Skeletons of the Past Chapter 11

Collection: Ages of Youth // the Halleaux
Chronicled by: Ghasty

​Eoin started going about Alexa’s locker. He didn’t find anything of note. The only contents were a some clothes, dried flowers, and some live and aeon ammo for her revolver. He closed the locker and went back to the conference room to report his results. He was the last one back into the room. The other eleven were all surrounding a piece of paper on the table. The paper was pinned to the table by a iridescent knife.

Upon the paper was a threat written in magnificent cursive. The paper read ‘Tread carefully, a game of cat and mouse can even be dangerous for the cat. It appears you’ve found Desmofýlax, Petra, and the interloper who disturbed my work. You have two options as I see it, you can either give in, and watch your precious rebellion crumble, or you can continue to fight, losing many in the process. Mech’s bullet wound was merely a warning of what is yet to come. Fear the darkness. Fear the arrow. Sincerely, I Toxótria Tis Panólis’
“Do we know who wrote this?” Eoin asked.
“A woman, guessing by the signature,” Desmofýlax answered.
“How do you know who that?” Petra asked.
“I Toxótria Tis Panólis, it’s Greek, it means ‘The Archeress of the Plague’,” Desmofýlax replied.
“Well now we know it’s either Alexa, Kirsten, or Mikhal” Xanthia added.
“Alexa owns a set of iridescent knives like this one,” Marius included.
“Then we have our most likely suspect,” Petra surmised, “also, Eoin, did you find anything in Alexa’s locker?”
“Nothing of interest,” Eoin replied.
“Hmm, well, we have to find Alexa or whatever she’s calling herself,” Ren said.
“True, Melody and Lacea, Desmofýlax and Zenobia, Eoin and Ren, Marius and Antonin, Mech and Xanthia, and I by myself will all search in groups for Alexa. She is most likely armed and dangerous. Use aeon darts, we need her alive for questioning. And remember Psalm 91:5,” Petra commanded.
Petra exited the conference room. Petra started out searching the lab when a strange mist filled the air. The lights started to blink in bursts of different intervals, a second on, three seconds on, a second on, a pause, a second on, a second on, three seconds on, a pause, three seconds on, a second on, and then a pop and total darkness. The darkness of the room was not spread out normally like it should be. A spot above a workbench used for experimental temporal technology was slightly darker than the rest. A circle 40 feet in diameter encircled the center of the lab. The circle was made out of some sort of green fluorescent chemical. At the center of the circle sat the aftermath of Mech getting shot. Petra stood close to the center of this circle. She was looking around, trying to look for a cause for the mist, though not being able to see any due to lack of light. The door slammed shut and locked. She ran over to the door and tried to open it, but to no avail. She ran back over to the center and stood there. An odd noise came from around the room. The sound has never been in Roanoke Base, and the cause of such noise has never been there either. The sound was of children laughing and running. Petra drew her rifle. An eerie distorted noise spread through the room. The noise sounded like it came from the darkness above the workbench. The sound was like that that of a whisper. The whisper was distorted, covered in a layer of static, and in a foreign tongue lost to time. The voice spoke ominously before finally switching over into English.
“Ah, Petra, the valiant substitute leader of the Haven Rebellion, so in control, yet so unaware of what happens behind her back. What if I were to tell you of the whispered secrets that are kept from you?” the whisper spoke.
“An ominous disembodied voice offers me secrets. Why do I feel like there’s a catch?” Petra replied sarcastically.
“Oh, there’s nothing I want from you.”
“Then spill.”
“How much do you trust the safety of the experiments in the lab?”
“I expect them not to harm people in their experiments, and I trust them not to create some deadly creation.”
“Then I would say they’re not living up to your expectations. Do they show you everything they do?”
“They show me most.”
“Do you know of Traxyth?”
“No.”
“Well, allow me to acquaint you,” the whisper spoke. A green chemical vial appeared in the darkness. The vial revealed a finger wrapped around it. The finger was like the claw of a metal beast. “This is Traxyth. This chemical was created behind your back by Hallr, Mech, and Xanthia. A chemical composed of batrachotoxin, chlorine trifluoride, and umbelliferone, among other things.”
“And those words mean what?”
“It means that I wouldn’t suggest ingesting it, burning anything near it, or heating it into a vapor.”
“And why not?”
“Because this could happen,” the whisper spoke. A match was lit near the vial and then dropped on the ground. The match struck the Traxyth which was on the floor, igniting it. Green flames roared up to shoulder height. The flames brightened up the lab, revealing the holder of the vial. The holder wore black robes, with a wispy, spiderweb-like hood. The holder’s face was hidden by a plague doctor’s mask with a white in place of an eye. The figure paced the perimeter of the fires until he got to the door. The door swung open, the figure vanished into the mist, and the door swung closed and locked itself.