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Some would say home has a particular smell; a smell that tells you that you’ve made it somewhere safe, where you don't have to constantly be on guard and worry about what could be around every corner or door. Somewhere you bring only your most trusted companions. For me, home is his forge. Where he spends all his time giving life to the creation's others would be too afraid to even dream of. Yes, it's unconventional but it's home, where everything smells like soot and grease, where you can't cool off in the summer but never have to worry about ever being cold in the winter. It's where I first ran into him, it's where I found him beaten and bruised almost beyond recognition. I never knew one man could do so much damage to someone; but I guess the urge to protect family can be a very powerful force, especially when you’ve failed once before. I never got to meet Ethan, but seeing what he did to Karl, I don’t think I want to... not in a million years.
I had been hiding in different houses across the village for a few days since the Lycans showed up, I saw many people I grew up with eaten by those things; they showed no remorse either. Only eating like a man starved. I wish I could have stood up to them, to have saved my friends, my family. But I just hid. I would change houses when I thought they were zeroing in on my location. I even spent a day hiding in an old well, lying on one of my old neighbors to keep from falling into the frozen water right below. I felt really bad that I had to use them like that, they deserved better, but they were already gone and I needed to stay dry. In cold like that, I wouldn’t have made It as long as I did without having to steal clothes or use their bodies to keep the Lycans distracted for a few minutes. I had a close call with one; it spotted me while I was making a run across a field to the next house. It came at me like a bullet, but one of the other villagers shot at it and let me get away. I tried to find him later that night, I searched the entire house he had been in. But there was nothing; my guess was that Lycan got him, poor guy. I wouldn’t wish even my worst enemy to be eaten by those things; they don’t make it quick, they take their time eating you. I think they might enjoy the sounds of people screaming, they might enjoy the chase of someone trying to escape them.
After about a week I ended up making my way all the way across the village close to his factory. Every horror story you could think of had its own version to fit him and his workshop. Some said he was a boogie man, who would take children to make them work for him. Others say he was some grossly mutated freak who would kill anyone who dared look at him. One of my friends even used to say that he would take anyone who denied him anything he wanted. She said how she once saw him snatch a woman because she refused to give him her family's tractor. No one had ever seen him outside the factory walls; so, the stories were just that, stories. But after everyone in the village had been murdered by either the monsters or one of the lords, I didn’t have much of a choice. And besides, a fully gated area looked much safer than trying to escape through the woods when the nights would reach into the negatives. It would have been suicide to try. Especially with those things in the forest. When I was close to house Benevinito I thought I kept seeing small children running through the trees near me; but I knew better than to yell out to them. I knew all the children had died, so either those weren't children, or they were something I really didn’t want to meet. Besides, I was fairly sure he wouldn’t be there anyways; I had caught a glimpse of the fight between him and who I now know was Ethan. it was brutal; I saw him fall, or at least I saw that thing fall. So why would I have to worry about him being home? So, hopping the barbed-wire fence I went, in was weirdly quite nearing the factory. The usual sounds of clanging metal were nowhere to be heard, Not even the birds made a sound. Only the steady drip of melting snow was heard. Did I take this as a sign to turn back? Of course not. I pressed on; the door was solid metal. It looked like it was scrapped together in a hurry. I could see pieces of random things stuck inside the door. The rims from cars some cogs, random screws and washers, even some metal cutlery. There were cuts and scrapes all over the frame of the door, this wasn’t the original door, I could tell that much. Warm stagnant air met me inside. While its warmth was a more than welcome change from the cold and bitter air outside, it smelled stale, as if nothing had moved through here in quite a while. Dust was on everything. The floor, the random boxes piled everywhere, the windows, the vent covers, what I would guess were once safety posters clinging to the wall. It looked as if one gust of wind and everything would blow away. But there was one thing that stood out from this dull and dusty room; it was blood. And a lot of it. On the far side of the room there is this simple metal door leading out into a hallway; which led further into the factory. But right on the side of the door frame there was a bloody hand print, and there was a pool of blood below it. It looked like whoever came through there had fallen while trying to get in. But how did they get in without disturbing all the other dust? I didn’t have time to care. A crash from further inside sent me into guard mode. I hadn't killed anything before, but I didn’t plan on dying that day. Nor any day after that. So, I stepped over the blood and crossed into the threshold of the factory. Too late to turn back, so I might as well find out what it was; before it found me. There was a pile of old well-rusted pipes. It may not be the best weapon, but I'd rather have an old pipe than nothing; even if I was sure it would break at the slightest contact with something solid.
The factory was huge, it was like a maze of twisting hallways and sealed off rooms. Some rooms I didn’t even go into for fear of something being inside. a few of them had dried blood trails leading inside; I didn’t even spare a second glance at those rooms. The blood may have been old, but I was in no mood to be testing my luck any more than I already was. The air was less stale back here, but the smell of blood and for some reason, smoke, was growing ever stronger. The heat was rising but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt like stepping outside into a warm day after a biting cold night. I could finally feel my legs again, Luckily I hadn't gotten hypothermia from being outside all that time. It seems I still had a little luck on my side; at least at the time.
I had been following the blood drips for a while now, whomever was leaving them was not having a good day. They led into a open forge area; huge furnaces lined the walls and a giant tub for melting the metal was in the middle of the room. Small fires were inside the furnaces, they were dying but still gave off enough light to make out the details of the room. It wasn’t a big room by any means but there was still enough space to move and work. The room smelled of smoke and grease. I stayed outside the metal door frame; barely peeking into the dimly lit room. The trail stopped at the door, but I could see a figure laying on the ground next to the melting tub. They were wearing a now stained red button up, brown pants , with black work boots, I guess they were wearing a hat at some point because it was on the ground next to them. Their grey hair was matted and unkept with dried spots of mud and blood spread out within. Their glasses were pushed up on their forehead and slightly cracked and bent the wrong way. It was a man from what I could tell, he was pale as the snow outside and a sheen on sweat covered him. He wasn’t doing good, the blood was pooling below him at a steady pace. Much longer and he would have died. I may not have known him then, but its never been in my nature to just let someone die when I could help. And with how many people I'd lost in the last few days, I wasn’t too keen on letting someone else die. Especially when there was nothing around to stop me from helping. So I ran in, not my brightest idea, but hey, what else was I going to do? The blood had slowed a little bit but he was still loosing a lot, I started to unbutton his shirt, I needed it out of the way so I could see what was wrong. As I peeled the shirt away from his skin I noticed a few things that probably should have been red flags; he was riddled with scars, his broad chest was covered with all kinds of scars. Little ones, long ones, new ones, faded old ones. Something else caught my eye. It looked like the wound was fresh. But that couldn’t have been, I had been the first one in here in a while. There were no prints outside and the dust in the front had been untouched for a while. So either this had happened inside the building or there was another way in that I wasn’t aware of. I didn’t have much on me to help, a few needles and thread that I had on me when the monsters arrived, some candies, and a book and candle I always had on me. It’s not like I planned on everyone being murdered and having to save some random guy in a factory where I shouldn’t have been. So, I had to do what I could. There were some coals near one of the furnaces nearby; so, my first step was getting more light. I could barely see, and I wasn’t looking to accidentally stitch myself instead of him. I threw the meager coal on the nearest fire and let them do their thing. Next, I need some kind of cloth, something to help me wipe up a little of this mess. I took off my sweater, it wouldn’t absorb much, but it might help a little. I leaned over the man and pressed the cloth to his wound. Out of reflex he curled forward, hissing with pain, before collapsing back onto the concrete floor below. It wouldn’t have felt good but there wasn’t anything I could do about the pain then. With a clearer look at the damage, I could see it was bad. He had been slashed across the chest and it was deep. There were also countless other little wounds on his arms and torso, but they didn’t concern me at that moment. I was able to stitch him up relatively well, sewing can be a handy skill.
With him stitched and the bleeding having mostly stopped I finally had a second to sit back and look at him, he was handsome that for sure. He had scars across his face as well; he looked as if he hadn't slept in days. He had a simple grey beard; it looked just as ratty and unkept as his hair. He obviously didn’t take very good care of himself. He was still in pain, I could tell that much, but he has calmed a little. Some color had returned, he was no longer on the brink of death but it would take a lot more than a few stiches to save him entirely. With no water I couldn’t wipe the blood away very well but I could still see just fine. He had a very nice body, he looked like a man who spend his life doing manual work, not the kind who would spend his time in fancy clothes or with fancy people. Now don’t get me wrong, fancy people can look very good. Take lady Dimitrescu for example, I had only seen her a few times when Mother Miranda called for the lords but by God, she was beautiful. She could have made the angels jealous. But this man was a simple kind of handsome. But a question still lingered; why was he here in the factory? Did he work for Heisenberg or was he another one of the villagers who stowed away here like me? I wouldn’t be getting any answers anytime soon. So, I sat down across from him closer to the forge so I could monitor the fire. I didn’t want it to go out anytime soon. I didn’t stay awake much longer.
I awoke to the feeling of something cold pressed on my neck, my throat tightened as I saw him standing in front of me. He was still shirtless as I had left him, and I could see my stitches were still intact. That was good at least. He was much taller than I thought he was while he was laying down; his hair was still matted but I could see he had taken out a few of the clumps of mud and debris. The cold object on my neck happened to be the point of a screwdriver; but the thing was, he wasn’t holding it, it was just pressing into my neck as if by its own will. And he just stood there looking at me. I could see a jumble of emotions on his face. Anger, sadness, confusion, and most of all pain. I could tell it was hurting a lot for him to be standing.
“Hey, you shouldn’t be standing! You might rip your stitches open.” I attempted to stand up before feeling the screwdriver press more into my neck; not enough to draw blood but enough to get its point across. So, I sat back down on the ground. The fire had died down to embers again and the room was back into the dull glow that it had been when I got here. ‘What time was it? How long had I been asleep?’ questions buzzed through my head as I watched this man try to figure me out. So, i started simply. “What is your name?” I put my hands up slightly, showing I had no intention of trying anything. He looked a little confused at the question, as if no one had asked him that before. He just kind of stared at me, he was searching for something. As if that was the funniest thing he had ever heard; he started laughing, although as karma would have it he forgot he has a giant wound on his side. He almost fell over in pain, but that only put a dampener on his laughter. He looked as if he were going to start crying it was so funny.
“doll, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.” he wiped the tears from his face and stood up straight again. The cut had started to bleed again but it wasn’t quite as bad as it was earlier. You could tell that he felt it though.
“all I did was ask your name, you don’t have to laugh like I’m crazy. But If you wont answer that then how about I ask why you’re here?” I was a little offended by his laughter but it wasn’t the first time people thought I was crazy. I mean, everyone’s a little crazy, right? I really didn’t like how annoying he was being. As long as ive known him he has always taken his time to answer questions, almost like he wants me to keep near him for as long as possible. Like he is worried that I will run away as soon as he is done answering the question.
He stopped laughing at my second question. Instead of looking at me confused he just stared at me as if I was the stupidest person on the planet. In retrospect; I kind of was, I mean it couldn’t have been more obvious.
“I’m Heisenberg, Karl Heisenberg.” I felt my heart stop at that. The blood in my veins having seemed to have both stopped moving and turned to ice in a matter of seconds. Now I really noticed the trouble I was in. this man, whom I found lying on the floor dying right in front of me, happened to be none other than the lord of this very factory. And he had a screwdriver to my throat. “I should be asking you the same thing doll. I don’t remember inviting anyone inside. Let alone to go and undress me and fall asleep here in my workshop.” So this was it; I had survived the Lycans and found somewhere semi-safe for me to rest for a hour or two and I walked right into the arms of one of the more feared lords in the village. He seemed a little worse for wear but he was nothing like the horror stories that have been drilled into mine and many others heads since we were children. He was no boogie man or hideous monster. He was some guy living and working in some rundown old factory on the outskirts of this village. The other lords had more of a presence in the town and even the youngest of kids knew of them. but he was like a shadow, no one had seen him outside the factory walls let alone anywhere in the village. Yet here I was, inside his home, having undressed him without his permission. He had all the right to kill me right there. Put an end to my existence. I would have done the same thing, well, not exactly.
“your- wait- that cant be right- none of the stories said you were hot, but I mean they wouldn’t tell that to children. But I saw you go down, I thought this place would have been empty.” I had forgotten about the tool at my throat and instead chose to stand and begin pacing the room. Mumbling question after question to myself as he just stood there watching me move back and forth.
“wait what did you just call me?” the tool stopped before moving back to one of the nearby tables. It clattered with some of the other loose material but was once again and inanimate object sitting on the table where it once had been. Lifeless as ever.
“I was just talking to myself, don’t worry about it. I’ll leave right now, I shouldn’t have come here.” With an abrupt turn on my heels I was moving back towards the exit. My sweater and thread long forgotten as only one though occupied my mind. Escape. I needed to get out of here before he decided to kill me for my trespassing.
“I never said you could leave.” His voice was like daggers of ice in the air. It pierced my very soul and left me rooted to the ground, almost like I had been standing there my entire life; my very being glued to this exact spot. The door ahead slammed itself shut and I was roughly grabbed from behind, his rough calloused hands scratched my bare shoulder as I spun in place; my feet never left their spot but now I was facing him. He’s always had this odd smile on his face when he knew he was winning. It looked like he was trying to be smug but his ego was getting in the way, so it ended up looking more like a shit-eating grin than anything. “its not very nice to just leave without saying goodbye!” his hand still stood on my shoulder. Being this close to him I could feel his breath, this whole being hurt thing really wasn’t working for him, but that didn’t stop him from being a controlling asshole.
“I shouldn’t have come in here, I’m sorry, can I go now?” I wanted to run, I wanted to escape, but like a bug in a web I had no choice but to wait and see what he decided to do.
“your not even going to let me thank you for stitching me up?” he looked a little surprised. But that smile never left his lips. It was quite hard to tell what he actually meant when he talked. Was he being sincere? Or was he just messing with me, trying to see if id crack under pressure. he sighed and let go of my shoulder. “look doll, I’m too tired to do this right now, if you want to leave, leave. I cant keep them off ya but you could probably make it out to the next village by sundown if you walk fast enough.” He turned back around and stumbled back into the workshop. He looked like a man defeated, as if everything that once made him hold his chest high and proud had been crushed to dust right before his eyes. He was a shell. Nothing but a walking corpse.
“you don’t want to kill me?” I was dumbfounded. I had broken into his home and used his stuff without asking. And here he was, letting me walk free without any kind of response or reaction.
“I just said im too tired. You do know English right?” he glared at me from the floor; did he not have a bed somewhere in this massive facility? He was messing with the stiches, flinching when something got caught and tugged on the bruised skin. “I said you can leave.” He waved towards the door behind me. “just go back out the way you came in.” he pulled a flask out of one of his pockets and downed the whole thing in one gulp, I guess it never held that much. He threw the empty tin off into one of the corners before trying to tug his shirt back on.
“the others say you kill anyone who even sees you, let alone breaks into your home.” It was confusing to me. Here I was, with one of the most feared men in the entirety of this village, spoke to me none meaner than someone might scold a child for stealing a sweet.
I never did end up leaving. I was too intrigued by him. How someone so simple could become equally feared as the other lords without even having to lift a finger, or a hammer in this case. After about a week of just following him around asking questions every chance I was given he finally put me to work in one of the hundred forges inside the factory. He said I could work on melting down scraps into usable sheets of metal. I learned a few months later that he used the sheets to make modifications to some of his experiments. The most fearsome being a newer version of what was his most powerful experiment; a man fused with a plane propeller fan. I jokingly nicknamed it fan man after a old song I heard when I was younger. It was scary but it refused to walk within five feet of me or karl, so I left it alone. Its been 3 years now since I decided to stick around, karl moved me to the same forge as him but we still don’t talk very often. He preferred to work in silence, the only sounds being of clanging metal and burning wood.
Even today, the sun was scorching the walls of the factory but he still had the forges on full blast, the fire making it an easy million degrees inside. But other than deciding to remove his shirt, he seemed unbothered by the heat, maybe even enjoying it some. me on the other hand, I was dying. Sweat ran down my body like I was a waterfall, karl had given me a few of his button ups to work in but it was long drenched in sweat and soot. The usually comforting sounds of building were now bouncing through my skull like a spiked ball, leaving sharp pains every time he would strike his hammer.
“hey karl!” I yelled over all the noise. “I think I’m going to take a walk down to the river, I need to cool off before I die of a heatstroke.” I motioned to the door behind me, it was slightly blocked by a growing pile of sheet metal but it wasn’t something that couldn’t easily be moved out of the way. Especially when it stood in between me and the sweet cool water of the river down the hill. Since moroe had been killed by Ethan the water ways had cleared up. Not entirely but enough that one could go swimming without worrying about turning into a copy of the fish man or suddenly having an extra limb. He laughed at my exaggeration but nodded anyways.
“go ahead doll, I’ll meet you down there in a few.” He turned back to his work and wiped away some sweat off his head. He still wore those shades, even inside. I tried asking him why but he just looked at me silently. That was the only time he refused to answer one of my questions. I had learned a lot about the other lords through him, and what mother Miranda did, and how this whole mess started. He would answer every question I could throw at him, but that he refused.
So I began my adventure, as one of my first tasks in the factory I cleaned up the entrance. It no longer smelled stale and I had successfully removed all the dust and grime from the walls and floors. A small stain existed where that pool of blood by the door had been but now it had faded to a dull outline. Marking the day my life changed forever. The outside of the factory was still just as ratty and overgrown as the day I hopped the fence and wandered in. except now I could see the village. After that officer and his goons came in to kill all the Lycans and clean up after that Ethan guy they burned down the place. Skeletons of the buildings now remained, they reached up like claws through the ground, grabbing towards the sky in a futile attempt to escape their earthly prison. I’m sad I couldn’t say goodbye to my childhood home, but if they hadd'nt done when they did, some of those monsters might have escaped. Maybe she would have escaped.
There was a small path built into the arching golden grass, dug in by my constant walking and Karl’s dragging of materials from the village. He insisted on using what he could from the remains even with my protests to leave it be. It deserved to rest, after all it had gone through. Much like its once lively inhabitants, it deserved a nice long rest. It served its purpose.
It wasn’t too long of a trip down the hill to the river, the rock steps that were built in sure helped in the descent. It was never the same when I came down here. Today the river calmly rushed by, moving towards the lake over by moroes old haunting grounds where it would finally come to a rest. A few deer scattered upstream when they noticed me and a few birds screeched overhead. The air was warm but not unpleasant. It was a nice change from the boiling heat of the forge. i stripped down to my birthday suit and climbed down into the water. It was brisk but it brought a nice cold blanket over my boiling skin, it washed away the sweat and soot of the day, it wrapped me up like a hug. I could have stood there in the water for years, just letting it wash by time itself while I stood and watched.
I stayed in that spot, feeling the cooling of the air and the rushing of the water around me. I heard karl coming down the hill near me and I was quick to kneel down into the water, covering myself in its cold embrace. He stood only in his pants, watching me in the water.
“well? Are you going to join me?” I jokingly threw some water in his direction. He laughed me off like normal before beginning to remove what was left of his clothes. I felt the heat rush to my cheeks so I turned and hid my face in my hands. You couldn’t call our relationship anything specific, it was clear I liked him, and it was clear he reciprocated, but neither one of us made a move. Neither of us wanted to ruin anything. “karl! You cant just undress like that in front of me!!” silence. I thought something was wrong but before I could turn to check there was a splash and I was being dragged under the cool water. His strong arms wrapped around my chest and held me near him as we broke the surface again. But he didn’t break his hold. So we stayed like that. Wrapped in his arms and the cool embrace of the rivers current. I wanted to kiss him then, I should have kissed him then.