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The darkness lasted for what seemed like a liquid
eternity, Hunt was swallowed in those shadows and nightmares assaulted
him. The man they had put down like a rabid dog, laughed at him
screaming with a vengeful hate.
"You’re gonna be just like
me, Sweeper! You’re gonna kill and keep doin it, till you have to claw
your own eyes out to stop the blood."
He tried to push the image
away, an image of a bald man, grey jumpsuit and ruined red where his
eyes once were. The image was of him, older and like some freakish
exhibit at a carnival show.
"I’m in your head now buddy!"
The dreamscape was twisted,
arching buildings and things that were better left unsaid, a mirror of
Libria, but rather than being a Utopia, the sounds of the Sweepers and
the cry of innocents hammered in his ears. He was shown the butchery of
countless animals and humans by his black clad brethren. And above it
all, the ghostly image of Father watched with a sanguine smile.
"This is how it’s gonna be,
you can’t get out, I’m gonna haunt your ass till you die!"
Hunt was able to turn in
time as the nightmare vision of himself thrust a piece of broken glass
towards the centre of his chest, his training allowed him to catch his
own wrist. But the bald Hunt twisted his hand, slicing a line down the
skin and opening a red-river of pain.
"Cut yourself shavin?"
"Get the hell away from me
damnit, who the fuck are you?" He tried to shove his dream self
backwards; the pain was nerve grinding and real.
"I’m the boogey man Hunt,
I’m what’s been living inside you all these years, the part of you that
wants to kill all these sappy assholes." Dream Hunt gave a wicked
smile, like a dozen razors flashing all at once, his bloodied eyeholes
running with the ichor that slithered down his skin. "I just need to
cut my way into your heart and we’re gonna have some fun!"
He leapt again and this
time, Hunt wasn’t fast enough, the last thing he felt was the shard
hammering through his breastbone and into his chest, not once…or twice,
but what felt like an endless repetition of the rising and falling
bloodied sharp glass makeshift weapon.
"Ian?" The voice was quiet,
serene almost and it held very little emotion, perhaps the tinges of
concern. "Captain Dannow said you fainted? Is this true?"
Hunt took a number of
breaths and clutched his chest where his heart was still pounding, his
whole body felt as though he’d just had ten thousand volts thrown
through it. The ends of his fingers ached and he instinctively looked
for a cut, there was nothing.
"True?" He said dumbly,
trying to focus on where he was. "I just had the strangest dream, it
was like nothing I have ever."
"Is this true?"
He blinked again, and tried
once more to focus on the speaker, he knew the voice but there was a
low throbbing at the back of his skull, not only that, the taste of
iron was in his mouth. "I passed out."
"Ian, you know how much
being a Sweeper means to your parents, to mine…but you should check in
with the doctors. If you can’t handle it, you should quit while you’re
ahead." She had dark eyes, serious eyes and her long dark hair was
pulled up into a neat bob. Her body, hidden behind the almost unisex
lines of the Cleric’s black coat, hidden from him. Something in his
psyche really balked about that, and deep inside his head – someone
laughed.
"Trish?"
"Patricia, remember?" She
put a gloved hand on his forehead, insulated and isolated from him in
all ways, shapes and forms. "We made it past the year mark, Ian, we’ve
officially been dating now for just over one year." She leaned down and
kissed him, but it wasn’t exactly the kiss he’d been hoping for.
"That long?" He joked and
tried to rise, but his arms wouldn’t quite work.
"You lie still." She fetched
him a glass of water and put it by the side of his bed, standing once
more she gave him a smile and turned towards the door. "Don’t forget,
tonight’s our anniversary?" A tiny wink flickered at the edges of her
eyes and she was gone.
A mocking tone tapped at the
back of his skull, a ruined crackled voice that was an echo of his own.
"Better make the most of it, soon, you ain’t gonna have no more
in-tim-macy!"
"Shut up!" He screamed, his
voice raising several octaves, something was happening to him.
Something he didn’t like, and Vincent’s hollow eyes appeared before his
vision. "What the hell was in that shot?"
"Father’s happy juice." Said
the voice inside his head. "Mojo to make you more like a puppet."
He reeled at this, was this
drug some kind of hallucinogen or was it really another voice, but
along with those thoughts, the mounting anger that he was used. That
they would dare to affect his life in such a way, roared like an open
log fire in winter.
He was dimly aware that the
glass smashed close to him, his arm had moved involuntary perhaps? Or
had he done it? More questions, he was getting sick of asking them.
Something broke the mirror across the other side of the room; just
before it shattered he could see his dream counterpart laughing in the
silver sheen.
Rubber legs worked just as
Hunt began to make his way to the bathroom, splashing cold water onto
his face, another mirror. He didn’t want to look up, for fear of what
he might see, there was someone in his head riding shotgun – and that
was a side of him, he never wanted to let out. The water was cold
against his skin; it gave him a mental snap for a moment, helped him
clear his thoughts before he doubled over and retched violently into
the sink.
He had a dim backseat view
from that moment on, somewhere inside his head was the man he knew
really well, the Sweeper. A man who was loyal to his Captain, loving to
his girlfriend and most of all, he had a strict code of honour. But it
was like he was watching a movie now, one where someone else played
him, an actor with a sick and twisted sense of timing – kitchen,
drawer, knife.
Door…
The corridor was lit with
the bright white lights, no variance and no need to change the neon
strips, conformity at its best. He was revolted by it, covered in vomit
and stinking from the smell, he ghosted down the hall like a vengeful
wraith.
Number 346…
He knocked, he rang, he
began to kick and in the movie he saw that not only was this actor some
kind of killer. He was also possessed of an almost superhuman strength,
evinced as the man answered it and the knife slashed forwards, the
strength of the blow enough to pierce the skull between the eyes and
ram out through the back of the head.
A scream rallied into the
corridor, but the man fell backward to reveal, a mother and two
daughters.
Showtime…
A symphony of destruction
like a run away train leaving the tracks followed…the walls were
painted a thick red by the rhythmic rise and fall of the glittering
steel, the laugh was demonic almost, a tirade of cackling freedom. The
truth shone in his hand like a blazing sword, he was the cure for the
sickness of the society – he was the hand of justice come to cleanse
the world of sin, they were the sick ones.
As the door closed behind
him, the room was silent, only the dripping of a cold water tap echoed
in the man’s head. Or was it a tap?
He didn’t care of course,
there was too much to do, the red splotches on his clothes or the trail
on the hallway floor, all of it was insignificant compared to his
mission. Cut the cancer out of Libria, anyone who came near him was
forced to flee or perish. Vincent’s drug had one minor flaw, which the
man had thought eliminated, but the street test had unleashed a true
demon it seemed.
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