Chapter 1:

Legion

We don’t know why we’re here.

Padded walls. Black bars. A life sentence for the life we tried to live. If only we tried to live that life together. If only we weren’t separate. Were things better back when we were first here? It feels just like last time. Can someone tell us what the world is like, now? We sure as Darkness don’t know. Darkness. It entangles our mind and slowly snuffs out the only fragments of life we do know. Aukaneck. Bullet. Opping. Darkness sucks them into the void but leaves the pain we felt, the pain we still feel. It hurts... We shed a lonely tear. We are many, but we are lonely. We are not complete. Not without Razz. We close our eyes as the darkness takes over our mind. The memories run wild in their watercolour fragments, washing into our vision. When we open our eyes, we know we’ll be in the exact same place. We know we’ll be watching what happened one month before now, but...

We don’t know why we’re here.

**********

I hated this place. The silky walls provided as much comfort as it did discomfort. This place was dull. As dull as Darkness. My senses were monochromatic monstrosities; eyes filled with black bars and white walls, fingers fondling my padded cage, tongue tasting dry dust, ears entrapped by the sound of silence, nose nauseated by stale air. This was my life. That was what the asylum taught me.

‘And that’s all you need to know’ a cold voice echoed in the back of my head.

I narrowed my eyes and ignored it, concentrating on the padding where the door was hidden. No windows, no metal, just padding. Those ghoulish psychiatrists thought anything and everything was dangerous to the “mentally unstable”.

‘You’re not escaping, dimwit,’ the deep voice scowled, interjecting into my train of thought, ‘We’ve tried this many times. You know you’re going to fail.’

‘I’ve tried many times, Blake,’ I thought, bitterly, ‘you’ve just sat there and watched. If you had half a mind to join Rizumu and I, perhaps we’d have more success!’

Blake’s voice was silent after that. As I turned my attention back towards the only interesting object in this cell, my eyes fell on the other, uninteresting object in my vicinity. A book. A picture book. I should have been thankful that the only solace ever offered were books of varying types. Without them, I would have long shrunk into the recesses of madness, “true” madness; not what the psychologists and other scientists believed at Land’s End Asylum. Without those small rays of hope, I would have never learnt about the small things of the past – the world that once was.

Another ray trickled into off the padding, causing my sight to veer back towards where the door should have been. As it slowly opened, a ray of white washed over the cell. I shielded my eyes from the penetrating but welcome light, hearing crunchy footsteps approach.

‘I en always love that no sund. It en reminds me en of walken on no snow’ a radiant voice chuckled. My retinas slowly adjusted to the new light and focused through my glasses. There stood the only person whom I have ever felt attached to. With his straw beard that glowed pale blonde in the rays, wrinkled eyes and beaming smile, I always felt safe. Dr. Jozu.

‘You know, I always think he’s faking that kindness’ Blake dryly commented in the back of my head.

‘Heyo. I en managed to sneek a no joobly from the no canteen, just for yu en.’

Dr. Jozu knelt on one knee and produced a small glass bottle from one the many grey pockets attached to his long coat. I felt my cheeks rise into a smile and my eyes twinkle as they settled on the orange liquid in the tiny bottle. It was, perhaps, no larger than Jozu’s index finger, but it was enough to excite Rizumu, who had suddenly seized my body and controlled my movements. My body soon vibrated as my hands grabbed the bottle and delicately placed the cold glass against my left cheek. The sensation was, perhaps, deeply soothing. I would have loved to have felt this, but I couldn’t – Rizumu was in control, now. I was in the background.

‘I en thurht that mirht excite yu en, no Rizumu,’ Jozu smiled, placing his hand on my head and directing it back towards his eyes. ‘I en wanted to see joy in yu en one last time.’

‘I fucking knew it’ Blake spat.

‘What do you mean, daddy Jozu?’ warbled Rizumu’s voice from my lips. She knew something was wrong – I could feel that much. We had no father.

Jozu took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his scruffy blonde hair. His emerald eyes shone in the light emanating from the world outside the door, yet displayed as much sadness as Darkness, itself. He stared deeply into my own eyes until Rizumu retreated back inside my head. I swiftly regained control of my arms and soon felt the rather welcome coolness of the small bottle. Rizumu was scared.

‘Aliza’ Jozu simply said, his voice quiet and raspy.

‘Yeah?’ I replied, emulating his tone.

‘Aliza, I en want yu en to understand somethen. Yu en, no Blake and no Rizumu,’ he took another painful pause before continuing, ‘Yu’ve en been put forward for no oppen.’

‘No opping?’ I repeated, confused.

‘No’ he corrected, ‘Oppen.’

There was a strained silence which followed. I had no idea what opping was, yet I felt my heart hammer harder and harder as I continued to look into Jozu’s sad eyes. They began to glisten ever so slightly. A small amount of water began to build at their edges, causing my breath to catch in my throat.

‘I’m en sorry’ his voice cracked.

The bottle slipped from my hand.

As Jozu guided my body into the blazing light beyond the room, Blake guided my mind into the blind darkness, ignoring the scenery around us and blindly cursing all the while. Our life in that room was at an end.

**********

The light buzz of metal vibrating.

My eyes focused around the spherical machine which shadowed my body. Several large gears ticked mechanically, jolting in movement every couple of seconds. My eyes fixated on the transparent door indented within its dirty frame; blue static sparked from inside walls, pipes jutted out in awkward angles, steam smouldered from the grated floor. There was absolutely nothing golden about the machine, besides its outer colour. Even then, it was a dirty gold.

Rizumu shivered deep inside me. Poor girl... she was younger than both Blake and I, but had experienced almost as much of the darkness as us. I couldn’t blame her for cowering now, not when she had been more deeply scarred than any of us.

Jozu slowly led me towards the transparent door, to which I halted, walking no further. He turned to me. His grim expression sliced deep into my flesh. Colour drained from the world around us, plummeting us into pure white until only Jozu’s face remained. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to say anything. I knew this was it. We’d probably never see each other, again. Whatever was about to happen was momentous and beyond his control. It was then that I suddenly felt the weight of the situation on my shoulders. It was then that I began to fear for my life.

‘Doctor Conesus Jozu, shuld yu en halt any longer, yu en will be removed from yur en position and condemmed to the no Facility Act 2559, no lawful act 129’ a rather elated voice announced. I suddenly became aware of the tall room we resided in and looked up. The room was circular and looked like it was part of a tower. The cream walls were immaculate and only broken by the large panes of glass approximately three metres up. Further worry struck my soul as I saw staff of the asylum stand expectantly on the other side of the glass.

‘I en can’t proceed’ Jozu announced, his voice loud enough to ricochet off the curved walls.

There was a pause.

‘Then yu en are to be ejected from yur en occupation and subjected to the no removal programme’ the voice continued, with a particular posh air of authority to it.

‘If that’s to be my en fate, so be it,’ Jozu retorted, ‘It was all rirht until no oppen began. I en don’t want to be a part of this programme if it means the decay of life. I’m en no murderer.’

‘You won’t make it’ Blake whispered in my ear.

I ignored him and took a fearful step back.

‘Take no Dr. Jozu to be downgraded’ the cold voice demanded, echoing through speaker around the room.

‘Just so yu en know, I en take no joy in-’

As Dr. Jozu was gagged and taken off by two others in long grey coats, I couldn’t help but feel terribly responsible for his dismissal. I was thankful that he would do so much for me in all these years, but it wasn’t like I was family to him.

My gut sank. I was alone. This was it. I sharply spun around and rocketed to the automatic doors to the facility room. This was great! For the first time in several years, I felt alive! No one would dare stop me. I would keep running and running un-

A figured dressed in a black suit darted out in front of me. The sharp sound of crackling shot through my eardrums before the needles of lightning swiftly followed. I slammed to the waxed floor and gasped from the searing pain which throbbed from my stomach.

The same crackle alerted my eyes to open. Blue static flashed in between two vertical pipes. Steam rose from the top of the metal device, which resembled one of those tuning forks I had read about in old picture books.

My gaze soon turned to the rather calm face of the attacker, causing me to roll away and try to stand.

‘I en wuld not advise it’ he suggested, his voice mimicking the one from within the room. I felt a sharp blow to my face and roared with pain. As I was rearing from what felt like a furry but solid fist, I felt myself lifted from the floor and into pushed against the cool wall. Despite the pain, the sensations felt delicious; coolness washed across my face and awakening me as a bucket of icy water might, the pain felt like electric, pulsing my body with feeling. I felt alive.

‘Volts triggered by evaporated no steem and static no friction. Volts to punish yur en no body into submission. Yet, no volts cannot kill yu en’ His voice was smooth, but his tone was menacing.

I stared at him for a moment, deciding what to do from here. Dark shades covered his eyes and the lower half of his rocky face seemed to remain unchanged from neutrality. No smile, yet no frown. The more I glared at him, the more confused I was. He didn’t look like he even belonged directly to the asylum, not even to the scientists who did experimentation. His suit was a deep, yet dirty, red with what appeared to be a black, tieless shirt. Beyond his rather simple appearance, however, was something that shook me more than his weapon ever could. He had fur. Short but straight leather-coloured fur spread across his face and fists. A long muzzle sprouted from his face, rather like... like a dog, if I remembered my picture books correctly. I knew very little of the world, if at all, thanks to my confinement. For all my life I wanted to escape and I had often wondered what kind of people would exist in the world, but I had never thought of other races beyond myself existing.

‘I en am tellen yu en this so that you en know that no oppen will not kill yu en. This operation is for no Malka’s sake, not yurs en. Eyther yu position yurself en into the no masheen, or I en will force yur en insane self in there.’

If he wanted to threaten me, why didn’t he just-

A jolt shook my body, causing my arms to flail uncontrollably for what felt like several minutes, before finally feeling my back slam against the grated flooring. I felt my eyes scrunch up for a moment, waiting for the pain to die down. It was brilliant, yet at the same time deeply distressing. I then started to relax as I felt Blake take the front seat of my mind - our mind.

I watched through hazy eyes, Blake’s vision, the transparent door clamp shut in front of me, in front of us. I was trapped in the middle of this machine, we were trapped. I felt my feet take several steps towards the door, before delivering a sharp kick to the transparent material.

The door didn’t even wobble.

‘So yu en are no Aliza Legion. I en shuld not be surprised by that display of disobediensall, althurh I en had hoped yu en wuld have grown comfortably accustom to no Land’s End Asylum. It is, after all, yur en home-’

‘How fucking dare you!’ Blake retorted, his voice flowing out of my mouth, ‘Can’t you tell when I’ve fronted?’

‘I was kind of hoping you’d tell him how we don’t see this as a true home, Blake,’ I metaphorically grimaced.

‘You may not, but I do’ Blake snorted.

‘Oh, that is correct. Yu en have Multiple Personality Disorder, which is wine yu en were even subjected to this no asylum, in the first instansall.’

‘Don’t patronise me. I’m not a naive idiot who doesn’t know that the world thinks him mad, or rather her since I’m in a female body, because he has three people sharing one form. Don’t you dare act as if I’m as thick as fuck.’

‘You’re feisty, today.’

‘Shut up.’

Instead of responding in a negative manner, the attacker simply saluted. Several seconds thereafter, a majestic figure strode into sight.

‘Am I en to assume that this ful-muthed fuck is the one who has no multiplicity?’ she sneered, clearly looking down her nose at us, at me.

Her hair was immensely long, from what Blake’s hazy vision showed; looking more like a matted, curled blonde rug than anything natural. Blake seemed uninterested that she, too, also had fur where human skin should have been, this time long and ginger. Her nose was small and positioned at the end of a much shorter muzzle than her accomplice. Whiskers accompanied her features.

‘Multiplicity, indeed, no Malka. The no girl is the one to be no opped.’

‘The no woman, Vero. She en is twenty-three. Well, I’m en watchen!’ she snapped. Her tone was very much the opposite to that of her accomplice’s, yet she appeared to be the one in power.

The attacker, known as Vero, silently walked out of view. A shattering clank erupted around the machine, causing Blake to turn his head to the small snake-like pipes that wriggled within. The whirring of energy began to crescendo, booming and surrounding us with a cacophony of sound. Steam sizzled out from the deadly pipes. Blake took a step away from them.

Then everything began to change.

Blake slid away from his control of the body, causing me to rush to the front and keep control. It was very unlike Blake to even back down from something that would cause an ordinary person fear. Rizumu had been inactive, in her offline sleep mode, since walking out of our cell. It was just me.

My vision blurred, horribly. Muscles aching, skin sweating, hearing dampened. The world vibrated so viciously that I began to feel terribly ill. It was as if the world was vibrating apart, into segments. I fell face-first to the floor, the grating stinging my face with hot steam. I... just couldn’t stand up – my energy had been sapped. Breathing became difficult in the heated moisture, heavy and wheezed.

Then a crackle. My ears pricked up at this, distinguishing it from the rest of the eruption. As I took my next breath in, electricity whisked through my body, zapping restored life into it, yet at the same time causing despaired agony. This must have been what Vero truly meant when he talked of the volts so fondly... what an arsehole! Anger seized my stomach, yet dissipated as soon as it formed. Replacing it was the same fear I felt when I looked into Jozu’s eyes. My last thoughts were clung to Jozu before I felt myself slip away from reality.

And then an explosion.

The vibrations ceased, immediately. As they did, my world came tumbling back and the cruel reality restored. Crackling. Meaningless shouting came from outside the machine. I didn’t care about them. They were the ones who had caused this pain to me... and all my life, too. They were the ones that took Jozu away from me when he showed remorse. They were the ones who ruined my life. I swear by Darkness, that I’ll ruin theirs, too! Crackling.

Spurred on by my reawakened anger, I lifted my weary body up with a shaky step. Two things immediately splashed my face, at that moment. The first was something acrid, burning and intoxicating; smoke. Crackling. As my hearing cleared to its regular decibel capacity, the crackling began entirely apparent that it was fire. Heat began to seep into my skin and bright colours flared around my vision. Flames blazed around me.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ I echoed in my head. There came no response. ‘Blake?’ No answer. ‘Rizumu?’ No reply.

‘Jozu?’ I whispered. Nothing.

I was absolutely alone.

Panic froze my body to the spot. What was happening? This couldn’t be true! Blake had been like a brother to me. He had been with me my entire life. He had been with me my entire life. I began to breathe faster, soon replaced by coughing violently. I felt lost. Where was Rizumu? She was my little sister. She had only been with Blake and I since we were seventeen, but I felt a horrid sense of loss without her innocent nature with us.

That was when the second thing splashed my face. A bitter breeze bit my cheeks and caused my body to shiver. Breeze? Without looking up, I coughed into my hand and ran through the bellowing smoke, towards the breeze’s location.

A gaping window looked out upon the outside world. The sea. Lashing against the huge cliffs that curved around the building was the sea. The Dark sea. I couldn’t comprehend everything. This was far, far too much. I looked back at the inferno and then out to the waves. This wasn’t just a window. This was a gaping hole to freedom.

Fresh smells of salt purified my eyes, yet barricaded my nostrils. After a couple of watery sniffs, I felt water trickle down my nose. I simply stared out through the “window” as the water tickled my lips before hanging at the bottom of my chin. I blinked. The clear picture was replaced by a hazy representation. With worried thoughts invading my mind, I fell to my knees and I cried.

A warm sensation pressed against my right shoulder blade. If it was the returning Malka or Vero, then let them take me. This was my first chance to truly escape and yet I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

‘What’s the point of escaping if you’re not here to escape with?’ I thought, sobbing.

The presence didn’t leave. Looking up, I saw a blurred white face. Uncertain, I wiped my eyes on my similarly white sleeve.

The anthropomorphic being smiled. I found myself gazing deep into his icy blue eyes, finding them full of surprising warmth. His muzzle was long and his black nose large. He simply looked into my own eyes and smiled for a moment. Without saying anything, he took a step back and held out his paw. I stared at it, having seen nothing quite like it, before. Three large fingers with four small claws replaced where an ordinary hand’s slender sticks and nails would have been. Black pads sat at his finger tips, whilst a large one sat in the palm of his hand.

My eyes ran up his arm and up the long sleeve of his blue coat. The coat’s tail flapped gently in the cool breeze, revealing what appeared to be a fluffy white tail. The coat was unbuttoned, but the buttons themselves were of intricate gold design.

An immense whirring sound shook me from my examination. A siren. I wiped my eyes, once more, as a booming announcement soared through the facility.

‘All personnel to the no opsole masheen! There has been critical damage to the devisall.’

My head spun around, looking for Vero and Malka. I couldn’t spot Vero amongst the fire and smoke, but I did find Malka unconscious near to wear the wall’s hole was. She deserved to remain here for all of the pain and punishment I had been put through.

I grabbed a hold of the stranger’s paw and he swiftly lifted me to my feet.

‘Aukaneck Wolfe’ he announced, his voice husky yet clearly understandable.

‘Aliza Legion.’

Without a second’s thought, we ran out of the hole and into the unknown of the world, away from the asylum and finally free.