The Shell of Casper

- 10 - Thrills Don't Come for Free

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Rosie Lowery waved a friendly goodbye to the worker operating the main gate booth, the one protecting the building housing the American Rewritten Consortium.

"Name?" Quince asked with a warm grin, wisps of his coppery hair fluttering into his eyes from beneath a ball cap. This fool must have been oblivious or in denial about what exactly went on in the building behind them. And Rosie knew that he knew her name, as she had told him hundreds of times in the past. Just another stage puppet with strings fastened to the corners of his mouth.

"Rose Lowery," Almost slipping and adding his name to the end, Rosie stuttered instead and blushed. An overly excited student was the role she herself had to be. ARC could be fooling many, but she was also fooling them.

Quince nodded to her with the tip of his hat and enabled the broad fence to gape open and let her exit. The engine in her car purred as she rolled out through the mouth-like opening, tipped with bronze spires. Once she rumbled out of the exit and onto the desolate main road, her tires making the roughened pavement crackle, Rosie slammed on the gas.

Burning down the road, Rosie glared at the road ahead. They dismissed her. She was dismissed. And Casper was there indefinitely, or at least "until they got the results they sought"... a future that she didn't see coming anytime soon. Her toe pressed on the pedal harder.

Smoke from the exhaust was a dark tail behind her. She winded and followed the achingly uneven and twisting road. Rosie had driven it too many times to count.

The sun broke through the clouds, dawning upon the woodland road a few stray beams of light through rain clouds. Wouldn't it just be wonderful to see a rainbow? How lovely, as if the world knew of her new freedom. But without Casper, she was still tied to ARC. She needed a plan, and she needed it soon. Because with each trial that she had endured, memories still intact, she had seen the energy slowly drain from Casper's usually-bubbly and stubborn self. But when she had cussed at Sergeant Abe that he could never break Casper, she had not lied. They could take everything away and Rosie could assure he would still stand strong.

For many other counterfeit Reapers, bringing in someone in which they had a close relationship with, ARC had found that most would abide when these people were used as victims that they could threaten. It was evident that this was why Rosie was offered her fake job in exchange for a scholarship donation. And with her in the equation, though Casper would never hurt her, he would not be a caged animal either.

Rosie eased down on the gas once more. Her busted up car ripped and spat away the loose gravel as it ate up the distance. Home was only about twenty minutes away from here. That fact sort of disgusted her in a way. That was how close all the bound students were to where her father was making baked goods, where Huck pawed at their screen doors, and where her childhood tree house was cradled high up in the woods.

Casper and her had spent so many nights up there, playing weathered board games and attempting puzzles missing countless pieces. Being slightly on the slightly poorer side of town had never stopped them from having an amazing childhood. But to look at them now: one was stunting down a snaking road, crowned by swaying boughs of leaves. And the other, most likely unconscious, or even in the process of first-day training if all aspects of the simulation were in sync. Again and again and again, they would restart.

Rosie ground her teeth and twisted the wheel as the road veered to the left.

Again and again and again.

Over and over and over.

Rewind and rewind and rewind.

This sick game had to be stopped, and it wouldn't be by sitting around for a successful role play. Rosie growled under her breath as Sergeant Abe's smirking face simmered in her head, she hated him and that stupid contract, with all her soul, she would—

Rosie's rusty bucket of a car thumped when she suddenly mowed down an obstruction in the road. The tires spun as she whipped to the side, arching into a turn. The impact of the vehicle against an unfortunate tree trunk sent Rosie crashing into the car's ugly, jutted, front console. She didn't move.

It was only a couple of minutes until her eyes cracked open, lids parting for her green eyes to skim over the surroundings. A light hiss of steam puffed from under the front hood in crooked curls. Lifting herself up, Rosie rubbed away a warm trickle of blood that stung her cheek. She stared at her hand after it had touched her face, examined the dark liquid as if it were unreal. It shone beautifully in the sunlight prodding through the heavy clouds, like it were the remnants of a liquefied jewel.

A lovely interpretation like that should not be able to come from such an event.

Rosie smeared it onto her black jeans.

Stumbling out the door, Rosie wobbled onto her feet while grasping the side of her car. The rickety, old thing was partially slouched in the ditch, but not enough to make it stuck there. She checked the front where it had mashed into the tree, which had received minimal damage from the bumper. One of the headlights was smashed in, but the other could be saved with a couple handfuls of cash. Her father would destroy her when she got home.

Creaking back to the driver-side door, Rosie looked back from the way she had came. Skid marks were carved into the rocky earth, sweeping in a parabola shape from when she had tried to take the turn.

An object laid in the road about a hundred metres back. Rosie crept towards it, her head spinning and stomach lurching with each step. She prayed it wasn't an animal. At this point, it was certain that she would spill everything in her gut if she found herself hovering over a flattened carcass. Thank God, it wasn't. It wasn't anything alive at all.

Rosie lowered her hand to the dusty ground and wrapped her numbed fingers around the strap of a Blinder headset.

It felt alien and wrong to the touch. She never knew how Casper and any other counterfeit Reaper could bear having these devices pressed over their eyes for days, weeks, months on end. Not that they had a choice. A keyhole on the back of the band was bent and cracked, meaning whoever had taken this headset had been or had been with someone who was wearing it when they left. Someone had escaped.