Cold, weak lights tore through the thick shadows of the room just enough for the human eye to make out the silhouettes and the edges of the furniture and navigate through them. Two industrial-sized lamps, one on each end of the room, have been hanging from these walls for well over a decade and their light has faded just enough for Vixen to wonder whether they were still on or not,
This place was… no, it wasn't, but it felt dirty with blood and sweat. Every wall and every tile on the floor felt rusty, old, and misused yet not enough to warrant replacements. There was no light that shone any brighter than the ones in the room she was in, no even that of the world outside. They were all dim, being forced to go on.
The people were no different. On her way there, through every floor, she saw more people hanging by a thread than she did at the end of a war. All of them empty, or too busy making it through to bother with all this.
No wonder someone called me, she thought merely a few moments after walking through the front gate, and even now, as she stood with her side pressed against the doorframe of a dirty old room, that was all she could think,
There was nothing but an empty closet, two beds, and an old man in that room, yet nothing could take away the scent of sweat from the walls. Looking at him, laying on the bed near motionless with a bruise the size of his head on his sides, Vixen thought the old man was dead or had been dead for quite some time considering his condition.
From the door, she took a step forward through the half-light, making sure to not step on anything, if there was anything, on the floor. With her gaze fixed upon the old man's face, she shuffled through the room until she was but a step away from the bed where he laid. Even from that distance, it was not easy to make out his characteristics, which through the shadows and his age, felt like they blended into a man-sized bag of wrinkles.
"Hey" Was all she dared to say, maintaining her distance. If he was dead, she'd be out of there within a moment. The longer she spent in a place like this the more she felt like making sure the guards wouldn't draw another breath.
Alas, there was a response, in the form of a sluggish motion from the old man. His tired eyes shifted, opening to look up at her with his dilated pupils and exhausted look.
Even if he was to beat his injuries, he wouldn't live for long. Does he really think he will survive getting out of here?
"Who is this? I don't know you" He said weakly, through gritted teeth and a shaking jaw. His eyes moved about her silhouette, which was all he could make out as well, and then landed back on her face again, waiting for a reply. His fist was clenched and shaking as he asked the question, though Vixen doubted he would be able to put up much of a fight if she was there to kill him.
"Relax, I'm the help you called. I'm supposed to get you out of here" She whispered, lowering her voice during the last part of the sentence. This world did not seem friendly to the idea of anyone making it out alive after all.
"Are you… Vixen?" The old man asked with renewed energy, his eyes shining with excitement and relief as he gave his all to prop himself up in a sitting position.
She immediately took a step forward, grasping him by his arms, and pulled him up before he broke half of his bones. "Easy there, yeah, that's me. Now, can you walk?" Vixen began asking the most simple questions. She needed to know the basics if she was to make a plan on reaching the ground floor.
"No, no!" The old man exclaimed, almost like he was in pain, "Not me. Mnip, I want you to get Mnip out of here" He said while pointing frantically at the door.
Vixen grunted in frustration and hit the lamp above the bed with her fist, causing it to flicker for just a moment, before shining just a tad bit brighter. "Who the fuck is… Mnip? Whatever he's called, who and where is he?" She asked, pushing the old man's arm back onto the bed so that he wouldn't hit her with his bursts of energy.
"He's at… 311, a young boy wearing blue…" He gasped, then exhaled sharply, his face contorting from the pain. The pause was long, but eventually, he took a hold of her forearm and looked her in the eyes, "His name is Mnip, he's got black hair and he's really thin. Please get him out of here, I beg you, please" He said, his voice now barely a whisper as he exhausted his final drop of energy.
Vixen sighed and stepped away, "311, huh? Alright, a deal is a deal" She nodded, taking her phone out and checking the messages between them. She had no idea how that old man had gotten his hands on a phone in this place to text her, but he had and there was a reward promised as well for extracting whoever the target was out of the world and to their destination safely.
"Let's see" She mumbled, scrolling up until she found the text she was looking for: Under the bed, the second shoebox to the right, underneath the padding.
Putting the phone away, she kneeled beside the bed and shoved her hand under it, fiddling away until she discovered the box she was looking for. It was an old, extremely dusty shoebox with a pair of boots sized 44 in them. "Under the padding…" She whispered the instructions again before taking out the boots and using her nails to take out the padding of the box.
It took her a while, but these nails had helped her achieve harder tasks than opening a box.
The worn cardboard padding dissolved after a couple of attempts, revealing a thin white placket barely the size of her pinky finger. The long letter P was engraved on it with what seemed to be solid gold.
"Please…" The old man's fading voice trailed through his shivering mouth. He wasn't going to last long, life was already flickering away, and his eyes were turning pale. Whoever this man was to the kid she'd be escorting, it's best he died having achieved his goal.
Behind her, right under the second bed, a hatch gently rose open and a pair of curious eyes watched her from the crack, yet they did not have the courage to speak up.
Vixen stood, carefully tucked the placket under her breast pocket's cover, and glanced over at the old man once more. "He won't make it… better say your goodbyes," She said to whoever that hopeful gaze belonged to.
With a few steps, she was out the door and on her way to look for whoever that kid was. She'd get him where he wanted to go safely like she always did and then…
She halted, just outside the door.
Then she'd see about the placket, and who knows, maybe this would lead straight to him this time.
Maybe...