CH 07 | Home Invasion
Noticing his victim was recuperating, he reached inside his jacket, pulling out a polychromatic syringe then reached to grab Sadie's arm with a crushing force, unaware of her hidden knife. She exploited their close distance to shove her blade in his side before backing away. He winced in pain, aghast at her deception, then tried attacking her. She dodged his charge, and finding herself behind him, shoved her bony elbow on his cervical spine, affixing him in place.
It was now his turn to face the wall, she held the knife to his chin, her fingers teetering of an adrenaline rush. He stood pacified, his hands spread on the concrete block. "Let's not get hasty little girl, no one has to get hurt."
It sounded as a threat, so she pinned her blade against the stubble of his thick neck, the pressure her grip exerted tore flesh, slitting a small incision in the fold of his skin. "A word out of place and I'll shred your vocal cords." She hissed.
"I am not your enemy," he grunted. Her muscles became more rigid, a reaction to the seeming honesty resounding in his voice, she was afraid that he was resigning himself to her control, that he could overpower her anytime. "What the hell are you then?" She asked with a snarl-like expression, pondering if she should just slit his throat and get it over with. What other option does she have? She was not going to escort him outside of her appartment, but the thought of having a dead body in her house was terrifying her deeply.
"Your plan against the killer queen will not prevail, you have no power over her, your friends will perish in the fight." She attempted to slam his head against the wall, but he was too burly for her to succeed. "She sent you didn't she? You are one of her servants, I should've known. I will pluck out your eyes right this second so you won't have to watch as I dismember your precious queen, how about that?" The stranger started to laugh, "You have grits kid, but I am not one of hers, only teens with unbalanced hormones can be manipulated by her secretions."
The more he spoke, the greater her confusion grew. She dug her elbow in the back of his neck once more to take back control of the situation. "Why do you know all of these details?" She questioned.
His demeanor became serious, contemplative for a moment, he answered her after a brief pause, "What is going on is beyond the scope of your understanding, Sadie. Your teacher was not the only one who was turned into an abomination, there are...other specimens at large."
"Others you say?" She inquired with doubt. Was he trying to divert their efforts against Miss Antonella? Then again, if monsters such as Miss Antonella can exist, there was no reason for Sadie to draw her line of disbelief at that point.
"If that were so, then what is causing these sudden mutations to happen?" She probed. He reiterated the same message, insisting on its importance, Sadie did not let go of her question, asking again to know the cause of such occurences.
He relented to her persistent curiosity, admitting. "The Ancient Ones were disturbed in their tombs, I used to be the guardian of the graves, upholder to their secrets, I failed them." There was a haunting guilt in his tone, a sorrow so deep that Sadie was inclined to believe his words. She wondered who these beings he referred to as the Ancient Ones were, but she couldn't interrupt.
Her resignation from pressuring him was rewarded with further information. "You know not of the Ancients, their appearance is similar to that of a sleeping person. Their corpses are thousands of years old, yet their bodies still intact, with skin, hair, and nails preserved. Their facial features are still recognizable to me, even in death, but not all are incorruptible." He turned his head around and faced Sadie with devilish eyes, she was shivering again.
"Turn back right this instant! And stop spitting such drivel." She yelled at him, her yelling almost a scream of fright. He complied to her wish, after which she felt herself brave, and she said. "The dead do not hold my interest, they are unable to cause me harm, It is the living that injure. But tell me of their past, I am curious what they were like when alive, these ancient ones."
He obliged and told her of their way "There were a civilisation, millenias ago, which ruled upon the earth. Before the ape could reason, the Sarab were the masters, they were an evolved serpentine species, back when the serpent kind had arms to manipulate their environment and legs on which to walk. They were pioneers of the sciences and colonised a few adjacent planets in their solar system.
Alas, even the most advanced of civilisations do not survive their own zeal. They've become too proud of their race, and corrupted their wisdom with greed. Envious of the powers of beasts, they've researched methods to integrate foreign traits into their genome. A soluble was borne out of their research, contained in a vial that brought about the disintegration of the Sarabian society."
"What became of them?"
"They rest in a state of complete brumation, except for one to which they've afforded the means to survive unthawed with the hopes that he may find a cure to their cases." The air in the room changed, Sadie finally took notice of the scaly definition on his neck. "What are you?" She uttered despite herself, dreading to hear his answer.
The stranger rested his head upon the wall, as if his mind was being consumed with impenetrable memories. Then he confessed to her. "I am the last of my species."
Goosebumps spread through Sadie's shaken body, a nauseous feeling of fear and shock and abit of excitment overtook her. She wanted to know more, but she had a feeling he had already said too much. What are the intentions of this intruder of civilisations? She took a glimpse at the syringe he held in his hand, and remembered how he was trying to inject her with the Serum.