Post by Nobody on Nov 11, 2014 22:57:17 GMT
Chapter One
Flying Dreams
~Doest thou wish this, in earnest, Unsung?~
The cold metal snake wrapped around the boy’s arm was as ever, reluctant to place itself and its master into danger. The emerald eyes set into its face glimmered with each word. The boy smirked, confidence overflowing from him despite the lack of preparation, lack of allies, and lack of sense in what he was about to do. Only 14, the nameless boy was starting to grow taller, so the torn and slightly scorched sky grey cloak he wore was starting to fit. While he could definitely use a haircut, the shaggy black hair that fell into his face was well groomed. He brushed it back and spat over the edge of the hole that gaped in front of him. After 8 seconds, he gave up on waiting for it. A gust of fetid air rose up from it.
“Well, I don’t think it’s gonna wait for us, Jorm. Unless you wanna do this topside, this is the only chance we’re going to get. And please, cut the titles.”
He leapt down the pit that led to one of many cells buried deep under the earth’s crust, or as the planet was called in this era, and by this people, Yggdrasil. The air roared past after a moment, but it wasn’t the only sound he could hear, thankfully. The echo of a hideous roar swelled up to meet him, carrying with it all the stench of a decayed age long since past. “Gods, be glad you can’t smell that,” he shouted to the snake.
In this hole rested an ancient evil─ that is, an actual evil, not merely a demon as the men had forgotten─ known as Nidhogg, also called the Leviathan in another time. It had laid here, sealed away for millennia after the war of the gods, wasting away in a way only immortal beings could. ~Thou would be surprised, I think, to find how hungry one might grow when it does not eat, and does not die.~
As if in answer, another roar reeking of death shook the boy. He had been falling for a long time now. And if the tunnels needed to seal the beast were this large, the cavern it waited in would be truly immense. But even now, he could see its face, despite the dark. It was coming towards him, up the tunnel, the seals keeping it in place for so long having finally broken. Its mouth was a pit even in this chasm, its teeth black with rot but sharper still than any steel, and its breath was hot and foul. Its skin was pale as a corpse after so long spent in the dark, and its wings were ragged after it had dragged itself this far. The horns on its head were cracked and gouged by rock. But its eyes… its eyes were alert. Clear. Hungry.
He flexed his arm, the snake coiled around it slid into his palm, rippling and reconfiguring itself into a magnificent blade. It flew out in a shimmering arc, cutting into the flesh of the beast’s mouth. He was slowing, but its mouth was closing and the teeth were prodding him, digging in, tearing──
With a start, the unnamed boy woke up. He was sitting in an economy class chair onboard a flight from London to America, and if the captain’s calm explanation was anything to go by, they had just encountered “a bit ‘a rough air, yeah?” but everything was fine now. Where a moment ago, he had held a sword in his right hand, he now held a manila folder filled with forms. That was, it had been filled, he thought, glancing at the floor now covered in papers. Embarrassment quickly took the place of fear and he apologized to the officer accompanying him onboard the plane. The mustachioed officer nodded groggily, muttering something about not having anything to be afraid of, it’s just flying, before dozing off again. The boy picked up the sheets of paper defining who he was.
‘Believed 16 or 17. Name unknown, address unknown.’
He had been found wandering the coast of Edinburgh on June 23rd, judging from the reports. The lawmen had come for him in the middle of the night when someone called in reporting ‘some poor looking runaway type in ragged clothes” passed out on the beach. He had woken up in a prison cell, and been taken to interrogation. After several hours it was determined that he was dehydrated, slightly malnourished, and an amnesiac, though his accent placed him as an American. After a month, when no one had come to find him, it was determined that he should be turned over to Child Protective Services in the States. For a year at least, he would be a ward of the state unless claimed by his family.
If I have family, they know I’m missing, he thought to himself. They’ll find me. But for some reason, he doubted that he had anyone to go to, or to find him. Gut instinct, maybe?
The plane shook again, but this time it wasn’t because of turbulence. The tires on the landing gear barked as they kissed the pavement, early on Thursday, June 24th, state side.
“Ladies, gents, we have landed in New York, New York, in the United States of America. ‘Course, if ya didn’t know that then yer liable ta forgot yer own name, yeah?” The captain said jokingly, earning a laugh from a few of the tired fliers. “Flight’s over, and it’s time fer you all to wake up and greet the day.”
As the passengers began unloading their bags from the luggage rack, the police officer glanced at the directions he had been given, directing him and the boy first to Immigration and Customs, and then to the foster home where he would stay until such time as he was either claimed, adopted, or reached the age of majority.
The cab ride to the foster home passed in relative silence, apart from the sounds of traffic. The cabbie was a shady man, cap pulled down to cover his eyes. They reached their destination quick enough though, the boy supposed. Only ran three red lights. The officer led him up the sidewalk to the foster home, and what would be his home, for the rest of the year.
It was a big house, more of an apartment really, painted a brick red, though that was fading out to more of a red-gray. There were ten windows on the front, with three stories; Four on the bottom, looking into the kitchen and the living room. That meant there were at least three bedrooms on each floor above that, the boy supposed. The inside was clean, and a man with disheveled sandy brown hair was doing dishes. He turned around when he heard the two enter.
“You must be the new boy,” he said, wiping the water that had sprayed up off of his round glasses. He scratched at his stubble, clearly meaning to have shaved before they arrived, before offering his hand to the boy. "I’m John Silva, caretaker and foster father around here. You can call me John, or you can call me Mr. Silva. That’s probably easiest, seeing as I’ll also be your history teacher in the high school we’re enrolling you in,” he said, squeezing their hands firmly in turn.
The policeman patted the pocket of his pants as if he might have forgotten something. “Right, well, I had best be off. The return flight promises to be just as long as the away, and time waits for no man, yes?” The officer nodded to Silva and the boy.
Silva nodded. “God save the Queen.”
The officer smiled under his moustache and walked away humming tunelessly.
The boy shuffled in place awkwardly. Silva looked him up and down. “What’s got you so nervous, son? New place? New home?” The boy swallowed before he could respond.
“New life.”
“I understand that.” He sat down in a chair at the large circular table in the middle of the kitchen. Various bottles of paint, their various shades dribbled down the sides and dried with time, sat around an empty canvas next to him. Mr. Silva carefully moved them aside, making sure everything remained in its original position relative to the canvas, and gestured to the seat next to him. The boy sat. “So what do we call you?” Silva asked. “I imagine it would make life a little bit easier for all of us if you had a name, even if it is an unofficial one.”
The boy shrugged. He didn’t have a name, as far as he could remember. “I don’t really have any ideas, at the moment.” He looked up from the tabletop to Silva’s face. “You’re a history teacher. What’s a good name?”
Silva raised an eyebrow, deciding if he was serious, and laughed. “Tell you what, son; we’ll call you Nemo for now. Seems like you’ve had quite the odyssey, coming all the way here from the U.K., and while I doubt you’ve ever been 20,000 leagues under the sea, they found you on a beach, right? Unless you want something more average, than we can go with Lewis, Clark, or Christopher. The explorers?”
The last two had been tacked on as even more of a joke than the first name, and even the amnesiac boy could tell that. However, he decided to call his bluff.
“Nemo sounds good. I don’t remember those stories, but maybe you can help me out with that.”
Silva patted his shoulder and stood up, returning to his dishes. “Tell you what, then, Captain. You go drop your stuff off upstairs, on the second floor, room at the end of the hall. Then you can come down here,” he splashed the water in the double wide sink, “and get your sea legs. Then we’ll get you some grub and you can meet the family.”
Nemo dropped the folder with what was left from the trip on the table and headed upstairs. He bumped into a blonde boy on the way down. He grabbed Nemo’s shoulder.
“You alright, new kid? I’m Steve.” He was sporty and optimistic, with one blue eye. The other was hidden under a patch. Nemo couldn’t stop himself from staring, for a moment. Steve grimaced. “You don’t wanna see that, trust me. I had an accident in the batting cages. Doc says it’ll heal up okay after a surgery or two, but in the meantime it’s a mess to look at.”
“Very sorry!” Nemo apologized, flustered. “I didn’t mean to stare, I was just really surprised.”
Steve shrugged it off. “No worries, man.” He continued his brisk pace down the stairs, before doubling back and climbing to the top. He was exercising, Nemo realized.
Nemo continued to the end of the hall and dropped his bag on the hardwood floor of his room.
It was small, but not horribly so. Empty too, apart from the bed and the bedside table, but clean. He would have plenty of time to look at it later, though.
He emptied his suitcase out, looking at the clothes he had been given by the mustached policeman. They were all his sons, he had said, and didn’t fit anymore. A lot of them were novelty T-Shirts, with jokes Nemo didn’t understand. He changed into one bearing a stylized eye, with AREA 11 written around it.
Nemo timed his descent better this time, heading down while Steve was above. He took his place beside Silva and started in on the dishes. Or, he had thought they were dishes. He pulled out a handful of brushes.
“Do you paint?” Nemo asked, remembering the canvas from earlier.
Silva smiled. “No, but my daughter Jenna does. She’s quite gifted.” He drained the water, taking all the brushes that had been scrubbed and putting them in a jug of mineral spirits. “We don’t make a huge amount of money, but we do what we can to keep each of you in some kind of activity outside of school. Steven plays baseball, most of the time, although I assume you saw his eye? Yeah, you looked a little guilty. Luckily, for us, and for him, the school held a fundraiser to get the cash together to fix him up. Jenna has her paintings, and then there’s─”
He was interrupted by the loud sounds of bass and brass coming from the driveway. “Then there’s Marco,” he continued at a much louder pitch. “Marco writes music. He’s pretty good, but he’s pretty loud too.” The last part was heard clearly as the music cut out with the engine. A skinny Mexican boy with the sides of his head shaved walked in.
“Yeah, yeah, Mr. S, but that’s ‘cause it’s boring quiet,” Marco said. He wore a letterman jacket with a trumpet and a drum patch on the left sleeve, and had a tattoo of a musical scale on the back of his right hand. He looked Nemo up and down. “You’re the new kid.” It was a less a question, than a statement. He shook Nemo’s hand before heading up to the third floor.
Silva nodded after him, before turning back to Nemo. “That’s Marco. He has two rooms on the third floor; one of them is his studio. It’s soundproofed, but it’s not perfect, so I’m sorry if it gets a little bit noisy in here. The only one left to meet is Jenna. I don’t know where she is, though.” He looked back at the canvas. A look of worry crossed over his face.
Nemo thought a moment. “I can go look for her, if you like. I need to get to know the neighborhood anyways.”
Silva gave it some thought and nodded. “Alright, I’ll send her a picture of you, and figure out where she is. Then I’ll send you to find her. If you can make it back before five, we’ll see what we can do about getting you set up in an activity your first week of school. Sound good?”
“Sounds pretty nice, John. I’ll be back as quick as I can.” He turned out the door after Silva sent the picture. A look of consternation passed over his face briefly as he read her response, but he brushed it off. He yelled out the address of the subway she was waiting at to Nemo. Nemo turned and threw him a thumbs up.
The streets were numbered, Nemo discovered quickly, so it would actually take effort for him to get lost. He made his way down, block by block until he reached the subway station, marveling at all the tall buildings. Compared to the U.K., where everything had been somewhat washed out and low to the ground, New York was all towering buildings and splashes of color in graffiti or street art, and even the people. People everywhere, dressed for business, for fun, and if he wasn’t mistaken as he glanced into the alleyways, for pleasure.
He fought his way down the stairs through a stream of people. One of the trains had just deposited a load of passengers, it seemed. They paid him no real mind as they brushed him, a few people grumbling, or telling him to watch it. For the most part they just seemed out of it, though. Their eyes were unfocused, and they seemed almost devoid of life. They’re not zombies, Nemo thought, but it’s similar. He felt a chill go down his back. The only one with any real spark was the girl waving for him.
Her eyes were a cool dark green, like wet grass. She was pretty, and she carried herself like she knew it. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, one streak of black in her otherwise sandy hair, and she dressed like someone ready to be messy at any moment; jeans with a few daubs of paint on the front of the legs, and a grey ill fitting tee that still managed to look good, on her.
“You’re Nemo, aren’t you? Sorry about the weird name,” she said, as he approached. “My dad’s got some interesting taste in names.”
He shrugged absentmindedly, trying to shake the feeling he’d had ever since descending the stairs. It was more prominent now, going from a chill to shivers.
She raised an eyebrow in concern. “Are you ok?”
He looked around, nodding. “Just feel cold.” He looked up to see the cabbie from earlier, features shadowed under his cap. The station was empty now, apart from the three of them. The cabbie adjusted the brim of his cap, revealing his eyes to Nemo.
They were a disgusting shade of yellow, and there were no whites that Nemo could see. His pupils were shaped like a goats, or a frogs. The air around the cabbie seemed to pulse, focusing around him, twitching rapidly. A guttural clicking sound filled the room, spreading from the yellow eyed man.
Jenna turned to him just as an elongated arm slammed her into the wall. The cabbie’s arm was angled oddly and covered in a light brown fur. The hand that pinned Jenna in place was incredibly large, if thin, and the fingers ended in stubs of black bone. She had struck her head against the wall and dangled there, unconscious.
Nemo felt his heart race faster and faster now. The cabbie’s shoulder popped out of place and reconfigured itself higher up, and his cap fell to the floor as his head reshaped itself, stretching and popping. It─ and it was no longer a man, he was sure─ roared at him, and it was a sound of anguish and terror and malice.
Nemo fell back, his hand brushing against a stray piece of wood covered in dust, probably from when the station had been refurbished. He slammed it in an overhead arc onto its arm. The wood snapped, but otherwise there was no visible damage.
It held Jenna in place and started towards him, its other arm rearranging itself to reach out to him. Its neck stretched, and the hideous head descended towards him, teeth curving out. The lights flickered as if in response to the aberrations presence, and the tunnel began shaking.
The tunnel. The subway!
He shoved the wood still in his hand into its mouth, instinct driving his limbs into action. The beast choked on the splintering wood, its eyes rolling with fury. It choked something out around the wood. Whatever it was attempting to say was interrupted as Nemo threw himself into its chest.
Its limbs and neck were too long, in too small a space to stop him as he dug his feet into the floor, shoving it onto the tracks of the subway. It screamed in defiance, but was drowned out in the roar of the train’s passing. Nemo turned away as the beast was torn to pieces, not wanting to see the splash of blood or the limbs twitch, their connection to the brain lost.
He picked Jenna up and carried her up the stairs as quickly as he could. He turned back at the last moment to see the body sizzle away and the blood evaporate.
Nemo explained that there had been a gas leak in the subway, he thought, and that was why Jenna had fallen and hit her head. She accepted this with astonishing ease. “Well, let’s get back to the house I guess. I’ll ice it there.”
He shook himself, trying to forget the way the wood had shaken as its throat convulsed around it, or the way it had jostled him when train hit. Forget it. Didn’t happen. He wanted to believe that, but he couldn’t.