The Chase

The last nine days have been...well. There aren't a lot of words that are good at describing it. At least I can't really find any. That's why Qom and Garry are going to help me write this post. They're here with me now, and we have A.S. He's alive--barely. And we don't have Marcel, leading more weight to the idea that he's...well. Anyway.

Now when I say that the other three are with me here, you'll note I'm not saying where "here" is. That's for reasons I'll get to in a moment. Alberta is not safe anymore. If you've seen this--regardless of what Earth in this "Syzygy" you're from--and you're on our side, please don't come to help us. There's nothing you can do.

I should just start. Garry decided it would be nice if the three of us went somewhere to eat, in Alexandria. I wanted to go shopping (yes, I am a homosexual male who enjoys shopping) too, as shitty as that makes me come across as. I may have just said I had that desire to make things seem like they were before. Of course, now that the others are literally reading this as I write it, I don't know why I'm being all secretive and mask-y. We were shortly outside the town limits when Qom noticed something off the side of the road.

It's still snowy out here, even if it is warming up a little. But I noticed something off the side of the road that was, while pale, a different color than the rest of the snow. I told Garry to slow down and we saw it was a body.

I guess we've all sort of been desensitized already to this stuff. Once you find out your friend's face was cut off and used as headgear, finding a dead body off the side of the road only makes your throat tighten a little--not enough to give you a neck-ache. But the body wasn't dead. What's more, it was A.S.

Like Derek said, the guys are watching me type this, so I'm not going to try to hide what they already remember, that I screamed. I think it was because I did really think he was dead. I mean, we'd all taken it for granted that he was, but seeing the state he was in, I just...didn't want to think about what they put him through. I still don't.

There were these red lines over his body and face, like strips of licorice. Mixed in with these were these huge blotchy bruises, bruises put over bruises. But he was still deathly pale. His skin was cold when Garry and Derek picked him up, and he'd probably been in the snow for a few hours. He was naked, I should say, which instantly put a lot of images in my mind that--

I'm just glad A.S. did tell us what happened when he came to. As weird as that sounds.

And they took his hands.

They took his hands, as in cut them off. There were burnt stumps where they should have been, which seemed to be an attempt to cauterize his wounds. We were told, upon getting him to the hospital, that this attempt may have worked, but we're keeping an eye on everything because of what did happen in the hospital. The doctors treating him were able to ensure he was stabilized, and after awhile they even managed to wake him up.

Over the course of a few sessions of consciousness he was able to tell us what had in fact taken place. In retrospect, having the nursing staff around was a bad idea, because they were probably the reasons why the events of later that night took place--just because we mentioned that we also had the password to this blog. Plus it explains why they were so goddamn ready to say that A.S. was hallucinating. I can't believe none of us thought it was weird that none of them wanted to go to the cops.

On the night that he disappeared, the Abbey of Serpentis broke into A.S.'s house. He figured that they considered him the easiest target since he was always alone. We've been sharing houses on and off throughout these last few months, but A.S. was in fact by himself at his parents' house on that night. They kidnapped him, actually using chloroform, and blindfolded him like they were taking him to the damn Batcave. But it was effective. He doesn't know where Tamaron is hiding now, or if the person interviewing him really was Tamaron. He was wearing a hood and had a different voice but if it's him in a new body--that makes sense. (Though why the hood?)

They didn't even interrogate him. They just starting hurting him, with the hooded "Master" giving instructions on what they should do. They started by binding him to a chair not with rope, but with barbed wire--all around his body. That's where the cuts came from. And they beat him, bringing in a big guy named Oir to do it. (Why is that name familiar?) At one point A.S. asked if they were going to question him, but in response the Master merely suggested that Oir cut out his tongue. He didn't but A.S. cynically wondered why they didn't.

They starved him over those days, but kept him alive almost absentmindedly with a little bread now then. They mostly just beat him. A.S. is asking me to say that he's just happy he's weak, because it enabled him to pass out often. That's the only thing he's said about the experience aside from a flat description and obviously we're not going to press him further.

On that last day--the day where we found him--they decided that they were going to finally kick him out in the cold and leave him to die. But, in the words of the Master, they didn't want to leave him with the ability to resist any further. And so Oir took an axe, and separated A.S. from his hands.

They burned the wounds closed, as we've said, and then took him on another ride. He'd been naked for a few days now, and he figured they were going to throw him outside to freeze, like what really happened. But that was his last thought before he passed out. He woke up in the hospital with us next to him. Like you can probably guess he couldn't talk for awhile. All of the pain that he'd built up just sort of exploded from him over the course of a half hour. It was one of the painful things I've had to watch. The number one worst thing was watching him after what happened to Jacob.

After he told us everything we told him to rest. And we weren't going to leave that room even if they called the police on us. The nurses were very insistent at first that only family members could stay, to which we replied we all were family. One of them made a crack at me, saying something about having to be the adopted one, but I was too tired to lose my shit. I want to say that in the course of the debate Derek threatened to kill people if he wasn't allowed to stay, and even Garry stood by that. In any case, we spent the night watching as A.S. uneasily slept.

If we hadn't, they would have killed him.

That brings us to why Derek offered to type up my parts for me. I myself had started to nod off as it got later in the night. But Garry was fully awake. And so when the figures in hoods began to walk into the room, an angry scream jolted me awake.

That same scream made the Serpentis guys charge for A.S. They had knives and given their numbers they must have been dispatched to kill all of us, not just A.S. They really had guessed wrong when they figured that A.S. had been the only one who could access the blog. (Which really means that they haven't been checking it lately. But I completely doubt we have that liberty now.) We all lunged up, and, as a reflex, starting struggling with the hooded figures. There were three of them at first, after Garry and I took out two we saw there were more. I shouted for Derek to get A.S. out of here. Garry managed to hit the third guy in the stomach, which dropped him. But the door was blocked now, and we could all see it.

So Derek did a thing I'll always praise him for, which is odd given the nature of what he did. He took A.S.--a sick, injured torture victim--and jumped out of the hospital window with him.

But they both made it, and miraculously, they made it without Derek breaking or twisting anything. He's telling me now it's because of that incident where his sister shoved him into that crevice--he's really good at heights.

Garry and I screamed for Derek to run, but we didn't need to. He took off into the night, while we tried to follow him.

We were a lot more cautious than Mr. Fuller, of course. We edged out onto the ledge beyond the window and tried to climb down from there. Inside, I heard the cultists say that they were going to go down the usual route and try to cut us off. We gained a small head-start due to not getting off on the ground floor. We were about three floors up, it should be said, so we just went down one and got off from there. As soon as we landed I took out my phone and called the police. That would turn out to be a mistake.

The cop on the other end told us to head to a certain crossroads and hide behind some of the bushes there. As soon as I heard that, I called Derek and told him to do likewise. So we were all reunited. A.S. had woken up through part of this, and Derek had explained as best as he could.

But when the cops--two of them--did show up...

They took out their guns. And aimed them right at me.

I realized that it probably wasn't because I'm Iranian. They weren't wearing badges or IDs of any kind, and had sunglasses on at night. These sunglasses basically took the place of their robes.

And that's how I got shot in the arm. If I hadn't given another scream and flinched, it would have been in the heart.

And so that's how we figured out not to trust anyone in Alberta or otherwise.

We did still manage to get away, though. And again, we're not saying where. But I can assure you we are safe, and Garry's gun knowledge fortunately extends to bullet wounds. I am in hideous pain, but I am not dead. So A.S. and I are in a similar situation. It'll be some time before we're able to seriously move again. We need to think of a strategy. Garry's joked about forming the New O'Grady Mob--you know (unless you're from Earth-Alpha), the Mob run by Gregory O'Grady in The Life of Mocata. They fought against Tamaron and so it makes sense that he'd joke about us being in a similar outfit. 

I guess I'm not laughing now, though.

I have taken the liberty of contacting our families and having them get the fuck out of town. Of course, for all we know, they may be Abbey members too, but who can really say. I can only say what I have said, because I myself don't have a family. Joy.

There was another reason why I didn't contribute much to this post. It's because I'm literally fucking shaking right now. A lot from fear, yeah, but also a lot from...rage. I don't have words that can properly express how I feel little else aside from this soulless animal hatred. I want to just go outside and scream and scream, but of course that means they'll fucking find us.

Hey, Tamaron? If that is you, that is to say, and not a coward in a hood pretending to be you. 

We're still alive, too.

And we're going to slit. You. Open.

I don't know about these others, but you've hurt one of my best--my only--friends in the entire world. And I promise you--in what's coming, I will fight to the death if I have to.

Please

Amos is missing.

We and the police have been searching for three days. The police seem particularly disinterested despite the fact that, y'know, his brother was fucking MURDERED not that long ago. No word from his parents. I don't blame them. I don't know what we can tell them.

Until his possible return, I am now the de facto blog manager. As if there's much to fucking update given that all of our friends are dead.

Garry, Qom, and I basically live together now. We've taken to sleeping in shifts. We don't know who might go missing next.

...I don't believe in a God and I don't care what God your word goes out to, but if you believe in something--pray for us.

What to Do

So try as I might--I can't take down that image. I am so sorry.

We have no leads. No idea where Marcel is. He's probably dead, like Frank, and. We just have to deal with that. In our way.

I wish our way was one of revenge but without leads I don't know what we're supposed to do.

I'm so fucking useless. We all are, but I am in particular, being the youngest.

I don't expect forgiveness from Frank. Or Marcel. Or myself, also. As if I can think about myself.

We may be done.

Happy New Year.