Chapter fourteen: Freaks
Groggily, i slowly came to.
I don't know how but...that sickening miasma was gone.
Wait...aw shit, where am i now!?.
From what i could see i was in a forest, a proper one this time with leaves and grass and... fireflies?, i think.
There was still a fog, but far lighter than the previous one in comparison but...
I looked up.
And was left breathless.
It was quite possibly the most beautiful night sky i had ever seen, a rainbow of purples, pinks and blues adorned with uncountable star's twinkling amongst the kaleidoscope of what galaxies i could see.
And the moon...
"Enjoying the view?".
"Wha-?".
I turned around to face whoever was behind me.
She was a young woman or seemed to be, i couldn't properly tell. Her outfit was bizarre to say the least, it showed too much and left nothing to the imagination...
...I couldn't help but find her suspicious, as far as i could tell we were the only people here though in her case...i don't think 'person' could apply.
"... Wait...i...could have sworn i was...".
"Dying?, you were more or less. No need to thank me but~ i do appreciate praise now and again so go ahead if you'd like".
Now that I'm remembering, i checked myself over. To my shock my once tattered and bloody clothes were practically good as new, whatever injury i sustained was gone too...
...Too good, this was too good to believe, either I'm actually dead or...
"If you really did save me, how?".
"Hmm... Nothing much, i just stopped time, reversed your's and brought you here. Pretty simple huh".
...Did she really...
...Why am i surprised...
"You... stopped time..." i let out an annoyed sigh "Alright, well where the hell are we?".
"The other side, nowhere else to go really".
"Other side?".
"Well, not the 'other side' as in afterlife, sort of" she started "How do i put this?...okay, so the forest you're familiar with, the one you've been running all around is formed by two sides, the one you know is the 'physical'. A place where mindless, soulless bodies constantly kill eachother, die and get back up to start the whole thing over and over again, This is the 'spiritual'. Something that can best be described as a resting place for those called...".
The word she spoke left me frozen.
Not because of the word itself, but the ramifications...the realisation of the true scope that my new 'life' if such a thing could be called life held.
"...Hades".
"Hades...you don't mean...!?".
That eerie grin of hers and herself had taken on a more unnerving feeling than she already gave off, just what the hell is she.
"I'm not quite sure you'd understand it but your not the only you that's running around calling yourself that. This has been going on for quite some time now, 'hades' popping up somewhere and keeping to themselves...for a while".
Her smug expression never left her face as continued to explain, it was all too difficult for me to believe 'that's bullshit!', 'impossible!', 'you're probably lying, monster!'...and yet, deep down somehow...i knew she was right.
"Then they start causing trouble. A genocide here, a conquest there, some go insane and just kill everything around them, some try to 'help' by taking over and running everything like a machine".
I moved back a few steps as she jumped off the tree she was sitting on, now on the ground with me she walked over to my side and...sat down... she's definitely worse than BB.
There wasn't much to do around from what i could see so i just sat down with her as we both gazed at the night sky.
that was what i was going to do, before i noticed it next to her.
A nightmare...no...a hades.
submerged in the ground and practically drowning in overgrowth. I couldn't help but wonder...who was he?, was he like me?, was our choice in false name's the only thing we had in common?. What journey did he take to eventually lie here, what choices did he make and what were their consequences, who did he have to face along his path. All these and more as questions swarmed my mind, this wasn't a corpse to brush aside...this was...IS...a person...a ME...who went through what I've been experiencing and probably did so much that could from even my perspective be called miracles or magic, but here he lay...i wonder...what he's dreaming about.
"...Why...".
That's all i could ask.
"Why... the answers difficult but the underlying reason is all the same".
I was sitting with her now, both of us gazing at the star's.
"They gave up".
"What?."
"they gave up, simple as that. There are just something's that even you can't handle, they kept going, kept fighting, kept living until they couldn't handle it anymore and wanted a way out. Some tried finding someone or something that could kill them, hard to do when everything that could is already long gone. Others tried to live as far away as possible from any other being in seclusion like that would work, some went dormant and never moved again. It always starts differently but end's the same way, they always end up here".
Always...
No.
I wasn't going to let it end here, i couldn't. After all there were a few idiots i couldn't just leave alone and get into trouble, not to mention whoever tried to kill me could go after one and her sisters. I couldn't just leave them with something like that after all the help they've been.
"How do i leave".
Her smug look had fallen, confusion and curiosity had taken it's place and the unnerving sense I felt from her seemed to waver for the slightest moment.
"Leave?, in all my life here not once did I ever thought I'd hear those word's uttered. There is a way to leave this place, in fact it's probably the easiest thing to do here. The problem for you however is where it is".
"And that would be?".
"The same place you almost died, of course".
That place again...
It was all to suspicious, I couldn't help but think about what had happened and how it did. Every time it kept coming back to the same conclusion over and over again, I couldn't help but ask...
"The cathedral...when you saved me, did you see?".
Even if I didn't want to know...
"Who did it, attack me".
"Oh?, that. Surprised you didn't ask about that first, it was-".
Even if it was the truth.
" -one".
Even though I knew, i couldn't help but wonder why.
Why did she try to kill me?, there was nothing I did that I could recall that would justify trying to kill me or anything else for that matter. It didn't make any sense, which I could use to describe everything that's happened ever since I woke up.
I was missing something, something important. This entire place...this forest was a resting place for different versions of myself, possibly made by another me or this girl, was it related to that? perhaps. One did know about her and her sisters true nature as intoners, if I remember right, so it wouldn't have been suspicious if she figured something out about this place...or whoever got me in this mess in the first place.
I needed to know.
Why did she try to kill me.
How to get out of here.
And...if I could get them out too.
"... Alright, so...how am I supposed to..?".
"Oh, right!. I'll handle that, but before you go" she replied as we both stood up, walking over she placed a hand on my chest I wasn't sure why but I was quickly answered by a... uncomfortable sensation, as though something utterly foreign had entered by very being and just as quickly, left.
"It's not much but it should do for now".
Space itself distorted next to me.
An infinitely folding space that folded in on itself infinitely, tearing into a space beyond space, which in turn continually distorted upon itself opening into something that could only be described as a shape that gave way to...to...to...
I didn't know.
"There, walk through this and you'll back like you never left".
It was hard for me to believe her, but she has done nothing but help me, she didn't seem like the type to screw me over for no reason either.
Breath in, breath out.
I steeled myself as I stepped through.
And like that.
I was back there.
The doors loomed before me, opened as though to draw me in. I walked forward into the cathedral's abyss, the miasma that overwhelmed me before was practically nonexistent now as though the cripplingly hurricane of emotions that overwhelmed me before were not but a distant unwelcome memory, was it because of her and whatever she did to me?.
My surroundings had become pitch black, I continued to walk through this sea's dark depths as what had been a floor gave way to stairs and thusly I descended into the dark below.
Gold.
After walking for what felt like hours, the unwavering darkness soon began to give way to gold.
All around me was a sea of gold.
All around were the decrepit ruins of buildings, from what little I could discern they seemed to have been built near a shore or seaside.
All around were the decrepit remains of barley recognisable bodies, withered husk's drained to the bone.
Both falling in endless numbers from on high and into that...
Deep.
Deep.
Gold.
The stairs continued for a time, pitch black in contrast to the surrounding gold, and eventually ended.
Before me was a large circular platform, various rings of gold ran across the it's black surface. It was considerably sizable, a few kilometres perhaps more.
And she was there.
Four.
Spear in hand, she stood there. A breathtaking sentinel who's mere visage defeat anyone who faced her before the fight even began.
"You certainly know how to keep a girl waiting, here I was thinking you'd never come".
"Where's one".
"Not sure really" she started "we got separated when we walked in here. No clue where my sister's are, but how about you forget about them for a moment".
Slowly, she walked towards me.
It was almost like second nature.
My right hand shot up to block her spear's path, the tip barely got through my palm.
My arm, shouldn't have been able to do that.
My arm as pitch black as the night sky, shouldn't have been able to stop a spear being thrust by a superhuman.
My arm...
My arm...
No...
My...
Weapon.
Shapes shot out from my arm, no, blade's, blade's lashed out at four from my blackened limb. she had dislodged her weapon from my hand and jumped away before she could be sliced by the appendages formed from my arm.
Like a starved beast I wouldn't let her get away from me, I chased her at speeds I never knew before and grabbed her ankle.
"Wha-!?".
My fist interrupted her, smashing five's head into the ground with enough force to crack apart the unknown material.
I was over her now, one hand keeping her down the other pummeling her face over and over and over and over again.
My unrelenting assault was interrupted by her spear skewering through my abdomen.
Shit.
Blood forced itself out me, thankfully it entered at an angle and missed my spine...my right kidney and some of my intestines weren't as lucky.
I stood up, stumbled away from her as I griped the weapon. The pain left my mind in a daze and unfortunately gave five enough time to recover, before I knew it I was on the floor with a numb, bloody face.
"Graaaaahh!".
I screamed as her spear was pulled out, I winced as, instinctively, i pressed hard on my wound. I looked up at her and saw that five was as bloody and beaten as I was, but knowing how barely human the intoners were I was skeptical if she was as equally winded.
Stupid.
How the hell could I be this stupid.
I should have tried to talk.
Why...
Why did she...
Why was doing this so easy...
Closer...
Closer...
Closer...
She kept getting closer...all that blood...
I...
Please...I...I don't...
I don't want to lose anything else...
I shut my eyes closed as hard as I could...
No matter how hard I wanted...this was it.
And yet, like a child I closed my eyes as if that would do anything...all I could do now...was wait...
And wait...
Wait...
Wait?...
I opened my eyes...and what I saw was something I couldn't call anything but a miracle.
Five, poised above me with spear raised to finish me off... skewered by the massive blade that was my arm, from just above her collar bones all the way down to her waist. Clattering echoed as her arm's fell limp, the only thing keeping her up was obvious, the victory, if I could call it that, was hard to swallow let alone accept.
The beating of my heart deafened my ears, copper invaded my mouth and my body was shaking.
I gasped, taking in sharp breaths as if I'd forget to if I stopped.
And there she was.
"Well...how does it feel...being this close inside someone..?".
...Even at a time like this...
"... It's...It feels wrong".
It was disgusting, wrong...it really did feel wrong, it was terrifying as well... watching the life leave her eyes.
Five went limp.
I fell back, whatever strength I had left me and caused my limbs to go limp. I gasped as if I was holding my breath for far too long.
I felt sick.
I forced myself up, arm by arm, leg by leg. I stood up on limbs that shaked and buckled, forcing a step forward I knew I didn't have the strength to stay up...Until a rush came over me as I stepped forward, renewed strength flowed through me.
Power.
It felt similar.
Like IT'S power...but different.
Familiar but alien...
I didn't have the time to react or think over this new strength as a...bell?...yes, a bell. A bell rang behind me.
I turned and found...
An elevator...?.
Why would...the Gothic structure opened as though beckoning me...'keep going'...'deeper...go deeper'...
I couldn't help to give her one last glance before I entered the elevator, the machines fence like doors closed and almost instantly began to ascend, all that was in there besides me was a chair.
...I don't care what's next.
I need to get back, those idiots probably started a war by now... hopefully not... hopefully...
I looked to my arm...I can't let my feelings get in the way, even if they really are my enemies...I didn't want to fight...but...I can't just let myself keel over either, 'Geez, I can't believe you're that hopeless without us, huh senpai?'... She'd probably say something like that...
Yeah...I have to fight.
I have to kill.
No hesitation.
I have to keep going...no matter what...