Season 2 - Blogisode 16

The sanctuary had been laid to ruin, embers and dust. The front doors, stone walls running length against the thick jungle that surrounds them, all of it, more debris than form to any focus. The vine had already begun its invasion, slithering with intent between the cracks and fissures, over the vermillion stained rubble.

The small party comes to stop at the edge of the worn and weighted path cut clean through the fern and thorn to stop direct to where the front gate should be.

Persia stops in track, feet firm, body absorbed in awe to sight of the devastation before her. Christina, baby in arm and now carrying under her own means, comes to stand next to her.

Persia spits contempt and confusion out into the calm wind that wisps around her frame.

“This can’t be it?”

Persia turns to their guide, the man who had been leading them to this destination with promise of safety and refuge. A haven he had called it.

The dark slender figure, wrapped in cloak and hood, turns slow to his companions.

A somber tone, no need to panic.

“This is it.”

He turns back to face the splintered gate at bits before him, the same slow, deliberate manner.

“Shall we see who is in then?”

He steps forward, over the rock and ramble, through the splintered pass.

Persia turns to Christina, more mind on the child tucked to her chest than the evolution of their predicament.

“Wait here.”

She looks up at Persia, a complacent gloss smeared bliss across her face, narcotic grin.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah of course. We’re fine.”

Her eyes drift back to the baby sleeping fetal, face up in her gentle embrace. A song, too soft for ears, begins to slip from between her lips, no more a melodic hush.

Persia leaves Christina’s side, a feeling of something not quite right washes over her with the last seconds look she gives to the only person left on earth whom she would consider to call friend.

She stumbles quick over the fallen wall, through the gap, to catch pace with Constance now standing station on the other side. Constance was the name that Christina had donned him with several nights prior. What he had gone by in his life before, what his friends and family had at one time called him, was still a mystery.

She steps to him, her eyes instinctually following his line of sight.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

1998

Christian careens haphazard down the darkened hall; bare feet on cold steel plies a skip to his step as he makes effort to navigate with wide eyes and outstretched arms.

Tara follows two paces his prior, attention fixed on Christian’s dull visage as it maneuvers about the thick black.

A siren sounds. A heavy drone vibrates up and down the winding walls. Security lights kick in illuminating the scene with an ominous red hue, lighting the way with an appropriately stimulating tone.

Tara screams up tunnel to the young boy leading way. Panic and fear infuse themselves within her words.

“Where the fuck are you going!”

Christian’s sprint comes to a screeching halt on the balls of his feet. He turns abrupt to face his query.

“Home.”

The clamor and scuttle of a militant pace on rush clatters way to their ears from several yards back. A cadre to capture comes round the corner.

“I see them!”

The voice of their intended captor pushes them back to their quickened pace. Cold, naked, full of fear, they push themselves beyond capacity.

Exhaustion is not an option.

PRESENT FUTURE

Jade steps on shell and toe in task to hold silent, not wanting to give way her pursuit too soon. It had been some hours, more than four, from the time she had first descended into the subterranean passage.

How long had it been since she had last seen or heard her intended targets?

She stops mid step. Lost to her thoughts her head cocks to one side in physical response to the inner workings of her mind.

She listens hard into the silence, brow furrowed.

“You look lost.”

A firm hand encompasses her neck in a jerking grip that tears her from her feet and back into the tunnel wall with a sick thud.

Set stands to her front grinning sadistic, holding her at arm’s length, his claw wrapped firm round her throat.

“Maybe I can show you the way?”

She fights for breath and finds none. Legs kick to air, arms flail wild at all ends as she slowly slips out of life.

“Go to sleep child.”

The last of her fight evaporates, her eyes roll back to sleep, neck gives way to the weight of her unconscious head.

Set loosens his grip, Jade's body slides down to the dirt below.