Chapter 8 - EAT THE RICH
Content Warning
Visceral Violence / Racism / Classism / Abuse / Gore
Nikolai leaned his back against the wall, hands in his pockets and his eyes down.
“Where is it, Ingrid?” asked one of the orderlies as they trashed a patient’s room.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” he heard Ingrid reply. It was clear in her voice that she was feigning innocence.
“The bottle of ether, Ingrid! Where is it! We know you have it. Your friend, the one with the buck teeth, gave it to you and you’re hiding it somewhere in this room!”
Nikolai remained outside her room while the orderlies trashed everything. He had caught wind of this little caper of theirs early in the morning. From what he understood, Ingrid and Eywind were planning on using the ether to knock out one of the orderlies, steal his keys and then escape from the hospital.
It shamed him to have ratted them out, but he knew if he earned enough good will with the orderlies Mr Anders would help him escape sometime soon. Very soon.
He heard one of the orderlies beat Ingrid and demand to know where the ether was hidden. There was a moment of silence before one of the orderlies stormed off to one of the corners of the room and, from the sound of it, broke her nightstand.
“There it is.” said Mr Anders. “That wasn’t so difficult now was it, huh? Please make sure that Miss Ingrid does not forget her place here at the Fellhaven Royal Hospital.”
As Mr Anders exited the room, a small bottle of ether in hand, Nikolai began hearing repeated beatings and muffled cries emitting from inside the room.
He felt sick in the stomach from hearing it. He knew this was entirely his fault, that Ingrid’s current anguish would not have occurred if he had not interfered. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything to the orderlies. Perhaps he should have joined them and helped them escape. Maybe then he could’ve escaped with them.
This was wishful thinking and regret influencing his thoughts. He knew better. He knew that knocking out one orderlie would eventually alert the others and there would be no way for them to actually sneak out without running into someone else. There was no escaping Fellhaven Royal…unless you were dead.
Mr Anders turned to look at him and furrowed his brow. “You look uneasy, Nikolai. What’s the matter?”
“N-n-nothing.” said Nikolai in a hushed tone, intentionally keeping the conversation lower so as not to alert anyone else to the fact that he was the one who snitched.
The corridor was lined with patient’s quarters and all these rooms had ears.
“Walk with me.” said Anders as he made his way North.
Nikolai obliged as he had no other choice.
As they walked past the row of windows overlooking the courtyard Nikolai deemed them safe enough to discuss matters.
“Is this enough? Have I helped you enough for you to help me?”
“Help you?” asked Mr Anders, feigning ignorance.
“Help me…escape…”
“Ah…well, you have been quite useful of late.”
They made their way westward towards Nikolai’s cell.
“You are quite desperate to escape, huh?” Anders continued.
“I need to get back home to my mama.”
“Of course. And the fact that you’ve been unable to develop any powers has absolutely nothing to do with it, right?”
Nikolai offered no response.
“You know what they do to failures here, right? You either succeed or you die.”
“That is part of it too, yes.”
Mr Anders scoffed. “And what will you give me if I put my ass on the line to help you escape?”
“I’ve given you plenty of important information. Lead you to countless escapees and troublemakers, right?”
“You sure have.”
“And it has done wonders for your position here, right?”
“Oh absolutely. I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for you.” Mr Anders then leaned in closer. “But that’s to be expected, Nikolai. I’m a Fellhavian born and bred, while you’re just some foreigner scum. And you’re not even human anymore. You’re just some…thing. The only purpose you have in life now is to serve your betters.”
Nikolai felt a surge of fear pulse through his body, knowing that whatever he said now would determine his fate. If he was subservient he’d never escape. He needed to put his foot down. It was the only way to make a weasel like Anders back down.
“And you think the board would be interested in hearing about how you’ve been abusing your power here? I know how you and your men use and abuse the patients here. I bet it's real easy to get away with when they are so heavily medicated, right?”
There was momentary doubt and concern in Anders’ eyes when he heard that, but it soon washed away to reveal a smirk.
“Well…we can’t have that now can we?”
Mr Anders then lunged forward and quickly grabbed Nikolai’s throat, crushing his windpipe and blocking his blood flow.
“We can’t have that at all.”
Nikolai’s vision slowly faded and he could feel his strength leave him, rendering his thrashing and desperate attempts at survival useless. As he lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was Mr Anders’ wicked smile.
Nikolai’s eyes fluttered open, finding himself lying on a cold metal table in a dark operating room. He tried to move but his body was sluggish and heavy, and with his returning consciousness he soon felt overwhelming pain in his abdomen.
He raised his head to look down only to find a nasty stitched cut running up the length of his abdomen, from crotch to sternum. The skin around it was bruised and infected and the cut wasn’t even bandaged. In fact, he had just been left lying there, completely naked.
Off in the distance he heard a horrible, blood curdling scream and soon he heard something massive move around in the hallway outside the room.
He had to get out of here. He had to get back to his mother. She was the only thing that mattered. He didn’t care about the staff. He didn’t care about the other patients. He just wanted to get back home.
Mama Brutus rushed forward, its elongated arms reaching out and grabbing a firm hold of Mr Prim’s head.
The various patients and staff screamed in panic. Alba and Nikolai stepped back frantically, completely forgetting the armed soldiers that still stood behind them. General Stockton and his men stood staring at the horrifying display, frozen in shock.
The effect that Mr Prim had been under relinquished its hold on his mind and he began screaming and flailing his arms in panic as Mama Brutus lifted him up by the head. It’s one remaining eye stared transfixed at the rest of them as the monstrosity squeezed. Mr Prim’s screams became even more terrifying and soon they could hear his skull crack as blood, bone and brain matter splattered the now limp body of the orderly and the floor beneath him.
Alba screamed which brought Stockton out of his stunned state.
“Fire at will!!!” he commanded.
The soldiers began firing at Mama Brutus, hitting both it and the limp body of Mr Prim. Crimson viscera splattered the walls and floor but Mama Brutus showed no sign of affect. The patients cognizant enough to see this began crawling away in terror. A doctor collapsed to the floor and crawled back into a corner in panic, unable to turn his gaze away from the display.
Mama Brutus dropped the lifeless body of Mr Prim and began lumbering forward.
“Alba!” Nikolai exclaimed as he reached over and grabbed her hand.
The two of them then got up and ran back towards the main hall, past Stockton and his men. The general saw them and immediately broke rank.
“Keep firing! Bring that monstrosity down!” he commanded as he bolted back and grabbed Alba’s other hand.
The strain threatened to almost pull her arm out of its socket.
“The two of you aren’t going anywhere!” he proclaimed, using his immense build to pull them back to him.
“Let go, you fucking lunatic!” Nikolai commanded, activating his weapon.
Stockton aimed his pistol at the young man but hesitated to pull the trigger. The two warlings didn’t dare move a muscle, knowing they couldn’t possibly react fast enough to disarm him.
The general’s heavy brow and hateful eyes darted back and forth between them. Was he really going to fight this hard to keep them? They were abominations, not worth his time. But the doctors here had sacrificed so much to make them. The nobility and the imperial court by extension, wouldn’t be happy if he killed them or let them go.
Behind him Mama Brutus crashed into the soldiers who were shooting at it. It slammed one of them to the ground and grabbed another by the head and swung him up in the ceiling with a sickening crunch.
Stockton looked back, realizing that the threat took precedence, and let go of Alba. The two warlings stumbled back a bit before catching themselves. They didn’t dare move at first but when they saw Stockton turn on his heel and open fire at Mama Brutus they seized the moment.
“Here, take this.” said Nikolai as he handed Abla his bag.
She grabbed a hold of it as they started running westward, away from Mama Brutus.
They only made it about fifteen feet when they were tackled by two soldiers. One of them managed to easily pin Alba to the floor while the other struggled to do the same with Nikolai.
Nikolai was unable to hit the soldier with his weapon but his own slender form made it very hard to be restrained.
“Can’t you see what’s happening?!” Alba exclaimed.
The soldiers seemed either unaware or uncaring of the situation. The one holding Alba down grabbed a hold of her hair, pulled her head back and smacked it into the floor, disorienting her for a moment.
They then heard a series of roars as more of those feral monsters descended the main staircase of the central hall. Various soldiers quickly grabbed their weapons and fired at them in panic. One creature rushed forward and swiped its hooked claws at Nikolai and the soldier he was struggling with. Both managed to dodge back but then it swung again and caught the soldier in the face, ripping it apart.
The soldier fell to his knees and gave a piercing, gurgled scream as blood cascaded from his face. Nikolai stumbled back but quickly regained his stance and retaliated with his weapon. The monster darted back and forth, dodging two of his attacks but was hit by the third one. The carrion cleaver carved through its abdomen and drank deeply from its blood.
Alba, being unable to push her soldier off, instead resorted to reaching into the bag and pulling out the bloodshot. With the distraction of the chaos around them she managed to then jam it into the soldier’s eye and pulled the trigger. The soldier wailed and screamed, falling back and clutching his ruined eye.
“We’ve got to go!” Nikolai called out as he helped Alba back to her feet.
They ran West as more and more creatures rushed down the stairs behind them. The soldiers had completely broken rank and were firing wildly at almost anything that moved. As they ran down one of the western corridors they were shocked when a doctor suddenly emerged from one of the adjacent rooms and bumped into them, dropping a few bottles and medical equipment in the process.
“What’s going on?! What’s happening?!” he asked in a shrill and panicked voice.
Nikolai regarded him for but a moment but then looked down at the floor at what he’d dropped. He then quickly ducked down and picked up one of the bottles and then continued his flight.
“Hey wait!” the doctor called out after them.
They had barely made it to the end of the corridor when they heard him scream. Looking back they saw the doctor get swarmed by the creatures in the straight jackets. Their heads had split open and numerous tendrils emerged from their new open cavities, pushing themselves into the doctor’s eyes, nose, mouth and ears. His screams were quickly muffled out.
Nikolai and Abla continued their run until they reached the western end of the wing. At the end of the hallway they found a security door and next to it was a half closed door leading to a stairwell.
“This way!” said Alba, opening the door to the stairwell.
“What?! No! We need to get out of this wing!” exclaimed Nikolai.
“Not without Luna!” Alba retorted back.
Nikolai looked at her, key in the door, ready to run. But he hesitated. He wasn’t sure that going up a few floors and then running back eastward to access the East Wing from a different floor was any better of an idea than going to the West Wing. It looked like those monsters were pouring in from upstairs.
“Alba, I…” but his voice faltered, unable to find the words.
Just then a creature rushed down the stairs and jumped at Alba. She reacted quickly and tried to slam the door into it, but the creature’s big frame was too heavy and it came crashing on top of her.
She screamed and pulled out some of her blood and fired shards of shrapnel into its face but the creature seemed unphased.
It snarled and opened its mouth wide, wrapping its toothy maw around her delicate face and then…
Slash!
The creature’s head came off and tumbled down the corridor after Nikolai cut it off with his carrion weapon. He then grabbed a hold of her and dragged her back through the security door and slammed it shut behind them.
Abla quickly got up, her fingers tracing the fresh puncture marks that circled her face.
“Thanks…for saving me…but I need to get back to the East Wing.” she said.
“I know. But the Administration Wing is overrun. We’ll have to swing around and find your sister somewhere…”
And then he went quiet.
Alba looked at him with concern. “What is it?”
But then she noticed he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking past her, at the security door.
Abla swung around and was shocked to find, standing on the other side of the security door, peering in like a wild animal, was her sister Luna.
The young alabaster girl was now crimson with blood, guts and other bodily fluids. Her hair was matted and wild and her eyes stared at them as she scraped her blood daggers against the reinforced windows. There was a crazed malice in her eyes, her whole face contorted into a horrid smile.
“Luna?” Alba found herself asking, as if she didn’t entirely recognize who this was.
The wild monster tilted its head and grinned, then it licked the window, smearing blood across it. Luna then looked past them studying the layout of the corridor, clearly piecing things together. There was intelligence in there, some sense of logic and cunning, which only made her more frightening.
And then, in a flash, she darted off and out of view, running back into the North Wing proper.
“Oh god…what’s wrong with her?” asked Abla, still taken aback by the sight of her sister.
“She completely lost her mind.” said Nikolai. “I’ve seen this before. She lost herself in her frenzy. She’s completely drowned in the bloodlust. She won’t remember us…in fact, it seems like she’s hunting us.”
Alba thought about it for a moment before turning to face Nikolai.
“Hand me the keys.”
“Why?”
“Cause I’m going after her.”
“That’s suicide, Alba.”
“I’m not leaving her behind.”
“I’m not suggesting that you do that.”
Nikolai handed her the bottle he had picked up earlier.
“What’s this?”
“It’s ether. In high doses it can knock you out, in low doses it can calm you down.” said Nikolai. “I figured we could use it to try and catch her. Maybe with it we can quiet down the madness and reclaim her. And get her back.”
Alba looked at the bottle and then looked up at him. There was disbelief in her eyes and soon…tears. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank you…” she said in a whisper.
“I’ve done many awful things in order to survive. And it only got me more hurt.” Nikolai whispered back. “We’re gonna get her back. And we’re gonna get out of here. All of us, together.”
Abla leaned back and looked into his dark brown, and red eyes, and smiled. She then leaned in and kissed his cheek.
“Thank you.” she said again.
“Well don’t thank me yet, I…”
And then they heard a terrifying roar echo through the first floor corridor. For a moment they both stood there in silence, listening for what that could’ve been. Behind them they vaguely heard gunshots and fighting but ahead of them they heard nothing. And all they saw was a winding corridor completely shrouded in darkness.
“What was that?” asked Alba.
“That’s what I was trying to say; don’t thank me yet. This is the West Wing. This is where it all started. This is where some of the worst horrors are.”
