"Azura," the woman calls. She shakes Azura while leaning over her body, her weight still lying over the floor of the vehicle, and looks up to the driver worriedly. "We're here, Azura, you must wake."
Azura's eyelids crawl open, her pupils lost in a pool of drying tears, and her body is lifted as the woman lifts her back up to her knees. Azura gives her a gentle stare, and the woman smiles awkwardly to her as she nudges her closer to the open door. Azura looks out the door, finding wide, thin stairs that lead down to the entrance of a glass building.
"Where are we?" Azura asks the woman.
The woman crawls past Azura, assuming that she will follow her with guidance, and plants her boots gently onto the concrete. She leans down to look at Azura from below the edge of the door.
"That thin line that I told you about, do you remember it?" the woman asks. She reaches for Azura's hand, and the hostage crawls out of the vehicle herself without the need for help. She stands slowly to the new scenery, looking around to view the outskirts on the other side of the city, and turns to the woman as her bag is pulled from the vehicle. The woman throws Azura her backpack, and she catches it with a thud to her chest. "The one between the surface and the grave?"
The woman strides down the stairs, sliding her palm against the metal railings that divide the entrance. She looks to Azura as she follows close behind her, her attention lost in the curves of the architecture above her. The entrance is glossed with dark blue windows and metal framings that keep the structure symmetrically organized. The woman swings one of the front doors open, gesturing for Azura to enter.
Azura cautiously obeys, placing gentle footprints into the cracked concrete of a lobby long forgotten. Several booths that once carried vendors and machines are crumbled before her. Piles of leaves and dusted papers litter across the floors of the abandoned interior, and the only light that sheds to show them come from the beams of the sun as they break through the windows. The lobby stretches out further as if a stadium were to await just in front of her, circling further into the same booths and dim corpses of beverage machines.
"What is this place?" Azura spins her head back to the woman as she gazes up at the crumbled walls.
"This was once a theatre," the woman says. "Many years ago, it held a play for the public known as Faust."
"Faust?" Azura asks, wandering the lobby and its tattered remains.
"It was a tale about an alchemist who made a deal with the devil to feel satisfaction. He was made young, fell in love, and had children, but given the story was a tragedy, they didn't last long in life," the woman says, dissatisfied. Azura runs her fingers over the tables of the booths, collecting dust on her palms.
"What about it?" Azura asks. The woman inches closer to the doors ahead of the booths, eyeing the dozens of dead cameras scattered on the walls.
"There had been an issue with the casting," the woman continues, "In fact, the play was delayed a few weeks because of the matter. From what we gathered, the actor who played the lead of the play had a brother with a girlfriend. That girlfriend cheated that brother and went to the actor, and they had sexual intercourse the night before the play. According to the story, the main character did the same thing to another girl he fell for."
"Oh, god," Azura winces. The woman shrugs and reaches for the door handle.
"In the end of the play, the main character dies after feeling complete satisfaction and later becomes a slave for the demon he shook hands with. However, as the story was told, the spirit of his girlfriend later comes to save him. She takes his soul and learns how to bring him back to heaven," the woman explains. She opens the door and reveals the many rows of kept crimson lowering down to an empty, dark stage.
"I thought you said this was a tragedy?" Azura tilts her head, peering into the theatre. The woman closes the door behind her, and together they walk closer to the stage.
"Oh, it was. Shortly before the play had finished its last few scenes, the brother of the actor rose from the audience with a handgun in his palm. He told the actor he himself had belonged in Hell, claiming that his ex-girlfriend was murdered by his hands. He shot the actor on the stage, then himself, and broke the rest of the audience into a state of great terror. The play ended at once, everyone was escorted out of the building, and the actor bled out on the stage. The last things his eyes gazed upon were the spotlights of artistic perfection -- he delivered memorable emotion to the play," the woman states.
Azura winces again in silence and follows the woman up the steps of the stage. They pass by a dried pool of blood, assuming it was the actors many years ago, and wonders why no one ever decided to clean it. They walk into the dark of the backstage, behind the large curtains that cast a shadow over a hidden civilization, and they move down a hallway without a light to shed upon its narrow walls.
"As you'd guess, the theatre was shut down a month later, and there was never another play to show here. It was abandoned until a young woman named Venus decided it'd be a nice place for her small hacktivist gang to reside. She led a small group and slowly rolled it into a much more sizable one. When the theatre shut down, some carvings were marked into the walls to remember the actor who died here. They recited a quote from the author of the play he performed, and it said to strive for wisdom and benefit humanity. After twenty years, that group now reigns with that quote as the Underground," the woman says, her foreign accent enclosed with the walls. She kicks open the door at the end, and a beam of light swings across a new lobby, bleeding into the hallway for a moment before continuing its stride across the room. The door opens completely, and Azura takes in the view of a massive lobby full of people going about their lives across pool tables, bars, dance floors, and sofas. The vibrations of music boom across the large room with such force that the walls may have crumbled from its rumbles.
"This is the Underground?" Azura calls out loudly, continuing to follow the woman as she strides down a glass staircase that holds onto the curve of the wall. She looks out to the beams as they come from a new platform, swinging around the room as stage lights for a more modern production. The woman holds Azura's wrist and guides her past the glares of the crowd. She looks at them in shock, their attire alike the woman that holds her, and shivers from the foreign world she's surrounded in. She was once searching for a haven deep within her mind, but it seems now that haven has come to her.
The woman walks swiftly past the stage, and Azura covers her ear with her free hand to cower away from the music that reigns over any other sound nearby. The woman leads Azura to a new hallway, away from the crowd that already has a judgement of her, and releases as they near two doors that are guarded by a camera on both sides. She looks to the red above the handle and waits for it to paint itself green, and when it does, she reaches to pull it open.
Azura is thrown into the room much harsher than earlier, and she nearly trips to the wall of light that gleams in front of her. She looks up to a dozen monitors and TVs as they hang from the walls, stand over a table, and overlook a single figure who sits casually, running his hand through his black frizzled hair. He watches as the news headline reads Azura's name, showcasing an event that happened a week before today, and stands slowly from his long session of studying. He turns with a quick glint dashing across his rectangle-shaped glasses, and crosses his arms when he sees Azura standing in the room.
"You didn't say anything about that woman behind you, did you? You know, when they interrogated you?" The younger man asks in his heavy voice, his attire the same color as the shadows behind the screens.
"I didn't," Azura swallows. The man moves past his chair, observing the new outsider that has entered his domain.
"Good, great," the man says with a smile. "I trust my escort didn't mess with your head too bad?"
"I met her with a katana at her side," Azura growls. "My boyfriend of eight years just dropped me harder than an empty magazine and now some anarchists are kidnapping me?!"
"Hey! We're not anarchists," the man insists, but then pauses. "Okay, maybe slightly. However, your boyfriend is the one who brought you here."
Azura freezes. "That's not true, not even a little."
The woman who escorted her walks to the door and leans against the wall next to it. The holster of her katana grinds against the concrete, and she awaits her next orders while she listens to the conversation.
"Think about it. You were a witness to the murder of an attempted rapist who just happened to be a member of the Agency, the great organization of justice, or the Federal Bureau's daddy. Your boyfriend works for them, interrogated you, and now has to break up with you to make sure it looks like he's not on your side," the man explains, his stride inching closer to her. The muffled thumps of upbeat music attempt to distract them from their conversation.
"He isn't on my side. If he were, he'd quit his job," Azura confidently assures herself.
The man clicks his tongue. "You're asking for a little much, sweetheart. It's not easy to get out of that place once you're in -- both from a hacker's and an agent perspective. I'm a good friend of Ryker, and he called me up to see if I could help protect you while they're out searching for you. I had that woman over there help me reach you before they did, and now you've got everyone outside protecting you whatever the stakes so they can make a paycheck doing it."
"This doesn't make any sense. How the hell does he have any contact with you?" Azura furrows her brows. The man swipes his hand in the air.
"That's not important. All I can tell you right now is that as far as the Agency knows, you left your house and abandoned your life right when you thought you did. If they find you, I think you're a smart enough girl to know they're going to lock you up just because they still haven't figured out who sliced that guy up. You're the closest witness, so you're the next best option for them. Ryker has brought us into the equation to keep that from happening," the man holds onto her shoulder, "I know this is all surreal, but Ryker isn't doing this to hurt you."
Azura looks through the lenses of his glasses, finding his shaded, welcoming gaze in the dimly lit, digital cave. She nods, understanding that he was doing it out of good intention, and puts a little more trust into the woman that stands behind her. She looks lethal even if she were to be shopping for a box of cereal.
"I'm the lead of this place. My name is Nash," the man smiles, shaking Azura's hand. She shakes back softly, still locked onto his eyes, hoping for a spark of a promise that they won't kill her the moment she may try to flee.
"You know my name, I'm sure," Azura laughs gently. Nash gestures to the woman.
"She's going to be your biggest shadow. If something happens to you, she's going to know about it. She's a bit too philosophical for my tastes, but I'm sure you'll get along with her," Nash assures. He grabs Azura's arm, places his hand on her shoulder, and finishes his statement in a gentle whisper. "Just don't ask about her father or her friends."
Azura nods softly, jerking away from him, and he lets go willingly. He backs up and leans back into the upper edge of his seat, looking to the glaring woman in the shadows with a smile.
"What do I call you?" Azura asks, turning to the woman.
"She's got plenty of names that she's held onto throughout her many lives," Nash crosses his arms again, "I think the authorities have gathered a good name for her, though. It's funny, though, because they don't even know what she looks like. She can walk into a crowd without a glance unless it's for her beauty."
The woman hisses and rolls her eyes. Nash laughs proudly, aware of the little interest the woman has for her physicality. Azura smiles and gently laughs with them, attempting to ease herself in the nightmare she can't wake herself out of.
"What do they call her?" Azura asks curiously.
Nash looks at both of them, then focuses on the woman. "They call her the Kitsune."