Blue

Muddied Water

There was a sinking feeling that had nothing to do with the water draining from the bunker airlock as Adam re-entered the bunker. He was going to have to stop the Ensigns from hunting sirens. Even worse, he was going to ask them to go against everything they believed in and help the sirens. He was getting the feeling he usually got before he headed into battle: that sinking, empty, scared feeling, like his stomach was learning to eat him from the inside out. He had a sudden, strange desire to run.

They were all seated the same way he had left them, with Curtis on one side and everyone else crowded around Rose on the other side. Only this time, Curtis was standing, lording over them like the god of war, gazing steadily at each and every one of them as if daring them to stand up and challenge him to a fight.

He broke his incessant staring when he realized Adam was beside him. Curtis turned his back to the rest of the Ensigns to face Adam.

'What happened?' he asked. Adam could have cried when he saw his fingers move deftly across the air, forming the signs. It was so ridiculously difficult to read lips and communicating with Blue had been exceedingly frustrating when he couldn't hear her. He angled his body away from the others.

'It was horrible, Curtis. We've been killing them and they're just.... Women,' his hands shook at the end of his sentence.

'What do you mean?'

'The siren who I stopped fighting with, that's my childhood friend, Blue. She was killed. Murdered. Some man has been murdering all of those women. She woke up as a siren, with no memory of being a human. When they're like that... they don't have control of themselves. They're not doing it on purpose,' Adam said.

The expression drained slowly from Curtis;' face, leaving behind only the most appalled look Adam had ever seen him make, 'And we are. We are. We're killing them on purpose. She was murdered?'

'They all were.'

'We've been.... We've just been... Oh god.'

Adam placed his hand on Curtis' shoulder briefly, 'I know. They don't blame us.' A lie. Curtis didn't need to know that, though. Adam knew that tumultuous, guilty feeling that was written all over Curtis's face all too well. He was starting to spiral. Adam couldn't have him doing that, not when he knew Curtis, over everyone else, would be the one to help him.

Adam lifted his hands back up, 'They want our help. There's a man, a silver haired man who's been killing most of them. They want to kill him. They want us to help them kill him.'

Curtis nodded.

'The main problem, though, is that we need to stop the Hunts. Immediately,' Adam said.

Again, Curtis nodded readily, 'Of course.'

'Will you-will you fight with me? If they don't listen? If they don't agree?' Adam asked. His stomach was turning at the thought. The idea that they wouldn't listen, that they wouldn't care, was awful.

It was a very real possibility that all of the trainees and Ensigns would refuse.

'If it comes down to that, yes, I will. They're not the creatures we thought they were at all, are they?' Curtis said.

'They accused me of being a murderer. I could see it in her eyes, she hated me. She hated me so much, the way you hate something really really evil. I mean, think about it. It's always felt like we've been chasing them. I don't think they've ever come to us.'

Curtis looked like he was being peeled apart, like his heart was shredding into two jagged pieces, the blood spurting in violent spatters across his pale cheeks and the metal walls of the bunker. It was a delicate situation, Adam knew that. They were murdering these women, but Blue had admitted that she had killed Adam herself. Every Ensign in this bunker had been killed by a siren. Adam wouldn't be able to blame Curtis if he decided not to help, but, to be alone with this great weight, to fight alone was terrifying.