Breed and Burn: Skinless

chapter 7- plastic faces smile

The images of the boys became warped. With twisted smiles, high arched eyebrows and distorted faces, they slowly faded into the darkness. It was a strange thing to watch for it seemed like their bodies were being pressed so hard against the darkness that it had gained physicality.

After it showed no signs of going away, Seven began to cackle in a high-pitched tone. This was the kind of laughter that made Axel want to throw himself at it violently. Following suit, the others began to laugh in different tones but all with the same spite.

Finally, the darkness (if it could be called that since it seemed more like too much of something rather than a lack of) heaved deeply, sucking the boys with it. Tinged with echo, their laughter still rang through the space. Despite his hate for them, Axel was grateful to have a final chance at imprinting their faces into his brain. Why, he was not so sure.

Spirals of smoke that had settled in one area were beginning to diminish at their absence. It thinned and stretched, gradually revealing a disfigure of familiar shapes and colours. Straining through his thoughts, Axel felt something stiffen. Although he wasn't sure where his body was, he knew wherever it was it was having difficulty breathing.

This should have alarmed him, but he was passed the fear of death. If anything, he welcomed it. He had nothing to live for or anything to give in this bleak world. He was utterly alone. As these thoughts roused, he remembered that one of the first things after he had woken up on the train that reminded him of himself was knowing that although he was alone, he was not lonely. He did not need the frivolous company of humans to keep him sane. Pausing, Axel realised how much he sounded like Faceless.

Redrawing himself back into this callous reality, he focused back to what the smoke was revealing. By now, it had almost fully dispersed. The thing about this type of smoke is that it did not leave in sections or wisps that were caught in a dry wind. Instead, it thinned. Layers of thin smoke would peel away from the surface. Eventually, the smoke had thinned to a breaking point. There were patches where the smoke had broken away and areas that were transparent.

Still, it took him another whole minute to understand what lurked beyond it.

Indented in the blackness was a perfect rectangle that exhibited periods of times whilst on the train. Although this was meant to be a form of torture, Axel could not help feeling excitement meander through his veins and make his head feel lightheaded in a good form. Was this a tv? He had heard much about TVs from the few older folk that roamed Earth

. Although there were no specific memories, he knew that children of his time would often ask their great grandparents of devices like TVs. Axel was born in a world without fossil fuels and once the depleting fossil fuel finally became apparent to the general public, stirring a fiery storm with many claps of thunder, technology like TVs were banned. Although most things with a screen (especially in the entertainment department) were history, TVs were the biggest phenomenon.

Although it was the closest Axel would ever get to seeing a TV, his excitement dissolved away rather fast.

He focused on the screen, unable to look away. It had only been a few seconds and he already knew how this kind of technology could be addicting. In the corner of the screen, there were the words 'first integration'.

As a video began to play, Axel realised these were clips of their time in the train from the perspective of a human. How these angles had been captured without them noticing, Axel did not know but suspected that magic had something to do with it.

The screen revealed Noble talking to Sage. Feeling his chest tighten, he wished he could look away. However, his body was not here. It was like his death all over again- something that sobered their reality. It was the first death followed by many- the signal for war.