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The first prompt of October is the word, Scale.
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Happy writing!
The room was rather plain, or at least the walls were. There were no tapestries, no paintings, no things of any sort to cover up the giant slabs of dark gray that enclosed the large square space. Above was the raftered roof. It was all made with a dark wood, although the color may have just been the lighting. The two object here were a sleeping bat, and an empty metal chandelier covered with cobwebs of spiders now long gone.
The air was musty and old, and the sight just as grim. Only bits of sunlight flitted in through this crack or that, most of them lighting up a small pinhole of the wall, or a bit of the cold floor. Occasionally, though, a bit of light would hit something shiny, and there would be a small glow of gold before the light was diffused in the darkness.
In this dusty condition, the room remained for many a year, only disturbed by the occasional animal. Who had built this room, no one remembered, and who had filled it was long forgotten, too. And the man who stumbled into this room had no idea what he was getting into, or likely he would have never come.
The man was named Seudonus. He was not very old, but neither very young. He had a slight stubble of a beard, and wore somewhat tattered clothing. He looked like he could have been strong: he was well built, although somewhat slovenly. On his breath was the smell of strong drink, and, judging by the bloodied line on his right cheek, he had just been in a fight.
Indeed, such seemed the case as the man opened the door and stumbled into the room. He was still muttering under his breath curses at "that thing of a man" and "his royalness". Indeed, he seemed as if he did not have any clue that he had wandered into a seldom used hallway and a long forgotten room.
Indeed, he seemed only to be fleeing from something- or rather some people. If only he had known what knowledge he was running towards... It was much worse than the physical pain he was running from.
Anyway, he stumbled into the room, and closed the door behind him. They would never find him here, especially when he himself, a long wanderer of this place did not even know where here was. All he knew was that it was dark.
Wait, what was that over there? Was that a light?
He squinted. It was a light. Actually, it was three lights: three candles burned on the far wall some hundred meters away. And then, suddenly, along each side of the wall, candle after candle began lighting themselves, as if two someones were running with a torch, one along each wall.
And the room was filled with the eerie glow of flickering candlelight, revealing the outer edges of the rooms content. For as far as he could see, which was thirty or so feet, there were benches and tables, closely packed and in no regular arrangement. And on each table and bench was a large scale, the kind with two trays that could be balanced. Some scales were gleaming, and seemed almost as if they would have shone without the candlelight. Others were duller, although you could still see that the metal might have one shown lake the other. Still others were coated with a black that prevented all shine- and most of these scales were broken. And all over-scattered on all the tables and benches, and strewn across the floor were weights of many sizes and colors.
There, were, also, on the scales that were still in functional condition, various weights on each. In fact, most of the working scales had a massive pile of weights, stacked up on top of each other in such a haphazard way that the fact that the weights were still on the plate seemed to defy the laws of physic.. But that was just one of the strange things: although the left side did have these regular, traditional looking weights of varying color, on the right side there was never anything on the tray. And yet, most of the scales were perfectly balanced.
Near the outer ring became unbalanced, favoring the left side. From somewhere deep in the room, a beautiful lady emerged, and went to an unbalanced scale very near the outer edge, if she was looking for that particular one. In her right hand, she was twirling a smallish, light green weight. When she got up next to the scale, she looked at it closely, pursing her lips, and held the weight in her palm, feeling its weight. Evidently, she decided it was good enough, as she then placed it on the left side. And the scale balanced again.
Sedonius gasped. How had she done that? She had placed the weight on the lower side and it had, it had... Risen! That was... That was impossible!
The lady heard, and turned towards him. At first, there was a look of confusion on her face, before it turned to one of questioning? She began to approach. "What are you doing in the room of scales?"
"I...I" Sedonius began to back up. "I..." He could not speak. He still could not get out of his mind what had just happened.
"Perhaps you are here to see your scale?" the lady said in a voice that displayed no emotion.
"My scale?" he stampered, slowly backing towards the door. This place was really scaring him.
"Yes, all the living have a scale here. It measures your life. Yours is over there." She said, turning towards one near the left wall.
Seudonius looked, still retreating. It was not particularly shiny, nor was it particularly dull. Unlike most of the others in the room, it was largely unbalanced. Whatever nothing was on the right side must have been very heavy, as the scale heavily favored it.
"I am sorry yours is so unbalanced," she continued, "I just have not found the right weight."
"It's... It's fine... take your time." said Sedonius backing up still. He was almost at the doorknob now.
Then, he tripped over a weight, and fell to the floor.
The lady turned. "Ah!" she said, picking up the weight he had tripped on, "You have found it! I have been looking for one like this!" She smiled as she began to walk with the large, dark blue weight and started walking towards another unbalanced scale, which, like Sedonius', favored the right.
Still on the floor, Sedonius called, "What... What will happen when you place the weight?"
She did not turn around as she walked, but talked as she neared his unbalanced scale. "Why," she said, "whatever fortune contained will come in their life- this one's a bad one- and it will balance their life. This ones a bad one." She placed it on top of a mound of weights of the left, and the right side began to rise, even above the left. "Oops," she said, "Too much." She removed the weight, and felt it again. "But you know, I think this may go perfectly on yours." She began to walk to his scale.
Sedonius' eyes became wide, and he quickly raised himself and felt for the doorknob and opened it without looking, for his eyes were always fixed on the lady approaching his scale. He tripped over the lintel, and the door slammed behind him. He lay there for a very long time.
In fact, that is where his pursuers found him, staring up at the ceiling. A look of horror on his face.
"Oh you're going to get it now." snarled one of them, kicking the one on the floor.
But the one who still on the floor never moved, and seemed to stare past him. And then, one phrase escaped from his lips:
"It can't be any worse..."
"Samantha, Samantha, Samantha!" Director Lynn Richards' lips mouthed the words in a freakish, animated fashion.
"Jesus Christ, what do we do?" Agent Cohen looked to Agent Lee who was several feet away, her weapon aimed at Mal and the Director.
"I don't know!" she shouted back, not breaking her gaze with the horror before her. Agent Director Lynn Richards levitated six inches from the floor, her head bobbing left and right, up and down, as though her neck was rubber.
"Wheeeeeerrrrrrrrrrre isssssss Sssssssaaaaaaaaammmmm?!" Director Richards mewled out in her twisted, inhuman voice. The swath of destruction this abomination had carved through two hospital floors was devastating. As as the two remaining agents released their spent clips from their guns, sending them clattering uselessly upon the floor, they each reached for the last remaining one they had. Their movements were synchronized, professional, and efficient, but none of it mattered in the face of the evil that advanced on them now.
"I'm trying not to hit her," Agent Lee muttered, as they retreated back behind a hallway corner, breathing heavy and brushing debris off her suit jacket. Panting beside her, with a six foot five frame housing a chest that was half as wide across as she was tall, was Agent Cohen, who stopped his breath for a moment to nod and respond, "Me neither."
"Where the fuck is Agent Walker and the cavalry?!" she grimaced, wincing as she felt a cut in her left side, left by a nasty fall she had taken on the floor above.
"Even if he gets here, what can he possibly do against that?" Agent Cohen grumbled, gesturing towards the monster around the corner as he slid his last clip in to his firearm, tightening his grip around the handle.
"Did you hit Lynn?" Agent Lee asked.
"I don't..." her companion responded, hesitating, "I don't... think so? Did you see the way she moved?!"
"I don't know if we can save her. I don't know if she's even--"
"LOOK OUT!"
Agent Cohen's meaty hand shot out and pulled Lee back from Director Richards' grasping French manicured talons. The Director's eyes were cloudy white, rolled all the way back, as her face lurched forward unnaturally, jittery and bobbing, teeth bared, hissing incomprehensible syllables vocalized in demonic tones. She bobbed and bent, stumbling and rising, her limbs dangling and swinging as her physical body was that of a lifeless marionette.
"Jesus Christ!" Agent Lee shrieked, firing off several rounds in blind panic before Cohen could stop her. Black blood welled up and dripped through the dark threads of Director Richard's slumped form, smearing against the white wall that her body fell against after the rounds bored their way through her flesh and bones. A hideous, belated gasp slithered from her drooling lips, jaw dropped open as she twitched against the ivory surface. Both of agents stood stock still for a moment, half in fear, half in wonder at what Agent Lee might have just done.
"Is she..." Agent Cohen began.
"ARRRRGGGHGHHHHH!!!!!!" Richards' corpse flew up off the ground with supernatural speed, and came at the two bewildered agents who screamed with fright, fleeing down the corridor as fast as their legs could carry them.
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Screaming people running into the streets, police managing traffic and setting up a parameter around the hospital, and aerial news coverage once again converged on the epicenter of destruction that was Mal Evenhart. Agent Walker had yet to see anything on this scale. Taking the incidents together, committed by one man, this was unprecedented.
He could hardly believe that the situation had gotten so far out of control, so quickly, even with Lynn personally overseeing things. Parking his black sedan two blocks away, he hoofed it to Mercy General, taking assessment of the damage and scope of this unfolding situation as he neared the hospital on foot as fast as possible. It strained rationality, that Mal Evenhart could be capable of this much devastation, that this one man had been lurking right under their noses their whole time. Walker couldn't wrap his head around it. Why now? Why him? How had he become so dangerous?
His thoughts returned again to Samantha O'Malley, and for the first time since he met with her, David Walker began to think that perhaps Sam had something to do with this beyond her knowledge or understanding. It was something he never wanted to believe, but there the pieces were, ready to be connected together by a cold logic his heart didn't want to buy into.
Mal's "ascendancy" to power paralleled his relationship to Sam.
Was he somehow channeling her? Was he capable of such things over any distance? What would he have to do to stop him? Agent Walker's mind whirred with possibilities and considerations, leading to darker places than he had wanted to venture before. It seemed increasingly likely that Samantha O'Malley might (would?) have to die, after all.
Shaking his head, he tried to free himself of these thoughts. It was the stress and sleeplessness talking. Right now, he had to put Mal down. Again.
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One more turn to the right led Agents Cohen and Lee to a dead end alcove with two elevators--one of which was moving up from the ground floor, one of which was out of service (of course). Turning to the left for the stairwell, they tried to open the door, only to discover that it was barred from the other side. Someone had either blocked the door, or some structural damage had happened to land right outside that kept it from being opened. Agent Cohen slammed against it. Once. Twice. Three times. The door gave an inch in exchange for the exertion and pain that now crawled into his left shoulder.
"We're going to headquarters, Agent Lee, Agent Cohen. That's an... order. Heeeheeheeeheee," the possessed corpse of the Director cackled, floating and dragging closer and closer. Agent Lee hit the elevator button repeatedly.
"Come on come on come on COME THE FUCK ON!" she screamed, eyes glazed with tears that streaked down her cheeks in hot frustration, her hands shaking.
"Get behind me," Agent Cohen said, leveling his weapon at the apparition that floated before them, its arms raised unnaturally.
"Ding!" the elevator chimed, and the shuffling open of the doors signaled drew the agents attention.
"This is my floor," Father Tarcino said with a half smile before his eyes widened at the sight of the levitating corpse. Thrusting a cross out before him and fishing out his vial, he strode past the two agents and began his work.
"In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti!"
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