Guardians of the Dark

Kasen wrapped his hands around the chair’s armrests. He squeezed down, crunched down, scratching at the wood with his nails. Their bluntness made it all the more difficult, all the more painful. He scraped his teeth together, unable to think of anything to say. His father lay before him, helpless, asleep, and all he recalled was that night at the dinner table – the look on his father’s face when he told him he’d been selected as a Guardian.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The monitor sketched his father’s heartbeat across the screen. Steady. Healthy. And yet, he lay with a tube protruding from his mouth, and several pipes across his body, pumping fluids in and out of him. A blanket covered his lower half, but Kasen had noticed the catheter bag the moment he walked in. The man who lay before him no longer resembled General Bentley Traynor, the best Gatherer the Metropolis of Light has ever seen.

“I’m sorry, dad,” he whispered after a while. His voice cracked, and he was forced to clear his throat, to steady his breath.

Beep. Beep.

Kasen glanced at the door. It stood wide open, revealing an empty corridor. He dragged his chair closer to the bed, to his father’s head. He sat in silence for a second, but when his mind wouldn’t stop buzzing – faster and louder each moment – he went on, “I’m sorry I didn’t become the son you always wanted. The son you once were.”

Beep. Beep.

“And I know we didn’t exactly leave things on the best note …” Kasen swallowed. His legs itched to jump up and run off, but his mind, his conscience, told him, ordered him, to stay. He strengthened his grip on the chair. So much so that his fingers ripped through the plastic, right into the layer of sponge underneath.

“I just wanted you to know, well … I don’t blame you for leaving Samael in the Dark. I mean, I do, but he’s …” A pause. Another swallow. “No, I do blame you. If you had given him a chance … If you had taught him between wrong and right …” Kasen studied his father’s face, his expression of peace and innocence.

It didn’t fit him at all.

Beep. Beep.

Kasen slid to the edge of the chair and grabbed at the sheets. “You made him into the monster he is today! He probably suffered all kinds of horror out there!” He shook the bed. “You made me hate my own brother!”

A single tear rolled across his cheek, startling him. He wiped it away, quickly, then jumped up and paced to the window. He tossed his head back and shut his eyes, swallowing any more tears that spooled in the corners.

“You never really saw me,” he said after a moment, “and I never really saw you.”

Beep. Beep.

“Everyone always talked about General Bentley Traynor, the greatest Gatherer ever. They considered me lucky for being your son, and pitied me for not reaching your standards.” Kasen returned to his father’s side. He put his hands in his pockets this time, stopping himself from lashing out. “The thing is, I never knew the Great General. I only knew Bentley Traynor, my dad. Not even a dad, but a judge of my every move.”

Kasen shrugged. “I don’t know why Clay sacrificed his life for you. But he did, so you must be something after all.”

Beep. Beep.

Whoooooooooooooooooooo ...

Kasen jerked. The noise came from the window, from outside in the street. He ran toward it and pushed it open. Bullhorns from all across the city shrieked in unison, and he knew what it meant. It was the emergency alarm, the evacuation alarm. A single, continuous ring. The signal for when the city was under attack.

The streets were flooded with people, some stuck in railway pod jams, and others on foot, screaming and cursing to themselves. Monitors marched around with megaphones – “KEEP CALM! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PLEASE PROCEED TO THE NEAREST EMERGENCY POINT!” – but barely anyone listened to them.

“What’s going on?” Kasen gazed to the closest Collection Point, the Eastern Collection Point. It blazed with sparks, with firepower, and AOL railway pods from all over made toward it. Some were headed elsewhere, to the Northern Collection Point. It lay quite a distance off, but gunshots echoed on the horizon, followed by flashes and flares.

Beep. Beep.

The monitor just continued, unhindered.

Kasen shut the window to stifle the noise. He spun, then made across the room to the projection pad on the wall.

“Projection pad, on. Channel 5, news.”

The projection pad took a moment, but obeyed his orders. It was already on the news, showing an on-the-move clip of the action at the Eastern Collection Point. Its gate stood open to the top, raised so that Gatherers could hasten in and out, battling against a mob of Roamers. There were so many of them, all hungry for flesh and blood. The reporter continuously spoke, but one could hardly hear a thing above the gunfire.

Kasen chewed the skin off his bottom lip, surveying the battlefield. Since guns of any kind were against the law in the Metropolis of Light, the situation, the attack, must’ve proved most dire for them to raid the emergency stockpile. And even that proved unsuccessful, since the AOL weren’t trained in firearms. He read the headline, “BREAKING NEWS: HUNDREDS OF ROAMERS FLOCK UPON THE NORTHERN- AND EASTERN COLLECTION POINTS. SITUATION CRITICAL, BUT SOON TO BE CONTAINED.”

“Soon to be contained?” Kasen scoffed. He muted the projection pad, then called Felix on his transmission band. He didn’t pick up the first time around, but sounded heavily out of breath when he did on the second.

“Kasen,” he said as if surprised to hear from him, “where are you right now?”

“I’m at the Metropolis of Light Hospital. What’s going on?”

“Something prompted a hoard of Roamers to attack the city. The Emperor’s dispatched all units up until Officer ranking to serve as reinforcements. All units, that is, except for you guys. You must get to the beam, now.”

“But, what about the meeting? Isn’t it cancelled?”

“No, not for the Commanders and Senior Officers. I tried to reason with Felicity, but she reckons the Roamers ought to be contained within the hour.” Felix huffed into the microphone. “I’m on my way to the theatre conference room right now. Maybe I can persuade Emperor Hamman to postpone. Just get here, Kasen!”

Felix cut off.

“Damn it!” Kasen wielded his fists. He grabbed his jacket off the chair, looked at his sleeping father a final time, then burst into the corridor. It buzzed with medical staff, wheeling patients on beds and in wheelchairs to the elevator. He stood aside for a pregnant lady, heaving and clutching her belly, with a nurse by her arm.

“Excuse me, but where’s everyone going?” he asked, following behind them.

The nurse said, “Procedure calls for all patients to be transferred to the emergency bunker under the hospital.”

“Shouldn’t someone get my father, then?”

“I’m sure someone will. What’s your father’s surname?” The nurse held on to the pregnant lady with one hand, and unhooked the tablet on her belt with the other. She made to type in his answer, when she looked up at him – at his Guardian emblem, and the nametag under it – and her motion stalled. “Oh, Mr. Traynor –”

“Will someone please tend to my dad?” he repeated, surprisingly persistent.

“Y – Yes, of course,” the nurse assured him, stopping by the elevator. “The General will be transported right away.”

“Thank you.” Kasen didn’t linger any longer. He wormed through the crowd to the stairway, then downed three flights of stairs to the lobby, where he skidded to a stop. His eyes widened, and he cursed under his breath.

A wall of medical and administration staff stood with their backs to him, keeping a crowd – more like a swarm – of people at bay. They piled through the lobby doors, one after the other, each demanding a place in the bunker. The street was no longer visible through the windows, so many people crammed in the space.

“Please, calm down! I promise, there’s enough space for everyone in the bunker!” shouted one of the doctors. “According to protocol, patients are to be transferred first! If you could only wait in peace for a bit –”

“We might not live to wait in peace, bozo!” shouted one of the frontrunning civilians, a businessman in a dirtied suit.

Kasen skimmed the crowd for any Monitors. He spotted a couple by the doors, battling to make it through, but none in front. And the wall of staff looked as though they might give in at any second. The civilians were too strong, too persistent, to be successfully held back. Someone had to do something, and quickly.

“Hey, you!” called one of the staff. She looked over her shoulder at Kasen. “You’re with the AOL, right?”

Kasen followed her eyes down his body, down his uniform. He gulped and nodded. “Yes, but I’m not a Monitor.”

“It doesn’t matter,” hissed the woman through her teeth. “We need someone with proper training to take authority.” She swivelled around to face Kasen, but, as she did so, one of the civilians squeezed past her.

Kasen reacted almost automatically. He charged at the man, grabbed him by the arm, and tossed him back into the crowd. The woman chuckled in thanks, but it sounded more like she was coughing than anything else. She gestured to the front desk by their side, and motioned with her eyes for him to climb on top.

“Go already! They’re too strong!” she shouted.

Kasen slipped on his jacket – just to complete his uniform – and walked over to the desk. He clambered on top, but didn’t stand up right away. Who was he kidding? Not only was he a recruit, but a Guardian at that. He barely had any training at all, and the last time they went out in the field, he just watched a bunch of medics examine a corpse. Not exactly what one called adequate preparation for an angry mob …

“Kid! What are you doing?” The woman snapped him out of it, and he stood.

Some of the crowd fell back when they saw him, while others barely paid attention. He felt compelled to clear his throat, but reckoned no one would hear him above the noise, so he banged his foot on the table.

“Hey!” he shouted.

“Hey yourself, kid!” replied the businessman.

Kasen hollowed his mouth. “The doctor told you to calm down! You’ll all gain access to the bunker after they’ve transferred the patients!” He bit his tongue once he finished. His voice wasn’t a match for his father’s.

“Look, there! At his jacket!” cried a woman from the back.

“Yea, he’s a Guardian!” added another.

The crowd started up again.

“Go make yourself heard somewhere else, you worthless piece of scum! You might wear the AOL jacket, but you carry no authority with us in this city, you hear?” shouted the businessman, much to the crowd’s agreement.

Kasen tried to keep it together, but something inside him snapped. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, his every muscle tingling with heat, with anger. They still hurt from their session in the Dark room the other day, but he couldn’t calm himself. How dare he, a stranger, a civilian, speak to him like that? Guardians might not be the flashiest of positions, but if only he knew what they dealt with every day.

The pain.

The loss.

The oppression.

Kasen watched the businessman shove one of the doctors, a woman, against the chest. He squatted, let out a beastly type of roar, and leapt off the desk, right onto his back. The crowd at once parted, igniting with screams.

“You’re as mad as the rest of them!” wailed the businessman. “Corrupted, that’s what you are! You belong in the Dark!”

“Shut up!” Kasen roared. He wrapped his hands around the businessman’s neck, just about to snap it around, when –

The lights went out.

Another alarm, separate from the one outside, went off. Its pitch was much higher, and its blares half a second apart. The crowd, terrified, retreated to the lobby doors, but they at once slid shut, locking everyone inside. A series of metal blinds descended from the ceiling, covering up every window in the hospital. The outermost people banged against the blinds, but it was no use. They were all stuck in the dark.

“Don’t worry,” advised one of the doctors, “the emergency lights will go on any moment. Give it a few minutes.”

The crowd, surprisingly enough, stilled. They stood like that for half a minute, in which Kasen fought his way to the side. He couldn’t breathe in the centre of so many people, especially now that he couldn’t see anything either. A breath escaped his lips when he reached the side. He fell against the blinds, basking at the cold metal against his skin. He shut his eyes and stayed like this, waiting for the emergency lights.

But before they went on –

Slash.

A gasp.

A thump.

Slash.

Another thump.

A woman shrieked, “No, he’s dead! My husband’s dead!” She let out a wail, but before she could finish –

Slash.

“Someone’s here! In the shadows!” One of the men, on the opposite side of the lobby, burst into a frenzy of pushing and shoving. His allegations stirred up the entire crowd, even more than before, and they bulldozed right through the wall of doctors. A couple of them got trampled – Kasen heard them gasping for breath.

Slash.

Slash.

Slash.

The attack continued. A person from way down the corridor collapsed, followed by one at the lobby doors. The man was right. Someone did lurk in the shadows, but it was more than just one. It was an entire team.

Kasen undid his belt, trembling right into his fingers. He doubled it over as a weapon, then blinked in the dark. Nothing. His head followed the sounds of people gasping and blades slashing across cloth, across flesh.

Footsteps padded past him, way too silent for a civilian.

“Theon,” someone hissed, “stop it!”

“Relax, Sammy boy, I’m just having some fun.”

Kasen started, as the voice had come from directly next to him. Not directly, but several feet to his left by the doors. His body flooded with adrenaline. His sight would likely have blurred if he could see, but his hearing remained unchanged. He stifled his breathing, although not entirely voluntary, and pounced, whipping crosswise.

The belt lashed against the person’s back. He roared in pain, then reacted too quickly for Kasen to comprehend.

A knife jabbed at him, nicking the side of his neck.

Kasen yelped aloud. He nearly dropped his belt when he reached for the wound, and decided on lowering to the ground instead, gnawing his lip. The person jabbed at him again, and cursed when his blade met nothing but air.

“Blast!” the person growled. “Why can’t we see in the dark?”

“Because it’s not the same, idiot,” hissed another person – the one who had begged him to stop earlier, Sammy boy.

“Who’re you calling an idiot?”

So, they were from the Dark … Kasen crawled to the wall, keeping to his stomach. Did they enter through the gates at the Collection Points? Surely someone would’ve noticed? Even so, what were they doing at the hospital?

Kasen gripped down on his belt. It crunched between his fingers, and his heart jolted. The person he had lashed spun on their heels and stomped toward him. He made to get away, but the person kicked him in the stomach. He spat on the ground, at a loss for words, for pleads. Just huffs and gurgles escaped his lips.

“Who are you?” the person demanded to know. “I want to know the name of the fool who lashed me from behind!”

Kasen didn’t even try to answer. He looped his belt around the person’s right foot, then pulled it out from under him. The person fell on their back, rattling the floors and walls. Kasen gathered every ounce of strength he had left, scraped to his feet, and ran down the corridor after the sound of civilians in distress. His shoes squeaked across the tiles, and he slid on what he reckoned was blood, but kept on going until he reached a supply closet.

Before he yanked it open, the emergency lights went on. A vague, red light cast over the corridor, just bright enough for him to see a figure, tall and slim, running toward him. The figure pushed him to the ground.

“Stay down, Kasen,” they whispered with their elbow to his throat. “This isn’t your fight. You don’t have to die.”

Then, the figure stood and set off up the stairs. A couple more figures surged down the corridor, but paid little attention to Kasen on the floor. He waited until they had turned the corner at the end, before he got up.

“Dad,” he said to himself, and raced up the stairs. Why didn’t he realise it before? They were here to finish him off …

Kasen ran as fast as he could. His stomach hurt, his breathing stung, and his cheek seared, but he surged on, carried by the power of fear. His father’s room was dark, lit only by the vague, red light, and the window beside his bed. The metal blinds had retracted, and the doors had unlocked when the emergency lights came on.

A breath of relief escaped his lips.

The room was empty, save for his father. The monitor still beeped, breaking the otherwise eerie silence. Why hadn’t any of the staff taken him to the bunker yet? As the AOL’s General, he should’ve been a priority.

Kasen walked to his father’s side. He leaned over, supporting himself on the bed as he breathed, as he heaved. He listened to the crowds outside, and the ever-shrieking alarm. The city wasn’t prepared for this at all. He took a moment to recollect his thoughts. He breathed in, out, in, out. If there were Raiders from the Dark in the hospital, they were bound to come across his father’s room sooner or later. Like the person who had pushed him to the ground. He had gone up the stairs, and might be searching all the floors. He might –

Something shifted in the corner.

Kasen gulped. Of course. He straightened out, stayed as still as he could, and spun around the moment the other person struck at him, grasping their wrist. They had a glass cup in their hand, ready to bash him with it.

Kasen looked from the cup, to the person’s hand, to their face, right into their eyes. His stomach plummeted.

“S – Samael?” he stuttered.

“I told you to stay down, Kasen.”