Chapter two

This is the first half of chapter two. I'm still in the process of editing the other half so bare with me. :)

Ch. 2

 

I proceeded down the sidewalk, glad that it was still night. There might be enough time for me to make it home without being noticed. I realized that it was probably asking a little too much to want to pass unnoticed through the city looking the way I must have looked. Torn clothes, mussed up hair, who knows what else in addition to my eyes, and the scar I've sported for years. But it was late. Hopefully people would be locked safely away in their houses like they should have been.

I rounded a corner, my hand holding onto the wall both for support, and something else. I had realized over the course of the past half hour that although I couldn't see, I could feel, through my feet, and fingers, through any part of me that was touching a surface that vibrations could pass through. That, combined with a heightened sense of hearing, or perhaps it wasn't heightened but I was just relying on it more, allowed to me have a decent sense of where I was, and what was around me. I had only bumped into one wall so far, which I thought was pretty good, although every bump, and the need to rely so heavily on touching slowed me down to the point where I wanted to scream with frustration.

There was no way I could make it home unnoticed by passers-by or the authorities if I went this slowly, walking in the open so long. But if I tried to go faster, I would be giving up the needed analysis of the area just in front of me. I needed to make sure that no one was waiting for me to run into. I needed to make sure that…

I stopped, putting my ear to the wall, and tunneling all of the vibrations I felt into my head where I put them into a rough image.

There were people ahead, lots of people, not to mention vehicles. Too many to have just been walking along, or cruising the roads. They moved in too much of a uniformed way to be normal citizens, or vehicles for that matter. There was only one explanation.

The cops had set up a road block, right where I needed to get through.

"S**t! No! You've got to be kidding me!" I yelled a little too loudly, throwing my hand on the brick wall. An elderly couple walking opposite of me stopped, and stared.

I quickened my step to a jog until I slipped into a dark alley way. I needed a place to think without worrying about being observed, and reported to a bunch of cops sitting a block away, and just waiting to get their hands on me.

Pacing the alleyway for a moment, I ran my hands through my hair as I tried to think of how to get home. It was the most important thing at the moment, but it was so hard to focus on that when there were so many other things going on. It was almost too much for my brain to handle, so I turned to thinking aloud as I paced, venting a little to the brick walls around me.

"I've got to find another way home. I can't go that way; I would run right into their blockade. They're everywhere. I can't chance it."

I was so wrapped up in my current predicament that I didn't realize that another one was creating itself. I was too busy ranting, and pacing to hear or feel the single footsteps coming up behind me.

But I did feel the cold tip of the gun against my head, and the muscular, and very hairy arm around my neck.

"Give me your money!" a deep, and gruff voice demanded in my ear. I could smell the rank stench of sweat emanating off this man's body.

“Did you hear what I said?” He yelled, gripping me tighter when I did not respond to his first demand. His short beard brushed against my ear as he whispered, “Look, you do what I say and I'll leave you unharmed. You don't, and I'll take your life right here right now, blind man!”

So he had been watching long enough to tell that I was blind. It was probably pretty obvious given the stiff jerky movements I made when not in contact with a wall, but if this stinky thief thought that this blind man would be an easy target, he had another thing coming.

"You don't want to do that." I said casually.

"Yeah and why wouldn't I?" He sneered.

I could almost hear him adding another "blind man" to the end of that last sentence. He obviously had no idea what he was getting into. For a moment, I considered lashing out with an elbow to his face, leaving him bleeding, and bewildered on the concrete, but then I realized that that would be too easy for him. I had warned him; given him his chance to walk away without doing this and, he didn't want to take it. That was his funeral.

I could feel the muscles in his arm quivering. He was about to make another move, but I moved faster. With an inhuman grip, I turned him to face me. His hands grabbed for my arms as he struggled against me, but in the end it was useless. I had him where I wanted him.

"Look at me!" I yelled once he must have been staring straight into my pupil-less eyes.

He shivered, and tried to pull back a little, whispering.

“Those eyes! Good God, what are you?" I shoved him against the wall keeping both his hands in one of my own and keeping his shoulder against the wall with my other.

"I… I don't know." I answered, loosening my grip until he fell to the ground. I heard him scuffling around, apparently trying to pull himself together, and stand up so he could get away from me.

"Damnable creature!" I heard him yell a split second before I heard the gun c**k, and fire.

In seconds, I was lying on my back, sprawled out on the asphalt. The pain burned into the back of my skull. Just a few feet away there was a shuffling noise, and a gasp as I groaned, and raised a hand to my head.

I understood why in a moment. My fingers touched blood, massive rivulets of blood running down my face. I traced them up my features until I found the hole in the middle of my forehead where the bullet had struck. Even as I explored the gaping hole, the bullet was moving. Not further back into my head, but outwards as if being pulled out slowly but surely by some grip with forceps. But there was no one there to extract the bullet form the wound. I wasn't in a hospital; I hadn't moved. The bullet finally came out of my head and fell against my hand before clattering to the ground. I felt the wound again only to search in vain. There was no hole.

Then I realized what had happened. Somehow, the skin had knit itself back together, and pushed the foreign metal out of the places where it didn't belong. It wasn't really possible, but it was the only way to explain the bullet having entered my head but then fallen out leaving no existence of its rest in my cranium.

My fingers found the bullet again and I turned it this way and that, rubbing between my fingers to assure myself that, yes, I had just been shot in the head, but yes, I was still very much alive.

The same gruff voice from before spoke; stuttering out an angry, fearful sentence. 

"What the hell are you? That should have killed you!"

I stood up, slowly, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head. Just because the bullet was gone didn't mean that getting shot in the head wasn't painful.

"My name is Xavier Espinoza. I should have died tonight, but instead, I've become this… this thing you see standing before you now."

I zeroed in on his location, feeling in my feet the way he shook with unbelieving fear.

"My name is Xavier Espinoza, and I've been betrayed by the two people who I loved, and the only people I trusted."

I walked toward him, and heard the clack of the gun as it slipped from his fingers. The reverberations as it hit the ground seemed soft in comparison to the frantic pounding of his feet as he ran.

He was long gone, but I continued talking to the empty air… to myself.

"My name is Xavier Espinoza, and I'm going to put an end to this thing I've become." I whispered.

Taking a few steps forward, I picked up the discarded gun, then walked to the other side of the alley, twirling it around the index finger of my right hand… once, twice, three times, before shoving it into my pocket. It was then I realized that I was shirtless and wearing only the thin pants the nurse had me put on before the experiment… so long ago. Man, I must look really strange.

Thinking of what that elderly couple from before must have made of my appearance made me laugh. It made me feel almost… sorry for them.

When I got back to my apartment, I didn't turn on any lights or throw on new clothes. Quietly, I made my way to the couch in the living room and turned on the TV. I couldn't watch the images flow across the screen anymore, but I heard the noises. Relief flooded through my body as I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

 

Something must have told me to look up right then. With a quick jerk, I was fully alert. Alice was standing in front of me.

"Why'd you do it, Xavier?" She asked, her mouth unmoving.

I sat dumbly as I stared at her, taking in the fact that I could see her right there in front of me. After all that had happened, I could see her. My joy at this turn of events was more than compensated for, however, by what she was saying,

"Why, Xavier?" she screamed as her body disappeared but her voice lingered on to echo through my mind.

I looked around for her, to see where she had gone, but everything was black and blank again. Nothingness. I couldn't see a thing, but her voice was still there, ringing through my head. She had been there. I wanted to see her again. I wanted to answer her. I wanted to explain myself, even though I don't know what I would have said. I just wanted her to come back.

I was still looking for her when another voice started to speak.

"I was only trying to help you, Xavier! You betrayed me… you betrayed all of us!"

The clear voice overpowered Alice's as he stepped out of the shadows. I could see him clearly, though his grey hair pulled back into his customary pony tail was perhaps the only things recognizable about him. Blood streamed down his face, disfiguring it. His clothes were soaked and stained with crimson.

David walked forward, toward me, limping and flailing his arms like a drunkard.

"Why did you do it, Xavier? Why did you kill me?" His lips curled into a smile as he asked me why I had killed my friend and protector. Low laughter began to pour from his lips.

It was all off. It didn't make sense. He was dead. I had killed him. So he couldn't be here, smiling and laughing at me. But before I could even begin formulating any other, more coherent thoughts on the matter, I was called away.

A third voice began to speak. One I knew well. The one I had loved for so long, heard sinking into death so slowly, the one I thought I would never hear again. It was my mother. It was her voice. I looked around, desperate to see her face, hold her hand, but she wasn't there.

"You promised me, Xavier!"

Frantically, I looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice, but it seemed to come from everywhere, echoing off of unseen walls to bounce back at me from a million directions. She was everywhere, but was nowhere to be seen.

"You didn't keep your promise to me. You have failed me, Xavier. You failed us all!" She shrieked as her transparent body ran in front of me for a brief second before vanishing out of sight.

A gust of wind began to blow, plucking at my hair and pants, then growing stronger and stronger until I couldn't stand my ground against it. It swept me off my feet, tossing me about in a whirlwind with all three of them, Alice, David, and my long dead mother hovering around me, circling me and chanting in their terrible voices failure… Failure… Failure!

They were all around me, on top of me, inside me, it seemed like. I couldn't get away from them with the wind and I couldn't block out what they said. I began to sob as I heard them repeating the refrain again and again.

Failure.

I was a failure. I had failed them all. I had broken my promises.

I was worth less than nothing, now that I was this hideous freak of a test tube.

That thought changed something in my mind. A new emotion began to grow inside my head. I was a failure, yes, but it was not my fault. I had tried, and they were the ones who had betrayed me. David had thought of it, Alice had agreed and so they had turned me into a monster, a second twisted consciousness that had taken over my shell of a body. The remnants of the old Xavier in me rebelled. It was their fault, not mine that I hadn't kept my promises. I was ready and willing to continue my research until the moment I died. They were the ones who had changed that, taken that away from me. It was their fault that I had broken the promise to my mother. It was them, not me that she should have been tormenting with her taunts of failure, failure, failure.

"No! It was you!" I tried to point at David and Alice as they swung and swerved somewhere in the tornado running around my head.

 "You took away whatever humanity I had left in my short life! It was your fault that I'm this monster! It is your fault that I can't keep my promise. I knew I was going to die soon… I was prepared for it! I was ready! I was ready…!"

I woke to the sound of my own angry and wavering voice. Tears were streaming down my face as I fought to drive their images and faces out of my head. This was not how I wanted to remember them, bloody and angry phantoms of themselves. I blinked rapidly, letting the shifting shades of black slowly replace the fading images.

I turned on my side, now wide awake. They were gone, but their words still rang in my ears.

They even continued running through my head as another noise, this one from the outside, grew louder until I couldn't ignore it any more. I stood up, rubbing sleepily at my eyes and yawned, then turned my attention to the new noises as I made my way clumsily to the kitchen.

There was a low blast like a foghorn repeated at regular intervals. From experience, I knew that there would be strobe lights flashing in tandem with it, even though I couldn't see them now. After a scratching sound on the television, whatever program I had flipped to change to the emergency alert system, a human voice that sounded like it should have been automated speaking from the screen.

They weren't the words I had expected to hear, however.

"This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Keona Island is now under lock-down. No one is allowed on or off the island. Please stay in your homes and assist the authorities. This is not a drill."

I grabbed a cup out of the cupboard, and then stopped, confused.

I had never heard the alarm system go off for real. Sure, there had been a test every couple of weeks to make sure that everything was in order and I had even paid attention to them like I would a tornado siren the first couple of times. David had laughed at me for that. Everyone knew that the authorities would never actually sound the siren unless there was something really terrible. I figured that if it ever got to the point where they did turn it on, it would be a signal for the end of the world and then there was nothing to be done about it anyway. The people on Keona had just sort of accepted the loud foghorn wails and flashing lights as a part of their daily routine on the island.

Filling the glass over the brim with ice cold water"man being blind was going to take some getting used to"I began to muse out loud.

I had never really been one for talking to myself, but now that I couldn't see, it was comforting to have some outer sense working and picking up on things as I went about my tasks. It made it more bearable, I guess. I could almost pretend that there was someone else there in the room, now that I was left all alone. I tried not to dwell on that fact, however, but instead on the cause of the alarm system being set of for real.

"They're locking down the entire island… now why would they be doing that?"

The TV started talking again. It wasn't the automated alarm system but the suave voice of a newscaster. I always hated the way they sounded. It was supposed to be confident and comforting, but I had always found it oily and fake. I wanted to shut off the sound, but realized that this would probably be my only good chance to figure out what was going on and why we were all on lock-down.

"A dangerous figure is loose on Keona Island. Authorities are still unsure as to how he operates and just what he is capable of. However, we do know that he has killed before and can kill again. The dismantled body of a well respected scientist was found at the site of a high level government testing center earlier this evening. All citizens are advised to stay in their homes and bar their doors against unauthorized entry. If you have seen this man or have any information about him, call the number on your screen. There seems to be some confusion about his current appearance and dress, but he goes by the name of Xavier Espinoza…"

I nearly spit out the water in my mouth as I heard the reporter give my name.

"No, no, no!" I whispered frantically under my breath before rushing through the room, barely avoiding the couch, to turn off the TV.

I breathed heavily in the silence made more oppressive by the sudden absence of human voices, no matter how fake they were and what kind of news they were bringing.

I couldn't believe it. The authorities had somehow decided I was a threat worth locking down the island for. And that scientist… well, I supposed that was David. That would make sense. That definitely would be a cause for concern if I was the one investigating, but it was a whole different matter when that investigation led to me.

"I'm going to have to law low for a while. I can't stay here, my name's on the papers and they'll come here first. I can't go to Alice; I can't go to David's. He won't be needing the house anymore, but the cops will be swarming the place now that they've found his body. And I don't know anyone else on Keona that would take me in after a news flash like that."

I was just coming to the decision that I would have to rough it in some alleyway and hope that no homeless junkies would try to turn me in" maybe my reputation would save me"when my train of thought was disrupted by knocks on my door. Then…

"Xavier, we know you're in there! We have you and the building completely surrounded, so don't think you can get away. Just come out slowly and with your hands up and we won't harm you!" Came a male voice, distorted by a bull horn.

"Damn it, they beat me to it." I said low enough so they couldn't hear.

They weren't lying; I could feel them through the vibrations they gave off in the ground, and sure enough they did have me surrounded. There was about twenty soldiers out there, even a helicopter buzzed past the window.

They knew I was there too, there was no use denying it or trying to pretend I had already left. They weren't buying the silence.

"What's going on?" I yelled so that they could hear me. 

 "We will use force if we have to! You might as well give up and come out while you can, Xavier!" The voice came again, this time louder.

"What do you want with me? I haven't done anything!" I yelled, edging toward the back door.

"Xavier, please just listen to what they are saying. You have no chance of escaping this time."

The voice was different; female. And I recognized it at once.

"Alice? What the hell are you doing here?" I asked confused.

"Xavier, we need you. You're our only hope to find the cure for this, to keep it from spreading. People are already dying, Xavier! The virus is spreading fast, and we need your help! Please, just come out." Alice spoke in a rush.

I was still hung up on what she said when they kicked down the door. I was surrounded in a matter of seconds, a ring of guns pointed in my direction.

"What are you talking about? What virus?"

"Hands up where we can see them." A deep and demanding male voice said. I raised my hands slowly as the men warily came closer, then tightened in a circle around me.

Somehow, Alice managed to break through them and knelt at my side for a moment. "David's done something terrible," she murmured.

Then she was gone. The same deep voice took over and it was all rough movements and military men after that. "Search him, and then cuff him. We want to be sure he's unarmed."

"What are you doing? I don't understand, what's going on?"

They didn't answer, and Alice wasn't there to explain. I yelled in frustration, trying to pull away from them and surprisingly finding it much easier than I had thought it would be. Either Keona had very bad taste when recruiting its cops, or something had definitely happened to me.

But I wasn't about to question it. I ran through the tangle of men to get out the back door, only to run into another figure.

It gripped my shoulder before I could run past and said, "Not so fast, you're coming with me."

At the sound of his voice, I went limp. My mind raced to process this. It didn't make sense. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be him!

"Damn it David! How are you even alive? I killed you!" I yelled, coming to my senses and struggling to get out of his grip.

"I have a proposition for you." He said calmly. I could just picture the smile playing at his lips.

Behind me, the force sent to take me had regrouped and come out after me. Seeing the situation, though, they stopped for a moment before breaking into a flurry of activity and shouted orders.

"There's someone else here, with the tango."

"Back down! There is a civilian next to him…"

"Do we have an ID? Back down until we have an ID!"

"It's David! It's him!” someone shouted. 

"What?"

"Call that in. Do we have confirmation? Are we sure?"

"We can't take the tango, sir!"

"Everyone back down!"

"What does HQ say?"

That sent them into a rush of panic and confusion I couldn't really blame them for. David was dead. The authorities had found his mangled corpse less than an hour ago. It was the evidence on which this group had been sent to take me in. The fact that the doctor was now standing very much alive and well and holding me off certainly threw a kink into their plans.

I hadn't moved. I hadn't actually decided what to do. Should I make a run for it, or go with David, or was I better off with the authorities? Until I actually knew what was going on, I couldn't decide. It was my indecision that made the decision for me.

I felt a pinch in my right shoulder, and everything slid smoothly into silence.