Akeldama | lrh

twenty - calamity

ca·lam·i·ty

noun

an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster

...

We get halfway down the hallway before Ivy swears and turns back around.

"Weapons." Is all she says, taking off in a full blown sprint towards the destroyed cell and dead guards. After glancing once at Ashton, Michael and Jess, I hurry after her.

I find her ripping daggers off of a corpses belt, shoving them into her own. She unbuckles a longsword from another, and tosses it to me. I sling it over my shoulder and bend down to help her.

I can hear vague footsteps in the distance, coming from the end of the hall. We don't have a lot of time. I pull a butterfly knife off a guys belt and shove it into the top of my boot, ignoring the bloody rings around my ankles. I stock my belt full of all the weapons I can find, daggers and iron knuckles and small razor-sharp blades. All of the men's belts have the same stuff, along with a radio and a small container of milky liquid that I don't recognize and don't care about. I get ready to leave, moving over to the last untouched body, I freeze.

It's the guard that hit Ivy. The one that almost lost his hand to her mouth. Looking at his face, there's no doubt about it. I would remember those evil beady eyes and dark skin any day.

Except his hand isn't destroyed anymore.

It's perfectly intact, only small white lines where the wounds were to indicate that anything happened at all. I can't stop my mouth from dropping open. Ivy gets up, walking ahead of me, turning around when I don't follow.

The mans weapons belt is filled with all of the same stuff, but the container of the milky white substance is only partly full. As if it's been used.

"Alex." Ivy hisses, her eyes looking around frantically. "Come on."

Without really taking the time to think it through, I snatch the small container from the guys belt and shove it in my pocket, getting up and turning to follow her.

We find the others right where we left them, and Ashton's eyes dilate when they land on the longsword over my shoulder. I take it off and toss it to him, and he catches it one handed, the other one holding Michael in place on his back.

"What now?" Jess asks, gesturing for me to hand her the dagger in my hand. I do, and pull another off my belt. "We can't get into the elevators can we?"

Ivy cracks a devilish smile, and pulls out what looks like something wrapped in the fabric of one of the guard's shirts. She unfolds it, and my breath quickens slightly at the sight of the severed hand. "Yes, yes we can."

Jess closes her eyes, and then looks away. "That's disgusting."

"That's genius." I almost laugh. With the severed limb, we can scan fingerprints and handprints on the scanners to get through all of the doors. "Ivy, you're a bloody genius."

"Little too bloody, if you ask me." She grimaces, and wraps it up again, shoving it in her pocket. Red is smeared across her palms, fresh now over the dried.  She gestures to the hall in front of us. "We better keep going."