Stained Credence. Book One: The Wretched

SEVEN

Never had he known true fear. Never had he smelled the stink of it seeping from the pores of his own body. Always, he had been the predator. The ruler. The master.

Severed from his authority and power, cast into a jungle of disquieting sounds and darkness more absolute than the deepest crevice of the Mariana Trench, had rendered him to sniveling, self-pitying tears. He even fell to his knees, praying to the God he had always shunned. He prayed for mercy. Groveled and begged Him for mercy.

In the darkness he remained.

There was no mercy to be given for his meekness.

Kyrylo continued ambling blindly in the dark hoping to find something, yet fearing what he may find.

He stumbled and fell, his legs too weak to fight the uniformity of gravity.

He stayed down, weeping.

Kyrylo grabbed fistfuls of the dry, brittle grass and threw it. In the windless, dark world the pieces only fell as he had. Some landed on him in crisp strands. Little wisps of death.

His chest heaved between self-commiserating sobs, which gave birth to wretched groanings. Rendered helpless and hopeless, he wished death would come upon him as it had everything else in the land.

His bawling quieted and he lay on the calloused, brittle earth. A calmness washed over his weary body and his tired eyes grew heavy.

A harsh, grossly wet chittering rattled his ears. Weariness swiftly alleviated, his eyes snapped open only to find he still existed in a terrifying world of black; full of terrifying sounds. The sickening sound chattered again and he pushed himself from the ground, crawling forward in blind escape.

The long-dead grass disintegrated beneath his weight and he pressed forward until his head knocked against something hard and unforgiving, jarring his neck and causing him to bite his tongue. He yelled, more in surprise than pain, and cowered away in anticipation of an assault from whatever he had rammed into.

He listened, struggling to hear over his own knocking heart and heavy, rasping breathing. Nothing moved. Nothing came down vengefully down on him, so he eased himself back and rested on his knees. He cautiously searched in the pitch for what had stopped him. His fingers brushed against something cold and velvety-wet and he pulled away in fear, then warily placed his hands on the object. His fingertips played over the filmy surface, painting a picture in his minds' eye of what it may be.

He slid his fingers across the damp, slick surface and thought it felt moss-laden, as though it had only just now been pulled from the watery depths of an ancient lake. The moss clothed a hard, irregular surface that stood straight and ran wider than the extent of his reach. His fingers searched, pressing themselves into crevasses, his fingernails engorging themselves with muck.

Suddenly he realized that it was a stone wall. A fence. A property barrier. To possibly a home?

His heart raced with inspiring excitement.

Could there possibly be another human in this dismal world? Would that human be as hostile as it's environment; having gone insane in this world of endless twilight and dismay?

The chittering sound ran up his spine again and Kyrylo stood and hurriedly walking hunched over, keeping a hand on the stones. He would not abandon the closest thing to humanity he had found buried in the darkness. He would cling to it at least until the thing behind him wrenched him away from it in its jaws and chewed him like cud.

His back ached from the poor posture of walking hunched over, his pace slacked and his sides achingly resisted each breath. Refusing to risk forever losing this man-made relic in the ink-well world it stood, he sank to his knees to relieve his cramping muscles. Just a minute. I'll rest only a minute. His breathing was labored, the stitch in his side not willing to ease any.

That heart-stopping chitter raked across his skin, causing a tidal wave of goose-flesh to cover him. Kyrylo did not move. He had had enough of that creature toying with him. He was no mouse and would no longer play the part of one. A stance had to be made.

It sounded again, more closely that it had thus far. So close he could make out what sounded like a dozen angry rattlesnakes under the already menacing chitter. His heart skipped, but he remained strong in his decision to not flee.

Kill me now, he thought, Kill me, you bastard.

It hissed so closely and violently that its acidic spittle stung his face and its foul breath, like a thousand bloated, rotting corpses, pummeled every respectable sense he had. His strength puddled down his leg and he retreated, clambering against the wall. This was no average house cat and he was a mouse far out of his league.

x

Grady was sickened with his situation. Sickened with himself. He had no idea if he was on the verge of insanity, possibly gearing towards his own room with twenty-four hour monitored surveillance. Psychiatrist turned patient. Hopefully Harvey would take him on as his personal project. He smiled at the thought.

Regardless of his troubled, self-pitying woes of possible insanity; the knowledge that someone had tried opening his briefcase was the single most worrisome event to happen thus far. It was the single, tangible event that gave him the proof that there was a possibility of dupery aside of his own mind. That single shred of evidence alone gave him the momentum to carry on knowing that there was a possibility he may not be crazy, after all.

With so much being wrong, all he could do was carry on as though nothing was wrong. Pretend to be normal in a nuthouse, he told himself. The slight humor was smashed like a dropped bulb when the thought of Anika crossed his mind. "Anika Blade. What the hell kind of ridiculous name is that? Sounds more like a comic book character," he griped to himself, "And most definitely the villain."

He walked into the observation room and was glad to find it empty. The largest screen showed the silent angel and his heart panged at the sight of her. She was making her routine round of the room; one hand on the wall, one foot directly before the other, slowly walking the perimeter with her silent words. The linguist had reported back that the angel's language had been undeterminable and nothing could be translated.

Grady thought of Anika's refusal to walk into the room and found it even more odd now. He had miserably failed with his interview, yet she continued to insist on only him interviewing the woman. He made a mental note of that oddity, storing it alongside the evidence of his tampered briefcase, and walked to the break room looking for Anika, but hoping to never find her.

He turned the corner into the break room and found her standing in front of Terrence who hulked over her tiny frame as he stared down at her uninterestedly as she pressed her long finger into his chest, whispering harshly. Grady could not help but notice a nasty cut across Terrence's eyebrow.

He felt awkward walking in on the scene, but before he could back out of the room Anika looked at him over her shoulder and spat, "Grady, nice of you to finally join us. I'm afraid the situation has changed slightly and we are going to need to escalate things."