Chapter 3: Last Goodbyes
#3 of Infected
This chapter is in Hazel's POV. Just letting you'll know that.
Hazel's childhood; Eight Years Ago
It was raining that night when my life was destroyed. I could hear the drops hitting against the window as if in an attempt to keep me from falling asleep. I rolled over onto my side in my small, twin sized bed and tried to block out the annoyingly loud patter against my window, but it wouldn't fade into the background of my silent room. I covered my head with my blanket and added my pillow so I could go to sleep, but the rain just pounded on the glass harder.
"Why is this happening to me?" I muttered sullenly into the pillow, wondering if I had done something to offend someone up there and this was their payback. I sat up and threw my pillow at the window before blowing a strand of loose hair from infront of my face as I stared at my reflection in the mirror on my desk. My hair was in a disheveled mess atop my young face while my eyes stared back at me with an exhausted look. I tried to tame my unruly hair by patting it down but it stayed in the tangled mess. I sighed and was about to lie back down when my mom barged into my room with a strange look in her eyes and blood covering her nightgown, her hair in messy tangles while her cheeks were soaked in tears.
"What happened to you, Mom?" I asked fearfully as she slammed the door closed behind her and braced herself against it. She looked back at me with a look of pure terror that made me want to cry but it also kept me from uttering even a single whimper.
"Where are you, my love? I just want to play with you and Hazel, that's all." I heard my father call out from down the hall, his voice sounding as if it were being fed through an amplifier. My mom stared out at the rain soaked window and clenched her teeth against the loud thump that hit my bedroom door, pushing her back a few inches. I cowered under my covers and wished desperately that this was all a horrible nightmare, but the manic laughter of my father and the cries of my mother as she tried to keep him from coming in sounded all to real to me. I heard the door finally give way under my father's battering and watched through my thin sheets in horror as he shoved my mom roughly to the floor before sinking his teeth into her neck, blood gushing out past his mouth as he bit down roughly. I listened to my mom's strangled whimpers with my eyes squeezed shut and I tried not to picture what he was doing to her, but the sound of breaking bones made it almost nightmarish to keep them shut.
"I just want this to end." I thought cowardly when I stopped hearing my mom's screams of pain, the only sounds still left in the room were my father's irregular breathing and my almost jack hammering heart beat. The sheets were ripped off from over me and I was greeted with a bloody grin that seemed to fill my entire field of vision.
"Why, hello, Hazel dear. Mind if we play a game?" My father asked, some of the blood from my mom's neck dripping from his canine teeth onto the floor as he cocked his head to the side with a flash of a grin that split his face into an almost comical mask. I shook my head and tried to shy away from him, but he held me in place with his hand clamped around my left wrist. I tried not to stare him in the eye and started trembling in fear as he licked my cheek, leaving a mixture of his saliva and blood on it. I started trembling even more when he grabbed my chin and turned my face so that I was staring him in his now blood red eyes, the parent I used to know nowhere to be found in his crazed stare. I felt tears start to well up in the corners of my eyes and I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere away from him, but I couldn't do anything about his almost crushing grip on my arm.
"Oh, come now, Hazey-wazey. Why won't you play a game with me? I promise I won't bite." He said as he let go of my chin and wiped a tear away from my cheek with the back of his hand. My eyes went wide with terror at the way he said 'bite' and tried to get my arm free from his grasp when I felt an electric sensation run through my arm. I stopped moving completely and stared in awe as my father was launched off of the bed as if he'd been struck by lightning. He crashed through my wall and landed on the other side with blue sparks popping off of his blood stained pajamas. I looked down at my left arm and saw tendrils of electricity arching on my wrist, repairing the cut that his claws had made. I climbed off of the bed and knelt down next to my mom's broken body, the tears flowing freely now as I stared at her lifeless sapphire blue eyes.
"That wasn't very nice, Hazel." My father said from the door to my bedroom, holding onto the doorframe for support. I looked up and saw his leg twisted out from under him at an impossible degree while his claws dug into the wooden frame, leaving splits in it from the force he was exerting. I clenched my jaw against the whimper I wanted to let out of my mouth and stood up, my arm glowing a gentle blue from the energy flowing through it. He scowled at me and wrenched his claws from out of the doorframe before awkwardly lunging himself at me, the infected parts of his body now apparent through his burned off fur.
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I woke up with a start when I felt Axel squeeze my butt cheek in his sleep, almost making me send a hundred thousand volts through his body. I took in a deep, shuddering breath and held it for as long as I could to calm myself down. I watched as the blue glow left my arm and let out a quiet sigh of relief as l lay my head back down against his chest, trying not to let my mind wander back to the memory that just came rushing back to me.
"It's okay, Hazel. It's over now, he can't hurt you anymore." I reassured myself quietly, but I knew I didn't have any control over my memories, so the relief was short lived. I stared at Axel's smiling face as he slept and felt a sharp pang of guilt at how close I'd been to ending his life. I unwrapped my arms from around his neck and gave him a gentle kiss on the lips before I lifted myself from on top of him, feeling his arms wrap a little tighter around my waist. I smiled at his unconscious movement and gently pried his arms from off of me before I quietly slipped off of the bed and onto the cold, hardwood flooring. I looked at the clothes littered around my room and couldn't help but smile at what we had done last night.
"I love you." Axel muttered in his sleep before turning over onto his side, his deep, sultry voice tickling my eardrums. I smiled a little wider at what he said and crept over to my bedroom door, my footclaws making soft clicking noises. I opened the door and took a last look at him before sighing affectionately, happy that I can spend my life with someone like him. I walked into the hall and closed the door quietly behind me, hearing my stomach growl audibly for attention.
"Good thing I went grocery shopping." I mused as I pulled on a t-shirt I'd grabbed from my bedroom floor and walked down the hall to the living room, the medium sized room basking in the glow of the sunset that shone in through the wall of windows that curved from one side of the room to the other. I continued towards the kitchen and listened to my stomach growl even louder with a light scowl on my face at its impatience. I reached into a cabinet and grabbed a skillet from the top shelf before moving off to the fridge to grab some eggs, cheese and ham for a couple of omelets. I turned on the stove burners and cracked the eggs into a bowl I pulled out of the cabinet and started whisking them around while the stove heated up, whistling a lullaby my mom used to sing to me when I was younger. I poured the eggs into the skillet when they were fluffed enough and waited for the omelets to heat up before adding the ham and cheese. I grabbed a spatula from the drawer and slid them onto a plate for me and Axel and put his on the counter before digging hungrily into mine, swallowing the first scalding bite with a pained look on my face because I forgot it was hot. I put my plate down and went back to the fridge for a carton of milk so I could soothe my burning tongue. I drank down some of it and licked my lips of the excess milk on them before closing the refrigerator door with my foot. I walked over to my omelet and continued eating, the milk having cooled my mouth down from my moment of stupidity. I wolfed down the rest of my omelet and put all the dishes in the sink so I'd remember to wash them later. I walked out of the kitchen and moved back over to the living room to sit on one of the couches in the center and wait for Axel to wake up. I grabbed the remote from off of the couch arm and turned on the holo-vid screen to see what was on, but nothing seemed interesting on any of the channels I flipped through until I settled on the news. I turned down the volume so it wouldn't wake him up and stared intently at the red-stripped muzzle of the badger staring back at me from a small square next to the news anchor, his amber colored eyes boring a hole into my brain.
"Twenty-four year old Jasper McKinley was killed today in a bizarre accident by way of being run down by a semi-trailer on the outskirts of the city. No body has been found to confirm his death as of yet, but a body has been found for the truck driver, and three others who were in the crash as well...." I tuned out the rest of what the anchor said and leaned against the back of the sofa, not believing what I had just heard. A rouge semi-trailer had just killed one of my oldest friends and no body had been found. Something didn't sit well with me on that problem, but my mind didn't want to work after such a bomb had been dropped on me. I turned off the screen and sat in stunned silence as my brain tried to reboot itself. I heard Axel's footfalls come down the hallway, but they sounded distant, detached. I hardly felt it when he wrapped his arms around me from behind and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I heard him ask what was wrong, but I couldn't answer him. All I could do was stare into the spot where Jasper's head had been and sit there, my emotions not knowing whether to show themselves or stay bottled up. I watched Axel climb over the back of the couch from the corner of my eye and felt him hug me close, asking again if everything was alright in a soothing voice that pushed my emotions over the edge on the knife they had been balancing on. I shook my head and broke down sobbing onto his shoulder, letting my sadness envelope me completely. I hugged him around the waist and cried into his stomach fur, memories of the times Jasper and I had spent together making me sob even harder. I felt Axel's satin-soft, black fur grow damp beneath my endless tears, but couldn't feel any reprieve from my sadness. He sat there patiently, waiting for me to cry my fill like a guardian angel as he rocked me gently back and forth. The motion helped deaden the pain of my friend's passing, but it didn't help stop the tears that continued to stream down my cheeks. I looked up at his warm, understanding face and dried my eyes on the back of my paw.
"Feeling better?" Axel asked, wiping his paw along my cheek to get some of the tears I missed. I nodded my head as my answer and looked out over the ocean as the setting sun reflected off of the water, making the ceiling sparkle like thousands of diamonds.
"I made you a late breakfast." I whispered as I pointed at the omelet I'd left out for him on the counter. I felt his lips brush against my forehead as he unwrapped his arms from around me and climbed over the couch to get his food. I lay down on the sofa and closed my eyes against the glare from the sun, the sofa feeling warm after having soaked up most of the sun's rays for the day. I heard the scraping of fork against plate and smiled at the noise Axel made when he ate, wondering if he was just as hungry as I had been. I lifted my head to see the sun get blocked by a cloud and watched the shadows plunge everything into a semi-twilight state. I sat up and felt Axel slide his arms around my waist as he sat back down behind me, his breath smelling of his ham and cheese omelet as it passed over my neck and into my nose. I leaned back into his arms and smiled up at him, feeling my sadness towards my friend's disappearance start to numb itself as I stared into his eyes.
"What a touching moment between two young lovers. Makes me want to vomit." A deep, foreboding voice called out from behind us. I looked back at the same time Axel did and saw a figure wearing a black cloak standing just beyond the little light that was filtering through the clouds into our living room. I didn't know what it was about this figure freaked me out, but it obviously didn't have the same effect on Axel that it did me.
"Who are you?" He growled menacingly as he hugged me closer to him in a protective way. The figure laughed harshly at his question and took a step towards us, his arms at his side in a form of non-hostility. Axel let go of me and climbed over the couch to put himself between me and the hooded figure.
"Do you really think that you could stop me if this escalated to a fight, boy? I could snap you like a twig in less time it would take for you to breathe." The figure sneered as he took another step towards me, his stance still in one of non-hostility while his voice dripped with violent intent; as if hoping he would get into a fight. I felt my heart start to beat faster in my chest when he said that. I shrunk against the sofa and started to feel the panic set in. Axel growled again and took up a defensive stance infront of me while eyeing the figure warily, looking for an opening to start with while still protecting me. The figure stopped walking when there was only a ten-foot gap between them and disappeared from view, as if he hadn't been standing there only a second before. I blinked a couple of times to see if I was just seeing things, but I was shocked to see him standing next to Axel, who was doubled over in pain as he sank to his knees while holding onto his stomach.
"Should've listened to me. I hate getting my hands dirty." He muttered as he kicked Axel viciously in the side, sending him sliding across the floor into the wall with a heavy thud. I stared at his pained face and felt a paralyzing wave of fear wash over me when I heard the figure chuckle.
"Now, my dear, shall we take our leave? I'm sure you don't want to make this any harder on him than it has to be." He said in a calm voice as he placed a hand on my shoulder. I flinched away from the burning hot hand and leapt to my feet, my arm crackling with electricity as my fear took over and I started backing away from the assailant. He laughed darkly at me and disappeared from view again, only to reappear an inch infront of me. I yelped in surprise and pain when he grabbed my arm, but the pain of his burning hand only intensified when I tried to electrocute him. He growled at my defiance to give up and through me onto the sofa I'd just been sitting on, his arms crossed by the time my vision cleared.
"Must you make this harder for yourself?" He asked, genuine curiosity in his voice as he stared at me from under his hood. I nodded my head angrily and focused on building up a charge in my arm, trying to be discreet about it while I glared back at him. He sighed and turned around to stare out the giant window.
"And to think we'd be able to get through this without major property damage like that badger, Jasper, but I guess they all can't be the same." He said wistfully. I had stopped paying any attention to what he was saying by that time, but when he mentioned Jasper, I felt a deep, primal urge to kill this person. I growled deeply from my throat and watched the crackling electricity start arching towards other things in the room from my hand, shattering some of the windows with the power my hate had brought out of me. I jumped to my feet and lunged towards him, my arm raised as if to wave someone goodbye while my hand curled into a fist around the epicenter of the electrical storm that my fury had conjured up. I slammed my fist down onto his back and felt the discharge blow me back into the couch, the resulting explosion deafening me for a few seconds and making my vision swim. I shook my head to try and clear some of the darkness from infront of my eyes when someone's hand clamped around my neck, bringing everything back into focus very quickly. The figure raised me up from off of the couch without so much as a grunt and held me there in his vice-like grip, my toes barely touching the couch cushions as he tightened his hold on me. His cloak had singe marks on it from where I'd struck him and it was slightly smoldering, but other than that it seemed as if I had never hit him in the first place.
"Well, that was a very impressive skill you exhibited, vixen. I'm impressed. Here I was, thinking that all I'd found was one of the last descendents of the once great Rapturian race, only to find out that she can control electricity as well. This is truly fascinating, but I see that I'm going to have to teach you what the word respect means." He said with a slight edge to his voice as a purple glow surrounded the hand that was holding me by the neck. My eyes widened as I felt the force of a small bomb explode impact on the hollow of my throat, rocketing me across the room and into a wall, my spine cracking in several different places while my ribs snapped as if they were made of glass. The breath was knocked from my body with incredible force and I slumped down onto the floor with a sigh as my body gave out on me. I sank to my knees and heard Axel growling in protest against my pain, but there was nothing I could do about my inability to save either of us. I fell forward onto the cold floor and felt my broken ribs scream in pain, but I didn't care. I liked the feel of the floor against my burning cheek and let unconsciousness win out over my waning will to see him, the last thing I was able to hear before going under was Axel pleading. It was a terrible sound to hear.
"I love you, Axel." I whispered in vain as my eyelids closed, officially closing off a chapter of my life.
So ends another chapter of Infected. Same drill as last time, I don't own Axel, Hazel is mine, and review when you get the chance. Vote away and for those with the mark of the beast; May you sleep soundly, knowing that the Beauties shall be with you always, in your laughter, in your rage, in your sorrow, and in your fear. May the B and B Unit rest in peace. I also don't own