Atemporals [Part Seven]

Part 6

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The girl and the biker advanced slowly. Black spots danced in my vision. Everything flickered and darkened. His thread joined hers and blended to a sickly shade of brown. Together they pressed me against the brick wall of the back alley, squeezing the air from my lungs

Memories split open. As if they were spurred forth from my mind by some unseen source and shattered into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.

Francis, don’t play with your food.

But look at him squirm!

Images rifled past. But they were tainted with fingerprints. Random details were changed. My Harry Potter birthday party suddenly filled with smoke. Someone had set fire to the streamers. Flames licked up the siding of my childhood home, nipping at the heels of the partygoers. Parents and children coughed and screamed.

Such a young soul; He's hardly lived at all.

They brought up my memory of the elevator. My first encounter with the threads. Nervous jitters shot through my knees the same way they had when the elevator doors slid closed and Darwin first turned to speak. Everyone stood frozen in time, save Nick, Crick, and myself.

“I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today,” he’d said. And they smiled. Strangers soon to become friends.

Pity. He hardly knows them.

Francis, enough. Be done with it.

The threads worked over my body. I felt them wrap around my neck like a noose and squeeze. From the corner of my eyes, I saw the bartender's leg twitch from behind the dumpster.

Just one more.

My memory shimmered. Darwin’s face morphed into something hideous. Something animal. He opened his briefcase and revealed three pairs of knives, glinting under the fluorescents. He, Nick, and Crick ceremoniously grabbed one and then pounced on the time-frozen bystanders with ferocity. The bystanders stood motionless, as blood spurted from their slit throats.

Darwin turned towards me, crimson dripping from his clothes.

Screeeeeeeeeeeee

I slid down the wall in a heap.

The alley dumpster scraped loudly across the cement.

The bartender stood awkwardly, his arm lolling as if held up by a flimsy string. A bright green light whipped from his chest.

He was weaving.

The green light catapulted the dumpster straight into the biker dude. His reaction was a hair too slow. The dumpster slammed into him with a deep crunch. I stared, wide-eyed, as his hand twitched the last of its life away.

The girl dove to the right and rolled. Her thread darted towards the bartender, who turned to return fire. The two duelers engaged in a strange dance. Whips of green and burnt orange clashed, collided, and reverberated. Bricks tumbled loose from the alley walls with each thunderous strike.

Confused bystanders tumbled out from the bar. The girl swept her thread towards them with one flail of her arm. They scrambled over themselves as they ran off down the street.

The girl’s thread lit the alley up like a fire. It rolled in on itself, burning into a deeper and deeper ball of orange until, at last, she flung her hands forward and unleashed.

“Wraaaaa!”

The bartender threw forward his thread and formed a thick green wall. The orange thread collided against it with all the force of a trainwreck. Colors spilled over each other like waves crashing upon a cliffside. The bartender’s arms shook under the pressure.

By this time, I’d gathered my senses. I stood and beckoned forth my thread. A great cool blue tumbled across the alley floor. The biker girl twirled and cackled, preparing another barrage.

She was preoccupied.

With great effort I maneuvered my thread ever so slowly down the alleyway. Her deep orange seemed to winning over the wall of green. The bartender’s barrier crept further and further towards him. The lights danced off his furrowed face.

My thread was at her ankles. Slowly, dreadfully slowly, tendrils of blue wrapped round her ankles. I bit my lower lip hard with the effort.

Then I pulled back.

“Wha?”

The girl stumbled, and her thread scattered. Colors dashed to the wind, fading like the dying embers of a fire.

The bartender pounced. Swirling green enveloped the girl’s head, twirling in a whirlwind until a sickening crack sounded and the biker girl lay lifeless.

She was dead.

A scream echoed down the alley. An old woman with a raspy voice stood, face drained of all color.

“Oh my g-“.

Then she collapsed, dead silent.

The bartender cricked his neck to the side.

He’s killed her too! I thought. My thread bubbled in a low simmer of betrayal towards my mystery savior.

But the woman at the mouth of the alley slowly stood back up, brushing off her knees.

She breathed deep, and said:

“I missed the show.”

"She played it smart. Drove all available bodies away," the bartender said.“Lucky our boy here’s learned a thing or two."

I stepped over the rivers of blood, rubbing my neck. My mind was whirling. My life had been slipping from my grasp just minutes before. My memories had been violated, frayed at the edges, and I couldn’t shake this acidic queasy feeling in my gut.

I was still blinking annoying specks from my eyes. It seemed now, my entire life was cast in badgering specks. Little dust motes that clouded everything and made me squint. None of this seemed right. I mean: I was a woman for christ’s sakes.

I was tired of the blurriness. Tired of the unformed picture. As I strode up to these two new strangers, I wanted some damned answers.

“And who the fuck are you people?” I demanded. “You just happened to be Naturals?”

The bartender laughed right in my face.

“Scott, come on try harder,” he said. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Who were they?” asked the old woman. She looked the bartender dead in the eyes.

“Copernicus and the Baconator. I’d recognize that thread even if I were color blind.”

“N-Nick?” I asked.

He nodded. The woman raised her eyebrows, instinctively checked her wrist where a watch should’ve been.

Crick.

“Francis Bacon. How many times does that make it, then?”

“Three,” Nick said. “Reckon it’ll be four before it’s all over. They’ll have the evil fuck tracked down and reinitiated by month’s end.”

My friends.

I felt a mixture of relief and something else. Something indecipherable that stuck the manipulated images of the elevator to the back of my mind. Darwin’s smile had been so unnerving as his clothes dripped with crimson.

“What happened to Darwin?” I asked.

Crick frowned. Her old face wrinkled up like a catcher’s mitt.The name had a strange effect. It sucked all the words from the air.

The two exchanged a mournful glance. No interpretation needed.

“Well, let’s track him down! Reinitialize or whatever!”

Crick blinked tears from her eyes and looked away. Nick shuffled on his feet.

“What the hell else are we gonna do?” I said.

“They frayed his soul,” Crick whispered. “Darwin’s gone for good.”

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Thanks for reading! P8 coming in the near future :)