The Beginning of An Apocalypse
Twenty-Two

Cas wanted to run into that room and grab whatever serum he used on all of his lab rats. Whatever he used on Marcus. Whatever he did to cause all of this. As she watched him laying there all defenseless and trying to get back up, failing gave her the time to think about this. Until she ignored her thoughts and looked at Gabriel and watched as he continued to struggle. As he continued to fight and fail. The look on his face was starting to get worried and had pain written all over it.

Cas looked at her own throbbing hands. She had done this.

Cas took a deep breath in and dropped her arms. She walked over to him and with one foot she pushed him to lay on his back. Gabriel’s hands rested up on each side of his face.

He looked up at Cas and he saw the look in her eyes. She didn’t have any more tears in her eyes. She didn’t run away and try to escape. She came over to him and she stood above him. He could fight and he would, but he couldn’t do much. His crutches were away from him and all he could use was his hands. He wasn’t the most athletic, especially in his arms. He didn’t know what he’d do or what it’d do, but all he could do was try. If not with his hands then with words.

“What are you…” Gabriel cleared his throat. “What are you going to do, Cassidy? Kill me?”

Cas didn’t say anything to him. She only stood there above him looking down on him, judging him. Thinking.

“Go ahead,” Gabriel said with as much strength as he could. “But it will change nothing. And I’m the only one who can save–” Cas grabbed his collar and she punched him across the face. He fell back to the ground and coughed up some of the blood that was starting to choke him. He moved his head to look behind Cas before he rested his head back down and looked up at her.

“And that’s why I’m not going to kill you,” Cas said. “I’m not like you, Gabriel. Nothing like you.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said with a bloody smile. He lifted his head only a little and said, “That’s why you are weak.”

“No,” Cas said with a smile. “That’s why I’m–”

Gabriel stood underneath her and watched as her once words and calm and collected mind turned into a jumble. As she shook and convulsed and then fell over Gabriel on her side. Gabriel finally let out gasps of air as he knew he was in favor.

“Weak!” Gabriel shouted at her to finish her sentence before she was tased and passed out. With a loud thump, he fell back onto the ground and laughed even though it hurt. He couldn’t believe he let it get this far, but it was finally over and now he was going to take back control. The control he never should have lost.

“You okay, sir?” One of the scientists who were watching the security tapes from the other room asked. He saw what was going on and he came to help. He slowly walked up to Cas and tased her. The man with the lab coat leaned down and helped Gabriel to sit up. Without an answer to his question, he walked over to get Gabriel’s crutches and bring them back to him.

He helped Gabriel stand up and get himself sturdy.

Gabriel moved to stand above Cas who lay there passed out. Her hair was in a big mess half of it was under her head and making indents in her skin. Her one arm is underneath her and her other above her. Her legs twisted only a little. Gabriel wished she could have fallen into a more painful position. But he was going to have to work with this, he guessed.

Gabriel used his hand to brush his messy dark hair to get out of his eyes and brushed it back and behind his ear. When his hand came back down, he felt the sweat that was on his forehead. He wiped it away and ignored it.

“Get her up and bring her with us,” Gabriel said. He looked up at the man, his name tag said Johnston. “It’s time we end this Johnston. This time it’s going to work.”

Gabriel only gave Cas one more look before he turned around and started to walk off. His chest and throat hurt a little and his cheek throbbed. He wasn’t going to show any indication that he was in pain. He kept silent as he walked while Cas was being dragged behind him. Every time Johnston almost dropped and picked up Cas again she started to wake up. But she didn’t wake up in time to stop the door from opening and closing behind them.

She didn’t wake up when she was being dragged to the center of the room.

She finally woke up when she heard the words, “Drop her there,” and she was dropped on the cold dark ground. Cas groaned as she moved her body. She got her hands up close to her face and she pushed herself up. Her body was still numb in some places. She was trying her very best not to fall when she got up. She lifted her head and somehow she got her hair out of her face.

The first thing she saw was everyone’s feet. Everyone was walking every which way. Some were moving carts, others were running to check something on a computer. What they all had in common was only that they were in the same room, they were moving, and they were all working towards the same goal.

But what was it?

Cas looked around to replace Gabriel. Las she remembered she was above him and she had kicked him down hard. He was losing and she was winning and that’s when everything went dark. Had Gabriel done something or had he got another one of his goons to do what he couldn’t do for himself?

She looked harder and she saw him sitting on a chair and rolling up his sleeve. An older man was standing beside him, arguing with him. Gabriel didn’t look good and the anger he was getting from the conversation with that man wasn’t helping any. Cas wanted to know what they were fighting about. She pushed herself further till she could hear almost everything.

“You aren’t fit to keep doing this Gabriel!” The older man told him. He told him this desperately as he’s been saying it over and over again and he wasn’t being listened to.

“It’s perfectly fine,” Gabriel said. “It always has been, doctor.” Gabriel kept his line of sight away from the doctor and kept it at his arm.

“Mhmm, sure,” the doctor said.

Was this old man an actual doctor? Not a scientist or soldier guard like the rest of them? The more she thought about it the more she could see the possibility in it. She listened more into the conversation trying to pick up the pieces.

“Do you have a death wish?” The doctor asked.

“I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I had a death wish,” Gabriel said. “I’m almost finished. I feel like this is going to be the one. I’m certain of it.”

“I’m surprised you feel anything at all anymore,” The older man said. He looked at Gabriel and saw that he was barely listening anymore. He didn’t know why he was even trying to do anything.

Cas watched as the older man was starting to give up on his reasoning with Gabriel. He knew as much as she did that Gabriel wasn’t one to listen to anyone. And if he had to, he was going to turn it into his idea.

Cas watched as the man gave up. The older man sighed and the last thing he said before he left Gabriel’s side was, “It won’t be long now.”

That stopped Gabriel from cleaning his arm. He looked up at him and watched as he left. Gabriel watched as the man left for only a few seconds before he shook his head and irritatingly started wiping his arm down. He nodded his head to one of the scientist doctors and they walked over. She watched as they grabbed a syringe and injected it into him. Gabriel didn’t even flinch when the needle was injected into him.

Cas watched as the younger man took the blood from him. He put it in a testing tube and called over someone named “Cade.” The man that could only be named Cade came over and took the testing tube.

“Get it ready,” The one said. “Mr. Everett wants us to speed this up. Take it and mix it.”

“Don’t screw it up!” Gabriel snapped as he watched Cade take it and run off to the left and into a room that had four guards beside it. There were only guards at that door. There were three doors in this very large room, but only guards were at the one.

Cas watched as Cade left into the guarded door. She didn’t see him coming back, but what she did see was what was all over the ground. Just like in the lobby, the black spots stained the floor. It was on this floor too.

In so many different patterns and directions, the stains were here in this room too. Ever since she first saw them there was always a thought in the back of her mind that kept working. She always wondered what they were and after so long she thought of a theory.

Well, it wasn’t a theory, it was a fact.

No one told her it was true, but she knew it had to be. This wasn’t a design choice, this place was bland with grey, white, and black colors. But there were no patterns. There was nothing remotely pointing to design choice. But it was in two rooms mostly and some down the halls of the building.

Gabriel said Marcus escaped. And if he escaped he must have been surrounded by people. He touched those people and these stains are their old tar insides. It stained and they were never getting out of it. Cas looked down and even she was laying in one of the old pools of blood and liquified insides.

Cas looked away from the blood stains and went back to Gabriel and the rest of the scientists. She didn’t expect to be looked at the back.

The second she looked over to Gabriel, he was looking at her too. Their eyes connected and he saw that she wasn’t asleep any longer. He knew now that she was watching them, has been watching them.

Now Cas knew that whatever they were planning to do was going to start now. She wished she could fake being asleep. She wished she could go back in time. All of these thoughts are impossible ideas.

Especially when Gabriel pushed himself off the chair that he was resting in. He moved his crutches and walked to stand in front of her. “If you are smart, I wouldn’t try anything. It’s too late.”

“What are you…” Cas stopped speaking when she forced her stiff body to move. She got herself up on her hands and knees. She paused to catch her breath before she shifted and sat down her behind. She crossed her legs and rested her arms on her sides. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to do to you what I did to Marcus,” Gabriel said. “Let’s hope you don’t end up like him. If you do, I’ll throw you in the cell with all the other cannibals and it’ll be torture for you.” Gabriel leaned further down and smiled. “Because you aren’t going to be losing your sense of life yet. Your thoughts, your feelings, your fear… it’ll all be there. You’ll just be a human puking up your insides and being eaten alive by what you are soon to become.”

Cas looked up at him. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of any fear. She kept her face and didn’t let anything break. There would be no intimidation and no fear. Not for him. “You don’t scare me,” She said.

“I’m not trying to scare you,” Gabriel said. “I’m just stating the facts.”

“Liar,” Cas said as Gabriel turned his back on her. He walked away from her and headed over to a metal chair that the computers and IVs were surrounding. The chair was not bolted down, it had wheels.

He held onto the arm of the chair studying it before he looked back at her. “This is where Marcus spent his last human minutes. Right before we stopped his heart and my serum overtook him.”

“You’re sick,” Cas said. But his taunts and his sickness worked to hurt her. She looked at that chair and her mind went to Marcus. Marcus liked pretending he wasn’t scared. But she knew how scared he got. She could see him breaking as soon as he was strapped down to that chair. Whatever intention he had for doing this, it broke in that second.

She could hear his screams. All his screams for her to save him. His screams for help. He begs for this all to stop. And she couldn’t save him. She couldn’t do anything. She was stuck hating her own life and not looking out for him.

Cas felt all the invisible fists hitting her all over every second. With every poisonous thought that she had.

“Don’t start crying now,” Gabriel said. “It might screw everything up.”

“I’ll cry if I want to,” Cas snapped. She looked away from him. She looked away from the chair in an attempt to clear her mind. She wasn’t going to be able to do anything with her mind in a jumble and so many invisible fists hitting her.

Gabriel’s head rested down, he closed his eyes and shook his head. He looked back up at Cas and walked over. He got down to be able to look at her without her looking up. “This isn’t personal,” Gabriel said. “I have to do this and it just had to be you, your brother, and your parents who had to pay for it. Maybe if you didn’t have your mom’s blood, things would have been different.”

“What…” She was already confused, but then she heard him talk about her parents. She knew they worked for him, but what did that have anything to do with this? “...What are you talking about? My parents?”

“You know that I chose Marcus because of your family DNA,” Gabriel said. He remembered that they talked about that. He just didn’t get into depth. “You were stupid enough not to think of why or what so I let you know.”

“Would you stop calling out my own stupidity and tell me what you are talking about?” Cas asked. “No one cares if you are smarter than any of us.” Cas looked around her and saw that every person in the room got silent. All of them were still and watched this confrontation. Like it was something spectacular.

As if it was part of the movie where the main character learned they were stupid and they were never going to win in the first place.

“You’re parents were working on Project Life with me. I didn’t want your father to work with me, because he shared no importance other than him being a smart idiot. But your mother, that’s a different story.”

Gabriel smiled and chuckled a little bit. “I’ve just realized something. Ironic as it is, you, your mom, and your brother will all die in the same chair.”

“You..”

“Yes, sadly,” Gabriel said. “I ended up having to use your mother as my test subject. She’s actually still trapped in Floor 7G. The room that you may or may not be going soon enough.”

“You killed… did you kill my mom? My dad?!” Cas said. Her voice started to tremble as her eyes went wide. Her heart started to pound and everything felt like it was breaking apart.

All the times that her mom and dad fought over working with Gabriel went into her mind. Every time her dad screamed for her mom to listen. Every time her mom left them alone all the time to work with Gabriel Everett.

To the time when her mom left and never came back. To her back is the last thing she saw and tears are the last thing her mother saw on her face. To her father asking her to watch over her brother while he went to go stop their mom.

And then they never came back.

And then they lost the house. And then they were homeless. And then they lid there in an alleyway grieving their parents and their life. Kicked around and left behind. In hell. Never going to stand up again.

All because of Gabriel Everett.

Cas looked up at Gabriel who stared at her with that ugly smirk. That triumphant look. All because of him.

“I wasn’t going to kill your dad but he kept bugging me about where your mom was.” Gabriel shrugged. He looked back up at her and said, “So I threw him in with her.”

The tears fell and she could no longer stop them. Her back couldn’t support her and she fell forward. She caught herself a little lower than halfway. Her tears fell to the ground.

Her life was never the best, but it was never gone. It was never devoted to one person. It was never so scary.

And because of him. Because of greed. Because of a stupid experiment.

Her life and her brother’s life were ruined. Her parents’ lives ended. So many people’s lives and their families lives were ruined. All because of this.

Cas looked around the room and saw all of them looking at her. All of them not doing anything but standing there like they were visiting a zoo.

“Are you all happy?!” She shouted. “Are you happy that you’ve created this?! Is this good for you?!”

None of them said anything. Gabriel didn’t even say anything, he was curious to see what she was going to do. More like he was curious to see what happens when she fails.

“It’s just a few thousand people right?!” Cas asked. “You don’t know them. It’s okay, you don’t know them. Until they kill your brother. Your mother. Your family. Your friends. Then it matters. Till then we’re all just monkeys in your stupid game!”

She wished someone would say something. She wished something she said could make her feel better than she is feeling right now.

“I wonder how you sleep at night! How you live!” Cas shouted to them. “Because if I was you, if I was responsible for the death of millions, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. You all must really be monsters!”

“When I get injected with this death serum I hope I escape and kill all of you!” She stopped wasting her time with them and looked at Gabriel. “And I hope your death is the most painful of all. I hope the last thing you think of when you’re seconds from death is that you failed. That you were a pathetic idiot who couldn’t complete anything besides killing millions of innocent people.”

“At least I was able to accomplish something,” Gabriel said. He forced himself up and looked at every shaken person who stood there. “Get back to work! Another obstacle and you’re lives will be counted in those millions!”

Everyone ran in different directions. They all started to work.

And to Gabriel’s order, two people grabbed Cas.

Everything was going to start now and Gabriel would kill everyone before it started to go wrong again.