behind the red doors

behind the red doors

The corridors were spotlessly clean. Bright red heavy steel doors sealed off room after room. Occasionally as I passed a door would be rocked in the frame from inside of the cell behind it. I didn’t know who or what was behind those doors, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to.

Only one person could have dragged me down into the hellhole of the Company hospital beneath the Las Vegas desert. I had to find out if they had Peter. There still hadn’t been any sign of him above ground, so there I was deep underground looking for my brother. I could feel the weight of all that sand shifting on my shoulders as I went.

Besides me I’d lost track of the mutterings of the Company employee who had summoned me. Her gray hair was brushed back from her wrinkled forehead, and she pushing her glasses back up her nose. I was pretty sure that I was going to have to catch them before they hit the floor soon.

“Mr. Petrelli, the subject has limited cognitive capacity,” she said finally catching my attention again. “He was severely burned, and seems to be incapable of speech although he does occasionally rant about his dreams.”

“What makes you think he’s my brother, Miss Argent?” I stood with my hands folded behind my back. The door we were standing in front of had human guards as well as all the electronic bells and whistles. Whoever was inside of that cell wasn’t getting out without setting off all the alarms. “Peter would have healed any injuries he suffered from.”

I’d seen Peter come back from the dead, Claire too. It didn’t make sense for him to be burned. But there might be a limit to how much damage even he could take. Stepping back from the red door, I waited while she used her cardkey to open the metal shielding from of the top half of the door, so I could look inside.

There was a scream of rage and pain. The man inside threw himself against the door. His face pressed against the reinforced plastic, eyes the same color brown the only unscarred things in his face. Whatever face he’d once had was melted like candle wax down his chin.

“Pete?” I forced myself to walk to the window and look into those deranged soulless eyes. “Is that you Pete?”

He screamed again, liquid fire seemed to leak from his pores falling in droplets onto the hard cement floor of the cell. His power was eating him alive inch by painful inch. Keeping him alive was the beyond cruel. His frame was the right size, and he was the right weight. But when I finally made real eye contact with him, I felt a rush of relief.

“That isn’t my brother.” I didn’t signal them to close off the cell again, just turned and walked away. When Mrs. Argent caught up with me, I stopped and gave her a single order. “Kill him. Let him have some peace.”