Author's Note: This story is inspired by the ending of InkWorthy's "Countdown". I've always wanted to see a story that explores how Kirsty might survive the horrors of Hell in the vein of a Persephone or Beauty and the Beast tale. This is my take on the concept. Unlike Roses For the Abyss, this story is not as of yet plotted out, and is more of a self-indulgent piece for when I'm not working on Roses - meaning I have no idea where it's even going. Have fun!
Far From Eden
"Like the wild beasts, she lives without a future. She inhabits only the present tense, a fugue of the continuous, a world of sensual immediacy as without hope as it is without despair."
― Angela Carter
Chapter One:
Without The Sunlight
The abomination that had become of Channard continued to bellow his threats as Kirsty huddled protectively in front of Tiffany. She would not let him lay a hand on the girl, not anymore.
"You girls will be my first patients!"
He slurred the words maniacally, barely coherent through his freshly mutilated jaw. Kirsty didn't know what else to do now. There was no escape left for them. There was only the monsters, the endless darkness surrounding them, and her.
She knew now that she was going to die protecting Tiffany, and that it would be in vain. She felt hot tears sear the chilled skin of her face.
Then it seemed like everything came to a very strange stand-still. Channard did not move from his place in the threshold, and the Priest himself refused to budge. He was regarding the doctor strangely, as if he had absorbed these threats of violence in a very different way than before. Kirsty found him looking back at her, and caught his gaze with confusion. Twice he did this, listening to Channard's terrible promises and turning to look back at her, a frown upon his typically stoic face.
Then determination seemed to overcome him, and he turned a furious gaze to Channard, dropping the photo she had given him. The doctor sneered at this, recognising a challenge.
"Ah. Good. A fight!"
Kirsty looked on, stricken. Was the Priest trying to protect her and Tiffany, or was he simply taking down a rival challenging his leadership?
The Priest lifted his hands and sent his malevolent chains in Channard's direction. Chain after chain bombarded the doctor, hooking themselves into his pallid, leathery flesh. Channard snarled and growled at every blow, until finally the Priest decided he had sufficiently covered the monster.
Then the rending began. The chains began to pull, tearing piece after piece of skin and meat from the howling abomination, leaving strips of viscous burgundy clashing violently against pale blue. These creatures thrived upon their suffering however, and his body was still plenty intact. Channard was not done yet. Gored as he was, he still had the strength to fight back. A deadly tentacle shot out, and violently pierced the throat of the female cenobite. Wide-eyed, she gave a wet choke, then fell to the floor.
The Priest was displeased. "I do not abide mindless insolence."
More chains returned to the doctor, binding him and holding him still. The Priest then pulled a curved blade from his waist and advanced on Channard. His hand shot out and grasped the arm that shot the projectile at the female. The Priest then swiftly executed a clean cut straight through the flesh and bone of Channard's wrist, removing the offending hand as deftly as a butcher separating a chicken thigh. Kirsty cringed as she heard the wet gristle crack before Channard let out a rageful wail, his red blood gushing violently from the wound. The Priest threw the still-twitching limb to the ground before him.
Channard's gasps for breath became a throaty laugh however, as up from the bloody wrist grew more slimy black tentacles, larger than the ones that came from the now dislocated hand. A scalpel formed itself at the tip of one, and then the doctor lashed it out at the Priest. He side-stepped but it was a successful hit, slashing his arm through his leather. The Priest reacted with no more than a sneer, shaking the blood from his arm uncaringly.
Then the still-bound Channard sent more tentacles towards the remaining creatures, taking each being down quickly. The girls watched in horror, unsure of the outcome for their could-be allies or themselves in the aftermath. Now it was only the Priest who stood in their possible defence. The doctor laughed with triumph, then vindictively turned his attention to the girls the Priest seemed to be protecting.
Channard darted several scalpel-equipped tentacles in their direction. Kirsty let out a short screech as she pushed Tiffany to the left and quickly jumped with her. The tentacles hit the wall that was behind them with a squelch, then dropped to the floor. The disgusting things then writhed their way towards Kirsty, who promptly kicked them out into the dark corner of the room. She could hear another squelch, then nothing. She looked back to the Priest, who had been watching the scene.
The Priest seemed to deliberate momentarily on what to do next, then with a haughty, bored look at Channard, he waved a hand at the dark expanse. Suddenly, two massive, threatening pendulum axes swung from the shadowed abyss above them towards the doctor, the edges gleaming with the sinister blue ambient light. The startled girls instinctively ducked to the floor, although the trajectory of the blades was far from where they huddled in the dark. With a great whoosh, the blades swung closer and closer, until finally they hit his writhing form with a loud thwack. They cut deep into his upper torso, likely puncturing a lung and severing much of his shoulder blades. The doctor let out a pathetic yowl, and Kirsty knew he was defeated. He gasped desperately for air, and then a dark gurgle of blood frothed up from his mouth.
"...I...am not finished with this procedure…!" The doctor's rage was mounting. His mangled body was trembling with as much anger as weakness. The fleshy tentacle attached to his skull was the only thing keeping him prone; he seemed to hang from it now like a twitching rag doll. He bared his bloodied teeth at the Priest, who stood in silent, proud satisfaction at his handiwork.
Then the Priest turned to Kirsty, catching her gaze with his own. There was a strange sort of human warmth softening the black ice of his eyes when he looked at her. That was when Kirsty fully realized the meaning of the situation. He had intended to defend her. A terrible, heart wrenching relief fell over her, so intensely that she felt fresh tears well up in her eyes. She had succeeded. He remembered being the man from her dream. He didn't want her to be hurt. Kirsty found herself smiling despite her tears, a sudden shock of warmth in her heart for the monster that by some stroke of luck she saved, the monster who most certainly just saved her. She couldn't speak through the fear and overwhelming relief, but she hoped the smile on her face conveyed the gratitude she felt.
He nodded to her, and she recognised the suggestion to run. Now that her and Tiffany were shifted further into the room, she could see a hallway back into the Labyrinth a bit further down the closest wall. She gently pushed Tiffany toward it, and they quickly started to run to the threshold.
"You have not been discharged!"
Kirsty felt nothing but white hot pain. She knew Channard was laughing behind her, but the sound seemed so far away from her now. Tiffany was looking at her, wide-eyed and crying. Kirsty felt her knees give out.
On the floor now, Kirsty looked down at herself, and with a kind of dazed horror found a writhing black tentacle pierced straight through her left shoulder. Though her vision was watery and out of focus, she could see the shiny little medical blade on the wriggling end. Frantic, she grabbed at the bit of tentacle sticking out, careful to avoid the scalpel. Then she began to yank, gasping and desperate to remove the convulsing, revolting parasitic limb from herself.
Finally the thing gave way. It slid sickly and still squirming through the wet flesh of her body, making her stomach roil and her heart burn with absolute revulsion. She was equally horrified by the satisfying feeling of relief of the removal. She violently threw the appendage as far away from her into the dark as possible, then pitched forward on her right hand to dry-heave. After it passed, she sat there and let out a loud, mournful sob.
Tiffany still stood in front of her, terrified and waiting. Kirsty could hear the whip of chains and angry screams from Channard. She hurried to look back at the scene behind them, but was too late to defend herself when Channard sent out another tentacle in her direction. The thing struck through the soft, fragile side of her abdomen. She wailed in shock and agony, feeling the thing writhe near her fragile organs.
She was going to die. She was sure of it. Gasping for breath and gritting her teeth against the pain, she lifted her gaze back to Tiffany. The little girl was sobbing now, distraught.
"T...Tiffany...it's...please, just...go...run…" She stopped to catch her breath, whimpering as the thing in her side moved. Tiffany hesitated, but Kirsty heard the doctor laugh again. "Tiffany GO!" She screamed in frustration, fighting the urge to pass out.
Tiffany seemed to get the picture. The faintest whisper of "goodbye" left her mouth as she cried, and then she turned and ran down the corridor.
Kirsty let out a sigh of relief. She was going to die in this pit, but at least one innocent might make it. She tried her best to grasp the disgusting appendage that stuck out of her belly, but her grip was slackening and the blood drenching her hands slickened what little traction she might have had. She tightened her hands around the thing and gave a great pull, until finally with a screech she dislodged it and threw it too into the dark.
Exhausted and wracked with unimaginable pain, Kirsty let her body go slack against the cold stone floor. She didn't have the strength to run anymore. Her body was already starting to bleed out; she lay in an ever-growing puddle. So she turned her head with the last strength she had, intent on watching the fight so that she might at least see the bastard who killed her die, too.
The Priest, normally stoic and collected, was now a fury of expert violence. He was ripping chains from the remainder of Channard's torn body by hand. Channard's torso was mostly a mess of bloodied bits covering a half-exposed ribcage, the stringy muscle of his arms hanging off the bone. Finally the Priest took the little hooked blade from his side and jammed it deep into the doctor's throat, ripping out tendons on the pull-back. Strangely, Kirsty noticed a spurt of foreign blue liquid burst from a vein.
Suddenly, the monstrous tentacle that held Channard aloft started to slacken, lowering the groaning carcass to the floor. It gave a little whirr and detached it's bio-mechanical drill from the doctor's skull, leaving behind a mess of blood and shredded brain matter on the floor. Then it hen slowly slithered off down the dark corridor behind it.
A bitter relief came over Kirsty. Channard, or whatever had become of him, was as dead as a thing could be in this place.
The Priest took a moment to look at the fallen bodies of his comrades. Then he turned to look at her, his black eyes a silent storm of unplaceable emotion. He stood there, quiet. She looked back at him just as silent, her sight fading in and out now.
He then walked towards her, and stopped right before where she lay. She looked up at him, blinking to try and clear her vision. Then she smirked at him, and took a shuddering breath.
"There's...something ironic about this...but I can't quite...put my finger on it." She let out a raspy little chuckle.
The slightest upturn appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Then he leaned down and carefully lifted her broken body into his arms, startling her into a gasp. The unexpected move gave her brain a jolt, bringing back a little more awareness to her mind. Leaving the bodies of his group behind, he began a smooth gait down the corridor, holding Kirsty firm before him.
The moment was something totally alien to Kirsty. She felt out of her own body, like she seeing herself from the outside; some damsel on the lurid cover of a hammer horror poster being carried off by a monster.
She wasn't sure what to say. The Priest himself said nothing, only continued on his trek through the Labyrinth's disorienting dark hallways. This journey seemed to take some amount of time, though she only had vague awareness of it through her hazy brain. Occasionally, she could hear her blood drip and spatter the stone below. Other times she would hear strange, foreign sounds faintly echo through the passageways like ghosts in the night. She was unsure where the Priest was taking her, but she hoped against the odds that it meant her survival.
It was strange, accepting that her life was in the hands of another, let alone the monster that once threatened it. It had been so very long since she could rely on anyone. Her father, bless his soul, was always too fragile; a loving parent but ultimately a weak one. A protective anxiety for him had long ago developed in her after her mother's death, emerging far too soon than it should in her short twenty years of life. Boyfriends were so often insipid children, eager to blindly take from her but unwilling to offer anything truly substantial in return. Steve's speedy abandonment was plenty evidence of this. Kyle seemed to want to try, but the poor fool was dead quickly enough.
This otherworldly, terrible being was certainly far from fragile. He had chosen not to abandon her. He had protected her, and now it seemed he was even...taking care of her in some strange way, which was admittedly more than she could really say for anyone else in her life.
Letting him take things over now was almost...nice.
She didn't have to think anymore, didn't have to fight for survival. The unlikely formation of trust in him was throwing her dazed mind for a loop. Does blood loss make you delirious?
But he said he remembered. He remembered his past, and perhaps with it came some residual shreds of a soul, enough to change his motives completely in one fell swoop.
She supposed it might really be alright now, if she didn't bleed out completely on the way to wherever it was he intended to take her.
Then there came a loud, overwhelming screech, startling her from her thoughts and bellowing so deep even the stone around them shook. The Priest did not stop or acknowledge this noise. Kirsty's muscles had jumped reflexively, and then she huddled closer to her unlikely ally despite herself.
"What was that?" she whispered.
"Tiffany has escaped."
Kirsty was relieved, but then a sinking feeling of dread came over her.
"She would have had to...solve the box wouldn't she? Then...she probably took it with her. Does...does that mean I can't leave?" She was struggling to speak, but her life hinged on the answer to that question.
The Priest said nothing, merely continued to walk. His silence seemed to confirm the terrible truth.
"It does, doesn't it. How...How long will I be trapped here? Is this...forever?" She held her breath.
He caught her eyes.
"Until the door is opened once more."