CHAPTER 34 – Plague which never occurred (2)

"Anna," I say and approach a person. "Kannada na?"

The person nods and I continue to tell him about the suspicious person, trying to steal the jewellery, as the guard is so careless, and then I just get dizzy and wake up elsewhere.

I try to scream, but I can't. My mouth plastered.

I try to grab something, but I can't. I'm tied up.

I try to get up, but I can't. My legs are tied too.

I squabble around, trying to get out of this… condition. But I can't. I couldn't. So I start crying, while muffle-screaming.

Where was I? What was happening?

My body moves upward, as the moving floor, below me, stops.

Screech of tires. So this must be a truck.

I control my gasping, and carefully look to where I guess the door is. My hands play within the knot tying them down. Too tight for me to break.

The door opens, from behind me, and I see jewels filling my view, as the light makes them visible to me.

"We only asked for the jewels, not the girl," a stiff voice says.

"You wanted to experiment," a guy says in butler-English.

"Didn't need a lab rat…" the stiff voice says angrily, and I shake, feeling asif he just hit me.

"We will sell her. Young and beautiful. Good price," the other voice says.

Tears flow out my eyes, as I imagine this. No… this is worse than death. But I…

"That's worse than death," the stiff voice says, feeling pity at my muffled crying. "Let her at least have a purpose. Lab rat will do."

Was that better? What was this… experiment?

Before I get the answer, this time, I do get hit-

And when I wake up, I scream up my lungs. Pain fills my head, all the way to my legs. But only my arms feel fine, but still shiver, and I feel something in my grasp. Something warm.

As I cry and continue screaming, my hand burns, as I desperately pray to god, to save me. And ever-so-slowly, my wounds heal.

I hear the door click open, and jump from my chair, without realising that I'm tied to it. So I only fall backwards, breaking my hands, and what is within them.

***

"What?" I ask to Crystal-cave. "I clearly think I heard you wrong."

"She's a gem-abuser, Rusk," Crystal-cave says.

"She's a white dragon," I say.

"No… she broke the Kohinoor. And I fear it may be irretrievable at this point. But maybe her death-"

"-I'm going there to ask her to save my friends."

"I told you, if you come across any… you need to do what I ask of. Maybe if it were retrievable it'd be different, but… I can't feel her and the Kohinoor as different things now. So you need to kill her, to save your friends."

"Did you plan this out?"

"It was merely a co-incidence."

"No… the gem didn't tell me about Feather."

"Because I don't know what he is. So you couldn't find him either."

"How can I trust you?"

"Don't," Crystal-cave says. "If you want to save your friends, then kill her. Either she helps you save them, or I will. But either of you interact with her… you will have to kill her."

"What if I don't?"

Crystal-cave stays silent.

Come to think of it… I couldn't see it. Was it even the Crystal-cave? It could read my mind and all, maybe it was… some kind of a parasite.

"I'm not the bad guy Rusk," Crystal-cave says. "I'll stop reading you, if that's what you like. But please… the Kohinoor is too much for me to risk."

I don't reply.

"I'll give you time. Please think about it."

"You didn't answer me, what if I don't?"

"Then I'll simply have to find another way. It is that big of a deal," Crystal-cave says, and I just try to figure where to stare, in this cave with no physical being. "But… if you or your team comes in-between, I can't promise their safety."

"I understand." It really must be that important.

"I can only read your mind in-here so… I'm sorry. I just can't help it."

I don't reply, and stay there in silence. After a little while, I simply leave.

"…just thinking about it," someone says.

"Are we there yet?" I ask.

"How do you randomly get up?" a voice comes from my side.

I move from the shoulder I'm leaning on, and just stare at Wrap, to get a proper answer.

"Look around," Wrap says.

We are still in the van but… a still one.

"One last stop for fuel. Are you hungry?" Wrap asks.

"N-" Wrap just hands me a packet wrapped in paper, and I stare at it, before opening it. "Thank you."

Not Psyand's mom's level good of food, but it fills me, even when Wrap eats some of it. Come to think of it, he did eat a lot… but good for him.

"Before we go to the police station she is in," I say. "We need to meet her sister."

I put forward where the identical twin stays, as if I'm not so suspicious. And we make our way to O's house, and knock on the door.

An elderly man opens the door, and glances at me, Psyand's mother, and Scelesthe.

"Who are you?" the man asks in Kannada.

"To meet your daughter we have come," Psyand's mother replies.

"No… who are you?"

A meow makes us turn towards the ground, and spot a cat. Another cat could be found staring at us, from a distance.

"Pet care…" I say and move my hand into a circle, trying to figure a word in Kannada.

The man glances at us once more, scanning us all, and then calls for his daughter, and just goes inside, without telling us to get in. But we go in.

And we sit here, alone, with O's twin.

"Pet care… is something wrong? Did you get a complain or something?" the sister asks us.

"We are not from the pet care or anything," Scelesthe says. "We wanted to talk about O."

"Ah…" the sister says, rather calmly in such a situation. "But we or no one besides the police know much about O. She just is the same city."

Scelesthe looks at me.

"No… your sister," I say.

The sister looks at me, confused. "Wait… O… is my sister?"

"You didn't know?"

The sister starts crying, and Psyand's mother goes closer, to calm her. The sister stops almost immediately, and glances at the door, checking for something.

"There was an event and a couple few died. We just thought that my sister was one of it. But… she's the one…" she says. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I say, as Scelesthe looks at me.

"Then I understand why you had to… lie. Let me just get all the cats," the sister says.

She steps out of the room, leaving only one cat here, as the other cat follows her.

"I'm not exactly a cat fan," Scelesthe says.

"Why not?" I ask.

"No reason," Scelesthe breathes loudly out of her mouth. "Just an alien thing."

"You are still a Primevel. Not exactly an alien."

"What's a Primee…?" Psyand's mother says.

"We each have a lot to explain," Scelesthe says, looking at me.

Well, nothing could get past her kind of Primevel.

O's sister comes up with two cats, one in her arms, and the other following her.

"Two of them are friendly. One is shy… don't mind them," she says. "So why exactly are you here?"

"We want to know this story," Scelesthe says.

.

.

.

All I hear is my own wretched scream, worse than what I had felt before. Just another day for a woman.

I fall to my side, on my shoulder, and move my other arm, with all the pain in it, right in front of my eyes. I had to know, I had to know that I'm still alive. I had to hold on.

Pieces of the broken jewel, pierced into my wrist, palm, and all the way to my knuckles. How many pieces had it broken into? Small broken down jewels, shining with my red blood.

The gunshot shot my way, after I fell, would at least have killed me, all in all. But this…

"You b-" something kicks my head, making me fall on my face. "Oh my god, it's broken. Why did you-" and a stomp on my wounded arm.

I scream and move my arm, but it only hurts more.

Just a while ago, I was graced with my wounds almost healing, but now… what was this? A dream. Some kind of a nightmare.

I take care that my wounded arm doesn't move, the pain only was increasing by the moment. So this way, I sit up, without being hit by the person again.

I look ahead, and hear groaning, being masked out until the moment, due to my own. And ahead of me, a guy had fallen down, with his leg in the air, with him holding onto it, and crying.

What was this?

I look away, and look at my arm. My arm was looking like as if it were degrading or rotting slowly.

The guy's screaming gets louder, and I look towards him, while slowly moving my body away.

The leg was squeezed up to the bone, just a moment ago, and now had black hair, sticking out as if his leg had goose-bumps on them. And now they looked like silky black fur, covering his naked leg, with tattered clothes. And two extensions out of his feet-

I feel nauseous and vomit everything out of my stomach, as the guy simply groans louder. I could feel my hunger now, having been killed by this sight now, but still as much hungry, as I could be.

I cry, while shivering in fear.

Dream core.

The extensions on his feet… acting like feet, try to move towards me, but the guy holds his own leg, while crying and gasping in pain.

It looked like a fucking cat. It even had one eye, staring right at me, scaling me.

I use all my strength and get up, to get out. By the time I reach the door, I hear a loud meow. I love cats but… this fucking terrifies me, and makes me hurry, even with my pain.

"THE KOHINOOR," I hear from right besides me, and as I turn, I see… a thing, and my heart sinks. "IS BROKEN."

The cat makes me fall, by putting it's feet in front of me.

"Thank you. Now die-"

.

.

.

"I usually like cats. Even if they are, you know, black cats," O's sister says, as I snap out of that vision-story. "But it had clawed a lot on that girl's face and all. And it looked like it had two legs, right about below its face-"

-with its body, and eventually a round ball of tail, reaching up until the height of about two metres. And on one side of its body, was just a random naked leg, looking like it was of a human.

O's sister describes the exact thing I had seen, a moment back, when perceiving O's story.

Was this power, given to me by the Crystal-cave? I thought it didn't want me to know O's story.

"That girl was O. She still stood up, even when she was bleeding so much. And when we escaped, the… thing, just TURNED some people, into other weird things. And O went back for it, saying she had seen something."

Seen something? Is that why I snapped out of the vision?

"And then I had to run away. Heard a lot of people went missing that time. The random zombie plague… ended. And O said she had to be caught by the police, and surrendered herself. The police just… took her in."