Going Under

She hadn’t always been a monster. Before, she never would have mercilessly slaughtered her ex husband and his new wife. But, as she was quickly finding out, there were a lot of things she never would have done before that she had no qualms doing now. As she watched, dispassionately, the blood that ran steadily down the once blank white walls puddled into the carpet next to the off-white loveseat. In fact, it was the same one that he had proposed to her on. The room was large and spacious, with a 85-inch HD television mantled over the fireplace. It was separated from the loveseat and matching furniture by an opaque glass table that held various knickknacks that only uber rich people seemed to have. The living room was just a short trip down the hall from the parlor room, which housed the front door that she had unceremoniously ripped off its hinges. Her iron tipped nails had shredded skin embedded underneath them. With a small smile, she studied the unrecognizable forms of her former lover and his newest trophy wife, still entwined in what would be their final embrace. Her once warm and kind blue eyes had hardened into ice. Her mouth that once smiled willingly was fixed in a stoic line, lips thinned and white from pressing against her slightly elongated canines that had emerged during the bout of bloodlust. There were many different aspects of her life that had changed after the classified government experiment that had gone so horribly wrong, amongst them her inability to live without the blood and flesh of living beings. She thought how much more merciful it would have been to be incompatible with the demons. Studying her fingers, longer and more elegant than they had been in her previous life, she had to admit the perks weren’t so bad.

Twisting the wedding band that she had worn faithfully on her left finger, she frowned, listening to the faint sound of sirens. Of course her wild entrance had set off the security alarms, but really, who needed tact and careful planning when you could rely on genetically modified brute strength? Baring her teeth in a twisted grin, she ran her thumb over the diamond. She then ripped it off and flicked it carelessly towards Benjamin Koch, CEO of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Former CEO, she thought, and her grin widened.

Behind her, there was the snap of a twig from the birch tree outside Benjamin’s summer home, located in Rockwood, Maine. It was a beautiful, secluded cabin that overlooked Moosehead Lake. Before the study that she had unwittingly joined to enhance every aspect of herself, she had enjoyed three summers with Ben here. She loved lazing outside lakeside, listening to the sounds of nature and the occasional sound of shouting when somebody dared to interrupt Benjamin during his third vacation, bought and paid for by the people who had to buy their monopolized medication to live. A lot of times, she knew, those people who could no longer afford it ended up homeless while he had lived a lavish, gluttonous life.

She turned her head the slightest bit to the left, closed her eyes and stood still, listening as the soft, padded steps slid through the splintered door. A satisfied smile curved her lips, transforming her monstrous features into a semblance of ethereal beauty. The scent of sharp pine and sandalwood filled her nostrils, a combination that used to make her head spin, but filled her now with a sense of longing.

“Selena,” a deep voice rumbled, and she shifted out of the way as a dagger flew past her, embedding itself into the wall. A soft chuckle purred out of her as she heard him swear colorfully. Opening her eyes, she turned around, digging out the skin from under her nails purely for shock value, and met his dark, reproachful gaze.

“Devlin,” she acknowledged, her voice polite. Her smile widened when she noticed his gaze taking her in from head to toe with a small glint of reluctant appreciation in his eyes. “Late to the party, as usual,” she continued loftily. At one time, they had been terrified, innocent young adults, both coerced into the study for different reasons, but for the same end goal. She supposed that it had always been too good to be true. However, an unlikely bond had formed between them, especially since only six patients had survived being spliced with the demon that the government was currently imprisoning underneath the desert in Roswell, Nevada.

Devlin inclined his head towards her, his gaze sweeping across the bodies that were cooling behind her. “Friends of yours?” he responded, his voice just as polite, if not a touch cool. She suppressed a frown as she heard the sirens closing in. With a shrug, she turned and toed the girl away from Benjamin, enjoying the twisted death scowl of horror that marred his once handsome, Botox injected face. Whereas he was lined with wrinkles and had a horribly receding hairline, she was quite pretty, with long, blond hair. Her eyes had been a rich honey brown in life but were now dark and bloodshot. He had gained a little weight, Selena noted. She, however, was a small, wispy thing and finely boned. A twinge of regret almost superseded her elation, and with a grimace, she thought about the family the girl must have had. After all, if Lena herself could be duped by the fancy cars and dinners, banging parties and beautiful homes, how could she fault another? No matter, she thought, a little glumly. Neither of them would be able to live that life.

She stayed silent for a moment, lost in thought, and sighed. “Used to be,” she said tonelessly. It hadn’t made her feel as good as she thought, and Devlin’s response had been more than lackluster to her. She knew he condemned her actions and had had every intent to die when they had escaped four months ago. They both had, except they realized it wouldn’t end with them. So, along with two of the other successfully modified experiments, numbers 106 and 933 respectively, they had been adjusting to life outside as a ghost, since all of them were now classified as ‘deceased’. She laughed mirthlessly at how difficult life became after shit hit the fan.

The sirens were closer now; her ears were starting to ring as the noise assaulted her acutely heightened senses. Just as every abnormality had been obliterated by the demon blood, it had made all six of them so beautiful it was hard to look at. Her hair, which had once been a dirty blond, was now just a shade under luminous white. Her eyes were ice blue, her skin pale and unblemished and her lips plumper and pinker than before, a perfect cupids bow.

She heard a disapproving grunt from Devlin and a flicker of annoyance crossed her face. As if he hadn’t also killed without remorse. She whirled around, ignoring the pounding in her head from the sirens, and shot him a scathing glare. “Don’t try to act like I’m the only one with blood on my hands,” she said flatly, eyes narrowing. “Remember, only one of us has been paid to kill, and it wasn’t me.” He stiffened but, before he could offer a retort, she continued coldly, “And if you don’t want to be captured by the police and asked a lot of difficult questions, we should take our leave now.” With one last look at the bodies behind her, she strode past Devlin, making sure to bump him hard with her right shoulder. She studiously ignored the electric tingle that coursed through her body at the contact and stepped over the wreckage of the front door.

Just as she turned towards the still lake, she felt the whiz of a bullet scrape across her left cheek. With a hiss, she ducked behind the shed that housed some of Benjamin’s prized possessions, including three different sports cars, a prototype of a new and unreleased one-to-two-seater flying machine, and a various assortment of weapons that he had hidden away under the floorboards. It was his makeshift bomb shelter, which lead conveniently to the tunnels that were underneath the town itself.

“Lena!” Devlin roared, as the patter of machine gun fire opened, riddling the shed with bullet holes. While she was sure the bullets wouldn’t kill her, it would hurt like a bitch and slow down her retreat. Swearing colorfully, she inched along the wall as Devlin hurtled himself across the short distance between the front door and the edge of the shed. Selena turned and let out a scream of warning; there was the tiniest dot of red, dead center on Devlin’s forehead.

Time seemed suspended; she felt the vibrations from the sniper rifle before the bullet even left the chamber, and with a renewed sense of purpose, kicked off from the ground, shoving Devlin to the side. For a moment, all she felt was a deep burning sensation as the bullet ripped through her shoulder, followed by spreading agony. Silver, she thought dimly, reaching back almost automatically and pulling her hand away. They had put liquid silver in the bullets.

Hissing in pain, she collapsed into Devlin, head heavy and heart quickening as blood pooled at her feet. Her knees had buckled, and her vision was darkening. All she heard was his soft pleading as he threw her over his shoulder. We won’t make it, she wanted to say, but the only thing that came out was a bubble of blood. Maybe she would die, she thought, and the strangest urge to just laugh overcame her. It was too late.

“You’re not going to die on me now, Lena,” Devlin snarled as he smashed through the shed door, snapping the lock. He hurried down the hidden stairs into the tunnels that hadn’t been used in decades. For just that one split second, she let herself believe him. She envisioned a life where she had never met Koch, had never been offered the ‘opportunity of a lifetime’. Had never been clinically dead and brought back to life, had never gone through torturous experiments and obstacle courses. Had never become something more than human. She never would have lost her family and friends. She would never have met Devlin, nor the other participants in the experiments led by those who held a certain depravity in the government. Longing shot through her, followed closely by a surging hatred. They had taken everything from her.

With a renewed sense of purpose, she sucked in a rattling breath. Selena forced her lungs to expand, to oxygenize her starving body. The darkness was nearly complete, except for a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel. A laugh barked out of her, the sound so unexpected that she choked and ended up coughing up another mouthful of blood. Her stomach gave a great heave, and, to her mortification, vomit spewed out. Her body was shutting down.

Devlin could feel her slipping away. Her body became heavier. With a curse, his senses hyper aware of his surroundings, he veered sharp to the left, through one of the unused tunnels. He had been mapping out the tunnels once he’d realized just how deep the coverup went. He knew that Lena understood, somewhere, how dangerous this really was. What she didn’t realize, he thought grimly, was that if she was caught, they were all dead. It was for the greater good of humanity that she lived, and it hurt to think of a world without her anyway.

When he could no longer hear the noise of gunfire and the shouts and curses of the men behind them, he finally slowed down and scanned the area. While he and 103 had scoped out this place months ago, shortly after Lena had gone AWOL, they had checked only the most direct routes in and out.

He was pondering just how the hell they were going to exit this area when she gave a great, rattling gasp. Grinding his teeth at how little time they really had, he carefully knelt to the ground, laying her down gently and ignoring how she grasped for his body. He pulled his hand away and his fingers were covered in blood and silver that burned incessantly. Devlin closed his eyes briefly. After a quick internal struggle, he let out a sigh through his nose and met her over bright, feverish gaze. It was like a punch in the gut. “You will need to feed,” he said lowly, before snapping open a switchblade and slicing deep into his arm. Ignoring her cry of protest, he pressed his bleeding wrist to her mouth. Instantly, he was hit with the intensity of his arousal as her lips pressed greedily over the wound, and he had to fight the instinct to rip himself away from her. Gritting his teeth against the hiss of what he wasn’t sure would be pleasure or pain, he stared directly down the near pitch-dark hall, sharpening his gaze and trying to block out her low sigh as she took his essence into her.

Selena let her eyes flutter closed after studying the outline of his hard-set jaw and succumbed to the slumbering beast that was inside her as she fed. The memories that flitted through his blood were like rapid fire, and she had only moments before they were ripped away to be replaced by new ones. That was the strangest thing of all; when they took blood from a living body, and even the freshly dead, there were disjointed memories that filled their minds and stayed. It was like being able to watch a movie that sometimes made sense, but most of the time it was a jumbled mess. Usually, only the ones with the strongest emotional attachment were shown with great clarity. It was more than strange to her that he would allow her to do this, especially with how adamant Devlin had been during their imprisonment that nobody would ever take his blood. It also, she was loathe to admit, filled her with a great regret.

With effort, as the heart shaped face of a beautiful redhead with sad grey eyes flashed through her mind, she pulled her mouth away from his skin. Automatically, she swiped her tongue lightly across the wound to stem the bleeding. Devlin let out an involuntary hiss as his skin warmed and pulled back from her, trying hard to stay focused on their survival and not on how much her touch sent him into a frenzy.

For a moment, there was total silence. Selena was staring, unseeingly, up at the ceiling as she sifted through the foreign material before categorizing them into the “DO NOT TOUCH” cubicle that most of the intruding memories were stuffed into. Devlin twisted his head to the left, listening hard for any movement, face and mind carefully blank except for the need to survive. He had the indistinct feeling that they were being watched, but unfortunately, he always had that feeling. But the back of his neck prickled incessantly, and his hands clenched and unclenched automatically. There had to be something there with them, of that he was certain.

Without warning, the feeble amount of light that vaguely illuminated the tunnels was extinguished, the air chilling down. Gooseflesh broke out across Devlin’s skin and he heard the shuddering gasp Lena let out. It was like ice was rubbing against his body, his blood slowing and cooling. He dropped to his knees next to Lena, hands grasping blindly to pull her to him. But it was no use. With an inaudible groan, he collapsed beside her, breath sawing in and out of his lungs with great difficulty.

Selena wrapped her arms around him, shivering, but darkness never came for her. She watched, enthralled by the horror of it, as the beings above detached from the walls. The scent of hers and Devlin’s blood permeated the cavern and drew their unwanted attention. More experiments, a small voice whispered in her mind. Their great jaws unhinged and they seemed to grin, ghastly sharp, serrated teeth bared, strings of drool dripping down. She felt the cold, slimy wetness on her face and closed her eyes, the air in her lungs freezing as they moved closer, their rapid descent sounding almost like a flurry of bats.

Just as the first, shadowy being pressed against them, Selena drew in a deep breath, feeling the bone deep freeze penetrate her body. Forcing her limbs to move, she wound her body around Devlin’s, and delved deep inside herself. She swam through the darkness of her consciousness, her body growing weaker, mind disconnecting from its dying vessel. She saw a hand grasping from the still waters and grabbed it, giving a great heave. Devlin resurfaced, sputtering, his eyes wide and frantic. “Let’s go,” Selena said simply, pointing assuredly towards the growing light. He nodded silently, slipping his hand into hers, and together they waded into the light.

Just as it encompassed their bodies, illuminating them so brightly that they almost seemed translucent, they were ripped apart. “Devlin!” Selena screamed and panic etched into every line of her face. She saw his mouth open, watched his lips move, and then there was nothing but darkness.

At first, it was all black and still, suffocating silence. Then, slowly, the noises of the outside world came back. There were the steady beeps of machines, the murmurs of the overseers. She could feel the sticky tack of the medical tape holding down the various monitoring devices against her skin. The glue that kept her eyes closed as she had been placed in a deep, sedated sleep had crusted on her skin. There was a wetness seeping out the corners of her eyes, and she was unsurprised to hear the deep, wrenching sobs that gurgled through her chest.

With a surge of strength, she ripped herself up, setting off the various alarms. There were shouts, some in surprise, some in anger, as she tore the bindings off herself. Selena pulled her eyelids apart and grasped the tube they’d placed down her throat, ripping it out. She knew what she must look like; her hair was matted, eyes red and puffy. Where the adhesives had been, there were now patches of skin so white they were blinding. Her eyes were savage as she bared her sharpened teeth at the technicians and scientists. “Where is he?” she snarled, quelling the security guards with a single glare.

Someone cleared their throat behind her, and Selena whipped her head around. A beautiful redheaded woman with sorrowful grey eyes stared back and Selena’s heart stuttered. “No,” she whispered, a knot of fear growing in her stomach. The woman looked away, her jaw clenching, and Selena felt fresh tears scale down her cheeks. “No, he came back,” she insisted. “I had him. He came back.”

It was then that she noticed the still body laying across the room, still hooked to the machines. “No,” she breathed, remembering the look of sadness, the shape of his mouth as he spoke his last words silently to her. The almost superhuman strength that had filled her moments before sapped out of her and she collapsed back on the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, she watched the fans spin lazily around as if her whole world hadn’t just collapsed inside of itself. Again.

There was total silence for a moment. Nobody else who had gone to the otherworld came back. Only she, Devlin and the four others were able to walk between worlds, and even that was taxing. However, they had always been able to make it back before. What had changed with Devlin? Frowning, she debated only for a moment, before reaching her decision. “Send me back.”

There was utter silence. The woman with the grey eyes snapped her gaze back to Selena, her mouth forming a thin line of disapproval, but she did not disagree. It would have done her no good; Selena had a mind of her own and would do whatever the hell she wanted. For a moment, they glowered at each other. The lady finally gave a curt nod, turned on her heel, and walked to the door leading outside of the sterilized white room. She paused at the doorway, her keycard held loosely in her right hand, left hand pressing against the handle. Without looking back, she said emotionlessly, “You’ve gone back six times now, Lee. This last time almost killed you. You forget who you are and who we are.” At this, her voice hitched. “You forget Dev, you forget the mission. You forget me.” A strangled noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob escaped her throat. “You might not make it back this time. What makes you think that you can do it now? Nothing ever changes. Why not just give it up? Devlin’s not coming back.”

A low simmering rage rolled through her and before she could stop herself, she snapped out, “Because I’m not you.” It was a like a whip cracked. The woman flinched almost imperceptibly. Everyone seemed to have forgotten how to work and were instead waiting on orders from the woman holding on so tightly to the door handle that her knuckles were white. Finally, she relaxed her grip.

“Put her under,” she said softly, and there was a flurry of movement as they scrambled at her command. Selena rubbed her eyes, feeling the grittiness of the glue, and wondered just how long she had been under this time. Luckily, her blood seemed to keep her muscles from atrophying, keeping her in the most perfect shape she could physically attain. It also helped her rebound tremendously, but the atmosphere in the room was tense. It had to have been longer than usual this time.

“Lay back, Selena,” a stern, almost harsh voice commanded. She nodded, closing her eyes as her head hit the pillow. The mask was placed over her face, the suction cups pressed against her skin. She heard tape rip before being placed against already sensitive skin. Her hearing grew dim afterwards and she opened her eyes into slits, the world hazy already. The light started to dim, until eventually everything went black.

“Goodbye, sister, for now,” the same voice said softly, pain plain on his face as she jumped back into the otherworld for the last time. Either she brought Devlin back this time or she didn’t, but her mind wouldn’t survive another trip down. If Lacy was right, this was the longest any of their subjects had survived in the otherworld, and Lee was strong, but even with the demon blood, she was not infallible. He only hoped that, for her sake, she made it back in time. He glanced towards the door Lacy had just left through, the weight of the world on her shoulders until Selena made it back. The fate of the world rested in their hands now.

Outside, the land was turning barren as the escaped monstrosities wreaked havoc on the world, chilling down the land and creating vast famine. War had broken out across the nations as rations were stolen and all of humanity scrambled for safety. Diseases that were manufactured in laboratories ravaged the population, killing millions. Nations were overtaken by stronger countries and enslaved. Selena would need to know, but they worried that without Devlin, she wouldn’t be able to play her role in the Apocalypse they had foolishly released upon the world by meddling with forces they couldn’t begin to understand. And since the last horseman was Death, they had very little time to act.