The Only Hope for Me Is You

We all watched Mikey and Lauren walk down the opposite hallway, and I followed Gerard and Ray down the hall, in stride with Frank, looking into every cell as we walked by; and what I saw was sickening. I stopped to look into one closer, and noticed that a young boy was being tortured by a couple Dracs, having a major dose of gas blasted into his face. I restrained myself from pounding on the door in anger, and just slammed my head on it instead. Frank noticed this, and turned back around and walked back over to me.

"Cy, what's wrong?" He asked, grabbing my wrists in his hands. I took my head off the door and turned to face him, and his face dropped when he saw mine.

"Cy...?" he asked, concerned. Apparently my face reflected what I was feeling after seeing the kid being tortured; I felt anger, sadness, regret, hatred, and confusion all at the same time, and it must have shown in my face, because Frank blinked, and frowned at me, still holding my wrists.

"Cy, you need to calm down."

"Frank. I can't calm down...not after seeing this..." I said, turning my head back to look in the window. I saw a Drac reach across the kid to grab something from the medical tool table, and started prodding the kid in the arm with it; the kid was so drugged up he didn't even react, even though he was being volted with massive amounts of electricity. I winced every time he was poked and prodded until Frank grabbed my face by the chin and turned it to look right into his.

"DANAE. CALM. DOWN." He said, using my real name for the first time ever. "PLEASE." I tried looking back into the window, but he snapped my head back, with force this time.

"DAMN IT. LISTEN." He said, getting angry now; I had never seen him like this before. He was usually kind-hearted and always trying to make a joke out of things, but not now...this was different. His face was stern, made of stone, his mouth tight and his eyes narrow and his thin, perfect eyebrows were furrowed in anger. I blinked, a little scared of this version of Frank.

"Frank...I-" He shook his head, still holding my face in his hands.

"No, there's nothing we can do," He said, dropping his hands and starting to walk down the hall again, leaving me all alone. "We have to go, before we loose Gerard and Ray." He kept walking, and I snuck one last look in the window before running to catch up to Frank, who still looked pissed off.

"Frank...are you okay...?" I asked, trying to hold his hand, but he shrugged me off of him. I gasped.

"I'm fine." He said stiffly, obviously not fine. He adjusted his Frankenstein mask before he took out his lighter and a cigarette and lit it, snapping his lighter closed again and pocketing it, and held the cigarette in his mouth as he walked; his stride was much more stiff, more aggressive, I honestly had no idea what was wrong with him. Something was going on with him, and to be honest I was terrified to talk to him, so I let him walk ahead a few paces, leaving him alone. He didn't like this, apparently, because he turned around, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and breathed out smoke through his nose.

"CY, seriously, we need to get a fucking move on." He said, frustrated. " I jumped, and took a few quick steps to catch up to him, and we walked side by side down the hall, not speaking to each other; I was too afraid, and he was too pissed off.

We kept walking, until I heard a thud come from behind us, and Frank groaned.

"Aw, God fucking dammit." He said, drawing his gun as he turned around and shot the approaching Drac right in the face, not even aiming, the cigarette still in his mouth. I watched the Drac fall to the floor, and Frank shot it once more for good measure, then holstered it again, shaking his head.

"Fuck, now they're going to start swarming." He said, still pissed off. What had happened to make him like this...?

"Frank, babe, what is going on--"

"Cy, shut up." he said, shaking his head, and I winced, shocked at what he just said.

"Frank?"

"Not now. We need to leave." He continued walking, and I had no choice but to follow him, and try not to make him any more angry. Eventually, we made it to the heart of BL/ind, and Gerard and Ray were nowhere to be found. Frank looked around the large room we had just entered, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor. It was literally an empty room, minus a few computer monitors and television screens.

"This is where they control broadcasts..." I said quietly. Frank was leaning forward on one of the desks with a monitor on it, looking at the screen; he took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew out a stream of smoke, and nodded.

"No shit." He said, pointing. "Right now, they're doing the news, and in a half hour it's that shitty cartoon again." He stood up, shaking his head. "Both with so many subliminal messages...It makes me want to KILL the President of the United States." He shook his head again, and I didn't know how to respond.

"But there is no more 'United States.'" he continued. "That died out ages ago. Now it's either Battery City, the Zones, or god knows what else past Zone 6." He turned towards me, and finished the cigarette, putting it out on the table next to him before flicking it away.

"This fucking pisses me off." he continued, frowning at me. "Since there's no President, then, killing Korse is going to have to do." He let out a deep breath, and I slowly walked over to him.

"Is this...is this why you are acting so strange?" I asked, remembering not to make any sort of contact with him; I didn't even look at him. I just stared at the ground.

"Part of it, yeah," he admitted, shrugging. "God, just the fact that BL/ind is doing all of this...I just get so ANGRY, I--"

"Frank, we all get angry," I interrupted, and he looked shocked at my courage to cut him off. "Anger is a necessity." I looked up at him now, and saw his face was not stern anymore. It was soft again, like before, like I knew it to be.

"I know..." He said, his face softening even more. "No one's born with hate in their heart. Hate is something that has been taught, it is not an innate survival skill that we need..." he stopped talking after that, and I had tears in my eyes. I grabbed his hand and laced my fingers around his, and he actually let out a slight smile.

"Frank...that was beautiful..." I said, wiping my eye with my free hand. He shook his head.

"It's true though," he said, squeezing my hand. "It's just...I don't UNDERSTAND...Why would BL/ind even think that what they did was right?"

"Because we want to make the world a better place." Came a voice from behind us. It was THE voice. Frank and I dropped hands and quickly turned around, pointing our guns at who had intruded on us.

"Don't try anything, killjoys," Korse said, walking closer to us. "I have something you want." He looked to the side, then back at us.

"Rather...some ONE." He grinned maniacally, and I looked at Frank, who was back to being stone faced.

"Where the FUCK did you take them?" He growled, shaking his gun as he swore. Korse just laughed.

"Oh, they're still here..." he said coldly, taking a couple steps closer. "But can you find them before time runs out?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Your precious Party Poison and Jet Star are currently under quarrentine, and if you don't get there in time...." He laughed, staring right at me. "well, let's just say things won't end well for them."

"Or I can end it right here, right now, Korse," Frank said, cocking his gun. "Just one shot...to the head...right now...and everything will be over."

"Do you really think killing me would be that easy?" Korse said, walking so close to Frank that the barrel of the gun was right on his bald forehead.

"Go ahead, Fun Ghoul...complete your mission. Fulfill your destiny. Pull the trigger." Frank's arm shook, and his finger grazed the trigger, as if contemplating if he should really go along with it.

"Ghoul..." I said, gun still pointed at Korse.

"I know, Cy," he said. "I know what I said. I only fight for freedom." He lowered his gun slowly, still staring at Korse. "And this has nothing to do with freedom." He kept his gaze at Korse, but he was strictly talking to me now.

"This is for revenge." he finished, and Korse clapped mockingly.

"Very nice speech, Fun Ghoul," he joked. "Where's the award for that?"

"Fuck you." Frank replied, spitting on Korse's foot. This didn't phase Korse one bit.

"You better hurry..." He said. "You're running out of time to save your friends." He laughed coldly again, and turned around and left the room, his laugh echoing as he got further and further away. Frank let out a terrifying yell of anger, which also echoed around the nearly empty room, and fell on his knees, and bent over, putting his head on the ground and dropping his gun before putting his hands over his head.

I got on my knees and holstered my gun, and patted him on the back, and I heard him sobbing silently. I lifted his hands off his head, and he looked up at me, his brown eyes shining.

"Frank?" I asked, rubbing his back. He shook his head.

"I....I could have ended everything....right there..." He said, adjusting himself to sit on the floor, one leg stretched out and the other bent, resting his elbow on his knee. I wrapped my arms around him, comforting him.

"Frank, baby, no..." I held him tighter. "You did the right thing. Killing him right there...that would have made things worse, Frank..." I leaned back, and wiped his tears off of his face, and he smiled slightly.

"Cy, you have no idea how much I want to fuck you right now," he said, laughing. "But Gerard and Ray are dying right now, and we have to save them." I helped him get to his feet, and he picked up his gun.

"Later, then?" I asked, and he nodded.

"If we leave this place alive," he agreed, and cocked his gun again, and we ran down the narrow hallways, looking in every room, trying to find Gerard and Ray before it was too late.