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bookwyrminspiration · 2 years

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Shattered Upside Down

A kotlc wings au: masterpost here

Chapter 27: A Hint, a Secret, and a Warning

word count: 8k

chapter summary: Sophie's somewhere she never wanted to be, but as unnerving as it is, she learns something that changes everything she thought she knew.

warnings: needles, blood mention, panicking, animal (monster) abuse, manipulation, and I think that's everything.

taglist: I’ll reblog with it! let me know if you want to be added or removed!

ao3 link here or read below

History is told by those who live to tell it, so there are two ways to hide it. Either everyone who knows the truth is dead, or those who learned of it in the first place were so few in number it never escaped their lips, never moved beyond them, never to be known by another.

There were few people to tell the history of the facility that had merged with a being underground, a being made of walls and love and despair, because there was no one who had witnessed it left to tell it. No one who had worked within those halls and tried to cure the world who had survived the slaughter the being unleashed upon them. Now, it lived on in a boy made of history and a girl with an infinite web of possibilities in her mind. But whether they were enough to bring the truth to light would remain to be seen.

And there would be only two people in the world who ever knew why Sophie Foster chose to wear red in a different facility, why she set down the only things of her own, the very clothes off her back, and donned the blood red of her enemy.

Sophie Foster would be the only one to figure out that Fintan Pyren had left a note for her within the folds of cloth in that bathroom, a message, a riddle, an offer of salvation. Because she turned the water back on and let the shower tear the paper apart, watched it disappear down the drain as she dried her hair, and slipped their clothes over her too-clean skin.

The fabric brushed against her arms, light and airy, gentler than she’d thought it would be. The puffiness of the sleeves gathered into a band at each of her wrists, snug but not tight; it wouldn’t impede movement. The back dipped, each side wrapping around under her wings to secure on the other side. Red flowed over her legs, loose but tapering in the same way as the sleeves, giving her skin room to breath.

The few bits of pollen that hadn’t gotten washed away had started to cling to the fabric, stark against the red in a way that reminded her too much of the embroidery on the figure’s cloak.

Footsteps sounded outside the door and she straightened, listening for the languid, assured cadence she’d come to associate with the figure.

Figure. She needed a better name than that.

They paused outside the door for a moment, supposedly to prick another finger to open another door--which was still the most idiotic, barbaric, ineffective, and unsanitary method she’d ever heard of. Seriously? Blood locks? On a bathroom?

Whoever decided on that must’ve been incredibly dramatic and have no concern for logistics at all. It was the kind of thing you’d see in a fantasy story when the author didn’t know when to cool it with the worldbuilding, not the kind of thing that was supposed to actually happen in real life.

The door slid away, and she prepared herself to see that awful blood red cloak her clothes now matched, her gut twisting. She didn’t want to be any more like the people here, the ones who’d unleashed hell on the world and reveled in the aftermath.

Tucking the disgust churning through her into the knot beneath her ribs, she crossed her arms across her chest, ready to show that just because she was wearing the clothes it didn’t mean she was giving in. Quite the opposite, actually.

Red was her color. And she was going to own it, wear it, and refuse to let them take that from her. And she was going to use the knowledge on that now-destroyed slip of paper to get herself out of here, whatever it meant.

Patience.

But the person standing at the door wasn’t wearing a red cloak, wasn’t wearing a cloak at all. He wore a loose white shirt, blond hair disheveled around his intense face, cracked lips splitting into a small smile at her surprise.

“Smart choice, Moonlark,” he said, ruffling the edge of his own loose shirt as he nodded towards hers. “So you aren’t entirely unreasonable.”

“What are you doing here? I thought that the--”

Fintan cut her off, “Murad is otherwise occupied with preparations. I, however, had the time to come see the choice the final piece made, though she can’t see me” he said, waving a hand around as the heat reappeared around her brow, just enough warning for her to slam her eyes closed before the light blinded her.

If she had any eyelashes left they would’ve been burned off by the proximity. By all accounts she didn’t know how he kept the flame from hurting her when it practically kissed her skin.

“Murad?”

Fintan didn’t respond, footsteps echoing in the bathroom as he stepped towards her, hot dry skin rubbing against hers as his fingers wrapped around her wrists, pulling her forwards and away from the muggy air of the bathroom.

She shuddered, goosebumps rising on her arms at the drop in temperature, stumbling a little as he guided her.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, other hand wildly flailing about at her side to try and find a wall, something to give her a sense of her surroundings. Was this a hallway? A room? Were there windows? Other doors?

At this rate when she got out she’d know nothing of the place.

“It’s only a matter of time before those friends of yours come to find you. Wouldn’t it be such a shame if we lost you before we learned what you are? What you can do? What you mean?”

“There’s nothing to learn about me.”

Fintan sighed, laughing slightly, a strange crackling fanatic sound. “Oh and you don’t even realize what you are, what you and your friends represent. The future is stored within you and you’re squandering it wandering through dead buildings and chasing our failures.”

“Whatever you think you know about us, you’re wrong. We’re not like you, we don’t represent anything for you. We’ll fix what you broke and without hurting people like you would.” God, she hated him. Hated his passion and reverence and the utter faith in what he did and how he’d sacrifice the world for a pretty promise and how she always ended up a pawn in his game.

Could she avoid playing into it this time?

Another faint breeze skittered across her skin, ruffling into the sleeves of her blood red outfit, making it flutter and press against her.

She’d already given him a win. She’d worn the clothes, the red, listened to the note.

He laughed again, fingers tightening. “Whatever you think you know about us, you’re wrong. Whatever they’ve taught you, whatever those pretty councillors and complacent Black Swan have told you, they’re wrong. We are the visionaries, the ones willing to become the future, to give ourselves to it. They shut me in a cage of ice like it was humane, like they could put me aside and never worry about me again, that’d I’d never raise my voice against their barbaric, outdated ways ever again.

“But someone has to, you know. Someone has to say something, or they’ll never do a thing. I am saying something. We are the ones fighting to make the future better for everyone. Is that not a noble cause? Vespera was right about you; you were never willing to take that step, to give what the future demanded of you.” He said the last part offhanded, dismayed, and she could almost imagine him shrugging his shoulders as he sighed.

“You mean when she said I needed to let one of my friends die and I found another way? That’s what makes you think I won’t beat you? The time we got out with everyone after she told me it was impossible?” Fintan tugged her to the side without a response, changing direction with no warning.

She yelped as the floor dropped out from under her, then she found her footing--stairs. Stairs were annoying enough at this speed when she wasn’t blinded in an entirely unfamiliar location.

Well, if he was going to be so dramatic and insulting, then she was going to be as much of a problem as she could for everyone here without endangering herself. She might not be able to resist everything, but she could be annoying and uncooperative.

They needed her, didn’t they?

Sweet rot and sickly warmth permeated the air, pungent and repulsive in her nose as they turned, then paused, then moved again, Fintan’s footsteps swift against the floor. Moving moving moving towards whatever stupid plan he’d concocted that’d ruin the world further, that she’d have to stop before his foolish carelessness killed them all. Her mind burned, and his fingers tightened around her wrist, dry, cracked skin catching against her own.

“What happened to you?” she asked, just as she had that day she’d first seen him. Skin ruined, valleys and corruption seeping through the cells, tearing him apart. Unhinged and broken and wrong in all the ways she’d come to hate, like one of the monsters made human.

“Fintan failed to be you,” a new voice spoke, and Sophie flinched. She hadn’t heard the other heartbeats, had been so focused on the fury Fintan’s idiotic reverence sparked in her.

Even with the fire burning in front of her eyes, she could hear the cut of a smile through the words, see the vibrancy of the red cloak in the swishing sound it made.

“Murad,” Fintan said, but it sounded vaguely like a warning. His fingers tightened around her wrist once more before dropping his hold, leaving her absolutely alone in the middle of someplace she didn’t know without any sense of what was happening or where she stood.

The flames lifted from her eyes to her forehead as a door closed behind her, the glow low and steady. A warning.

Heart pounding away in her chest, Sophie straightened, determined not to show it. They’d never know how her lungs screamed, her blood raced through her veins, how every part of her body was alight.

Because that was a needle, a needle in the figure’s--Murad’s--hands. It hadn’t been opened, not yet. But she knew the look, had been on the receiving end of human medicine enough to know exactly what he held in a gloved hand--but not his typical gloves. This time, they were more akin to latex, the kinds doctors and nurses wore.

The terror the needle forced into her body was nearly enough that she didn’t notice Murad had taken off his cloak, that he stood before her in crisp black pants and a sleek tailored shirt tucked into his waistband with the sleeves rolled back. Half of his face was covered by a mask over his mouth and nose, hiding that smile she’d already come to hate though she always knew when it was there. But it gave her a look at his eyes, at his hair.

Curling black offset by the light brown of his skin, eyes that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be blue or green.

Something Sophie couldn’t see made a noise somewhere close, inhuman and angry and thumping. Thrashing, the clinking metal of chains, and a small gasp belonging to a little girl.

“I said quiet,” Murad snarled, and with the rasp of violence in his voice every piece clicked together in Sophie’s brain. She hadn’t recognized it with the niceties, the faux politeness he used to unnerve her, to exert that control over her.

But when he was out of control, that mask slipped.

“You.” The word whispered from her lips before she could help it, eyes widening.

Fintan paused from where he’d been stalking across the room, Murad went still as he slid his eyes to her, and it seemed even the uncontrollable, inhuman noises quieted.

“Me,” he said, turning to face her fully. Calmly, he leaned against the counter behind him, the black of his gloves stark against the sterile white. Not a hair fell out of place as he tilted his head to look her up and down, seeing her fully for the first time since she’d entered, noting the red she wore and the buzz of her wings as they shivered against her back against her control.

Sophie pressed her lips together tightly, regretting the words.

“Please do go on, Sophie.” Oil, viscous and dripping from his mouth, that’s what the words were.

But she stood her ground; she said she’d be as much of a problem as she could, and she was Sophie Foster. A little needle in his hands wasn’t something she’d let cow her, throw her off her rhythm. Even if the sight of it made her dizzy. “I remember you. I saw you in your facility before we blew it up, only moments away from discovering us. But you didn’t catch us, didn’t even know we were there.”

Biana’s fingernails digging into the sensitive skin of Sophie’s arm, her group of five holding their breath amongst the shelves and chests and boxes, invisible as they watched a figure and a little girl through the window. They’d been moments away from getting caught, their explosive clearly visible on the table in the center of the room.

And then the little girl in a frilly gown had stomped her foot in frustration, had run away from the room, and the figure--Murad--had chased after her without looking behind him to see the explosive.

That’s where she knew him from; with the cloak and the calm of his voice, she hadn’t recognized him. She’d made the connection between Phoenix and the little girl, but Murad had slipped by her entirely. He hadn’t even seemed of any consequence.

“You blew up our facility,” he stated, a dangerous razor’s edge to the words. “And now you’re here. You owe us for the destruction, and I intend to make good on that. It’s only fair, isn’t it?”

Sophie bit her tongue, fingers digging into the fabric of her red red pants, slipping through her grasp.

She was here because if she left they’d take her friends, she reminded herself, and she was here because she was inside an active facility; she could learn something. “What do you even want me for anyway,” she asked, eyes returning to that frightening needle in his grasp, the unopened one he fiddled with. “How long are you planning to keep me here?”

“Finally asking the right questions,” Fintan mumbled from somewhere she couldn’t see, having disappeared around a corner, footsteps moving further and further away. Something strange haunted the tone. Almost like he was proud.

“I will keep you as long as I need you. As for what I want you for, I want to see how you’ve done it, what happened to you that made it work. Confirm my theory on why you responded differently.” Murad shifted off the counter then, stalking towards her with an even gait, footsteps soft as he suddenly diverted around her, coming to a stop behind her.

“Responded differently to what? How did I respond?” she demanded, deciding right then and there that she’d never bemoan the Black Swan’s cryptic messages and notes again if it meant he’d stop looking at her like that, like she was something to be discovered, like he’d rip her heart out just to watch it beat.

Murad shrugged. “To put it simply, you’re not dead. And you don’t look like you even came close.”

Somewhere nearby, another thud sounded out, then a tearing scratch, like nails down a chalkboard as Sophie clapped her hands over her ears, grimacing.

Murad’s face contorted for a moment and she thought he’d yell again, but at the last moment he shook the hair out of his face and grabbed her by the arm, taking her over to a cushioned chair in the corner, one with only a single arm.

“No more talking,” he said. “Fintan does enough of it. Arm,” he instructed, gesturing to the arm of the chair, where she numbly placed her own.

A buzzing had taken over her ears, a symphony drowning out the rest of the sounds in the world as her breathing quickened, her mind unable to process everything. Her eyes lagged, seeing everything a moment too late and understanding none of it.

She knew exactly what chairs like this were for.

“This is the easy part,” Murad assured her as he wrapped a band around her upper arm.

No no no no no.

Needle needle needle needle, that was the only word her mind could whimper as every muscle in her body tensed.

He said something else, but Sophie hardly heard him, hardly heard anything over the click of the needle’s casing being removed, over the blood pounding in her ears.

She wanted this to be over, she wanted to leave, to run, she wanted to be laughing in the sky and roasting marshmallows and playing at the beach and baking and telling stories and reading books.

She wanted Edaline to hold her hand and for Grady to hug her and tell her it was okay.

She wanted to go home.

She wanted a home.

Everything in her body itched to get away, to tear down the walls and claw her way through the earth pressing against her mind.

“This will be better for the both of us if you don’t resist,” Murad said, flipping her arm over. “Because I am drawing your blood one way or another.”

That quelled any thought of escaping and running away. Whoever Murad was, he worked alongside the Neverseen. He’d be more than willing to spill a little blood to get what he needed, whatever it was he thought she would help with.

She’d never help them.

But she wouldn’t hurt herself either.

So Sophie Foster squeezed her eyes shut, bit her tongue to calm the nausea the sight of that needle sparked as her mouth dried, and pretended she was home and everything was okay.

Needle needle needle, her mind screamed, and she screamed back Nope! Not a needle! There’s no needle and I’m back home and my parents love me and I’m okay! Definitely not held captive right now!

Sometimes lying to yourself was the only comfort you had.

Her lips became paper thin as she clenched them together, painfully so as she felt the needle prick through her skin, felt it sit there, aching as she dug her fingers of her other hand into the skin of her thighs, nails biting even through the pants.

Out out out she wanted it out. She could feel it, feel the metal in her skin, could hear the rush of blood just beneath as Murad worked.

And then it tugged, not wanting to leave as he pulled it out, pressing something to the inside of her elbow to stop the bleeding as his footsteps retreated across the room.

No sound echoed but their heartbeats, their breath, just the two of them.

Breathe, she reminded herself. Just a needle…and it’s over. He did it.

And she couldn’t stop him at all. If she’d run, the fire around her head would’ve constricted, burned her into submission or unconsciousness. If she’d fought against him, same result.

“I must admit,” Murad commented, almost offhandedly. “Your reaction is quite the surprise. The fearsome Moonlark, leader and mastermind of the team who brought those…Neverseen, to their knees. Left them crawling to me. And she can’t stand a little needle.”

Sophie cracked her eyes open, blinking against the light of the fire against her brow as she clenched her teeth. “Well you’ve never been subjected to all the needles and machines in human medicine. It’s not fun.”

Even through the mask she could see the smile on his face as he turned to look at her, setting the vial of her blood in a holder off to the side. “Oh? Said with such confidence. Are you sure? You met me today, Sophie. You know nothing of what I’ve been subjected to. I know firsthand how a needle feels, and I know firsthand that you overreacted.”

“Why would you know anything about human medicine?” Sophie asked, momentarily dumbfounded. He was clearly an elf, and elves who worked with--no, saved, apparently--the Neverseen hated humans. But if Murad knew what needles felt like…

Murad clucked his tongue, shaking his head as he approached. “A disappointingly misdirected question. Come along, now is the…interesting part.” He peeled off his gloves, gesturing for her to follow him.

Sophie stood, trying not to shake, but with the combination of dawning terror that she had no control over what happened to her here, the adrenaline, and the blood he’d taken, she was failing miserably.

Walking behind Murad, they turned around the corner Fintan had gone earlier, towards the sounds, a hall with glass on one side, but she couldn’t see anything on the other side. She wouldn’t have even known it was there if her reflection hadn’t greeted her as she walked past.

Red. Everything about her seemed so red in those glimpses of herself. The balefire in the sconces on either side of the hall washed out her skin, turned the light of her hair and face pallid—or maybe that was the wooziness from the blood loss. Whatever it was, she was dwarfed by the color, more red than Sophie, more theirs than hers.

“Where are we going?” she asked, voice hoarse, the sweet nausea still lingering on her tongue even as the puncture wound healed over.

Another turn had them stepping down a set of stairs, stairs leading towards a hall--they seriously had to cool it with the hallways. Hadn’t they learned how to maximize space?--a large door at the end, Fintan and Phoenix standing off to the side.

She’d been the scuffling gasp Sophie’d heard earlier.

In the time since Sophie had last seen her, she’d gotten cleaned up, the blood washed from hands and cracked nails trimmed back as much as they could be, hair washed and frizzy, the soft yellow of her gown giving a brightness to her face that’d been missing in the grisly tunnels.

But she looked…empty. Scared. None of that bite present as Fintan held her.

Her eyes landed on Sophie and stayed there as they approached, and just like she had when she’d first found Fintan, her hand inched towards her, like she was reaching towards Sophie.

It had been curiosity that first day, like something about Sophie drew her closer before she remembered where they were.

Now, however, her eyes burned into Sophie, the pound of her racing heart echoing in her ears, the tremble of her little fingers as they moved, nearly imperceptible, reaching towards her like she’d grab her and never let go.

Instead, she clung to Fintan’s shirt, but released the tension lining her body as Murad got closer, but her heartbeat didn’t calm in the slightest. If anything, it hammered harder.

And as Murad passed the two of them by, striding straight for the door, she caught a glimpse of Fintan’s expression, the sudden shift.

From complete passivity, the dangerous calm concealing chaos she’d come to know so well, to his lips turning downward a fraction, tightening as his gaze narrowed, hostile.

Disgust, disdain, so quick Sophie thought she imagined it, but there was no time to think it over as Murad turned back around, lightning quick.

“Behind this door, you will find your use. We’ll be watching.” With his now-bare hands, he pressed a fingertip to a pad against a wall, and even if she couldn’t see it she knew he’d been pricked, that his blood was key to yet another door.

Was he the master key? Could he unlock any door here?

“Watching what?” she heard herself ask, some part of her still understanding that she wasn’t safe, that she needed to pay attention.

“Ah, but if I told you, it’d ruin the data.”

“Data?” “Yes, Sophie, data. You’re new. You survived the change, you and all your friends, and now you’re something entirely different. Who wouldn’t want to know what you can do?” Sophie blinked, momentarily dumbfounded. “I--what, you’re testing me?”

“Observing you,” Fintan interrupted, and when she met his gaze she nearly cringed away from the intensity as his head cocked to the side. Phoenix glanced between the two of them. “To see who you are, what monstrosities live in your mind. Will you be our savior, Moonlark?”

“What? Can either of you give a clear answer? You talk like the Black Swan’s riddles.”

“And you talk with fascinating bravado for someone who nearly fainted a minute ago.”

Something began to shift behind the walls, the slide of stone against stone, of metal against metal, a near-silent hiss. A warning.

Murad gestured back towards the hall with his head, and she could physically feel Fintan bristling, the temperature prickling in the air at being given orders.

But he complied, taking Phoenix with him back to the stairs, disappearing and leaving Sophie alone with Murad again; she hated it, hated how much time they’d already spent together, wanted to get away, wanted to go home.

“In about 30 seconds, this door will open,” he pointed, “and you will walk through. The hall we are in now will close off, so do not think any attempts to retreat up the stairs will be successful. We will be watching you, understood? You have no choice in this matter.

You may be among the most stubborn of your friends, the mastermind. But should you prove uncooperative we will find another of them to take your place and keep you here to ensure they behave. Do we understand each other?”

Sophie clenched her hands, yes she fucking understood. They’d made it very clear time and time again that they’d hurt her family if she didn’t go along with what they wanted. That’s why she was here, why she stayed, hadn’t run and glitched away when she had the chance. And now a crown of fire adorned her brow and she couldn’t leave even though she so desperately wanted to.

“If you needed one of us so badly, why didn’t you come and get us? I’m here because Phoenix accidentally brought me.”

Murad laughed slightly, then began backing away, turning towards the stairs. “Smart question, Moonlark. Considering the favor you’re about to grant me, I’ll answer it.

“I needed confirmation you were what I needed first, which Fintan gave when he saw you at your old home. The wings, the way they merged with your body. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect specimen. She may have brought you accidentally, but one of you was going to be here one way or another. She simply…accelerated the timeline.

“And now,” he said, a gleam in his eye. “Our time is up. I hope to learn many things from you, Sophie.”

She didn’t have a chance to reply before the hallway between them sealed.

-----------------

As a child, horror stories had never drawn her the way fantasy had. The stories with gods and magic on the covers, those promised her that somewhere she’d be okay, that somewhere she’d be loved.

Besides, horror movies could never rival the absolutely rotting devastation real minds could create. Nothing was scarier than reality.

Turning back from the closed hallway, her primary light became the flaming crown adorning her head and drying her skin. Her heart raced as she faced the blackness, and her first thought was that horror stories loved this kind of thing.

A girl trapped, forced to face a task, a challenge, a trial, to prove herself and escape. It was comical, really, how fast everything had spiraled.

Just that morning she’d awoken in Dex’s house, watched Maruca kill something to protect them all, and arranged a mission into what was supposed to be an abandoned facility.

Now?

Now darkness loomed before her, so dark she doubted even Tam could pierce through it. Darkness from beneath the earth, darkness that existed before them, darkness that would outlast them and watch as death littered the soil with nothing but indifference.

Sophie flinched as something mechanical hissed behind her, a near imperceptible rushing of air; she hated to put her back to the dark, but she needed to see, to know.

The wall had started to move closer.

Steady, it approached, until it reached her and forced her to move, forced her to step forward and into the dark, the little alcove of what used to be the hallway she’d sheltered in now gone, fused with the wall, nearly imperceptible.

The light of her crown only stretched so far, a few feet around her the uneven ground visible. Cracked rock and moisture and moss and mildew crawled along the surface. Rotting away, something told her it wasn’t supposed to look like this.

That once upon a time, the floor had been as sleek and pristine as everything else in this hellish place. That something had changed that.

“This…really sucks!” she whispered to herself under her breath, so low no one else could hear, but it calmed her nerves. “Oh I don’t like this at all!” Giving the words a musical quality quieted her racing heart, because how could something awful happen when she was entertaining herself so?

Then something moved.

Even with the black curling around her, the shift permeated the space, a warning. It was a rush in the air, a scent blown in her face, stinging against her nose almost as strongly as it had in Maruca memories.

Maruca. Her family.

Think, Foster, she chided herself. You have to get back to them. Get through this.

As Sophie stood silently, something changed again, a ripple through the air this time, and she started to rally the energy stored beneath her ribs, letting it pulse alongside her heart.

Because there was a creature in here. As surely as she knew she was loved, she knew the dark hid something unnatural, more so than her.

“Hello?” she called out, but not in anticipation of a response. It was a risk to make noise, to call attention to herself, though maybe the creature had senses that already gave it an advantage. Perhaps it could see in the dark, could sense her heartbeat, could feel the shift of the air as she breathed. She’d never know, and had more to lose than to gain with such indeterminable odds.

But it was worth it.

Because she could listen to the word, hear it echo around her, that almost metallic quality as she looked upwards. They’d come down stairs; her voice echoed.

Now she knew there was space above her; she could use her wings if it came to it, though she hated to fly in such darkness.

It shifted again, blowing its rotten stench into her face, making her blink.

Think! I can’t do anything if I don’t know where it is.

So where was it? She couldn’t track it--

Wait.

Shelves, bottles lined side by side, colors sealed tight and oozing inside, alarms blaring over the screams of her heartbeat. Ten of them, scattered around the room, a creature escaped. They’d entered the wrong room, gotten caught, but a creature, a monster, had gotten out. Viscous pale syrup coating its skin as it tumbled around the room.

She’d reached out, touched the emptiness with her own, and it had responded.

Sophie exhaled slowly, hoping hoping hoping that it wouldn’t attack, that she wouldn’t need to run. That it would be something.

Pressing her fingers to her temples, she closed her eyes; it didn’t make much difference with the looming layer of blackness pressed over all her senses. She might as well not have the crown of fire for all the good it did her. But she didn’t let her annoyances distract her from her new goal.

Hello? She thought, letting it radiate out from her, letting it poison the air and touch everything.

Because it was here, she could sense it.

She didn’t see colors and mists and information all neatly packaged like Keefe, couldn’t narrow in on the lethality of a creature like Maruca, couldn’t confidently walk into fire like Marella.

But she could think differently, could turn her thoughts upside down.

A hiss rippled through the silence, and she honed in on the sound, sending her thoughts that direction, opening her senses to the area around it.

A heartbeat--no, two, three, four.

One beat languidly against a chest, larger than the others--the creature. And then the other three, they came from somewhere up above where she stood.

We’ll be watching.

Her reflection. They’d walked past glass, and she’d seen herself reflected back, but hadn’t seen anything anything else. Because the blackness beyond had been too thick.

They were windows, windows looking down into wherever she was.

And with that crown lighting her up, they’d know exactly where to look. Fintan. Murad, and Phoenix. Those were the three heartbeats.

He’d meant it literally. She’d thought it was some sort of mind game to psyche her out, to unnerve her. That he was keeping track of her.

He was literally watching her, watching what she did.

Why? What did he need to know? What did he think he could learn?

She didn’t get the chance to think it through, as at that moment her thoughts vanished into the emptiness, echoing back towards her.

Found it. It hadn’t attacked her yet, but that could change at any moment. Maybe it was one of the kinds that took it slow, that trapped you and encircled you and let you die slowly.

They’d documented more than a few kinds of those in their book of monsters.

Hello? She repeated again, directing it right at that emptiness. Please don’t kill me. I’d really prefer it if you didn’t.

It hissed again, but she couldn’t tell if that was in response to her, or if it even got her transmissions at all. Yes, she’d found it’s mind, but that didn’t mean it could understand her.

The being in the facility where she’d last seen her friends had a mind more complex than anything she’d ever seen, but the one in the first facility had been empty, had been nothing.

A hint of color and terror flashed through her mind, and she understood a moment before it happened what it was going to do.

She couldn’t move quick enough with the fire on her brow making teleporting too risky, but she lurched to the side, eyes flying open as it lunged towards her, grazing her side as claws tore into her bicep, rending through the soft skin.

Gasping, she clenched her teeth.

Ow! Don’t do that!

It hissed again, and with her eyes open, she could see it meld from the shadows, it’s body made from them.

Smoke curved over its smooth form, low to the ground, elongated and elegant. Scales coated its skin, darkness slipping and emerging between the cracks, mouth open to reveal sharp teeth and a forked tongue.

Blood coated in her scent was smeared along the claws of one hand, digging into the earth as it prepared to lunge again.

Don’t! Stop! Friend! she called out, the sounds echoed back to her alongside something new. The sensation of a hint of a sound sensation brushing against her ears and overwhelming self-preservation.

It wasn’t going to listen to her.

Wings snapping to life behind her, she lurched into the air, curling her legs into her chest as the creature attacked where she’d just been standing. Now she hovered just above it, but couldn’t see it anymore, too high above it.

Another hiss, another slithering movement at the edge of the space the light touched.

Deciding to risk it, she lowered herself slightly, enough that the light from her crown of fire cast a circle on the ground.

The creature’s heart beat off to the side, and she held her breath as it started to scramble closer, darting into the light long enough to look at her before it darted away again.

Quick, yet not quick enough for her to miss the flash, the glare of the light against the metal. Firelight had caught on the tag dangling against its chest, connected to a collar encircling its neck. A collar, and a tag. There’d be a number on it, she knew, remembered from that mushroom..

This whole creature’s life only worth a number.

She heard rather than saw it’s next attack, had let herself drift too close to the ground and didn’t have time to get back up, could only gasp.

I DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU! she screamed, clamping her hands over her head in an attempt to protect herself.

But the attack never came. She stayed there, a few feet above the ground, curled into a ball.

Bursts of color flickered in her mind, instead, more intense than before.

And there was a strange…echo, in her mind. Like the darkness was glitching around her, something watching her, seeing what she would do. Not Fintan or Murad or Phoenix, but something different, something familiar.

Peeling her eyes open carefully, her gaze perused the area, trying to make sense of anything in the blackness. Yet no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t.

She hated this, hated this so profoundly for a moment it consumed her. How dare he put her in here, how dare they make her change, how dare they trap this creature here.

Because those colors, those snippets of thought she received from it, that was fear, stark and clear. That creature was terrified out of its mind, reacting defensively.

How could she be mad at it for that? Who knew what had been done to it down here, so far beneath the earth.

I wish this was over, she thought, I wish none of this had ever happened and I wish I was home and I wish the world didn’t hurt.

She could hear something coming from behind the glass, the whisper of voices, and if she focused she could understand what they said.

“What is she doing?”

“It’s behavior is unorthodox.”

“What does she know?”

A gasp from a little girl.

“What? What are you pointing--oh.”

“Is it--”

Claws dug into rock, crushing it into dust and tearing Sophie’s attention away. Right. She needed to focus, because no one could help her here.

They were watching her, but she needed to watch it, the monster that crawled from the shadows towards her, her blood on its claws. She didn’t want to hurt it, but she wouldn’t let it kill her; she was going to return to her family intact, no matter how long it took.

Its body formed, that forked tongue flicking into the air as it advanced, but it did so languidly, no more crouching to lunge. Instead, its head tilted to the side slightly, and for the first time she could see its eyes.

Wholly black aside from a thin rim of yellow along the very edges, and she knew at once why the room was so dark. It needed the dark, and they’d sent her in with just the opposite.

But despite the painful light on her head, it still appraised her, collar clinking against itself as it looked up at her in the air, tongue flicking out again. It exhaled, shifting back a step as its heartbeat pounded hard enough she thought it’d pass out.

Whatever fears it held, it stopped after that one step back, then stepped forward again, eyes trained on her.

Sophie matched its gaze only because she couldn’t look away, and maybe some part of that connection made it easier to find in the web of the world, maybe she’d stopped fearing herself, maybe she had nothing less to lose, but she sent her mind out to it, an arrow through the dark.

And they clicked.

Bursts of color and flashes of ideas exploded in her mind and she lowered herself back to the floor, kneeling on the cold ground with her hands pressed to her cheeks--as close as she could get to her temples without burning off her fingertips.

It lowered its head as she descended, nearly touching the floor as it looked up at her, eyes more intense with each explosion of emotion they shared.

Terror.

Anger.

Loneliness.

A few feet between them, Sophie kept her breathing even as their minds touched. She shared how she’d saved the creature trapped in the vines, how the little echo came to her again and again, how she’d met the being in the other facility, instance after instance of the interactions between them, of the…

The word stunned her for a moment.

Of the kindness she’d shown them. These monsters, these beasts that had torn through the world and ruined her life…she’d shown them kindness. And she didn’t regret it.

Maybe it felt that, maybe it knew that when she’d said she didn’t want to hurt it she’d meant it.

And it shared something in return.

More than a blur of colored emotion, more than a snap of terror, this was an image, a thought, a memory.

Cold metal around its neck, razor sharp and cutting skin.

Needle pricks and stabs, rough hands shaking as they shoved and hit and tore.

Bared teeth and hollered sounds, painful light.

It wanted to run, to leave, but it couldn’t find its way out.

They--

Light flooded the room, fire dancing through the air and through sconces, white hot and blinding.

The creature hissed--no, screamed--and began thrashing, more and more smoke curling from its body as it writhed before her in the firelight.

Gasping, Sophie extended a hand, reaching for it, unsure what she’d do but knowing she had to do something--

A gloved hand wrapped around her wrist, stopping her in her tracks.

“Explain,” his voice demanded, quiet, “everything that just happened.”

“I--what? Stop!” she called out, tugging against Murad’s grasp as she watched Fintan, watched him curl his fingers and draw those blinding flames from the air, lashing them out towards the already submissive creature.

It’s screams echoed in her ears as it’s body tried to escape, darting towards Fintan with teeth bared--but it couldn’t do anything.

“Stop?” Murad asked in her ear, still holding her, fingers tightening.

Sophie ground her teeth together. “It’s just reacting because you’re hurting it!” she yelled, but Fintan paid her no heed. He didn’t even bother to look at her as he manipulated the flames closer and closer to the creature.

They made eye contact.

A burst of orange, searing and hollow, that’s all she saw.

She couldn’t sit here, couldn’t watch them hurt that creature over a misunderstanding. It was mean and aggressive because it was scared, because they beat it back with flames and seared its sensitive eyes and body, because they kept it trapped down here.

The trembling began in her chest, building and spreading as the adrenaline took over, as instinct reigned supreme and the world went black. Not just black, pure black hate.

It roiled out of her, bubbling and gruesome and frenzied, all the hatred in her heart channeling into that hand around her wrist, to the person beyond, reaching reaching reaching all the way towards the flames on the other side of the room.

The two fell to the ground, jerking and writhing as she inflicted every piece of disgust she had for them into their heart. The crown vanished from her head, the hand disappeared from her wrist. She stood alone; she could end this, end this all right here.

A scream pierced the silence.

Sophie stopped dead.

She took in what she’d done. Murad lay unconscious at her feet, Fintan in a similar state. Odd, she thought, that they didn’t have protection against something like that. They’d always been so diligent about restricting her abilities when they faced her. Perhaps they’d overestimated the power that crown held over her.

But none of that mattered as she turned towards the sound, the scream still echoing in her ears.

Because Phoenix was pressed against the wall just outside the enclosure, pallid as a ghost, hands pressed to her face as tears flooded her eyes, overflowing down her cheeks. Terror lay stark in her stare, fixed shakily on Sophie as she glanced between the prone figures and an expressionless Sophie, panting as she felt that now-empty part of her chest.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, repeating the statement when her voice broke. “I’m…are you okay?”

She didn’t respond, shaking as she dug her nails into her skin, a single sob escaping her lips.

“No no no,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you I just--” she cut off, biting her lip. How did she explain this when she didn’t even know who Phoenix was? “I’m going to…I’m going to come closer, okay? I’m going to leave this enclosure and come a little closer so I can walk past you, but I won’t touch you. I’m not going to hurt you. I don't want to hurt you,” she repeated, quieter.

Phoenix didn’t move, so Sophie started to, needing to get away.

Glancing over her shoulder, she scanned the enclosure for the creature once more, but it had disappeared. Perhaps it had found its own way out, perhaps it had burrowed into the ground, perhaps she’d never seen it again; but she’d stopped Fintan, stopped his whip of fire from blinding that creature further.

Quickly, she crossed the threshold for the hallway, the ground once more flat and polished as she started to slip by Phoenix to the stairs beyond, mind already whirling with thoughts of what the hell she was supposed to do next but knowing she couldn’t be here.

A little hand grabbing hers stopped her short.

Phoenix opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, dried tears stuck to her face and nose red. “How did you do it?”

Sophie blinked, shifting on her feet. “Do what?”

“Make him unconscious so you could get away.”

“Oh, um…” she started, already itching to get away from this place, from the earth pressing against her consciousness above her. But she couldn’t say no to Phoenix, couldn’t tear herself away from those desperate eyes. “It’s one of my abilities. I can…I can make people feel pain, and if I make them feel enough they might go unconscious.”

Phoenix looked away then, biting at her lip. “Oh.”

“Why…why did you want to know?”

Phoenix shook her head, dismissing the question.

“Okay then…why are you here? You shouldn’t be in the middle of all this,” Sophie glanced around as she spoke, as though she could see through to whatever was happening within these walls; if it was anything like the other facilities she’d been in…

“They need me.”

“But…why? Where are your parents?”

Phoenix frowned. “You ask a lot of questions--that’s why they get upset. Because they think if anyone could figure it out with all the questions, it’s you. Sophie Foster, the Moonlark.”

Something stirred back in the room and they both froze, straining to listen. They hadn’t woken up, but this conversation was running on borrowed time.

That’s why she leaned closer, pleading. “Figure what out? What do you know?”

“That…” she started, then cut off. “No one’s supposed to know. I shouldn’t tell you. They told me not to.”

“Please, Phoenix. I need to fix all this. If you know something please tell me, I promise I won’t tell them who told me.”

Her little hand tightened around Sophie’s, heart hammering in her chest as she picked at the beading on her soft yellow gown. She hesitantly spoke the words, as though afraid the universe would hear.

“That’s…that’s what they’re trying to do, too. That’s why they need me.”

Sophie frowned. “They’re trying to fix this? But they’re the ones who did it. They made the monsters and then unleashed them to control everyone.”

Phoenix shook her head, voice so quiet Sophie almost missed what she said next.

“That’s what they want people to think. But it was an accident. The monsters were an accident.”

#shattered upside down #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #quil's quill #kotlc fanfic #maybe I forgot it was wings au day so what?#in my defense. i have no defense #anyway please enjoy!!

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