The soft hum of machinery rang in her ears as the platform slowly ascended. The noise was droning, and continuous. In a strange way, it was almost peaceful; something so constant put her mind to ease for a few moments, and lulled her eyes closed. She could feel the warmth of the lights in front of the platform gate as it steadily climbed, piercing through the space between the divided beams of the front gate, illuminating her body in a strange, patterned glow.
It seemed that whenever Evelina closed her eyes, an almost putrid disgust for herself washed over her, and her fists closed tightly as she began to evoke feelings and memories that she had strived hard to stow away. But try as hard as she might to forget, it was an attempt in vain, and she stopped trying to fight it, only relieved that she had exhausted herself of tears to shed.
She didn’t have time for sorrow; only retribution for her grievance.
* * *
"You bring me a girl this young and in this kind of condition and you ask me what I think? I think it’s a miracle she is even alive, Marcus. As for what happened to her, that should be readily apparent…”
“Hit in the chest with a bullet. I don’t understand why, though.”
“I didn’t find her. I have no clue. You say you found the parents dead in the other room?”
“Yeah, and by a careless hand, too. ”
“What do you mean?”
“From what I saw it, whoever did it hit everything they could in the area that wasn’t alive; wasn’t exactly a sharpshooter.”
“Alright, well, from what I can tell… You brought her in about half an hour after it happened. The medicine I gave her should help, but the fever will last the night, if through the rest of the week; which is lucky, considering you found her with a bullet in the chest.”
“She’ll be okay?”
There was a long pause, as the female’s voice became unsure, and trailed off. A much deeper voice rang out in the darkness. "Marcus,” Her voiced trailed once more; it was in a constant state of uneasiness. She continued, “Let me make myself clear: A round pierced her breastplate and passed nearly several centimeters from her heart. Now I’ve never dealt with a gunshot wound to a child, let alone one this severe. She’s stable, Marcus, and the bleeding has slowed, yes, but… I can’t give a definite answer yet. With the fever, and the trauma, I just don’t know...” Again, there was a long pause and in the darkness there echoed only silence.
It felt like an eternity of this stagnant quiet and everything felt lifeless. It was only awhile after that she realized she was semi-conscious floating about in this surreal state of immobility. Her eyes began to open slowly as she began to become more aware.
And immediately, blinded into a blurred distorted gaze by the hard light hovering over her, they shut, her head pulsating with soreness. Her lips parsed, and she emitted a slight groan at the air, wincing and suddenly, as if lighting a fuse against her nerves, the discomfort inflicted the rest of her body, careening her into a state of almost full consciousness.
'…Evelina, where are you…?’ She asked herself.
Her eyes, more careful now, exposed themselves to the light once more, managing not to make the same mistake again. Though she couldn’t see much more than a gray murky haze where her eyes had fixated away from the light, she could tell that she was on her back, lying against a soft surface, and a pillow. It felt like a bed. At first, she wondered if she was home.
Until Eve realized, in her mind, she couldn’t make out what home was like. She tried to remember what happened. She couldn’t, her mind was a cluttered mess of images, but at the same time… It felt empty. Devoid of an answer to everything she began to ask herself in her mind. A sudden feeling of loneliness passed over her.
The room was quiet, the man who had spoken earlier, Marcus, gone apparently. From a distance, against the wall, staring back at her through a small pair of glasses and a hand shuffling inside her medical coat was the woman she would know as Lacey Emmerich. Though weary and incapable of focusing very well, Evelina saw a sense of weariness in her eyes, as well. Though Miss Emmerich’s was different; it was a glassy kind of stare, as if she was looking through Evelina and seeing someone else, and on the verge of an explosion of anger or sorrow. She quickly turned away, taking off her glasses and sitting them on a nearby desk or counter top, and disappearing from view.
Even years after that, she would never forget every time she saw those eyes. Behind them was brilliance… But one couldn’t help but pity what she had gone through.
Next to where Lacey had once stood, was a door, cracked open slightly and leading to perpetual darkness. The only thing she could see past it was the face of a young girl, no older than her, with long locks of brown hair moving down past her shoulder, staring back. She seemed almost afraid, though curious, and a moment after the eye contact, she ducked away from view.
Evelina closed her eyes again, though having barely moved, each twitch of the muscle draining her. Tired from the slight exertion, she sunk back against the mattress where she lay. Comforted under the warmth of the blanket, but her limbs still freezing, she managed to move a trembling hand over to the bandage on her upper body. She had been hurt. It was her parents who were dead. But she felt nothing. She couldn’t even remember their names…
* * *
The lift shuddered and scraped to a sudden, dead halt, jolting Eve from her reminiscent state and the motorized lullaby was cut short, her eyes focusing in the dark. She brushed back her hair, swiping away the locks of ebony from her cheeks and stared through the parallel-barred gate. She bent over, grasping at the latch at the bottom and lifting it up, sliding it along to the top of the lift entryway. She paused for a moment, reaching into the holsters inside her sleek jacket and pulling from them a pair of twin, Walther P22’s. Such a delicate handgun, she thought to herself. They were much smaller than the normal affair of ammunitions, easier to conceal, and less of a pain to reload. In less complex words: they allowed her to kill easier.
Though, killing was never completely easy. Just like she had remember Lacey’s eyes, Julia’s eyes, and the eyes of everyone else she has met over her time, over her nine years since the day she awoke without anything to reflect on, without anything but basic, childish information, when she killed… When she ended the life of someone, their eyes were always ingrained in her mind. Almost as if she could see the definite moment when the soul left each of them, and--
She gritted her teeth hard. Now wasn’t the time to think about that. Other things were on her mind.
It wasn’t often that she thought back to the times before, the times before she changed. Though, was it really a change? More of a descent into the woman she was made to be. So much had happened since then, and she had often found herself pushing back the memories of those times, just in case they might stir a sense of regret.
This didn’t keep her from regretting some mistakes, though. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s normal for a person to feel as if they’ve just made more than most. And many mistakes that she knew she had made, to her, weren’t so bad. She didn’t kill to be a murderer. She killed to keep things like what happened to Julia from ever happening again. She had faltered then. It would never happen again.
'…But…I suppose…It’s too late anyway…’
She slid the clip into the chamber of the gun slowly and smiled at the satisfying clack of the weapon.
"No. No, it’s not.”
* * *
The swing was fast, aimed directly at Evelina’s chin, and she only just caught it before training, and her dental well-being, was over. Her fingers gripped tightly, her other hand coming up to block the oncoming kick to the stomach, and holding both limbs, she swung and flipped the attacker onto her back, bringing her hand down in cleave-like fashion, stopping just at the pale woman’s collar.
There was a pause, and breathing heavily, Eve starred down at Natalie Stanford, her chest rising and falling quickly and her silver strands of hair spewed across her face and cheeks, obscuring her eyes. They stared at her vivaciously, more in wonder about being caught of guard when she thought she had overtaken her, rather than disappointed. Evelina had a way of reading people by the way they looked at her, but it was always hard to see past Natalie’s attempt to hide her skin disorder, the azure contact lenses. It was either the fact that they hid a true crimson tone, or the fact that she was just one of those impenetrable people, but which, Eve could not really say.
The silence was broken like a bullet through glass. “Almost… Almost, Maruska,” Natalie panted heavily, staring at the hand against her collar bone, positioned as if it were a blade ready to hew her a foot or so shorter.
Evelina twitched and loosened the muscles in her hand, shaking it and her head at the comment, and she slowly back away; their sparring having finished. She disliked how Natalie identified her constantly by her last name, though it was better than the silence that most had gotten from her since her arrival. She was understandably quiet, and had not been raised in a way where she had any particular contact with people other than her family. In fact, it had only been a short while since she had left such an environment where financial security was a commonly used term, and Evelina figured to herself that in a way, she was really only a bad influence.
But then again, she had grown, and chosen, to become an exceptional fighter on her own accord, and was a good amount of years older than Eve herself, so she thought nothing of it. Extending a hand to the albino woman on the ground, helped her up to her feet, and laughed slightly. “Almost, but not quite, Ghost. Not quite.” Smirking almost, as she addressed her by the nickname Killswitch and Golem had so aptly given her.
Natalie, looking at Eve with the usual lack of emotion when she wasn’t doing any particular physical exertion, took a moment to dust herself off. Evelina shrugged slightly, stretching and turning to the end of the Chatrani gym, a strange, noir blend of concrete, training equipment (mostly built by Marcus, when he didn’t have anything in particular to do), and steel.
At the end of the room, tilted in posture as she leaned against the doorway, was Julia Parrish. Her eyes were curious, as always. But in a way, they seemed discontented.
Eve knew why. Ever since her decision to become a Nightrider almost years ago, Julia had grown a dislike for her violent tendencies, saying that she did nothing but contribute to the current state of savagery and mass destruction of everywhere around them. It made no sense to Evelina, she joined in order to protect those she cared for, and to have a purpose, unlike most in the Chatrani colony that did nothing. She was accomplishing something. She was fighting to protect all she had. She was fighting to even protect Julia. She was at fault for nothing.
* * *
The bike halted to a standstill, skidding slightly as it turned to the side in the alleyway. Evelina stepped down from her sleek, metallic and black motorcycle, her boots gently landing on the cobble stone street. She always had gotten a satisfying rush of adrenaline when going out on a midnight run, but she was without feeling this time. She was devoid of excitement, fear, anger, sadness… All she felt was cold.
And that’s all she needed. That’s all she wanted.
Staring ahead at the cathedral standing before her, seemingly stretching up into the depths of a hellish sky devoid of any heaven, she silently took a moment to lament over the blood that was to be spilt by her hands tonight.
'…I’m sorry, Julia. In a way…I’m failing you by doing this.
But I’ve already failed you. And now…They’re going to pay.’
* * *
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