Elfen Lied Fan Fiction ❯ Angel of Massacre ❯ Decent into Hell ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: I don’t own Elfen Lied, that privilege belongs solely to Lynn Okamoto. However, I do own Michael Mordare and all of the other original characters introduced here.

Summary: Elfen Lied has ended with Lucy’s death. But the story lives on so long as the Diclonius Virus spreads. This is the story of Michael Mordare, the first Diclonius born in America. And more importantly, this is the story of the first male Diclonius born outside of captivity. This is the story of Michael’s decent into madness, and the beginning of Samael.

Warnings: This is rated T for intense dark themes and gruesome murders. I suspect that a lot of you are already desensitized to this, so no problems here.

Author’s Notes: I’m actually continuing writing, and there is also a surprise. What makes this surprising is that I haven’t killed someone yet. This is a problem because I kill someone in almost every chapter I write. This is a problem I am planning on rectifying straight away. The last chapter was to make known the details of Michael’s life, the stone foundations on which his reality has been set.

Author’s Notes (Con.): The continued part of the Author’s Notes is where I reply to reviews. Let’s see what we got in this empty sack filled to the brim with reviews. Oh look, it’s an empty sack not filled with reviews. It’s just an empty sack with a sign that says, “Reviews go here.”

I’m not bitter. Let’s get the nitty-gritty started.

--------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------

Ang el of Massacre

Chapter two: Decent into Hell

I ran up the stone steps leading back into my house. I slowed to a halt in front of the front door and lifted my pale hand up to the door handle, then stopped. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the winter weather or the frozen wind clawing at my reddened cheeks. The warm feeling of euphoria that had accompanied me through the morning had mysteriously been replaced by a dark despairing foreboding. I realized that I had stop breathing and forced myself to exhale.

“Nothing horrible has happened, but I can’t deny that something has happened and still is happening!”

You wanna kill?

I did not know why I was feeling so anxious. I couldn’t stand out here in the cold otherwise I’d look really stupid. I grasped the door handle and closed my eyes before I entered my house. As I opened my eyes; I saw everything was covered blood it was everywhere. The ceiling the ceiling was…

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. No blood draped across the walls and there were no bodies hanging from the ceiling. I felt a shudder run through my spine and found that I had been holding my breath again. Exhale and inhale, exhale and inhale because that’s the way to live.

“Honey, is that you?” a voice called out from inside the house. Mom came into view as she walked away from the kitchen area. She was wearing a simple sweatshirt and sweatpants combination. The elastic waistband was stretched tight over her pregnant belly. I only stood in the open doorway and gave her a blank stare. She put her hands on her hips and frowned deeply. “Why are you standing in the door? You’re letting out all of the heat!”

With an enormous effort, I picked up my feet and completed my entry into my home. Then I threw the front door closed, it swung into place with a satisfying click. I stood in the front hall with a blank stare fixated on my face. Mother looked at me with a mixture of concern and irritation. “What has gotten into you? Are you feeling alright?”

Was I feeling alright? I couldn’t tell anymore, I felt so confused and anxious. I kept on shifting my weight from my left foot to my right foot and back. So many uncalled for emotions churning in my head! I finally answered, “I…I don’t know, I’m going upstairs.”

“Do you need anything from me?” questioned Mom. I shook my head and ran to the stairs. At the last second I turned to look back at Mom. Her loving face was torn apart, blood splatters coated that lithe cadaver and her stomach was rendered in two.

A tiny smooth hand hung lifeless from the open womb.

I sucked in my lower lip and bit down to suppress a scream. Mother smiled reassuringly with a perfectly normal, perfectly intact face. Without a backwards glance I tore my path up the stairs as fast as I could. As though I could escape these apparitions if I ran fast enough. What was happening to me! Was my mind descending into a hell of my own making? I didn’t go into my bedroom. Instead I found the entrance into the attic. There was a square opening in the ceiling covered with a wooden lath. The only way to open it was to push up. The flap falls down and releases the ladder leading up into the attic. The attic was the place that I call sanctuary. I haven’t used it since the cold weather rolled in, but desperation drove me to the safety of the loft.

There I was, standing under the wooden entry when I realized I forgot the stepladder. I wasn’t tall enough to reach the ceiling. I didn’t want to go downstairs. I couldn’t face the gruesome visions anymore! Just when my anxiety peaked, the sound of wood sliding on wood brought my attention to the ceiling. Before my very eyes the attic door popped open and swung down. A second later a rickety ladder chased the door down and struck the floor with a loud clunk. What was that nearly transparent shimmer in the air? I squinted at the air and the shimmer vanished like a mirage.

Was I even surprised anymore? The entire morning had been packed with these unbelievable instances. A bitter chill crept down from the attic and sucked the warmth out of the air. Was it safe up in my sanctuary? Or would I be alone in the cold, assaulted with gory haunts?

And so with my heart pounding in my malformed skull, I ventured into the arctic attic. It felt as though I were being doused in ice water. The outside cold seeped into the attic and assailed my feeble body like fire. Yet despite this, the cold was helping me somewhat. My mind no longer felt so full of emotions. The intense pressure was gone and I could finally think freely. I threw my gaze around the cramped loft. The attic was small and uncomfortable, but there were signs of its previous living conditions. There was a mattress on the floor with an afghan for a blanket. Mom was always worried that I would get heatstroke in the summer, when the internal temperature in the attic was the exact opposite of what it is now.

I strode over to the mattress picked up the afghan before throwing it over my shoulders. It did little to keep out the cold but I didn’t want to be warm. When I was cold the world was clearer. I sat down in silence for a while, not daring to make a sound lest I alert the visions. I don’t know how long I waited with my eyes squeezed shut, silently shivering in an inadequate blanket. I guess it was a childish reaction to anything frightening: hide under the blanket and hope the boogeyman doesn’t notice the shaking blanket.

I could almost hear the blood running down the walls and pooling at my shoes and staining them in ruby murder. My eyes snapped open and I looked down before I could stop myself. There was no blood and no stained shoes. I doubled over and tucked my head between my knees. As I did this my chestnut wig fell off my cranium and exposed my twin horns. I tried breathing exercises to calm myself down. Exhale and inhale, exhale and inhale because that’s the way to survive.

Think, think!

When did it start? When did this happen most? The first question was easier than the second. This first happened in the morning when I saw the boy in the mirror. Thoughts began swimming in my head and time seemed to become immaterial. Oddly enough, the entire time I saw no hallucinations.

I could trace these all the way back at the beginning of the school day. I remember entering the classroom and glimpsed the entire class plus the teacher beheaded. This vision disappeared so fast I almost didn’t catch it. Another instance occurred during gym period. Since it was cold outside, we exercised in the gym. I remember during an unfair game of dodgeball (my team sucked) a jock tried to throw a missile of a shot straight at me. I had tried to catch it but the ball was going to bounce off my fingers (possibly knocking them clean off). Then the ball stopped just in front of me and I grabbed it out of instinct. It apparently looked as though I had caught it because the jock was called out. But I knew that the ball had just stopped in midair, as though it had been caught by an unseen force.

Another, more extreme instance happened right after the last case. The previously mentioned jock was embarrassed and angry by my display of miraculous, yet bogus, athletic prowess. He cornered me in the locker room and was going to knock me around. Then for some reason he doubled over as though he were struck by a sledgehammer. He literally puked and I could swear I saw blood in the vomit. Then I saw a strange shimmer in the air. This was the first physical violent example.

I was getting a bit concerned at that time. The bizarre occurrences were escalating into more disturbing visions and at least one other brutal takedown. This time I was standing in front of the classroom and giving a moderately decent presentation, something about child mutations (this was a specialty of mine). I was getting annoyed at an apathetic girl in the front row who kept on snapping her gum every time I started talking. I was sure she was doing it on purpose because she kept on smiling whenever I halted in my speech. At the peak of my irritation the girl suddenly fell backwards in her chair. Her skull hit the floor so hard that her skin broke and she began bleeding. Oddly enough, the blood was coming from a wound that looked like it had been inflicted by a very sharp knife, not what you’d expect for a simple fall.

But what did this all mean?! I don’t think I imagined the jock and the bitch getting hurt. And this only seemed to happen to me. I didn’t know what was going on and I was so cowed by these visions that I was actually considering becoming a hermit in my own home. How long would it be until these instances turned into something worse? What is someone died tomorrow? That girl already had to be rushed to the hospital. I don’t know if the jock had any other problems, I didn’t see him for the rest of the day. Another thing to note was that I could see a tell-tale shimmer in the air whenever someone got hurt. Nobody else seemed to notice it, but then again they were probably more interested in the victims rather than who did it.

I was about ready to scream in frustration when the sound of the attic door opening snapped me out of my trance. I sat up in the mattress and saw my mom’s head pop up into the loft. From this angle she looked like a guillotine victim. My mom gasped when she saw me. I guess I looked like a sight; I was all wrapped up in a white blanket in a darkly lit room. I probably looked like a ghost.

“Well there you are!” Mom admonished. There was definite steel in her voice and I felt a bit apprehensive at her tone. “What are you doing hiding up here in this frigid attic? You’ll catch your death of cold!” she continued. Her throat hung open… I quickly turned away. Finally she said, “And what in God’s name did you do to your alarm clock? That was a perfectly good alarm and you went and smashed it apart!”

This got my attention. I stared at a space just above her head. “What do you mean?” I asked cautiously. My thoughts flew back into my first waking thoughts this morning. But the memories were so weak and faded. I was never a morning person.

Mother tried to catch my gaze but failed and then said, “Oh don’t play innocent with me. That alarm clock is coming straight out of your allowance! Get down here and clean up the mess!”

Then her head disappeared down the hole and I heard her stomping down the stairs. “She didn’t even close the attic door!” I thought miserably. I stood up and reached for the attic stairs, then thought the better of it. I quickly slid down the stairs and ran into my room. As soon as I looked in through the doorway I discovered the source of Mom’s distress. The dresser on which my alarm clock used to sit on was a complete mess. Broken glass and shattered circuits were strewn across the usually immaculate dresser top. In the epicenter of this technological massacre were the remains of the first most insidious device designed by human hands: my alarm clock.

I strode over to take a closer look, yet still mindful of the broken glass. What I saw topped the entire day up until that point. There was a shape smashed into the plastic casing, it was the shape of a human hand. The hand was so perfectly shaped that I knew that this couldn’t be just a trick of the light. I lifted up my own hand and gingerly placed into the eerily shaped hole, sliding the fingers into their appropriate positions.

The imprint was bigger than my hand.

My head felt light and I stepped backwards. This was way too strange! I didn’t clearly remember everything that happened in the morning, but this was just impossible! Unless some seven foot giant (judging from the size of the hand print) snuck through my window with the sole purpose of destroying this device, then this was impossible. For fuck’s sake, what could this all mean!

Four minutes later the mess was all brushed into a plastic bag and dumped into the kitchen trash. While I was in my room I took off my hazel contacts and put them in a soft container. I found myself lying on the mattress in my refrigerated attic and staring up at the ceiling. I glared up as though daring the surface above me to start oozing blood. I just laid there with a head of red hair swept around my misshapen skull like a scarlet halo. A sudden thought occurred to me: was there a freak inside a freak waiting to be free? I brushed that thought away and continued searching, but what I was searching for was a mystery even to me.

--------

My blood red eyes snapped open. A fuzzy feeling washed over my entire body and for a second I had forgotten all about where I was and what I was doing. Then everything snapped into focus again and I remembered everything. I must have dozed off. I know I’m a heavy sleeper, that’s why I need a really loud alarm clock. I wondered what could it have been that had awakened me. Then I heard something that stopped my heart cold.

A woman weeping echoed from downstairs.

I was awake immediately and I had stepped off of the mattress. I slowly put my ear to the attic floor and listened intently. More noises crept into my ear and I could hear more voices. I had never heard these angry voices before.

“Where is he? Tell me where the diclonius is or I’ll shoot the other leg!”

My entire body froze up in horror. I could hear my heart pounding traitorously loud. “What- someone shot someone? What’s happening downstairs! IS MOM ALRIGHT!” my inner voice screamed. All of the sudden I realized what must be happening. Mom is watching a violent movie! That’s what must be happening. I had never heard the word diclonius before. Relief swept into my heart and I pulled the attic door away. The voices became more clear now.

“I’ve already told you! Michael is vacationing with a friend in DC!” a woman’s voice cried. My entire body froze up again and the warm relief flushed straight out of my body. It was immediately replaced with liquid nitrogen in my bloodstream. That was most definitely Sarah Mordare’s voice.

“Mother…”

Then I heard another sound. It was the sound of a man groaning with so much pain that I almost didn’t recognize it.

“Tony, please don’t move! Don’t move or you’ll bleed more!” Sarah choked. I could hardly believe my ears. What was happening! Was Dad the one that was shot! To my horror, the rickety ladder leading down from the attic began to slide down toward the hardwood floor.

“WRONG ANSWER!” bellowed a high, sadistic voice. The sound of the ladder striking the floor was drowned out by a horribly loud cracking sound. My mom and dad absolutely screeched in agony and I nearly fell through the hole.

“That was a gunshot! Oh my god they shot Dad!” I bawled in my head. Horrible misery tore at my stomach like a nest of angry snakes. Hot tears began to run down my cheeks and I tried desperately to stifle sobs. I was torn between jumping out a window and limping to help or lying on the floor and crying. The second choice was making itself a probability when a fiery anger ignited in my stomach. A strange, yet familiar voice spoke as though just beside my ear.

“These intruders are killing your family and you aren’t going to help them?”

I felt a sudden hatred swell up inside me. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. I was so furious at everything and especially the man who was shooting at my goddamn family! Blood pounded in my ears so loudly that I almost missed the voice speaking again. But this was a different voice. It was deeper and there was unmistakable anxiety in the second man’s voice.

“We’ve searched the entire house and the diclonius wasn’t found. Perhaps she is telling the truth?”

The high voice spoke like a serpent’s strike, “You fucking retard! The school records said that he had attended this morning! There’s no way he would be in Wash-fucking-ton DC!”

I slipped down the ladder as quietly as I could. I knew the fourth rung squeaked loudly so I stretched my left foot past it and onto the third rung. My heart was pounding so hard I could hardly believe the men downstairs didn’t hear it. I was seeing red and feeling cold black at the same time. Then I craned my neck around the stair corner to see if I could spot anything. I couldn’t see anything, not even a sign of a forced entry or struggle. So I slowly began my decent into Hell, stopping every step and half-expecting a thug to run around the corner and shoot me dead.

Throughout the whole ordeal my mother never stopped howling in anguish. Just keep doing that Mom; they’ll never hear me over your ugly racket! I stopped in my tracks. Where did that thought come from? My entire family was being held at gunpoint and you are bitching at your mother’s grief?!

Instantly the fiery anger was extinguished and all I felt was cold fear. What was I thinking! I was halfway down the stairs and I wasn’t even wielding a weapon of any sort! I wasn’t even wearing my disguise! Oh my god, I was going to get myself killed! But what was I going to do?

I could tell from Mom’s sobbing that they were in the living room just beside the stairs. I couldn’t turn back, not without knowing what was happening! Not without seeing what had already happened! And so I sucked in a breath and skulked down a bit further until I could see in the room.

I breathed out as though I had been punched.

I saw Tony Mordare and Sarah Mordare. Dad was lying on the ground with his head in Mom’s lap. His erudite face was ashen and his scholarly features were tight with pain. Both of his jean pants were stained a dark red. He was bleeding profusely from bullet wounds in his thigh. The blood had also soiled the brown carpet beneath my parents. Mom had her head bowed down and was gently brushing Dad’s chestnut hair. There was blood on her fingers but she didn’t seem to care about that. All I could see was her shoulders quaking as though she were being shaken by a giant.

I also saw two men standing over them like statues, their backs turned to me. One of the men was lean and the other one was large. They were both wearing black leather trench coats. The skinnier one had a bald head with an obsidian skull tattooed on the back of his cranium. I noticed the tattooed skull had two horns on it. He held a Desert Eagle Mark XIX pistol in his right hand. He was waving it around and quarrelling with his partner. His partner had a full head of charcoal colored hair. I could only see the side of his face (thankfully) but I could tell that he had a chiseled chin. He stood a good head taller than his gun-wielding partner, but I got the sick feeling that the crazier looking one was running the whole show. Speaking of which, he was the one who was talking.

“We were told to get the diclonius and we’re getting that son of a bitch! Shut the fuck up your whore!”

My mom had started crying louder. She knew that the bad guys were looking for something called a diclonius. Could that be… me? I was taking very shallow breaths and my head was feeling very light.

The large thug spoke softly, “We searched the entire house and we didn’t find him. We should get out of here! The neighbors may have heard your gunshots!”

Mr. Crazy just sneered at his mountainous partner, who seemed to shrink under the sadist’s glare. His mouth split open with a leering grin and when he spoke it sounded like a snake talking.

“You fucking newbie! Nobody ever calls the police in these bad of neighborhoods!” his voice got higher with excitement, “Anyways, you wouldn’t happen to have forgotten our second objective. We were told to prevent the virus from “reproducing” at any means possible.”

He gestured toward Sarah’s pregnant belly with the gun. My stomach tightened with a miserable mixture of fear and hate and helplessness. Then the sadist son of a bitch kept on hissing with his goddamn mouth.

“Looks like there’s been some unwarranted “reproducing” going on here. Wouldn’t you say so?”

Mr. Mountain didn’t look too disturbed. I knew what was going to happen and I couldn’t stop it. And so when the fiendish monster leveled the gun, I could only watch. Burning tears ran down my cheeks so thickly and I wasn’t even bothering to stifle my hicks and sobs. I believe that the two villains were so engrossed in what they were about to do that they didn’t even hear me. Father turned his head and his hazel eyes locked with my red orbs for the last time.

The man holding the pistol squeezed the trigger. The sliding rack snapped back and a single round splattered my loving father’s brains all over my mother’s person. The floor beneath my feet opened up like a pit and the Darkness swallowed my mind and soul. All I could hear was a strange, yet familiar voice laughing in the Darkness of my core.

------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------

End Chapter two: Decent into Hell

This was the chapter that was just so eager to escape my twisted head. This was the one that opens the gateway to a dark part of my mind that I didn’t even know existed. This is the chapter that “introduces” the diclonius mind that resides inside Michael’s psyche.

This chapter is the one that I have written and rewritten so often in my mind that I can call this perfect. I will probably take back my opinion once my excitement over this reclines a bit, but I don’t care right now. I hereby declare this horror story officially started.

No trivia for this chapter.