Gliding through the keys on the wire, Kage soon found the right one then inserted it and pushed open the door.
A dizzying sensation washed upon him like a storm. If it was not for the sight then he could elude the scent of it all, but any thought to end his hypnotized gaze proved useless. For what lay beyond that door left Kage stunned.
Although the fluorescent lights to each mirrored booth flickered in their near dying state, he could fully take in the expanse of horror inflicted on each of the nine people kept inside this pen. One sought out the worst of what each possessed, her auburn hair ripped in patches forming spots exposing her pale scalp. Using the longer pieces, she was able to comb those spots over, but away from the gaze of the men she thought there was no point to covering them for the sake of those suffering the same. The commonly long sleeves left her arms hidden from the judgmental eyes that criticized their thinness resulting in garish yellow bruises up her torso. Yet, when forced to see her shocked expression, Kage noticed the whip of her extended hair removed from its position blocking her left eye, in its place was nothing but a suture.
At each booth an array of makeup, deodorants, and other appliances to mask the abuse were spread out. But beside those booths were trash cans filled to the brim with bloodied towels, panties, and underwear. Some, even now, had a discoloration of fluid flowing down their calves leading to a few misshapen feet trained to be fit into a specific shoe.
Kage felt the need to vomit broaching his lip, but subsisted in doing so by sheer will alone. A will on the verge of collapsing taken by the endless void present in the children. The two girls saw little difference in their appearance maintaining only a dizzy slobber from black puncture wounds on their forearms.
'Sickening sight.'
However, three boys huddled together in a corner. One held the same expression as the others leaving only a set of identical twins glaring, gnashing their teeth with spittle seeping in threads. Growling as well with a few barks mixed in between they had become beasts in absence of language.
Since his arrival, the room stilled itself with each slave having found some space as far from the door they could go. Hope was in each action they took, there was a need for survival gripping their bodies.
Kage could work with that.
If they had no will to live, then there would be no possibility for them to leave. This was a chance of luck leaving him relieved in spite of the circumstances.
In as softest of a voice he could produce, Kage called out to the group, "Follow me. It's time to leave this place."
There was little to no reaction from his call. The group had experienced this game already a multitude of times that only the newest of prisoners fell for such a trap. A guard came to bring them away, save them, only for them to discover a wall lined with men beholden with whips, chains, and stained grins. What made this any different?
Checking his watch Kage grew jittery with the time having elapsed since the start of the fire. The grunts would understand the plot soon enough, then would flood his position leaving none alive.
He could leave them if so. If they didn't wish to come then that's on them, not him. He still had a mission. There was another life needing to be saved.
Yet…
A girl… Her figure was barren except for a cloth rummaged from a bin of rags. Tainted by fluid left unspoken with a mixture of matted grime. The only source of exuberance that remained in her tiny figure was the orange flaming hair that sprouted from atop her head. The rest stole any color becoming a sickly pale that reflected from the burning bulbs.
She looked no older than Lisa had been on that fateful night.
*What if that had been Lisa? What if they meant to capture her and do the same? You wouldn't stand still, would you Kage?
You…
Were born for a reason… Weren't you?*
Its image was absent as the voice left. Vibrantly glorious its unseen image stood, centered in the room. Her words were like gravy, slowly suffocating.
What was this thing before him? A guide from Hell? Or the light of heaven, Kage only knew fear from it. Thus, as it had appeared it proceedingly took off, gone from his vision.
Or was it really ever there? For, as it left, the faces of these tortured people reshaped themselves to the grotesque monsters that plagued everyone else. All of them changed except the children.
Choked on his own delusion, Kage resolved himself with a hearty knock against his cranium, setting him right once more. In his daze, a small hand fit into the palm of his larger one. Below him a girl, or perhaps a boy, took hold of him. In that grip a spark irradiated from the both of them. It was cyan in hue noticed by none but the two of them. Then, she/he questioningly stared into Kage's eyes asking a solitary question with no prior emotion displayed in the words.
"Can you help us?" Her voice squeaked out.
Kage removed his hand from the grip, taking the child by the shoulders, "Yes, I will." Remembering a vague fragrance of ash from the lips of this person cluing him into her action.
The child looked over her/his shoulder nodding at the rest to approach. Some sobbed at that very moment, others jumped from their spots rushing Kage with enthusiasm. With no time to waste, he gave out swift orders on the spot. "Each of you, take a child…" Judging the weight of the one still at his side, Kage lifted her/him up and placed them on his shoulders overlooking his head. The child motioned for the others to follow this supposed savior's command, they did so hastily. The one with auburn hair cajoled the twins, taking them both, due to one of the women barely able to stand on her own.
He looked at the crowd once more before setting off. Five women stood with two unable to hold the four children present in the room. Despite that inability as well as amassing weight forced upon their brittle frames, they were readied. The group stuck to his back shaking with nerves as well as drawn up courage accosted by adrenaline deep within their heart. "Ok, everyone. Stay on my butt and don't leave it."
Prodding the door open a tad, Kage peeked outside, finding no one in the vicinity. Bellows and calls for help still echoed in the night air as did the gracious smoke of burning fumes.
'Perhaps I made the fire a little too troubling for them to handle.'
Swiftly he nudged the door open, making sure to cover the child's eyes with a hand so that the bloodied woman was unseen. The others motioned to do the same, all except the auburn haired one, unable to do so with both arms already occupied. The twins merely studied the body of the woman, jaw dangling with harsh crimson flowing like a stream from her face. She still breathed but was the life she would accompany after worth remaining in?
Grunts fled toward the now growing fire, their senses stolen by the object of destruction leaving none to even take a shot of awareness to them. They dashed for buckets of water while others were simply calling for orders as they had none to circumvent the spreading glow.
Kage severely misjudged their preparedness. They hadn't even found the jammers he placed on their satellite dishes. Maybe, there was enough time for the other.
This knowledge instilled into him, he picked up the pace, now into a heavy jog forcing the weaker of the women straining themselves to maintain chase.
Dodging the next apartment, they dived into the shadows of its unlit alleyway. The group found sanctity at its end where the sharp metal pieces to a newly cemented electric fence had been sliced away no less than minutes prior to their arrival. On the other side headlights shone, stretching across the ground casting their shadows like paupers on the prowl.
Arthur stood, face coveted by worry, relaxing an arm against the door to a borrowed dirt brown van. At Kage's call he set off to exchange a favor with anyone who would accept, eventually resulting in a threat more so than humble bargaining. Nevertheless, the deed was done and here he fervently jumped in shock of the tortured souls hobbling behind a familiar silhouette.
As the slaves forced their way past the jagged hole cut with no precision in the slightest, Arthur understood he underestimated their number. He was told to expect five, four more was a heap larger than what he thought fit in the back.
'Still, could make it work. Be cramped as cow shit but nevertheless… It would have to work.'
He scampered to the rear of the van, unlatching the doors while waving the others inside. A flurry of thanks as well as tearful cries splashed against the man. Yet, through it all he stared at the silhouette to their savior, remaining paces in the dark contemplating something. To the boy's left was a child grasping for dear life onto him. Arthur trudged through the now wet mud, flinching at the wash needed for the inside of the van after this night. Without shoes, the women had run onward into the drenched darkness, consequently dragging the filth along the entirety of their feet which left large clouds of dirt up and down the cold metal to the vehicle.
"Come on, lad. Les' get outta here!" Arthur grabbed onto the child but stared deep into Kage's sockets. The boy knew that they were not guided at the young one but himself. He glanced at the sky, noticing all that remained of the fire was a black smudge in the sky.
They truly ran out of time.
It was like the moment was frozen.
Neither dared to ask, and neither moved from their position.
Quite possibly, the utter display of silence from Kage startled Arthur more than any words that could have been said from him. For once, the boy was unable to push forward, adjusting to the circumstances. There was no conjuring of will, that could change this course of events.
If he ran for it, there was no telling how he could escape.
Arthur jumped from the prospect only to be greeted by a solemn smirk befitting of a man ages older than the one stood there. Such a smirk frightened Arthur as it possessed every living creature that fell cold on his table amidst operation. A grasping at reality to be different but acknowledgement of that impossibility.
Jumbling his mouth with a broth of slobber and chokes, Arthur made to speak, "D-D-D-Don't! Don't you dare!" But, in his attempt to catch the arm of the boy, instead he found the child tossed to him. The force alone brought the man to his bum incapable of stopping an inevitability he should have foreseen.
Kage crawled back to the other side of the fence but yet before he could leave, the child wailed in desperation at its savior, "WHO ARE YOU!?"
Behind him, the crowd acknowledged their savior one last time as his broad back breathed in contemplation. They too wished to know the name of the person who risked it all for their lives.
Tilting his head to one side, cocking back some of that ego he prided himself on, Kage smirked with a bombastic tune this time around. "Just call me…
Squeezing close his eyes, there was consideration on the legacy. But much like everything coalescing into this night, the decision was made in the span of a heartbeat. "Overture."
Then, the silhouette prowled back down the alleyway in search of its prey.