AYangThang: Just a short, gritty, one-shot. Happy October everyone.
Corruption
A metallic stench was in the air, wafting thickly among the red and black droplets that fell like rain.
It splattered the ground, the trees, and even the small shack upon which she sought refuge. The roars in the distance echoing far and wide. Looking down at her wounds, she noticed the narrow gashes seeping blood. Her aura slowly healing away the precious red fluid that separated the living from the dead.
She stood, gasping for breath, on that narrow precipice of life and death, her mind slowly wondering what would be a greater mercy.
Looking up, she saw that one single god-like being towering over her. That woman who appeared as a figment of impossibility. Draped the purest white, and murkiest black. An impossibly beautiful creature of all that was wrong with this world.
Cinder licked her lips, not daring to make a sound.
The single most powerful entity in the entire universe looked at her with something nearing kindness. Perhaps, it was only pity. Her unearthly gaze fixated on the human woman in front of her. "Hmm, I thought I might find you here, hiding away in the shadows. Haven't I told you that you'll find no respite cowering in the forests like this? Haven't you learned your lesson?"
Cinder narrowed her eyes, untrusting of the presence in front of her. One so like the Grimm that there was no way this woman could possibly be human. There no logic for why she so elegantly stood in front of Cinder now, a placid image of raw, unmitigated, power. The human woman said nothing. Then again, nothing would save her now.
"Hmm, I suppose you haven't." The woman sighed. "Humanity at war truly is the worst."
A soft, pained hissed escaped from Cinder's lips. More blood dripping from the gashes in her side. She tried to put to rest this impossible vision. Grimm were not so omnipotent, they were not bearers of logic, or compassion. They were monsters, nothing more. This woman in front of her had to be the same.
"Come to me, girl." The woman beckoned soothingly. "You've no reason to fear me."
Yet, Cinder did fear her.
"I wasn't the one that harmed you." She murmured. "Torturing a lone woman like you would be beneath me. I have very little interest in that."
"Why do you keep coming here?" Cinder asked, terrified of the obvious malignancy personified by the woman in front of her. Like a tumor that the greater world couldn't simply cut away.
"I feel a strange sense of mercy for those like you. Left forgotten by your kind. Such a sad world we live in, isn't it? Humans abandoned you here. Calmly cutting your life away from theirs. As though you were nothing. As though you were unlike them, and unable to be saved. Isn't that such a pity?" The woman spoke again. "If you wish to live, I could help you. I know a place where you'd be welcomed with open arms. A place you'd no longer suffer."
Cinder looked out the nearest window. The dark creatures outside were waiting to devour her. They sat there, tame like animals in a zoo. This magnificent woman seemed to be their keeper. Cinder couldn't explain that. She couldn't even come to terms with it.
"Well, I suppose I can't force you. However, you should drink this." The woman said, placing a glass of questionable liquid down in front of her. "It will replenish your strength. You'll need it, if you plan to go back outside."
"I don't plan to go back out there." Cinder said, her voice weakly finding purchase against her pain.
"A wise move, dear." The caustic laugh slipped elegantly from her lips before she turned her back to the human. "You cannot escape from fate. I fear that may in fact be impossible. You may certainly try, but you will fail. Therefore, if I were you, I would take every opportunity to find a higher power. Take that little glass in front of you. That is really all you will ever need. However, if there's more you seek, you will have to learn to trust me."
Cinder knew that there was no escape. Death waited for her. If she chose insolence, she would not see the light of day. Fearing this, she tipped back the glass, swallowing down the thick black liquid. Tears slipped from her eyes. It tasted like everything she hated in the world. Like death, and everything she felt wronged by. All of it broken down into the sinister slurry that slid down her gullet.
"Very good, it seems you understand your position in all of this after all." The woman said, watching impartially as the human woman took the first steps into the gritty underworld that she'd never be able to fathom. "Obedience serves you well."
Cinder merely looked down at the empty glass, eyes unseeing. A blank stare brokenly fixated on the last few drops at the bottom. It felt as if those little droplets could engulf her entirely. "I want more." She murmured, tipping the glass back to consume the last of it.
"You've had quite enough for tonight."
Cinder turned her gaze back to the woman in front of her. That wasn't what she wanted to hear. She tossed the glass to the side, smashing it to bits. Then with an animalistic snarl she licked that black, tar-like fluid from her lips. Her mind flooding with dark visions of ecstasy. Whatever was in that glass whispered promises too tantalizing to ignore. At the bottom of all the hate, a tiny murmur of hope called to her.
She needed it now.
She stood up, walking across the room to the lone cabinet. Pulling the door completely off, she tossed that aside too. A single bottle of the black fluid was left. She dug her teeth into the cork, yanking it out with her teeth before drinking the fluid inside. She was starved for it.
Whatever it was.
"Humans, what pathetic creatures." The woman laughed as she watched Cinder take her meal. Drinking the rawest essence of a Grimm. She's let the woman drink until she had her fill. If Cinder lost herself to madness, so be it. Humans were always so easily expendable. The mother of all Grimm smirked when the bottle was empty and Cinder slipped away into unconsciousness.
Cinder would be hers at last, and her transformation into a Grimm would be a most pleasant sight. Bending down, she effortlessly lifted the young woman into her arms. "You so easily throw away your humanity. You have little respect for anything, casting it aside the moment something better presents itself. Yet, in spite of this, I'm considered the monster. How hilarious."
"This won't do." The monstrous woman used the pad of her thumb to brush away a tiny droplet of black fluid from Cinder's lower lip. "There that's better. Now then, let's get you home, shall we? You're such a pretty little thing. It will be interesting to see what sort of kindred spirit you become. You, my dear, will have a wondrous fate. Just as I've decided."
And that, Salem decided, would be a most magnificent sight.