join us too, he doesn't deserve to live. Die A. Die. We will come to get you, we promise to hound you. You will never leave our grasp, we are bound together A, don't try and abandon us." The voices screamed relentlessly into my mind as I wailed and whimpered like a helpless fish on land, my arms body appeared to have been spasming uncontrollably as it writhed upon the slightly dusty floor, there were granules of borax upon the floor that became trapped between the capillaries of my inner eyelid and the sensitive cornea. I felt the stinging pain grow as I thrashed due to the mental and physical pain.

Fatigue began to grow as my body and mind began to release and relax, I was exhausted and overheated, there were rolling beads of salty saline sweat that had formed on my forehead, neck and back; parts of my shirt were drenched in the fluid and I panted in the painful realisation that the lead box had already been broken under my impulsive actions - while it was not entirely shattered, parts of the lid and sides had collapsed inwards but hopefully ensured that no harm had come to 'it; I desperately fiddled with the coding system that was placed upon all the hinges and the front panel of the box, the method of opening was unnecessarily complicated but I still never got round to changing the method nor did I update the system, the current one that was based upon the rune stones of dead, tribal, foreign languages - I also wanted to preserve the originality of God's creation for the box was stolen from his facility from back then. Thankfully, 'it' was in original condition still, now I thought of it, destroying 'it' with dramatic movement such as flogging was unlikely to even begin to annihilate 'it'; lifting out of the putar-tone lead box a stuffed toy rabbit whose body was limp but soft, the flaccid ears contrasted with the turgid spider-twine thread that was tightly stitched to create a childish crepe pink triangular nose; the deep set luxurious black beady eyes that were set deep into the head of the toy were deep yet innocent - the entire being of the character was gentle and soothing, with the worn but sanitized fur was synthetic but kept long, it tickled my hands as I embraced it closer to my chest. Checking to label upon the nylon manurfaction loop that was named 'Socio', smiling into the top of the head,I was not surprised that S used to love this small toy.