Chapter |3|

“Clem? Where are we going?”, Claude said, a bit unnerved by the sudden change of the other’s actions. From when he exited the bathroom Clem was unusually quiet, well except for commanding him to take the clothes he gave him and change as fast as he could.
“You will see once you get there.”, Clem said quickly and rather roughly while pulling at Claude’s hand, almost digging his nails into his hand. Acting like this was extremely unlike Clem and was in all honesty slightly scaring Claude.
“What? So you finally gave up and are sending me to an orgy murder party?”, Claude snorted, trying to hide the fact he was visibly afraid of Clem’s behaviour.
“Shut up, you should be at least thankful that I’m doing something for your good.”, Clem hissed, constantly looking at a small note on his hand as he made his way through the cramped street full of chaotic counterparts who even walked on the road, amongst the counterparts who were crazily driving from the side walk to the wall on the other side and banging the cars as if they had all the money of the world to spend on them, which was wrong- in actuality they just stole the cars, leaving the humans who actually were forced to work in the factories to die out. It was not a secret that loads of people died during the few weeks that the counterparts were in control, the cause of death was not exactly known but it has been estimated that they died of poor care in stages of sickness or of hunger or dehydration. The lunch breaks in the factories were a mere survival or the fittest, as there were way less portions than the need of the people. This critical death rate though didn’t make the human population less than the counterpart one, as the counterparts being mere copies of the humans that came out of the mirror, perished as soon as their human partner died.
“Alright, alright. I will shut my mouth. You are behaving rather weird though, you sure you okay?”, Claude asked sort of turning from the annoyed but afraid demeanour to a concerned one.
“Good, and don't worry, I'm good. It's you who we should be focusing to.”, Clem blurted out, not even realizing the mess his words were as he more focused onto the note on his hand and the street names that passed by as they walked.
Clem was lucky to have a wide audience in his own world, he was a famous fashion designer, which were rather rare in the mirror universe, this fact also gave him a lot of recognition and made crowds split in two when he was walking the street. The famous in the mirror world were quite rare but were largely looked up to upon. This was because of the fact that the famous ditched their powers, or as to say, positive deformities, when they became famous, as having powers and fame in the counterpart world was equal to being overpowered.
So as Clem was walking through the path that was cleared in front of him by the crowd, he noticed whispers from one counterpart to an another, but being focused more onto the street names and directions he couldn't make out what they were saying, but it was not like it really bothered him anyway. Claude on the other hand decided to pay attention to what the others were saying, to take his mind off his aching hand that felt like it was burning from the grip of Clem's hand and his nails digging into his skin. The comments from the other counterparts were rather bitter about Claude's appearance, “Why is he dragging that goddamn human around? He should let him work at the factory instead, the guy looks like he would be pretty useful in there.” was one of the comments that made Claude's blood boil, but knowing fairly well about his stand in this whole situation lashing out wouldn’t be a good idea, more so since his counterpart doesn’t have any kind of power to help him at all. Claude listened to the chuckling of the mostly female counterparts who were observing more him than Clem, “Seems like Clem took him in for promoting his new clothes, but well Clem probably didn’t want to give the beautiful thing for the factories so he kept him in for as a model for his new line.”, were most of the chuckles of the females, this made Claude trail off into a deep suspicion though. What if Claude wasn't as pretty looking as he was when they met? Would Clem give him up for life in the factories? Would he still be up for dyeing his hair and all other things he did? Did Clem judge him by his looks or did he like him or something?.
“Hey, Clem-“, Claude started
“I thought you said you will be quiet, we are almost there.”, Clem said in a whisper, Claude stayed silent the remainder of the way.
Some time passed as Claude watched the people in the crowd slowly disappear and the crowd become more diluted in the process. Soon even the last person on the end of the street disappeared and Clem and Claude were left alone, as soon as Claude noticed this he felt a bit afraid, more so when he saw the clouds of dark grey smoke in the air being emitted by big tubes of what he could only guess to be the factories. In front of the factories though, was a pretty unusual sight. In front of the factories was what looked like a park, it was in somewhat a crescent shape in front of the dark and dim factories that gave out a rather sick and rotten feel, this made both Clem and Claude uneasy. Clem looked around as he stepped onto the grass that made his mood lighten a bit, well the whole place actually made him a bit at peace. He looked around as if searching for something, not caring for the looks Claude was giving him from the nearby tree as he just tapped his foot along as he walked around the pretty large park. He stopped on a what seemed to be a bump on the ground as he inspected it carefully, which made Claude a bit concerned of him. Clem soon signalled for Claude to come over, which Claude immediately did, since he weirdly trusted Clem even though he still had a lot of suspicion. Clem took a step back as Claude stood at the bump now before looking at Clem
“What is this?”, he asked.
“Knock 3 times and we will see.”, Clem said, sort of in a relieved tone.
Claude once again gave him a look before crouching down and hesitantly knocking the first time, sort of getting startled when the ground made a sort of hollow metallic noise, he proceeded to knock an another two times. When he stopped he just kept himself in the crouch there, trying to listen to any sounds from the inside but not really hearing anything over the sound of machinery from the factories nearby. He and Clem were both surprised though when Claude fell face first into the grass when a big metal plate flipped out from the bump he was on previously, and a man, presumably in his forties, peeked his head out. Clem did an awkward wave at the man to distract him from Claude who was just lying face first in the grass there, trying to come back to reality that just hit him. Once Claude managed to get himself together he stood up,
“Hello gentlemen, how may I help you?”, the man spoke up at the two.
“Is this the Bullmaister Foundation?”, Clem asked the man, as Claude just looked at Clem, not sure what he was talking about at all.
“Ah, I see. You are from the outside. You came just in time for the next presentation. May I get your names, gentlemen?”, the man asked.
As soon as Claude heard the word ‘presentation' he already was out of it, yeah this was an apocalypse but he felt like taking action would be far more effective then planning for ever and ever.
“Excuse me-“, Claude started but was interrupted by Clem clearing his throat with a glare shooting straight at him.
“That’s Claude Christiansen, as for me, you can call me Clem.”, Clem said rather politely with a smile on his face.
“And what are you to him?”, the man asked as he scanned them both from head to toe.
“Brother.”, Claude blurted out, deciding to not let Clem reveal himself, well not like Clem was planning to actually uncover himself but it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Alright, come in.”, the man said as he extended his arm towards both of them.
Claude looked at Clem who shook his head, “ I believe my brother can do this on his own, I have some things to do, I hope he stays safe.”, Clem said as he watched Claude take the man's hand and jump down into a dark tunnel like hall, before the door was closed with a rather audible thud.
Clem stood there for a moment looking at the bump that before was a full-on trap door as he wondered on what to do for the next hour or so.
“Guess shopping will work.”, he muttered to himself as he started making his way back to the town.