Gemini

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

The beats got louder and louder, emanating a tune of dismay.

A heart sat in a glass box in a dark room with no edges, nothing else except for the darkness slowly swallowing the corners.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

A new sound entered the shadowed room. The screech of a creature dark as ash as it flew around the room manically, its bellowing wings shifting around the darkness. A bat, its tongue filled with hunger, for the taste of blood, for the taste of the beating heart.

Its attention’s set onto the repeating pulses, the entire room pictured through sonar in its mind. It charges at the transparent box, its full might poured into the descent, teeth barred and ready to sink in.

The bat’s head connected with the solid glass and in a cracking sound, the box tumbled off the pedestal, down into the darkness. The glass box smashed to shards, producing jagged edges that point inwards, stabbing the beating heart. Trickles of blood poured from the multiple wounds, conjoining and streaming down like a rushing river that pooled right next to the still bat.

But the bat cannot drink it, for the bat is dead.

“Hey can you hear me? Hey kid. HEY!”

Just five more minutes, mom. Let me stay home today, it’s so warm in here…

“You can’t be blocking up my line, if you’ve had too much to drink go on home. I got people trying to get in.”

Lucius’s head was ringing, the knotted feeling in his stomach still there even though he had experienced the jump a few times by now. He wanted to throw up, to crawl back into his warm bed under the warm covers and listen to the rain pelt his windows until he drifted off to sleep. But there was no bed here, there was only the rough floor, and his time was already up.

“Gimme a sec…I’m getting up,” Lucius groaned, managing to stagger to his feet. He felt the crumpled piece of newspaper in his hand and tucked it away into his jacket.

A girl with mauve pink hair stood in front of him, her hair flowed down past her waist, like it was trying to sweep away the grime off the street. The rest of her appearance was covered by the shadows from the neon lights that illuminated the front entrance, every flash painted her a new shade of the rainbow.

“Don’t make me ask you again. Get out of my line,” the girl ordered, her voice serious from countless experiences dealing with uncooperative patrons.

Behind Lucius, he saw a long line of eclectic people that flowed down the street and wrapped around the corner, their faces all expressing annoyance and impatience for his impudence. Above him, a flashing neon sign shined the words GEMINI CLUB in pure white light, with a large number 2 in roman numerals placed in the center of it.

Gemini Club? How did I…Lain, wait Lain, she mentioned the twins, the gemini…

“Am I speaking another langua-”

“Lain! The twins!” Lucius blurted out, interrupting the pink haired girl. “I need to see the twins!”

The girl looked shocked from Lucius’s outburst, but quickly replaced her expression with a wide smile.

“Lain sent you? Well why didn’t you say that before you passed out on my floor? C’mon, c’mon, I’ll bring you right to the bosses.”

She turned to an intimidating man standing in the doorway dressed in a similar uniform, who looked like he was created in a lab solely to block club entrances. “Waylon, watch the line for me will ya? I gotta head upstairs.”

“You got it, Fuschia,” Waylon nodded, stepping aside like a vault door opening a safe.

Fuschia beckoned Lucius to follow as she stepped into the club, the difference between the inside and outside appeared like two entirely separate realities.

The club throbbed like a living organ, every beat rattled through bone and blood. Strobes split the dark into shards, faces stretched in ecstasy, teeth flashed sharp like ravaged monsters. Bodies were pressed so close together that they formed one mass, a swarm that writhed and pulsed with animalic hunger.

Laughter cracked into shrieks, music melted into growls, and the dance floor felt like a cave, filled with the desire and madness of devils. Neon lights flared in serrated bursts, the crowd painted in shifting masks of red and violet.

The music swallowed it all, every breath and every blink, beating like a racing heart.

Fuschia knew better than to speak with words in the deafening room, so instead pointed to a door hidden along the back wall, among the indistinguishable shadows. Up the winding staircase and out to the top floor, where a bird’s eye view of the club allowed for complete watch.

Down a long hall covered in stained glass windows, another door stood in wait, a similar crest painted on its front.

With the downstairs rituals now only muffled sounds, the two were able to speak vocally.

“What’d you say your name was? The bosses will wanna know before you see them.”

“Lucius, I’m Lucius.” His head traded in the ringing for pounding, every vibration felt deep in the membrane of his skull. It was gonna take more than a few moments for his equilibrium to completely return.

“Okay then Lucius, you wait right here.” Fuschia knocked three times on the dichromatic door, but opened it and entered before waiting for a response back.

Lucius leaned against a side wall, his legs felt like rubber. Unable to support him, he slid down onto the hard floor.

What am I even doing here, in this miserable place? So far, all of this has amounted to nothing, I don’t feel any closer to the end than I did when I first arrived in this cursed city. No, this isn’t the time for thinking like that. Lain, Surazal, I couldn’t save them. But I will not let their deaths be in vain. That is my priority right now, nothing more.

The floor moaned with the echoed growls of interactions below, a pit of lions waiting to devour their prey. Lucius felt like a gladiator biding time until his turn to be thrown to the wolves, to fight tooth and nail for the sake of his soul. He was sure that at any second the floor would give way and he would fall to the depths of pandemonia, his sins burning in a fiery blaze like gasoline thrown on an open flame.

Instead, the door creaked open, and Fuschia stepped aside to allow him entry.

“Come on in, Lucius.”

Maybe the way to hell isn’t down, maybe it’s straight, he thought, getting up and stepping through the doorway.

The room looked as divided as day and night, its glass front giving a voyeur’s view of the writhing mass below. The left side of the room radiated a cool serenity, with deep blue velvet rugs in the colour of spilled midnight, sapphire bottles lined up on shelves, and canvases of abstract swirls that caught the light in shifting shades of indigo. It felt like the calm of a gallery, every object suggested curated control.

To the right, the space burned with contrast. Sandstone carpets bled out across the floor, honey silks were thrown carelessly over furniture next to drapes half veiling glass windows. Tumultuous street art leaned against the walls rather than hung up, like stolen relics taken out of a fever dream. It was like the chaos and recklessness of a back alley had been brought indoors, all that was missing was a few starving rats.

In the center of the room, sitting behind a raven black desk left completely barren, were two figures, their deep eyes focused on Lucius’s presence.

“Ultra, Umbra, this is Lucius,” Fuschia introduced.

“Lucius, please have a seat,” offered who he assumed was Ultra.

The man who spoke had a sharp face, refined to the point of seeming carved. His glossy hair was with teal, mirroring the reflection of the moon in a storming sea. He wore an aegean coloured suit with subtle shimmering threads that danced like oil on water, and a cobalt tie that flourished like a running stream.

“Yeah, sit,” said who he assumed was Umbra.

The woman sat back in a lounge chair with her legs propped up on the desk, her long orange hair burned like a lit flame down her body. Her angular face was fierce with sharp brows, and deep eyes that smouldered like embers. A spiced leather jacket was shawled over her shoulders, and fishnets ran down her legs until they met at the top of her bronze stiletto heels.

Lucius followed both their orders and sat down face to face with the contrasting twins.

“Thank you, Fuschia, we’ll take it from here. You may return to your duties,” said Ultra, as Fuschia nodded and shut the door behind her.

“So, Lucius, if I understand corre-”

“Lain sent you right? How is she? I haven’t seen her in ages. And come to think of it, I haven’t seen you ever,” interrupted Umbra. “How do you know Lain?”

Lucius looked down at the floor, finding it difficult to maintain eye contact at the mention of her name.

“I…uh, I guess I first met her through this guy named Grimebank-”

Umbra excitedly cut him off. “Grimebank! No way! He comes around here all the time. In fact he’s probably down there right now.” She pointed over to the window that overlooked the chaotic club floor.

“Let the boy finish, Umbra, he’s barely had the chance to get out a full sentence. Please excuse her, Lucius, and continue.”

“Right, right…” Lucius trailed on, having difficulty finding the words.

“Lain and Surazal…they were both…killed. The three of us had just returned to the Angiporium, when this guy in black showed up out of nowhere. He took us all by surprise. With Lain’s final breath she sent me here, outside your club, and told me to speak with the ‘twins’. She…also wanted me to show you this…”

Lucius reached into his jacket pocket and took out the creased drawing, placing it flat on the desk in front of them.

Umbra’s face melted with sorrow at Lucius’s words, meekly uttering under her breath. “Lains…dead?”

Ultra’s face was similarly melancholic, but he was able to more thoroughly maintain his composure. Reaching across the table, he held up the scrap paper so they could both see it.

“Lucius,” Ultra calmly said, his hair glistening with an even deeper blue, “Tell me exactly what this man looked like.”