Grey Horizon

You're Real

The silence of the building resonates through my bones as I step up to the worn door of Leona's flat. Already I could feel the anxiety coursing through my veins, warning me to all the possibilities that awaited beyond that door.
Capture.

Torture.

Even death.

A stiff smell of old carpet fills my nose, drying my eyes as I glance down the lengths of the warmly lit halls. 

No one in sight.

"This doesn't feel good." Havens voice - my voice - glimmers through the silence. 

I keep my eyes glued on the shut door before me. By the shake in my fingers, I knew he was right. By now, Gensys could have found Sno. They could be waiting right now in the flat, sitting patiently for my naive arrival. 

A sharp, exaggerated sigh hisses in my ear as Rysk materialises by my side.

"For the love of Giddeon, just open it..."

His hand slips from his pocket and latches quietly onto the knob, turning it sharply to the right and letting the door creak open. My heart leaps into my throat as my feet, one after the other, lead me into the dark flat. Floorboards creak under my shoes and dust trundles down from the rush of fresh air. Following behind, Haven and Rysk make virtually no disturbance with their presence. Solidifying within me once more that they were in fact, inside my head. 
"They were here," I murmur, stepping into the overturned living room that had once been so comfortable and welcoming not but a week before. 

Plants and pots had been dumped and broken, the coffee table was shattered and the couches innards had been cut open and strewn about the floor. Cabinet doors lie open with contents either broken or scattered haphazardly. 

Standing in the middle of the room, I turn a slow three-sixty. At the chaos, my eyes search for any physical sign of whether they had been taken. Boot marks on the floor, trash patterns indicating a struggle.
"Anything?" Rysk questions, looking to me through the white bang hanging over his eyes. 

I glance in his direction and shake my head halfheartedly, my mind elsewhere. If Gensys had taken them, where could they have gone? 
Clearing my throat, I step into the kitchen and finger through the pile of glass shards on the old countertops. Already, I could feel Gensys' reach encroaching in my lungs as if their very hands grasped around them. 
Haven steps up beside me as I stare blankly at the aftermath, his breathing coming at a shallow pace.

"We should go, Uriel-"
"Freeze."

The sharp sound of metal clicking snaps in my ears. Sensing Haven and Rysk evaporate, I swivel around to find myself staring down the long barrel of an old light rifle. 
"Snojyn?" 

Holding the weapon with a firm grasp, Sno glares at me with cold amber-hazel eyes as her black hair hangs around her face. Her clothes were smudged of brown and black grease and her shoulders remained tense as she stands square in the middle of the only exit to the kitchen. 
"You have more that brass guts to come back here," she growls, her hold on the rifle barely fluttering. 

Raising my hands more out of show than of real fear, I furrow my brows. 
"What happened here?" I gesture to the wrecked flat. "How did you and Drax esca-"

Scoffing at my questions, Snojyn shoves the end of the barrel into my throat, instantly shutting me up and shoving me against the counter and cabinets. 
"Parted ways with Drax the second we left his headquarters. I barely managed to pack Leona up and forge a ticket to Hera before Gensys came barreling through those doors."