The Gray Awakening

"Ahhh… I have to do everything again do I…"

Mary sank her fingernails into her arms as she inclined her body towards the corner of a dark room. The smell of old boxes and the faint scent of detergent filled the air around her. With the light coming only from the small glass window of the door, there was nothing left to see but the pale shadows giving shape to the tools of what the humans would use in their daily labors.

She tugged her knees over to her chest and she embraced her legs like a sweet girl in the middle of a thunderstorm hoping that everything would quiet down. She had no strength left to fight, she even buried her fingers deep into her cheeks to force herself to smile. The thought of her being powerless loomed over her like a blanket of chains weighing her down and with that, the tiled floor beneath her body started to crack.

"Just when I thought that I would be in a place where no one needs me…"

She whispered at her sore thighs and feet that she got at the moment she turned her back at him. She felt disappointed. With all that display of skill, with all of those words implying that he would protect her, theres nothing that he was able to do once the enemy had pierced to the sky and sunk his face into the ground.

"Run"

That was that last painful groan that she had heard. She felt a sudden jolt of force that pushed her away when that happened. Her mask was taken off and it took a lot from her to stand up, she got up for the sake of fighting back but then she saw the difference of their power that made her turn back. She saw his strings clutching onto the enemy's arm but it never managed to cut him through like what it was supposed to do. She ran, she ran into the nearest open door catching a glimpse of three other shadows by the corner of her eyes.

"Ahahahaha… It's just like last time. I have to do everything again. I have to save everyone... I have to help them back… Why does it have to be always me..."

The tears that ran in her eyes had dried up as her thoughts left a bad taste in her mouth. She raised her head and looked at the dead lightbulb at the ceiling, leaving nothing but fractures at the cold ground below her and the wall behind her back.

Before there was none, but now her peace had been threatened by a sound of consecutive footsteps echoing through the halls on the other side of her door. She got onto one of her knees and rested both of her palms on the floor like a track-and-field contender waiting for a signal.

She took a deep breath as the sound grew louder and louder. Her mouth had begun to water so she had to stretch her jaws and put her saliva where it came from. She felt her energy moving from her legs through her arms as her heart began to beat faster. Her eyes were that of a cat, anticipating the appearance of a clown from a Jack-in-the-box as her owner slowly turns its handle.

And when she got a glimpse of its shadow taking a pause to look through the door's glass window, she clenched her teeth and kicked the ground to ram herself towards the gate the shuts her out from the dangers of the outside world.

It couldn't help but let out a helpless shriek after Mary busted out and shook the building's walls. She could not see beyond the cracked window of the door that served as the bread of her bloody sandwich. She glanced back at her room to see that the hinges of the door had been torn off before she turned her attention towards the huge splatter of white blood that even reached half of the hall's ceiling.

She had decided to take a look at her victim and the first thing that she laid her eyes on was the pieces of its hair that scattered around the thick mash of flesh and blood scattered around her. Mary saw its flattened piece of meat of what used to be its face before she saw its eyeball dropping on the floor.

Her dry lips had then curved into a smile when she heard a roar from across the hall. A silhouette belonging to a guise of a man rushed towards her and punched her in the face. She felt a brief moment of her floating in the air before she fell down and realized the pain that crashed her into a wall at the other side of the building.

She touched the left side of her face as she struggled to stand with her own two feet. Everything was a blur and everything seemed to be moving on its own. A burning sensation in the shape of a fist radiated below her left eye and even though it makes her want to cry, she clenched her teeth to put up a sad smile. She did her best to try and see what was happening but all she saw was the man pushing her door away to claw what was left of what she had just killed.

"Yooouuuuu… my… my… baby… what the… what… you monster..." The man turned his head at Mary now that he had finished brushing through the flesh of what seemed her beloved used to be. He raised his hand into the air as he gathered his fingers to make a fist and at that moment, Mary was then smashed back into the wall that caught her.

He opened his mouth and howled at her like a best before he jumped and bashed her face in through concrete which made her drop her arms in an instant like a heavy piece of iron rods. The force that bound her on the wall was no longer there but she still had lost the energy to lift her limbs. The world before her started to twist and there was nothing that she could do except to keep her smile. It was the only thing that she was able to maintain as the man continued to beat her with a bright line of tears going down from his eyes.

"YOU PIECE OF SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHI… SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHI… SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT. YOU PIECE OF SHIT! BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU, YOUUU"

The man paused to catch his breath and that's when he realized that his arm and fingers were broken. He woke up at the carnage in front of him and in the middle of it lies Mary who covered herself with her battered arms. She then drew a long breath as she uncovered her body beneath her guard similar to a piece of glass which was about to shatter.

Her face was painted by a mix of red and white blood like pus on a flesh wound. She staggered to get up on her toes to show him what he had done. She was missing a tooth and her face, especially her left eye had swollen to the point that it could no longer see. But after all of that, her grin had remained the same.

"Aaaaah… I hurt myself again have I. But it doesn't matter does it. It was the price that I had to pay with to save both of you and everyone else… right? Mister?" She let out a slow ominous laugh.

"You bitch…" He punched her but she didn't budge. That's the time when his body felt the pain on both of his broken arms. He looked at it with his eyes overflowing with fear. "What.. what the hell are you…"

"A monster… That is supposed to save you." She bore her yellowish teeth at him before she clenched her fist and delivered a bomb right into his jaw.

He spun and flew far back with a snap before he landed right beside his dead beloved. He could no longer feel his legs and it looked like the world just around him made a sudden full rotation. It felt like the wall that he relentlessly punched earlier punched back.

She slowly walked towards him leaving nothing on the floor but cracks and a trail of blood. Her brown hair swayed from left to right as she took her time to tread the space between them like a baby making her first few steps.

Mary gave him a soft chuckle as she placed her feet over his chest. She leaned forward to cover her smirk with a dark shade and the man couldn't do anything but to set his eyes on her hollowed face. He tried to move away but it felt like his strength had been drained, he wanted to turn his body over and crawl but he couldn't as if the whole floor was crushing him.

"We promised… we promised that we would be together forever."

The man let out a shot breath.

"Why...why… why did you have to come? We had never planned on hurting the living in the first place… we just wanted to live and… and..."

She choked up a bit as she tried to let out a calm voice with a cheerful tone, "It's alright in the end you know, I have saved you… both, now you guys would end up in heaven which where none could hurt you… A paradise is clearly better than you have right now ri-"

"Shut the hell up." He tried to lift her leg but it didn't work. He then raised his hand and made a fist like before but she didn't move.

"I'm sorry… but you can no longer make me move." Mary felt a slight breeze that tried to drag her on the side, she then responded with a sad tone as she sunk her feet deeper into his chest. The man grunted as he wriggled like a worm and clenched his teeth to mask his scream.

"She... she told me that she's bound for hell. Are you dumb?! If I had… known that everything would be better on the other side then why the hell would I settle here and get chased by monsters like you are. All we wanted was to live once again, in peace. We never intended to hurt the living… but yeah…" He averted his face and let out a dark grin. "Hahaha… why would you guys know that anyway…"

"I'm sorry… I'm really sorry..."

"No, you're not. Just kil-"

"It's just that… this was the only way…"

"Things would have been better if you didn't come... You took the only thing that made me want to live. You didn't save anyone."

She raised her leg and with a grunt, she stepped on his face and heard it snap. Tears had drawn a line on her right cheek once again and after a long ragged breath, her knees dropped on the ground along with her smile that she did her best to keep.