Out of the Darkness (v2.0)

Chapter Three

Elijah Asmund was a veteran. He'd seen his fair share of death.

He had built his company on the grounds of helping what he believed was good, but experience and past memories had crippled his mind -- twisting his designs from life-savers into killers. Of course, the company dabbled in other projects, yet those designs were the basis of an entirely new side of humanity:

Asmund Industries. It was the weapon-building capitol of the world. People loved war, and all Elijah Asmund did was enable them to fight. He wasn't the manipulator. He wasn't the ruler. He wasn't the man who said 'sick 'em.' All he did was build his own empire where the people made their own decisions, for where there's a will, there's a way, and that included the will of the bloodthirsty. It doesn't take a gun to kill someone. It takes a human being.

That much was obvious from the computer renderings of old rifles and pistols plastered upon the pristine hallway walls within Asmund Industries' main building. They were truly something to be proud of, and while they had made people suffer -- hopefully people who deserved to suffer -- they certainly had made their owner very, very rich.

Ellanor glanced at them occasionally while she took her steps. She wasn't jealous or envious, nor did she strive for money like what she believed Elijah did. She strived to get by -- not to be good, not to be great -- but to be just enough. Just enough was all she needed, and that's all she hoped for; in the end, if she placed all her hopes, dreams and beliefs in something -- or in someone -- she would only be disappointed. Luckily for her, despite the bruising that seemed to constantly be on her neck and having to put her hair up, she'd also been allowed to wear a blouse with a collar. So while she left the apartment with the collar folded down, once she got on the bus, she let it stick up to cover the black with white. It may have been unprofessional, but society wasn't always kind to what they didn't understand...

Or shouldn't have to know.

Once again, Ellanor was let into Elijah's office only when someone else had opened the door. It was strange for someone to be so polite -- or rather, have to be polite to keep their job. The 'door-opener' and the secretary were two of the very few employees who had to arrive early, the others being those who cleaned the hall. Must have done the vacuuming and whatnot to keep people from being annoyed, Ellanor guessed. She also didn't quite understand why Elijah would open positions for both a secretary and a personal assistant, although maybe it was too much work for one person to handle, and he had to at least be practical with that.

She fidgeted with the collar of her blouse again, praying that the bruising didn't show, but she wouldn't look down to check. After all, that would only be more suspicious. The fiddling quickly stopped, however, when she jumped at the sound of Elijah slamming the door walking in from another adjacent room. Ellanor's hand quickly flew to her chest, covering her heart and pacing her sudden bout of quick breathing.

"You nearly gave me a panic attack, sir...," she whispered shakily, bowing her head.

"You state the obvious," he muttered nonchalantly, sitting at his desk and looking at her boredly. "Anxiety disorder?"

"... Maybe," Ellanor shrugged, her voice faint and almost absent in the stale air of the room. "Panic attacks are somewhat common with me, but it was never properly diagnosed..."