inside of this all you create
you hide from yourself
--

You sat on the extra leather chair in front of your boss' desk, legs crossed and hands in your lap. The look on his face was impossible to figure out.
"Look, I know what you're gonna say," you grumbled with a subtle roll of your eyes. "But that guy is just a heaping basket case of messed up. I mean, everything about him just screams-"
"What's your source?" he interrupted you.
You paused, accenting it with your regular one raised eyebrow. "...Excuse me?"
Your boss turned in his chair to face you more properly, eye to eye. "Your source, [name]. Where's your proof of what you said to be true?"
The expression you bore turned mildly sour. 'You cannot be serious', you groaned inwardly.
"As a matter of fact," your hand reached into the pocket of your jacket and pulled out your phone, readily showing the man the case file screenshots you saved. "I came across a couple files on the place and reports filed on the shit he's been pulling, all documented information. I highly doubt something like this would be made up with all the instances they've noted."
This actually made your boss pause for a moment, almost as if in shock that you actually had a comeback for him. Then he replied again, "And how exactly did you find this information?"
Fuck.
Now he had you in a corner. You were not about to tell him that you technically snooped around your best friend's email account and unofficially stole the files as blackmail on Crawford. That would put you in even more hot water than you already found yourself in.
He took your silence as your sort of answer, fingers lightly pinching the brim of his nose. "This isn't a game, [name]," he scolded you. "We can't just go around picking bits and pieces of whatever we find that aren't true until saying otherwise. We do the work, we provide evidence."
You nodded half-hazardly; you knew the ropes of the job, you were aware of everything he told you- it was explained to you when you started the job however many years ago. It wasn't like you forgot.
"You know," he finished his statement quietly. "You're such an intelligent young woman, but sometimes... you really are a dumbass."
You blinked, biting your lip. That was unexpected.
Silence filled the air once more, before your boss let out a final sigh, standing up from his chair and turning away from you to face the window. You did not expect the words that left his mouth.
"I can't trust you anymore, [name]. I'm sorry."
The last nail in the coffin came three seconds later.
"...You're fired. Have a nice life."

You ended up speeding down the road to where Devon worked, doing a rather sloppy job of parking your motorcycle on the curb and trying not to scramble across the street to the front of the building- just in time to see your best friend emerging from the door with a box in his hands.
You made a run for him. "Dev, hey, what happ-"
"You!" His exclamation almost made you jump a little. "I cannot believe you. You are impossibly self-absorbed, that blasted ego of yours finally showed itself, and you are stubborn as all fucking hell."
You had to fight to keep up with him storming away from you. "What do you mean? Why are you...?"
"But you know what?" He continued, not listening to you. "I kept quiet. And I was willing to keep quiet and roll with it and everything you did, because you were my best friend."
You opened your mouth to speak, but then his words finally registered.
You were my best friend.
Were.
For the first time, you were almost lost for words. "Devon... what's going on?" you managed, not even knowing that your voiced almost cracked.
The box in his hands crashed onto the sidewalk, and you then saw his anger dissolve into disappointment and sorrow. "The stunt you pulled made me lose my job, [name]," he deadpanned quietly. "You got me fired."
What happened next made your heart break in two.
Slowly, Devon reached into the neck of his shirt, pulling out the matching pendant and chain and slipping it off from around his neck. The small lettering of 'no matter where' on the charm now seemed to taunt you as he grabbed your wrist, opened your hand, and dropped the necklace into your palm.
He then reached down, picked up the box from the pavement, and let out a shaky breath.
"Goodbye."
You watched your best friend turn around and walk away.
No.
No, this wasn't happening right now.
"Devon..." you called out, reaching your hand towards him and trying to follow him, but your legs wouldn't move. "Devon, no- wait, please!"
But he didn't listen. He kept on walking, down the street, and more than likely, out of your life.
You finally broke down, letting a choked sob escape your lips as your buried your face in your hands and cried. You didn't even try to stop the onslaught of tears streaming down your cheeks and through the cracks of your fingers.
Everything you loved was gone.

And you didn't know how, or if, it could get any worse.

--

Heavy rain pattered on the roofs and windows of the armored van that drove along the road that led to the guarded back entrance of the Life Foundation. Passing through the entry markers and into the garage in the lower level, the vehicle was welcomed by a small group of five scientists, and standing in the middle was Noah Crawford.
The back doors to the van were opened slowly, and the CEO stepped forward to eye what was nestled securely inside. 
Encased in large, cylindrical containers, were three objects. Each seemed to be a unique cross between solid and liquid, an odd sheen making what was more than likely their skin seem to shine in the light. They writhed in a strange rhythm, lightly pulsating as the ends of their mass seemed to form tendrils that waved like the petals of a sea anemone. One was a navy blue shade, the second an almost sickly yellow-brown, and the third was a shiny black.
The sight of them made a couple of the scientists squirm uncomfortably, but Crawford took in the sight with gleaming eyes and and awestruck face.
"My god..." he whispered, the ends of his lips finally curving up into a small smile.

"They're beautiful."