Dark Warning
Lilith sensed herself standing on the edge of a cliff. The air was frigid, and mixed ash and snow were falling. The scene was tinted a depressing blue hue. Lightning flashed as she held the Yamato over her head. Volcanoes rumbled in the distance and covered the sky with black and grey.
Lilith held her hand up as if to capture a handful of snow and ash. When a snowflake hit her palm, she felt a dull burning, as if the snow were frozen fire. She struggled to maintain her footing as a nearby volcano began to erupt again. Smoke and black rocks were blown from the top. A pyroclastic flow rushed down the mountainside. Lilith watched as the superheated rocks tumbled over the edge of a cliff and into a lake far below. The water bubbled as poisonous acidic steam floated towards her.
"Is this a dream?" she asked herself. She knew the question had no meaning.
"Unfortunately, no," a man said.
Lilith sighed as she turned to see who had invaded her vision. As she expected, she saw her paternal grandfather's image. "A vision of the future?" she offered.
"Possibly." Without an explanation, Sparda walked away from her. As she had done many times before, Lilith followed him without question. Time and space passed her unnoticed. The volcanic scene was gradually and seamlessly replaced with an open field. The air was still freezing cold, though there was no snow. The ground cracked with frost. Sparda continued on until several long poles appeared in the distance. Lilith approached him from behind until she was close enough to rest her chin against his arm.
"Look," he said.
Lilith stepped around him. Ahead, there were several poles sticking up from the ground. What appeared to be human bodies were suspended in the air between them. "What is that?" she asked, but when she turned back to Sparda, he was gone. Feeling uneasy, Lilith continued alone towards the poles. As she grew closer, the smell of death filled her nostrils. Her pace slowed down as she grew close enough to realize what she was seeing.
The poles were large sharp stakes reaching towards the darkened sky. The human bodies she previously thought were suspended were actually impaled on the stakes. While most were obviously dead, some of them made minor twitching moves or moaned weakly as proof that they still lived. Lilith closed her eyes as if trying to wish the image away, but the sounds and smell refused to disappear. She finally opened her eyes and walked through the artificial forest of torment. She kept her eyes straight ahead and her mind blank. A few meters ahead, she heard what she thought was laughter.
"What bastard could possibly think this was funny? Even Dracula was too serious."
The laughter grew louder as she approached the center of the stake forest. The stake quivered slightly as the person impaled on top rocked it with his body. Lilith followed the bloodtrail on the stake upwards until she saw the person on top. She gasped and swallowed putrid air when she recognized him.
"Kaliel!"
Kaliel continued to laugh. At the same time, his bloodstained hands were stuffing raw bleeding flesh into his mouth. Lilith backed away until she walked into something solid. A large cold arm with large chunks of flesh missing wrapped itself around her neck.
(X)
"Where is her mother?" Kyra asked. "What happened to her?"
Dante blew dust from the edge of the chess board. "What difference does it make? It's been twenty years. A lot happens in that time."
"Just answer the question, you big baby, and move my D pawn to D4."
Sitting on Kyra's right, Eryc moved the piece for her instead. Dante lifted his hand to make his next move. He nearly knocked a chess piece over when Kyra repeated her question. Dante caught it and returned it to its original position. "Don't startle me like that. I could have cheated."
"No, you couldn't have. So, what happened to Deanna?" Dante's response was to simply move another game piece. "I don't like your answer," Kyra said.
"What do you mean?"
"Silence is a response in itself. I know Deanna is dead now. You might as well tell me what happened. I'm not a child, you know, especially since I was older than Deanna."
Dante realized too late that he had been staring into her blind eyes. "Well, it was poison. She drew it from Lilith's body into her own to save Lilith's life."
Kyra leaned back as if he had said something offensive. "You mean, she used a shamanic healing ritual. Knowing full well that it would kill her."
"Yes."
"And there was no other way?"
"If there were, I would have found it. It's too long and complicated to explain."
"I have all the time in the world."
"I don't."
Kyra shrugged. "Now I feel like an idiot."
"Why is that?"
"The last time you and I saw each other, you accused me of being a liar and a traitor, and I accused you of being a selfish jackass." Kyra laughed. "Do you remember?"
"Vaguely," Dante lied.
Kyra's laugh died as quickly as it had arrived. "I never got to tell her goodbye."
Suddenly changing the subject, Dante asked, "What do you want from us? You told me that you'd revealed our arrival to Kaliel. Why? And why is he so upset by it?"
"You already know part of the answer. I told him you knew he was lying about his heritage."
"Does he know how I know?"
Kyra shook her head. "Not in the slightest, and I highly recommend you keep it that way."
"If Lilith keeps her own mouth shut. What else is there? There is more to it than that. I'm sure it requires more than my daughter insisting he's a liar to get him testy."
Kyra's blank eyes dropped to the board. "I told him about people falling from the sky and rising from the sea. I told him that you were here to destroy his civilization."
Dante deliberately focused on the wrong part of her comment. "His civilization? Are you sure it's not someone else we're here for?"
Kyra shook her head. "All these years, and you still haven't grown up. You don't realize what I'm telling you. The people here look up to me as the Pythia to give them hope. Kaliel was the only one on this entire island upset by my prophecy."
"How's that? What does he really have to lose, considering everyone else was happy about what you said?"
Kyra began to feel tired. "He's a tyrant. He abuses his power and terrorizes innocent people."
Dante was completely silent. Kyra leaned towards Eryc. "Is he still here?"
"He's waiting for you to elaborate," Eryc said. "And he's checked your king."
(X)
Lilith awoke screaming in a cold sweat. She quickly pushed the bedsheets back and placed her feet against the floor. She tried to stand, but her knees became weak. She dropped to the floor and vomited onto the carpet.
"Dad," she tried to call, but it came out as a weak croak. Lilith quickly surveyed her surroundings before remembering she was not at home. She was sleeping in a guest room in Kaliel's mansion. She closed her eyes and reached out mentally to get a sense of where her father was. She sensed him on the floor below her. She stood and leaned against the bed as she tried to recall what frightened her so badly. She vaguely remembered her vision of Kaliel and the stakes.
"A bad day in Wallachia," she said to herself. She reached for her clothes and slipped them on. She then moved to lie down again until another wave of nausea swept over her. She quickly stood and headed for the balcony for some fresh air.
(X)
"He's as bad a monster as the ones he claims he's trying to protect us from," Kyra said. "He sullies your father's name as an excuse to go on power trips."
"I'll accept that," Dante said. "What does he do that makes everyone happy for destruction?"
"They don't know what he's really doing. They think that they will be free of this island. That you're some sort of messiah who will clear them of their past crimes."
"But I'm not."
"That doesn't matter. They just want to be rescued."
"From what?"
(X)
Lilith closed her eyes and tried to relax, but her efforts to do so were quickly undermined. Her ears were distracted by the familiar sound of several wings flapping all at once in the distance. Under this sound, she could make out soft screeching. She felt vibrations through her feet.
Lilith groaned as she opened her eyes. In the distance, she saw a tall black tower she had not noticed before. It easily reminded her of her dream. An indistinct, but suspiciously familiar, black cloud was spreading out from the tip of the tower.
