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Scene Title | Better Monster |
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Synopsis | Sneaking around where she shouldn't yet again, Molly finds wise words in the shadows. |
Date | January 10, 2013 |
Lower Levels of Pinehearst Tower
All she sees is darkness ahead of her.
It was practically suffocating Molly Walker-Parkman as she stepped from the well lit elevator out to one of the basement levels below Pinehearst Tower. After a very long moment of pause that was interrupted by the doors of the elevator beginning to close the clairvoyant slips through. She had heard whispers, just like she had heard whispers about Sibyl Black. That experience still makes her skin crawl and she shudders as she comes into the inky blackness. Her fear and nerves proceed her, she doesn't know what she's walked into. She heard tales of a monster below in this basement but Molly didn't believe in monsters anymore. Not the fictional kind at least.
As the door slides close quietly behind her she is met with a low level of red light. The LEDs placed on the floor in long stripes and along the ceiling offer for a very murky visibility. There are shapes all around, boxes.. desk.. all manner of things. The teen inches forward biting her lip and clutching her jean jacket close.
Below that fear and nerves is a brilliant spark of anger.. and grief. Something she's been holding onto still. It weighs her down. Molly has no idea that she's within range of someone who can feel these things or even manipulate them. She's come though, for help.
“Hello?” Her rasp of a voice echoes out into the room, not as loud as the spike of fear that runs through her as she encounters her own words bouncing back to meet her.
The lower levels are a warren of dangerous things, both living and not. Red light contrasts against periodic markers at doors in the room, shining in reflection. There are accessible light switches at one side of the entrance, and though the doors are unlocked, the contents are not. Only a single door bleeds any light.
A slim line of yellow peeks out from below the frame, wavering with the faint shift of something between the light and the dark of the entryway.
Nothing moves behind the other doors— it is hard to tell what may be there at all. A plastic file is slid into a rack to one side of the lit door; the surface is plastered in red text, and the contents are apparently notes.
The ones that stand out are -rules-.
Don't do this. Refrain from that. You can't get familiar. It is dangerous— always enter in pairs. Make sure you have the remote charged.
Never open the cell without a handler.
Rules?
The teen does hesitate with a tilt of her head at the words. The sense of danger blossoms in her chest and she lets out a long held breath in a low hiss through her teeth. “Okay.” She tells herself and Molly opens that door. Stepping through she looks down at her person. There's a backpack, with.. a notebook, her map… not a fucking weapon. Swallowing hard Molly moves forward and allows the door to shut behind her. Again,
“Hello?”
The inside of the room is partitioned by a sleek, tempered glass wall, lights running along the floor in the portion Molly stands in. Beyond the glass, the tableau of a room, lit by bulbs in the walls and a single desk lamp of rubber edged plastic. A bed, a chair, a desk, a sliding curtain on a rail. Books scattered like discarded socks.
There are remnants of past incidents. Reminding of failures. Deep scores along a couple of walls, a dark scorch at the base of the glass on the inside, a single bullet hole in the ceiling.
Lived in. But the occupant isn't sitting at any of them—
While the cell draws the gaze, the line of shadows at the far corner shifts with purpose, revealing just a spanse of linen that meets bare foot. Twin moons gleam in the dimness, closer study giving the vague shapes of facial features.
Moving forward as silently as she can she at first notices the walls and the the glass.. and then the room. Her heartbeat quickens as she slides into the room. Her blues eyes wide as she meets those moons, eyebrows go up to her hairline. Molly wasn't sure what she was going to do. Her fear is like a beacon, her grief just as loud.
“Hello.” Third time’s the charm. This time it's not a question being called out. Her voice doesn't echo this time and it's directed towards that shadow in the corner. Molly stiffens as she comes to stand in the center of the room in front of the glass. There's a tremor in her hands and she tries to hold them still.
“I heard the interns whispering,” they always were about things they shouldn't be. “They said something scary lived down here.. I..” her brow furrows. Why is she down here?
“I'm Molly, Molly Walker-Parkman.”
For all that she is locked down here, the bedding is clean, the floor is too. The desk has paper and flat, flimsy pens. A couple of dishes sitting empty on the edge. They keep her just enough, much like a kennel.
Something foreign licks across Molly’s senses; her fear feels itself coiling up into an even harder ball, the effort faint and weak. Still, it reminds one of why rules are in place.
When the person steps out of the dark, it is to take two steps and depress the button of the lamp. The light is a beacon that practically flashes, and it lights the room along with the lining of lights at ceiling and walls. If Molly didn’t know better, it might be cozy.
Her visitor is given a hard stare, and now with the shadows off of her Molly can really study the woman standing behind a strong shield. Tall— intimidatingly so. Dark skin, high bones, long limbs. A bare, lean, lankiness that lends itself more to a gaunt look as it reaches her face and eyes. The clothes she wears are plain and dark blue, hanging loose from the broad base of shoulders and hips. Her build could hold much more to it— but as she is, there lingers a hungry feeling between her head and ribcage both.
Around her neck sits a slim collar, lit idly with a tiny red LED.
It’s quiet, until it isn’t.
“I tore into a Parkman, once.” Huruma’s voice is deep, a rasp of disuse.
That gets a blink from the younger woman and she takes a step back. Molly takes another step back, trying to keep her breath steady. She didn't come here to be afraid, a strike of courage in the thick of her negative emotions. She's a Walker. Maybe Parkmans got tore into.. well then Walkers get murdered. That notion makes her stiffen but she clings to that feeling, she must face this. What is she even facing.
“I'm happy you didn't kill him. He’s saved my life multiple times now.” She is impressed by Huruma’s physiology gaunt or not and she finds herself imagining the woman in a conflict. She doesn't need to know Huruma to sense that they don't end well for the parties against her.
She envies that. Green with it even.
Grabbing that feeling in the pit of her chest, “Do you have a name?” Do they feed you? A second question she wouldn't dare to ask aloud.
They do feed her— enough that she will stay more compliant. Huruma keeps her eyes locked on the teenage girl, studying the array set out by her young head. She tests the boundaries, tugging hard on one of those strings to pull Molly’s fear back to the surface. Whatever Huruma does causes the light at her neck to flicker, a tinny ring issuing to the only ones present.
The fishhook in Molly’s head snaps away and recoils.
Huruma remains stock still.
“He was nothing.” Her nose pulls in an open sneer, lip curling. Molly’s question gets a grit of teeth. “Your friends were right, you know.” The hiss of Huruma’s words flatten across the grating of her voice. “You ought to tell me why you are here, first.”
A squeak actually comes from Molly’s lips as that tug on her fear brings it back to the surface shoving all the other emotions behind. Pupils wide as she backs up slowly, she's soon to hit the wall. As quickly as she is under the influence of Huruma the mental attack is withdrawn and Molly exhales a shaky breath. “Shit..” not even caring that an adult was in front of her. A killer adult. A killer adult that could apparently do something with her ability. “You.. boost fear?” This is the second time she's went looking in the dark for one of the secrets the interns have talked about. She's beginning to think there won't be a third time that she can snoop around.
“I was nine, my parents were slaughtered in front of me, I hid under the stairs in a closet,” What starts as a roundabout way to get to saying that Matt helped her when nobody could have she denamor shifts and falls silent before realizes she's answering the second question that was asked.
Straighten her back and squaring her shoulders the clairvoyant’s eyes raise and she stares into Huruma’s pale ones. Anger, grief, an overwhelming sense of loss and emptiness and.. a craving.
“I need to kill the man who destroyed my life, who killed my parents.” Speaking straight and direct, not willing to waver on this. It's the second time she's said this aloud. Both times in a place where secrets are usually kept regardless, “I need to kill Gabriel Gray.”
As Molly backs up against the wall beyond, Huruma growls to herself and turns away, the back of her shaven head marred by scarring at the nape of her neck, a deliberate cut, precise and surgical.
The dark woman slinks along the wall and eases onto the edge of the simple bed, watching and listening, tendrils reaching through glass to read the aura in her head. She takes care to.not trip the sensor again.
Molly meets her eyes then with that tough little look, and the bracing of her shoulders. Look at that.
It's kind of cute. Huruma's lips pull into a sharp, wild smile, brief but stark.
“You and a lot of others, vidogo. And what do you think I will do? I am not yours to send.”
An unfortunate truth.
She had thought of this. Flat out asking someone to take out your trash didn't seem to be the right approach. With a shake of her head, Molly tries her best to keep her gaze on Huruma’s face and not the collar or that light is the scars. They tell a wicked tale. “I don't want to send you.”
Spikes of nerves assault her and her hand shakes but she grounds herself in her purpose. Her right. Molly feels that hot burn of anger swimming through her veins and it gives her strength to step just an inch or two forward less cowering against the wall, gripping one of the straps of her backpack with a bone white grip.
“I want you to teach me how. To kill him.”
Was she sure she wanted to do that? She was sure she had thought about it too many times to count. And all the different ways she could do it. If he wasn't so heavily armed. She had her own talents though.. just no way of knowing how to really use them yet. “He.. has a lot of abilities. He is skilled.” There’s a seed of doubt there trying to blossom among the rolling flames of her anger. “But I'm in this for the long haul.”
Huruma’s attention only hones in on Molly when she says that she doesn’t want to send her anywhere. She lounges back on the bedding, cramming the cotton of her pillow behind her. There is an ease to her movements, but a tension to her eyes that never seems to leave— even when she closes them and absorbs the heat of Molly’s anger as it gurgles deep inside. A touch of courage, then, an ice cube in hot water. One eye opens again, mouth tugging into a frown.
Uncertainty reads just as plain as desire. Huruma adjusts herself into a more proper sit, one arm angling behind her head, lazy and careless.
“Disregarding that you still have a problem in that ‘how I am supposed to teach you from here’ way, are you…? In it? Do you even know what the ‘long haul’ means?” The dark woman murmurs back, voice a slow drawl. “You know what they say about revenge, don’t you?”
“Dig two graves.”
“I'll find a way.”
It's not a lie, she believes she will. Somehow, someway. Crouching down, Molly ends up in a cross legged seated position facing the older woman. Back straight, hands on her knees. Her chest rises and falls slowly, taking measure of her breath and letting it out in a soft, slow hiss. Upon repeating the process the straps of her backpack are flung off and she sits the pack in front of her, waiting or deciding what to say next.
Death is something she's thought of often. Her own at Sylar’s hands, her own hand. It got confusing but the therapy had been helping. That's what Molly told Papa Matt, he could check. She was trying.
“I'll gladly go if it means he comes with me.” The steel in her voice is new, something she discovered about herself only recently. She liked it. “I could offer you something,” her gaze quickly falling to her pack and she reaches in before pulling out her map with all the scribbles and notes. Spreading it out in front of her after pushing the backpack to her side she finally looks back up to Huruma, Blue eyes steady. “Do you want someone found?”
Huruma stifles a laugh, initially. Molly’s meditative sitting and proud little chest are still quite endearing, but Huruma can still taste the truth in her words. She pushes herself up against the wall, hands linking across the flat of her stomach.
Her pale eyes watch closely as the girl settles there on the other side, following the movements of her hands and the worn map’s spread on the floor. The interest in what Molly is doing is clear enough, and yet, hesitation.
“Who would I even want to find, girl? There is no ‘someone’ left for me out there. The last one I really had turned to ash. Literally.” Huruma’s teeth click, her lip curling again. “Anyone else I knew… they have probably forgotten about me.”
Nobody has refused her before. It makes her tilt her head and grow sad in the face. Nobody? That hurts her and she feels that sadness in the hurt expression that creases her face. “I don't think you're forgettable. The direct opposite actually.” She leans forward, she can see it in Huruma. A mirror of grief. Sad friends.
There's a weak smile from Molly. “But maybe some company will do then.” Not ghosts from Huruma’s past but a fresh face. A young face. “Maybe I can convince someone for supervised visits?” She's at a loss.
But an idea strikes her. “I need to learn how to face my fear of him. Of Sylar.” Is that possible? She wonders, it has to be. It just has too.
“It is less being forgettable than it is needing to forget me. I am trouble.” Huruma laughs faintly when she says this, in the face of Molly’s weak smile. “You are most welcome to try, miss Molly. I am here for a reason. And it is to be a hound and a guinea pig and a butterfly in a jar—”
As her words come, so does the darkening of her mood. Flickers of negative feelings touch outside the surface of the cell, whispering like a hundred little voices when feather-thin effort reaches Molly. Despair is primary.
The light rings on her collar again— and as before the empath rescinds. It is clearly the only thing keeping Molly entirely safe.
“Fear is necessary. It helps keep you alive.”
At the mention of being trouble, Molly grins shakily and nods along, she can get behind trouble. She's the older sibling though and so feels a responsibility to be more in order. Her mom was a free spirit though, she remembers her singing. Then that sensation of whispers crawling over her skin comes and she jumps. Eyes on that collar as it lights up again. She's so powerful, without that collar..
She shudders, eyes slanted at the lesson she's being taught. Slowly nodding her head, fear is necessary. Molly looks over to the side, “How do you stop it.. from consuming you. If you need to pull the trigger,” so to speak.
Pulling the trigger, lighting the match, stabbing the blade down. All these the same thing. Different methods with the same result. With the same face. Those eyebrows. Those eyes. They were hungry like a wolf. Molly would never forget that. She would really like too but it would seem like a disservice to her parents. Sylar was as much apart of her story as her parents at this point.
Huruma’s sigh comes through her teeth in a slight hiss. How do you stop it consuming you?
“You stop it by being the one that is feared most.” She cracks a smile, teeth echoing a bit of animal. Huruma edges forward on the bed, moving to the end closer to the glass of the cell. Molly can see more detail, including the way her pupils twitch. “And you stop it with righteousness. Calm yourself with the knowledge that what you do is for the health of the greater picture.”
“When the rest of the world fears you, your only fear is for when they fear you no longer. There is power in that. There is strength in that. Use it.”
Even more transfixed by Huruma’s presence and stature, Molly leans in to stare into those pupils deeply. Losing herself in them, not like when she lost herself in Sibyl Black’s psychic vortex but she loses herself still. The one is that feared most. That sentiment echoes in her head and she slowly nods her head, her expression one of eager, hunger.
She wants this.
Slowly folding her map up, Molly is quiet. Head tilted to the side, pondering the woman’s words of wisdom. A flash of Eileen’s face in her mind’s eye. The woman did save her life. “Greater good..” She echoes. Gabriel Gray wasn't the greater good. Him being alive was a stain. She liked that word stain. She needed to be the most feared. “Thank you,” She offers softly, reverently. “I'll come back soon? If you’ll have me..” Standing awkwardly before dipping her head a concentrated expression on her face.
She’s got work to do.
There are bodies in the floor above, and Huruma can sense them at the edges of her mind. They may decide to come this way— or not. Some of them she knows. Some of them, Molly knows. Huruma cozies up to the wall, resting a palm against it, long fingers splayed in a spidery fan. She looks down at Molly from there, a slim shadow not entirely unlike Goodman. More bone. More sinew. But similar.
“I have nowhere else to be, Molly Walker-Parkman.” Provided that they don’t stop her, the empath will be right where she was left— at least for the time being. Teeth click in a crooked grin. “Remember~ be the better monster.”