Paramin

DMB entered the abandoned former factory unit more than ten minutes ago and thus far have found nothing of any note. In fact, the interior looks just as you would imagine an abandoned building to look, lifeless. Sure there is trash scattered about plus lots more graffiti and plenty of dirt but there are no bodies, signs of blood or anything else to indicate signs of human life. Most of all there is certainly no evidence of stuff being on the ceiling instead of the floor and that includes a couple piles of discarded bent metalwork that has begun to rust.

However, that does not mean that DMB are taking any chances as they push deeper into the darkness choked space. They have their weapons not only raised but ready to fire at any moment. The torches mounted to their assault weapons barrels help illuminate what is ahead of them. Bart isn’t happy though. He would much prefer a larger cone of light. It grates on him that they are limited to such a narrow field of view. It’s never bothered him before on all the deployments they have partaken in, but this time it does. Not that he makes his discomfort known. He knows it would only fall on deaf ears and to be honest he wants to be able to hear a pin drop. If nothing else so can be say, I told you so when something goes awry and he is certain that it will. It always does in situations like this, though these situations are usually in movies. Right now, that is where Bart feels he is, in a movie. His skin crawling as he covers the rear and right flank of the trio. Margaret is covering the left flank and Damian the front.

Margaret can feel her heart pounding in her chest. Her heart rate is quicker than normal but not at what she would fall a frenetic pace. If she could get her mind off what Captain Casagrande told them her rate might return to its more lethargic pace, yet she can’t seem to manage it. The more she tries the less she can stop thinking about and imagining things she did not herself see. Stupid brain, just turn off for a while will you, she demands while the trio continue to push forward.

Suddenly there is a skittering sound. Margaret almost leaps out of her skin as she spins toward the source of the sound, illuminating a series of concrete supports as she goes. With her light settled she at first sees nothing. Then a large grey rat comes into the cone of light cast by her torch. It squeaks as if angry at her and then scurries off. Margaret exhales, her shoulders drop but just as she is about to return to forging ahead Damian asks, “You ok?” His tone isn’t mocking. He knows now isn’t the time. Not that Damian ever mocks Margaret. He always keeps it professional. If she were to speak out he’d bullock her just like he does Bart. It’s happened only a handful of times but she’d been relieved to find he didn’t treat her any differently than he would anyone else. That, Margaret knows, is rare. Most judge her for being a woman in a predominantly male occupation. She doesn’t mean being a police officer. The split there is much closer to fifty-fifty now. No, Margaret means being a member of the elite squads. They are almost exclusively male. In fact, she is the only woman on active duty. What that means in the terms of the elite squads is that she is the only woman who goes into the field. Any other women in the division, of which there are very few, fill support roles. It was what was first offered to her. She declined that instantly. Then worked even harder to secure a position on one of the squads because she had to prove she was better than the men. They didn’t like her for it but it worked and she became part of what is now DMB. That was five years ago and she couldn’t be happier. Well, right now she could. She could be a hell of a lot happier. In fact, she’d be happier if she were anywhere other than here. Of that she is absolutely convinced.

“Yeah, it was just a rat.” Margaret replies finally. Damian had started to think she hadn’t heard him, which in the near silence of this shell of a building would be almost impossible he thinks. Still, with Margaret claiming all is good they push ahead once more. Damian can hear Bart every now and even muttering to himself. He can’t catch what the other male is saying but as it fades in and out Damian can only guess that his colleague is intending to mouth whatever it is he’s saying but sometimes actually says it aloud by mistake. At any other time Damian would order him to stow his ramblings and keep quiet, but here in this place he thinks it might be a little cruel to issue such an order. Still, if his aloud mutterings increase he’ll be forced to. It’s distracting and not in a good way, or at a good time.

Out of nowhere there is a flash of darkness. Damian doesn’t understand how that is possible seeing as they are surrounded by darkness save for the three cones of white light from alongside the barrels of their weapons.

DMB comes to a halt. No order is issued they just feel that they need to stop their advance. A giggling laugh rings out from somewhere in the darkness. They all hear it. Bart gulps. Margaret tightens her grip on her weapon. Damian meanwhile risks call out to it. “Hello. Is anyone out there? We’re here to help, we’re police.”

Damian gets no reply. He doesn’t like that and feels as if he is being watched from above. He resists the urge to crane his neck up and take a look. He could but thinks it would be ill-advised. He has no reason as to why and that sends a tingle across the surface of his skin.

“Dae…” Bart says barely loud enough to be called a whisper.

“Yeah?” Is the reply from Damian. He utters it without taking his eyes away from facing front. From what little he can see past the diffused limits of his torches cone it’s just more empty space and support columns. He didn’t think this building looked that big from the outside. Appearances can be deceiving he reminds himself.

“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this place.” Bart informs. He sounds scared. Damian has heard concern in the man’s voice before, even a little more than that but never outright fear. However, it is the only description he can give to Bart’s tone in this moment.

“We all do Bart but we have a job to do and we’re not…” Damian begins. His hope had been to reassure Bart. Unfortunately, he’s cut off when there is a bright flash that blinds the three of them. They all exclaim in painful surprise, shield their eyes and then once recovered wish they still couldn’t see.

“Oh my…” Margaret utters first, only to trail off.

Bart meanwhile is stood with his mouth agape staring at more than a hundred dead bodies. They are bathed in blood. Their faces twisted and grotesque from… He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. All he wants to do is turn and run. For Bart it’s a new development. There are very few things he’s ever wanted to run from in his life, but this is one of them. It reminds him why he doesn’t watch horror films, because this is exactly the sort of thing you find in them and he sees enough violence without a creepy twist put upon it. Violence he can cope with, he’s become desensitised to it but this, this is something else entirely.

Damian is about to speak. What he intends to say he isn’t quite sure but he doesn’t get the chance as there is an echoing cackle. Without doubt it belongs to a young woman, girl, he can’t tell the difference when it comes to members of the opposite sex and their forms of laughter. Unlike the giggles he’s heard previously this one is different somehow. He can’t put his finger on how but doesn’t need to as right then a figure steps out from behind one of the support columns to reveal themselves.

The figure is obviously female, mid twenties maybe, with dark skin and long curly hair that might be in pigtails. Damian can’t tell from the side profile he’s getting of her. What he can tell is that she is wearing a broad smile across her face and is clad in a pale blue dress as well as a pair of matte black pumps.

“Excuse me miss, are you…” Damian begins. Bart wonders why Damian is daring to converse with a woman who has seemingly appeared out of nowhere when there are bodies all… The bodies are gone. Bart’s head snaps round from right to left and then back again. He doesn’t understand. There were bodies here a second ago and not a few either. His heart rate spikes and he begins to hear his breathing in his ears.

The woman turns. Her smile is indeed wide but it is her eyes that seem wrong. The mascara around them is thick, ragged and black. That in itself isn’t strange. What is strange is the fact that her eyes are just as black. Not just the pupils, as you would expect, but the iris and sclera as well.

Damian gets no response. Rather, the woman begins to skip merrily toward them. She hums a strange off-kilter tune as she does, plus her smile never falters or flickers.

As the woman gets closer Margaret notes that the woman’s eye makeup is moving. It’s like it’s bleeding from her eyes. Drops even drip to her pale blue dress. There is another flash of light. It forces the three members of DMB to blink and when they set eyes on the woman again her dress is bathed in blood. There are thick layers of the almost black crimson and it looks tacky.

“Hands up miss, we don’t want to hurt you but you need to raise your hands right now.” Damian orders while lowering his chin so that he can stare down the sight that sits atop his assault rifle.

The woman giggles in response and then begins to chant. However, she makes no effort to raise her hands. “Paramin is here to stay. Paramin won’t go away. Paramin needs a new toy. Will you be that girl and two boy? If not so then turn and run cause Paramin demands her fun.”

“What the fuck!” Bart murmurs in response to what he can only describe as the creepiest series of statements, and voice, he has ever heard in all his life. He can’t explain the tone except to say that it sounds mad, crazed, violent and… evil. It isn’t much but it’s all he can manage with his body shuddering like it is. He wishes it would stop, could stop but it can’t, or won’t. He isn’t sure as to which it is. On top of that it feels as if time has lost meaning or importance. His head begins to spin. No the room begins to spin. His head is still very much still. He begins to feel sick as a result.

“Is that your name, Paramin?” Damian questions.

The woman nods, “I am Paramin. Paramin is me. You are here but should not be.”

Damian doesn’t get why everything this woman says is in rhyme but is acutely aware that as she speaks now blood is spilling from her mouth. He wants to say it’s her blood, that this woman might be hurt. Only because the other option he finds far more disturbing.

“Why should we not be here Paramin?” Damian asks attempting to ignore the blood running down and dripping off her chin. It’s difficult not to pay notice to it, but he needs to try he feels.

“That’s because you weren’t invited to be here silly. Only the invited are permitted.” Is the succinct couple statement Paramin offers in response. It’s followed by a sweet, or it would be if it came from anyone else, giggle.

“Who would have to give us permission Paramin?” Margaret is the next to speak and ask a question of Paramin.

“Why by me of course. This is my place. Only I am allowed to be here. Everyone else…” Paramin’s voice deepens, hardens and takes on a severe note. “…is trespassing and I like don’t like trespassers.” Paramin elongates the esses on trespassers which makes it triple in length. If that were the only change it would be bearable but her expression turns haunting though the smile remains somehow.

There are a series of flashes. In them DMB see dead bodies appear once more. They are not just the bodies from previously that they saw appear out of nowhere either. They are present but in addition there are the bodies of police officers, people in suits, paramedic uniforms, fire service and military. Each body is in a gruesome state with some having limbs bent at unnatural angles, buckets of dark tacky looking crimson or tortured eyeless screams, as well as a whole host of other sickening sights.

Another flash, this time of darkness, and all the horrors are gone. Sadly, it’s too late. Bart can take no more. He saw in those bodies Jimenez and though Bart is terrified he also wants revenge against this… He can’t bring himself to term her a woman. She is something, female in shape, but not a person and so he roars, “Die you crazy bitch!” He charges toward her but manages only five long strides prior to Paramin bending her arms at the elbows and pointing with both index fingers at Bart. In less than a blink of an eye the charging man is stopped as five huge shafts of black matter lance out of the ground at varying angles. They skewer and spear through Bart’s torso, arms and legs killing him in an instant. Then as swiftly as the shafts appeared they vanish. It’s as if they were never there to begin with. But Bart’s body is. It lies dead on the floor, blood pooling around his lifeless corpse while it spews from the large ragged holes torn into his body.

“You murderous…!” Margaret begins to scream in the seconds prior to her opening fire. The rest of her screamed words are drowned out by the clatter of her assault weapon. Damian joins the fully automatic spray of bullets aimed at Paramin. The woman simply giggles. Without a doubt bullets are hitting her but she has no adverse reaction to them. Damian cuts his fire, astounded. Margaret continues until her magazine is spent. Her breathing is loud, angry but she refuses to stop. “Just die you fucking psycho!” Are the next words spat out of her mouth as she throws herself into a charge.

Three flashes of light. Paramin vanishes as if she had never been there to begin with. Then everything flips. Margaret who had been mid-charge is hauled off her feet and thrown towards the broken remnants of the ceiling. She screams, it sounds more akin to a roar of defiant anger. Her gun is lost in the process. She slams full body into the ceiling remnants. The impact winds her. She bounces and then begins to fall upward again. Her eyes go wide as they fixate on the inside of the roof which is littered with the same black spikes that ended Bart’s life so swiftly. Margaret refuses to accept her fate. She flails her arms about in hopes of gaining purchase on something, anything. She spies the broken remnants of an edge. Rebar beneath the shattered concrete is visible. She kicks her legs and arms hoping that will propel her forward. It doesn’t really. She makes little progress. She looks down, which is really up. The spikes look as though they are growing bigger all the time. It’s as if they are surging out to meet and end her quicker than they otherwise would. Margaret kicks her legs again. This time she actually moves forward. She smiles and stretches out her arms to grab the exposed pieces of rebar. Then suddenly she begins to barrel through the air. Margaret curses Paramin as she feels her stomach flip and her head spin. It’s overwhelming the sensations she feels. Margaret wants to vomit, to expel the contents of her stomach. She can think of nothing else. Vomiting won’t save you! She hears her voice bellow in her head. It’s right. She’s knows that it is right. She ignores her wish to puke her guts up even though the feeling continues to grow with each passing second. She completes another five revolutions. She can’t see anything her vision is so blurred. There are vague shapes but nothing definite. She reaches out now that she’s stopped spinning. Her hand glances over something. She tightens her grip and feels rebar. Her other hand follows suit and clamps around another exposed piece. She doesn’t dare haul herself close for fear she might end her own life via impalement. Rather, she closes her eyes and waits. Seconds pass. They feel like hours. Finally, something hits her legs. She dares to hope that it’s Damian. She’s forgotten about him until now. Her eyes spring open and she dares to take a look. Suddenly, her body is flung one hundred and eighty degrees from one horizontal to the other. Her body slams into concrete. Her exhales painfully and then all goes quiet.

“What have you done to Margaret?” Damian demands meanwhile. All he knows is that she had been with him but isn’t now. Instead, he is alone with Paramin. Both are stood on the floor of the building. Even Bart’s body is nowhere to be seen.

“She didn’t want to play, so I sent her away.” Paramin replies with a vigorous shake of her head. Her long curly pigtails shake voraciously with utter abandon. In some ways it’s as if the woman’s hair is not a part of the woman at all, but rather has a life of its own. Damian goes to move but soon learns he can’t. He looks down. His legs are stone. Not locked in place but made from actual stone. His face drops; he screams and then fires his weapon. Nine rounds explode from the barrel before the weapon clicks empty. Panic sets in. He realises he can’t think straight. His head is in agony and the pain is only getting worse. He tries to search about his waistline for the pouch with the rest of his ammunition in when suddenly his eyes explode. Damian howls in response. He’s blind and has never felt pain like it in all his days. His weapon is gone. It slipped from his hands during his screeching. His hands now up around his eyes. Paramin laughs; it’s a cruel evil cackle of sounds that leak from between her blood smeared lips. Yet, the pain in Damian’s head continues to get worse. He grabs a hold of his head, begging the pain to stop. It doesn’t and before long his head is crushed and he is bent at the waist dead. Paramin simply smiles.

Margaret opens her eyes. At first everything is blurred and heavily out of focus. When her eyes readjust she finds she isn’t in the building any longer. Rather, she is atop it. She springs to her feet ready for a fight only to find that there is no one and she is alone. The woman with braided hair spins about on the spot confident this is some kind of trick, like the disappearing and reappearing bodies. There really is no one present other than her. Yet, she cannot understand how she has ended up on the roof of the building. She seeks answers but is provided none. Instead, all she spies are the gaping holes in the roof. Margaret would, at any other time, move to the edge to assess the situation but not here and now, not with… Paramin appears across the gap from her. It has to be fifteen foot wide. There is no easy way across to where Paramin is stood. However, the woman in the blue dress isn’t smiling. In fact, Margaret cannot see her face at all as the woman’s head is bowed.

“Where’s Damian?” Margaret questions in a demanding tone of voice because she wishes to know where he is. Bart might be dead but that doesn’t mean that… There is a flash. Margaret gets a glimpse of a body. Something tells her the eyes she is seeing through are not her own. They must be Paramin’s she guesses just as she sees the bloody face of Damian who is without eyes and has a head narrower than it should be. Margaret feels her stomach flip with disgust and vitriol. Again she feels an urge to vomit but this time it is a result of the sight she is being shown. Then the sight is gone. Margaret finds she is back on the roof with Paramin, who has raised her head enough to reveal a crooked smirk.

“Why? What do you want?” Margaret demands of the other woman who is stood across from her.

“…To play. It’s all Paramin has ever wanted. But no one ever pays attention to Paramin. I get ignored, forgotten, cast aside to dwell in misery. So I decided to give the world a taste of its own cruelty. I took this body. I fashioned this narrative and you are all puppets that have to dance to my macabre tune.” Paramin smiles but has revealed more than Margaret was expecting. At no point had she considered that Paramin is not the woman before her and yet that is what Paramin has claimed. It makes little sense and so Margaret queries, “Then who does the body belong to?”

“Paramin is to whom this body now belongs. I am her and she is me.” The woman sounds wounded while giving her response, as if the failure by Margaret to acknowledge Paramin were the gravest of crimes.

“Then who was this body before it was Paramin?” Is the altered question that is issued.

“She was no one, and had been forgotten by everyone around her like she had forgotten me.” Paramin sounds in pain now. Tears of black run down her face. Then the crying starts. Paramin sounds like she is genuinely hurt.

“Does Paramin want a friend?” Margaret dares to ask hoping that this might be her ticket to freedom.

In response Paramin raises her head, a wide smile across her face. Margaret waits for a confirmation in the affirmative. She doesn’t get one. Rather, she is provided a vigorous shake of the head by Paramin and then a giggle.

“I don’t’ understand then, what is it you are after?” Margaret utters with a raised eyebrow.

“Fun.” Is the brief response that Margaret is given. The last member of DMB goes to speak but before she can Paramin continues. “I need things to play with. You are things. All people are things. You forgot about me and so I will remind you. I will control you. You will bow to Paramin and do as she says.”

“What are you Paramin?” Margaret feels a need to steer the conversation away from where it’s going. The woman sounds utterly insane but after the things Margaret has witnessed, which Paramin is implying are performed by her, the woman with braided hair is not inclined to risk angering the… She doesn’t know what to call Paramin. Monster seems appropriate, for so many reasons, but then so do many other words, even if most are pretty similar.

“DEMON!” Is the deep booming reply that is offered in response. Everything about the reply catches Margaret off-guard and as a result she leaps back in fearful surprise when it hits her ears. Sadly, her foot finds nothing but thin air. Margaret cranes her neck over her shoulder and to her horror there is no concrete beneath her one foot. To make matters worse she is entirely off-balance. Margaret flails her arms, her eyes wide and panicked. She fights to recover her balance only to hear a sound. Margaret, against her better judgement, turns her head back to face forward. There, right in her face, is the insane face of Paramin. The demon woman screams an ear splitting shriek. Margaret loses her fight to regain balance and falls. Her arms and legs kick and flail in pointless desperation. She closes her eyes imagining the pain that will soon greet her so mercilessly. Instead, she feels teeth. Her eyes spring open and Margaret finds she is once more looking through Paramin’s eyes. The view Paramin has is of Margaret being torn apart by a million teeth. They rip and tear Margaret’s flesh. She screams her last scream and then there is no more. Paramin giggles, turns and following a flash disappears entirely from the roof.