Sorry this last chapter took so long, but I got so bloody terrified of it that it took me two weeks to calm down. I hope you find it just as terrifying as I did.
Chapter 8: Exorcism
Flare trudged along silently through the abandoned city. It seemed so desolate, he thought. The wind blew leaves in and out of the broken glass windows of the massive skyscrapers, thunder echoed through the streets, and the smell of chemicals mixed with the smell of the rotting corpses that were strewn across the uneven, cracked asphalt.
He couldn't see his reflection, but he didn't want to. His heart was still missing, his arms and body was streaked with blood, either his own or blood he'd staggered through. He had been cut and bruised in several places, the black spot circling his left eye the most prominent. Although he couldn't see it, his eye color had been glowing crimson since he'd rediscovered his fire ability.
"It really feels like a living nightmare, it does." He muttered to himself as he scanned the surroundings. Strahovlada had definitely broken free from his trap by now and would be hunting him down.
"Where could she be?"
His mind kept flashing back to the methods he had read on eradicating spirits. Flare just thought of it as exorcism, since Strahovlada rated even worse than demons to him. If the book had been authentic, he could cast the exorcism spell and destroy Strahovlada forever. It just didn't seem possible to him. Strahovlada was just too powerful to him.
He tugged nervously at Strahovlada's stolen chain, which was now wrapped around his bleeding left arm. He didn't remember when he had started bleeding, nor could he remember almost anything before he had woken up in the abandoned house in this strange postapocalyptic city.
"Why is this city like this?" Flare asked to nobody. "Why is it like this? What did Strahovlada do to this place?"
"I created it." Flare turned around with a vicious gaze, lightning flashing and thunder cracking at the same time. He wasn't surprised to see Strahovlada herself right in front of him, standing over him, her body more bloody, her snaking lower body dripping more acid, her face gleaming with more evil pleasure as well as anger, her teeth sharper while blood trickled from her mouth between the teeth and her eyes burned a glowing red, more evil than anything Flare could even imagine.
"What do you mean 'You created it'?" He snarled, not scared of Starhovlada's more imposing appearance. It didn't scare him anymore. Nothing would.
Strahovlada laughed. "This is my world, a world created in my vision: Destruction, Torture, Death, Violence, The sweet rivers of blood that flow out of the souls of the damned. You live in my world now, Flare. I lure the stupid and naive from their worlds into this world, where I feast on their pain, their bodies and their blood."
"You're a monster!" Flare shouted.
"I am the spirit of terror!" Strahovlada roared. "And it's time you accept your fate. No one leaves my domain, dead or alive."
Flare's body started to catch fire. He pulled the chain off of his arm and started whirling it in circles. His ring started to glow as well.
"Too bad for you then." Flare snarled through gritted teeth. "I'm not dying without you coming down with me. Either you die or we both die."
Strahovlada's scorpion mandibles clicked with delight. "Perfect. The prey is always better when it puts up a fight." She hissed.
Flare's mind started running through the exorcism spell's steps. There was no better time than now to use it.
In theory, Flare found the exorcism very simple. The problem to him was putting it into action. Doing the exorcism required a heavy amount of physical and elemental power, and that was for regular spirits and demons. Doing so on Strahovlada might not work, and if it did, it might kill Flare. Flare accepted this fact, but he wasn't going to let Strahovlada get away with her horrors and continue her ways. Rain had started to fall, but not in a gentle drizzle. The full force of the rain came crashing down, in the same force as a waterfall. Flare's entire body steamed as water evaporated instantly off his skin.
"Start the spell now." Sanacija spoke to him.
Flare nodded,face grimly determined. He threw Strahovlada's chain to the ground and muttered the first bit of the spell.
"Obilaziti." He muttered.
The chain started to extend and warp, tracing a circle around him and then stretching out to Strahovlada, tracing a large circle around her as well.
"NO!" Strahovlada roared. "There is no way you could have found out the spell!" She sounded shocked, angry, even scared slightly, and lashed her chains out at Flare. Flare didn't even flinch.
The chain sparked and recoiled inches from his face. Flare realized there was a shimmering red form encasing his body, glowing against the dark skies and the hammering rain, protecting him. He didn't understand it completely, but he wouldn't let himself get distracted. Not now, it was too critical. He closed his eyes, and lightning flashed and crackled close by. Flare lifted his right arm, and thrust his hand out. The palm of his hand glowed white-hot, and a ball of fire started to form and expand. He muttered the second word.
"Spojiti." He chanted.
A beam of light shone along the chain, Flare and Strahovlada. The entire world, the rain, the thunder, the lightning, the wind, everything seemed to fade into the distance. Time seemed to slow until it felt like liquid. Strahovlada roared and lashed at Flare, but still could not penetrate the glowing casing around Flare, who kept his eyes shut and his body ablaze.
"Fool!" Strahovlada screamed. "You cannot destroy me in my domain or you'll be destroyed with me!"
Flare's concentration started to crack. "Don't listen!" Sanacija called desperately. "She's trying to toy with your mind so she can break through your shield."
Strahovlada laughed. "I can hear you, Sanacija. You shouldn't have tried to fight back, because you'll go down with this troublesome Fire Brother."
Flare tried to hold his concentration against the voices of the twin spirits as they whispered pleads, taunts and calls in his mind. Both were trying to shift his state of mind, but in the end, he chose neither.
'I'm taking down Strahovlada, with or without Sanacija's help.' He thought. He focused his hand in the direction of Strahovlada's form and muttered the third word.
"Spaliti."
The ball of white-hot flames in his hand exploded and shot out and Starhovlada. Strahovlada's body was engulfed in flames, and she started writhing and thrashing, her body turning black against the light of the flames, her skin started crumbling slowly, her grotesque face melting horribly and her slimy, snakish lower body started to boil and bubble. The once proud, powerful and terrifying Spirit of Terror had started to turn into a wailing funeral pyre.
"NOOOO...!" She screamed demonically. "You shall not destroy me!" She summoned her spear with her crumbling, skeletal hands and morphed it into a massive spiked shuriken, throwing it with all her force at Flare.
"Flare!" Sanacija cried. "Open your eyes!"
The call was so full of fear and desperation that Flare listened and opened his eyes. He saw the gleaming blade of the shuriken spinning towards him. His eyes narrowed and he ducked quickly, but left his left hand upwards just fractionally, but it was enough for the shuriken to strike and saw off his three middle fingers.
Flare screamed in pain. He brought his hand up to his face and stared, shocked in horror and agony. His fingers wer gone, while the remainder of his hand immediately started to bleed violently, the remaining bones and nerves hanging loose from his hand.
Flare felt faint, the protective casing around him shattering, his body wrapping in pain and his cuts and wounds starting to bleed rapidly again.
Strahovlada laughed, her body still burning. "I told you, you can't win." She chided. "Accept defeat now, and resign your will to me."
Flare cursed, his eyes stinging with pain. He held his hands down, letting the blood drip and fall to the ground as reality faded in, the pouring rain returning and mixing into the growing puddle of blood around him.
Flare swore and cursed. His body was now completely streaked in blood, coating completely over his increasingly pale skin, shaking uncontrollably. His face had become a mirror of darkness, giving nothing away and radiating hatred. "NO!" I WILL NOT SURRENDER!" He roared defiantly, his body once more bursting into flames. "YOU WILL NOT GET AWAY WITH KILLING MY FAMILY AND EVERYTHING THAT WAS IN MY LIFE, INCLUDING MY LIFE!" He shakily raised his hand and shouted out the last part of the spell, no longer caring if it didn't work now: "PROGNANIK!"
The flames wrapping Strahovlada exploded with a violent flash. Strahovlada screamed even louder, her form slowly melting into a swirling, crimson vortex that had appeared below her.
"NOOO...!" She screamed as she was dragged in to the vortex. "You will not defeat me! Not without me taking your life! It's my turn to cast a spell! My last laugh to ending your life, even if you've ended mine!" As her body was forcibly sucked into the vortex, eradicating her demonic presence from the world forever, she yelled: "RASTRGATI!"
The vortex caved in on itself, exploding at evaporating into millions of crimson particles, leaving behind only a small, black pouch, the one that contained Flare's heart. The lightning and rain suddenly stopped as well, the sun finally starting to break through the haze and the clouds, even though it was extinguished his body and sighed with relief, calmly letting the blood drip gently to the ground, but it was short-lived. His body started to tremble and jerk violently and uncontrollably.
"What's happening?" He muttered nervously. His entire body felt as if it was trying to pull itself apart, the blood now gushing out painfully from every opening in his body, including his mouth and eyes. Flare screamed as the unimaginable pain racked his body, before all the blood burst from out of his body in a violent, crimson explosion, sending every last bit of blood and flying and scattering in every direction. Flare's brain started to lose conciousness, and he understood that when he fell, he wasn't going to get back up.
"Goodbye family, I hope I took revenge for you." He whispered weakly, before his legs buckled and he fell to the ground face-first into the growing puddle of his own blood. As he lay while his eyes closed, his breathing subsiding and his brain started shutting down, he thought of one last thought.
'I defeated Strahovlada.'
Flare closed his eyes and stopped breathing, and lay still.
End of Chapter 8.
Gah, that was too intense for me, so that's why it took so long to finish. Hope it was good enough. There will be one last chapter though, so don't give up just yet.
