So that commotion I mentioned at the end of the last post. It was a group of armed maniacs assaulting the bus terminal. A bunch of freaks in black outfits and white masks carrying automatic weapons burst into the building through the bus exit. They bore the symbol of The Slender Man. We were sitting on a bench, by said exit and there were a bunch of other people there too and elsewhere in the building. Many of them were killed.
I've seen massacres and I've seen death, but always in my dreams. While I was with The Ordeal they lost a few members, but I never actually saw it happen. Until I saw The Brute kill The Liar and her host I had never firsthand witnessed a death while I was awake and here I was witnessing a massacre. I heard people screaming mixed with the loud sound of gunfire. I froze up. I felt Catherine take my hand, but seconds later my hand was torn from hers as one of the raiders grabbed me by the hair and tossed me to the ground. The muzzle of a gun was pushed against my cheek hard enough to leave a bruise. I heard Catherine cry out something amidst the sounds of death around me and the sound of my heart beating in my ears and then a sound cut through everything else. "Stop," it was a single voice, it wasn't raised and it was said with all the passion of someone remarking on the weather. Nevertheless when it spoke all the other noises ceased. The raiders stopped firing or fighting, the people stopped screaming even those dying seemed to stop making sounds. The only sound that continued was Catherine as she let out a cry of rage and tore the raider holding me off of me and tossed him away. She helped me up as the owner of the voice advanced towards us.
He was a slightly tall and gaunt man, with an extremely pale complexion and white hair. He wore a black business suit and eyes that appeared not to contain irises only larger than average pupils. He smiled at us as he approached and Catherine gripped my hand tightly, so tightly it hurt.
"Hello, Lisa, it's nice to see you again," he greeted Catherine.
"Ladua," she responded angrily. He looked confused.
"Why do you call me that? That was just an alias," he replied, "Are you okay?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked instead of answering.
"I came to find you. I thought you were dead, but one of my underlings stumbled across a blog that mentioned someone matching your description. It didn't take us long to find you after it was brought to my attention you were still alive," he answered. Catherine shot me a dark look and I realized that it was probably my blog, I guess I'm not as good at hiding people as I thought.
"You were the one who called my name earlier?" she asked and he nodded, "I thought so... If you wanted to talk why not just come talk to me, what's with the armed servants and killing all these innocent people?" she asked and her voice took on a darker tone as she finished.
He looked a little remorseful, but his words came out in the same even tone he had been using the whole time, "I would have spoken to you privately once you were done with this errand," he said and glanced at me a momentary look of hatred on his face before he continued, "but it's too late now for subtetly. The Rake knows you're alive and vulnerable again. He will come for you. We can't do the ritual again, even if you weren't mortal you'd never live long enough for it to be viable again. The only option now is to serve or die," at the mention of The Rake, Catherine's hand tightened even more on mine and it felt like my bones were being ground into powder. As he finished she released my hand and approached him. At the same time another one of the servants grabbed my hands and pulled them behind my back and bound them together at the wrist with what felt like Zipcuffs. I tried to say something, but the person holding me covered my mouth with their hand and it was covered in a heavy glove that would undoubtedly muffle any noise I tried to make. I just stood and watched the scene unfold.
"I've told you before I refuse to become a servant. Everything you did for me in the past was because simply becoming a servant wasn't an option for me," she argued.
"It is the only option now. If you don't I can't protect you forever and now The Rake won't just want you dead. Now it will be personal, which means he won't let you die quickly. I would rather kill you myself, and I will, then let him get you. Please, come with me..." he answered and his voice did actually change, becoming pleading at the end.
She lowered her head and said in a quiet voice, "You haven't answered why you had to kill all these people just to talk to me,"
"Once we leave here you will be recorded as one of many deaths to have taken place in this raid. All those who knew you were still alive will believe you had been killed and hopefully The Rake will at the very least not devote as much time to trying to detect you. Perhaps even giving up entirely," he explained. The explanation made sense, but didn't make it any less terrible. I also noticed an unspoken aspect of this plan I didn't like and, judging by what happened next, Catherine had come to the same conclusion. If they wanted to make sure no one knew she was still alive they couldn't just leave me. They could possibly take me with them, but the much more likely option was that they planned to kill me as soon as Catherine and Ladua left. Catherine turned from him and now saw my current situation.
"No, you can't!" she cried, but suddenly his hand gripped the back of her head and her eyes went blank as she began to collapse. He caught her and I heard him whisper in her ear, "There is no other way," before my view was blocked by another servant stepping in front of me and pointing a gun at my head as the one behind me let go of my mouth and stepped to the side, still holding me in place however.
At that moment however a man burst through the bus doors and tackled the servant about to shoot me. As they fell the man twisted kicking the servant holding me in the gut hard enough to send him flying backwards. He landed, wrenched the gun out of the servants hand as he rolled and tossed it at another servant who was trying to aim at him as he came to a kneeling stop. The back of the gun collided with the servants face with a sickening crack and he fell to the ground. The man stood up surveying everyone around him and let out a laugh. It was Norman... although I guess given how absolutely terrible I am at hiding people's identities you probably already know who he really is.
"Whoo! Seems like lately I'm constantly arriving in the nick of time to save someone's ass. I should change my name from The Muffin Man to the Big Damn Heroes Man!" he said with a grin.
"How the hell did you find me?" I asked incredulous.
"Wasn't really looking for you actually. I was on my way though after that message you sent about The Liar and I heard screams and where there are screams there's fun," he responded and by this point the fight had started. The man who had been holding me was winded and not likely to get up for a while and the guy who was hit with the gun wasn't likely to be getting up at all. The guy he tackled was already getting back on his feet and numerous other servants were still up and now aiming at him. He moved quickly ignoring the numerous guns pointed at him and turned grabbing the tackled servant by the face and slamming him into the concrete flooring, so hard the building shook. At which point the guns started firing. I didn't see what happened after that, because I dropped to the floor and rolled under the bench Catherine and I had been sitting at not too long ago to hide. Under the bench I found something weird. It appeared to be a gunmetal grey pocketwatch with no ornamentation or inscriptions at all. A tarnished silver chain was attached to it and wrapped around it. I found myself fascinated by it to the point of forgetting all about the terrible fighting happening just a few feet, at most, from me. At least until Ladua spoke again.
Sorry I've been writing this for a while now and Catherine says we need to get going so I'll tell you the rest the next time we stop.
We're still traveling as obviously we didn't end up being able to take the bus.
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