the archives disaster
It was a boring day, well mostly because Anti had nothing to do. Dark was gone doing who know what somewhere, all he said about it is that it was something that would be better if he was alone. Anti tried to convince him to let him go with him but he kept insisting on going alone. Anti thought of contacting Sukino but when he called him on his phone nobody picked up. Anti almost accepted his fate of dying out of boredom when he thought of what C-B said to him one time. “Mmmh, maybe I could hang out with C-B? She did say that any excuse to stop by is a good one, after all.” He thought out loud. After five minutes of contemplating his other non-existent option Anti decided to grab one of his hoodie and go. Surely C-B wouldn’t mind an unannounced visit from him.
when he appeared in front of the archives, Anti was surprised to see the doors already open. Did C-B expected him, or did someone simply forgot to close it? He decided to just shrug it off and enter inside. Unfortunately, instead of C-B or c-A greeting him like usual, the first thing Anti saw was a corpse. It was laying in a puddle of blood, still growing. Anti started to panic at the sight. The last time he saw that much blood it was when he lost control and killed dark.
Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot echoed trough the archives. Anti decided to follow the noise, mostly to get as far away from the bloody corpse but also to discover what was happening. Anti was surprised at how easily he moved away from the blood. Usually, each time he had been close to it the temptation and moral struggle kept him frozen in place. He kept thinking about it until saw some giant shadowy figure in between two immense bookshelves, that were going for miles. When Anti saw the figure move he immediately hided himself behind the corner, hoping that whatever it was didn’t already noticed his presence. When the thing showed no sign of interest toward him, Anti tried his best to see it without being seen. What he saw was absolutely horrifying.
It was constantly shifting between different forms. One moment it would resemble a spider, then it’d be similar to a centipede, or even be some sort of abstract shape. But most of the time it kept a vaguely humanoid appearance, with too many limbs fading in and out of existence.
Its skin, black like tar, seemed to melt on itself. No, not skin. That thing looked more like it was made of black tendrils, moving, merging and attaching themselves on one’s another to reshape.
This monstrosity was absolutely terrifying, but the most unsettling detail were the eyes. They were all over it. Appearing and disappearing with no clear pattern all over it’s body. Some would simply sink in the blackness while others just blinked open as if they’ve always been there.
The mere sight of this abomination would’ve driven anybody insane.
But only one thing didn’t quite match this horrible scenery: a man, or more like its corpse, laying in front of the beast. A gun wound could be seen on the side of his head, blood still dripping out of it. In his hand, the weapon was clearly visible. So he took his own life to escape that abomination, or did his newfound insanity claimed him?
Suddenly, the thing raised one of it’s more defined limb and brought it violently down on the man. The sound of crushed bones could be distinctly heard and blood splattered everywhere. But the monster didn’t stop, it crushed the remain again and again until all that was left was a disgusting red mush. When it finally stopped it seemed…satisfied?
It looked like it calmed down at last, when all of the sudden all of it’s eyes closed simultaneously. It remained still for a few seconds, which felt like an eternity. Then, they all re-opened at the same time but they weren’t eyes anymore. All over the monster body were mouths of various shape and size instead. As soon as they were all opened, the thing started screeching. It sounded as if an hundred, or more, voices were screaming, whispering, talking and crying all at the same time. It was deafening.
Anti couldn’t take it anymore. He stopped watching. At this point he was sure he would never be able to sleep ever again after what he just saw. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and at the same time he heard:
" Anti? What the fuckity are you doing here? "
Anti turned around to see c-B crouching right behind him, her face far more serious now that her usual grin had been replaced by a worried look. "I..uh…" Anti tried to speak but couldn’t form any coherent sentences. It was as if his mind had been clouded by a confusing static, making it almost impossible to think.
C-B noticed the confused look on Anti’s eyes, like he was trying hard to process what was happening. "that’s no good. We need to get you out of here as soon as possible". In a swift motion of her wrist, she opened a portal next to them. Quickly, she grabbed Anti by the arm and dragged him trough it. C-B closed the hole immediately after they got on the other side. But not in one of her silly way, there was no time for that, she simply snapped her finger instead.
Right after the portal closed, Anti regained the ability to think clearly and blurted out " What the fuck was that? Did a kaiju break in or something? " "wow, not even a thanks for saving my ass C-B, uh? Just straight to the question. " C-B said as she plopped down on the floor next to him. Anti was about to ask more question when he got interrupted by an unfamiliar voice "so you saw her? " Only after hearing the voice did he noticed his new surrounding. They were in some sort of breakroom with twelve other people, Anti assumed that they were probably the staff of the archives. Most of them looked relatively normal except maybe for a few of them. Like the man sitting in the corner with spider crawling all over his skin, showing nothing but indifference toward them. Or the guy covered in scales near someone (something?) that looked like a black hole in the shape of a person. There was also a girl with many eyes scattered across her arms looking at Anti, almost as if she was waiting for him to do something. "you really saw her? " she asked, again. At this point most of the staff were looking at him, waiting for him to answer. "her? That thing looked more like an it to me. But yeah, I saw it… smash a guy into mush." he shivered just at the memory of it.
"so there’s only two of them left then" mumbled C-B. "do you think she’ll stop when she gets them all? " someone asked in the back. "I’m not sure, but I hope so ‘cause a squad is the last thing we need right now." Someone was about to ask another question to C-B when Anti interrupted them abruptly "alright, could anybody explain to me what’s going on? I feel a bit left out right now and I’d like to know what was the thing I just saw." Everybody stared at him right after. C-B just got up and turned to Anti "geez. no need to snap like that, I was going to explain everything to you right after I answer all of their questions. Y’know, the people who actually have a reason to be here?" At this moment, Anti wished he had kept his mouth shut instead of being made the center of attention.
_
After 15 minutes of answering questions and calming the mild panic, C-B sat back beside Anti. "so, you want me to explain what’s going on?"
"yes. I think I’ll go crazy if I don’t know"
"alright, buckle the fuckle up ‘cause you’re in for wild ride. So you remember the guy that got crushed to death?" Anti was about to answer when she just continued "Yeah, of course you do. Well two hours ago, they were seven of them."
“Them?” Anti asked, clearly missing some details. “yeah, Them. Intruders.” C-B answered. “I’m not even sure how they found the location of the archives. Maybe it was just dumb luck but I think it’s more likely that someone in the CDO sold us out.”
"To who? "
" I don’t know for sure, but probably another organisation."
"There’s others?"
"Well yeah, we can’t be the only one out there. Do you know how hard our jobs would be if it was the case? But you know what that also mean?"
"Not really"
"Some of them probably consider themselves enemy of the CDO, you can’t expect everybody to be good guys."
Anti never thought of the possibility of other organisations existing, let alone bad ones. Thinking the CDO was the only one was quite naïve of him.
"Lets not dwell too much on that, it’s not really relevant to the story, yet." C-B winked at what seemed like the wall. Anti didn’t really think too much about it, at this point he was used to it.
"To recap, these seven dude burst inside and then proceed to make the biggest mistake in their life."
"What was it?"
"Kill one of the staff." C-B almost looked sad after saying this, but it shifted rapidly after. Anti had almost forgotten the corpse he saw when he got inside. Just laying in a puddle of blood. Then, he remembered something strange about it.
"You’re wondering why you weren’t drawn to it? The blood and all, I mean. "
"How did you.." Anti stopped mid sentence. He knew nothing made sense with C-B and even if he did ask she would answer with her usual ^^plot convenience^^ answer. So he just nodded instead.
"Yeah, I thought so. Well that’s simply because Emi..I mean, they were a ghoul"
"Ghoul? What’s the difference, Isn’t blood just blood? "
"Well ghouls are undead, that mean dead blood. I’m sure that if I offered you a rotten fruit you wouldn’t eat it; you’d prefer a fresh one. Same thing goes with blood."
"Oh, I just thought I was getting better" C-B noticed the hint of sadness in Anti’s voice, but decided to just continue with her explanation.
Anyway.. as I was saying, they made the mistake of killing one of our staff. They where not discreet about it either, c-A noticed them almost immediately. But when she saw what they did…she just went mad. She shifted into that grotesque thing you saw earlier and she’s been hunting them down since then."
"now you know the situation we’re in, pretty shitty right?" C-B said nonchalantly. Anti was dumbfounded. That thing, that monstrosity who apparently killed five persons with no pity, was c-A? The same c-A that was clearly anxious during their first meeting, the same who complained about not being able to play botw, the same who didn’t want to open the door because it was too cold outside? Anti only had one more question "so…is that what she’s really like? This thing is the real her?" C-B did not respond. She just stared at him, saying nothing. She seemed to search for an answer. It was weird seeing her like that, looking actually serious instead of her goofy self. Finally, she sighed " No..no, that’s not really her well physically at least." Anti wondered what she meant by that. "the archives would’ve collapsed if she really shifted in her true form right now, and nobody would be able to see her either. You remember how her face shifted when you first met, right? " Anti nodded. How could he forget it? It scared him so much at the time. "Well you see, c-A is not the best at keeping a relatively normal appearance under strong emotions. And with what happened she just…broke down. It all unravelled in some sort of way." Anti thought back to when he’d lost Dark, how it completely wrecked him. Did that person really meant that much to c-A to cause such chaos? Or did she felt personally attacked by the chances of them ruining all of her work?
But Anti still had a part of his question left unanswered. "alright, but what about psychologically? Is she still herself or…?"
"Well in my opinion, I think she’s still in control but the staff aren’t really sure about that. I mean, I guess that make sense? Because she’s so different from what they’re used to, but the way she acts right now is really similar to before…we got here."
"what does that mean?"
"Weeell you see, before we met the cdo we were in a much much more chaotic place. I’ll spare you the details but let’s just say we’re not from here, ok? But as I was saying, we’re from a pretty bad place and c-A has always been super protective of the people around her. She would eliminate any possible threat. I remember she once ate one of ours sibling for that reason."
"Wh..WHAT?"
"oops, I’ve gone too far didn’t I?"
Anti was confused, shocked, and maybe a little disgusted with the new information about c-A he just learned. She was really different from what Anti thought of her, a lot more dangerous and impulsive.
Finally, Anti had only one question left "What do we do now?"
"For now, all we can do is wait and hope that she will stop when she catches the last one"
"And if she doesn’t stop?"
C-B did not answer. She just looked at him with a sad look in her eyes.
______
Alright, I just found even more respect toward writer now.
I just want to say that English is not my first language, and if some sentence doesn’t make sense it’s because I mostly wrote with French grammar in thought. Also, it’s my first time writing something like this so go easy on me alright?
Sorry if it’s almost all dialogue with nothing between. Maybe if I write a part two it’ll be less dialogue heavy, who knows? Definitely not me.
if anyone has a better idea for the title, tell me. i didn’t thought of one and just ended up with that.
@theloudmute I hope you’ll like it, and that it fit with your own story. I can’t believe it all started with some eldritch abomination I imagined in class and ended up with 2000~ words
