"Would he-" the larger of the two heads started, pausing as it glanced between you and Eurochkoles, swallowing nervously as it tried to find the courage to ask what was on its mind. "Would he have actually fired?" it asked, a question that you yourself didn't know the answer to, a question that you couldn't have answered if you wished to. You knew that you wouldn't be killed by such an injury, though it would have incapacitated you for a short space of time and so did he. He knew that you would have recovered from it, that it wouldn't cause any lasting ill efects other than the immediate pain and discomfort it caused.
"Of course he wouldn't," you responded as you glanced in his direction, watching as he silently continued to feed coal into the fire. You wished you could convince yourelf of that, you wished you could have read what was going through his mind at that point, known what he was thinking so you could answer it truthfully. You couldn't quite convince yourself that he wouldn't have, especially with how firmly he had pressed the gun to your head. "He loves me too much to do that, naturally." you added as you smiled, though your smile wasn't as bright as it normally was.
It was only now that you were beginning to feel shaken, that you realised that as much as you had been around him, that you didn't know him. You had thought you had, you had heard him talk about all he had done for man kind, you had heard him talk about how he had done what it took to get the best outcome. You knew that he regretted the creation of the Guardians, that he hated having taken that step when it could have been avoided, yet you didn't know if he would still feel so remorseful if he felt that the only way forward was to carve his way through the bodies before him. You didn't know if he would truly have been sorry if it had came to him shooting you.
Maybe it was just insecurity speaking, maybe it was your heightened intellect running away with that paranoia you felt, yet you couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to him than he had let on. Maybe he himself wasn't even aware of it, maybe he believed in the words he spoke so deeply that they were lies indistinguishable from the truth. You had seen him kill before, you had seen him break the neck of a simple mugger while giving a chilling speech about killing for the right reasons. He was definately capable of killing when he believed his reason was just and that ability to justify would no doubt extend to every act he was capable of commiting.
"We need to give you a name, you know, something to make you more of a person, something to make you one of us," you started, pausing as you tapped a finger against your lips. You knew the types of names that the Enlightened would have given them, yet actual civilian names were something you hadn't had a great deal of reason to think of. Apart from when your own one was used to make you cringe, that was. For that matter, you didn't know if you were going to have to name both of the heads, knowing that they were both a single entity and two distinct beings at the same time.
"I do not require a name," the larger head rumbled, while the smaller one butted against it.
"A story, a story!" it squealed. "Tell us a story!"
"A story?" you huffed, shaking your head slowly as you did so. "What do I look like, your mother?"
"A song?" it inquired, looking at you dead on now.
"If you want a song, sing it yourself," you snorted in reponse.
"I don't know any songs," it responded with a pout, before turnings its attention towards the side of the train and chattering away inanely as it watched the scenery go by.
"You may not feel like you require a name, but it'll go a little towards establishing that you are still a person, despite what you appear to be," you huffed as you turned your attention back towards the larger head. "Without a name, you are just a face and a form, another monster, identified by what you are, not who you are."
A rumbling sound came from the thing before you, yet no words, no response one way or another to say if it was for or against this concept.
"How about we call you... William. Bill for short. We can call the other head Robert, Bob for short."
The larger head grumbled in response to this, though it once more, made no response for or against it.
"You hear that Eurochkoles, they have names that are more normal than your one now," you giggled as you turned to face him, though he did little to acknowledge this, instead keeping his attention on the railway before him. "Oh fine, be a miserable git then," you muttered as you turned your attention back towards the thing, back towards Bill and Bob. "Now, Bill, why don't we talk about what you remember of your life before you became this way, about the area we're in, about everything that seems important to you."
"I do not remember my life before I changed, I do not remember my name, I do not remember," came that rumbling voice as he shifted slightly, leaning back as he turned to look over the side of the train, as he looked at the scenery that was now speeding by. You frowned, as even though this was only to be expected of something that had changed so chaotically, it wasn't what you wanted to hear. It hadn't had the benefit of the manner in what it changed being quite so controlled as your own, it hadn't had its mind mostly protected from those changes.
"Do you remember recent events at least, if people came to see what had happened to the town?" you asked as you tilted your head slightly. "Surely after all, people would notice that a town on one of the rail roads was missing its people, that those that passed through may have vanished. Why did we not hear about this before now?"
"We changed the tracks, so they would send most trains on an alternate route, until you came."
"What of the Ghouls?" came Eurochkoles voice as he turned his attention in your direction, his tilting his head as he wiped his hands against his waistcoat, leaving black smears from the coal against it. "How did they cover up the fact your town essentially vanished, how did they hide so many people dissapearing?"
"I... I do not know."
"Then, we're going to have to assume that they have infiltrated the local branches of the government working here," he muttered as he furrowed his brow. "Potentially, they could have spread further than that. We have no way of knowing just how long they have been actively setting things up for their masters," he paused, turning away from you as he did so. "Alexandrina will need to know about this, she'll need to know that she cannot trust the government anymore, that she may even be in danger as a secondary target of these things."
"Why would they want to kill the queen, given that the government has the real power?"
"They wouldn't kill her, they'd control her," came his response, before he fell silent.
The rest of the journey to the next station was occupied with conversation with Bill and Bob, as you confirmed that they did indeed have little recollection of their natures, little memory of the area you were in. They were capable of rational thought, yet it was clear that they were still changing, that they wouldn't be capable of such thought for long. This worried you, as it made you wonder if you would continue to change as well, if you would be undying and eventually end up becoming one of the mindless things that you had preyed upon during your time with the enlightened.
Your arrival at the station caused a stir, with Eurochkoles telling you to remain where you were, to ensure that Bill and Bob remained with you before he dismounted the train. Even as he did so, even as the civilians in the carriage behind you started to dismount the local law enforcement arrived. While you couldn't hear what was being said to him, you could tell it related to you, to the other with you, with the police wanting him to step aside to allow him to get to you. You cringed as you watched him no doubt giving them the story of what had happened, not even pausing as he was punched in the face by the irate policeman.
"I asked you to move aside, not tell me your bloody life story!" you heard the man shouting, a few more words from Eurochkoles causing his face to turn red with anger as he lashed out again. "The queen, bless her soul, would never send an assortment of scum like yourself to do anything important like that!"
The bursar was fast to hurry over with a document, passing it to the policeman who scowled, screwing it up with one hand before casting it aside, pointing his revolver at Eurochkoles now as he continued to yell, as you stepped from the train, edging over cautiously.
"It's quite the offence to bear forged documents like that, you know. You're lucky with your other crimes that I'm not shooting you on the spot," the man snapped, while Eurochkoles sighed.
"Mortal, I do not have time for this, what I am doing is very-"
"Mortal?" the man laughed, a laugh that was both arrogant and ignorant. "What do you think you are, special, kid?"
"Do these eyes look like the eyes of a young man, human?"
"No, they look like the eyes of a killer, thus telling me that I am right here-"
"I am not going to play these games any longer human, call the appropriate people and get these civilians back on their way safely like your duty to them demands."
"Or else what?" the man sneered.
You could see that this was about to get ugly, that if things continued to escalate that Eurochkoles could potentially end up further injured than he already was. Were you going to intervene, knowing that they wanted you, or did you trust him to be able handle this, despite the clear ignorance that the man before him was showing?
Author
Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 78926 times)