Hellboy: Unnatural Selection(20)

Experience with no history; life with no true birth; knowledge without a past. She accepts them all and yet yearns for something more: understanding.

The hollowness inside her, haunted though it is, needs filling. And this is when she first perceives her need for escape.



* * *



On the day she leaves, there is one goodbye to make.

Few of Blake's creations speak any sort of language that Abby can understand. They fly or crawl, walk or slither, sleep or scream, but there is only one other creature whom Abby has any sort of communication with, and she never sees him. He — she assumes it is a he, simply because of his voice — is contained behind a heavy steel door, and the only space through which he can talk is a narrow grille at its base. Abby first noticed him soon after her birthing, when she wandered naked through the ship trying to find who she was, and since then she has been back at regular intervals to talk with him.

Her voice feels like an alien in her throat, the thoughts that conjure it strangers in her mind It is the hidden creature — Voice, as she has come to know him — who helps her come to terms with herself. His words are few, but their meaning is always deep. He has built her from nothing to something, and years later she realizes that it was Voice who made her something more than Blake ever intended. He gave her the thirst to fill her potential. And he made her free.

On that final night, she sits on the floor and leans back against the door. She can hear him breathing on the other side, and she likes to think that the metal is warmed by his breath. Some contact, at least. Some affection. Without really understanding or knowing why, that is something she has always missed.

"It's so dark in here," she says.

"It's made that way."

"You told me years ago that he locked you away because of what you think, and what you know. Why doesn't he lock me away as well?"

A snort comes from behind the door. "Because I made no secret of my doubt. I've told you before, you're unique here. You're a bright mind among stupidity. You're human. The fact that Blake didn't take that into account shows just how mad he has become. He has these things he has brought out of the Memory — you and me included — and because of that, he has begun to doubt the facility of humanity. He's committed the very crime that put everything in this New Ark into the Memory in the first place, except that he's committed it against humans. He doubts them, looks down upon them, and that has made him underestimate them."

"And I'm human?" Abby doubts that, because there is something else deep down that drives her. Like a blazing fire behind a locked door, it surges for release at frequent intervals.

"As human as anything aboard this ship, Blake included. "

"And you, Voice?"

Voice is quiet for a long time, and Abby begins to think he has fallen asleep. But then she feels movement at her back, a subtle vibration transmitted through the metal of the door, and when he speaks it sounds as though he is crying. "Abby, it's time for you to leave. Escape. You're looking for a life, and you'll never find it in here. Here, there's only death waiting for the right time to visit."

"Voice?" Abby is shocked, but it is more at the way he seems to be reading her mind than anything else. Escape, she has been thinking for weeks. Escape is the only way. Perhaps seeking Voice's approval is the impetus she really needs.

"Go," he says, and that is the last she hears.

Abby stands. She has been planning this for some time, never really believing that it would happen; it was a fancy, a daydream, a glimpse of a future that would never be. Now that she is actually going through with it, she finds herself calmer and more composed than she has any right to be. She is leaving home for the first time, with only the good wishes of someone or something locked away from the world to see her on her way.

The stern will be the best place for her to jump from. Even if she is seen, it will take hours for the New Ark to halt and come back to look for her. And it seems fitting that, at the moment of her plunging into the sea, she and Blake will be parting company at the greatest speed possible.

"Goodbye," she whispers at the metal door. But it will be years before she knows whether or not Voice even hears.



* * *



On this, her final walk through the other world that is the New Ark, she takes in everything and commits it to memory. One day, she is thinking, it may all be useful She never intends to return to Blake's realm, yet she knows that a part of her will never be able to leave.