Hello everyone, ^^
I decided to cancel my story: "A Tormented Dream," which would be the sequel to the story: "Cursed Village" for a specific reason. I'll rewrite it.
In other words, my initial ideas started to get all mixed up, and I saw that the sequel I was writing, even though it was a good one, was in an unconscious context. I re-read the Cursed Village and decided to create a new sequel.
So, I apologize for the kudos and the favorites in the other story, but I think this version will be better.
Finally, let's get out of here!
That was the thought of both. After all, they'd just been through, what Judy and Nick wanted, was peace. At least for the first week. Then they'd have to be able to have a good talk with Jack and Alisha's relatives. Telling them their kids were dead wasn't easy. And talking about the circumstances of how they died was... mean. But they would ask, and Judy and Nick would have to tell the truth.
They reached the high gate they had entered when they reached the village. Nick let go of Judy's paw to get the gate open. Judy stayed a few feet behind. Turning her head back towards the now sunny village in peace, she did not win to the fright with what her eyes reflected.
"Nick..." her trembling voice called out to him without even turning to him and keeping her eyes fixed on what was in front of her.
"One second, Judy, and we're out of here!" the door was being hard to open.
"Nick..." she called him again, but this time her voice was a firm tone.
"Damn it, Carrots, you got..."
Shock, it was the expression that filled Nick's face when he turned to look at Judy and tell her to take it easy.
"No way!" the words came out in a whisper.
Not just Yae, but there was someone else. But it wasn't Natsuhiko and or Sae, but...
"Alisha?!" the name came out of the rabbit's lips in a stiff, hurt whisper. In her eyes, the tears began to form.
"No, it can't be!" Nick, turning his attention back to the damn gate and, with all his might, tried to break the damn gate. "Oh, no, I'm getting out of here. Like it or not!"
It was really Alisha. In that, there was no doubt. But there was something different. The naked fox's chest, it was all covered with a tattoo. Tattoo that Judy recognized. She was complete. Back, arms, and legs, all filled with a drawing of several snakes in shades of blue, red, and gray. Roses and cherry blossoms also in various shades. Even the face was covered by the tattoo. There was only one part that was not touched by the ink of the drawing. Making a kind of a hexagon, the first tip started in the middle of the neck. The tip on the left and the tip on the right remained in the middle of each breast. The last tip went all the way to the navel. Why that part wasn't tattooed, she didn't know. To complete, instead of the clothes, at her waist a kind of blue skirt, in which Judy realized that it was a kimono in which the upper part had been undressed, but the lower part had not been removed.
"I warned that for the ritual to be complete, a sacrifice was necessary."
Judy shuddered. Yae's voice, the voice that Judy thought she would no longer hear, sweated like an even deeper and terrifying echo. At her side, Alisha looked at her. Her beautiful blue eyes were now black and frightening. The smile on her snout, once irritating but kind, was nothing but evil. Even her voice made Nick's fur chill.
"The wedding will have to be held. The ritual of the bloody moon lived once more. No more the village, no more the suffering. You will need to follow my story. The story of the bride left to die in a cage. You will have the vision; you will have the truth. For now, this body will be perfect."
And just as they appeared, so they disappeared.
"Damn!" cried Nick in frustration. He banged his fists on the gate. "Why?"
"I think..."
"Oh, don't start, Judith Hopps! I won't, and I don't want to, put my feet there anymore." Keeping on grumbling, kicks were delayed at the gate non-stop.
However, Judy would know that they wouldn't leave there without finishing what Alisha had said.
"Will you stop it at once?" she screamed.
"This damn gate has to open!" and continued the kicks.
"You know as well as I do that the fucking gate won't open."
"I said it, and I'll say it again, I won't put my feet up there again!"
"Like it or not, that gate won't open."
Nick stopped. Panting hard because of the onslaughts, he let his paws rest on the wood and dropped his body a little forward. There they went again to play with death. They could only be joking with him. After all, they'd been through, were they going to keep playing side by side with another curse? What would that be this time? Marriage?
"But why the fuck does curses always have to do with fucking failed marriages or unrequited loves?!" Nick was furious. Super fucking mad. The words were spoken in a screaming tone.
Judy ignored him. She could explain why, but it would only infuriate him more.
"We'll have to go find out!"
"Another ritual. Another sacrifice. I'm sick of it."
"Just like me. However, I have a feeling a sacrifice will not be necessary. We're not incapable of escaping death, but I think that even though we have to fight for our lives, we have no ritual of death, if you understand me."
"Ritual or not, I just want to get rid of this!"
One more punch to the gate, and he swerved and approached his friend.
"Any plans?" Paws on his waist, he looked at her sideways.
"A library would come in handy to find out more!"
"Library?" he repeated the words and then remembered. "I know something like that. It could be the beginning."
Without delay, he grabbed Judy's paw, and they went back into the village no longer cursed. Or not?
How they got there, not even Nick knew it himself. His instinct said that that was the right way, although the first time he met there, in that cubicle, the way to there had not been decorated.
Judy, in turn, remembered that place well. When she passed there, the memories were painful. The ritual, the Natsuhiko, Jack's death, all came back in a whirlwind of emotions that shook her. However, shaking her head, she continued to follow the path behind Nick. Her eyes spent most of the time before they reached the cubicle, where she had several old books and notebooks on Nick's back. There was no time to talk about their feelings, although the words were not necessary to know how they felt about each other. When Judy went to talk, she just shut up. Nick's anger was painful for her, even though it wasn't her fault.
Sitting on the floor, each in every corner of the little cubicle, they took out some books and notebooks and started reading them. Judy searched for specific titles, including those of the rituals and about the festival of the bloody moon. Nick, on the other paw, stayed for the marriages. The word 'marriage' that Alisha had uttered earlier had remained in his memory. In a way, even though he no longer possessed any lost soul as before, there was something in that word that made his feelings stir without knowing why his sixth sense told him to look deeper into the subject.
"Nick?" Judy called him.
Rising from where she stood, she sat down next to the fox. The book was worn down by time, landed on her legs. With her index finger, she read what she had discovered.
"Under the full light, the dance must be recreated. The gods must be acclaimed, the priests remembered, and the priestess recognized."
Confusion. Both were confused. Nick looked at Judy with his eyebrows raised.
"I don't understand!" were the words he expressed. Judy kept reading.
"After being nailed by the tattoos on her body, the priestess has to recreate the dance of the gods on the full moon. These custom serves to bring prosperity to the marriage. For this, the chosen priestess must be of a special kind. A rare species in the midst of all the prevailing species." a pause.
"What species do you mean?" Nick asked.
Crossing his arms, he closed his eyes and thought. The twins were wolves, just like Natsuhiko. So was their father. Judy searched the memory that Natsuhiko had shown her when they had their first encounter. The villagers were all practically predators. Rare was the prey. There were some, but...
"No way!" the words came out of the rabbit's mouth in alarm.
Leaving a Nick confused, she stood up and resumed the pile of books she had taken off the shelf. Kneeling before the pile of books, Judy frantically searched with her paws for a particular book. Nick followed her immediately. Standing beside her, he stood. Pawed at the waist, he bent forward a little.
"What are you looking for?" he asked.
"The book of the villagers. In it are all the species that lived in this village and nearby." And Judy found the book. Leafing through it, she found the page she was looking for. "I knew it."
"Carrots?"
"Here, Nick." She lifted the book and pointed with her index finger. "The predominant species were predators. Wolves, tigers, leopards, among others. The prey was rare, but there was, of course. But the rare species was mine, rabbit."
"I don't understand, Carrots! Aren't you good at multiplying?" he tried to joke, but Judy's alarm expression made the mischievous smile disappear as soon as it had been put on his snout.
"The priestess who must be the offering to the angry gods were the female rabbits. In the old days, as good as we are to multiply, many of our own were killed, leaving only a litter of five or less".
"Where did you read about that?"
"It's the story of our ancestors, Nick." Judy turned the book over to her and flipped a few more pages. "Here..." and turned the book over to Nick again. "From what it says here, we're a kind of threat to predators. Such legend made the villagers of this village hate us. And those who were born into well-respected families were forced to come home with a different species, breed, and give themselves as an offering to calm the gods. However, rabbits and wolves, or rabbits, and other predators did not work, and the young died in their mother's womb. That is, when the elders realized that a new species would not be born, they began to give the female rabbits as a ritual, so that, in this way, the will of the gods would be appeased".
"What a thing. Today we have several species born of prey and predators and very healthy and even more beautiful than the species itself." Nick sighed for such a thing.
"Yeah, but even then, things used to be seen differently." Judy closed the book.
"This has to end. I don't give a shit about the old days. I just want to get out of here." Nick sighed once more and went back to where he was before. "Let's look for information on how to finish this new ritual without either of us dies." And he signed his last words well.
But Judy knew they were a long way from getting out of there so fast. Besides, that ritual... there was something not right.
To be continued…