Trial 139C

Trigger warning: natural disaster

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~ The 7.7 ~

The most terrifying night of Bentley’s life began with the soft rattling of the spray bottles in his cart. He was in 139C’s room, in the middle of sweeping up the floor. The trial was swimming back and forth along the window, eyes trained on Bentley’s every move as he worked, a perfectly routine night.

The brunette heard it first, the rattling, and then felt it. The vibrations came up from the ground, through the floor, into his feet, and then through his body. It felt like he was standing on an old, rickety wood dock – unsteady and shifting under him. It was actually a little exciting and novel...until the vibrations built.

Then everything started shaking: the lights, the walls, and the furniture. Long cracks in the ceiling snaked overhead, shaking dust and plaster loose. Bentley’s eyes snapped to the tank; thankfully, the glass was holding. Trial 139C was treading water, black eyes trained on Bentley, even as the water sloshed over the top of the tank. Bentley briefly wondered how the vibrations travelled in the water, was the trial feeling the same thing he was?

Suddenly, C was beating on the glass, mouth snapping open and closed, in some kind of fit. As he pounded away, bubbles erupted from the shark hybrid’s mouth. Nearly falling over from the roll and pitch of the floor under his feet, Bentley took a step towards the tank to try to calm the shark. Then he heard a horrifying creak – the massive bookcase behind him was teetering, falling away from the wall that housed it. The trial must have been trying to warn him.

As if in slow motion, Bentley threw himself forward, hitting the ground and rolling out of the way. The bookcase, complete with hundreds of thick volumes, crashed down inches from his legs.

Tripping over his own feet, Bentley scrambled up and ran for the doorway before the other bookcase toppled. Once braced in the doorway, he looked back at the tank. The window was cracked in several small spirals, whether from the earthquake or the trial beating on it, Bentley didn’t know. All around him, books were falling off the walls like rain, while chunks of ceiling crashed down on top. Before it was all over, he heard the roar and boom of things collapsing in other parts of the building, too.

In the silence that came after the earthquake, Bentley’s ears rang with a high hum that made it hard to think.

Then came the blaring air raid sirens. He had never heard before them in his life, but he knew what they were warning.

Tsunami.

Bentley forced his fingers to let go of the doorframe. He looked into the tank, which seemed a million miles away through the rumble. 139C was clearly agitated, limbs moving with jerking kicks as he treaded in place under the water, lacking his usual languid grace.

Oh God, what would happen to 139C if the wave hit and he was trapped in there? The water wouldn’t kill him, but, if debris blocked him in... All the humans would be rescued first; it might be days before rescuers freed the trial. He could die.

But… if Bentley could free him, he’d have a chance to escape and swim to safety.

This vague, probably unreasonable, plan formed, Bentley turned and left the room. He ignored the way the trial pounded harder at the window, seemingly to get his attention. There was nothing he could do from the room – he’d get to the trial from the observation deck.

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Where the hell was his human going?! He hit the glass again, violently, as the door closed on the other side of the room.

The danger wasn’t over yet, and young human’s place was here, so he could be guarded. Sort of. Watched over, at least. Through the glass.

He threw his body weight against the abhorrent glass with a snarl. He needed out to find his human. He’d nearly lost it when that wall of shelves had started to topple forward. His human hadn’t even seen it coming. If he hadn’t moved in time… But the he did. His human was safe, he reminded himself, trying to get his emotions under control and failing.

He snarled again, knocking against the glass again and again and again. He never took his eyes off the door, willing his human to step back through it.

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On the way to the stairs which lead to the roof, Bentley only passed two other people. One was a guard cursing and yelling in one of the security rooms. The grey-haired, uniformed man was frantically trying to boot up the damaged computer equipment and make contact with someone on the phones. The other person was a middle-aged scientist. Blood soaking into her white lab coat, she was trapped under some fallen cabinets. Bentley stopped to check, but couldn’t find a pulse or see a breath, not that he knew what the hell he was doing. Feeling utterly useless, he determined there was nothing he could do for the woman. Fighting back tears and bile, he continued on. He couldn’t help the scientist, but he might be able to help C still.

The power being down made it hard to get through the doors to the upper observation deck because of the electronic locks. Bentley lost precious time having to use brute force to shoulder the doors open.

He was shaking as he reached the open terrace and ran to the edge of the tank. Trial 139C burst up to the water’s surface front of him, eyes even more intense and fierce than usual. The shark-man thrust his arm through the bars, grabbing at Bentley with a teeth-snapping rumble.

The shore edge of the concrete tank was damaged, jagged cracks in the walls. Chucks of rock had been shaken free, leaving the edge pock-marked and crumbling.

Terror-fueled adrenaline had Bentley jumping up on the ledge with no thought to his own safety. Using the heel of his shoe and his entire weight, he stomped down on the cracked concrete, again and again and again, knocking loosened pieces free. Once some of the iron rods embedded in the concrete were exposed, he sank of his knees and started to pull at the bars. The trial surfaced directly below him in the water, and Bentley sprang back to avoid being grabbed.

“Listen, I don’t know if you know what’s going on, but something bad is going go down.” Bentley prayed the trial could understand. “There’s a big wave coming, I don’t know how fast, or how big...But if... people might not come to find you right away, or you might get trapped in here...” It was a cage, genius, Bentley jeered himself. “Like really fucking life-or-death stuck. I shouldn’t be doing this, but if we can get these bars out, you might have a chance, I mean you’re like a fucking fish right? A little water, you can survive that...” Bentley rambled on, more to convince himself than 139C. “So, yeah, please don’t hurt me…” With that, Bentley leaned back and took a hold of the bars, putting himself within the trial’s reach.

And then the trial’s hands were grabbing the bars beside his own, pushing up as Bentley pulled. And the shark was damn strong, too. When he added his strength to Bentley’s, the bars started crunching in the broken concrete, shifting, slowly prying free.

Just as Bentley began to think they might actually get it open, the world was filled with a deafening sucking sound. Perversely, the sound made Bentley think about drawing the last of his Diary Queen vanilla milkshake up through the giant red straw. Except it wasn’t a milkshake...he looked up over the shore... The ocean was sucking back, exposing hundreds of meters of ocean floor, fish flopped in the seaweed strewn muck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking, fuck, the litany repeated in Bentley’s head, this wasn’t good. Not one bit. He stumbled up to his feet to get a better look over the railing.

He could see it coming now through the darkness, a wall of black-grey-blue-fuck rushing in from the horizon. He froze, immobilized, his feet might as well have been buried in the concrete he stood on. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the trial pounding on the bars, trying to break then free from the cracked concrete at the edge of the tank.

He couldn’t see, Bentley thought, he couldn’t see it was no use. Even if he could get loose, there was no time left to run.

As the massive wave drew closer, a spray of concrete rained down over Bentley’s legs – the trial had bent the bars up. Muscular, greyish arms grabbed the edge of tank and the trial erupted from the water with a snarling roar.

And just like that, through the fear of the wave, Bentley had a stark reminder of how dangerous the creature was. He briefly wondered if the trial would kill him before the wave did. Which would be better, his messed-up mind wondered. The wave sucking him out to the ocean, battering his body against the rocks, or the shark-crossbreed’s teeth ripping through his skin and bone?

He didn’t have to time to decide because Trial 139C didn’t pull himself out of the water completely, he just pulled his torso up through the gap in the bars far enough to grab Bentley around the legs and then drag them both back into the tank.

Frightened, Bentley struggled, scrapping the concrete lip as the trial pulled him over the edge.

Once in the tank, Bentley’s vision blurred, water stinging his eyes, cold against his skin, soaking through his clothes in seconds. Strong arms held him tight, thick legs kicking out, driving them both down to the bottom of the tank. There, the trial pressed him back against a rock and held on, his body covering Bentley’s, coal black eyes meeting Bentley’s sightless, green ones.

Bentley’s lungs began to burn and he struggled. The crossbreed only held him tighter. Then the world shook again, the sound of it like thunder, only a hundred times louder. The whole tank shuddered and a dark grey shadow roared over the opening.

That’s all Bentley was aware of before everything went black.

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Holding the struggling body under the water – essentially drowning his human with his own two hands – was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. His every instinct screamed to protect and shield his human from harm, not cause it. Rationally, he knew the safest place for his human to escape the wave was at the bottom of the tank, but that didn’t make it any easier to feel the boy fighting for his life in his arms.

He had been forced to do terrible, unspeakable things in his life: he had hurt, he had killed, he had lost his humanity…

But nothing compared to this.

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Coughing, Bentley began to stir, his throat and lungs burned. His mouth tasted like sea water and vomit; he spat up more of the same as he coughed.

Strong hands grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to roll to his side. The left side of his face scraped against wet sand. He was on the ground, he hazily computed, feeling the irregular rocks on the beach shifting under him. Now on his side, Bentley continued to cough up water until his chest hurt from it.

“Don’t swallow it,” a gravelly voice ordered from behind him. A heavy hand thumped his back, and then gripped his shoulder to stop the violent shudders that racked his body as it expelled the water.

For a moment that hand was the only solid point in Bentley’s bleary, pain prickled world. When his lungs and stomach were both empty, he turned his head to look at the hand holding him. Long, blunt, webbed fingers were curled over his shoulder.

Startled, he twisted back, wrenching his shoulder free. Once loose, Bentley pushed up to his elbows, skittering back from the inhuman hand, like a crab across the sand.

He tossed his head back to get his dripping hair out of the way and blinked repeatedly before his eyes managed to focus. The trial knelt on the beach, arm’s reach away, looking back at him. It was surreal, seeing the trial right in front of him without the protection of the thick glass window and gallons of water. 139C seemed even larger like this, powerful body angled towards Bentley, every shark-like detail of its body on display.

This was a nightmare. It had to be. Wake up. Bentley ordered himself. Wake the fuck up.

Everything rushed back to him at once: the earthquake, the tsunami, trying to save 139C, 139C pulling him into the tank.

“I’m alive!” Bentley rasped, his mind trying to make sense of what was happening. He was powerless to stop the tremors that shook his body. “I’m alive… And you can talk!” It was becoming so hard to inhale.

“Breathe.”

“Holy fuck, you can talk!” God, was he hyperventilating…?

The trial shifted its immense body closer. “Breathe, human.”

The trial was talking! Talking, like a person. Bentley’s head spun, dizzy. Yup, definite positive on the whole-unable-to-breath thing.

“Bentley!” The rough voice was harsher now, commanding.

“You…not only can you friggin’ talk, but you know my name?” Bentley’s mouth gaped a few times, sucking in air.

“The uniformed man called you ‘Bentley’, human.” 139C paused for a moment, giving Bentley a look of censure. The scratchiness of the trial’s voice was a testament to disuse. “He touched your hand and your shoulders.”

“Uhhh…” What was he supposed to say to that? He remembered the time he had gone onto the roof. Gotten too close before Jude had saved him. Well, now there was no Jude, no bars and cement. The trial was right in front of him.

The sheer size and strength of the creature was panic-inducing and wasn’t helping his hyperventilating. Pull yourself together, Torres , he coached himself.

Bentley forced himself to tear his eyes off 139C and take several deep breaths.

You’re okay Bentley reminded himself as his pulse raced, forcing air past his tightened throat. He had survived – thanks to C. He had apparently held Bentley under the water for the impact of the wave, and then must have gotten them both out of the tank and down the beach after the water had receded. Bentley saw they had moved nearly a kilometre from the institute, which looked damaged in the distance, a large fire burning on the ground floor.

“Oh, God!” He tried to stand up, but his legs shook and his head spun, he landed back on his ass dizzily. “We have to go back, there’s probably still people inside! We have to get help!”

A growl rumbled from the trial’s chest. “No.”

Bentley gaped in fear and confusion, “What? Yes! We have to help!”

“Help is coming. Listen.” There were fire and police sirens echoing from inland. “Nothing you can do.”

“But –”

“Nothing you can do.” The trial repeated inflexibly.

Bentley was overwhelmed with a feeling of defeat and frustration, but knew the trial was probably right. He closed his eyes and said a brief prayer that the other trials and workers at the institute got out safely.

When he opened his eyes again, he took a long look around. All the flood lights that usually stood between the main road and the beach were washed away. It was dark though the sky was just starting grow blue with the dawn, and the moon was still out. From what he could make out, it looked like bomb had stuck, which, Bentley conceded was sort of what actually happened. There was debris covering the beach as far as the eye could see. The buildings along the beach were heavily damaged; some of the older wooden structures were smashed completely to shards. A few bodies were scattered up the beach, some survivors and some not so fortunate.

Bentley let out an uncontrollably pained sound, his grief sharp.

Troubled by the sound, 139C reached out and touched Bentley’s dark curls, watching him with those fathomless eyes. “Broken?”

Bentley still couldn’t believe the trial was talking. “Me? No...no, I don’t think anything’s broken.” Bentley silently took stock of himself. He hurt, like all over, and his chest was on fire, head fuzzy...but unlike those others, he would be okay. Thanks to the trial.

139C grunted, pushing a wet shock of hair back off his face, his inscrutable eyes scanning the environment. “I smell blood.”

Bentley paled, he looked down at himself. His clothes were soaked and covered in sand and muck from the water. But he didn’t see any blood. He finally thought to ask, “Um, what about you? Are you okay?” How had the trial phrased it before? “Broken?” He was pleased his voice was sounding a little more stable.

“No. I’m not as fragile as you,” the strangely throaty voice rumbled.

Bentley only realized he was slowly inching back from the creature when a hand wrapped around his ankle and pulled, issuing a growled, “Stop.”

He stopped. There was nothing else he could do. The trial didn’t even seem to be expending any effort, but the hold bracketing his ankle was rock solid.

“You’re scared?” 139C growled at him.

Bentley just gaped at him. Gaped at the huge, fucking shark hybrid. The question was utterly ridiculous. Was Bentley scared? Duh.

The trial’s hand squeezed even tighter, stopping only when he remembered Bentley’s human bones were solid but more brittle that his own. “I saved you.”

“Thank you?” Bentley hadn’t intended to make it a question, but the trial’s intense stare made him uncertain of his response. He rotated his foot slightly, trying to tug free, “Um...can you let go?”

139C uncurled his fingers from around the ankle and stood from the sand. He leaned down and grabbed Bentley above the elbows, pulling him up to standing as if he weighed nothing. “You sure nothing is broken?”

Bentley felt a moment of vertigo as the shark set him on his feet. His battered body ached from the movement, but his legs held. “Yeah, yeah, pretty sure.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Bentley’s head snapped up, “Go?”

139 gave a jerking nod. “To your place. S’not safe here. Soon people will start looking soon.”

Bentley tried to figure out what was going on, but his brain was sluggish. “Who will?”

“The uniformed men and the lab coats.”

“You don’t want them to find you?” Bentley attempted to piece it together.

“I’m not going back.”

“C...” Bentley’s mind grasped at the millions of reasons why this was a bad idea.

The trial shook his head impatiently, “No time. Take me to your place.”

“No way. No way.” Bentley shook his head, heart hammering. This was not a good idea. He was probably already in a shit-ton of trouble for helping the trial break out. Beside that was the fact that 139C was clearly a very dangerous creature. Bentley really had no clue how dangerous, but the fact he was half deadly-predator was enough to give him pause. At best he could be fired for assisting the escape, at worst....well, he could end up as 139C’s next meal. He thought of all those fish he had snuck the trial, shredded and swallowed. The fact C was half-human too, made no difference.

“Bentley.” The trial snapped him out of his thoughts, “Take me to your apartment.”

Bentley scrambled for a safe way to refuse the shark creature. “Listen, you don’t want to go back?” He tried to keep his voice calm and even and firm. “That’s fine. I’m not going to stop you.” Bentley held his hands up, placating. “I’ll swear up and down that I never saw you. Just let me go.”

“You go nowhere without me.” The trial added something at the end that sounded like ‘ever again’ under his breath, Bentley didn’t catch it.

“C...” There was a desperate note in Bentley’s tone now. “You don’t need me. You can try to leave the city, or try to go to police. Anything you want.”

“Your apartment.” The trial snapped his shark-altered teeth, perfectly evolved murder weapons. He threatened to force compliance, “Or they’ll have to sieve whatever’s left of you out of the sand.”

“Y...you are not going to kill me.” Bentley wished he felt as sure as he sounded. “You just saved my life. Remember? You said so yourself.”

Nothing in the trial’s expression gave his thoughts away. His round black eyes appearing lifeless as he responded, “Willing to bet your life on it?”

Feeling fear pooling in his stomach, cold and heavy, Bentley weighed his options. If he took the trial back to his apartment he would probably be eaten as soon as the beast got hungry. If he didn’t, well, he might be killed now. Never option appealed to him. Of course, he could try to make a run for it... but the trial was within arm’s reach and the chances of him getting away were slim.

What he needed was a distraction; something to get that predatory gaze off him for long enough to try to run to safety.

“Clothes!” Bentley blurted out.

139C gave him a sharp look.

Bentley waved at C’s body, keeping his eyes above the broad, greyish shoulders. “You’ll need them if you’re walking through the town to my apartment. There’s people around, and even with the earthquake, they’re still going to notice a 6 foot 5 naked sharkman walking around.”

The trial gave him an irritated glance. “Then your apartment?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Just…clothes first.” Bentley conceded, lying through his teeth.

Trial 139C grabbed Bentley’s wrist and walked up the beach towards what looked like the remains of the public beach parking lot – it was hard to tell with the debris and the dimness of the light. As they grew closer, Bentley made out the outline of several bodies pinned under the cars. It took Bentley a moment to figure out what the plan was, and once he did, he dug his heels in the sand. “Ngh...no way! Over there, across the road, some of those shops sold clothes and stuff. It’d be all over the place, no need to lift stuff off dead people.”

With a look of disgust at the fuss Bentley was making, the trial switched directions and headed towards what was left of a row of ocean-side shops. Careful to stay out of sight of other looters, 139C found a pair of khaki pants and tried on several different t-shirts looking for one that would fit over his thick chest. He finally found one; it was a little too tight over his shoulders and pecs, but loose enough over his tapered waist to camouflage the blade of the small dorsal fin on his lower back. No one would see it unless they knew what to look for.

“Over there.” Bentley pointed out a pair of sunglasses that were half embedded in the sand a dozen yards away.

The trial gave him a prickly look.

“Your eyes...” Bentley explained as he carefully thought through all the possible escape roots without alerting the trial to his plan. “I know it’s pretty dark out, but you’re going to have to keep your eyes covered.” When the trial looked unconvinced, Bentley pressed, “It’s obvious they’re not human.”

With a huff, 139C turned and picked his way through the debris to the glasses. He dug them out and the turned back.

Bentley was no longer where he had been left. The brunette had run off into the shadows.

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With a surge of anger, he snapped his sharp, white teeth in the air. His human had run. A grim look of determination settled over his features. The only thing that could keep him from his human was the damned acrylic/glass window and cement walls of the cell.

And, for the first time, that cell was gone.

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Bentley was torn. He felt guilty for running from C. He hadn’t been expecting to feel that, but there it was. Like 139C was his responsibility. He so wasn’t, Bentley tried to assured himself.

But the creature had saved him… Was leaving the trial the wrong thing to do?

He had plenty of time to angst about it.

It was a 20 minute walk to get to his place from the beach in good conditions. With the dark, washed out streets, hills of debris, and hysterical crowds everywhere, it took closer to an hour and a half. He’d been careful not to leave a trail to follow. He also checked frequently to make sure no one was tailing him. He hadn’t seen any sign of the trial and now he was almost home free.

When his apartment came into view, he was immensely relieved to see his building appeared to still be in intact. For the first time, he was glad he couldn’t afford an ocean-front apartment and had settled for one on the other side of town instead. This area of the town was on higher ground. Bentley stopped on the street, looking up at the nondescript building. There was some damage from the earthquake, mostly broken glass, but no water damage. Thank God.

Bentley entered the building, taking the stairs to the third and top floor where his apartment was. He took a deep breath at door, hands fumbling in his damp pockets for his keys. He unbolted the locks and pushed the door open, stepping inside. It was dark inside, no electricity, so no lights.

Feeling his way around, he crossed to the kitchen drawer that held his emergency flashlight. Turning it on, he shone the beam of light around the apartment. Books, broken pictures and dishes scattered the floor. A fine layer of dust, shook loose in the quake, covered everything. The kitchen window was broken, but otherwise, the structure of the unit looked intact.

He said another silent prayer, acutely aware of how close he came to losing everything that day, including his own life.

Shuffling to the counter, he turned on the sink tap. The water ran brown. Luckily, he kept a case of bottled water in the closet. The made his way there and cracked open a warm bottle. Lifting it up, he took several gulps. The clean water soothed his sandy, salt-coated throat.

The next task at hand was fishing his cell phone out of his pocket. He had already tried to use it when he run away from the trial, but the screen was cracked, not to mention water logged from his trip into the tank. He opened it up and took out the battery, laying all the parts it on a dishtowel. Maybe a miracle would happen and it would work once it dried out. His parents would probably be freaking out if they had heard about the earthquake on the news and then hadn’t heard from him. Damn.

He rubbed his hands over his pants, wondering if he should try to eat something. It wouldn’t be long without power before everything in the fridge went bad.

He wasn’t remotely hungry however. He took a smaller sip on the water instead. The adrenaline was starting to fade from his body, leaving a strange sort of numbness. On shaking legs, he walked back into the bedroom.

Filthy, sore, and still in shock, he crawled up on his bed covers. As soon as his body lay down on the soft mattress, he realized how exhausted he actually was. He rolled over and gasped as his chest and stomach burned. He ducked his head and pulled up his shirt to inspect the damage. His lower chest and stomach were red and marred with bloody scratched. From being pulled over the concert lip of the tank, he realized, when C had dragged him in the tank to save his life. He remembered what the trial had said before, ‘I smell blood’. Mystery solved.

He winced, pulling his shirt back down. God, he hoped the trial was alright. Where was he now? Was he safe? Was he lost? Had someone from the institute found him? Fuck, he never should have left him all alone.

Though he wouldn’t have believed it was possible (with everything that had just happened, with all the thoughts buzzing in his head) within minutes, he in fell into a deep sleep.

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