"Nameless" (A Short Story)

by: Jeel Christine de Egurrola

I plan on writing a prequel for this particular short story for the readers to be able to understand the personalities of the two main characters, and to know how their lives became entangled in a crisis.

Anyway, thanks to sir Jayson for an opportunity of a lifetime. :)

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"They say that nameless things change constantly--that names fix them in place like pins. But without a name, a thing isn't quite real either. Maybe you're not a real thing."- Holly Black, Ironside

a shadow in a shadow

She could see that the boy is trying to cut the binds on his hands through his pocket knife. His isn’t as tight as hers, she notices. As soon as his binds loosen from where he squats, she shouts at the big muscular goon with the goatee that intertwines in locks, his bayonet on his scabbard on the right, and a bow and a quiver with arrows attached to his belt on his left. “Alright, fuck me!”

The goon spreads his lips in a mocking grin and moves to grasp her. The other two hoodlums—one bald, and the other blond—cheer in glee. He unties the knot on her bonds that deprive her from any form of movements and struggles.

Before he could ravish her, she smacks a punch to the big guy’s face and kicks his crotch. The guy screams in pain. She takes the bayonet from his scabbard and presses it down to his back and he stumbles unconscious. The other two riders advance her with their knives. The long-haired blond guy was able to cut her shoulders, opening up a leak where thick blood oozes. It stings her enough to loosen her grip on the bayonet. “Shit!” she screams and she ducks toward empty boxes on her right. The man catches her. He punches her back and forth until bruises appear on her freckled face. She could feel the pain in her cheeks. And before he could swing at her again, the boy whose binds were cut reaches down to the big man’s shoulders. He makes an attack that leaves the boy stumbling down on his back.

She reaches for the bayonet on the floor and presses it with force down to and fro the goon’s back. The boy gets the other knife, which stretches on the floor near the bald goon’s dead body—the one he hit unconscious with a steel rod. He stabs the blond hoodlum’s heart and he dies.

“That was fun.” He sighs in relief.

She reaches and takes the bow and the quiver where the arrows are stored out from the blond’s buckle, while he takes the rest of the bayonets with him.

They hurry to untie the binds of other prisoners and run for their escape before the other punks come back from their short trip elsewhere. The three men weren’t their only jailer, seven more are out there somewhere.

They both know that it isn’t safe to be out of the building in this time of the night. It is possible that more hoodlums are out for a lookout scattered in the building. What they need for now is a hideout where they can plan for their escape. They hide themselves in another room—a stock room of sorts—near the media center. It is the safest room they find in the midst of the darkness.

The room is dark. The only light that comes in is from the holes possibly created by bullets that passed the doors and the walls of the room. The inside is as dusty as the abandoned building itself. Various footbags of different colors are gathered in a pile on a shopping cart on one of the edge of the darkened room. Mops, vacuum cleaners are placed on the other edge, while bottles of detergents, sprays, and other liquids in bottles that must have been expired are arranged on a steel shelves attached to one side, and placed on the left side side are steel tables and cabinets that looks almost old as the building itself.

“For a moment there I though you want to fuck those goons.” He starts looking back and forth at her and the other prisoners who squeezed together in compact in the right side.

“Who in their right mind would ever want to be screwed by those homicidal punks who smell like shit? And what, fuck in front of everybody in an orgy? That’s so nasty!” She scowls.

“Uhm, exhibitionists, paraphilias, caudulists and the likes of them...” He replies.

“Right! Like they are in their right minds...”

“Yeah.” “You know what, I like you.” He smiles at her. His hair black as coal, eyes silvery gray, lips red not from lipstick—but natural red, a dimple appears on his right cheek making him younger than the first time she looked at him. He is probably eighteen or nineteen. She guesses.

“How come?”

“You’re cool, dangerous and you have wits none of them possess.” He points at the rest of the group. One girl sits with her knees that touch her breasts, hugs herself in what seems like fear in her eyes. A six year old kid snuggles under his granny’s protection. A woman in a green buttoned close cardigan and black jeans cautiously peeks at the outside through a little hole on the door. An old man whose hands don’t stop trembling sits beside a slender bloke in his early twenties who wobbles his lips in a silent prayer.

“You’d be surprise to know that that praying guy has a sense of humour.” He looks at him, and shakes his head.

“I don’t like guys. I’m not gay. My brother is.... I like women. That means you...”

“Oh! You’ll pretty much dislike me sooner or later. I’m not who you think I am. I am a serious lady and I have no time for games. And I love my solitude. So, please leave me.” She explains, trying to discourage the silvery gray eyed.

“Too bad I’m liking you even more.” He grins.

“Wait! Are you hitting on me?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you are.”

“Maybe I am. “ He teases her. Her wavy blond hair fits perfectly with her soporific blue eyes with curvy eyelashes that flutter like wings when she blinks. She wears a blue thin camisole, a designer’s jeans, and a black Chuck Taylor boots.

“I don’t like flirty guys and girls much. I might punch you now.” Her face now angry and annoyed...

“Then why don’t you?” He encourages.

“You know what? Fuck out!” She swings her fist toward his face, but before she could hit him, he dodges down and catches her by the waist. She jerks backward in an attempt to make a second hit, but he steps back in a defense position.

“Hey, easy there girl... I mean you no harm. I just wanna talk, you know. No one here talks with sense like you do. They’re all boring... all trapped in their fears.” He explains. His face no longer frivolous but serious and earnest...

“I’m a bore. So you better find another person to bug.”

“You don’t bore me.”

“Okay! So here’s the deal. I don’t want anything to do with you. Not now. Not ever. As soon as we get out of this hellhole, we will all be moving our own separate ways. We will not see each other again. We will forget that this shit ever happened. If destiny is so cruel that it’ll allow us to stumble with each other again, let’s pretend we don’t know each other. Alight!”

“I’m fine with that.”

“That’s a wise decision.”

“So, are we cool now?”

“Yeah, for now if you don’t do anything stupid.”

“I...” He hesitates. “...will try not to...” and smiles his cocky smile. “So, you’re a killer?” He asks.

“What?” She is confused.

“Well, you’re so good with the knives. Where did you train?”

“First, even if I use my knives well, it doesn’t mean I am killer. Second, I haven’t trained ever. Third, this is the first time I held a knife in offense of another. Lastly, I didn’t kill anyone. I stabbed the guy unconscious, not killed. You killed the blond.” She points her finger at him.

“...to save your ass!”

“I didn’t need saving. I can take care of myself. I could have taken him down on my own.”

“Okay, I believe that. But you are really good with the bayonet.”

“Fluke, possibly...“ For a moment there she only stares at him and hesitates but she continues. “It’s called adrenaline rush. See, our sympathetic nervous system mobilizes our body’s resources when we are under stress. Clearly because of the adrenaline, it must have induced a type of fight-flight response in my body. That explains why I was good with the knives. In fact I felt good then.”

“Oh, not only dangerous but also a nerd...”

“I am not a nerd. I am jut well-informed!” She exclaims.

“Huh!” with sarcasm in his tone of voice...

For that she moves away from him toward the woman who stands demobilize near the door. The woman looks at her and asks. “So what’s the plan?”

“So far, they haven’t moved yet, which means not of the men we took down have awakened yet. I am not sure how many goons are out there. They haven’t started looking for us, which means they haven’t known of our inexistence yet. I am gonna scout out till I decide how we will get off this hellhole.”

“Is that safe?” She asks.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll go with you.” The silvery gray eyed boy offers his help. She would have said no, but she nods instead.

She with a knife on her side, and the bow and quiver tucked on her shoulders; and he with knives of his scabbard; together they exit the storage room through the corner of the fourth floor to the stairs. They stealthily peek through and see two men talking silently below. One guy has a patch at his right eye. He wears blue chequered collared long sleeves. His jeans are tattered on the both knees. His oxford footwear looks old and worn. The other guy has a smaller build than the former. His cotton sleeveless has brown smears that look like dried blood. He wore a knee length men shorts, and a pair of combat boots. Both of them have holsters with guns on them. Gosh! Two total fashion misfits... she thinks.

They move to the other side of the building where another staircase is located. It would have been convenient if they use the elevator, but that would only attract the hoodlums, and the elevators in this old building don’t even work. She knows it because she heard two of the men talking about the malfunctioned elevator.

The stairs down is surprisingly empty of people, so as the upper stairs. She asks the boy if he thinks it is safer for them to climb down the stairs. The boy agrees to do as she thinks. So, they both steps down. When they reach the second floor, they see one sleeping lookout with a 20-inch barrelled, non-chrome lined stainless steel M16 riffle. So far in their peripheral view, they see no one else down, but they cannot be so sure. Who knows how many hoodlums are in the building. They enter the halfway and found no one.

“We have to go back.” says the boy “We have to get the others fast.”

“You crazy?”

“No. If we are gonna get out from here, we have to get out fast. This area seems safe. We have to get them all down here.” Then, she agrees.

They hasten back to the top until they reached the storeroom where the rest awaits them, and all of them hurry back to the second floor in an empty room where a mantel is found. Its firebox is empty of firewood. Its pilasters and plinths are cracked open, and the smells of termite-eaten-woods fill the space of the room. They stay there for half an hour after the two left.

Near the stairs, she could see that the sleeping lookout is still dreaming of who-knows-where-Faerieland. Without hesitation, she prepares her bow and arrow for four perfect bullseyes. She knows she wouldn’t miss. Archery is her skill. She intends to hit him on all limbs to deprive him from walking or moving his arms and hands. The boy is almost halfway the stairs to strangle the dreaming goon when another goon with dreadlocked hair unbeknownst them both shows up behind her. He reaches her arms heavily, and she stumbles on her back. The goon starts shouting.

The sleeping goon awakens but is unable to resist the boy’s steel rod that hits the side of his head. Groggily, the goon hits the ground. The silvery-eyed boy gives him another heavy blow and he falls back to dreamland unbeknownst the fact that he would no longer be waking ever from the deepest of the deepest slumber.

Another man with built like that of a body builder shows up and shots a gun toward the boy. It hit past him. He ducked crawled back up the stairs where the dreadlocked hoodlum is still fighting the girl. But the girl, who is now yards away from the running goon, shots her arrow through his heart. And he falls the ground.

The boy continues running toward the girl. “Move! They’re behind me.”

The blond girl shots his next arrow straight to the left eye of the punk with the gun who is chasing the boy. Though he yells in agony, he is still able to shoot the boy. Bullet hits a portion of his right shoulder. It isn’t a deadly wound, but an injury all the same. Two more hoodlums are now shooting. “Shit!” He cusses. They hurry up the stairs where they meet the raged-driven bald—the one the boy hit earlier.

But the boy’s knife fly through the bald’s heart killing him dead on the floor.

“And now look who’s so good with knives!” She utters. He smiles in his victory.

They continue running through the other staircase where they wait for the two goons. She let fly two arrows simultaneously toward one of them, who wobbles down to his knees. Blood leaks from his wounds and sobbed like a baby. The other one—the one with eye patch—keeps shooting with his revolver. They climb down the stairs to the first floor then to the dirty kitchen where they hide at the back of the scullery.

The goon enters. “Come out, come out wherever you are!” Angry, he jams through the tables, making utensils and pots tumbling down the tiled floor. He couldn’t shoot anymore. His is the last of his bullets, and he has to only shoot it bullseye on either one of them, and possibly strangle the other one or kill it with a knife. He smiles at his perfect plan.

But the two have their own perfect plan as well, which overcome the punk’s. The boy comes flying toward the back of the hoodlum. A bait that he is now, while the girl with the sniper eye aims at the big guy’s heart.

The room suddenly become silent. She hears no more the shouts of the two champions, nor does she hear her own heart beating. The perfect catch—she says at the back of her mind. She pulls the string and the arrow goes flying to the goon’s heart. Hurriedly, she pulls the next arrow through the goon’s left knee. The boy stumbled away from the dying goon. The last arrow in her quiver she shoots toward his skull.

Pools of blood flow from where her arrows hit.

I am a murderer. She shuts her eyes and forces her tears away. The sting in her throat she fights.

The boy shakes her shoulders and she finds herself mystify for a while before regaining her awareness. “You okay?” He asks, but before she could reply, he kisses her on the lips. She kisses him back. Their tongues now in perfect harmony... She has never felt anything like it. It was euphoria and peace at the same time. After what seems like an eternity, her head falls on the crook of his neck.

They hurry back to the room in the second floor where the other prisoners are hidden.

Silently they all pace to their exit...

“It’s Kato. My name’s Kato Green.” He smiles, but she didn’t smile back—her face in forlorn.

“I...” She hesitates. “I don’t have a name. If I tell you any name, it’ll be a lie.”

“What do you mean? You can’t not have a name...” He is perplexed.

“What I’m telling you now is truth. I don’t have a name. No one calls me any name. I am only known as a girl, nothing more.” I am nothing more but a shadow in a shadow.

But he believes her. How can he not? He trusts her with his life. She trusts him as well. He wishes that they could be together longer even just for one night, but the deal they had he has to respect. Pretend like they don’t know each other...

“So, it’s goodbye then” She nods, and they both part just like that. Just like that.