Touched and Bound Part 11
The world was a haze of images. My mind was spinning and even though I could feel the hard surface under me that I was lying on, my body couldn't seem to decide if I was standing, laying or spinning in thin air. I felt sick and my stomach turned, and even though I hadn't eaten for hours it threatened to lose what little I might have had left. Everything around me was blurred from sounds to colors to smells. The only thing I knew for sure was that whatever I was lying on was cold...
And I was tied down.
My mind started to rise into a panic when I realized that and I couldn't stop myself from pulling at the bindings. Instinct and self-preservation kicked into gear and even though I was still working to make out my surroundings, I pulled at the restraints that held me down, trying to get free. It took a minute or two for me to realize it wasn't going to work.
Taking a deep breath to relax myself and counter my panic I concentrated on trying to focus my eyes. Aside from the fact that I was tied down I knew nothing about the room I was in and there was nothing obviously threatening about the room itself. So before I sent myself into a panic, which never helped in such situations anyway, I had to find out where I was. Staying rational was the only way to get out of a situation fully intact.
The room slowly started to un-blur around me, creating mostly defined shapes. I couldn't get rid of all the blurriness, nor the massive headache that was pounding my skull from the side, but I at least managed to see the room. And from what I could tell, it certainly wasn't a place I recognized, or a place I should have been.
I was lying on what appeared to be a small cot type bed, raised quite high off the ground. Thick ropes were what tied down my wrists and ankles to the cot, making any movement burn and scrape my skin raw. The room around me wasn't well lit and it took quite a long time for me to make out a large cluster of computers on one end, while there were various other medical looking machines just behind me and almost out of my line of sight. Sinks lined the other wall, along with various wheeled tables that were no doubt covered with instruments. A cold chill shot down my spine, but not from the cold bed, and I started pulling at the restraints again, my mind nearly dropping back into a panic.
I still couldn't think straight and something about this makeshift operating room seemed all wrong. It was dirtier then it should have been. A hospital would never have allowed concrete floors and splintered wood on the walls. Not to mention that the cot was all wrong. I felt sick with fear and sweat was already dampening my back and the ropes holding me down. I needed to get out of here... wherever here was.
I couldn't remember much of anything. I remembered leaving Duo's apartment and heading for the hospital to ask more questions, but beyond that my mind didn't offer much. No... it did. I started to remember that I'd been walking down the street, quite hurriedly and someone had pulled me into an alleyway, the same one the real Trowa's body had been found in. Then, before I could even react, I'd felt a force come down on the side of my head and my entire world had shattered into darkness.
That was the same area of my skull that now pounded in pain. It didn't take a leap of logic for me to guess that I probably had a large black and blue spot growing there, especially if I was this hazy and there was no sign of anyone having administered any drugs.
I didn't like the situation, for obvious reasons. But most importantly, at the moment, I didn't like being tied down. It left me feeling helpless and more vulnerable then I ever wanted to feel. So instead of focusing on making out more of the details about the room, I focused on getting out of it. My attention went to the ropes the bound me. They were the thick, rough kind that wasn't used for much of anything anymore because everything else used the metal coils instead for strength. Whoever had me tied up apparently didn't have any of the metal ropes on hand, which was quite a good thing for me. Focusing on one limb at a time, I began to deliberately move my wrist in circles, loosening the tie with as much patience as I could manage. Time dragged on until the knot was loose enough that I could slip my hand out. Then I turned and focused on the other, careful to leave my freed hand still in the ropes, just in case.
That choice was nicely rewarded when the door to the dimly lit room opened and the lights blazed to life on the ceiling. For a moment I was blinded and I closed my eyes, the heat and brightness of the light making them sting and negating all the effort I'd already put into focusing them. My head pounded anew as I heard someone approach the cot.
"You're a little late in reporting for duty. In fact, I'd say about a year or so."
I winced and chanced opening my eyes. I'd turned my head away from the overhead light and was facing the voice now. So I opened my eyes to see who it was... and felt my body freeze to cold ice.
Standing in front of me was the same man from the photo. He looked exactly the same, with his neatly trimmed haircut and angular face. Everything about him was perfect. But this time he didn't have the fake smile from the scrap of photo Duo had shown me. No, now he had a look of slight amusement on his face, masking a more sinister attitude that I could just barely see lurking beneath the surface. And once again I felt threatened, very, very threatened.
Treize pulled up a chair to the bed and sat down on it. He crossed his legs and looked at me, his interlacing fingers resting in his lap, as he regarded me like some scientist looking at a new specimen. And I had to wonder how accurate that metaphor actually was.
"You are awake now, yes? I apologize for the light, but the facilities don't allow me much room to maneuver. But then, you know this room, don't you?"
I shook my head and winced as that brought more pain pounding through my skull. I immediately ceased the movement and waited for it to calm, then uttered a soft "no."
He frowned and stroked his chin a bit. "Tell me, how much exactly do you remember? And please, disregard the light and the bindings, this is not an interrogation, they are merely safety measures. Think of this more as a friendly conversation, between you and your doctor."
My doctor? "You're not a doctor."
He chuckled softly. "True enough. But the question remains. How much do you remember? A name perhaps?"
I frowned at him and began moving my wrist again, just slightly. Luckily the wrist I still needed to loosen was on the side opposite of him and therefore I could keep the movement up without him noticing as much as he would have, had it been right in front of him. The trick was to keep him occupied on me and keep him talking. Which meant I had to keep him asking questions, and I had to keep answering them.
"No, nothing."
He frowned a bit more, not seeming pleased with that answer. "Nothing at all?"
"I remember stumbling out of the hospital a year or so ago. Nothing before that." I omitted the vision for obvious reasons. I was perfectly willing to keep answering his questions, but I had no intentions of bringing others into the equation unless there was no possible choice. I wasn't about to mention Duo or Mari or anyone else from Branch 2. This man could ask as much about my personal life as he wanted, but they weren't something I was willing to answer about.
"Well, I suppose I expected this as one of the setbacks, but I must say I am still surprised. After all you certainly are the right person." He smirked at me now. "You can discontinue the farce. I know you've loosened the ropes around your hands. You may as well take them off and sit up. Unless you'd like to fool yourself into thinking I don't know. But then, seeing the TV screen would be easier if you sat up." And with those words he stood up and crossed the room to where the computers were.
I frowned, not liking that I'd been discovered. Still, as he now knew that I'd managed to loosen my binds enough to escape, there was no point in staying tied down. True, he could be bluffing, but he didn't seem like the type to bluff on such a small point. All I knew was that he was quite confident to tie me down and not care if I'd gotten myself free. So I sat up, slowly, and quickly attended to untying my feet so I could turn and face the computer and television monitors, which he was turning on. As I did I noticed he wasn't wearing the white coat I'd seen in the vision and that had scared Duo so much. No, he was just wearing a normal business suit. I wondered if that meant anything.
"You wouldn't happen to be lying to me, would you? I sincerely need to know if you remember your own name."
"I don't." I said back as I rubbed my wrists. They were quite scraped from undoing the ropes, but luckily there was no bleeding. My wrists stung, but that helped draw my attention away from the pounding ache in my head, which I was happy for.
"Your name is Heero Yuy."
I stopped rubbing my wrists and glanced up at him in question. That certainly wasn't the name Mari and I had found. In fact, there was quite a difference between the names Riku Shirou and Heero Yuy. The only similarity that struck me was the nationality. Both of the names were Japanese, which did fit what heritage I could discover about myself from just looking at my facial features. But it still didn't quite fit.
"If that's my name, then why doesn't it show up in the records?"
He turned back to me with yet another amused expression. I was beginning to become annoyed with him and his attitudes. He seemed to see all of this as some kind of sick game.
"You don't believe me."
"No." I said back. My voice was turning cold, showing exactly how annoyed I was with this man. Knocking me out, tying me to a bed and being generally annoying and acting like a smartass know-it-all were not ways to get on my good side. Assuming, of course, that I actually had one. Which, at the moment, I didn't.
"Understandable. Perhaps this will help." He turned and flipped on the monitor and I found myself looking back at a face. It wasn't my own, not by a long shot, but it was still familiar in the slightest. The man on the screen before me had long brown hair, tied back in a thin pony tail in an attempt to keep it back out of his eyes and in some semblance of order. His eyes, which were tilted thanks to a more obvious Asian heritage, were ebony with a tint of brown, making his eyes look blank and almost inhuman. They were the type of eyes you saw on a movie screen belonging to the actor who portrayed a killer. They just weren't eyes you expected to see on a normal human being. I spotted a few wrinkles but not that many. The man staring back at me was nearly twice my own guessed age. And yet he looked familiar.
I couldn't keep the look of shock from my face as I looked over his picture again. And for the first time, I felt like I was looking in a mirror. This man's face was familiar and the image of his face even felt right. In spite of the fact that I was looking at a monitor screen and not in the mirror, I felt like it was a mirror. Everything about that image felt right. I knew for a fact that my body wasn't that old and didn't look like that, and yet it still felt right. His eyes struck me as familiar and I realized that they echoed my own as did the apparently disheveled look of the hair.
It was impossible. But this man looked related to me in some fashion. He wasn't me, and yet I felt he was... and my thoughts didn't make sense anymore. Nothing seemed to fit. How could he be me? I didn't look like that at all. But yet, I felt that he was me. All of a sudden my head started hurting again, but this time I knew it was from the confusion, not the bruise.
"Quite interesting. I hadn't expected it to work, not at all. But you've proven that my efforts worked out quite well. Quite well except for the memory loss. I hadn't anticipated that. Tell me, do you remember this?"
I glanced at him and found him standing there, holding a worn metal dagger in his hand as if it were a simple piece of decoration. He wasn't holding the object in any threatening way, but my body reacted violently to it as every part of me seemed to scream.
All at once I found myself down on the floor, holding my head and panting in a vain attempt to catch my breath. A burning and painful image singed itself in my mind. It was the same image of Treize leaning over me with that exact same blade. But in his hand, in the image, the blade was burning hot. The stench of charred flesh assaulted my nose and the bright light above me burned my eyes. My entire body screamed in pain and I found myself screaming with it. The flashback was violent in its intensity, causing me to curl up as my body shook and spasmed. I could barely breathe as I felt that blade touch my skin, burning it away piece by piece until all I could think of was the pain. The pain became my entire world. Just the pain and the wish for it to stop.
"Stop." I whispered hoarsely, managing to stop my own cries of pain. My soft voice rasped through the room and that seemed to provide a root for my sanity and calmness. I forced myself to concentrate on that and the cold concrete floor I could feel beneath me, and slowly I pushed away the flashback. My body began to relax and I opened my eyes.
I found myself lying on the floor, curled up tightly and hugging myself like some scared child. My body was drenched in sweat from the reality and strength of the image and I still trembled from the echoes of emotion. Slowly, and carefully, I managed to sit up and open my eyes. I found Treize kneeling in front of me, but thankfully he didn't have the dagger in view.
"How interesting."
I glared at him. My pain and fear from the flashback were immediately replaced with pure and utter hatred. I didn't care who he was. All I knew, and all that mattered, was that he was responsible for that pain I'd just felt. And it wasn't much of a leap to know he was responsible for my memory loss. I glared at him, and struck out, shoving him back away from me into the chair, knocking it noisily away. Following through with the movement I slammed him into the floor and pinned him there by the neck. I saw him bring out the dagger in an attempt to defend himself, but I wasn't about to let the flashback disable me like that twice and I simply kicked it away, sending it skidding across the floor and into a shadow, out of sight.
"Who are you!?" I growled at him, making it very clear that I would snap his neck if he didn't answer me.
He just looked back at me, as if he'd completely expected such a reaction. I almost snapped his neck right then and there because of the look on his face. But I wanted answers, and I wanted them badly enough to let him live.
"That isn't your body," he said through my grip, as if that explained everything. I frowned and loosened my grip enough for him to talk, but gave him no other leeway.
"Explain." I spat out.
His own eyes narrowed at me, showing a very serious and cold expression that seemed utterly at home on his perfectly groomed face. Perhaps it would have scared me before to see such a change, but right now I was running on adrenaline and it had no effect.
"Simple. You are not in your body. I must admit I didn't know if it would work, but I'm so glad you helped me discover it. Your flashback, all that pain, I did that." His expression turned even colder as he spoke in a low and threatening voice. "As punishment for disobeying me, I scarred you. I tore your body apart, piece by piece, as I heard you scream. I caused you so much pain that even your soul couldn't take it and death was no where in sight. You escaped. Into your own son."
My eyes widened and I stumbled back away from him, landing on the floor. My limbs trembled from that revelation and I knew I couldn't keep the horror out of my expression. He couldn't be telling the truth. That wasn't possible-
"Oh Heero, you surprise me. The coldest killer alive and yet you can't even deal with this reality can you? You never were good at dealing with reality. Just like dealing with that young boy who discovered what you were." He stood up and brushed himself off. "And yet you found your way back here. After a year, you came back to me. Too bad I no longer have any need for your employment and you no longer serve a use for me."
A click and a flash and suddenly he was holding a gun, training it right at my forehead. I froze and stared up his arm, watching his expression and not the gun, which rested against my head. I couldn't move that fast, I couldn't get away from point blank range. No one could move that fast.
But I refused to die.
I glared at him and kicked my legs out, right at him. In one movement I kicked him back and used the same momentum from that to throw myself back against the floor. He fired a mere split second later and I heard the deafening sound echo through my head painfully. The next second my head hit the concrete floor, splattering my vision with black dots and nearly causing me to black out. I grabbed onto consciousness and held onto it for my dear life, jumping to my feet. I couldn't afford to black out now, I couldn't.
Bolting to my feet and not even looking back at him, I sprinted for the door. My body worked on auto-pilot, complying completely to my instinctive and animalistic need to survive. I felt my feet hitting the concrete and barely saw the door in front of me. I raced right into it, throwing it open as I heard another gunshot and a bullet ripped through my arm. I bit my tongue to keep from crying out as I stumbled forward and just barely managed to catch myself against the wall, and then I was running again. Running for all I was worth.
~*~
I don't know how long I ran from him, or perhaps stumbled was the correct word. But either way I managed to somehow make my way through the old wreck of a building without being shot again, and I apparently moved fast enough to keep him off my tail and eventually lose him. Not hearing anything behind me for a long time, I ducked into a room and collapsed onto the floor, just grasping the concrete and savoring its cold feel against my skin.
It was comforting in its coldness, soothing. I could almost just lay there with my eyes closed forever. But I immediately stopped that train of thought and forced myself up, wobbling, back to my feet. I'd had my head smacked hard at least twice, the last thing I should do was let myself fall asleep. Not only would it mean I'd be caught, but I had a possible concussion and that meant that falling asleep now could be deadly.
Stumbling through the room, my head pounding madly, I found myself in an office of sorts. I made my way to the desk and dropped down behind it, relieved to find that it provided complete coverage from the door and prevented anyone from seeing me until they were nearly halfway into the room, and in perfect range... if I'd had a gun. I rested against the side of the desk, careful not to let my eyes slide shut, for a good long time. Eventually the pounding started to fade down to a dull constant pain and I was able to move again without feeling like I was going to smash myself into the floor again for lack of balance.
The first thing I did was tear off part of my pant leg, with the help of a letter opener, and slice it into strips. Then I managed to tie a few of those securely around my arm and the bullet wound. It hurt unbelievably, but I used the pain as an anchor for my sanity and consciousness and in the end it helped me think straighter. I slid the letter opener into the watch strap on my wrist for easy access and quick draw, before turning and looking through the desk for other possibly useful items.
Wonder of all wonders, I discovered a cell phone tucked away in one of the top drawers. The design was fairly new and a silverish, the kind you would see higher-up business men carry. I quickly flipped it open and was even more surprised to see that it wasn't password protected or locked. Closing it again and turning off the ringer, I tucked it in my other pocket and went back to looking through the desk. A cell phone might help me, but at the moment I had no idea where I was, and there weren't any windows in the room that had cover near them, so I wasn't willing just yet to check. At the moment I was safe and able to move. It probably wasn't the best choice, but a phone call for help could wait until I was in more danger. And I knew there were worst things than being shot at.
I dug through the desk a bit more, but managed to find nothing else of real interest. I rested by the desk a while longer, making sure I'd fully regained my center of balance, then I chanced moving across the room. While it was in plain sight of the door, the file cabinet caught my eye. It was one of those large metal ones, the kind that had locks at the top of each drawer because they were expected to hold documents of a secure nature. It was the kind of file cabinet that held important information, and assuming I was in Treize's office, I couldn't pass up a chance to look through it.
Crossing the room as silently as possible and keeping an eye on the door, I stood up and tried the top file drawer. Not surprisingly it was locked and made the softest click when I tried it. All the other drawers also acted the same, showing that whatever was inside actually was important enough to be locked up, because Treize didn't seem like one of those people to methodically lock things or the office door would have been locked and I wouldn't have gotten into the room.
Pulling out the letter opener I jammed it into the top lock and twisted it a bit, working the lock until I heard a click inside. I tested the door again and was quite impressed to find it opened now. I wasn't aware I could pick locks...
The drawer slid out to reveal various file folders, all containing subject titles of whatever was inside the folder. I scanned the names of the folders but found nothing of interest. A second glance and then I decided to keep looking. I set down the letter opener and slid the drawer out completely, setting it as silently as I could on the floor, then glanced down at the lock below. Using the same letter opener I snapped the lock open from the inside, managing to reach it with only a minor cut to my hand. I slid the drawer open and looked over the folders. Once again there seemed to be nothing of interest, but I did notice a folder toward the back, labeled 'Media'. I frowned and pulled it out, flipping through the contents.
The folder held various newspaper clippings and photos from magazines and journals which seemed to concentrate on criminal activity and analyzing crimes. CDs and disk were tucked in the back pocket, no doubt holding the same or more information in computer format. All of the articles seemed to focus around one particular killer and all repeated the same name.
Heero Yuy.
I swallowed and began to skim over the articles, unable to resist the urge. Treize had said it was my name, and he'd called me the most efficient killer... I couldn't hide my curiosity and I had no intention of denying it. One by one I skimmed through the articles, surreally reading about my supposed self through the eyes of scientists, police and reporters. Facts varied and I quickly got the impression that they really knew nothing about Heero Yuy, save for what they could discover from his victims.
Victim after victim...
I knew my eyes were wide in surprise as I read over the photocopied police and coroners reports. How many people... So many that I didn't want to count. And still my mind seemed to whisper to me that it was many more. That a file drawer twice this size couldn't hold all the names and details on how they'd died. Hospital workers. College students. Married couples. Tourists. A boy in a mental hospital. Prostitutes. Old ladies. Full families right in their own homes-
I stopped and nearly dropped the folder in front of me, my hand frozen on one particular police report. Staring up at me were the victims' names, in a black ink that glinted in the dim light as red, as if it were taunting me in some sick and morbid way.
Victims:
Anastasia Une
Hector Une
Survivors:
Mariemeia Une
"Mari..." The word slipped out, my voice hoarse and shaking, much like my hands, which now trembled, just barely able to hold onto the folder without it spilling noisily all over the floor. This Heero Yuy... he was the one who had killed Mari's family. Which meant that...
I scanned down farther, to the area which described the witnesses report of the killer. And to my horror I found the description perfectly matched the picture Treize had shown me on the video screen. And the killer had worn a white trench coat. The report was signed by Office Chang.
I closed the folder and leaned back against the wall behind the file cabinet to try and catch my breath. I suddenly couldn't breathe and I knew I had to calm down. My body threatened to rise into a panic all over again and I didn't want that to happen. I couldn't let it happen. So I stood there, clutching the damning folder to my chest as I closed my eyes and tried to regulate my breathing.
The very possibility was staggering. Treize had said that my name was Heero Yuy, but I had no reason to trust him. Still, I couldn't deny my gut feeling when he'd shown me the picture and I'd felt as if I were looking into a mirror. As impossible as his claim was, it almost made sense. He'd killed me, painfully, which explained the searing vision and the reaction to the dagger he'd showed me. Things like that couldn't be faked. But the claim about my soul fleeing my body into the body of my son... that almost seemed too fantastical to be believed. Still, I couldn't deny that when I compared what I looked like now to the man on the screen we did bear a familial resemblance. Still those whole possibility of it all was mind blowing and I just couldn't' believe it. I couldn't.
And to accept, on top of all of that, everything this Heero Yuy had done, was another matter entirely. I knew the folder wasn't a plant; it couldn't have been. Even if Treize knew I would make it to this room and read through his folders, the 'Media' folder was no different from any of the others. No separate color had been used to make me subconsciously notice it over the others. The title of the folder was even typed exactly as all the others and no pieces of paper had been sticking out to catch my attention. The folder wasn't a plant, so it was most likely real. Which meant that Heero Yuy had done all these things. And if I was Heero Yuy, then that meant I'd killed Mari's parents. All of that was just too much to take in.
Luckily I didn't have to think about it long. Footsteps fell outside the room and I immediately went silent, freezing and holding my breath. There wasn't enough time to put the drawers back without making a sound and there was only one exit from the room, which was the door. But there was a window behind me, partially boarded up. I debated for a second, then dropped the folder and raced to the window, prying off the boards as quickly as I could without a care for the sound.
I heard the door open behind me, but I didn't care. I didn't even look back, time was too precious. A bullet whined past my ear and splintered the wood in front of me, making my heart rate increase anymore. But I didn't give him time for a second shot, because I was already out the small opening I'd managed to make and dropping to the ground below.
Luckily after I jumped out the window, it turned out to be the second floor. My feet hit the ground and I caught myself enough to keep steady and not fall forward, then bolted away from the building, not really caring which direction I was heading in, just running as fast as I could.
Getting away was first priority. Dealing with this new information would happen when and if I survived.
TBC...
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