Her breath, her smell, the touch of her skin on mine reached out across this lonely chest and slowly traced the curves of flesh until her claws gently raked against my lips and urged all attention be on her. Jade's eyes, emerald and sharp, stared into the orbs within my skull and searched the colored lines like racing men for a finish line she could reach.
Her lips, those warm muscles that gifted me the beauty of her words and voice, curved and carved air around them but no sound came out. Her touch was warm, and she let that hand fall down to much chest, where the heart nestled between the second and third rib, but when I reached out to touch, I could only feel the same warmth, mine, not hers.
Disappointed, I pulled away from her and peered out beyond our chamber embedded above the coliseum to watch the champions of Mortal Kombat all in melee.
The chaos was unique and never before seen during a tournament as rigid and traditionally respected as Mortal Kombat. It all began when D'Vorah assassinated the Queen of Edenia and then Kitana's forces charged in without hesitation.
Motaro, Rain, Shang Tsung, Goro, Raiden, Skarlet, all of them charged, but somehow I felt as though I should be there. There to show Kitana and Shao Kahn what a real leader did in this unprecedented situation. To face Shao Kahn and end him as Kitana should have, and to march side by side with Jade.
That's what a Kahn would do. That's what my father would have done, but here I am up here with Jade, letting the world pass us by.
D'Vorah raised up high with the two Gods, Fujin and Liu Kang as Kollector and Syzoth, Sheeva and the young Mileena found themselves in battle with their respective enemies. Jade and I would be here to watch it all unfold and claim the ruins.
A glance back, a coy smile on my lips at the prospect of us in rule together over Outworld, but her side of the bed was empty. My headdress fell to the floor, and the world stood still.
The battlefield was littered with bodies now. A headless Chameleon, the young construct Mileena slain by her own creator. Havik, Quan Chi, and D'Vorah had sewn the seeds of chaos and crumbled the very tournament. Shao Kahn's corpse on its knees with a hole that burned outward from within his chest. Not far from him, Jade, her head shattered like stolen fruit.
Here I was, away from it all, only able to watch the only person I had ever cared about strewn about the earth in the most gruesome fashion possible. The sight tightened my chest and opened my throat. This strangled esophagus began to convulse as bile clawed its way up and over my tongue. The jagged ledge of the window that peered over the arena tore away from the structure and my body began to fall.
My feet fell through the stone floor that just faded away like mud down a hill. Like lance to shield, by body was pierced and pinned to the stone wall that remained of this now ruined stadium. A quick look down revealed the survivors that chose to follow me all stared up as the others scattered in fear. Within my chest, Jade's staff struck between the third and second rib and held me as it sank deeper and deeper by the foot.
That warmth I had felt from her hand rippled across my bloodied chest. This was when I looked at my attacker.
Shang Tsung stood in the air, with no gravity to pull him down. He stood like it were earth, a small metal object in his hand glowed with a bright green light and a smug grin stretched across his face as it turned forward the hands of time to an older version of himself.
"Kotal Kahn, we are here to fight in Mortal Kombat." He then pointed toward the staff lodged between my chest, "are you that eager to die?"
"I will rule Outworld, and destroy you."
"Now, now, Ko'atal." Shang Tsung opened the small metal lid of that contraption and from it, plucked a green energy that spiraled around his finger and dangled like a ball before a cat. "What if I told you, I could bring her back?"
"No one has returned from the Nether Realm."
He snickered, and his body transformed into the mysterious sorcerer known as Quan Chi. To be honest, I knew little about this man, but it seemed Shang Tsung implied that he may have something to do with this offer that dangled like hope before my heart. As fast as he turned, Shang Tsung then faded back into his younger self.
"From this moment on, Kotal Kahn, my island will be your battleground."
He took a step back as his body shrunk to the form of Kitana and then faded entirely into the distance with Havik, Quan Chi, and D'Vorah as they fled fast for Shang Tsung's island.
The waking world was a vast disappointment. Should I live in my nightmares to see Jade die over and over again, I would take that over never seeing her again.
"What are you trying to tell me, Shang Tsung?" my breath spilled over the thin veil of cloth that pulled away from my chest to reveal a full sheet of skin over ribs and breast. No staff, no injury, no heart remained without Jade to pump it full of her joy and blood.
A slow stretch over the edge of the bed and glance at the port hole showed we were close to land. The Centuar Hills would now be the new epicenter of Outworld and the beginning of my Kingdom, but now I was curious.
Somewhere between the realms of Earth and Outworld, in a lost sea, waited Shang Tsung's Island, and perhaps the answer to an impossible question.
Can the dead return? What is the cost to return Jade?