The Shell of Casper

- 4 - Prey & Predators

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There it was. The sound she had been dreading. If an ambulance's whining siren had been placed against Rosie's head, it might have been quieter than the soul-raking scream that the alarm system released across the American Rewritten Consortium facility. Casper flinched as the first one severed the air in the silent halls. Rosie's own heart just about choked her as it pounded into her rib cage. It could be within the next ten, thirty, sixty seconds. Rosie's body tensed as fear pumped into her gut.

"What do we do?" Casper shouted over the wailing crashing into their ears. She felt his hand shaking against her arm. Though his fear itself didn't relieve her, some part of her felt hopeful that he still acted human. He was human. Just one heavily tampered with.

"We can't wait for someone to find us." Rosie put her mouth by his ear. Each blare made her skull want to crack. "We need to run. Can you do that?"

    His eyes shifted beneath the blindfold, hovering back in hope of registering where he was. He could do it. She knew he could. He had to be able to, or this... this... would amount to nothing except punishments that she couldn't imagine would be earned for this rebellious act. Casper inhaled, choking on his words.

"Yes," Rosie said for him. "Casper, we can do this."

The hickory-haired boy nodded, squeezing her wrist in confirmation. They ran.

    Rosie wheeled around each corner, not finding the rational thought to sneak or check each turn. But there was no way that the guards could function any better than she could with the screaming alarm. Rosie's sneakers and Casper's boots created a steady beat creating a song with the world crashing around them. She wondered what had notified the ARC workers first: Casper's first halo of victims, the hopeless remains of Jones, or Casper's absence from his unit altogether.

A pang in her chest criticized her morality for only saving just one person instead of all who were imprisoned here. One would think that it would have been easier to fight back against the American Rewritten Consortium, if it weren't for the pristinely-engineered bands kept over the Reapers' eyes. This disgusting movement was prepared for their creations. But not for a defiance of their own employees. Fools, they were, for thinking she wouldn't care, wouldn't betray them like the careless hearts of every other worker here.

    "Casper!" Rosie stumbled as a guard wandered around the corner, his face turning outraged. But Casper knew her every move, he was in her mind. He spun, pulling himself in front of her as he tore off his blindfold. The guard's eyes had only just started to widen and then he was down. The thud of him hitting the ground was masked by another scream out of the speakers, a wolf calling for a life already lost. But Rosie didn't watch the green-and-grey suited body crumble and pale, she was looking up. Casper was facing away from her, but she still saw the edge of his face nevertheless. She hadn't seen it in person in forever. But in the next second, it was clothed once more. Breathing hard, Casper tugged her forward and let her take the lead. He didn't even dwell on the body they passed. He wouldn't know that she saw him. How could he? Casper hadn't seen her face in even longer than she had been waiting.