Speechless: Hunting Party 5

Divergence

I suppose it wasn’t the smartest thing to do but it seemed most honorable to tell Jack to his face that it was time to take his head. He didn’t seem surprised at all, either. He was just… thoughtful as we walked down the sewer tunnel. It had only been hours since dealing with Anne and Tobias but I’d been brooding about it ever since. Jack was the first to speak.

“You don’t want to wait until after the others are dealt with?”

Speechless: Hunting Party Part 4

Eye For An Eye

I thought I was making some pretty good time down that hallway for a cyclops, but the bastard just wouldn’t slow down. He was dodging and weaving through every little corridor, prancing across the catwalks, hopping over guardrails, thinking he was going to get away.

Too bad I’m persistent. Having your arm flayed open, salt scraped into it, and then losing your eye can do that to a man though.

Speechless: Hunting Party Part 3

Eye Sore

Being held up against the wall by thin air was not what I had been expected. Jack had warned me that the other two had gone on ahead of us but I hadn’t quite pictured this little albino worm with one fish eye and one oily eye to be waiting for us. Jack and I had almost expected it to be Corsair and were ready to charge headlong into death for our own reasons. We were not ready for our lives to be thrown away to some random twit.

Speechless: Part 2 of Hunting Party

In A Blind

Once upon a time, there was a man named Curtis and he liked to play with eyes. It had started when he was little. His third grade teacher brought sheep eyes into class and let them dissect the eyes with little scalpels. It was enough to break little Curtis’ heart. For you see, Curtis had no eyes of his own. That would change though. That would all change when Curtis moved to Chrysalis Falls with his Daddy.

You see, Curtis had already been learning all sorts of things about eyes. He tried telling his mommy once, but she wouldn’t stop screaming. He was telling her about how the dog’s eyes seemed to fit just right when he put them where his eyes were supposed to be. But she wouldn’t stop screaming and waving her hands at the dead dog in the middle of the floor. Well, of course the dog was dead. Didn’t want it to be missing its eyes too. That would’ve been cruel.

Speechless: Hunting Party Part 1

Pursuit

As it turned out, Nagumo was not so abysmal to travel with as I had expected. We both sucked at conversations so we didn’t bother. Every so often, one of us would laugh softly and the other would notice and start laughing too. It was priceless. It really was.

You see, the hate hadn’t subsided in the slightest. With every step down the bare concrete tunnel our torturers had used to escape, it only grew. It grew in Nagumo as well. I could hear his mouth moving as he talked to himself. He was reciting every Far East mantra he could come up with to calm himself and his swords. It made me feel less guilty about how badly my lead pipe wanted to crush his skull.

Speechless: Aiming High Part 4

Ideals

As the skinless man walked across the floor he squished and squelched. Part of me giggled and wondered what vintage the wine beneath his feet would be. A click click click followed him across the floor above my head. His sister was back again. Would the bitch never leave? He’d be a big enough problem without some acid-spitting whore at my back as well.

Things had been going well enough. I should’ve known better. The Baron’s list of targets had all been too… unremarkable. They died too easy, moved too slowly, and lacked any semblance of bizarre abilities. They were normal humans and all too easy to find and kill. I wasn’t needed for this. Nate had known all too well where every one of our targets had been except for the last one.

Speechless: Aiming High Part 3

Sharpening

I belonged in the position of Magistrate no more than I belonged aloft and flying through the sky. It was not my failure to catch Jack Lorenz that brought me to this conclusion. It was the actions of my fellow Judges that brought me to this conclusion. I sat in the darkness of Sturm’s office, hands folded, waiting for his return. He would return soon, no doubt. He would not be expecting me to be here. Why should he? I would out hunting Jack Lorenz. I would be being a useful tool, a sword that held swords. It is what I should be.

Speechless: Aiming High Part 2

Sighting

It was almost as boring as playing a video game. Wait. Kill. Repeat. They might hear the bullet coming, but these were ordinary humans in league with The Judges out of fear and survivor’s guilt. A shot, a kill, and I’d move on to my next target. Another level cleared, another thousand points that no one gave a rat’s ass about, another target waiting. They were all just heads to step on as you headed for the boss.

What happens when the game’s beaten though? I turned that thought over in my head as I pulled the trigger on my new rifle. My body shook and my ears bled and I was on the floor squirming in pain, but that wasn’t where my brain was. My brain was waiting for the bonus round.

Speechless: Part 1 of Aiming High

Redirection

I had not expected to spend the time I had allotted to mourning sitting and chewing the fat with an obnoxious voodoo ghost. I didn’t like his too sweet rum. I didn’t like his top hat. I didn’t like the stink of the swamp that lingered around him.

His cigars though, they were pretty fine.

“You know why she did what she did, doan you?”

I sucked on the end of my cigar and held the smoke in, willing it to paint my lungs black. I exhaled slow, letting the rich, sweet flavor roll out. After sitting and thinking for a minute, I set my cigar down and starting signing back to him.

Speechless: The Way Part 4

The Price of Redemption

Angela dabbed the blood from my ears as I lay whimpering. We were still in the safe house, hiding in their secret room. Every safe house had at least one room with secure blast doors designed to look just like normal walls. Most people considered them pretty much impregnable and thoroughly soundproof. Sound proof they weren’t. Not by a long shot. Not to my ears. I winced as Angela wiped away the blood pooling in my right. The freedom fighters had called it their safety deposit box. I wondered when the postman would be by to pick us up.

Speechless: The Way Part 3

The Price of Justice

Rynth watched me with rapt attention as I communed with the tap water. I placed my hands in a triangle at my forehead. The stream of water coming from the tap I had found in the security room curved upwards. A head and arms formed from it and it made the same gesture with liquid hands at its chest.

“Namaste.”

“Namaste, Magistrate. I am glad to see you escaped from the purge earlier.”

“I thank you for your kind wishes and am equally glad to see you purified of so many toxins.”

“It is appreciated Magistrate. I know you are not here for pleasantries. What do you seek?”

“I seek Jack Lorenz and the one he has abducted.”

“I am everywhere and nowhere Magistrate. I know where he is. What will you do when you find him?”

Speechless: The Way Part 2

The Price of Inner Peace

He just lay there, his nose bleeding. Everyone stared at me. I suppose that would put a damper on any welcomes Angela and I would be receiving. It was his fault though. Even that stupid rat Sleeper knew better by this point. Angela’s mouth was open. I’d have to correct that. I tucked a finger underneath her chin and lifted her jaw closed. As my finger touched her chin, we spoke. Quickly.

“He cussed. I don’t allow that word around me.”
“So you dropped him? He’s the resistance leader at this safe house.”
“How am I supposed to know these things? I told you, I’m antisocial.”

Speechless: The Way Part 1

The Price of Honor

I have never believed in seppuku.  Even with my predisposition towards things Japanese, I have never believed that seppuku is enough to redeem one for the loss of honor.  One must serve, and serve well, to work off one's debts.  These things are not just deducted from your karma for good intentions when removing yourself from existence.  No, the deeper you go, the more you owe.  One's end must be prolonged until their honor is regained.  Only then can they die in peace.  That said, Jack would have to die before I could.  His life, his freedom was my shame.

"Magistrate, there are signs that they have been down this tunnel."

"Good work Rynth.  Pursue.  You four are the hands of justice.  Follow them, wherever they are going, follow them.  We will cut this sore from our flesh."

Speechless: Sound, Mind, and Body Part 5

Shattered Glass and Flopping Fish

Few things are as soothing as sitting where no one can see you with a high-powered sniper rifle in your arms.  No one knows where you are, they can't find you, and you can exert your control over a situation with impunity.    It's terribly relaxing.  The only trouble is that it all ends with the first shot.  You have to decide at what point losing control is worth gaining your goal.  All of life's dilemmas summed up in one tidy little package.  I hate tidy little packages.

Speechless: Sound, Mind, and Body Part 4

Shipwreck

It had been years since I'd worn greasepaint. I really didn't care to think about exactly how long. Back then, I had friends. Back then, I had family. Now all I had was a death wish, some C6 in my pockets, and a desire to scream.

So I screamed.

No one heard me of course. They couldn't. That worked just fine though. I pretended to close a door and fight with it until it finally shut and wiped my brow of sweat that wasn't there.

The cheers would've felt rewarding if they didn't blast into my eardrums like missiles. I bowed silently and smiled through my black and white face paint. No one minded a mute if you were a mime.

Speechless: Sound, Mind, and Body Part 3

Filter

He dragged his teeth along the bone as he sucked off the last bits of meat. His teeth tapped a knuckle as he dragged them and slid open his mouth just enough to compensate. Most of his kind didn’t much care for fingers, feeling that the meat wasn’t sweet enough to warrant the time it took to peel it from the bone. Magistrate Nagumo disagreed. The flesh was just as tender as one could hope for. The work was easy; you simply had to be smart about it. Don’t pick at it in little bites; consume it sequentially. Start closest to the hand and see it through to the end. That was Nagumo’s philosophy in all things.

Nagumo set the fleshless hand in a pile with the rest. He dabbed at his mouth with a blue silken kerchief and laid it upon the table. He stood from where he knelt and strode to his closet. He slid aside the paper door he had installed on his own and assessed his wardrobe. Something practical would be best. Several arrangements for the festivities tomorrow still had to made. The meat still had to be prepared, guards reassigned, and the human populace readied for the carnival.

Speechles: Sound, Mind, and Body Part 2

Plastic Seaweed

Nine times, I avoided death out of sheer cowardice. And disgust. The thought of drowning in a river of high pressure sewage is just foul enough to prevent one from self-murder. Thankfully, there were plenty of "clean" rooms along the path I took. The thought of being in a steely tomb surrounded by other people's filth isn't much above drowning in it...

But it is above.

Every time the sludge would subside, I'd slip back out. Rabid would be waiting and would expect a progress report. Not that I would give him much of one. I owed that Sleeper nothing and desired from him even less.

Desire. That word's the problem. If it were only what we desire.

Speechless: Sound, Mind, and Body Part 1

Aquarium

I never had the courage to cut myself. I never had the bravery to hang myself and risk not snapping my neck. Same went for jumping off of a building. Too messy and too many chances for being wounded badly but not dying.

Suicide's as much what this is about as anything else.

I took another bite of my half-eaten breakfast rat and tossed it aside. Three Juries were wandering through the building above me. There were eight Judges on the fourth floor, moving in two person teams. On the third floor a base had been established so they could direct their hunt all the easier. Ten of them sat or stood there, typing frantically at their tracking systems. Their fancy motion detectors were scanning wildly but coming up with nothing.