Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

Mitsuru was slowing down, there was no doubt about it now. The Weir leapt at her, crossing the distance between them in an instant, arms spread wide, savage talons stained red. Mitsuru rolled clumsily to the side, barely avoiding being torn to pieces by the monster’s claws. She didn’t even bother to try and counterattack this time, either because she lacked the energy or the opportunity, Alex couldn’t tell. He was already busy, tearing frantically at the Black Door in the recesses of his mind.

For a panicked moment, he scrabbled against the dark, frosty wood of the door helplessly, the surface cold and unyielding. Then he remembered the protocol, and the instructions Rebecca had left for invoking it. Alex exhaled, not even aware that he had dropped to his knees, or that Anastasia was crouched beside him, holding him up. With a tremendous effort, Alex activated the Absolute Protocol.

At first there were no obvious changes. Then Alex went stiff, his limbs and back rigid, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his body temperature began to drop dramatically. As Anastasia watched, his lips and eyelids started to turn blue, and she had to hold a hand up to confirm that he was still breathing. Then she felt the Ether seethe and roil, and she knew that a Black Protocol had been activated.

The Weir didn’t appear any the worse for wear, not at first, but when he charged Mitsuru again, he was not nearly as fast, and even in her debilitated state, she managed to dodge the attack by dropping beneath it, almost crumpling. The Weir landed in a heap, striking the ground with surprising force and then whining. Mitsuru wobbled her way back to her feet, and looked at the huddled Weir curiously.

“You…”

The Weir snarled through a jumbled mass of teeth and tongue, holding its frost covered paws out accusatorially.

“What is this? What is it that you’ve done?”

Mitsuru said nothing, standing on the balls of her feet, waiting and ready.

The Weir lumbered forward, moving much slower than it had earlier. As it moved, the sheen of frost that extended across the majority of its arms and torso cracked and bits of ice fell to the ground around it. One paw clutched at its chest while it attempted a sort of shambling run in Mitsuru’s direction, howling in outrage and pain.

Mitsuru stepped to the side almost casually, her wounded leg dragging behind her. She tucked and rolled, then came up firing, emptying her pistol into the side of the Weir as it passed. In some places, the bullets impacted normally, but in other places, the flesh seemed to shatter on impact, leaving behind great cavities that sparkled with pinkish-red ice crystals.

The Weir dropped to its knees, clutching at its wounded side and moaning, its other arm still clutching at its chest.

“Trickery,” it hissed at the advancing Mitsuru, even the slobber at the edges of its jowls frozen and sparkling, “this fight was mine, whore.”

“Was,” Mitsuru said lightly, limping toward the Weir, “maybe. Sure isn’t now.”

The Weir fell forward, catching itself with one paw, and coughing slushy, partially frozen blood onto the ground in front of it. It blinked and tried to look up at Mitsuru as she stood over it, its eyes blinded by a rime of frost that stretched across the tissue, one of the eyelids sticking to the surface of the retina. It hissed something, perhaps it tried to speak, but all it managed to do was expel more of the thick reddish slush from inside its mouth. Mitsuru stood above the Weir, its silver pelt now thoroughly covered with a thick coating of frost.

Anastasia watched as Mitsuru brought down the knife, Alex already fast asleep on the lap of her ruined dress.

Alex woke with a start, not sure where he was, not sure how long he’d been asleep, but seized with a formless anxiety, a sense that he’d missed something important. He reached to wipe the sleep from his eyes, and heard the rattle of the IV stand and felt the tug of the tape and tubes that were strapped to his arm.

Even in the dim confines of what he now recognized as a hospital room, Alex could barely keep his eyes open, the light spilling underneath the door seemed impossibly bright. Alex tried to sit up, and managed it after a certain amount of coaxing and waiting out his cramped muscles. His back was impossibly stiff and sore and his whole body ached, and he was alarmingly thinner than he remembered being.

How long had it been, then?

His hand brushed against his face in the darkness, and he was surprised to find that he had the better part of a beard. For a moment, Alex panicked completely, not sure what was happening, not sure whether he was awake or not. He leaned forward in the bed, and the movement inadvertently tore the tape stretched across his forearm, ripping the hair from his arm and bringing tears to his eyes. He winced and rubbed it, now thoroughly convinced that he was, in fact, awake.

And as his eyes adjusted, he realized he was not alone. He could hear gentle, rhythmic breathing from somewhere near the bed, from a jumble of shapes and objects it took him a few minutes to identify.

Eerie had pushed two chairs together next to his bed and was sleeping there, her legs curled in a ball in her heavy black tights, her sneakers tucked neatly underneath the chair, next to a basket that contained her knitting supplies. She’d looked as if she’d been there for a while.

Alex tried to speak, and managed only a croak, his throat cracked and terribly painful. He looked around him for one of those call buttons he’d seen on TV shows, but he couldn’t find anything of the kind. He’d half-resolved himself to try standing up and make his way out to the hallway, maybe finding a nurse or something, when there was a soft knock on the door.

“Alex?” He heard Rebecca’s voice from the other side of the door. “Close your eyes, okay? I’m going to come in…”

Alex obediently screwed his eyes shut. The room lit up, and it was brilliant even behind his eyelids. It took some time before he managed to open first one eye and then the other, Rebecca standing over the bed and beaming down at him, surrounded by blazing white light like the portrait of a saint, looking a bit teary eyed.

“Oh, you stupid fucking idiot,” she said sweetly, putting one hand on his forehead, “I knew you’d wake up, hon. I knew you would.”

Alex attempted to smile back at her, tried to form words. She put a finger to his lips.

“Don’t try and talk yet,” she said, heading toward the sink, “I’ll get you some water. I’m reading your thoughts, so don’t worry about trying to talk to me, just think clearly and slowly.”

She brought Alex back a glass of water, which he managed to take from her with a certain amount of difficulty, holding the plastic cup in both hands. He raised it clumsily to his lips, and managed a single noisy sip, and then spent the better part of a minute coughing it back up while Rebecca patted him on the back. After that, he managed a bit more of the water, keeping it down this time.

He tried to compose his thoughts, looking at Eerie significantly.

“Oh dear,” Rebecca laughed, “generally, you don’t have to use your eyebrows so much to communicate telepathically.”

She sat down on the chair next to the sleeping girl, running her hand through her faded blue hair, and smiling at her with an almost maternal affection.

“She’s been here almost every night, Alex. Emily has been here a lot too, but mostly during the evenings and mornings.” Rebecca patted Eerie on the head affectionately. “I think they have some kind of system worked out so they are never here at the same time, which is funny, because they aren’t speaking to each other, last I heard. Emily is going to be pretty upset when she finds out that you woke up when she wasn’t around.”