Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (20 page)

Garrett cried during his first time and Elish was catatonic… me? I think I cried from happiness.

Soon, sooner than Nero would have liked but they
were
hundreds of feet up in the air, he felt the tension gathering in his groin. He picked up the sound of his moans to give Ceph the hint he was close and saw the chimera teen’s hand start to pick up its momentum. With another minute of heavy fucking and a chorus of loud groans Nero came inside of him and just moments later he heard Ceph’s groans move to a higher octave.

The young man’s body tensed up, Nero reached down to finish him off and Ceph quickly grabbed a rag they always kept in arm’s reach. With a few rapid strokes, thick spurts of cum started to shoot onto the rag.

Nero leaned his head against the back of Ceph’s neck, heavily panting into the chimera teen as Ceph himself tried to catch his breath. After giving themselves a few moments for recovery Nero separated their bodies.

“There, now shut up and fly the plane.” Nero grabbed the cum soaked rag. He folded it to find a non cummed-on spot and started drying himself off. He tossed the rag to Ceph as he pulled up his pants and sat down.

Ceph had a grin on him a mile wide. He sat back on the plane and gave out a loud embellished sigh. “Thanks, bruddah, there’s a bit of charm in a quickie so high up in the air. How close are we to Sharky’s house?”

Sharky… I’ll have to remember that one.
“He’s way near the plaguelands, we have a few more hours to go. I might take a nap.” Nero yawned and put his feet back up again, soon the sounds of flint were heard and blue-embers erupting from both of their mouths. “He’ll be thrilled as shit to see me. Little bugger liked me a lot once he trusted us.”

“Sounds like a cute thing, is he all calm and zen like Jack?” Ceph asked.

“Nah, he’s a little shit just like you were. Silas says he’s the first stealth chimera as he calls them. Long, wiry, silent as all hell and sneaky as fuck. If this boy survives the greywastes Silas says his little stealth experiment was a success but I dunno… I think it’s bullshit. You can be all quick-witted and stealthy as you want but it only takes one asshole to decide he wants to fuck with a kid. Si-guy won’t listen to me though because he doesn’t give a shit. We can make another Sanguine he keeps saying, we can clone him all exact but I don’t know… I liked the kid, not a clone of the kid.”

When Nero looked at Ceph he saw the hints of a smirk on his face. Nero glared at him and pointed his cigarette at him. “You got something to say?”

“Nothing new, just the same shit Garrett and Ellis always say when you’re not around. We just find it adorable you love your little brothers so much. You’re so protective of all of them.”

“Bah, don’t give me that… it’s just… I dunno. I guess…” Nero shrugged. “Kids are different than adults, they don’t BS you until they get older and I like it. Plus Ellis, Elish, Garrett, and me had to raise all you second gen assholes and you do grow attached to ‘em.”

Ceph remained silent which was probably the best considering Nero still had a short temper on him, especially when some of his weaknesses were being pointed out. The subject changed not soon after and several hours later Nero was pointing out the little grey blur that was Sanguine’s house.

“Well it hasn’t burned down… that’s what I was worried about the most,” Nero said through the cigarette being pinched between his teeth. “I bet right about now he’s wondering what the fuck is going on. Lower the Falconer, bro, just don’t look at him funny he’s a bit sensitive to how he looks, he’s a little girl like that.”

Ceph laughed and soon Nero could feel the odd pull on his body as the plane descended down onto the greywaste ground.

Nero couldn’t help the excitement he was feeling. He quickly got up as soon as the plane touched down and opened the door.

Well, he didn’t come out to greet them but maybe that was good. It wasn’t like Sanguine would be expecting Nero to come via plane. He was probably terrified and hiding in his bedroom with piss running down his leg.

A flow of cigarette smoke came out of his mouth and disappeared into the air. He looked around the two-storey house, empty and dark, and took a step towards it.

“Sanguine? It’s Nero, come out you little cocksucker, I have shit for you,” Nero called. He dashed his cigarette and started walking down the faint trail leading to the porch. Though as he walked past the half-fallen fence and the sparse tuffs of yellow grass he started feeling a small spur of nervousness dig into his chest.

Ceph was behind him, Nero didn’t even realize he had stopped walking towards the entrance. He had frozen in place as his eyes fixed on the door.

It was partially open… with a small dune of greyash piling up in the entrance.

“Nero… are… are you sure this is the house? It doesn’t look like anyone has been here for years,” Ceph said in a dropped tone, a tone that eased the words gently as if afraid of what impact they might have.

The spur dug in further. Wordlessly Nero walked up the steps and opened the door.

Everything looks… normal.

“It doesn’t look like there was any sign of a struggle… maybe he just left? Greywasters wander, right? Maybe the well dried up or…” Ceph stopped talking as soon as Nero raised his hand. The black-haired chimera’s brow knitted as he looked over every inch of the kitchen before walking into the living room.

Though Nero prided himself on being the picture of brute masculinity, which included steering away from any emotions, he felt a sting inside of his heart when he saw an unfinished crayon drawing on a dusty table. He picked it up and looked at it.

A picture of a giant spider and two people?

No.
Nero felt a tightness in his chest.

That was a celldweller and the other two are me and him… little fucker gave himself red eyes and me purple with blue coloured on top.

He folded the piece of paper and put it in his jacket.

When his eyes fell on the next thing his heart dropped.

It was an entire box of tact crackers…

And there were only about five missing from the box of twenty-four.

“I – I don’t think he just took off…” Nero’s throat felt dry, he tried to swallow it down but felt himself reaching into his jacket pocket for his flask of vodka. He took a long drink and turned around to find Ceph.

The mood had been light and happy on the plane, and now the tension was so thick in this house it could be cut with a dull knife. Nero spotted Ceph looking into the bedroom and he realized then the boy could very well have died in one of those rooms.

“No smell though,” he said answering his own thoughts out loud. “Though it has been three years… we would still smell something if he had died.”

Ceph nodded and looked in the second bedroom. “The covers are messed up but no one has died here or even been here. I’m sure he just–”

“No one travelling would leave nineteen tact crackers behind,” Nero said dully and promptly took another drink. “And he would’ve brought his books… wait…”

Nero walked back to the box of tact crackers and pulled one out. He checked the
created on
date.

An angry and frustrated bellow flew from Nero’s lips as he read the date. Unable to hold his emotions back any longer he tossed the package against the wall and kicked the box.

“Those fucking tact bars were made the fucking same winter we brought him here,” Nero whirled around and snapped. Ceph visibly flinched. “Those fucking crackers don’t last two months on the shelf before they’re bought they… they… fuck.” Nero put a hand on his forehead and another bellow echoed off of the ceiling. “I think… I think he disappeared a few months after we left him. Ceph, these… these… where is he?”

Ceph stood there awkwardly. “Want to try Melchai?”

Nero let out a breath and nodded. “Yeah… yeah, let’s go.”

They took the plane there and not a word was spoken between the two. In less than twenty minutes from leaving the house they were parking the Falconer in the middle of an abandoned park in the sparsely populated north area of Melchai.

Nero and Ceph both got out, their bush masters in their hands and their capes swaying behind them. During the short flight they had both changed into clothing fitting their status. No longer in jeans and a t-shirt like they had on previous the two brute chimeras were wearing fitted leather pants, black combat armour, and a black cape trimmed with blue.

Nero walked ahead and Ceph trailed behind him as was his status. Leaving the emotions behind in Sanguine’s abandoned house Nero was the embodiment of the words ‘don’t fuck with’. His face was menacing and his walk strong, and as the two of them walked confidently down the main road of Melchai they were already starting to draw a crowd.

“We want every single shop owner to come out here right now,” Nero barked, sweeping the gathering crowd with his burning glare. “I am Prince Nero Sebastian Dekker, third born of King Silas Dekker and the leader and ruler of the Legion. I don’t suggest you dawdle, now piss off!”

At this command several of the greywasters ran off, the other ones still standing, gawking at the Imperial Commander of the Legion. Each one undoubtedly wondering just why Nero was there.

Nero stood with his arms crossed, his gun now clipped to the holder he had on his back. Ceph was in a similar stance, his face hard as rock and his green eyes sharp enough to cut glass.

Several minutes passed and three store keepers came out, each one giving Nero surprised and scared looks. If the Legion was in town it was bad enough, but if the leader of the Legion was in town and specifically requesting you – you were fucked.

Nero didn’t waste time. “A little boy came here sometime during the winter or early spring three years ago and bought a box of tact possibly more shit. He was a little eight-year-old boy with black hair, red eyes and pointed teeth. Which one of you fucks sold the tact to him?”

It was easy to see which one it was, his face paled and his heartbeat jolted.

Nero narrowed his eyes and made the ‘come here’ gesture with his finger. The older man took a step forward and drew in a deep breath.

“It was me, he bought other supplies and left.”

Another shop keep glared at him. “And he left quickly too – all thanks to the assholes who were harassing him like a bunch of fucking buzzards.”

The merchant turned around quickly. “You were one of them, fuckface! Don’t sell us out you were doing it too.”

“Enough!” Nero roared, his jaw hurt from clenching it so hard. “Did he ever come back?”

The two merchants shook their head no. The first one spoke, “No, just that one time. He was wearing sunglasses and would only talk to the ground. Apparently while he was leaving in a hurry he tripped and his sunglasses fell off his face. Everyone started hounding him as being a half-raver and the boy left in tears… he never came back after.”

Nero grinded his teeth. He badly wanted to murder all three of those merchants for their statements but besides bombing the entire town he knew there wasn’t much he could do.

“The boy is missing,” Nero said to them. “If anyone sees them they’re to find the first legionary they see. There is a reward for his safe return.” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “And if I ever hear of anyone treating him below anything than a prince I will personally twist off their fucking heads, got it?”

The merchants nodded dumbly and around them the crowd started to buzz. Nero turned around with nothing more to say to the residents of Melchai and started walking back towards the plane.

“What now?” Ceph said quietly when they were high up in the air.

Nero looked out the window, his eyes heavy and his throat dry.

“Now I look for him,” Nero said in an voice void of emotion. “Until Silas tells me I can’t.”

Ceph was quiet… and though his own self-preservation urged him not to he found the words coming to his lips. “What if he’s dead?”

I think he’s dead,
Nero whispered to himself. He tried to remind himself that there was no sign of a struggle, no blood, no tossed over boxes or gunshots in the walls. No squatters in their house or any sign that he had been overpowered.

There are no sure signs he’s alive; just a few puzzle pieces missing to confirm to me he’s dead.

No, he can’t be dead… he – he’s a tough kid.

But he’s just a kid.

“I’ll find his body then…” Nero replied. “Even if it takes me seventy years – I won’t stop looking for him. I’ll spend all the free time I have out here until I find him.”

Sanguine age 13

I rubbed my finger against the wound in my arm before putting it back onto the cold concrete. I brushed it back and forth to colour in the dark areas, then carefully scraped my fingernails against it to make feathers.

When I was done I stood up to admire my handiwork and because I had no one to ask if they liked it, I turned around and sat back on my bed.

Like was my routine I sat with my legs crossed, staring at the door and going over every detail of its shape, size, and state. Over the years it had gotten dirty with both blood stains and my dirty feet when I kicked it, though eventually I washed it off.

Today there was a footprint on it outlined with blood, each line making a straight print that would eventually flake and slough off onto the ground. I had kicked that print myself, no particular reason why, I had just gotten angry. Sometimes I got so angry I trashed my entire room but perhaps that was me just doing a small service for myself… a dirty room meant I could clean it and sometimes it was nice to burn the energy.

Though mostly I just sat and stared at that door, my mind taking me everywhere and at the same time… nowhere.

Sometimes I talked to the crows.

Sometimes they talked back.

“Hello, Sanguine. Hello, Sanguine.”

“Come here, crow.”

The crows were the only voices I heard outside of my own head. The people I had once known, their faces were lost on me now. Throughout the years locked in this basement I had violated and tainted their appearances and personalities until they were nothing but snarling monsters in my mind. It seemed that whatever my mind touched would eventually become polluted so I tried to steer clear of those thoughts.

Nero, once a picture of strength and a much needed role model, was no one to me now. A man without a face, without a voice, without a presence. He sunk into the outskirts of my mind and stayed there with other such people: His twin sister Ellis, Cory, Gill, and Nan. They were no one to me now but when my sewage-covered being traced over their fading memories I knew that had not always been the case.

I was no one and yet I felt like a thousand different people stirred in an overflowing pot. Sometimes I was angry and sometimes I was okay, sometimes I stared at that door for days on end and other times I just slept.

And why did I stare at that door?

The only break in my monotonous life.

When Jasper decided he wanted to fuck me.

Yes, I knew what it was now. If I didn’t know then the porn movies he forced me to learn from explained it simple enough. He was pressing upon my once pure and fragile body the sexual needs of the most perverse of men. For his half an hour of dominating me was much more important than the innocence of one small child. Children were worth nothing in the greywastes, they were just toys and victims unless they had the wits about them to not trust anyone… or luckier still, they had parents.

I had neither wits nor parents, though when I was that innocent child I wished for both.

I laughed at my own mental ramblings. Innocent? I was never innocent, as soon as I was big enough I was killing things whether it was ants, radrats, or two boys who decided to pick on a demon. I may be a lot of things, but I was never innocent.

Maybe that was why I look like this.

“Crow? Crow?”

I looked over before rising to my feet. I peeked through the small gap in the window board and saw three crows outside. Occasionally they would come and talk to me through that opening. I taught them new words to entertain myself.

“Hello, Sanguine,” I said to them my voice a dry rasp. “No food for you.”

“Hello, Sanguine.”

I nodded and broke my eye away from the space between the board. The light bothered my eyes now and the crows preferred to look inside the basement rather than at me anyways. So I sat back down on the bed and stared at the door.

My eyes mentally traced each area of the frame and I stayed there cross-legged and stared as I most often did. I stared at it until Jasper came the following day, sometime in the evening I wasn’t sure.

After he fucked me he sat on the edge of the bed with a cigarette. I said nothing and stared at the wall again.

“I have water for you.” Jasper looked over at me. I had sucked his dick without complaint and that earned me either water or food. “Do you want it?”

I saw the red ember rise to his mouth and brighten. He was naked and there was a smudge of blood on his lower back where I had clawed him. I did it to relieve stress and he had stopped trying to get me to stop years ago. His entire back was covered in scars now, though so was mine. Funny though, mine were all self-inflicted – would you believe Jasper rarely beat me anymore? Besides a knock or a punch here or there when he was high or I had ticked him off, I had stopped fighting long ago.

Sanguine had no fight in him, he was no powerful demon. Even though I was taller now and parts of me were starting to change, I was more submissive and useless than I had been at eight years old.

I was nothing.

My solemn thoughts made my eyes travel over at Barry, now just a bear.

Though he had always been just a bear. I think the hardest part of getting older was realizing that.

“Sami?”

My body flinched when I saw Jasper snap his fingers in front of my face. I looked over at him.

“Sanguine.” My voice was getting deeper too, though the times I heard my own voice was few and far between. I rarely spoke; I had no reason to talk except to speak to the crows. Jasper wanted to either fuck me or ramble on about the Legion he was still sure was after him. He didn’t need me to talk back just agree with him.

“I already said I’m not calling you that,” Jasper said. He handed me the cigarette and I took a hit of it. He was a bit nicer after he had gotten off. As the routine went, he would disappear then come back high as a fucking kite and rambling about whatever paranoia he had that day.

“Sami’s dead,” I said for the millionth time.

Jasper made a noise and took the cigarette back. I wanted food, not water. He hadn’t brought me food in three days and though I was used to the raw, gnawing ache that only starvation brought to you, I still didn’t like it.

“I told you it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just say you’re dead and still be here. You can’t pretend you’re another person,” Jasper said annoyed. “You’re Sami, and you always will be.”

I brought out a small piece of spring I had twisted off of my mattress and started scraping it against my scabbed and scarred arms. “I was never Sami; my name was always Sanguine,” I said in the same flat monotone tone that was my voice now. Even when he beat on me and fucked me I no longer screamed. I never showed any emotions anymore. I was just… a walking corpse. Dead inside and just waiting for my body to get the memo.

I forget when I had died. I think perhaps it was the first time he had skewered me.

“Whatever, you crazy fuck.” Jasper got up and peeked out the window. The hole where I saw the crows was one I had made myself out of a piece of metal. I had twisted it out of one of the mattress springs. Jasper had beat me for making it but he let it remain because he could look outside better too.

Jasper narrowed his eyes before taking the glass pipe from behind his ear. “The crows are multiplying. The Legion is releasing more and more, half of them I know are robots, the other half… I’m not sure. I think my original crows are training them on how to spy on me. All they do now is talk, they’re learning new words too.”

The flint on the lighter sparked, producing a small orange flame. I watched the flame and wished I had my own lighter. I enjoyed feeling pain and seeing blood but I missed the feeling of burning heat. The only time I could burn myself was when Jasper took me to the main floor to sit beside the fire and that was only on the coldest days.

I raised my hand and looked at the silver spiral scars, from a time long ago when Gill had held my hand against the stove element.

What would I tell that boy if I saw him now?

Kill yourself. Throw yourself onto the flames with Gabe and Pauly.

“Sami? Have you noticed anything different with them?” Jasper asked. He started pacing around the basement again, stepping over the bloody blankets I piled onto myself during the winter. Then he kicked aside the table legs I used whenever I felt like smashing myself in the face.

I glanced up at him, the stiff piece of wire still in my hand. “No, they’re all the same.”

“Are they talking to you? What do they say?”

Hello, Sanguine.

“They just say what you tell them…
go on get
, all of that.”

The crows were my only friends. I would sit behind a rusty tractor and feed them and teach them to speak. Only when I could hear him approaching did I pretend I was chasing them around.

He caught on though – I hadn’t been outside in four years because of that, even going to the main level made me nervous and short of breath… so they came to me now.

I preferred to stay inside of this basement, a basement which I had come to call my own. Jasper could come and go as he pleased but I saw this area as my own personal cave. A cave that held the little possessions I owned: a dictionary, thesaurus, my plastic bottle, my piece of wire, and whatever books Jasper brought me to read.

Jasper hadn’t cared about me reading but when I started to become quiet… when I started to be able to stare at the door for days on end he started bringing me books he had bought from Melchai. I read them and he brought them back and exchanged them for others. I loved my books and thought of them all the time, especially when he was on top of me.

“I want to go again.” Jasper extinguished his cigarette.

I looked up from my carving of my skin and put the metal wire down. Without complaint I got on my back and let him hold back my legs.

When he was finished he pulled himself out. I shifted away from him to lay on my side and maybe go to sleep when he put a hand beside my groin.

He never touched me or did anything but fuck me so it made me recoil and pull away.

“You’re starting to get hair.” Jasper’s voice was bitter. “It’s getting bigger too I see.” He grabbed my scarred up arms but they were so full of half-healed and scabbed flesh there was barely any normal skin for hair to grow. So he looked at my legs, still scarred but not as bad.

“Leg hair… and your voice is cracking. Great, I was hoping I had at least another year before you became spoiled.” Jasper pushed my leg away with disgust and got up.

I was becoming an adult and he hated it. Jasper liked fucking little kids but unfortunately little kids grew up.

Then those kids got buried by the barn.

“Can I get some food?” I asked him dully. I picked up the wire and pierced it roughly into my skin, when that pain wasn’t enough I started to drag it back and forth. Immediately the relief started numbing the disgust I felt after he used my body. Once he left I would dig my fingers into myself to draw out his cum, that usually tore me worse than he did but I had to get it out one way or another.

Jasper slammed the door behind him and I turned over to go to sleep but he came back a few minutes later.

“Get on your back.”

Again? I grudgingly threw the blanket off of me and stared at him. I realized he was holding tweezers.

He brought out a flashlight and shone it right on my private parts. He swore when he saw the black strands of pubic hair, now fully illuminated in the light. He got up and smacked me right across the face.

So it was my fault I was becoming an adult? I didn’t fight him, I let him hit me a second time and didn’t move when he started ripping the hair out of my groin with vicious rough pulls. It hurt, each tuff of black hair sent sharp jabs of pain to my brain.

Though… I found my eyes closing as he plucked the hair from me, only wincing as my entire area became hot to the touch and burning from the pain. The more he did it the less I found myself not liking it, pain was my friend and I enjoyed the feeling it gave me.

“What the… stop that!”

I opened my eyes at Jasper’s strangled and high tone, I opened them up just in time for him to smack me so hard my head snapped back and hit the concrete.

He got up and threw the tweezers at my face. I didn’t know what he was angry about. I looked down and saw nothing but small droplets of blood and random tuffs of thin black hair.

No, something felt different. I reached down and put my hand on my lower area and saw my penis was getting stiff, something that happened in the mornings occasionally but I always ignored it.

Jasper hit me a third time, this time his hand was balled into a fist. When I realized he wasn’t going to stop I put my hands over my face and tried to shield myself from his blows.

But he was angry at me and it took me a moment to realize why… he was angry I had gotten half-stiff… like he got before he fucked me.

Jasper was angry he made me that way… or maybe he was angry I was old enough now to have that happen from his touch.

I don’t see why. I had no desire to do what he did to me. I just ignored it. That part of my body didn’t even feel like it belonged to me, none of that area was mine it was his and I had no business doing anything with it.