itsinside (itsinside) wrote in oblivionrp, @ 2009-06-30 16:38:00 |
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Who: Lottie and other
Where: Storerooms for the Promenade shops
When:
What: Wrong place, wrong time.
He’d decided on the storeroom for many reasons. Most of the crew areas, including engineering, were still locked tight. Since the experiments began using the shops had tapered away after the initial few days. A good half of the shop owners and employees were missing, which helped.
The little recorder wasn’t as badly damaged as he’d originally thought. He’d just had to tape the one side back on and clean up some of the blood. He paced the quiet storeroom, listening to the cheerful interviews of lives that wouldn’t continue. Then came the final one.
No one can see it but you. They’re mixing drugs in the water now. Even the showers. It’ll soak into your skin and make you compliant. Only drinking that tea will stop it. The plants counteract the chemical agent. The voice purred to him. It’s up to you alone to save them. You’re the special one. They’ll sing your praises.
“Don’t want praises,” he spoke to the air as he paced. “Want to live. Want to keep people alive. Save the innocent.”
Punish the guilty. You do it for righteousness.
He pressed the little button on the taped together microrecorder once more. “You said you knew how many staff were missing.” The crisp British voice came across clearly, more near to the recorder. The reporter. The shell.
“You know. You know already. You’re one of them. They put it in you. I can see it, squirming inside.” He was surprised at how frantic he sounded. He’d been afraid, of course. He’d thought to get help and he’d gotten one of the puppets, the skin over a slug.
“What? No one put anything in me. My name is Graham Shepherd. I’m a reported for the New York Post.” So calm and reassuring. Patronizing. The slug thought he was stupid. He’d shown it. He was on to them all.
“You used to be. But you aren’t anymore. But I’ll help you. I’ll help because it’s the right thing to do.” He heard his own resigned voice, the sigh of sadness. “Because people have to be saved.
The recorder played on. “Quite right. People have to be saved.” Nervous now, all upper crust still, but realizing the game was up.
“I’ll save you. I’ll get it out. You’ll be you again.” His own voice was pitying. He hadn’t wanted to kill the man. But he’d delivered him from evil and yet the slug escaped, somehow.
Had she been immature, she could have easily fussed about having to do something that “wasn’t in her job description,” and complained that the other staff in the shop weren’t doing their jobs. But Lottie knew very well the retail business, and she knew that on busy days, the stock in the shop ran out, and when a customer inquired about something, she had to go look if there was more in the back.
So that was exactly what she was doing, and she was a little nervous about it. She had been on edge ever since the murders on the ship, and the storeroom was really creepy. Not to mention she had only been back here once before, so practically needed a GPS to find her way around.
Her fingers grazed the UPC codes of stacked up boxes, her eyes scanning for the familiar name of the product, specifically a pair of shoes, that she was looking for. Lifting her head, she saw the box a few feet away, and felt the familiar feeling of relief that came with success. That was when she heard the voice.
Immediately she was on high alert, her body tense as she stood straight and looked around. There was no one near her, but looking through the boxes that sat on shelves, she spotted a figure several rows away from her. Frowning deeply, she shoved her hands into her back pockets. The person was pacing, it seemed… he seemed almost nervous.
Maybe she could scare him off. “Hey! Hey you, what are you doing here?” she called, hoping to frighten him out of the storeroom. The only people allowed back in the room were the employees, and none of the Golden Apple’s employees were male.
He didn’t run off, but he did stand still. She approached at a crawl and stopped at the end of the row, using the tall metal shelf as a sort of shield, even if she was fully visible. Now that she was close to him, she could hear another voice, which she saw was coming from a tape recorder. Graham Shepherd… wasn’t he one of the murder victims? A chill went through her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked again, quieter this time. Her eyes were nervous, but her tone was curious.
No! “No, no, no, no.” He stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the girl. He knew her. He’d seen her around. She smiled at him from time to time. She stood there, pure and untouched. There was no taint to her, no puppet master. Her eyes were huge and confused.
She’s seen you. She heard. The voice winded its way into his head. “She’s innocent. I have to protect the innocents.” He argued back, uncaring that the girl couldn’t HEAR the ‘the voice’.
Yes. But she heard. She doesn’t understand. She’s breathed in the gas that makes them susceptible to control. She’ll tell. He shook his head against the voice for the first time. “I’ll make her understand.” He insisted. He looked at her, pleading. “You’ll understand, won’t you? It’s all an experiment. All of it. Some of the people on the ship have been infected with a parasite. It’s in their guts. They’re dead, their souls trapped, but the slug uses them. They guide everyone, making them do what they want for the tests. They have to be stopped.” He nodded, setting down the recorder and spreading his hands open. “You understand, right?”
She doesn’t understand. She’s under their influence. She may not want to be, but she is. The voice pushed on him, loud and insistent.
Immediately her eyes narrowed in question at his outburst, having no idea what he was saying ‘no’ so vehemently to. She didn’t dare to ask, though; the look in the man’s eyes was warning enough that something was not right. She didn’t move, she didn’t even want to breathe. Everything about this situation told her she was in danger.
He spoke aloud again, but not to her… No, he was speaking about her. Instinctively she took a step back, wanting to leave. But then he was explaining himself and out of politeness she forced herself to listen. “Understand what?” she asked as he made an attempt to explain himself. “What are you—“ her voice became harsh with irritation from her confusion, but as he went on, she softened.
It was clear he was mentally ill.
“There are no slugs,” she spoke the word as if it tasted bitter. “No experiments… Everyone is fine.” Lottie knew that her attempt to dissuade him from his theory was feeble, but what else could she say? Her eyes followed him as he set down the tape recorder. She caught his eyes again.
“What—what do you want me to understand?”
You see, boy. She doesn’t get it. She can’t. The gas and the water, the drugs keep her from seeing the truth. The voice was curling, like smoke, through his mind.
“But there are. They…they taint the air with gass, and it’s in the…the…the water. It makes you trust them! I know some of the people already have the parasites. That nurse, and the FBI man, and that Librarian. They took… they took charge to lead you all into doing what their masters want. They have to be stopped. If… if the slugs are cut out of their guts, it frees their souls if the parasites haven’t had time to eat them yet. Their souls have to be saved. The innocents on this ship have to be saved. It’s all up to me.” His speech grew more impassioned as he went on, his hands gesturing wildly. “I… I was able to save the reporter’s soul… not his body, but his soul was safe. The slug got away, though. It most likely found another host…”
It felt like a relief to tell someone else. To lay it all out, to show the logic and reality of the situation.
Look at her boy, look into her eyes, into her soul. She may be innocent, but she doesn’t understand. She’ll tell. She’ll give you up and they’ll kill you before you can save any of them. She’ll do it, and all your knowledge will be wasted. He didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t. She was sweet. She was nice. She wasn’t infected. This was one of those he was fighting for. She’ll still stop you. Seen too much. You ran off at the mouth. Heard too much. You have to stop her from telling.
It may have been logical to the man in front of her, but to Lottie, it was the exact opposite. In fact it was so out there that it frightened her, and she took a few steps back away from him instinctively.
She listened with wide eyes as he told her of the experiments, of the slugs that he believed were infecting people. Who was the “they” he was speaking, of anyway? There were only passengers and the few crew left, as far as she knew… As she entertained the thought for a moment, she shook her head. No, that was silly.
“Those people,” Lottie began slowly, “that are leading us are trying to help us. They’ve done nothing to harm us, and they aren’t… infected. Their souls are fine.” A mixture of anger and fear welled up in her for allowing herself to be sucked into his way of thinking—deep down she knew it was a futile effort.
And the way he was gesturing, the look on his face, she should have walked away from him a long time ago. But then he said something that chilled her to the core, and she ceased to breathe for a moment. “You… you killed the reporter?” she asked in a barely audible whisper, feeling her insides go weak.
Oh God, what had she gotten herself into?
He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at the strands. “I HAD to. He was infected. There was not choice.”
There is no choice, is there? You know what you have to do. The voice curled through him, settling in his gut.
She’s an innocent. She was nice. She smiled at him and waved a few times before this all started. He was supposed to protect the innocent. But she was going to ruin it all because she couldn’t help it. She was beguiled by the serpent in the form of the slug. She was blinded by the lies and drugs and things.
He moved in an eye blink, deceptively fast and had grabbed Lottie, spinning her so her back was held to his front. His one arm around her neck. He couldn’t look at her. He didn’t want to see her eyes.
“It’ll be okay, Lottie. It will. It won’t hurt, and you’ll go right to Heaven. I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” He felt his eyes fill with hot tears. “They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.”
It took a lot more strength than people thought. But he managed. Her neck snapped with an audible crack.
He found himself supporting her weight as he sunk to the floor. He continued weeping. “One lamb for the rest. One offering to save the others. Why couldn’t you just understand?”
He held her limp form as he rocked back and forth. This wasn’t a rightful kill. This wasn’t destroying the enemy. This was the blood of the innocent on his hands. No blood. No cutting. She was whole and her body untouched but for that little bit. That break in her neck.
She deserved peace. She deserved honor. She wasn’t supposed to die.