13/13/13

ASCII Snapped His Neck

68-68/97/121?...110/101/118/101/114 104/101/97/114/100 111/102 105/116

Tyrone’s apartment, 13/13/13

Alax gave a small thanks to the Creator for how sound of a sleeper Tyrone was. An hour before midnight yesterday, Sky had taken a still-sleeping Tyrone out of his room and, as quickly as she could without waking him, took him to the hidden bunker near the apartment.

The bunker once belonged to a reclusive, cold-war survivalist nut that spent his life savings building it during the fifties… only to trip and break his neck the first day living inside it.

Alax learned about the bunker and moved into the apartment next to it. After locating the bunker, Alax disposed of the body and refurbished is as a panic room for an emergency just like this.

Once he took care of some last minute preparations in the apartment, Alax would go and join his family in the bunker.

He couldn’t help but look at the calendar again while doing this. ”The return of the 13th month. Why’d it have to happen in my lifetime?” He shook his head and got back to finishing up what he was doing. Once that was taken care of, he took one last forlorn look around the apartment where he and his wife had raised their child for 12 years.

Alax shook his head. ”Get a hold of yourself Alax! You don’t know what’ll happen today! Your just doing this as a safety precaution. Just go be with your family, wait out the day, and tomorrow, we’re back to normal.” Alax rationalized to himself in a desperate attempt at reassurance as he went to his apartment door and opened it.

Just in time to see his younger brother Alix about to knock on the other side. They both froze and stared at each other in disbelief.

Alix chuckled nervously. “Uh... hey bro? How are-

SLAM!

Suddenly, Alix found himself slammed against the wall, an elbow pressed against his windpipe, and his brothers hateful glare boring into him.

“Sadly enough, this is actually going better than I thought it would.” Admitted a melancholy Alix to himself as Alax angrily demanded why he was there.

...Meanwhile...

“Mind explaining to me why we’re spending the whole day in this bunker? And when did we even get a bunker in the first place?” Asked a confused Tyrone who’d just woken up a couple minutes ago.

“Your father heard a rumor of a possible terrorist attack in the precinct yesterday. As for the bunker, well, your father likes to moonlight as a survivalist, and buying him a bunker for his birthday was cheaper than a Plasma TV. So, here we are.” Says his mom, telling the story she and her husband had practiced to tell Tyrone when such a situation arose. She took great pride in the fact that she’d managed to fake the awkwardness in that last half so well.

Tyrone looked at her startled. “Are we in danger?” Asked Tyrone.

Sky gave out a well-practiced laugh. “Of course not! This is just your father going into ‘crazy-protective dad’ mode. We’ll be fine.”

Tyrone looked at her skeptically. “So then, why are we doing this?”

Sky just gave a well-rehearsed, sheepish smile. “Well, sweetie, this is just the crazy give and take of a married couple’s life. I indulge his need to be a ’Papa Wolf″, and I’ll get to buy some ‘who-knows what’ for the next time I feel like re-modeling the apartment.” She admits.

Tyrone just looks at her for a second and then he smiles. “Well, okay then. Hey, since there’s no danger, could we invite Red down here? She’ll love this place for the weirdness factor alone!” He says as innocently as possible.

Sky blanched at this, but unable to think of a reason not to, she concedes.

Tyrone smiles at this. Something fishy was going on, but with Red here, he was sure to find out what. More importantly, here in the bunker, she’d be safe from the ‘terrorist attack’ or whatever the skrag was really going down.

....Meanwhile....

Alax looked at the purple stone in Alix’s hand with concern. “And you found it like this after dad went to see me?” Asked Alax.

Alix nodded. “I don’t know what to make of it! I’ve looked through all the books in the library, but found nothing! Then I looked through all the fiction, still nothing. I even looked through the completely ludicrous section, yet still nothing. This is completely unprecedented!”

Alax groaned, an unprecedented anomaly in his family, that usually meant the skrag was about to hit the fan.

Alix sighed. “Look... I know me and Dad didn’t end things on the best of terms with you-”

“That’s putting it mildly.” Said Alax darkly.

Alix flinched “And the recent... incident with your kid didn’t-”

“Right, let me stop you right there.” Stated Alax flatly. “Look, just to summarize: Dad’s missing, you need another blood relative of his to do the triangulation spell to find him, but you can’t find Alex, so that just leaves me. Have I got it right?”

Alix nodded. For a while Alax just stood there, then he sighed. “Fine, but after this, you’re gone.” He stated flatly.

Alix smiled. “Thanks bro! I knew you wouldn’t let dad down!” He said happily.

Alax felt no need to correct him. He wasn’t doing this for dad. Any familial love he still had for his dad had died when he had nearly gotten Tyrone killed. He was doing this to get what information he could from these bizarre circumstances, without getting directly involved…for he was getting a really bad feeling about all this…

While Alix prepared for the ritual, Alax quickly called his wife.

Sky paled as she hung up the phone. She knew her husband was right. Alax’s father disappearing right before today, of all days. No, definitely not a good omen.

She then quickly checked over the Bunker’s defenses. Everything looked optimal, except-

She winced, the ‘Legacy charm’ was their most powerful defense. It was guaranteed to keep most anything out and would work through every situation. Provided, it was ONLY protecting the family of the person who set it up- in this case her husband.

She looked over to Tyrone who was busy exploring the bunker. Her husband had called her before she could call Red, and now...

“Red, Tyrone, forgive me. But I have to put my family first.”

She frowned. Tyrone was a bright kid, she’d have to be clever about this.

Tryone frowned as his mother suddenly climbed up the shelves next to him. “Uh, mom? What are you doing?”

Sky tried to slap a stepford smile on her face as she made sure Tyrone was directly underneath.

“Wouldn’t you know it? The Bunker is interfering with my phone’s signal. I’ll need to get higher to get a better- OOPS!

Shouted Sky as she ‘accidentally’ knocked a can of paint onto her son.

....

“Don’t you have other clothes I can use? And why do you have a Leopard-skin loincloth down here anyway?” Asked an irritable and now nearly naked Tyrone.

“Uh, it’s not ours. It belonged to the person who owned the bunker before us.” Said Sky with a shudder. It really said something about a person when their rotting corpse wasn’t the most disturbing thing you found in their bunker.

“As for your other clothes, I’m sorry sweetie, but I guess there was a mix-up. They’re not here.” Lied Sky seamlessly.

“Now about Red,” Said Sky, quickly changing the subject. “I know you wanted to invite her over but-”

Tyrone flustered. “Yeah, no, never mind.” Sky nodded and offered to make him his favorite lunch.

Tyrone nodded, but skeptically watched his mom walk away. ”She couldn’t have done this deliberately... could she? No, come on. What, am I thinking? My mom would have to be a total creep to do that.”

Meanwhile, now that her panic had worn off, what she had just done fully sank in. ”Wow. I am a total creep. Seriously, what is wrong with me? I’m his mother for crying out loud! No. You did it for your family. But maybe I should give him triple his usual lunch portion, and that second computer he’s been wanting for his birthday.” Rationalized the now very ashamed mother.

Alax looked at the clock. It was nearly noon. He wondered again if he should’ve let Alix do this ritual in the saftey in the bunker, but once more he shook his head.

There was no way he’d be able to keep this secret from Tyrone if he did that. More importantly, he didn’t know what was going to happen with this. There was no way he was going to risk his family’s life so needlessly.

With the last ingredient added to the mix, the brothers pricked their fingers and let a few drops of blood hit the table around the concoction. Then they began the incantation.

It had been years since Alax had done an incantation of such power. The feeling was still as intoxicating as ever.

Alax felt like he was connected to a great big, never-ending ocean of unfathomable power. He felt the essence of his being coaxing a single strand of its energy. He felt that energy molded by his words, his actions, his feelings, his thoughts. Finally, he felt it being used to make the universe. Just for a second, forget that the certain rules that sustain the universe’s infrastructure existed, if only for a few seconds, and for only this one small corner of his apartment.

The few drops of blood grew and spread, turning into a rune wheel that encircled the bowl containing the mixture. Then, it began to glow.

Mist began to flow from the bowl and hover above it. The mist began to form a picture. A picture of...

Neo-Corp? Thought Alax right before the bowl exploded...

....

When the power briefly went out and the bunker shook, there was only one thing on Tyrone’s mind: RED!

Sky, knocked to the ground by a collapsing shelf, was unable to stop Tyrone before he successfully fled the bunker and began to run back to the apartment building.

SMASH!

“GAH! Slow down, yah maniac!” Shouted Major Whiskey as Tyrone nearly knocked over his wheelchair in his rush to get back to the apartment building.

The WWII Veteran glared as Tyrone kept running without so much as an apology. The boy was focused like a man possessed.

Major Whisky just shook his head. “Kids today, no respect. And now even Alax’s boy is losing it.” Says Major Whiskey out loud.

He glared at the stumps that once held the legs that carried him through D-day.

“CURSE YOU JERRIES! MESSING WITH OUR YOUTH WITH YOUR DAG-BLASTED PROPOGANDA MACHINE! IS THERE NO LOW YOU WON’T SINK TO WIN THIS WAR!?!” Screamed the semi-senile, bald, old man as he wheeled himself into a nearby subway entrance.

Alax cursed at the damage caused to the apartment as he tried to regain his bearings.

“Okay, think through this... Last thing you remember? ...Something called... called Neo-corp! Yeah... and... there was a magic power surge... indicating a trap meant for people trying to locate that place.”

Suddenly, his phone rang. He answered it, and paled as his frantic wife explained what had happened.

Alax scowled. ”The power surge must have been really wide-spread. It must have reacted badly to the array of ruins in the Bunker.”

“I’m just about to push this shelf off me. Should I go-” “NO!” Interrupted Alax. “Just stay put! I’ll get Tyrone!”

Not even pausing to give his groaning younger brother a second thought, he immediately ran out to Red’s place.

He’d just gotten to her floor when the clock struck 12. He froze stiff from the mother of all bad vibes.

The unknown dread paralyzing him was quickly overcome by the far greater fear of his son being caught up in this, out in the open. He focused on getting to Tyrone to the exclusion of all else-

CRACK!

-Which is mainly why he never saw what hit him.