Bloodied Files

Nick stood, horrified. His mouth was open and he had an overall embodiment of shock and disgust. What… had those people done to those poor children? Killing and experimenting on them? Is that… is that why they were like that? The mutants?

Nick felt his brows crinkle with guilt and sorrow as she stared at the flower he gave her. She deserved better than that, and he felt bad for just giving her some dumb flower.

"… You don’t have to talk about that again. Ever." At least not with him. The man continued to look at the young woman, feeling his heart sink to his shoes. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her but they didn’t know each other well enough. The least he could do was put a hand on her shoulder.

"… I’m sorry Crimson."

It was an awful tale to recount, and an even worse one to swallow, but he had asked, and he deserved to know. He believed her, and that was enough.

"...so am I." Crimson breathed, lips drawn into a tight line, brows furrowing as a storm brewed behind her tired eyes. His hand was a small comfort, the flower in her hand brought her some peace, and those, too, were enough. "I saw the man behind all of it, the Dr., and I'm going to find him, and I'm going to kill him. I have to make sure no one goes through what I did."

mintteaandmemory

"Of course! I think that’s the…"

[Brenda gently took the jar from the young lass’s hands and read the label.]

"Ah, yes. The cinnamon and plum one! Please sit down, I’ll make you a cup in no time."

[Smiling back at her, she went to the back, where several paper bags were sitting. After reading through some of the labels of the pre-mixed tea, she picked one of the bags and went to the brewing station on the counter. There, she set the pot over the fire to heat up the water.]

"What’s your name?"

[She asked, seeking to make idle chat with the mysterious visitor.]

Crimson glanced at the corner of little round, wood tables tucked away in the corner of the shop before making her way over to them. Carefully, using her hands, she slid out one of the chairs and took a seat, glancing over at the one customer that still had her eyes glued to her, and then at the employee going about her business, as if what she'd seen was an everyday occurrence. The difference in reactions was striking, if not a bit amusing.

"Crimson." She answered, quietly, and then

"Your friend is staring at me."

#mintteaandmemory

"Us?" There was more? Did Crimson have a sibling? At least she was enjoying the rose.

"You… never told me much about your situation." Then again the poor woman probably couldn’t even remember. Just what the hell had those people done to her?

#bluesuitpapa #violence //

"Us..." She repeated. "Me...and my brother." She goes quiet again and twirls the rose between her fingers. "No, I haven't...but you've asked more than once. I'll tell you. It's not a nice story."

"We were both taken when we were very young. I was...eight, he was five. We were on our way home from school when a truck stopped near us, and men in masks got out and grabbed us- threw us in the back with a lot of other children. They took us far away, they gave us brands- numbers, and then I was separated from him. I was taken into this...hall. It had a lot of floors- levels, I mean. All these cages and all these other children. Boys, girls, all very young. I was led to a cage with two other girls. It was this..." Carefully, Crimson walks in a very tight square, silently mouthing the number of steps she takes. She'd never forget that; she must have paced her cell thousands of times during her stay at the lab. "...big. We got fed sometimes, we were let out to run, do drills. Every day kids would be picked and taken down the hall. Those same masked men would come at get them. You could always hear them screaming. They rarely ever came back, but when they did, they were...different. Like Milo. They got violent, or they still screamed, and they wouldn't stop. Sometimes their cellmates would kill them so they would stop."

She trailed off, looking blankly at the flower in her hands.

"...I don't want to talk about this anymore today. Maybe tomorrow."

Well, that was a visceral reaction.

Nick tenses, not sure what to make of the situation. He just clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck.

"… Sorry," He says, "I can’t help it. Ever since Trucy I’ve kind of become protective of young women around me." Well, every since Maya, really, but she was more like a sibling than a child, "I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable."

Crimson's quiet for a minute, eyes downcast, dark, but her expression is...soft. Sad.

"No. It's fine. It was...a lot of memories. Of home. Of my dad." She takes the rose out of her pocket again and holds it to her nose. "I don't even remember his name, but I can still see his face, sometimes." She lowers the rose then, expression back to its regular, hardened mask. "I wonder if he still remembers us."

thegodforsakenparson-blog

{ i know we don't talk a l ot but ✍ ur art is so rad.... .. }

last one for tonight jesus christ

#{ heart eyes }#files; about #files; art

Hmm.

Nick continues to idly watch her, wondering what else to say.

"Have things been going okay?" He’s not going to act like he didn’t notice the new battle scars she’d gotten, "I don’t want to seem overbearing but I am kind of concerned about you."

"I searched for Milo, but this city is big. There's a lot of places for him to hide, and he's a lot stealthier than you'd think. He doesn't make noise when he doesn't want you to know when he's there. That time he stalked us in the alley- I think he wanted us to get away." She puts the phone to sleep, satisfied for now- and then her eyes widen, and her knuckles turn white as she squeezes the phone. And then she lets out a breath, and stuffs the phone in with the rose in her hoodie pocket.

"...you sound like my-...a dad."

"The thing that allows you to send and receive phone calls. It allows you to access the internet too."

Wow, how old was she and she didn’t know these things? Then again she could have had her memory erased when she was in the lab, or whatever it was.

"… You’ve forgotten a lot, haven’t you?"

"Oh. Yeah. I guess he's paying for that too." She stares at the screen, fingers going still for a moment, before they go back to exploring everything the phone has to offer.

"I never owned a cellphone- or a smartphone. This is all new to me. A lot has changed."

What was it with pizza being a recurring theme? Nick huffs, crossing his arms.

"You know, you don’t have to steal from people. I could give you money to buy food…” He didn’t mind, after all. He had enough in his multiple bank accounts thanks to that one anonymous. The least he could do to help her out was get some food.

"He’s paying for your service too?"

Crimson glances at Nick, and then back at her phone. "Okay. Thanks." She clicks on a few more buttons, opens and closes a few more tabs, and then-

"...I don't know...service? What is that?"

"Probably text messaging. Surfing the internet. You could probably even get games on there." Or blow up a building but Nick wasn’t about to go there in his mind right now. He huffs instead, looking over her shoulder to see what she was doing on her phone.

"Who’s Kyle, though? A friend?" She hadn’t mentioned them before.

Crimson taps the home button, and then experiments with a few of the icons already on the screen. The little green icon with the white circle looked like the text messaging app...and then the little compass box was...safari? Whatever that was. There was a little lowercase 't' too. She'd look at that later.

"Kyle is someone I met recently. I stole pizza from him. He's helping me fight The Dr."