Karst

Chapter Nine: Dark

"Let the darkness occur, turn off the lamp, to try save the light is strenuous and impossible."

K was a number of things. She was known by a number of names, people and places. She had no real identity. The only part of herself she held onto was K. Because thats who she was. Just K. To try to be anyone else was a hopeless cause. She was nobody. She felt nothing, there were no ties to hold her down. And now she was going to sever the last one, the one that held on to her the most tightly.
She shuddered, finally switching off the power button on the main computer, as the others one by one clicked off. She stood up, her knees weak but sturdy, slightly wobbling. Lucien had been right. This was all supposed to happen, and it did.

The thought was scary. More so, the thought that she thought it was scary was frightening. Funny how you think about the people you've never met the most. K had never met Lucien Ren before. They corresponded mostly using letters. There was still something about that, that made them close. Unfortunate that was. Luckily they never really had a friendship. K wouldn't want to have to let him go.

She missed how things used to be. Isabella and her sister, Maria were still as treacherous as ever. Colette...what had happened to Colette? The sinister old mansion popped into her mind.
She remembered the winding stairs and spiralling towers. The thin, narrow halls and the long, upright windows that reached to almost touch the high ceilings. The grandeur of the entrance hall, the way the marble staircase sloped upwards. The black and white diamond patterned floors that were dusty, but yet still shined as though they had been polished and glossed that morning. The locked rooms and paper thin walls. The secrets within that house. She knew the place like the back of her hand. When they were together in the boarding school they used to break into there. Fantasising that maybe one day, they'd be able to escape, one day they could renovate it and live there themselves. But was fantasising, and fantasising never resulted in anything except whimsical fantasy. They had all grown up too fast. But she couldn't afford to have regrets. Regrets are nothing once you are dead.
She pulled the jacket over her head and placed the helmet on her head, covering her face with a plastic shield. It was showtime.

"Very interesting, probably one of the most successful test subjects we have had so far." William could hear voices murmuring outside the locked ward. He was huddled in a corner, trying not to make eye contact with one of the other patients who was looking silently at him from the other end of the ward. The sheets on the beds were bleached, the walls a bland shade of off white. There was only one tiny window, that had three steel metal bars across it, as if you would be foolish enough to try get out it. Outside the window was a sheer 50ft drop. William sometimes wondered if the bars were there to prevent 'things' from getting in.

The figure finally stood up and turned to face him. The murmuring of voices stopped and he could hear Mindy and The Doctor's footsteps moving down the hall, drifting further and further away. He could tell it was Mindy by her shrill, high pitched voice. He had to listen to her whilst she was torturing him. "So I guess you are new here? Let me tell you this, you are never getting out." The girl stopped in front of him and looked down.

She had a pretty face, with long black eyelashes and azure blue eyes. She had dark circles under her eyes, from lack of sleep, and ragged unkempt midnight coloured hair that swept past her shoulders in an unruly mess. You could see her bones sticking out from her ribcage and her skin was sallow, her face malnourished looking. He wondered how long she had been left in here. "My name is Annie. Just Annie. And, we always tell the truth here, since they lie to us all the time. So, I hope you will believe me when I tell you that I can't remember my last name." William nodded slowly without comment. It had been the first time she'd spoken in four days. "I have a feeling we are going to get along alright, George, no wait, William isn't it? I should tell you everything from the begin. But first I have to ask you five questions. Firstly, do you have the disease?" William shook his head. "No, apparently I am immune to it." The girl named Annie looked sad for a moment, "I suspected. Secondly, have you ever killed anyone?" William went blank. He remembered, it was a long time ago. "One person. If you would even call them a person. They were already dead." "I understand. I think I don't need to ask you all the questions, i've heard enough. Lastly, how long have you been locked in here for?" "3 years."

Mindy shut the door behind her, so that their conversation would be inaudible. "Do you think he is ready yet? Is his blood pure enough to be extracted? I think we've got all the answers we can out of him." She spoke in a low hiss, her sharp accent and tongue articulating her t's profoundly. The Doctor opened one of the drawers from the mahogany cabinet. He pulled out a bundle of files and flicked through them until he found the one he was searching for. "Yes and no. He is by far, the best subject we have had yet. His blood has just the right balance of chemicals in it that will counteract the infection quickly and cleanly, getting rid of the symptoms within days. Think about it, Miss Carlile, with this cure we can help hundreds of thousands of people. And control them. We'll be like Gods. I don't want to kill him yet. He was K's right hand man and knows everything there is to know about her. Once we find and get rid of K and the DCPA, they'll be no one standing in our way. Isabella has agreed a treaty with Mistress Colette, she just wants us to hand over K when we storm their headquarters. Seems like a lot of people have vendettas against K these days. Not surprising considering the psycho detective type she is." The Doctor laughed manically.

"Think about it, the whole of Blue Haven at our fingertips. And nothing to stop us from doing whatever we want!" He shrieked with glee. Mindy looked disgusted. She had her hands folded neatly over each other, her lips were pursed. "Do you not have any dignity at all, dear Doctor? This talk of murdering innocent people, maybe you are the psycho detective's psycho doctor." "I don't want to kill anybody. I'm just thinking about how lovely their blood will taste when.." He snarled, his eyes beginning to change, an animal look in his eyes, that were brimming with hunger. Mindy smacked him across the face promptly. "Contain yourself Doctor. We will eat soon. And my, my what a glorious feast it shall be. When we find Lucien Ren, i will be the first to drink his stained, blood." She licked her lips, the room feeling emptier than a mausoleum as the two corpses laughed, as the ground shook beneath them.

William could hear wails coming from below him as he sprinted down the hall. "Why have you never spoken to me before this?" He panted. "Because I never had to, until now. I was saving this for my escape but I think you need it more." Annie replied smiling. Something sparked his memory. He could remember everything. William gasped. He had very little time left. He was running out of it, as the clock downstairs in the dining hall ticked loudly. Tick tock, tick tock, his time was running out.