"A puppeteer's motives… are always concealed betwixt his strings," Claude muttered under his breath. He articulated his fingers and genuflected as he focused on controlling a horrid marionette.
Presently, Leo stared at him in horror as he watched a corpse contort itself; his mouth held agape. It rose limply and gently drifted to and fro as if it were dangling by a thread. It seemed to finally mimic a human-like posture before politely bowing before him.
They were isolated deep in a maze of alleys. That was the best possible explanation of their current location. As such, it was easy to get lost, and just as easy to go missing. Whether expected or not. However, they were not too far from the parking lot they'd entered the alleyway from. Approximately 200 feet away, two right turns and a left.
"Claude… what have we done?" His inquiry was not brought to fruition from a simple increase in terror, nor because of the pounding of his heart against his ribs. Rather, it was borne of his underlying flaw in this situation: Leo had killed her. Not Claude.
Claude met his gaze. His own eyes contained a sort of inexplicable emotion, but for a moment, they softened. Then he scowled, "The only thing I can do— I'm covering for you!"
Claude sighed deeply, not quite relieved that he had asked, and not quite frustrated. "Your mistake is what got us here. It doesn't matter what the intent here was… The least we'd get off with is manslaughter," Claude eyed Leo and spoke without words. He didn't have to speak. Leo already knew what he'd meant. If this scene were misinterpreted, the criminal charges they'd face would be worse than simple manslaughter.
"And that's why you're… Fuck man, I can't call this anything but violating a corpse," Leo said. Claude produced some sort of sound between a scoff and a chuckle. "Look, Leo, you've got a bright future ahead of you. You're going to med school and—"
"— Bullshit. If anything, aren't you supposed to be at Harvard right now? Just because we were visiting home and had an… an accident, doesn't mean you get to throw that away!" Leo retorted.
"Then can't we just agree we've both got places to go?" Claude waved off Leo's frustration and played around with the puppet. The corpse— a woman's— showed no signs of necrosis. It seemed like Claude had barely clinched victory against time. Karen had not yet died when he gained initial control over her body, which meant—
"—No signs of rotting. Or decay," he whistled in surprise. Truthfully, it was far too exclamatory for the bleak atmosphere, but he didn't seem to notice. He turned to Leo and said, "Since she's not rotting, we're going to play a fun game." Leo pursed his lips at those words.
Claude clicked his tongue. "One week, Leo. In a week from now, this puppet here," he gestured towards Karen, who was now nothing more than a mere marionette. "She'll have to die. Suicide."
"I get it," Leo replied. "Even you… We can't play pretend forever." He swallowed and then reached into his pocket. From it, he drew his car keys and pressed the "unlock" button twice. In the distance, a faint beep could be heard. "We'd better get this place cleaned," he grimaced. He turned and walked out of the alley, heading for his car.
The next four hours were a grueling machine of perpetual motion. Leo scrubbed with a distant look in his eyes. The scent of bleach hung like a guillotine in the air. It represented many things; today, it was despair. Claude pulled and tuned each string and wove each thread that only presented itself to him in order to achieve naturalistic movements. In the first couple of hours, the marionette moved stiffly, as if her joints were rock solid. Gradually, however, Claude's swift fingers began to form fluid motions, and Karen lost the traits of a machine and instead gained the likeness of a human. A warped grin made its way onto Claude's face, and then he got back to work. In the future, there was a lack of room for error. He kept that in mind as he went back to work.
Karen was a local influencer. Everybody knew her well, or they were under the impression that they did. Not to mention everybody knew her husband, who also happened to be a parole officer. "Those types of people wear a mask their entire life, never truly revealing what they're like to others…" As the sun rose, Leo caught Claude muttering to himself again. "Hey, bud, maybe stop philosophically babbling about masks and help me clean?"
"Fat chance," Claude snickered. He paused for a moment. "All right. I've finished preparations. How long will it take you to finish cleaning?" Leo simply waved him off. "Five minutes at most."
Monday, January 3rd. 12:00 PM
After a brief incident where she seemingly lost consciousness, Karen returned home later than expected. She quickly apologized to her husband, Ryan Whittier, and explained the situation. He seemed to buy it, albeit with reluctant suspicions. If it were anyone else, they most likely would not have noticed the hesitation in his eyes. However, the mastermind behind the marionette, which could see, hear, and feel what the puppet could— sharply noted his observations. This was none other than Claude!
Three blocks away, in a small and dusty apartmenr, Claude and Leo sat patiently. The cramped interior was claustrophobic, and yet there were no windows to leave open. The walls had a yellow tint to them, and the tops of the corners had protruding bits of black mold. It was a rather disgusting place to stay in, but it was cheap. And suitable suitable for the situation the duo was faced with.
As the deception ensued, Claude narrated each and every action, and subsequently Leo transcribed and documented it; to save it in his folder. As Leo heard his friend drone on and on about the situation, he couldn't help but begin formulating a plan.
Claude's idea was to have her commit suicide this week. We're already down a day, so we've got six more to go… Luckily, we've accessed her saved plans by unlocking her phone with her fingerprint. It's not really her fault. Who'd guess they'd have their identity stolen after getting murdered‽ Leo lampooned and frowned. "Then again, how can one be so unguarded?" He mumbled, his pen furiously scratching against the white lined paper.
At this point there was not much he could do. He had go entrust the fooling to Claude, and provide his friend with resources, as well as document their plans. It seems stupid but it means we can trace back our original ideas even if our memories fail us. Who knows the police might suspect us and send a Shard with the ability to connect the dots somehow… Leo's thoughts broke off as something struck him. He turned directly to Claude, and reached over to tap on his shoulder.
Claude, who was reclining in his chair with his eyes closes, suddenly shot up. Upon seeing that it was only Leo tapping his shoulder, he let out a shallow breath. In this moment he looked deathly pale. Leo looked at him in amusement. "Splitting my consciousness is very taxing," he quickly explained. Leo nodded, and then asked, "Claude… How long have you been a Shard? How long have you kept your Virtue from everybody?"
Claude went stiff. A hint of horror could be found in his eyes. His fingers trembled slightly. Perhaps for a second, he even neglected to breathe. Unexpectedly he drew in a large breath, and then answered tersely. "Eleven years."
After that, he reclined in his chair once more and let his eyelids fall. Momentarily, a sharp pain stabbed through Claude's head as he forcefully detached a piece of his consciousness. He was splitting his mind in order to hijack the puppet's senses once again. He clenched his jaw as he felt something warm and bubbly drip down his nose. Probably blood. Then in a hoarse strained voice through gritted teeth he spoke.
"Set up a party. Perfect place for accidents. Especially social ones." With that Claude seemingly went limp, and focused completely on pupetteering. The rest of the night went by relatively as expected, with only one or two anomalies appearing in Ryan's behavior throwing Claude off. Such as when he stared directly at the floorboards, unwilling to reveal his expression. Though Claude caught the furrow of his brows, most likely an expression of fury. This could be further confirmed when Ryan raised his hand against his wife Karen. This indicated that there were serious household problems…
At the end of the day, Claude successfully maneuvered the interactions of his first day, and considering Ryan seemed to not suspect anything other than when Karen initially arrived, he was in the clear. He put Karen to sleep, on the couch to feign fear of Ryan, and watched as Ryan solemnly trudged to the bedroom. There was no further interaction from there on, so Claude called it a night and finally fused his mind back into one whole.
That night, he fell asleep in an instant. Though it was on an office chair, he seemed tl have no qualms about sleeping on it. If one hadn't seen him prior they might have even thought he'd died. Leo knew better. He watched over his friend for about a half hour, ensuring there were no abnormalities before putting himself to sleep as well. He turned around and exited the room, silently shutting the door behind him so as not to wake Claude.
However, not even ten minutes later, Claude began twisting and thrashing in his sleep! In his dreams he had come across a horrifying situation. He was being chased by a pair of disconnected, rough, calloused hands! They had deep bulky veins running theough them, and bony almost sharp fingers. They shot toward him whistling through the air like bullets. As they did he froze in fear and his gaze flew to its palms. On its palms were strange markings carved onto the skin. They read: Anastasia! As he read it, the hands quickly enclosed around his neck! A crushing pressure befell him as his throat began to collapse in on itself. He tried crying out, but his vocal chords had already been shattered. The next few seconds were hell. It was an eternity in five, where his muscles groaned and snapped and his boans creaked like old floorboards, threating to shatter at any moment.
Just as the pressure overtook him, making it painful and too difficult to breathe, he jolted upward and woke up! Claude panted heavily, out of breath from all the screaming he must've done while asleep. Leo walked into the room and grumbled, "What the hell Claude. It's four in the morning!"
But Claude didn't reply. He simply stared down, gazing at his front of his palms. They were pale, and drenched in sweat… But most importanly they had a word carved onto them: Anastasia!