June 5th, we assemble at the compound given to us by the Government.
The same room with no personality, no charisma, just monitors, spaces with post-it notes, and the dank smell of coffee and cigarette smoke.
There was a time when someone attempted to add a mother's touch to this God-forsaken place, but somehow their presence was removed, and no-one but myself remembers anything more than that sliver of a memory.
There are empty chairs sprawled out on random spaces, alongside a long sofa placed diagonally through a doorway. I assume to block the corridor in which we used to have team meetings.
We haven't had a team meaning since Raphael has been receiving anonymous targets around a month ago.
Nevertheless.
It's all thirteen of us as usual. It's always been thirteen of us, but somehow for the life of me, I can't see one of us.
Their presence is like a shadow, though it feels like they've always been with us.
I hastily recall our previous missions regarding the King of Dragons and the assimilation of any witnesses.
The feeling of looming dread encases me like a cocoon of darkness - suffocating me.
The air is thick as it travels down my airways and deep into my lungs, as if planting something inside me.
I choke, gasping for breath as if asthma had awoken in me.
Amadeus whacks me on the back and I cough out the slight inconvenience.
I don't know if it was visible to anyone else, but I could swear I saw black smoke exiting my mouth.
Although with the skills I've acquired from my comrades, I'm able to shake it off, but this isn't a feeling I can allow myself to forget.
The party involves myself, Raphael, William, Marc, Zidane, Amadeus, Maryanne, Locke, Ariel, Abigail, Violet, and the girl who calls herself God.
Could there have been a force guiding us aside from God? Or Raphael?
I try to think hard, but all I can muster is a face on the tip of my memory. Always blurred, and getting more so the more I try to focus.
Hush. That's deferring from the certain reality we're attempting to change.
Zidane expresses he has something to talk to me about, but I insist he tells me after the mission.
There's too much at stake here.
Raphael tells us of a clock tower with a deep underground space fifty floors deep, and that we have to infiltrate it and terminate the being at the deepest level.
The target apparently has the power to manipulate continuity - as ridiculous as that sounds. Apparently, terminating them will stop the doomsday prophecy.
We all agree and depart immediately.
Raphael doesn't explain in any way, nor elaborate, how he received the information on this mark. Yet, we don't question him.
We've been killing intermittently for forty-four days now, and today is our forty-fifth.
It's like clockwork.
We're given a target, we take them out.
There was the one time…
That's not important.
We leave the compound as a team, one by one through the automatic door, but I feel some mysterious presence hovering by the exit as I leave. A filthy malicious aura that reeks from this space.
I swing my arm.
The presence moves.
The presence moved.
My head starts throbbing.
This is the danger sense that Locke taught me, but I don't see any immediate danger.
The team beckons me. I run lightly to catch up to their position, being paces away.
We're teleported by God to the front entrance of the clock tower. A building that stands at thirty-floors high and as wide as clock towers can be. The clock, itself, no longer tells the time, as it gave up years ago, and no-one appears to have the key. The exterior is old, and the paint curling away from the wood as if attempting to free itself. At first glance, it doesn't appear to have an entrance. That's because since nobody has the key to the room in which they change the time, someone sealed the front and back entrances with paint and wall-filler.
Locke gets to work finding the entrance. His ability to 'see what is unseen' has gotten us out of a good amount of puzzles in the past.
He calls William over to him, to which William - being the good sport he is - obediently accepts. They fiddle with the wall, and - before we're all aware of it - a loud bang is heard from their location. We all rush towards them - aside from Marc, who takes his time walking like he has nowhere important to be.
Aside from the atmosphere being slightly macabre, it's nice being with everyone.
Except Marc, of course. Even when we all got separated on that awful train, Marc being my only partner just brought the whole mood down.
We all approach Locke and William, who inform us the entrance has not only been found, but also opened.
We stare at the two, who are covered in black soot from what I could assume was either William's spell, or an explosive.
Locke enters first, clearing the way with the handgun he keeps on him at all times.
Old habits die hard, I suppose.
He signals us in and we pour through the now blasted entrance. We all meet in the middle of the room, which does its best imitation of the interior of a lighthouse. Bricked walls, damp, rickety staircase that goes up to what could only be assumed to be the clock itself.
William begins performing hand signs that spawn magic circles.
This is new to me, the team have consistently kept me far from William to further his growth.
I suppose I hold people back.
After a few chants, the magic circles get to half the size of the floor as he slams it into the ground, activating what was assumedly a magic-activated lift.
Which is immediately suspicious.
As a group, we were told to eradicate any magical beings - alongside those adjacent, due to their exposure to magic possibly awakening them - as their existences are only catalysts to the end of humanity.
We never questioned it.
Our powers though? Aren't they a form of magic?
If they find out, they'll have us all killed.
If magic is forbidden, that doesn't just make us an asset. It makes us tools. Threats.
Disposable.
Ever since I awakened to these powers, they scouted me as soon as it happened and I was indoctrinated into their missive.
But who are 'they'?
Something isn't right at all, I was told that we're doing good in the grand scheme of things. We're to preserve the sanctity of humanity and ensure its survival, but where in this does it involve killing?
The elevator moves quickly, but it's clear that we're moving through tens of floors at high speed.
The lights around the elevator shaft glow brightly in colours I've never seen, blending them as my eyes struggle to follow one.
My stomach twists as my mind attempts to comprehend it all. The nausea becomes a part of my character.
I am both enamoured and terrified of what comes next.
Marc punches me on my right arm, with his pinpoint accuracy, my shoulder dislocates like it was never joined correctly in the first place. He then punches it back.
For those who aren't aware, it still hurts having your shoulder being dislocated and relocated. The pain doesn't immediately leave once it's been relocated.
I hobble along at the back of the group, still struggling to fit in. Zidane peers back to me every now and then, but the team have been distant from me for a while now.
Maybe I am holding everyone back.
The feeling of looming dread drapes over my shoulders like a beautiful gown.
Almost like…
I've been here before.
At the end of a stretched hallway, we are greeted by an open spaced room, filled with vats and tanks on each side. At the foot of the room is what appears to be a girl, but with slight male features, inside one of the aforementioned vats. Beside her is a younger girl, overseeing her.
Their pastel blue hair almost glittering in the murky ambiance of the mechanical coffin.
Zidane speaks out, taking the lead at the front of the team. The team allows him this privilege.
"Why?" He begins. "Why did you bring me here if not to save my family?!" He raises a handgun and trains it directly towards them. His hands shaking.
"Who lied? You were mislead." The young girl says, in a voice that is somehow harmonised even with one voice.
Actually, in hindsight, this young girl is actually a boy.
A boy with a beautiful voice.
"You tell me that I was deceived? You take me for a jackass?!" Zidane replies, enraged with a feeling combined of guilt and hate. "Who lied then?! Tell me!" His gun remaining shaky in his shuddering fingers.
"You know very well that I can't, and you can't either. Our enemy is a lot more deceitful than you think." The boy replies, far calmer than I would at the end of a gun. "Look at my sister. Look at how they drove us down here. You think that's the sign of someone who wouldn't lie to you?"
"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!" Zidane screams, the inconsistencies piling up inside his mind. "Where is she? Where is the Mother of Threads?"
Raphael's voice appears from the team.
"That's classified information, Zidane." Says the voice from a mannequin that's been moving alongside us the whole time. Assumedly he's controlling it so he can continue his work at the base.
At first glance, it looks almost exactly like him, until you realise it looks a lot more human than Raphael himself.
Even with segments, visible open joints and moving parts, I still somehow feel safer with this plastic mess than with Raphael in person.
"It's personal, Raphael. Don't get involved." Zidane snaps back. "Now tell me."
"You already know, she's basically been with you the whole time." Says the boy, almost dumbstruck at how these answers come out so flippantly. It's like he's been saying these answers over and over again.
"What do you mean?! That she's been at the base the whole time?!" Zidane explodes with rage at the wild goose chase he's been on.
"Zidane." Raphael's voice begins, accompanied by mechanical whirs and feedback. "It's time to end things."
At the moment of the final word, Zidane… Activates.
His eyes become like pearls as he raises his gun with precision aim.
The boy notices just in the nick of time and mouths words I can't make out, but the words themselves release a magnificent wave of energy that fills the room.
Zidane stumbles in the wave, but finds his footing as his eyes train back to the boy. His gun raises once more. The shaking stops. His movements become less… human. Less in control.
"Have you noticed yet?" He says, now standing proud in defence. "Have you snapped out of this?!"
Zidane, however, is unresponsive.
The gun - once shaking in his sweaty palm - now trained steadily at two points of contact. His gut, and his shoulder.
He shoots.
The sound of a splat, as if someone threw a bag of meat from a building.
Dark green blood bursts from the impact like a hose, as the young boy is drained of his life essence.
Zidane doesn't flinch. He doesn't hesitate.
His gun aimed ahead of him, two bullets fire out and collide with the vat holding the woman.
A crack.
A second crack.
Then, all at once, the vat collapses. The mysterious liquid pours out onto the floor, leaving a limp young woman lying comatose in the damp machinery.
I take a closer look at the wounds.
One hit her heart, one hit her brain.
Zidane turns away towards the exit and immediately proceeds back, not a single word, reaction, or sarcastic retort to be had.
I attempt to grab his attention but upon further inspection, his entire expression has gone completely subdued.
His eyes are glassed over and lifeless, his face is relaxed and unmoving.
He reminds me a lot of Marc in this moment, though Marc is just a dick.
Zidane is under control from some force, and I'm pretty sure Raphael just pulled the trigger.
Zidane leads us to the elevator. The ride is awkward, but Abigail pushes and nudges me the whole time as an attempt to distract me from the horrid silence we are immersed in.
By the time we get to the ground floor - or technically the top floor - God insists she's had enough, and immediately teleports us in front of the base.
Abigail takes my hand and runs ahead of the team, taking me with her.
As we enter the compound, Raphael is not here. Just the looming presence that was.
"Raphy, we're home!" She sings, basking in the acoustics of the very spacious room. However, she is greeted with only the echo of her tones.
She takes me to the corridor of meeting rooms, and doesn't say a word. I look behind us to find the rest of the team only now coming through the front door, but Abigail takes me from their sight.
Upon our arrival at the end of the corridor, Abigail uses her power to make us permeable, and pulls me through the wall.
It was here that I had been revealed to a shocking truth.
"You are not who I assumed to meet today, and after being tortured by that awful boy, too. What luck." Says the voice from the darkness.
A beautiful voice, that somehow feels drained of all essence.
"I brought a friend." Abigail says - her voice tender, as if speaking to a child, or a cat. "He won't do anything, I promise."
"Hello?" I begin, speaking to the darkness. "I'm -"
"I know who you are, endbringer." She snaps, ceasing my great introduction. "What more do you have to take from me?"
"This isn't the guy you're thinking of." Abigail responds, her tone slowly being brought back to normalcy. "It was the other one."
"And how many must there be until the end comes? How many more must I bring to stop this folly?" She sobs, the sound of leaking water echoes through the pitch-black mausoleum. "How many more must I call to save my children…?" She says in a torrent of sorrows, all cascading on one another.
"Look, we don't have a lot of time. I know how you feel, but we're on borrowed days. Tell us something." Abigail says in a stern tone, once again as if scolding a child. "We're fighting a losing battle, here…"
"And I am not?!" The voice bellows, leaning forward into what little light we have, revealing her face.
Her lilac eyes are bloodshot, with dry lines trailing downward from them. Her pastel pink skin drifting towards white from the reclusive conditions. Her expression was a combination of fear and anger. Upon further inspection, this woman shares a striking resemblance to the aliens we had just come into contact with, which would make this woman…
The Mother of Threads.
"Have I not been fighting a losing battle through various timelines?! Every time I crash land in this God forsaken planet, it always ends in my children's demise. I'm finished. I've concluded my analysis of Earth and humanity."
"Please don't…" Abigail starts. "Please…"
"Earth and humanity do not deserve a second chance. You are easily manipulated, deceitful, and selfish. I can only pray in another timeline that things are different… but unfortunately, I cannot place my trust in Earth any longer." She says, finalising her verdict.
"Let's go. There's nothing left to do here." Abigail says, defeated. She takes my hand once more and pulls me back through the wall.
Upon emergence, we are greeted with the rest of our comrades, who simply stand in formation as if we had incited a cardinal sin.
Abigail, still holding my hand, holds her other out as if to stop them from doing something to us, but I know in my soul that they could never hurt us really.
Raphael proceeds towards Abigail.
"Focus on the mission. Nothing else." He says, before turning back alongside the rest of the team.
Even Abigail - the headstrong girl who isn't afraid of the Devil himself - couldn't stop her heart from racing in fear in that moment.
She is very aware of the danger that Raphael poses.
We all are.