Innocence of Innocents

"There are innocents!"

Red stops. He hates, and will hate, and has always hated the idea of waiting to kill his prey. Especially when they beg for it.

In this case-- and this will be a case for many a time, he presumes-- his prey are the science-men. His brothers and he escaped their captivity after an hour or so of clawing at the glass, and in doing so, discovered their ability to become shadows. To transform into the dark beings that prance along the floor in victory and ambitiousness. And they escaped by becoming these own real shadows and sinking into the floors.

Obviously, no one expected them to do that. The laboratory is now drenched in a second horrid bloodbath. Christopher and Blake, still taking to the subject of killing, are off in some other corridors making a feast in man's blood (and they have played their part well enough, Red thinks, so they deserve a tad bit of compensation), and so he has been left alone to take care of the rest.

They decided they would kill every living thing in this laboratory. Why? Because why not? Is that not their creation purpose, to destroy everything in sight, to drink in its fear and devour its crimson resources? What else have they been made for except to kill?

He would love to kill. He loves to kill. He will always love killing.

But this science-man has the courage to speak to him in his hour of death.

Red shrivels back, his hands closing into fists. "Why should I listen to you?" He growls and laughs at the same time; the heavy fear drafting throughout these red and white halls makes this whole experience all the more intoxicating, and he feels drunk. His communication has dwindled because of this dulling-of-senses.

The science-man pants for breath. His clothes are stained with the remains of his dead comrades. He has seen a thousand things in the past hour, Red understands, and all of these things he wishes to forget. And he will forget them, if he dies.

And he will die.

"You... you have reason to kill us." The science-man's eyes are red. Bloodshot. Red tastes the air with his tongue, and it's then that he realizes that fear has turned into sorrow.

Sorrow tastes bitter in his mouth. He flinches away from the science-man, disgusted by the feeling. "Go on." Nonetheless, he likes where this is going.

"I... understand." The man slumps against the wall, his spirit crushed. "I know why. But... but please... if you leave--"

"When!" Red snaps, his voice harsh. "We are leaving your wretched place!" In anger, he takes a swipe at the man's torso, and he watches the human crumble to his knees in agony. Tears well in the science-man's eyes.

Red kneels to his height. "Say your words, and then I will kill you."

It takes the man a few moments to come to himself. The blood spilling from his open wound could only help Red's impatience. "When you leave, you have to... understand... the world isn't full of... of people like us."

Red glares. In defiance, he sniffs, and only discovers that the scent in the air is now an even worse version than sorrow. He feels like vomiting because of it. Sorrow is such a terrible, terrible taste.

"There are... innocents. P-- people who've never... done anything wrong."

The Shadow waits. His hands twitch in anticipation of his upcoming kill, but he makes no move. He must learn to control himself if what this man says is true.

"Like... like you. Before you were... forced to kill." The man coughs up blood onto his white sleeves, and Red recoils. The phlegm splatters onto his black robe.

"Innocents. Children. Please, please, don't kill them!" His dying words wither at the sound of his failing voice.

Red swipes the spit from his robe. His ruby eyes squint at the word children. "Children, you say?" He has never heard that word before.

The man cries. "Yes."

"And they are what?"

"Like you." Feebly, he motions to Red. "And... and your brothers, before you were..."

Slam. Red jabs his fist into the man's gut, pinning him to the wall. "Stop it. Stop it! Don't say that anymore!" There is no longer any "before." There is no way to go back to what he was "before" Roget forced him to kill. There will never be a way to go back to what he was "before."

Now, he kills. He tastes the fear and drinks the blood of his victims, all because of these greedy science-men who wanted nothing more than to create a war machine. But they've done much worse than that. And they can never go back.

He is only showing them that he can and will do what they made him to do.

Red hears the man's heartbeat spike, and then it begins to slow. Hissing, he demands to know what children are before he steals the life of this last remaining human.

"...Innocent." The man is close to death, Red knows. "They've never... done anything wrong. Please, when you go... don't hurt them."

He could have said more, but Red would not bear it. With astounding accuracy, he claws the man through the chest in one swift movement and leaves him to die.

The laboratory is eerily silent. The wisps of remaining fear from dead men waft throughout. Blood lingers.

He likes that.

His brothers, he finds having finished with their feasting and wandering through the corridors in search of him. He tells them the words of the dying man, and he tells them that they should escape. They should leave this horrid place for eternity and never return. They should leave everyone behind for dust.

They seem to agree. Christopher's face lights up at the thought of leaving here.

Blake asks him what it is that they will do once they leave.

They're covered in blood. Humans are afraid of blood, it seems, and the color red.

They're Shadows. They can turn into shadows, too.

They're dangerous. They have claws. Their talons extend. They can end the lives of a hundred men in less than thirty minutes.

Humans will fear them if they step out into the open.

He thought that they could kill everyone, and then the world would be theirs.

"But brother," Christopher wonders aloud, "if everyone were gone, would we not have anyone left? It would be only us, only the three of us, and none else. No humans ever on the face of this world."

Red swallows, pondering. Trying to scrape the last dried bits of blood from his nails (although it doesn't make a difference, considering that there are plentiful amounts of blood in this abandoned place), he thinks of what they should do.

"The dying man told you about 'children', did he not?" Blake blinks his opal eyes. The innocence in them is gone, of course, and it always will be, for there is no going back to before, but there's some sense of childish delight in him that hasn't been snuffed out. "What if we try to see some of these children? Or catch them? Find some of them?"

Christopher nods. "Blake is right, brother. We have not seen every human there is to see yet, have we? Do you think all of the world is like the science-men here in this laboratory?"

He shakes his head. "What do you suggest we do?"

The two, Chris and Blake, look at each other unsurely. There must be something they can do. Something that isn't killing. The sea of blood that this place has became is proof enough that they must take breaks. They cannot go about murdering every living thing on this planet because it will wear them down. And because they will have no one left, more importantly.

What shall they do?

"Find the innocents," says Blake. "The children. Maybe they won't be afraid of us like the science-men."

"Maybe they won't try to hurt us like the science-men."

Red straightens. The doors that block them from the outside world stand in front of him. He dares himself to push them open, but his arms do not budge.

"We should," he whispers. "We must find them."

Not all of the world must be the science-men. The world has children, those spoken of by the dying man. And those children are innocent, as his brothers had once been. Innocent and free, seeing as how none of them lived inside these white confines. Innocent and free and giddy.

It reminds him of how little Blake used to be when they danced together.

He sets his hands against the metal doors.

They must find the innocents.

***

[Yes! I finally wrote Part 7! I'm so hyped about this, because I honestly never thought of creating a backstory that describes how the Shadows fared in their early life, but I did! And I am! This series will continue, by the way-- It's not ending here! If you want to, go check out Sector 1 "Kyrtus's Monologue" on my profile. Thank you for reading! Please leave feedback in the comments!]

***Part 8 coming soon...***