Trapped?

[Anonymous]

He was lost. He didn't know where he was. Sure, he was a second stage candidate, but he still had no idea where the heck he was. He'd never been in this part of the ATC and he was starting to wish he'd never volunteered to go find that musty old book for one of his fellow candidates. Huh. It never occurred to him that he could be tricked into going somewhere he shouldn't be. Somebody asked for help? Well, great! Because Sascha was always around to assist!

Nobody seemed to be around here, either, so he couldn't ask if he was going the right way. Frowning, he stopped in the middle of the hallway he was currently walking down and he tapped his chin in thought. Looking down the way he'd come, there was just a labyrinthine twisting of halls. He didn't remember exactly how he'd come to be here. Raking a hand through his hair, he turned back forward, cocking his head. He thought he'd laid eyes on something moving over there. Somebody! Somebody to help! He started racing down the hall.

"Hey! Wait! I need to ask a question!" He skidded down the hall as he turned, and that was when he saw a door closing down that very all. "Hey! Come on! It's just a simple..." He trailed off as he reached the door and then opened it. The room looked empty.

"Hello? Anybody in here?"

[Anonymous]

Delilah spent most of her time trying to avoid talking to the other candidates. Occasionally one was interesting or had something she wanted, maybe even something that attracted her. However, that was rare. Especially since the candidate blog had blown up about necrophilia. Delilah couldn't believe the shorthand language people used on that thing. She had grown up on the streets and had still taken some time to learn the basics.

Right now she was avoiding by having headphones over her ears listening to some loud electronica. It made everything better. The hard bass made the memories that she liked come back. The feelings of losing herself on the dance floor. It was easier to live in the past than to deal with her current situation. She was wandering the halls at the moment turning down this way and that, probably getting herself good and lost but she didn't really care at the moment.

She turned into a room that seemed vacant and sat at a desk leaning back putting her combat boots up on another desk while she relaxed in casual clothes. She bobbed her head slightly to the music with a slow smile. This was easy, and so much better than being in a room with her cellmate. She sighed and closed her eyes. Then some light filtered into the room.

Another candidate. She put her feet down and settled into a more defensive stance.

"Yeah, I'm in here." She stood up slowly revealing herself in the room. She looked the other candidate up and down wondering what they wanted from her.

[Anonymous]

Entering the room fully and allowing the door to slide shut behind him, Sascha noted that the girl standing in front of him didn't look altogether too friendly. That was okay. Not many people here in the ATC did seem that way. It was almost like the entire place was filled with people who didn't want to be here (yeah, seriously), so they all co-existed in their own way. For some people, that meant being bitter and not making friends. For Sascha it meant trying to make the best of it.

"I hope I wasn't disturbing you," he said, though by her stance, he was fairly sure he was. He better make this quick before she drop kicked him or worse, performed surgery on his brain, or some kinda psychic something or other. Honestly, he didn't know who she was, though she did appear somewhat familiar. That could be said for just about anybody here, though.

"Uh, I'm actually here because I'm--I'm lost. I'm looking for something. Another candidate told me to come down here to find some book he forgot but I've never been down this way before and I..." He edged back a few steps. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you." He tried to get the door to open, but it was stuck. "Hm... What the...?" He tried again. Nothing. "Heheh." He looked over his shoulder with a sheepish smile. "Door's... Not... Budging..."

[Anonymous]

Oh, you can't be serious.

Delilah slid her headphones down as they started talking, and kept talking. She turned her head slightly listening. They didn't give her much of a chance to speak before they started to leave. She spoke up then. She could try and be nice.

"Well, it sounds like...." then the door didn't budge. Her eyes widened, this...was anything but good. She walked over shutting off her iMusic. She watched the other candidate try to turn the door handle but nothing happened.

"...I was gonna say someone played a prank on you. Looks more like they played it on us." She sighed and shook her head. This was just rich. Trapped in the room with another candidate. One she hadn't met. She would have offered her help budging the door, normally she would have been able to help, superior strength and all. However the Pilots had been keeping her on a rather thin diet.

"I'm Delilah. You want me to try the door?"

[Anonymous]

"I'm sorry I got you wrapped up into this," Sascha said, feeling seriously apologetic. First, he interrupted her alone time. Now he got her locked into the room with him. Joy of joys. Poor girl. He'd been called annoying before, but he'd never realized just how bad it was until now. Standing there apologizing over and over again... He just shut his mouth and then realized he'd been rude again.

"Oh!" He snapped back into reality. "Oh, I'm Sacha. Sor--Yeah. I'm Sascha." He nodded. "Nice to meet you Delilah." At least he hadn't managed to completely abandon his manners on the way here. He looked at the door and then back at the girl, dubious. Then he stepped away from the door. "Sure, it's all yours."

[Anonymous]

Delilah didn't really glance at him when he kept apologizing. It wasn't his fault that the other candidates thought it was funny to lock him in here. She just hoped locking him up with a hungry vampire wasn't part of the joke.

"It's not your fault at all. Some of those candidates are devils." She stepped up closer to the door and her hand passed his slightly. She knew her body temperature would be damn cold. Especially because she was so hungry. The only time she was a normal temperature was for a few hours after she fed.

She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and tried to pull. It felt like it might budge for a minute and then nothing. She growled in her throat. It sounded slightly animal. Damn those Pilots for leaving her powerless like this. She felt like a damn human again. Maybe less than. She sighed and backed away from the door.

"Nah, it's stuck good." She sighed, and looked up to meet the other Candidate's eyes.

"I'm Delilah." She gave a small smile. "We'll have to stick it out together for a bit I guess."

[Anonymous]

Privately, Sascha agreed. Some of the candidates were devils. He just wished he could discern which was which when he went around agreeing to come to their aid. He let out a resigned sigh. He really had to stop being so gullible. He was getting to old for it, for one thing. For another, it was likely going to get his butt thrown to TRIM.

But about the girl. He was worried for her. She seemed... unwell? Was that the word? Tired? And so cold. As she passed him, it took him a moment to realize what was off. Something. Something was off. Cold. Curious. He tilted his head to regard her while she tried the door. What would make somebody cold and tired?

He didn't mean to get in her space, but he took a step closer to her and raised a hand to her forehead. He knew some people had personal space issues, but he couldn't help himself. And even after he'd promised a Pilot he'd lay off on healing. He wasn't actually healing her, though. Just checking on her. Surely that didn't count, right? And what if they were stuck here long enough for her to get really sick? He was shocked by how low her body temperature seemed to be. Perhaps it was just the air conditioning.

"Are you all right?" he blurted out. "You're awfully cold. Do you want my coat or something?"

[Anonymous]

Red eyes went wide as he touched her head. She had been about to tell him she was fine. Her body moved before she even thought about it. She had hold of his wrist tight and she pulled it away from her. She let go of it, pushing him back slightly. She took a step back away from him. She swallowed hard. She wasn't used to being careful. Wasn't used to worrying about what people thought. Wasn't used to caring if she bit someone.

"Sorry, and I'm fine. I'm not human. Hence the temperature." She sat back down in a chair a little bit away from him. She didn't want to smell him, he had rubbed some of his smell off on her so it was stronger than before.

"I'm the vampire candidate." She smiled showing her fangs, still having a little bit of her sense of humor.

[Anonymous]

Again, Sascha blinked. He hadn't expected her to nab his wrist, nor had he expected her to shove him away while she moved back further from him. He didn't have to ask what he'd done wrong. He knew a lot of people were shy about being touched, or just plain didn't want to be, and he'd crossed that unspoken line. He couldn't help it, though. He was just that type of person. He'd never had an aversion to being touched, and although he understood some people did, he would never quite understand why. The concept was alien.

"Not... Human...?" Sascha echoed as she admitted as much. Well, that was fine. A lot of people in the ATC weren't human. She looked mostly human, though. And then... Vampire. Ah. Well, that explained quite a lot, then. Without having realized he'd ever been tense, he could feel himself relaxing. She was just a vampire. She wasn't ill. She wasn't going to make him have to choose between blatantly disobeying a Pilot and healing her. Whew. And then he realized what being a vampire meant and he felt himself go tense again.

Now let's be reasonable. Just because she's a vampire, doesn't mean she attacks people. She probably drinks some kind of animal blood, or some regulated stuff. She doesn't need to steal it from you. She wasn't kidding, either. Those fangs she displayed backed up her story. Letting himself relax once more, Sascha crossed the room and perched on the end of a table, crossing his legs at the ankle and watching her where she stood. He shrugged.

"Were you human before?"

[Anonymous]

When Sascha sat down Delilah relaxed some. She leaned against the wall next to the door and slid down it. She stretched her skinny legs out in front of her and crossed her arms in front of her chest. She might as well tell her story right? She hadn't opened up to anyone since she got here. It might do her some good. She sighed, she never used to think that way. Everyone else was the enemy.

She looked up at Sascha slowly.

"Yeah," She swallowed. "I did, a few years ago." She looked towards the other end of the room like something really interesting was over there. It was easier to tell someone a story like this when you weren't looking at them. She couldn't see their pity, their fear of her and most of all she could pretend she was just saying it to herself.

"A vampire, his name was Jericho, took a liking to me...he killed my father..." She was looking off into the distance still. "He killed him a week before he came for me. I had come home to find them both in the kitchen, my Father on the floor his neck ripped open. Mom had never been around." She swallowed again. She swore she could still feel how fast her heart had been racing when she saw them. "Jericho just stood there, watching me, he enjoyed it." She closed her eyes for a moment.

"I hid in my room that whole week. Door locked like it would stop him. He busted through my window and found me instantly." She looked back at Sascha. "Sorry, I get lost in memories sometimes. It's one of my powers, one of Jericho's too."

[Anonymous]

Sascha listened to her tale in silence, not interrupting, not thinking of what to say to her next. He simply listened. He could see by her face that she wasn't excited to be what she was, or at the least, hadn't been at the time. Maybe now she just made the best out of a bad situation. Sascha could appreciate that--did appreciate that. He may have just met her, but he felt closer to her for having shared that tale with him. He tried to imagine the scene as she painted it and he felt her sorrow, despite not being an empath or anything. Finding her father torn up. Being turned. Living with these memories for however long she had so far. He could have said many things. He could have said he was sorry to hear what had happened to her--and he was. He could have said something like wow, must have been tough. Things like that. But they all felt empty, cheap, and unhelpful. So he said nothing at first, just let the silence and the memories fall over them. Even if they weren't his memories, he was taking it in, reflecting on it.

"Memories are a part of your powers?" He finally asked, wondering what that meant. Did she mean it literally or was it some kind of poetic thing? He'd never been good at catching things like that.

[Anonymous]

She watched his face and could feel the strong vibes wafting off of him. The poor candidates, like her, always broadcasting feelings without even realizing they're doing it until they catch a sniff of another candidate's feelings. He didn't seem afraid of her, so he was either naive or confident. Maybe a little of both. She crossed her legs as she thought about blowing off the rest of the conversation. That line of thinking made no sense anymore, their brainwashing was starting to make more sense.

"Yeah, I have regular telepathy, but my real use comes in the blood." She took a deep breath, she always expected people to get weirded out by her powers. She wasn't sure why, they'd probably seen plenty weirder.

"When I'm drinking from someone I see their memories in a rewind, the most recent to the furthest back." She explained it in case he didn't quite understand her speech.

"Then after I can access any of their memories, and if they're still alive I can track them. Sometimes I even pick up skills they had. I get stronger every life I take..."She trailed off for a minute trying not to think about the lives she had taken.

"Stronger telepathy and things like that. I have somewhat weak telekinetic powers now. It only works when I'm really pissed or super focused." She looked up at Sascha and uncrossed her arms and pulling her legs up against her.

"Enough about me." She could hear Frazier in her head, Switch the focus off of you baby, people don't want to hear your problems. They come here to get rid of their own. What a douchebag.

"What about you? What ended up in your cocktail?"

[Anonymous]

Sascha had no idea that he was supposed to be afraid. He had no idea the extent of the abilities of his fellow candidates; he just assumed there were many scary abilities out there. His was something he could handle. He couldn't even imagine what it must be like to have various abilities that meant breaking people or messing things up or even snapping back and hurting oneself. All in all, he considered himself lucky. His ability could genuinely help. There was nothing so terrible about it.

He'd never heard of this strange ability of hers. To take memories from the people she drank from. That must be interesting, but likely painful, too. He knew he'd never want to add on the sad and terrible memories of another person on top of whatever plagued him already. He hadn't had a hard life, though. But like anybody, he had memories he'd rather not have sometimes.

"In my cocktail?" he asked in confusion. He could only assume that she meant his abilities, since that was what they had been talking about. He almost didn't want to say, because it was nothing like hers. She'd probably laugh. "Well," he started, shifting slightly. "Just a little telepathy, like most everyone. And healing."

He looked down at his hands. He'd never killed anybody. Had she? She drank from people, but did she kill them? She made it sound like it when she said "every life" she had "taken." She seemed matter of fact about it. No. Actually, she didn't seem proud of it. At least she appeared to have a conscience.

"Basically, I can heal people's wounds and ...things. But I was told not to unless I have permission now. I guess something to do with other candidates and their mentors way of doing things."

[Anonymous]

Delilah's eyebrow crawled up her forehead. He could heal people? That was different. He sounded more like a Mage on Edanith, which she'd learned about recently, than a candidate in Aedolis. She thought that was fascinating. At least his tricks helped people too. She was just bad most of the time. She wondered to what extent his powers went. How much could he heal?

"That's something that'll be good to have." He made the comment about the Pilot's and the way they did things and she shuddered. She'd heard several different kinds of things about the Pilots and how they work. She'd luckily missed the whole sledgehammer and legs incident. That was something that had made the rest of the candidates more than twitchy about Pilots. They should be twitchy though.

"Yeah, it seems they all have a scary way of teaching. They all must have gone through so much shit as candidates." She decided not to comment on whether she had killed anyone, she heard it loud in his head, he was broadcasting it everywhere. If she answered truthfully she might look like a Pilot. Scary, deadly and not friendly. Though that might be the truth she wanted to avoid scaring him away.

[Anonymous]

"Why do you think it's that way?" Sascha blurted out. He hadn't meant to, of course. But there it was. He'd been wondering it forever but rarely had a chance to ask or voice the question. He wanted to know--needed to know!--why they felt suffering was the best form of teaching. Because all Sascha saw was torture. He didn't know much of it firsthand--yet--but he was frightened that he would. One toe out of line, one wrong word, one wrong wound healed... And he could end up on somebody's shitlist. Hell, he didn't know how to stay off so many shitlists. For the most part, he was friendly, but sometimes he ended up holding back because well, what if the person he was trying to talk to turned out to be one of the mean ones?

"I mean, why do you think they're so mean to everybody?" Sascha clarified, even though he was fairly sure she could probably pluck what he'd meant straight from his mind. Sometimes, he'd wondered if his ability made him sympathetic, but surely there were those who could heal who weren't always wanting to help. How interesting that would be. A homicidal maniac with the power to heal. He smiled a little at the thought, before realizing a homicidal anything wasn't amusing.

"Call me a sap, but I can't help thinking there's a better way. Instead of this ugly cycle of 'I was hurt when I was in your position, so now I'm repaying the favor... to somebody who has nothing to do with what happened to me.' I guess it bothers me a little. I don't believe in revenge, but at least if you're going to do it, hurt the person who hurt you, not somebody who didn't do anything." He paused. "I really don't believe in revenge though. What do they say? An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind?"

[Anonymous]

Delilah thought for a moment. She'd been doing a lot of that recently, way more than she had ever been used to before. She just wasn't the kind to go over things in her head. She didn't like to be contemplative. Suddenly becoming a candidate though made her think. This was going to be her life, if she passed through candidacy. If she became a Pilot, chances were she would be one for a very long time. She was immortal, so the term lifer was something more serious to her than it was to some of the other candidates. She was quickly learning that fucking around wouldn't help her.

She looked up at him thoughtfully. She had wondered this too, her new mentor wasn't so bad but she demanded respect. The hairstyle alone really. Ideas were finally clicking into place. She met his eyes and seemed to be having an epiphany.

"The Pilots...they have lived this hard life," Delilah understood that concept. She'd gone through lots of shit before she got into the program.

"...they know what is waiting for us if we pass." She paused for a moment thinking about the alternative.

"They also know what will happen to us if we don't make the cut. Their mentors were probably hard on them and now they appreciate it. Even if we pass it's not like it's easy. It's dangerous." Delilah felt like she suddenly understood the Pilot's better, and maybe even her Sire. They had another being looking up to them and the weight of that can be huge. Especially with the consequences if the student fails.

The consequences for the candidates was daunting. Especially to Delilah. She didn't want to be carted off to TRIM. A psychic vampire would probably be the perfect playtoy to those people. Plus, she was immortal so they could do almost whatever they wanted and she would still survive. That was not something she wanted to experience, not at all.

"Maybe they care enough to be terrible because that's what they think we need to be prepared?"

[Anonymous]

Sascha blinked. That wasn't what he'd expected to hear at all, but it hit him like a sack of bricks to the stomach. It made too much sense, but it was a sick sort of sense, the kind of sense he wished didn't have to exist--and sometimes wondered why it did. But who was he to question how things happened? Once upon a time, these things were meant to keep order. What had really changed? What could be changed? For some reason, he felt a little ill at the thought of maybe one day becoming the people he questioned, and he suddenly felt a deep and painful empathy for them. The vicious cycle had to remain because life was vicious. It sounded so simple. It was so simple. But somehow, it was also heartbreaking. And discouraging. And made him want to cry. Not for himself, but for everyone. For Delilah. And Vaughan. And Nika. And Eli. And everybody else that he knew.

He took in a long, deep breath.

"You're right. There's a lot more people involved than just me. I was being selfish." His gaze went faraway for a moment. "I wish there was a better way, though."

They all had to toughened, and this was how it happened. It felt like a "no duh" moment, but it still wasn't settling well with him. He wished there was something around here that he could truly embrace. A philosophy he could really back. Maybe he should just face up to it like Delilah seemed to be. Maybe he should get tough. But he didn't want to become bitter, mean, and jaded. What if he had to? To truly help those who came next? And this was just assuming he made it to Pilothood himself.

"Wow. I think I'm depressed now," Sascha said, trying to muster up a smile or a laugh to indicate a joke--but it wasn't really a joke, was it? What a depressing subject. It made him despair for his future and he didn't want to feel that way. Wasn't there anything at all to look forward to?

[Anonymous]

Delilah took a deep breath and listened to him talk. She didn't want to face this herself. She had never truly understood it until now. This was dark. It wasn't dark like she used to like. Delilah loved men who were dangerous, she liked parties that were dark where anything could happen, she liked drug trips that were dangerous, and she liked alleys that twisted and turned so she couldn't see what was around the corner.

This wasn't like that.

This was like that crawling feeling on the back of a neck, the sinking darkness in a stomach. It was a thought that crawled in and made everything look darker and sharp at the same time. This concept put everything into focus, it showed her the reality. It really had been better blurry. It had been better when she could justify to herself being rebellious for no reason, and complaining to herself about the uniform. They had way more problems than a uniform.

"Me too." She sighed and brought a hand up to her head moving her hair. Her shoulders sagged she felt the air go out of her. She had to grow up some time right? The ATC just had to lock her in a room to do it. She reached up taking her hair out of the buns it was in. It fell down past her shoulders a little crinkled by the hair ties. She looked up at him sliding the hair ties onto her wrists.

"Sorry, I...don't think I realized it before then either." Her eyes were sad, more than usual as she looked at him. She wanted...needed a distraction. She needed to move or something. Delilah suddenly felt very restless. She felt fragile, she felt vulnerable. Delilah really needed...contact. This need felt dangerous and scary. She didn't want sex or drugs. She wanted someone to hold her.

She stared at him trying to think of a way to say it and not seem needy, to not seem like the lost little girl she was. It almost hurt just to think it. This epiphany had created some sort of tie to him, some sort of connection she couldn't understand fully. Maybe he would just hear her thinking it. For the first time of her own accord since she became a candidate she pushed her emotions at someone else. She swirled together the need for contact, the fear and the sadness and pushed it towards Sascha.

Delilah held out a hand to him to pull him down next to her. She felt like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff.

[Anonymous]

Heavy feelings seemed to hang in the air--not something that Sascha was accustomed to. He was usually just the sort of "ray of sunshine" people were annoyed by. Something horrible happened and he wanted to make everything better. It was in his nature to try and heal people of their sorrows, and in doing so, he supposed he didn't mind taking the weight of those sorrows from their shoulders to his. He seemed better equipped to deal with them. Or so he'd thought. Now that it came down to it, he hated this icky, dark feeling inside. It was more like being trapped than actually being trapped within this room. Being stuck with Delilah didn't bother him. Being stuck with the realization that they were either stuck with this life they led or one even worse--and that they had no choice in the matter--that bothered him. No... It bothered him moreso that he saw where these other people he knew were going and that they weren't happy. If he could, he'd easily take all their burdens and let them off the hook. But he couldn't.

Watching her take the buns out of her hair, he wondered if the action was to cover up something else. Her own despair, maybe. Or was she nervous? Or... No. He watched as that dark hair tumbled down around her shoulders and she looked to him with the saddest eyes he'd ever seen. His heart wrenched for her, even if she was somebody he had just met. Somehow, a little thing like time hardly mattered. They'd reached an epiphany together; one that left them in varying degrees of melancholy. He suspected that whatever he felt, she was feeling it in much stronger concentrations. One hard life to another. She really couldn't win, could she?

A swirl of foreign feelings enveloped him, and he recognized that they weren't his own--she had sent them his way, either accidentally or on purpose. How they came to be there didn't effect him, though. It was knowing that she needed somebody that caused him to take her hand and sit down beside her. Fragile and delicate, she looked like one dark look could break her right now. Good thing Sascha had no such things in his arsenal. Instead, he smiled sadly at her before he wrapped his arms around her. No hesitation on his part. He wished he could heal inner pain. Look inside people and find those dark knots of hurt and untie them. Release them from their agony and guilt.

He wanted to say something, but words were meaningless at this point. Lies like it'll be all right were empty promises. But he could be here for her. At least he could do that.

[Anonymous]

His hand touched hers and she felt the shock of his heat. His warm hand against hers felt amazing. She hadn't had much contact since she got here. At least not this kind. She felt a little better just from that. He sat down next to her. She thanked the Gods, maybe she should start worshiping the dragons instead, that she had taken the chance. He wrapped his arms around her and she slid hers around his waist and leaned her head on his chest.

She didn't even want to bite him. Well maybe a little, but it didn't overcome as his scent hit her nose. She just felt warmer, a little more at peace. This embrace had a different feeling to it than any she had before this. It felt...caring. She had been delusional about the life she was leading before she became a candidate.

Of course it was easy for her to be delusional when she was always high or chasing the next fix. She couldn't get a handle on the things she needed to change when everything around her was in a cloud. She squeezed her hands tighter into his shirt and closed her eyes like she could hide from all these realizations. In some ways becoming a candidate might have saved her. In other ways though it scared the shit out of her. Those were the ones that were floating to the surface at the moment.

She wouldn't cry, she refused to do that. She was closer to Rastaban than she had been to anyone in years. He was seeing the cracked girl on the inside. That alone made her want to cry and she couldn't put her finger on why. She was sure that she didn't want to know why. Her body felt better curled against him. She felt warmer.

"I..." She tried to find words but wasn't sure what she should say right now. "I must be freezing, sorry..." she thought for a moment, "...and thanks." Isn't that how she should talk to him? She just wasn't used to normal interaction.

"What was your life like before this?" She talked into his chest not opening her eyes.