Entanglement

"Can you believe my parents want me to focus on exams right now?" Lily said, glancing up at Dan. Since Ethan's death, Dan had become even more dependable, hardly leaving her side. He'd changed in more ways than that though. She often caught him with a far off look, as if he was seeing something different than her. "Earth to Dan, are you in there?" she said with a little laugh.

"Sorry," Dan said, shaking his head a little. He turned towards Lily, Ethan's sister. She had always hung around them while they were growing up, and now, as a teenager, he was noticing how beautiful she is. 'Not the right time Dan,' he thought.

"I did hear you. I know it seems crazy, but I think they are trying to help you. You know, focus on some normal things. Besides, you're smart, but with everything that has happened, even you must be behind in your studies," Dan said, a sad smile lifting his lips. "Ethan wouldn't want you to put your life on hold"

"I know, but it has only been a few weeks. I really don't feel like he's gone, you know? I keep expecting to see him in the dojo, Gi soaked with sweat, and smiling like a goof," Lily said. She wasn't crying now, but she had cried herself sick many times since Ethan's death. "Things can't just go back to normal, I've changed, you know?"

Dan did know. And not just Lily, he had changed too. Looking at her face, now, he could see ghostly afterimages, pixelated and blue, showing different versions of her laughing hysterically, crying, and staring with dead eyes.... It scared him. Had he gone crazy, was he reading her mind or emotions somehow? He wasn't sure, but when these episodes happened, he almost felt like he could nudge the person towards one of the ghost images... fucking crazy, for sure.

"The best thing we can do is keep going, right?" Dan stumbled, the world tilting all around him.

"Arghhh," he yelled, putting his hands to his temples. It felt like his head was filled with white noise.

"Dan!", Lily grabbed his arm and guided him to the nearby stairs of a coffee shop. "Are you ok? What happened?"

"It's nothing, just a sudden migraine I guess. It actually hurts less now that I'm not walking." It was true too, the pain hit him so hard, it was like running into a brick wall. It let up almost as soon as they turned back to sit down.

'Strange,' he thought. 'It feels like I shouldn't walk that direction'. He almost laughed, the idea didn't make sense... but then, a lot of things weren't making sense for him recently.

"Let's stay here for a bit," Lily said. "I'm going to get us some lattes, ok?"

"Americano, please," Dan said, smiling as brightly as he had in weeks.

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Cedric looked over his shoulder into a bloodbath. In the time he was battling one of these... 'were they zombies?,' he wondered, the rest of the battle had played out.

His colleagues looked haggard, but it didn't look like they'd had any more casualties. Instead, the 5 monsters were flung about the Director in a semicircle, their limbs in unnatural positions, and most with visible bullet wounds in their skulls.

"Director, you dealt with them too fast! I wasn't able to join in at all," Cedric bellowed, happy to see everyone else was fine.

"Maybe if you trained harder, it wouldn't take you so long to deal with one enemy," The Director had a smile in his voice, even in such a harrowing situation. "Quickly, we need to get these bodies to the holding cells. I'm not sure what is going on yet, but they seem to have trouble staying dead."

The survivors started holstering weapons and grabbing the lifeless bodies, dragging them away.

"Not you Cedric. I couldn't raise the team watching Quantum 1's family, I need you to get there immediately. Check in and report."

"Of course," said Cedric, taking off at a run. 'This isn't good. If we had this much trouble in the Centre, how could a small team handle an assault in the open?,' Cedric thought, still running to his car.

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The pulsating red and blue lights were visible from blocks away. At first Lily thought there had been a traffic accident or something nearby, but as they neared her house, a sick feeling twisted through her guts.

"Think there was an accident?" Dan said, echoing her earlier thought. Lily didn't reply, but she sure hoped that is what happened.

The lights were accompanied by the frantic sounds of a great many people, they couldn't quite hear it, but someone on a speaker seemed to be telling people to back away. From behind, an ambulance tore down the street, sirens and lights adding the to symphony of alarm ahead of them. ... It was definitely centred on Lily's block.

"Must have been a bad one! We'll ask your parents if they saw what happened," Dan said, a little concern in his voice.

'He's a sweet guy,' Lily thought. He's concerned in general, but Lily was worried about her family.

Two police cruisers flew past, louder and more urgently than the ambulance a moment before. 'What the hell happened,' she thought. Deep down, she knew it wasn't good.

Dan's hand shot out in front of her, stopping her. She was so focused on the cruisers and lights that she almost bumped into a man ahead of her. 'Funny, the street seemed empty,' she thought. The man was tall, with flowing hair so blonde it almost shone in the dark. In contrast, his overcoat was so dark that he seemed swathed in shadows. He turned towards them, and the smile he flashed was both beautiful and cruel.

"Are you the little flower?" he drawled out, his accent a little hard to understand.

Lily was immediately on guard, the man was definitely referencing her name, right? Even as she wondered this, the man was pulling something from his within his coat and Dan was pushing her hard backwards. She wasn't even sure which happened first. She landed on her ass over a metre back, shock and pain on her face. "What the fuck Dan!," she yelled, even as she noticed the sword, tip resting on the ground where she had been standing.

Dan was pulling her up, already dragging her slightly as he ran away from the strange man. Lily struggled to get her feet moving under her, still in shock and not quite balanced. She pitched forward again to the ground and Dan stopped to scoop her up in his arms, pulling her tight to his chest. She glanced back to see the man running towards them, sword at his side.

"He's coming!!" she yelled into Dan's ear. The sword seemed to have it's own wicked light, and it matched the hungry look in the beautiful man's eyes. 'Beautiful? What a thing to notice at this point,' she chided herself. He was maybe 10 or 12 metres back, and moving fast down the dark sidewalk after them.

CRUNCH

The man was slammed into the building wall, followed by the black SUV that hit him. The vehicle was big, and the man was caught so unaware, that his head and chest were both trapped between the grille and the wall. Then the SUV's tires spun in place, inching forward and buckling the brick wall. Lily wasn't sure, but thought she heard a sound like an egg cracking.

The driver door opened and a huge man in a dark suit yelled, "Get in. More are on the way"

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