• This section is for roleplays only.
    ALL interest checks/recruiting threads must go in the Recruit Here section.

    Please remember to credit artists when using works not your own.

Fandom [CLOSED] Tokyo Ghoul: Dead Enmity

In his half-numbed rush to make Bella aware of exactly what he had seen in that photograph, Jackson's hands swept clumsily over the paper files and pushed several down onto the carpeted floor. The mug which Dane had replaced on the table was knocked over for a second time when the man leaned over to pick the items up again. He did not even notice the damage he was causing, and it was only now beginning to register in his mind that another person - someone other than himself and Bella - had been in the room as well. Despite the fact that he kept telling himself not to panic, all he could think about was the conversation he was trying to force this woman to have.


When he finally got his act together and grabbed at the paper, he placed it down again, this time more carefully. He took a moment to dampen his fingertip by dipping it between his lips so that he could pick up the first page.


"This," he said, craning over to look at the image which was now facing the woman. He pointed towards the pillar with the poster hung on it and waggled his thumb to gain Bella's attention. "What - what does it say? On the poster, there's a poster in the photo. I can't read the names."
 
"Oh?" Bella furrowed her eyebrows and picked up the photo placed in front of her, he was rather frantic about this...was a mere poster really worth freaking out about? "Uh...let me see..." It was a little blurry, but she guessed that was expected due to the way it had been taken, luckily she could just make it out.


It was easy to read the large letters printed in bold 'Missing Persons', but she was sure Jackson had gotten that much. Missing people? What was that about? Did he want to know if it was himself that this was talking about? Or...someone else? She wasn't sure, she decided not to question it too much, just reading it would be good enough, that's all she'd been asked to do. 


For for a few moments the woman stayed quiet, simply staring at the page and trying her best to make out the names. The actual photos were blurry, but she didn't really recognise the people anyway, all she needed to do was look at the names underneath. "E...Er...Eric...and...um...Till...Tillj...Tilly? I think their second names are...Lamb-something, looks like they end with a T, could be Lambert." After reading the names Bella looked back to Jackson, "They mean anything to you?" She asked, putting the picture down again. She'd never heard of an Eric and Tilly herself, so it didn't mean anything to her, but maybe it was someone Jackson knew...maybe that's why he was freaking out. Anyone would if someone they knew went missing.
 
Jackson's hands suddenly felt very weak. They sank down, trembling, until they came to rest on the table, and then his head followed. He buried his face in the back of his hands and croaked the words, "Oh God, oh my God."


It wasn't supposed to work like this. That lettering was supposed to be a trick of the light, something that his over-alert and paranoid mind could pick patterns from when there was nothing there to see. Those faces were unrecognisable. Were they really them? Did those pictures really share names with his parents, who he was so sure had been living quietly together at home on the outer edge of London? No... No, it wasn't real. This wasn't supposed to happen, Bella was supposed to tut and roll her eyes and then give Jackson back the photograph to look at in greater detail.


He could not believe it.


His parents. Tilly, Eric, the people he had tried to protect by leaving them out of his lethal mess... They were missing now, too?


Bella's question seemed to go ignored, for Jackson had thrust himself back up into a sitting position, rolled up his sleeves and started to move back towards the door. Instead of the ruddy pink he would usually flush, his face had turned quite white, almost the sallow of a dead man's flesh. "I - I n-need a computer," he barked suddenly, not even turning to look at the woman as he grabbed at the door handle. The photo had been left on the table, placed atop all of the others in the file. "Desktop - laptop - anything, even a goddamn ph-phone if it has internet. Bella, I need to look now."


His words might have been harsh, but the way in which he spoke them all but killed the force they had the potential to pack. He tremored and trembled, failing at some points to make any  noise at all as his lips simply formed silent shapes between the failed and broken squeaks of a splintered cry for help. The desparation was plain and clear. He needed to get online, somehow, any way he could - he needed to check what had happened, even though a horrible sinking feeling in the base of his throat told him that he already knew who was behind this all.
 
"Y-Yeah..." Bella didn't expect Jackson to go into full on panic mode after she read out those names, they must be important to him, they had to be important to him. Knowing just that and how heartbreaking and scary it could be, she stood up and nodded, not making any reply to how Jackson had barked at her. Not this time. 


"Just wait a second, I'll go get one for you." With purpose, Bella made her way to the door, she'd slipped past Jackson and headed out the stairs in seconds, making sure to be hasty. This was very important, maybe not to her, but to Jackson. She might not understand exactly what was going on, but by the tone of his voice she'd understood the severity of the situation, and that was all she needed to know.


As she reached the top of the stairs she noticed that Dane's door, for a change, was open. Since that was the only room that wasn't shut she decided to head into it, as she got to the doorway she noticed that there were four people inside. Caleb was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at the floor, Dane laid with his hands behind his head and legs dangling off of the edge of the bed, looking completely relaxed. Nathan was there too, kneeling on the ground with another individual, Adrian by the looks of things, they seemed to be playing with an iPad or some sort of tablet.


"Hey, Dane." Bella called, attracting the attention of all four males in the room.


"Oh hey, you need something?" Dane sat himself up, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked up at Bella's worried face. 


"Yeah, uh, can I borrow your laptop?" 


"Go ahead." 


"Thanks." With that she rushed over to the chair by the door that had a thin, silver device placed on top of it. Quickly she grabbed hold of it and spun out of the room, disappearing across the hallway and down the stairs once more. Making Jackson wait too long would only cause him to get more her up.


The woman got back to the corridor downstairs and looked for the man, holding out the device. "Jackson, Jackson here. You can use the laptop." It would be much more convienient than a phone, and probably quicker too. 
 
Jackson could not say anything to oppose the woman's disappearance. He just trusted that she had heard what strained urgency he had to offer in his half-whispered, half-cried words and taken that as her cue to hurry and get whatever device she could. It would either be a laptop or a mobile phone... One or the other, either was fine. He didn't need it to be powerful, all he needed was to get online. Oh, he needed to connect to the internet so much, his parents, something had happened, something had happened and he needed to help them...


After having sat stone-still, his own fear, confusion and impatience having festered into an ugly and mind-numbing mixture of the three, Jackson's head shot back up at the sound of Bella's arrival again. He wasted no time in snatching the laptop out of her hands, wrenching apart the screen from the keyboard with clammy hands and then slamming his fist down on the power button.


It took several agonisingly long seconds for the screen to finally light up, but as soon as that image flashed in front of his eyes and reflected off the curved lenses sitting before them, his mind began working again.


Internet. That was the first thing he needed.


Immediately he slid a finger over the track pad and tapped violently at the icon for the browser, after which he began to click in random places whilst the program loaded up. "Come on, come on," he muttered, his wide and panicked eyes flitting about desparately to take in every button and toolbar that loaded up. He could not wait now, he needed to get online as soon as possible.


Then...


Ping!


There it was. The browser. Jackson's fingers moved so quickly that he could not even see them, but he was typing more quickly than he had ever typed before. Within seconds he had opened up a social media site he had not seen for months, but his hands knew the password before his mind could even realise that he needed one. Tap-tap-tap, he went, and then his own name bloomed at the top of the screen, backed by a deep blue banner.


'Jackson Lambert,' read the top of the page, but that name did not stay for long. He scrolled down, found an image of a familiar face and then brought up his mother's profile. Again his finger slid down the side of the track pad, scrolling down and down, through the information and down to the status updates.


He froze.


No, he thought, shaking his head. No, no, he didn't want to see this. Ever since Daryl had first dragged him off the streets of London the man had panicked and worried about what would happen when his parents realised that their two vulnerable children had disappeared off into the wide world. He had imagined the tears, the searches, the messages posted up on the internet for all to see... But now it was real. It was there, and despite the pain he felt in his heart when he saw the tiny icons of frowning faces mixed in with the text, he could not help but look.


'Our boys have gone missing,' said just one of many pleas for help lined up in rows upon rows of countless more like it. 'Pls all send you're prayers and let us know if you have any news. thank you all Xxxx'


"Shit..." Jackson had to stop for a moment to take in the magnitude of what his disappearance had meant. His parents must have been so worried - he could even tell. Every day since he and Adrian were reported missing, Matilda Lambert had posted online her wishes and prayers and contact details for the world to see. That was, until a number of days ago when the messages had suddenly stopped.


Jackson would have kept staring at the screen, reading message after message detailing his and Adrian's appearance and asking for help with finding them, but then he heard a noise.


Ping, the laptop went. The man's hands curled up into balls as he clicked on a flashing icon on the bottom of the screen. 


The browser window suddenly turned white. When the new page loaded, a name flashed at the top of the screen. It was a name that Jackson had spent years trying to forget.


Alice Truett.
 
Bella didn't really have time to ask what Jackson was doing, he just snatched the laptop and got on with it. As each second passed he seemed to get even more distressed, it was starting to worry her. Surely he didn't know where they'd gone? That would worry her more, knowing that they were with people she didn't want them to be, but he couldn't...he only just saw the poster after all. She should stop thinking about it so much. 


Crossing her arms, Bella leaned back against the wall behind her, simply watching Jackson's hands as he rapidly typed. She didn't say anything, she just watched intently, even she was on edge. Everything was not fine, she could tell that much, but she was hoping that everything would be fine, that those posters were old, that someone had found them and they were safe and well, anything that would make Jackson calm down. That would save him any more possible heartache. She'd seen him hurt about that boy upstairs for three months, he didn't deserve any more, he didn't deserve this. 


Speaking of upstairs... The woman could hear footsteps now, they were awfully light, but she could hear thudding as someone moved around on the floor above. They got louder and louder as the person moved towards the stairs, although they were nothing like the heavy footsteps of Dane or Daryl, and they were too fast to be Kedin or Rachael... It had to be either Caleb or Adrian, and she had a rather strong feeling that she knew who was about to come down those steps. 


Sure enough, she was right, as seconds later a small form appeared, energetically bounding halfway down the carpeted staircase before stopping and placing his hands on the banister, leaning over the edge on the tips of his toes. Adrian was dressed in a short sleeved white shirt that was much too big for him, hanging down to his upper thigh and covering a large portion of the shorts he was wearing, however, the jumper wrapped tightly around his waist obscured just how much larger the shirt was than him, making it seem like it fit a little better than it actually did. The boy put his hand up to his head, brushing away some of the strands of jet black hair that had escaped from the band holding the majority of it behind his head.


"Hey...Jackson." Adrian's large, grey eyes latched onto the man in an instant, "Whatcha doin'?" He stayed there, swinging back and forth off of the banister as he waited for an answer off of the older male in the open entrance of the living room. 


"Adrian..." Bella blinked, but quickly managed a smile, this probably wasn't the best time for him to appear and start asking questions, but she couldn't blame the boy. He had most likely heard Jackson's voice earlier, or he's been intrigued by Bella's urgency, either way he was there now, and wanted to know what was going on... What did she tell him? Jackson looked busy, and she didn't want to tell him he needed to not both them at the moment, she wouldn't be surprised if he was worried too, so what could she say to him... Maybe she just waited for Jackson to answer him. "Uh, did you get bored upstairs?" Bella tried to take the attention away from Jackson so that he could concentrate, making conversation with Adrian was the best way to do that. 


"Kinda." He replied, heels landing back on the step he was standing on as he leaned backwards once more. 


"What were you guys doing?" It was an awkward and forced conversation, Bella knew this, but she had to try, even if she couldn't think of much to talk about. Just for a minute, that was all.


"Playing games." 


"Good games?"


"I suppose, but I wanted to see what you were doing." 


"Oh...why's that?" She couldn't help it, the question just fell from her mouth, it was hard to think of anything else to say. 


"Mmn... You seemed worried." Adrian turned his attention to Jackson once more, "Is Jackson upset? He's not saying anything..." For a few moments the boy stayed quiet, eyebrows furrowed as he leaned forwards over the banister to get a better look at Jackson, moving onto his tip toes again. "Jackson? ... Jackson! ... Jackson did someone make you deaf?" It might have seemed cheeky to say, but Adrian didn't mean it in that way, it was a legitimate question... Jackson wasn't replying to him, and so the first thing he thought of was that the other couldn't hear him, which meant he was dead because the male was talking rather loudly, so that was the question that fell out of his mouth. Of course, there was another option. "Jackson, are you mad at me? Because I didn't go in your room whilst you were asleep, I swear." 
 
It was a name that Jackson had seen so many times before. He could not count all of the memories he could recall where he had read it, written it, smiled at the sweet, round lettering and watched its owner scrawl it in an untidy pencil-lead cursive. Once upon a time he might have been happy to see an old friend's name bloom up at the top of his screen in greeting... But today he could only stare at it and feel his heart tighten and flutter with dread.


"N-not now," he said quite quietly in response to Adrian's unexpected appearance somewhere behind or above him - a place he did not care to look, but one he needed to keep the boy in. Oh God, no, he couldn't let someone like Adrian get involved with a person like this. Interrupting Jackson and asking if he was deaf did not bother the man at this point; he didn't even flinch when Adrian spoke about invading his friend's room during his sleep. He just had to keep this hidden somehow, and he had to keep Adrian safe. "Not now, Adrian, I'm- I'm b-busy. "


A few seconds were spent nervously wringing his hands together over the laptop keyboard as the rest of the page continued to load painfully slowly and display its elements, one by one. Maybe it would be safe to let Adrian be for a while. Bella was speaking to him and trying to keep him out of the way. Good. She should keep doing that, he thought, hoping that the tactic would keep the younger male away for however long he needed. Jackson didn't know how much time he would have to spend staring at this screen...


After a while, that same name as before - 'Alice Truett' - flashed in different places on the screen. There were rows upon rows of messages under her name, all of them decorated with little emoticon images and carelessly placed exclamation marks. Almost all of them were the same. 'where are you?' they read. 'you went missing!....'


He had seen these before. They were all old, sent at least a day before... Except for the newest message flashing at the bottom of the screen, two simple and happy words rounded off by an exclamation mark at the end.


'you're online!'


Jackson forgot how to breathe for a moment. He clutched with one fist at his heart and felt the pulsing of his chest as it heaved with every shuddering beat. That was too quick, he thought. She saw him logging in right away. Was she waiting? Had she been staring at that screen hoping for him to appear whilst she remained awake? The man was afraid to admit that he would not be surprised if the answer was yes; he knew this girl, he knew what she was like.


He stared, petrified, at the message, completely unable to move until another one popped up below: 'i thought u died...' Soon enough, there was yet more text bubbling up from the bottom of the screen to follow. 'but you're still alive, right??' one said. 'is it really you or someone else?' said another. 'you were gone ages, you missed all kinds of things. did u hear what happened on the news?'


The sight of a question spun Jackson's mind into a frenzy. News. Something had happened and Alice knew about it - whether or not this had anything to do with his parents, he had no idea. He wasn't even hopeful at this point, but out of pure desparation he still flung his hands back down at the keyboard and started to tap relentlessly at the keys. 'No, what?' wrote his lightning-quick hands, making and erasing typing errors as he went.


It took only seconds for another reply to appear. 'oh! you talk!' Once more, the text came in short bursts, message after message entered split seconds apart. 'so...it is you, right?'


'Yes, it's me,' came the man's quick response. Alice was stalling. Why did she have to stall? He needed those answers now, he needed them before he ran out of time - if he even had any in the first place.


'oh, good... but you didn't hear what happened?'


'No,' Jackson responded, the clear and plain format of his text portraying some kind of calmness despite the fact that he was barely able to stop himself from whimpering and crying out loud. Everything that Alice was saying here set him on edge. She was talking about some kind of news and whatever that was could not be good. It couldn't be good if she was sat waiting for hours upon hours in wait for him to come online. Something was amiss.


'dude! i thought you would notice... your parents got kidnapped, there are posters all over town about it and stuff..'


Jackson could barely contain himself now. Kidnapped. That word rattled about on the inside of his skull, etching itself into his brain. Kidnapped. Knowing Alice, that could very well be her lifelong habit of exaggeration. Maybe she didn't have anything to do with it, and she was just worried. But in his state of panic, Jackson gave this message a greater meaning than it truly held.


She would tell him the truth. Of all people, Alice had the least reason to lie. If he asked... She would tell him the answer and think no less of Jackson for wondering. Oh, it was surely impossible to loathe the man any measure more deeply than she did.


Eventually, after a series of prompting question marks from Alice, Jackson managed to write again. 'Was that you?'


This time it took more than a minute before he got a response. That was abnormal; Alice was obsessed. She would never leave a text unanswered for so long. But when the next message finally appeared, it was short. Simple. Three letters and the most basic, mind-numbing meaning. 


'oh....yea..'


"Oh... Oh, oh my God." He could not help himself now. His face had twisted into an ugly white grimace, and his head was sinking forwards to rest in the crooks of his elbows. He was positively trembling, his back shaking and shivering uncontrollably as he simply stared into the table and took in what had just been said.


He didn't believe it, but he did not dare to look again. 


"No," he said again. "God, p-please..."
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"Mmn...Jackson." Adrian'S wine showed he really didn't like the man basically telling him to go away, he wanted to talk to him and Jackson was batting him off telling him he was busy. Busy with what? What was he doing? It wasn't like Jackson hid all that much from him, and Adrian was being especially nosy that day, he knew that something wasn't quite right and he wanted to know what is was. Still, he didn't move much, simply swinging backwards and forwards using the banister and watching the man, he was listening to him, but he wasn't going to leave until he was given attention. 


Bella was going to stay quiet, she could see Jackson getting more stressed by the second, and Adrian wasn't helping, but the boy wouldn't leave. Why wouldn't he leave? This was important. Didn't he get it? Probably not. She sighed and shook her head, making her way forwards as if to say something to Adrian, although suddenly she stopped. It was as Jackson started to shaking that the woman turned back, eyes wide. He was saying something, what was he saying? 


"Jackson?" The worry in her voice was evident, "Jackson what's going on?" In seconds she was by his side, putting a hand on his shoulders to try and calm him. "Come on, breathe, talk to me, what's happening?" Had he found something out about those people? By that reaction it really didn't look good. 


"Jack...son?" As Adrian spoke his voice broke slightly, he was quick to jump the banister, landing with the lightest thud on the ground below. He blinked a few times, expression unreadable as he made his way over to Jackson, "Hey...Jackson? Why're you..." 


"Adrian, uh, really, it'd probably be best not to right now." Bella tried to address the boy to make him listen, but her careful tone was doing nothing, he was completely ignoring her. 


"Is it..." The small male had quickly made his way around to the computer and pulled at the screen, squinting. "someone on here? Did someone upset you Jackson?" In his own way he was trying to do something about helping the other, but he was rather awkward with it, obviously unsure of how exactly you were meant to comfort or calm someone down. In fact the more Jackson panicked, the more Adrian seemed to shift out of discomfort, the expression in his eyes kept changing, like he couldn't decide how he was meant to feel. "Jaaaackson?" 
 
His twisted and frozen, ghostly-white face still buried in the space between his shaking arms, Jackson simply kept his head down and eyes squeezed shut. It was stupid. He knew that it was stupid and unreasonable and that it was never going to work. But something childish and hopeful that still lived inside his core made him want to believe that if he just kept his eyes closed, if he pretended that none of this had happened and maybe even prayed, then perhaps he would look up and be somewhere else entirely. Preferably another world where everything was okay. Where he was back at home with Adrian, taking some time off after work because nothing had ever happened to screw up their lives this badly. He wanted to go back to a world where he had not caused so much damage.


Of course, when he finally did work up the courage to sit back up and stare at the screen with tearful and reddened eyes, everything was still the same. Bella's hand was on his back, and she was talking to him. Adrian kept asking questions, and then there was Alice, the invisible girl behind a screen somewhere else in the city. All of them wanted him to say something or give some kind of explanation, and it was too much. He couldn't take it, not all three of them at once. So when he saw Adrian's hand touch at the screen of the laptop, Jackson quickly snapped up his own arm and slammed the lid shut.


There.


Alice was gone, at least for a few seconds, and Adrian didn't have to see what had been going on. Jackson ran his fingers through his short brown hair and then started to chew at his lower lip with such force that within seconds tiny scarlet beads of blood swelled at the edges of his front teeth. 


What do I do? he wondered, his eyes staring blindly at something beyond the wall which towered in front of him. If he had not been hallucinating - which he hoped to God that he was - then the truth was clear. Alice had his parents somewhere. How did she get them? How long had they been there? Were they okay - were they even alive? These were the questions which pulled and tugged at the strings of his mind, testing the strength of everything that held him together at that moment. He tried his best to ignore them; if there was any chance of getting anything done, it would be by taking baby steps. One target at a time...


Ideally Adrian would be out of here. Jackson did not particularly feel like having to detail all the horrors he could list on his fingers which could possibly be happening as they spoke. No, the boy had been through enough trouble as of late as it was. He could not add to that pain with further concern. Adrian didn't have to know all that... No, Jackson was the mentor out of their duo. It was his job to panic and make things right, and that's exactly what he had to do. This time, however, he was going to need somebody else's help.


He was again reminded of Bella's presence by the sensation of a gentle touch against his shoulders. Aware that he was still violently trembling and struggling not to let out a mewl of worry with every breath, Jackson swallowed hard. Then he swallowed again, took a deep breath and started to nod some kind of encouragement to himself. He needed to at least tell this girl what was happening, or he would have no chance of receiving her help. Eventually, after a couple of tries, he finally regained some sort of control over his own voice. "M-my - my parents," he said with a weak softness. "They're missing, a - my f-friend has them, someone I know, I... I don't know. I d-don't know, she's not right, something's happened, she's not right, I th-think she's gonna do something... God, I don't know..."


After finally forcing those words out, Jackson's glossy eyes rolled back to stare blankly at the closed laptop. He realised that if Alice was as...affected...as he remembered, she must be going into a panic now, too. What if she was scared? No more messages from Jackson would mean something to her. Either that she should be afraid for herself or that something had happened to him. No, no, she didn't deserve that kind of fear. He had to get back online and talk to her and say that it was okay... But what would happen if he did? What would she do to his parents if he came back?


He didn't know. There was no way of finding out without doing it, but with Adrian still in the room he did not dare to turn the computer back on.
 
If it hadn't been for Jackson's arm coming up so quickly to shut the laptop screen, Adrian probably would have read all of the messages on the computer, Jackson was lucky it got there in time. In a flash the boy's own small hand had retracted from the screen and to his side, confused grey eyes moving from the now closed laptop to the man holding it, however he didn't question it, and he didn't make any attempt to open it back up either. 


Jackson was keeping something from him, he knew that, but he didn't want to ask what...the man obviously didn't want him to know, so he just watched the scene in front of him. To just sit there and spectate wasn't difficult for Adrian, but when Jackson was so upset it became a little harder, he understood he was busy, but he didn't understand that it would have been better had he not stayed...and now they were all there, listening to what Jackson had to say about his parents. 


Whilst Adrian's memories had been screwed with, he hadn't forgotten Tilly and Eric, and they'd cared for him, and...now they were gone? His face scrunched up upon hearing that. They were just gone? No, no that wasn't it, Jackson had said something else too...that they were...with a friend. Yes, a friend, a friend who wasn't right, a friend who something was wrong with, a friend who... 


"Gonna do what?" The boy's rather innocent question rang out, he was blinking a little more rapidly than before, his teeth biting down on something invisible, "What's she gonna do Jackson?" It was hard to tell whether Adrian was concerned or not, for his voice betrayed little emotion and his gestures weren't too different to normal, but his curiosity with the situation really wasn't hard to deduce. 


Bella wanted to say something to help, but she wasn't quite sure what. Adrian was asking questions now, questions that Jackson probably wouldn't want to answer, or didn't have an answer to, oh god they needed him gone...but he wasn't going to leave. That much had already been established. 


"Okay, alright. So, all we need to do is...um...find that friend right?" Her attention was focused solely on Jackson, "If you um, if you can contact her, or know where she might be, maybe we can get them." The idea wasn't bad, they could get someone to go down there, find her, "Or...maybe we-" She cut herself off. No, they couldn't do that, they couldn't get the police involved... Jackson and Adrian were missing, if they police got involved this situation would become even more troublesome. 


"I wanna go." Adrian gave up his questions to respond to Bella, placing his hands on the side of Jackson's wheelchair, eyes darting between the man and woman. 


"Adrian," How did she put this without hurting him? Letting him go...it might cause even more catastrophe, they didn't know enough about the boy yet, they didn't know how he reacted to certain situations. "It's...probably best you don't." 


"But...I know them." 


"I know, but-"


"You don't...so I should be allowed to go..." 


"Jackson." Not knowing what else to do, Bella turned her attention to the bespectacled man next to her, she wanted him to say something, but in this situation she couldn't expect him to do anything other than panic. She'd be panicking too. 
 
"You can't," Jackson insisted, jolting up in his seat when he felt Adrian's hands suddenly smacking down by his side. He twisted his neck around to the side so that he could find the smaller boy's curious grey eyes, and even though he had tried to prepare himself, he still jumped when he saw them looming in front of him.


There was no question about it. Everything felt like it was closing in on Jackson now, squeezing at him from all sides and promising to eventually crush him to a pulp. It was suffocating. His chest had become tight, and he couldn't breathe, the thoughts swimming around in his head were attacking each other and spawning question after question which slowly built up until he felt dizzy and faint... But the one thing that he did know for sure was that he could not let Adrian go anywhere near the girl named Alice.


There were too many reasons to count. They could get lost on their way to a place they had likely never seen before. If they had to do a lot of walking out in the open, Zeplin could find Adrian and take him back until he lost whatever sanity he had left. Adrian might see something horrific if Alice had taken her little attention-seeking act too far, oh, that could scar him for a long time... And what if she had not killed Tilly and Eric? Adrian did seem to be acting so strangely lately, there was nothing about the way his mind seemed to work that said he would hold back on his actions. He could hurt somebody - whether that be Alice, Jackson's parents or even Jackson himself... And worse yet, what if Alice did something drastic to a kid who was too vulnerable to defend himself?


No, Adrian had to stay here at the house, where everything was safe. That was final. Jackson would have to find his own way to wherever Alice was hiding his parents... He could not risk taking anybody else when he had caused enough chaos and heartbreak for them all as it was.


"I'll g-go by myself," the man finally claimed, the quivering in his voice betraying what uncertainty hid behind a mask of firmness, but he believed in every word that came out of his mouth. His hands parted slightly afterwards, opening the laptop again just a crack until the screen flashed back into life. He peered downwards at the low-angled screen, making sure to face it away from Adrian, so that he could continue to observe Alice's messages once more.


If he had been hoping to find some kind of comfort in the girl's written words, he had made a mistake. A heart-wrenching pang of fear shot through his body, causing his back to begin shuddering and shaking again like it was the dead of winter. 


'jackson?' said the first message after he had shut the lid in a mad panic. Then there was another. 'where are you?' they asked, 'are you there??' The language became more and more aggressive as the man scrolled through dozens of new messages typed frantically after his sudden absence. Every second he spent offline had turned Alice into more and more of a threat.


'what happened?' 'jackson?' 'why did you go?' 'come back..#' 'wtf are you doing? i thought we were talking!' 'jackson!' 'jackson!!'


Halfway through the messages, Jackson realised that he had not been breathing. He inhaled a sharp breath through his teeth and forced himself to carry on.


'come on, what happened? we miss you...' 'are you listening??' 'i told them you went away, your mum's crying.' 'please come back...' 'where are you?' 'what if i got out my other knife?'


And then the last one: 'oh. you came back... sorry, i already got it, i didn't think you were listening..]'


Jackson could hear his own heart now. These messages just kept getting worse and worse; they might have been written sweetly in the way that only she could do, with carefully rounded words and kind-toned questions, but the meaning behind them was becoming increasingly dark. 'My other knife,' Jackson remembered seeing. She had his parents and she was threatening him with knives. What the hell was she doing to his mum and dad?


Before he even knew what he was doing, his hands were working at the keyboard again, reaching past the shadow of the lid as he craned awkwardly down to look at the screen. He was still shaking and chewing at his lip, that same grimace plastered to his icy face, and when he looked up his own response was up on the message thread. It read, 'Where are they?'


'who?' came the first message back, but then another one replaced the open question. 'oh. they're here, do you want to come see?'


"Shit," the man said out loud, grabbing at the laptop's lid as though he were ready to close it in case Adrian came back to look. He knew what this was. How could he have been so blind to not see it before? It was obvious, the way she was talking, it was the same tricks she had been trying to pull for years. He had just fallen for Alice's oldest lure. Still, though, this time of all her previous attempts, she had gone too far. This wasn't just a case of picking strangers up off the street; these were real, breathing human beings, but more than that, they were Jackson's mother and father. She knew that he cared, and that's why they were made targets... And all to make him come out of hiding.


This was his fault.


He didn't know what had happened, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he had got his parents neck-deep in all of this shit by being so careless as to run away from his problems.


Jackson forced himself to keep typing, 'Yes. Don't do anything. Where are you specifically?'


For a while Alice was silent - at least on the website - and Jackson was left waiting for a response in an ominous, festering silence until his mind was shaken again by another noise.


Ping! went the laptop. Jackson leaned down and stared with wide eyes to see what had appeared on his screen, and he was shocked to see a cropped image of a map with a pin floating in the middle. There was an address beneath it.


This is it, he thought, a tiny flicker of hope igniting within him. Of course, Alice wanted to see him - she had wasted no time in telling him exactly where to go for him to be able to meet up with her, and now he knew exactly where his missing parents had ended up.


"Here!" With all the force and speed of a tornado, Jackson flipped the laptop around to face Bella. With one hand he shielded the screen from Adrian's view, and with the other he opened the lid wider and then jabbed a finger at the address on the screen. "B-Bella, I need - there - they're there. Here. On the map, that's where they are. I'm going, now."
 
"Jackson, don't be stupid." Bella shook her head, he couldn't go alone, that was insane. Whoever this person was, she'd taken the man's parents, and she probably wouldn't stop there, not if she actually gave him the address. It would be suicide to go alone. Which made her question herself even more... Should she let Adrian go with him? It didn't look like they were going to be able to stop him, he was bouncing on position, trying his best to look at the screen one way or another, but Jackson kept it hidden from him. They could have a fight about it, but even then...it would be safer... She could go too, keep them safe, she didn't have to go inside if Jackson didn't want her to. 


The situation only continued to escalate, if Bella took anything from Jackson's anxious expression it was definitely that. He was reading and then swearing, which never made anything seem better, it just made the woman even more on edge. She was trying to remain calm, but Jackson was panicking, and Adrian looked at Jackson like a child who had been left out of a secret. 


She continued to wait until Jackson addressed her, and when he did, that kidnapper had done exactly what she was afraid of. He'd been given the address. Either it was fake or this person really wanted to get him there, of course, Jackson was human, maybe she wouldn't be expecting two ghouls with him. That might give them the advantage. "Okay." Bella nodded, "Okay, slow down, I'll get the car out and we can go." This was something she wouldn't fight him on, one way or another he was going to go, it was better it was her who took him that him trying to get there on the streets. Anyone could find him. "Two minutes. Be ready." With that she headed towards the front door, grabbing the keys hung up by the door. 


God this day was hectic. 


*


It had been a struggle to get into the car, Jackson didn't want to take Adrian, Bella was conflicted, and Adrian refused to stay behind. So, after a few more tries and requests for the boy to stay behind, they ended up taking him. Bella had learned something new and interesting within that time as well. Apparently Adrian could drive. Putting someone like him out on the roads seemed like a bad idea, who knew what he'd crash into, but somehow, at some point, Adrian had managed to obtain a driving license, which meant he was at least semi decent....right? 


The drive to the address that Jackson had showed her had taken longer than expected, and all the way Bella was dreading it. This was a less than desirable situation that could have a less than desirable outcome if anything went wrong. She just had to pray that it didn't. 


Deciding it was best to pull up the car a little further up the street, as to not draw attention to herself, Bella drove pas the address and turned a corner, parking just around it. Having the car out of view was probably the smartest option, they were dealing with someone willing to kidnap to get attention, seeing a car suddenly pull up when the person she'd invited was disabled...well...that might be a little bit of a warning sign for her. 


"Alright, out. It's around the corner." Bella, opened her door and walked around the back to remove Jackson from the car and put him in his wheelchair whilst Adrian jumped out the opposite side. She caught the kid's eye for a second, it was unnerving to say the least. He seemed so...nonchalant. How? How in a situation like this could he look so calm? It just didn't make sense. Although her focus should have been on other things, Bella found it difficult to ignore the uncanny ways Adrian reacted to situations. 


Once Jackson was out she leaned herself against the car and looked at him, "I can wait here and watch out for you...or I can come with you, whatever you think would be better." It was already obvious Adrian wouldn't be leaving the man's side, whether he wanted another companion was all his choice. If not he was free to head off, she'd just wait for him. 
 
Though Jackson had barely got a word out once Bella had clicked in the door and taken to the roads, the man had spent far too long arguing against Adrian's presence. 'You can't!' he had cried out, his voice splintering as he waved his arms about to point at the boy's thin, fragile body which would be so easily broken and pierced. 'You don't understand, you don't know what she's like.' But other than that, his arguments had been weak, for he did not want to scare the boy by calling out the very real danger of death which they were soon going to face. He had left that part out.


"Stay here," he told Bella in a voice that made him sound about a million times calmer than he felt. The car ride had been long, and he had had the time to gather his thoughts and feelings into a more organised mess than it had been before. Still, though, his heart hammered in his chest once more when he was taken out of the safe cradle of the car and dropped again into the chill openness of the cool afternoon light. "Y-you too," he directed towards Adrian even though his head was turned, saying it again to the boy just in the hope that he might understand and change his mind. The hope was dwindling now, but even when it was so slim that it was invisible, there was still that little thread of a chance for Jackson to cling on to.


If Adrian was still coming now, he could not be stopped. Jackson did not bother looking to see if he was being followed - which he almost definitely was, despite his fears - and began to roll out onto the pavement, following the path uphill to where Alice had said she was waiting.


Twelve, fourteen, sixteen. The house numbers went up in twos as he stared across to his left. They counted on and on... Eighteen, twenty, twenty-two - and then, several houses later, thirty.


To say that this neighbourhood was shabby would be an understatement. Jackson had barely noticed it as he had pushed himself up the slope, but it was true. The windows on every passing house were filthy, crusted by years' worth of grime and dust and residue from unclean rain. In more than one place an entire wall had been overtaken by ivy which had long since withered and died, leaving thin and yellowing stalks creeping up against the wall's cracked mortar. It certainly didn't look like anybody lived around here. All of the residents had moved out, abandoning their old home in search of better comfort... Except for whoever lived in number thirty.


Jackson noticed a twitch in the curtains at the first floor's window when he glanced up, but beyond that there was no movement. He felt an icy finger tracing down the back of his neck, causing another bout of shivers and shudders. This was unsettling... But he was not frozen in place for long, because somewhere within those walls a familiar voice was calling out.


That's them, he realised with a pang. It was one of them. Alice, Mum, Dad. He could not tell from where he was, but somebody was inside and waiting for him. Jackson whipped his head to the side, realised that Adrian was there, and then held out a palm in a silent gesture to say, 'Stay there.'


His hand went to knock at the door. When he thrust his fist towards the wood, it had caved inwards; somebody had opened up before he could even announce his own arrival. Jackson did not have to watch for long to know who was behind. He only had to look once and see the four chubby, white-pink fingers decorated at the nails with sparkling blue.


"Alice," he mumbled with the voice of a mouse. 


The door creaked as it opened up wider, and a plump figure replaced its shape in the hallway. It was a girl. She had soft, matte hair the same colour as Mari's, which fell down against the tops of her round shoulders. Her face was plain and shapeless, but not unattractive. It was girlish, pretty, decorated with two thin brows arched shallowly atop a pair of circular blue eyes.


Alice swallowed and peered further out. At first she had looked up into the air, her eyes focusing on something invisible as though she had been expecting to greet a man tall enough to tower over her short and stout form. But then she found Jackson staring up at her from his seat so far below, watching the girl with his wide and worried nut-brown eyes, and she hesitated.


"Oh, you came," she said in her quiet, lilted voice as soft as the words they formed. There were tears in her eyes which made Jackson have to look away. He did not want to see her cry, but still he listened to what the girl had to say. "I'm sorry, I didn't think that you would."
 
"Okay." Bella nodded, worried eyes staring down at Jackson as he turned to leave, "Be careful, alright?! Don'd do anything stupid!" She called after him, leaning against her car door. Her eyes soon moved over to Adrian, who hadn't moved at that moment, but he took one look at her, smiled, and then skipped after the older male. Something about the way he moved made Bella feel a little calmer, maybe it was just the fact that Jackson wasn't going alone, even if it was with Adrian. It was someone after all. 


He didn't like this place... There were no people and empty houses, it was confusing. Jackson knew where they were going, but Adrian didn't, so he just followed behind after the man keeping back a few steps, as he knew that Jackson didn't want him to be there. What was this that anyway? They were his family too... So why did Jackson want to outcast him from the situation? They'd needed to go together.


Adrian's attention was caught each time they passed by a house. He didn't care much for the path they were walking up, he knew he just needed to walk straight, what he was really interested in were the numbers on each door. As he walked he counted them, mostly in his head, maybe mumbling one now and again as he gambolled past a particular number he liked. He really liked houses with the number three in them, but there didn't seem to be any of them, so he'd had to go with his second and third favourite numbers. Well, there weren't any until they got to a particular house, a house Jackson stopped at. 


The boy paused on the path, his arms lolling by his sides as he watched the brunet move up the path to the front door. He'd already seen the gesture that he'd been given, and so he'd nodded in compliance and waited for Jackson to motion him over at any point. 


However, whilst Jackson had been moving up the path Adrian definitely hadn't missed the movement inside of the house, he could hear a voice, he could hear footsteps, and he became intrigued by such noises. If the door hadn't opened he may have kept his position, but now there was someone standing at the door, someone he didn't quite recognise... Should he move forwards? 


It was instinctual for him, before he'd even really decided what he wanted to do he'd already started to move forwards in an attempt to get a better view. His right hand moved to grab his left wrist as he held them in front of him and moved to stand a meter or so behind Jackson, slowly continuing to move forwards step by step. 


His large eyes were set on the woman's before him, he felt like he recognised those eyes...but he couldn't place them, and he wasn't going to bother raking through his brain for an answer. The look he possessed was somewhere between curious and disturbed, it was hard to pin down, the fact that he'd almost completely ceased blinking probably didn't help him look any more... 'Normal.'


"Jackson..." Adrian's small voice chimed, "You have friends here?" For a moment his eyes flickered to his companion, but it didn't last long, as soon they were back on the woman at the door. "Hey lady," He furrowed his eyebrows, "Why're you crying?" 
 
Jackson's mouth had dropped open. He stared, gaping, upwards at the round-faced girl with the sweet, fill-lipped smile and the kind blue eyes which twitched and quivered with the weight of the tears they held.


Four years.


He had waited for four long, agonising years to see that smile again, and oh how the time had pained him so. For a moment that elation of coming back to a person whose face said to him, 'Don't worry, you're home,' made him forget why he was there and what this girl had done. This girl had not taken his parents; that was impossible. Alice was a friend, the sweetest person he had ever known. She would not do something so cruel... Right?


Just as Jackson had begun to try and babble some kind of response, his hands clutched together over his lap, another voice coming in from the side caught his attention and suddenly there he was in reality. His thin eyes grew wide again as he sat up and stared at Adrian with panic in his eyes. He started to cry out, "Adrian, don't-"


"Jackson!?" Too late. The smile had vanished from Alice's face in an instant; the pupils of her circular eyes had dilated, widening from little pinpricks in an ocean of sky blue all the way to wide, inky pits of terror. The girl seemed to retreat a little way back into her house, the door creaking as she began to close the gap again. Her face disappeared behind the door, but her high-pitched, frightened voice echoed out, "Jackson! Who's that, who is it?"


The man quickly pushed forwards and grabbed at the door which Alice was pulling closed so desparately to try and shield herself. His stronger arms pried it open, revealing the girl again. She had hunched over, her elbows tucked in to the weak points at her sides and fists curled over her throat, and those eyes of hers were fixed on the small boy outside. They looked anything but friendly. Jackson followed her gaze to check Adrian again, but a second later he whipped back around.


"It's okay!" he reassured between gasping breaths. Like he would have done many times before in the past, the man reached up to grab at Alice's forearms, bringing them downwards so that he could hold her wrists in comfort. "He's okay, Alice, h-he's a friend, he-"


"Don't touch me!" It had taken no time at all. There was no transition, just a quick snap and suddenly her voice had risen from a soft and shaky whisper to a high, waspish shriek. Jackson's jaw dropped for the second time as his hands were smacked away rather violently, but still he did not retreat. He simply gazed up placidly, his worried brown eyes full of sympathy, and held out his hands as though told to drop the weapon he had not thought to bring. The look Alice gave him in return was pure spite, but when she spoke again her voice had softened to the same tone as before. "A friend..."


Jackson turned about in his seat to follow Alice as she dared to leave the safety of her front door in favour of inspecting this intriguing newcomer. For a moment the man sitting below her considered speaking up, but he did not want to hear his old friend shout again. - the first time felt like a weight in his chest even now. He did, however, raise his eyebrows at Adrian in warning.


Alice's chubby hands slid up to touch at the sides of Adrian's face. "You didn't tell me you had friends," she mumbled back at Jackson, feeling the softness of the small boy's cheeks as she kneaded the flesh in her palms. Her eyes had turned glassy, but there was still a light behind them. It was hard to tell what it meant. Longing, wistfulness, wonder, the deepest, blood-curdling hatred... One, two or all four, she could not take her attention away from the boy Jackson claimed was a friend. 


"Alice, I-"


"You didn't tell me you had friends," she repeated more loudly back to Jackson. There was pain in her voice now, but every word had an unmistakable edge to it, too. "I can't believe it."


Jackson, still on edge and poised ready to move should Alice try anything on Adrian, swallowed and tried to comfort the girl again. "Don't worry," he said. "It's okay. That - that's Adrian. L-Leo's brother."


"Oh." Alice's hands dropped to her sides as she let go of the boy's face. "I'm sorry... Um, he can come in too, if he wants."


Jackson watched as the girl rounded backwards, tracing her footsteps back past where he was sat. He noticed the way she flicked her hair around to cover up her face as she passed, and he scowled. She was hiding something... Maybe she really was crying now, like Adrian had said when he noticed the tears in her eyes. But Jackson did not get the chance to see what her hidden expression was after all, for she had since disappeared inside house number thirty.


There was a moment of hesitation. The man glanced back up at Adrian and nodded his head. "Y-you can... Stay here - if you want," he assured before turning and following the girl inside.
 
When Adrian made an appearance the woman at the door seemed to freak out slightly, he didn't understand why she was so worried about him, but he didn't question it, instead he stood there and waited for Jackson to calm her down. It wasn't like there was much to be afraid of, most people weren't worried by Adrian's appearance, he was probably one of the least intimidating people you could meet in your life. Yet she saw him and freaked. 


Jackson tried to reassure the woman, tell her it was okay, but she only freaked more and shouted at him, which Adrian didn't really react to. However, it did make him think of something... Something that reminded him of someone else. Was she like them? If she was...he wondered whether it would be better to move her somewhere else and go get Tilly and Eric, after all, that's what they were there for, right? So, if this was the place Jackson's parents were hidden that meant she was the one who took them... Oh, but she looked like Jackson's friend... Well, maybe they weren't really hurt or anything, maybe it wasn't as bad as Jackson made it seem. 


As he was thinking about this he felt a cold hand touch his cheek, his eyes darted up, meeting the woman Jackson had called Alice's eyes. Alice... He knew that name, where from? Adrian simply watched her, his expression unwavering as she continue to play around with his features. It didn't both him too much, he was more bothered about where he knew that name from. It was a long time ago, he knew that, but he'd definitely heard that name more than once on many occasions...and for some reason he really associated it with Jackson. Well, they were friends...so maybe she had just been friends with him a long time. 


The thing that Jackson mentioned to get 'Alice' off of Adrian's face was that he was Leo's brother, yeah...he was Leo's brother, but did she know him? Did she know where Leo was? Had they met before? Irrelevant questions started to float around his mind, and for a moment he forgot why they were there, but he had to keep on task. He wanted to see Tilly and Eric again, he had seen them in months... Would they be upset that he just had to leave with Jackson? Hopefully not. They could make up lost time now.


It was nice of Alice to invite them inside, although it didn't really matter much, Adrian would have gone in either way, but at least she said he could. Not that that made much difference, it might just mean that Jackson didn't scold him for walking into other people' homes without permission, since that seemed to be a bad thing. Jackson said he could wait outside, but he had no plans of doing so, he wanted to be with Jackson, it was best they stayed together anyway... What if someone wanted to hurt them or something?


"That's okay." Adrian replied, skipping in after the man. The second he stepped into the household he started to look around, bouncing backwards and forwards to check out anything unusual on the walls or floors, along with running his hand along the back of the front door and the walls as he passed them. Sure, he wasn't being particularly polite and respectful of someone's home, but Jackson should have been glad he was idiotic enough to ask where Tilly and Eric were and if they could take them and leave. 


After all, Adrian wasn't blind, he knew something wasn't quite right... He just didn't know what.
 
Whilst Jackson had wanted to think that this house was nothing like he had ever seen before, to do so would be to lie to himself. He had seen houses like this before, many times in the past - it was not new. Just... Unexpected. It was clear to him after all these years how frayed and dark it could be inside Alice's mind, and her house was the complete opposite.


The walls were painted in a warm, yellowish cream. From the ceiling hung a few flowery, umbrella-shaped lampshades. When he moved towards the living room after Alice, his nose could pick up the faint smell of worn leather. The smell was wonderful; it reminded him of being at home, sitting on the carpet in front of a crackling log fire with his parents and a long-haired dog with its head rested on his lap...


"You didn't tell me you had friends," Alice said again as she sank backwards into the softness of an old-looking leather sofa. Jackson blinked at her and tried to find something to do with himself. This lounge of hers was beautifully welcoming, but it was small. There were armchairs and tables and huge floor-mounted lamps squashed into every empty space, as if somebody had tried to re-arrange the furniture in a room that had suddenly shrunk to a third of its normal size. If even Alice had to hop and dance over all of her decorative belongings to get to her seat, Jackson had no chance. 


The man paused, scratched at his beard for a moment and then turned his head to check for Adrian. He realised after a moment that the boy had indeed followed him inside, and he did not know whether to feel grateful or horrified about it. As an added safety measure, Jackson raised a finger to his lips to make the 'hush' sign. Don't say anything, he told his younger friend silently, hoping that somehow his mind would be read. 


Alice began to speak again and Jackson had to turn back around to face her. She had squashed herself onto the edge of the sofa, her feet tucked in on the cushion seat because there was not enough space for them behind the coffee table. "Aren't you coming in?" she asked, her voice heavy with hurt as she saw the bemused man lingering outside the doorway with Adrian still behind him.


It was obvious that Jackson would never fit more than an inch into the room. "Alice - I - I would, but-"


"But what?" The dark-haired girl was quick to interrupt. Her feet twitched as though her instincts were telling her to stand, but she stayed glued to the sofa. There was a sharp glint in her eyes. "You don't want to, do you? Is that it? I thought you came to see me..."


Not good, Jackson thought. Alice didn't understand, she was too blinded by her own hatred to notice how unreasonable she was being. It was true, he had missed her so much... Even looking at her gave him pangs of sorrow and relief all at the same time. But as much as it pained him to remember, he was not here to sit with her and talk and catch up on the four years for which she had waited to see him. His parents... Where were they? They were here somewhere, they had to be. Alice was crazy, but she wasn't a liar. 


Where were they?


Maybe upstairs, said his mind, but before he could process that thought properly he was spun out of sense by something hard and sharp striking against the back of his head.


It was completely unexpected. Whatever the impact was, it had been fast and heavy enough to blind him for a split second and bring the potent tang of blood to the roof of his mouth. He let out a grunt of shock and then opened his eyes to see a rather dizzying image of the room whirling by at a strange angle. There was a pair of chubby hands wrapped around his thin ankles.


"You were supposed to be here to see me," Alice whimpered as she dragged Jackson by the feet through the narrow gaps between her furniture. She seemed to get ever so slightly annoyed when the man, dazed by the strike to the head, when he grabbed at the leg of a table in a feeble attempt to free himself. It took a few good tugs to get him to let go and, and eventually she brought him up to the sofa, where she then ducked down and raised him up to sit beside her.


Jackson licked his lips to get rid of the blood-taste and blinked again, completely stunned, as the world became quite still once more. He had been outside the living room, sat stiffly in his seat, but suddenly he was slumped in the corner of the sofa with a girl's arm supporting him from behind. A sluggish movement of his head showed to him that the girl's face was twisted in a frown, her chin wobbling where she was struggling to hold in her tears.


"I'm sorry," Jackson mumbled, letting out another quick gasp as Alice's hand shot out from beneath him, causing the man to fall backwards against the arm of the sofa. "I didn't, I - I came to get m-my parents."


There was an odd choking noise from Alice. She reared up onto her knees and stared at the man, then struck down at the side of his face with an open palm. His glasses went skittering across the table, but Jackson did not react other than to quickly thrust a hand in the air whilst making the 'okay' sign, hoping that if Adrian was still watching then he would not take the attack as a cue to make a move. He didn't need the boy getting himself in that kind of danger now, and he didn't want to see Alice hurt, either. No, neither of them deserved that... They were both simply trying to fix what wrong had been done to them in their lives, the same as each other. Alice had just gone the wrong way about it. It wasn't her fault, none of this was on her. She didn't deserve to get into this sort of trouble with a ghoul.


The girl in question flashed Adrian a nasty glare with her icy blue eyes, and a row of shimmering white teeth showed where she curled back her lips at him. "Them," she hissed at the black-haired male, the coldness of her words frothing and flying away from her lips as spittle. Silently she rose from her seat, skipped awkwardly past all of the furniture and then fell through to the hallway. With a push of one hand she tipped Jackson's wheelchair up on its side so that she had space to advance.


"Alice," Jackson said. It was less of a warning than a plea. He couldn't let those two come face to face, no way - they could both end up seriously hurt - but at this moment it looked like he had no choice. For what must have been the hundred-thoudandth time, Jackson cursed himself for being so useless as he grabbed desparately at everything he could get hold of. He was stuck. He was stuck here and Alice was gaining on Adrian more quickly than he could think.


"You're not really a friend," the girl croaked down at Adrian as she bent her knees to match his height, the way that a certain girl once did for him many years ago. Her hand raised to trace the side of the boy's face with a fingertip, but a few seconds into this gentle and motherly gesture she seized hold of his neck with both sets of neatly-filed, sparkling blue claws. Her voice rose to a maddened screech, a shout higher and louder and more hysterical than Jackson would have thought a girl like her could even produce. "That was a lie, wasn't it? Wasn't it!? Don't think I don't know what you're doing. I waited years! Years for this, and now a spy comes along and you're going to try and take him away. You can't."
 
There was the repeat of that statement again, the one that Adrian really didn't like. It sounded like she was almost...angry at Jackson having friends, why would she be mad? It was nice to have friends. She didn't own him, why did she sound like she controlled his every move? She didn't. Adrian knew that, Jackson wasn't owned by anyone as far as he knew. So what was she doing? 


The boy had stopped running his hands along walls and had instead moved to stand behind Jackson just outside the living room, large eyes staring directly at Alice. He would have gone inside, but Jackson couldn't get in, and he felt more comfortable being able to move, that room looked stuffy, he didn't like it. He'd rather stay in the hallway. Anyway, why were they going into the living room? They were here to get people right? That was all. There wasn't meant to be any talking or anything. Although...it didn't seem like things were going to go the way Adrian expected them to. 


For just one moment the small male turned his head to the side, observing the corridor since he'd been told by Jackson to keep his mouth shut, and that's when he heard it... A thud. His head whipped around, baffled eyes landing on the man being dragged across the floor and into the room by that strange, unsettling woman. He wanted to stop her, but for a moment he was simply stunned, unmoving, waiting. She moved Jackson onto the sofa and then proceeded to talk to him. Adrian still stayed silent. Jackson should be proud of him. 


He waited, he watch, and he tried his best to stay in the same position. 


By the second this woman was seeming more and more like a threat to Jackson's safety, a threat that Adrian wasn't prepared to let so close to him when the man could do nothing to protect himself. However, he continued to convince himself everything was fine, still holding an impassive expression. He would have kept doing it, because he knew that's what Jackson wanted, if he hadn't seen the woman's hand collide with the man's face. 


She. 


Didn't.


Just.


Do.


That. 


Adrian had to quickly move his hands behind his back as his right started to contort out of pure loathing for the woman on that sofa. The boy's eyes had followed the glasses, wide and seemingly unfeeling, he stared at the objects for a second or two before returning to the pair, about to move forwards. And then he saw the signal from Jackson. Adrian blinked, shaking his head, but staying in position. 


Really? Because it didn't seem like it. 


His facade was failing, he was doing his best to keep it up, but staring at him long enough would give away the fact that there was something very...off about him. The way his head made small jerks in different directions from time to time, the way his eyes flittered back and forth, the way his left foot rubbed up against the back of his right ankle. He was having a very hard time just watching them.


She deserved to die. How dare she touch Jackson? What gave her the right? Who even was she? Who cared who she was? Who cared! How dare she! How dare she, how dare she! 


Adrian's eyes were solely focused on Alice, they were dancing, hidden behind them were all the things he'd do to her if she touched Jackson once more. His mind was whirring... So much so that he didn't even properly register that the woman was moving towards him, and he definitely wasn't listening to her words, her simply watched her. 


Too close. 


She was too close. 


He could...he...he... But...Jackson... Didn't he understand? Standing there was painful for the younger male, standing there and not acting was tearing him up from the inside. Jackson didn't know, Jackson wasn't meant to know...but he couldn't do it...he couldn-


His breath was taken away. Quite literally taken away. Adrian felt something touch his neck, she was shouting something at him, but he didn't care, he didn't care at all. She was right there. 


Should he feel threatened? He didn't... In fact he felt a lot calmer now that she was within range of him and not Jackson, he felt...better. 


Adrian blinked his eyes, managing to tilt his head just slightly, for a moment he looked bewilderly up at Alice, and a pang of something caused him to attempt to swallow. Where did he recognise her from? 


It didn't matter. 


That innocent gaze was all that Adrian had given Alice since he walked into the house, seemingly emotionless, but innocent. Though that innocence was pushed back as a wide, demented smile crossed the boy's face. His pupils dilated, his eyes widened even more, and he looked almost...excited? 


For a moment it looked like he was trying to say something, but the words were mouthed too quickly to possibly be made out. Then one of his hands shot out from behind his back, clamping onto the wrist in front of him with a large amout of force, his other hand appeared but did not do the same. That hand reached up, tangling itself in the girl's dark hair and gripping it, once he had a hold both of his grips seemed to tighten and he pulled. He pulled as hard as he could. 


Fuck her. 


Fuck her, she could die for all he cared. 


Fuck her. Fuck her. Fuck her. Fuck her. 


Die.


DIE! 
 
It was Alice's shrill howl of agony which finally shook Jackson past his limit. His eyes, bleary and unfocused with his glasses somewhere out of sight, shot open and began to search frantically for some sign of what was going on. It didn't matter anymore that his cheek still stung from where he had been hit; Alice was screaming. Alice was screaming, oh God, she was hurt, what had Adrian done?


"Alice! Adrian!" He was shaking his head from side to side like a madman, hands grabbing at the edge of the sofa to try and pull himself up into a sitting position, or perhaps perform some kind of miracle that would land him back in his chair. It didn't work. Nothing was working and Alice just kept on screaming and he couldn't see, he couldn't see anything...


Back in the hallway, it was as though Alice had not even heard Jackson's outcry. Her arms had fallen away from Adrian's neck, and she bent over double. She kept on screeching unintelligible curses and cries of agony. There was something wrong with her hand - no, more than that. Her hand was dead. It was completely limp, lifeless as it flapped numbly about like an empty glove. Whatever Adrian had done, it had severed everything holding her wrist together.


The tears which had been collecting in her cold blue eyes had long since began to stream down the sides of her face. She stared up at Adrian with wild, rolling eyes full of fear and hatred, and her lips formed the word, 'why?' even though no noise came out other than a monstrous cry of pain. It took her several seconds for the screams to die down into a low, droning whimper that seemed to go on and on. "Why?" she repeated again as she finally stood up to tower over Adrian. Her dead hand swung, useless, on its broken hinge, and her other had begun to reach at the boy again.


It was impossible. He was tiny, he was so thin and frail, endlessly weak. A ghoul would have been able to pull off a trick like that, but somewhere in her fractured, unhinged mind she could remember this boy. Adrian, the little kid Jackson took care of once upon a time when they were friends and everything was still okay. He was human. He was a human, so how the hell had he ever done this!?


Refusing to believe what she had seen and felt, Alice was about to strike again, this time with sharpened nails ready to tear through this arrogant, selfish little thief's throat - until she heard a voice calling her name.


"Alice!" Jackson called again with the last effort his dwindling hope could produce. "Adrian, st-stop, stop it..."


Alice paused a moment to consider what had been said. She wiped at her tear-streaked face with the back of her dead hand, then let out a tiny moan of despair. It hurt so much. Why? What had she done to deserve this? And Jackson, he was sat back there somewhere telling him to stop as if he was trying to act like a hero for once. Hero, she almost scoffed out loud. He could pretend all he wanted, but she would not ever fall for the act. All he was here to do was rat her out, and this kid was here to help.


She had to kill him.


Her feet weighed down to the ground by her own panic, Alice darted past the boy, rammed open a door in the hallway and disappeared for a moment. There were lots of loud crashes and clattering noises that made Jackson call out again and squirm even more violently, and eventually she returned to the hall - with a stainless steel knife in her hand.


It was not much of a sword. Not a cutlass, a dagger - nothing but a particularly long kitchen knife with one serrated edge and an evil-looking split tip for hooking meat. She could hear Jackson's screams coming in from the living room, crying out and praying and begging to one or both of them not to do whatever the hell it was that was going on. But Alice wasn't going to stop.


She raised the knife in the air above Adrian's head, and then thrust the weapon downwards tip-first, half-laughing and half-crying as she watched herself become a murderer for the hundredth time.


Except that this time her target did not die.


The knife did not sink through the boy's skull and produce a beautiful blossom of blood and burst-out brains like she had expected. It simply stopped at the line of his scalp, curled with the force of the impact and bounced away again. Alice was stunned. She stared at the knife, then at Adrian. Then... The knife...


"How?" she murmured, her eyes suddenly round with fear. No, this was a lie. A trick. Somehow Jackson had been playing with her mind, but how? Drugs, illusions, acting... No, no, it wasn't working, what was going on? Adrian was supposed to be dead, but he wasn't. "What did you do? What did you do? That was my favourite knife, you bastard, you broke it!"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If Adrian could hear Jackson shouting he was far past being able to listen to his friend, far too gone to comprehend what he was saying. All he wanted was to see Alice's blood spill, he wanted to see it splattered across the walls, he wanted to see her struggling to get to her feet as she attempted to save her own life. He wanted to see her suffer. Just like she was making Jackson suffer. He wouldn't let that happen, anyone who hurt Jackson was dead to him. 


She was dead to him. 


There was no advance made on the woman as she cried and whined like a baby on the ground, he snapped something, but she should get up. She should get up and fight him. Was she going to give up already? This was no fun... He didn't want it to end so quickly, he didn't want her to die so soon. 


"Get up please." The boy's arms hung by his sides as he looked down at the whimpering woman on the floor, her questioning only cause him to smile wider, like he'd heard a funny joke. This was entertaining, she was entertaining. But...he was graciously waiting and she was sitting there like some broken animal, she could stand, couldn't she? So...why didn't she? "Get...up..." He chewed on his lip as he waited, large eyes darting from Alice's face to her legs. He was being patient with her. He was giving her a chance. Why wasn't she taking it? 


It was all too slow paced for Adrian, but eventually she did get up, however, when it finally looked like she was going to do something again, she paused. Why was she pausing now? Why was she making him wait even longer? The small male let out a whine like that of a child who didn't get their own way with their parents. She needed to hurry up. She needed to fight already. Did she want to die?


Before Adrian could open his mouth to say anything to the girl, she'd darted off, and he simply stood there waiting for her return. The threat was out of the room, but he didn't think she would stay out, he wouldn't leave Jackson's side, he refused to, he wouldn't let him get hurt by her. So he waited for her to come back with something she could fight with, simply rocking on his heels like he always did. 


Just as he expected, Alice did reappear, with a large knife. Though he didn't seem scared, in fact he didn't even move. An attack like that would have been rather simple for him to dodge, he'd seen the weapon early, but he didn't dodge it, he just waited yet again. 


Alice plunged the weapon down, expecting Adrian to die, but he'd been a part of the CCG...Adrian knew that that weapon was hardly going to scratch him. He'd studied it. Of course, he was right, instead of hurting him the knife bent into an odd shape, causing him to giggle. She was ignorant...she hadn't realised... Why hadn't she realised? 


Like any 'reasonable' human, she questioned why the knife didn't pierce through Adrian's skin, but he didn't answer her, he didn't even bother to react to her yelling and howling. Instead he reached a hand up and grabbed her wrist, staring at the knife, then he looked into Alice's eyes, wrapping his opposite hand around the now bent blade. 


"You're silly." His giggling wasn't natural, it was misplaced, he shouldn't be laughing, but he was. He was having a lot of fun. 


Adrian ripped the blade from her hand, taking it for himself, before he hopped back a step, still holding the girl's wrist. His movements had no urgency, they were simply playful, in the most sinister way, and so he took a second to smile at her once more...before raising his leg and turning his body to the side, kicking out towards the woman's stomach. 


"Are you not gonna play, Lady?" He blinked, "You're awful slow. Don't die yet...okay?" 
 
Her dead fingers fluttering in the thick, leather-smelling air as she flew back, Alice released a high shriek and stuck a foot into the ground to try and stop herself from moving. It didn't work. Her chubby form only tripped over backwards, sending her plummeting head-first to the floor just inches away from the coffee table.


No way.


That kid was tiny. He was so small, so frail - he looked like he had no muscle at all under his tight, pale skin. How the hell had he managed to do something like that? Not that it mattered... Unlike some less rational people she knew, this girl took what came to her and didn't argue or question. There was no point in a 'how'. It wouldn't matter anyway, because somehow she was going to see this kid dead by the end of the day. He broke her favourite knife. He came here to rat her out, steal the man she had waited years to see and now he broke the best knife in her arsenal and stole it for himself.


Almost unfazed by the stunning performance Adrian had put on with his enormous kick, Alice staggered to her feet and whipped her head around. For a moment she locked eyes with a man quaking in fear as he lay slumped against the arm of the sofa, rooted in place by his useless body. "Oh God," he cried out as he caught Alice's sharp glare.


The fear in her eyes was apparent. She knew that she was weaker than this tiny monster of a child. Jackson knew that, too. Adrian... Whatever the hell Zeplin had done to him, he suddenly didn't look so defenseless now. That kick had been powerful, and Alice might have crashed straight through the lounge had she not stuck out a foot. But she was smart, and he caught a funny look in her eye moments before there were hands on his neck again.


He should have expected this. He should have known Alice well enough to have predicted what route she would take, and the man hated himself for being so narrow-minded. It was obvious, the oldest trick in the book - take a hostage, threaten to kill them and voila: you're practically untouched. And that was exactly what the girl had done.


"You won't kill me," she promised quietly, shifting to wrap her arms more tightly around Jackson's throat. He was being lifted up in the air now, his long legs dangling down with feet dragging against the carpet. His own hands were scrabbling to loosen the girl's strangling hold.


Alice laughed. She jabbed her dead hand in the air towards Adrian, waggling the lump of living flesh tauntingly towards him. It had not taken her long to realise that as long as she kept her front to Adrian, Jackson made her invincible. "You're not gonna kill me," she sang again in a lilted voice. Closer, closer, she was coming towards Adrian now but not too close, of course. She was careful now that she knew what the boy was capable of. "I'm not playing your game. Give me back my knife or he dies."


Her words may have been quiet and monotone, but something about the way Jackson's face was turning from white to red and then a deep purple made her appear quite serious. He couldn't breathe, and she looked more than ready to keep it that way. "Gentleman," she said quite mockingly in response to Adrian's use of the term 'Lady', even though her voice was heavy with grief, "Aren't you going to do something? Oh, um, I'll even give you back the other two if you want, and then I can keep this one. That sounds more fun..."
 
"You're hurting my EARS!" Adrian's voice started off quiet, but by the end of his sentence he was yelling in an attempt to be louder than the girl screaming shrieking in front of him. She needed to be quiet, he didn't like it, he didn't like how loud she was being... They were always so loud! "Stop screaming! STOP IT!" He whined, placing his hands over his ears so that he didn't have to listen to the awful noise she was making. 


He let his arms drop to his sides and flexed his hand as he watched Alice hit he floor again, but she was up in an instant, he thought she'd come for him...but...she went for someone else instead. It was just mean of her, that was cruel, why would she hurt Jackson again? What was she trying to do? 


Adrian's head cocked to the side as Alice practically picked up Jackson, the boy could see his face going red, he could see that he couldn't breathe... So like he was going to waste any time. Alice was taunting him, telling him he wouldn't kill her. She didn't know him. She didn't know what he'd do. If she thought that would save her...oh she was so very wrong. She would have had a better chance just running. 


"This...this is...yours...right?" A small hand held up the bent knife in front of him, "Okay." He grinned, his arm held out horizontally, "You can have it." With that he dropped the knife at his feet and giggled, if she didn't have Jackson then he might have taken the time to taunt her a little more, but he needed to save his friend. He might not seem worried, but he really was, his heart was beating twice as fast as it normally would in such situations. Jackson couldn't die. If he died...then...then what would Adrian do? 


Once the knife hit the floor he'd darted forwards, the furniture was actually more of a help than an ailment. It gave him something to launch off of. The boy put his hands on the back of a sofa and vaulted over it, he ran along it and jumped again, moving to another sofa, then to the floor, just behind Alice. It was fast, faster than most humans could manage, she didn't have a weapon, she'd have to bend down to get it, move to his position, and he was already behind her by that point. 


"It's not a choice..." He told her in response to her telling him that she wasn't going to play his games, maybe it was a late reply, but he didn't care, "You're already playing. I don't care what you want." Adrian reached up, his hand moving to Alice's arm, "So...you gotta listen to me now, okay? You're gonna let go of him, and I'm gonna kill you." That grin returned once more as his grip tightened, he was too excited about this, but he didn't give her much time to respond to his demands. Before she could even get a word out he dug his nails into her skin and leaned again, kicking out towards her ribs, "There's rules though..." His voice had a playful edge to it, "You can't touch Jackson, Jackson isn't playing so that's cheating, and cheaters are no fun." 
 
Alice's persona was a lie. She may have painted herself in layers of cold ice and heavy steel, she may have wrapped her arms around Jackson's throat until his eyes had rolled backwards into his skull, but beneath it all her chest had tightened. Raw fear flashed within her eyes' cold blue.


Her plan had not worked.


Before she could even think or react, Adrian was there. He was as quick as lightning, appearing knifeless behind her within a tenth of the time it took for her to turn around and look. But even then she was too late, because there was suddenly a hand on her arm. Jackson's talons were still scratching weakly at her elbow as he struggled to cling to consciousness, but a second touch to her bare skin was more than she could take. "Get off!" she screeched suddenly, about to step away or find a way to smack the boy off, but then for the second time that day there was a foot in her front. 


Jackson saw - or rather, felt - his opportunity when it came and he took it. Alice's grip loosened as she went staggering back once more, though this time the extra weight helped to anchor her in place. Nevertheless, she had lost her hold on the man's throat and he drank in a huge gasp for breath. "R-run!" he wheezed at Adrian between sharp inhales, taking all the opportunity he could to flood his body with sweet oxygen before the air was cut off again.


Run, he repeated in his mind. He needed Adrian to get out of here now; the boy was a threat to Alice, and her mind still functioned well enough to realise that. She was playing dirty, using mind tricks and games of hostage to try and lure Adrian to a spontaneously planned death. He seemed to be able to hold his own in a fight, but... No, Jackson wasn't going to risk it. Adrian was too important, if he died, or if he did anything to Alice... God, it would be his own fault. He would never be able to live with himself from there on out.


However, despite Jackson's best efforts to direct his command at Adrian, it seemed that his instruction had been misinterpreted. "Run?" Alice cooed, leaning her head in to blink sadly at the man struggling in her arms. Her gaze flitted back up to Adrian. The knife was on the ground... And Adrian was far too combat-ready for her stout and pudgy form to keep up with. "That's a good idea."


Oh no, Jackson thought as he felt the world swimming by. It felt like he was being turned upside down, Alice was heaving him around so much. Or maybe that was just him sinking down into the endless sleep. Who knew?


"I'm sorry, I didn't know," the girl said. Her voice was louder now, likely directed towards the smaller boy as her tone was lighter and more child-friendly. The ice in her eyes said different. "But I don't think that's how it works. See..."


Quite cleverly, the girl started to circle Adrian, never letting the boy see her back and always keeping Jackson's limp and bulky form hung in front of her. Even if the boy was the fastest in the world, as long as she had a human shield there was no way he could get to her again. He would have to hit his friend. 


"...You've got it the wrong way around. You die. Not me, you die, it's you! I waited four years and now you're trying to ruin it all. You broke my knife. I... I'm going to get another one."


Jackson would have gasped in shock, had he been able to get in a full breath. He was suddenly jerked about, hoisted up above Alice's head and angled slightly around her side to protect her soft body as she backed through the hallway, unwilling to leave her shield behind despite the fact that her grip was not tight enough to kill him. 


Up, she dragged him. One thud, another thud - she kept going and going, trying to be as fast as she could be without tripping and stumbling. That would be difficult, it would certainly be no surprise if Adrian showed up inches from her face when she got to the door. But she wasn't looking. She stepped backwards past a wooden door, Jackson still in tow, and then slammed it shut before a face could appear in front of her eyes.


Click, went the lock as something heavy thudded on the ground and Jackson's scream pierced the new silence.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
So she didn't like people touching her. Adrian was slowly working it out. Alice hated it when he put his hand on her, so he should do more of that, make her angry, people never thought correctly when they were mad, they got all twisted and random. They didn't know how to fight. He could confuse her. Though he did wish she would stop being predictable and boring, if she did something interesting for once without screaming then maybe they could get this over and done with. 


Jackson's croaks weren't heard by the boy, but they were obviously heard by the woman, which in turn drew Adrian's attention too. Run...? Run where? There wasn't really many places to go right? She couldn't go outside, if she did that...with a missing person...the police might catch her. 


She had to drop Jackson or stay in the house with Adrian, he boy's heart picked up at that, he was overloading. Did this mean he got to chase her? She needed to drop Jackson, since she was still cheating, but a chase sounded like fun... As long as Jackson didn't get hurt. 


"Mmn... Liar." He mumbled upon hearing her ramble about him dying, he wasn't going to die, he wasn't allowed to die yet, and he definitely wasn't going to get hurt by any knife she brought out... Though...if she touched Jackson with the knife...he'd give up his fun, at that point he couldn't have her stick around to entertain him. He didn't care how long she'd waited, he just got Jackson back and he wasn't losing him again! It wasn't fair, Jackson was meant to stay with him! Not her! She didn't get to be near him because she'd hurt him, and Adrian would never hurt Jackson, but she'd kill him... She would, she was crazy, he couldn't let Jackson stay with her.


"Where're you going?!" He called, spinning around as the woman made her way out of the door with Jackson, so maybe he could have caught up with her quicker, but watching her feebly run away was amusing. He couldn't help but laugh. It was funny... A lamb couldn't outrun a wolf, why would she ever believe she could outrun him? For a few moments Adrian just stood, he gave her a slight head start, but the thump thump thump of the staircase gave away where she was going. 


And at that point he started to run. The short male darted out of the room and around the corner, nimbly making his way up he stairs. He could hear something or other on the landing above him, so be sped up, he saw a door, and a figure, but just as he got to it it closed on him. Was she locking him out? 


Adrian put a hand to the door handle to try it, pushing and pulling, but it was definitely locked. He was about to start s and whining when he heard a scream from inside and his eyes widened. Jackson. He'd left Jackson inside with her. Oh no, no, no, no. What was she doing to him? She wasn't allowed to do anything to him! Bitch! She couldn't! She was hurting him! 


Once again Adrian's demeanour changed slightly, his expression went from playful to deadpan as he backed up from the door. He was going to kill her. He was going to get inside and kill her. She was going to die. The bitch would die. She deserved to die! With that in mind, Adrian raised his back and sent a powerful kick flying into the door. He heard a crack, but it did not break. So he continued. 


Every kick broke the wooden door that little bit more, as time went on they started to get faster and faster, he was becoming impatient, he just wanted in. He'd get in. He would. Adrian kept kicking, he built up power and launched his foot directly at the door over and over, each time hearing it splinter a little more. Then more, and more, and more and...the boy heard splintering, wood broke away and flew off of the door, leaving a slight hole. Oh... There it was. He was almost through.
 
He might not have appreciated being dragged about on the floor below, but the second that he opened his eyes, Jackson wished that he were still being strangled. But he wasn't. He was here, and before he even knew why he was screaming with all of the strength he had.


"Oh no," said Alice as her hands quickly parted. "No, be quiet, you'll wake them up, don't wake them up!" Jackson dropped to the floor, his head making contact with something cold and sticky in the carpet as the girl fell to her knees and laid her hands on his chest. Tears welled in her worried eyes, but when the man she was leaning over reached up with one arm to touch at her face, she recoiled and smacked him again with her dead hand.


It stung. That hit had been hard, but it had at least brought the man to his senses - only for him to notice that his nose was stinging as well. There was a foul, overpowering odor, so thick in the air that it made Jackson wonder how Alice could even breathe without gagging and choking on her own tongue. But what was it? What was the source of that disgusting smell which was a mixture of blood and something unmentionable that made him want to be sick?


Wide eyes frantically searched the room.


It was dark. There were two wide windows built into a wall that would have been the same warm yellow as the living room, but there were dark streaks of something wet and flaky smeared over the paint. The colour was impossible to tell from sight alone, because the curtains had been sewn shut with thick, woolly thread, but Jackson made an educated guess that it would be a browning red if only the thin shafts of light were to widen and bathe the room in golden sunshine.


As his gaze travelled across the walls, his heart seemed to beat harder and more quickly by the second. There was more blood on the walls, little streaks gathered in patches like somebody had dragged a wound across as they tried to walk. Every few inches the pattern was broken by something long, sharp and lustrous, but even when he could not see without his glasses. There were knives embedded in the wall in a line, some of the blades twisted - although not quite to the level of damage Adrian's head had caused - and each and every one of them was crusted with more dried blood.


One, two, three... Jackson counted at least two dozen knives as he went on, but then before he could finish looking, his heart stopped.


He saw something large on the ground. It was dark and lumpy, the details impossible to make out from his position on the floor with Alice blocking half of his view. But when that 'something' seemed to twitch as though it could feel Jackson's gaze, the man knew that whatever he what he was looking at was no pile of blankets. 


Alice moved away.


"No!" Jackson cried out as he slammed his fists into the floor below. "No, no, no, oh God, please no!" There was some kind of odd banging sound coming from the direction of the door, but he could not hear it because his ears were already raw from the sound of his own screams. Alice seemed deafened by the shouting as well, because she whipped around frantically, her eyes darting from place to place as she twisted her body around in panic. The 'something' sprawled out on the floor was twitching more and more every second, and for some reason that seemed to flick a switch in the girl's mind.


She might have been slow and clumsy, but Jackson had been too busy trying to get up to notice what his old friend was doing. There was a sudden weight on his shoulders, and then something came shooting towards his face. Instinct guided his hands up to protect himself before he could even think. He caught the knife as it came to him.


"Shut up, you're gonna wake them up!" Alice whimpered as she continued to thrust her blade up and down, but Jackson kept his hands around it and tried to ignore the hot blood dripping down against his face. He pushed back up in resistance, and was surprised to find that despite all of the shock and breathlessness, he was still stronger than the woman on top of him. Within a matter of seconds the knife had been wrenched from one human's grip to the other's, and he jabbed the weapon up threateningly, though he knew he could never hurt her.


Alice fell silent. She leaned back, rocked onto her haunches and then her feet and backed away from Jackson with her clammy hands waving in the air. "You're... Gonna wake them up, please don't, they haven't slept for ages."


"Oh - oh God, how long?" Jackson gulped back, but Alice didn't have time to answer. She whipped her head around at the sound of an ominous crack of the door. Splinters of wood flew inwards, scattering across the floor as the barrier between themselves and Adrian began to cave in.


Oh God, thought the man on the floor for the hundredth time. No, no no no, not Adrian, not now! He had almost forgotten, but if it was even possible to feel more crushed by fear than he already was, it was happening.


Adrian was out there.


Small, fragile Adrian who could barely keep himself standing after a bad day. Happy, clumsy Adrian who did everything he could to forget his demons and be carefree despite the pain Jackson knew he felt. No, not him. He didn't deserve this. All he ever did was try to help, he kept Jackson alive... And all for what?


He couldn't come in here. He couldn't, he couldn't do it, it would destroy him in one way or another, and it was impossible to tell which of the options was the worst. What if he saw the blood and panicked? He would run away and get lost, end up scraping his life up from the streets until somebody found him half-dead in a gutter. Or worse, what if he came in and the first thing he saw was Eric's nearly-lifeless body twitching about in a pool of blood? That would be worse than a panic; the man was as good as a father to Adrian. To see this would be like watching his own parents die, and Jackson, who felt like he was so close to knowing what that was like, could not in a million years imagine himself wishing that on the boy.


"Don't come in!" Alice was screeching. She was at the door now, trying to hold it together as the hits kept coming and coming. For once, Jackson agreed, because the way she was looking at the door made him wonder how long it would take for her to find a way to hurt him. She had that maddened look in her eye again. If she could figure out a way to kill a ghoul, he was dead. Either that or she would get hurt first, and that would be almost as bad.


No, all of this was going wrong.


Alice. Adrian. Eric, and Tilly too, wherever she was. He didn't want any of them to get hurt, but he was so goddamn useless. People were dying all around him and what the hell could he do about it? Lie there and cry and be too afraid to use the knife he had stolen. 


He didn't want them to die. He didn't want to watch them die because he had fucked up again, which was all he had ever achieved.


Of course, his silent prayers were ignored again. Her arms shuddering with the effort, Alice pushed outwards against the door in an attempt to reverse whatever Adrian was doing. She pushed and pushed, grabbed at the splintering wood as it creaked and snapped, all the while screaming, "Stop! Stop, please don't come in, this isn't my room!"


Whatever she was doing, it had not worked. Jackson, his vision beginning to darken at the edges from the blood dripping down his arms, watched in horror as there was a sudden splitting noise that set his teeth on edge. It seemed to last for an eternity... But then it was over, and the door broke in.


"Run! Adrian, move, get out!" Jackson howled at the boy on the other side of the door, but either his voice had been too weak to be heard or his words were so slurred that they were impossible to translate into English. He could only watch as Alice tumbled past the wreckage of the door and out of sight.


The girl stopped dead in front of Adrian, and her face turned to stone. "You broke it," she said quietly, her lips twitching and chin wobbling as she struggled to hold in whatever tantrum was brewing within her. She failed. "You broke it! I told you I don't want to play your games - I quit, I quit, get out of my house!"


In some kind of mockery of Adrian's earlier tactic, she stepped back to keep her torso out of range, then raised a leg and kicked forwards at the boy's stomach. He was directly in front of the stairs; if her hit landed, then her enemy would fall.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 3 (members: 0, guests: 3)

Similar threads

madsiscool
Fandom Dancing Under the Moon {closed}
closed harry potter
Replies
9
Views
117
EmilySmith
EmilySmith
Savelius
Fantasy The Land of the Dead
fantasy
Replies
7
Views
112
stormcaller
stormcaller
Lucyfer
Realistic or Modern The Witching Hours [Closed]
2 3 4 5
Replies
120
Views
813
awkwardradish
awkwardradish
Lucyfer
Realistic or Modern Wages of Sin [Closed]
Replies
3
Views
42
cleopat
cleopat
CeruleanStars
Fantasy Early Bloomer's Guide to a Healthy Mana Garden
closed fantasy magic
Replies
17
Views
249
Elffri3nd
Elffri3nd
Back
Top