(March 2076)
*A block away from the facility*
"Alright we have five minutes to be in and out. Get the girl, get the layouts and come back." Atoli murmured into the mouth piece as she continued to hack the research center's computers. A simple task since the facility had yet to regain full operational capacity.
The facility had grown up to 20 soldiers and 100 staff members to the single digit numbers that was overworked to keep the facility running...
"Try not to kill too many now. We need to be invisible, Axel." Atoli, warned as she watched him travel through the halls in a dead soldier's uniform. Atoli, a slender woman with a heart shaped face and shoulder length auburn hair that was tied into a ponytail on top of her head murmured. She had a generous bust and round chocolate colored eyes that were warm and gentle.
'Axel is the best at compulsion… it never ceases to amaze me how effective he is.'
"Just worry about the technical stuff." Axel muttered as he made his way through the facility. "…I'll handle the rest." He said in a tone that made Atoli giggle. "While I am loving that confidence of yours, you are aware: if we make another scene, your brother is going to kill us." She hummed, "Then he will bring you back and torture you for messing up this "Golden Opportunity" that he handed to you on a silver platter…" "at the risk of his whole career and livelihood. I know." Axel muttered.
His stride halted when a pungent smell reached his nose.
'It's the smell of blood, mixed with bodily odor, and waste… Even this back portion of the facility where mostly storage rooms sat bearing files, reeks of death and carnage…'
"Axel?" Atoli whispered, she knew that when Alex went silent he was compartmentalizing. "…Whenever I'm in there, I feel the urge to kill..."
Atoli blinked the memory away to look at the camera and notice that Axel had reached the middle of the facility, where the research rooms, 'Isolation' chambers, and interrogation rooms were.
The scent in the interrogation and research rooms was sterile. At one time or another, any of them would have imagined the scent of these rooms to be rich in the metallic stench of blood. 'I expect to see the walls stained with blood and bodily fluids… every time I come to one of these places, I am fooled by their facades.' Axel thought as he stopped and stared at one of the isolation rooms, 'I've envisioned these sterile white, polished rooms to be the pictures of nightmares in scripts…' Axel thought as he continued on his way.
Even the interrogation room was the picture of an ideal room, white walls with a black marble table that had four chairs and a double sided mirror.
'The isolation rooms...' Axel could taste the raw hum of darkness radiating from those rooms. "The darkness isn't something we are made to fight. Do not let it infect you." Axel recalled his brother saying. Axel could only imagine the horrors and nightmares that those walls had born witness to. 'It's those whispered nightmares that keep me up at night…' Those nightmares made him remember distorted screams, the squelching of flesh being cut. The crack of bones being broken, the crunch of bodies being crushed....
'It's hell… my personal hell…'
Axel was still a few meters away from where the prisoners were located and he could hear their quiet sobs and whispered prayers in their respective languages.
He brought a hand to his chest, hearing the children crying for their parents, from the 'treatments'… listening to their tiny hearts give in to the call of death… 'It's paralyzing….'
The pungent stench of bodily waste and filth was even stronger. In combination with the fear and hate in the air it was numbing to Axel's brain. It made him have to breathe through his mouth so that his mind wouldn't get carried away with the urge to satisfy the injustice that has been laid on this ground. 'This stench, fear and anger mixed with tears, waste, blood and death… it's toxic.'
Axels silence made Atoli sigh and shake her head as she continued to multitask from her spot. Axels compartmentalization never ceased to amaze her, he simply would not lose his cool. 'He is like ice, efficient, smooth and cold.' His efficiency made her confident in what they were doing. It was a moment, in which he saw his people and wrongfully taken humans staring at him wide eyed- it was too much to bear. He felt the hypnosis he was instinctively giving whip back at him, making him stagger on his feet. Atoli sighed at the image, she watched over the camera she hacked as she tracked her team mate. It was a moment, what looked like a glitch at best, however once could never be too safe. The camera blacked out and the recorded image was erased from the cameras' memory.
'We will save this girl.'
"Axel…" Atoli murmured his name. Axel's mind raced as he walked through the halls to her cell. It took him a minute to recall what he was supposed to be doing. 'The girl.' He centered himself and got back into his groove of compelling the prisoners as he made his way to where the girl was. Angalo had been tracking her since he saw her picture in Whitman's files when she was eight years old...
"I saw that. Angalo will pull you from this if-"
"He'll only know if you decide to snitch me out." Axel muttered as he found himself in the girls block. 'I can feel her.' He thought, amazed. 'I can almost see her before me…' his heart started to race with anticipation. Anything else Atoli could have told him was lost as an eagerness invaded his dark, hopeless thoughts. 'Focus.' Axel shoved the foreign feelings away as he tried to calm his racing heart. Ice cold fingers of anxiety started to wind and wrap around his heart, causing a bone cold chill to course through his body.
'What am I feeling now?'
Atoli watched Axel closely, if anything was wrong, his stoic expression gave nothing away.
"Where's the witch?" Axel asked as he continued down his path, any sort of distraction so that his cool exterior isn't lost…
"She's in the office gathering the files we need, along with some official stuff for the security in Texas and Alaska. Axel narrowed his eyes as he approached the cell in question.
She was laying on her cot; flat on her back. Her body was shaking as if crying. Axel was the type of man who would die before admitting that he gawked at a girl. But this time… this girl. Seeing her midnight hair splayed beneath her resembling a dark halo more than the waterfall it was rumored to be... Her curvy body barely covered in the scrap of a shirt she was wearing. Caramel skin that looked flawless. Surely she was a sight to behold.
'I wonder what your eyes look like.'
Axel shook the racing thoughts and questions from the forefront of his mind.
With a low grunt, he took his baton and banged on the bars to the cell. The metallic 'CLANG' that echoed through the halls made the boy inside the jump.
"It's time to go." Axel said in a deep loud voice that made the boys head snap in shock. The sight of the boy moving to block the girl from his view made Axel growl, 'Just what I need, a pissing match with a mortal.' The thought made him growl even louder. 'I don't have the time for this nonsense.'
"Otuṅkiviṭu, paiyaṉ. Nāṉ peṇṇukkāka iṅkē irukkiṟēṉ. (Step aside, boy. I'm here for the girl)."
Their eyes locked and the boy gasped with realization, "Atu nītāṉ (It's you…)" Axel moved to open the cell and step inside, "Will she wake?"
"Nilaviṉ iraṇṭu tiruppaṅkaḷ, avaḷ iṉṉum eḻuntirukkavillai (it's been two turns of the moon, she has yet to wake.)" Axel nodded. He stepped towards the girl and moved to gather her into his arms. The boy stopped him, "Kaṭanta kālattil avaḷait toṭṭavarkaḷ cāmpalāka māṟiviṭṭaṉar. (The ones who have touched her in the past have turned to ash)." Axel tilted his head as he felt his infamous composure slip. 'Of course.. nothing like the easy stuff…' Axel pinched the bridge of his nose, and decided to see the silver lining: 'At least I won't have to guard her 24/7.' He thought as he took a knee before the sleeping girl. Looking at her face, he felt the air leave his lungs…
'I know you…'
The moment the thought passed, Axel was back in high school with her, holding her hand in greeting at Atoli's request. 'I remember looking into your eyes…' he pondered as the feelings stirring in his chest seamed to grow. Axel tried to compose himself, he internally slapped himself 'Get it together.' But his mind had other plans. He felt a burning anger grip at his chest when he saw the scraps that she was wearing. Before he could think his actions through, he was taking off the uniform jacket that he was wearing and covering her with it. 'When I first laid eyes on her, she was every bit her age: 16. But… now she's different...'
Axel observed as he noted a burning anger that was just below the surface of her shifting mood and fluctuating magic. He felt more than saw the red, dangerous aura that was basking and growing in that anger. He could say that it was suffocating, raw, unharnessed energy...
'It feels like darkness.'