by The Eurostar
Edulcore Cicciotto:
And so we are finally here at TriVext, where my son is held captive. The son I have never seen, more than a son, a clone. Really, another me.
"Are you ready, Santa?" asks Marv Velo, handing me his electromagnetic gun.
"Yes, little helper," is my answer, taking the huge device.
We are standing in front of a metallic door, directly facing the water. Velo called it a security exit. "Remember, Cicciotto. Whatever you see, don't act and open the door," says Velo.
"Yeah, I remember. Get ready, everyone."
I phase through the door. I'm in a large room, well lit, with many metallic cages. And inside one of the cage... my parents! They are screaming, tortured by metallic spiky tentacles. How can they be here?
They see me. "Edulcore, Edulcore, save us, we I beg you," cries my mother in Italian. I run at them, crying. How much time has passed since the incident!
"Press that button, son!" shouts my father. "It's the command to open the cage."
My finger goes to the button. The incident. The car crash. My father and my mother all covered by their own blood. How horrible it was. I was away for the trials when they died. I turn my finger ghost just before hitting the button. My parents died years ago. This is a trap!
I turn back and blast the door with the gun. The door opens, and my friends run inside. Velo goes to a console, presses a lot of buttons in a complex sequence, and the cages disappear.
"A hallucinogenic vibration makes people see their worst nightmares, Edulcore. Different for everyone."
"Okay, it's gone," I whisper, still shaken by the scene. I watch everyone, all dressed in elf costumes, and Naecken in a reindeer suit. "Ready?"
"Ready!" says Nowhereman.
"Okay, let's follow Velo -- he knows the place. I will phase through the whole tower, to find the location of my son, then I will call you!" I say.
"Follow me!" says Velo, running toward a corridor.
I turn invisible and levitate through the ceiling, up and up. Thirteen floors up, there is turmoil. Guards are running everywhere, and from the orders shouted by the officers, it seems that a prisoner has escaped.
But what attracts my attention are two men in lab coats, one lying on the floor, the other kneeling over the other. The one on the floor looks normal -- bald, with a frail figure. But the other -- he hardly seems human at all, and seems to have the attributes of a snake!
I, still invisible, go near them.
"Get up, Curie," the bigger snakelike one says in a rasping voice. He has a head wound and has been bleeding, but he seems otherwise to be fine. He pulls the man named Curie up and out of his stupor. "I am giving you ordersss, and you follow them. Without quessstion, okay?"
The small normal man nods his head, whispering something I don't understand. The other, the serpentine one who sports a gash over his forehead, helps the other to stand up.
"We're going back to my officcce at once, before our visssitorsss arrive."
Curie whispers something inside a communicator, and he and the snakelike man head into the elevator and out of sight. Since they seem involved in something unrelated, I do not follow them. Anyway, there will be time to discover about them.
Now, it's time to find my son. And Knell.