Reflections of Light

Primal Chaos

"So the plan is, we sneak onto the grounds, find the outside door, get into my lab. Easy. Assuming we're not noticed, and no one's worked out how to get past the inside door." Evelyn said grimly.

"Leave them to me." Came the reply.

"I'll warn you." Evelyn said. "It's a practical labyrinth under the house. Of course, I know my way around, but I think it's worth mentioning as you haven't seen it."

"Can we get on with it?" He said, sounding irritated.

"Alright. Stick to the treeline; hopefully we can make it around to the back without being noticed."

Silently, they followed the boarder around the grounds, keeping to the shadows. But a short way away, the house loomed over them; ominous and foreboding. And quiet.

Evelyn furrowed her brow. "Is it actually deserted? There doesn't seem to be anyone here."

"I wouldn't start moving in just yet." He said, craning his neck as he attempted to peer into a window. "Come on, keep moving. Where's this hatch?"

The lawn around the back of the house was overgrown with weeds; thistles that scraped at their ankles and nettles that reached their thighs. Pulling a face, Evelyn gestured for him to follow as she began to pick her way through the brush.

Finally, she found the metal ring laying in the ground. The hatch was stiff to open, straining against rust and the quick-grown weeds before coming open with a heavy sound.

"Watch your step, it's basically a glorified fire escape." Evelyn said, as she started off down the stairs. "Shut the door behind us, would you?"

The air inside the laboratory smelt stagnant and stale. "Well, it doesn't seem to have been disturbed. Which is a good thing. I know the kids were coming here for a while. They mucked some things up good and proper- I'm just glad no one got hurt."

He eyed the place with scrutiny. "You have a lot down here."

"I have... Diverse interests." Evelyn said. "Some of it's things I discovered, some of it's things I made, and most of it is just things I need."

"And what is it that we need?"

"This way." She beckoned, leading him down the passageways towards the area she'd had Rachel in before. Walking over to her table, she began taking stock of the items there, searching with purpose for what she required. He stayed on guard, prowling the perimeter of the room, in a manner that couldn't help but raise the hairs on the back of Evelyn's neck.

"What are you doing?"

"Digging out some notes I made, for a start. If only there was some way we could... Clear the house out, make it safe again. I could work much better here; its all set up already."

He seemed to ignore her; instead his attention being caught by something down a corridor a short distance away. Creeping down the hallway on silent feet, the movement of air across his face confirmed his suspicions before he even saw it. "The door's open. Somethings been in here."

Evelyn stood bolt upright, every sense alert. "Shoot. They could even still be here; we don't know where they are."

With the stealth of a panther on the hunt, he crept around the space, listening intently for the slightest sound, his eyes scanning the milky-transparent white curtains separating this area from the rest.

In a swift movement, Evelyn raised her hand and pointed certainly towards an opening in the curtains. "Check there."

Approaching slowly, he tugged back the plastic.

"You have a floating torso. In a tank."

"Yeah, I know." She replied nonchalantly, crossing the space to stand next to him. "Do you hear that? Tell me that's not what I think it is."

"Breathing." He said, his expression grim, as he pointed across the floor.

It was as bad she'd feared. Draugr. More of them than she'd ever seen in one place, secreted away in that curtained room- a room of ravenous hunger and tearing teeth, of rot and decay, of pain and anguish and a twisted desire for life, to touch it just once more even as they snuffed it out.

And the one saving grace, was that they were asleep.

Spread across the floor- piled uncaringly messily on top of each other in some places- they slept, a light sleep it seemed asounds of unrest issued forth from the pack at common intervals. But there was one semblance of order in this untempered, primal chaos; they all crowded, like a pack of resting hyenas around their leader- lazily, but with purpose, disguised as being unconsciously so except to the percepive few- around the tank holding the preserved body.

Evelyn tilted her head curiously, taking note of their strange demeanour; she'd never before had the opportunity to observe their behaviour, and the scientist within her was naturally curious.

However, a more rational area of her mind was yelling at her through the adrenalin to take action, shaking her from her thoughts.

Turning to her companion, she mouthed at him. "There's too many to fight. We should go..."

And that's when they heard the repetitive sound of slow, ambling footsteps down the hallway from the main entrance.

Immediately, his hand went to his belt, drawing out a large and comfortingly nasty knife.

'Of course...' Evelyn thought, reaching for the sharp-bladed scalpel resting on the table top. 'Most packs have a sentinel.'

Seconds later, unwaveringly inevitable, the creature came around the corner; eyes blazing with instant venomous hatred as it opened its disgusting maw to let out an unearthly howl...

... And instead got the blade of his knife rammed down its throat, bursting with a foul squelch out of the rotted flesh at the back of its skull.

Dragging the blade back out of the creature, he swung again, burying it deep in its chest. Dark, viscous blood oozed sluggishly from each open wound; as he pulled the weapon from the monster a third time, drawing it across its throat in a motion that near-decapitated it as it dropped to the floor, twitching horribly in its final moments, its brain-stem severed irreparably.

Black blood stained his clothes, his skin, dripping off the blade of the knife onto the floor.

Evelyn's breath had stilled in her throat; she dared not let it go.

"We have to go." He said in a rough voice.

As if to punctuate his words, a slowly-growing chorus of low grumbling and sniffing sounds began from behind the curtain partition; snatching Evelyn's attention as she whipped her head around to look. The sounds of the Draugr waking up.

"They can smell the blood."

This was originally meant to be longer, and would include their escape from the mansion. But this section ended up being longer than I planned, and it got late in the day and I ran out of time and energy. So I've decided to split it in two, last minute.

Hope it's okay! Please like and comment! :)