------------------------------------------------------------------
This has always been, and will continue to be, something that she would need to have to do, as her taking of the post had dictated of, during all the times that it had remained vacant. It must be done, she thinks over and over again. Not merely once or twice more, but undoubtedly, it was a fearful period of time she would have to endure for another hundred more instances.
"No..." she thought. "That's if I'm lucky." she looks back up, towards the two large, gleaming obsidian-black doors that stood in front of her. It was the strangest thing to her. She'd been in this very room more than tens of times before, even slept in it once when the person on the other side decided not to entertain her with permission. Yet every single time she has had to step inside throws her off. Akin to facing judgement in the bellies of hell, she'd thought of it once. Yet, it was the strangest thing to her. A wind of euphoria seemed to push her to carry on during the times the doors opened to her. "What is it?" she wonders, as the doors quaked open.
The woman leaves the dim-lit white room and steps into the larger room, only the sensation of being swallowed up by night jumping out to greet her. In the silent, darkened room, her hands that held on to the humble clipboard she owns began to tremble slightly. She hugs the wooden item close to her chest, shielding her heart (or would, as she continues to hope) throughout her short journey towards the end of the room, wherein a man sat in his chair, at his grand desk, carving dolls out of wood.
The light of the stars from outside guided his hands. Each and every one of the dolls the man had completed, he set to stand, with their faces facing towards the large window, looking out to the night sky. Eyeless, yearning faces that sought to be enlightened.
"You are early this time." he speaks out, prompting the woman to halt her steps. He did not turn to address her properly, instead continuing to carve the final bits onto his latest wooden doll. "How are they, those children of mine?" he asks, simply and straight to the point, though bearing a hint of annoyance in his tone.
"...Almost all of them are in place. There is only the problem with the third and fifth, and also-" she answers, only to be cut off.
"So he fell back to rest in his new throne that easily? Surprising. I assume he doesn't-" the man speaks, but the woman bites back, much to his chagrin and surprise.
"No, not at all. But if I may..." the woman pauses, seeing as the man had stopped working on his doll. For a time, she could only hear the sound of the night life outside, and the wind begging the glass panes to give way.
"Hmm... The crickets have been busier this year." the man broke the silence in seemingly casual fashion (which brought forward a silent sigh of relief from his daily attendant), his hands moving again to perfect another one of the objects of his apparent hobby. "Now, how is the hatred? Is it sufficient to produce change in him?" the man asks again, as his carving knife dances on wood. "How is my hatred, of which I had taken from the world?"
"It is... sufficient." the woman replies. Though retaining their calmed complexion, her eyes were unmoving, having been taken aback by the man's less-reprehensive demeanor tonight. She sought as best as she could not to take her eyes off him.
"Good..." says the man. "Hatred." the man puts down his knife, its duty done, and holding up his newest creation in the light for a better view of its eyeless face, a small smile gleams off of his own. "Such a beautiful thing."
That was supposed to have been the height of that night. No groundbreaking developments that would gnaw into him throughout the night, that was how he would have preferred it. Just another petty update like any other night. But just as he unfurled the sleeves of his shirt and was about to dismiss the woman, she spoke up again.
"...As it seems, he had every reason to have once been the leader of such an organization. From what I've gathered, even the better ones on the island have limited knowledge of him, and can only refer to the organization of his as the 'Unknowns'... I doubt he would go down without a better fight." she spoke up, quickly and without hesitation. "He is a liability. Even more so now, that we have news that he may be on his way towards the island, even at this very moment. It is believed he knows who the new leader is." as she finished, she immediately regretted doing what she did. The man ascended from his chair in a swift yet carefully relaxed manner, silent, and turned to his daily attendant. His stature of a man shrouded in darkness, with his back towards the only light, proved menacing. Yet, it was not what scared the woman the most.
As he faced her, she could, unfathomably, turn nowhere else, only to gaze straight into his eyes.
The eyes which were not stained by the darkness.
The profound, wondrous eyes that terrify her to her very soul.
Eyes which she could not understand, nor stop to love.
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Chapter 19.1 - The Face of Justice [Part 1]
------------------------------------------------------------------
The salt-tinged air eventually formed a retardant for his tastes, that which previously yearned for toasty refreshments at such an early time in the morning. After having lived on the island for years, the man who was one of the security department's personnel became more sick of the seaside sights and what it brings to his senses than ever before. But, he thought, his discomfort appeared petty when compared to that of the advance team's, still at the scene.
"Is he here yet?" asks a colleague whom appeared from behind the boulders that blocked from view the path stringing further down the coastline. The man turned to his watch in response to impulse instead, breakfast still in desire. But the question he ignored not, and thus he attended to the display of the device in his hand. After a few seconds passed, he held his head up and turned towards the direction of the academy building before turning back to his colleague.
"He's here. The perimeter is still secure." the man replies.
"Alright. Keep on, Eric." nods his colleague in acknowledgement. "This incident could just be big enough for the sensory-type students to find out about... Make sure no one of them get too close." says the man, looking out to the calm sea even as its droplets formed on his spectacles. Eric tipped his cap in return, his eyes reflecting the words 'understood' that would've left his throat if not for the stale, salt-tinged air of the seaside. Moments later, the sound of sand being crunched overtakes the sound of lapping waves.
The visage of Northern Yeager Solarius took shape in the dim light of early morning, followed by two men of his command. Etched in his face were despair and uncertainty. Eric greeted him with a simple 'Sir' as he walked by, to whom Northern found himself unable to answer to with earnest in light of the incident before them.
"Right this way, sir." the bespectacled man motioned for Northern to follow him, which the vice principal did. Not before motioning to his two men not to edge past the boulders, however. When he was alone with the bespectacled man as the two trekked across the sand, did he finally speak.
"How many?" Northern asked.
"Two... and a half." the bespectacled man replies.
"Sounds like a bad joke." says the vice principal, ending with a tired sigh.
"Not as bad as the smell, sir. But we shouldn't really be trying to make ourselves feel better with these half-assed quips, should we?" the man answers.
"True. But a man my age needs to make himself feel better often, Wong. PTSD makes things worse." Northern walks up to him with a quickened pace.
"You love your job enough, sir." says Wong.
"The youths on the island are nice, even to a man with the job I have. They're splendid, really. That's why I want to ensure their safety to my best ability." Northern tells him.
The two finally arrive, and Northern sees with his own eyes the mangled, bloated corpses that lay stranded on the beach. One poor soul was only left with her upper torso, her innards strewn and splattered between rock and gravel. A thinning layer of red crawled on the surfaced of the water. Debris were scattered throughout the surface of the water, but their shapes were mere mounds and pieces of scrap in the eyes of the vice principal at the moment. Northern felt something swell within him. He looked away, and instead fixed his sight on a few of the members of the security department's advance team B, whom stood around him and Wong in a half-circle. He tried to cough up a conversation to stir the mood and banish the ominous air, but felt his tongue tying up into a knot.
"Noel and Bashar are still combing the seas ahead. They haven't any updates, yet." one of the team members, a man, spoke out.
"Alright." nodded Wong, before turning back to the vice principal. "What's the next step, sir? Shall the students be sent home?"
"Some of these students left their homes behind when they came to this island, Wong. Some don't even have one to begin with." he knelt down on the sand with one leg, muttering a word of prayer for the deceased. "The principal has been told about this, correct?" asked Northern.
"Yes, sir." replied Wong.
"...What was his word on this incident, then?" Northern almost didn't ask the question. But his obligation to the students tore down his loyalty by post and allowed him to doubt. Wong easily sensed the irritation and disappointment in the vice principal's tone, and his tired voice as he came to stand back up on his feet, which implied that he seemed to have already known the answer to his own question. Before he could answer, a voice spoke out.
"Just as what you'd expect." the voice tells him. Suddenly, an eye-patched man appears from out of nowhere, his back rested on the wall of the cliffs above them. His arms were crossed, and his head hung low with his eye shut as if in deep thought. "The Principal doesn't care, of course." continues the man. "You of all people should know, Solarius. There isn't time to waste. Bring in the cleaning crew already."
"Why? Why doesn't he care?" asks Northern. The loss of life was of no petty means that it roused his ire. Such was a temperament a veteran of the front lines would adopt.
"The Principal... has other more important matters to attend to." the man opens his eye. He points towards the debris floating on the sea's surface. "What we have here was a tragedy, undoubtedly. But it's one that these people brought upon themselves. These people were adventurers. Thrill-seekers. Or, to put it in a better term, fools. They came out to the sea to find our good old friend... the legendary Sea Devil." he says. Cold sweat trickled down the side of Wong's face and a lump formed in the back of his throat, a fear cultivated by personal experience, something the man in the suit looked to use to his own ends so these people would more quickly leave the site. "And that's what precisely happened here." the eye-patched man narrowed his eyes, revealing a flash of sadness if only to be blotted out by the thinning fog of the morning.
The greatest thing he'd wished for at that time was to have been able to remain unseen.
------------------------------------------------------------------
With a sigh, the young woman pulled the door behind her as she walked out of the holding room, having it close with a definite click.
"God..." she thinks, loosening the collar of her dark-blue uniform. "How much trouble can you find on one tiny island?" she looks up with tired eyes, at the fan that dances rather slowly overhead. "Is that thing slow for a reason?"
"You tell me. You're the one who watches those television shows all the time." answers a thin old man at a desk from one corner of the room, even though she had asked no one in particular. He was diving into the ink of the day's newspaper, but as engaged as he often was, hadn't had his senses occupied as to not to respond to the woman. As a matter of fact, he expected something like this. After all, she had her hands full before she even walked in this morning.
"And what... you don't?" the young woman walks across to her own desk, her face starting to sour from her being irritated at his words. "Damn it, I just know where he's going with this." she thought.
"I'm no longer that young." he flicks to the next page. "You see these kinds of scenes in those shows a lot, right? Whenever the mood gets all low and slow. Whenever there needs to be ambiance." the girl grunted at the emphasis he puts on the last word, referencing to her affinity towards any and everything literature, which had somehow earned her a pinch of eccentricity amongst her workmates, especially the more senior ones. "C'mon, Jules. That's only the fourth contestant of the day. You know you're so irritable today only 'cause you stayed up all night last night watching those dramas you love so much..." says the man further. "Look, go grab more yogurt from the fridge if that'll help. I bought extra the other day, so don't you worry." he flicks again, not batting an eyelid.
"It's alright, Dave." says Jules, letting out a quiet sigh. She whipped out her electronic drive and checked her messages in the lull of the day. She wasn't expecting much, but it was just in case a prospective client or the phys-ed guy had left something worth taking a gander at. There was a flicker in her eyes when the digital icon of a yet un-opened mail blinked at her the moment her account credentials passed. It wasn't too long of a read, but it was enough to put a small smile on her face. The old man noticed the odd change, but kept his peering eyes hidden behind his paper. It wasn't long afterwards that she stood up, and he scrambled to feign complacency just as he'd done previously. "Dave," she addressed him with a voice that is devoid of any thought to his past fault.
"Yeah?" he brought aside his newspaper, having been slightly taken by surprise.
"I'm going out for a swig at Jonson's." answered Jules, putting on the cap that signified she was a part of the Societal Relations department, as a regular officer.
"At this time of day? You'll get a nasty stomachache!" the old man told her. His remark was spoken in between trying to piece out the young woman's behavior, but was actually also a piece of advice that he had held for himself all this time. "I know booze helps with the days that are worse than the others, but..." his words were cut off by a man's heightened voice, coming from the second holding room. "Wait... isn't that Briggs who's with the kid you brought in this morning? I knew you should've brought him to the Moral Committee instead."
"Never minded it." she answered simply to the remark regarding liquor, correcting her attire. She turned towards the sound when it reached her ears as well. "That was what was on my mind, but... You know how enthusiastic Briggs and Farth are in bringing in their culprits. Especially nowadays, that these nightly fights are getting worse." she answered, speaking the word 'enthusiastic' with hesitation in her lips, in want of a better word. "Thanks to that African kid, Briggs and Farth haven't bugged us since morning. I don't know what god thought it was funny to have only the four of us be on work today." she stepped towards the door, as another deep voice bellowed out, the sounds of it echoing through the nearly-empty building. She halted her steps, though only for a few seconds. "Seeing as he was there at the place the latest fight took place whilst at the same time behaving in a suspicious way, it's only natural I had to bring him in for questioning." says Jules as she leaves through the double doors without another word.
Old Dave was left sitting in the room by himself, left hanging without his own words. As the fan overhead kept moving at its own steady tempo, Dave once again veiled his aging stature behind black and white, and rested in the soft, ambient breeze.
------------------------------------------------------------------