Blood 1.6
"Am I going to see it again?" Freed wondered. His tone was almost wistful, if still perverse. I could see his red eyes look up at the ceiling above us. I didn't know who he was talking to. He had a tendency to lull off at random times. The depraved man had absolutely no filter. What came to his mind came out.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
Freed stopped walking. For a second, he was silent. The stray exorcist turned toward me. There was something in his eyes that I couldn't quite place. It didn't look natural, nothing about Freed ever did. He answered, "That look on your face. It was beautiful ya know?"
Gross. I thought. There was no other word to describe it. Freed's voice came out like he couldn't tell if he wanted to kill me or just swoon like a schoolgirl. It was gross. It sent disgusting shivers down my spine. I kept quiet. I only had to put up with him for a while longer. I'd be leaving behind this town soon enough. I just needed to get back up on my feet and figure out things from there.
Like always, Freed kept talking.
"I mean it really hurt, but isn't that just the point? It's supposed to hurt! That's what's fun about it." He stopped, turning his head down to the wooden floor. Was he really doing this? Now? Here of all places? Freed prattled on, "You wanted to kill me. I wanted to kill you. I could see it then! That's what life is all about! We were in the moment, we were like star-crossed lovers doomed to die. We were alive!"
"What in the fuck are you going on about?" I said, annoyance lacing my tone. Freed didn't answer.
I heard something shift in the darkness. It rattled and then cracked. Pieces of glass shattered as something thumped along in the dark. I could feel my heart start to wildly thump in my chest. I held the sword in one hand and the revolver in the other. A cold chill passed over my neck as I stared into the dark. A cold chill passed over me. The dark was staring back.
There was something there. It was watching me. A single eye opened up into the darkness. It was a large yellow slit, like a cat's. The orb stared back at me with a baleful gaze. I stood there shocked. More eyes opened in the dark. There were two. Three. Four. Five. Too many to count. It was like a sea of yellow, all centered in a circle not even twenty feet away from me.
Freed silently pointed his firearm into the dark.
A voice called out. I couldn't tell if it was male or female. It warbled and growled, its octaves switching between high and low. It seemed to set off a feeling in the old monkey part of my brain as it spoke. The words came out just enough to be understandable while at the same time being utterly inhuman.
"Father? Mother? Are you there? I'm hungry...It's so dark in here. Where am I? It hurts. Mommy? Where'd you go? We're all so hungry!"
Freed laughed as he fired, calling out, "Bang!" with every single shot. He acted like a child playing with his toys. If I didn't already know what to expect, I probably would've felt sickened. For the exorcist, I supposed this was business as usual.
Bright flashes illuminated the dark. They sparked like lightning, exploding out of the end of Freed's gun. I could see the beast. It was hulking, an innumerable amount of eyes facing both Freed and my direction. Nothing about it was recognizable. It had long spindly limbs, they were black almost like charred bone. Each one of the four looked more broken than the last, darting out like vines from its body. The creature's teeth were interwoven down its circular torso, I could see tentacle-like tongues darting in and out of them. The orifice didn't resemble a mouth. There was no other word for it. It was a maw. Dark black blood dripped from its bottom. It sizzled into the wooden floor, quickly evaporating. It was an utterly inhuman monster.
The stray devil jumped, tackling Freed to the ground. Freed let out a groan of pain as it latched onto his shoulder. Its teeth mashed together, slowly gaining a coating of bright red blood.
I-I need to move. I thought. A cowardly thought pushed itself into my mind. I should just run. Leave Freed to that monster. Hopefully, they'd just kill each other. My heart was beating out of my chest. My arms were shaking. Logically, I knew it would be the best idea. I should just turn around and throw myself outside this building. I should take Asia and run. The rest of Raynare's group I could deal with later. They weren't exactly competent. My palm itched.
Why didn't I move? I needed to move. I couldn't beat this thing. It was going to kill me. There was no way. Blood was roaring in my ears. My foot came up. Why was I moving forward? I tried to say something. I felt my lips move but no words came out. What was I doing? I tried to run. My body stayed still. It's like my limbs wouldn't listen to me. Every time I tried to move in the other direction, a disgusting sense of wrongness came to my mind. I tried to move. Nothing. I was fighting against myself.
The monster ripped back its maw taking with it a chunk of Freed's shoulder. I could hear him scream as it went in for another bite, the man below it trying to shove the thing off. He'd long since spent the rest of the ammunition in his revolver. The two wrestled on the floor, kicking and screaming. It wasn't a fight. It was something else. A struggle for survival. Freed jammed his fingers into one of the thing's many eyes. The creature wailed.
I felt something watching me. It was like a dark billowing cloud, slowly enveloping me. It was massive, yet incorporeal. It was a like a ghost, a presence, but more powerful. It felt like it was everywhere and nowhere at once. It snaked into my mind, forcing its way in. I felt pressure on my temples. I couldn't resist. All of a sudden, it was in. It broke through like a dam, spewing black smoke like water.
Thoughts of my earlier conversation with Asia flashed into my mind. Something else was there with me, in my mind. It was foreign to me. It was like a dark void in the back of my head. Shivers ran down my spine. Was it the possible god we talked about? Something else? This presence, god or not, wasn't happy. It felt like a pair of eyes were boring their way into my spine. I could feel anger, rage. It permeated my mind like a rotten soup, slowly pouring tendrils of black into my thoughts. The presence acutely made me deftly aware of itself. It almost felt goading, like it wanted me to try and resist. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to think. Where did it come from? What was it? What was it doing?
The thing didn't care.
It felt wrong. Utterly alien. It was horrid. Entirely inhuman, yet familiar all the same. The presence, I could feel it. It was disgusted. Hatred bled into my thoughts. Me. It was disgusted with me. Words came to my mind, Oily and black. I saw flashes of something dark and horrible. They were fleeting, like drops of rain in a red sea. There was metal, brass. A throne, its base like a mountain. It reached into the sky. I saw other things, too many to count. Each one was more cruel and shocking than the last. My brain trembled. The presence was doing something.
The presence spoke to me. There were no words, but I understood it all the same. It sent images to my mind. Feelings. Thoughts that weren't my own. It said I was a coward. I was undeserving. It didn't care about me. I should die where I stand. It didn't care about anything. I was a bet. No, not a bet. I was an investment. It wanted something from me. A dark sense of amusement billowed out into my mind like a gray fog. I felt like I was choking on its thoughts. They were large, bigger than my own. I felt like a mouse in front of a cat. It was like trying to fit the ocean into a simple cup. Impossible. There wasn't enough room. My head felt like it was going to burst. Blood trickled out of my nose. Dark laughter rang in my ears.
"Get off me you ugly fuck!" growled Freed. I heard a small button click. A white light illuminated the stray exorcist's face. He'd drawn his sword. Sizzling blood splashed as he fought. It was mixed with his own, making a thick brown slop on them both. I couldn't move. The presence, it wouldn't let me. I wasn't in control of my own body. It was frightening. If this was the god that had "blessed" me, I didn't want anything to do with it.
I hated it. I wanted it gone, out of my mind. I called it a liar. I gnashed my teeth. I screamed names into the void of my mind. What it said wasn't true. I bit my lip. Blood dripped down my chin. It hurt. I wasn't going to die here, not after all this. This was my body. It was my mind. If that thing, god or not, wanted me to die, it could suck it. It wasn't going to happen, not today. I felt a flash of amusement in my mind. I still couldn't move. Suddenly, everything changed.
It felt like my blood was boiling.
Adrenaline pumped through my body like some kind of yet unknown drug. I'd never felt this way before. It kept my mind moving a hundred miles a minute. My hand was on fire. It sent lines of molten metal up my veins. My vision was blurry. All my other thoughts left me. It was laughing again. The noise thundered in my ears. It was violent, brutal. It still didn't speak. I felt woozy, almost like I'd just downed an entire bottle of alcohol. Despite this, my thoughts were clear. The clarity was sudden. It was purposeful. I knew what I needed to do. I knew what I was going to do.
I ran forward. My feet thundered on the ground. My muscles screamed in protest. I ignored it. It wasn't important. I had to move. I had to act. If I stayed still, I'd die. Thinking was no longer an option. I opened my mouth. I tried to speak, to say anything at all. It was like I couldn't remember how. Every time I tried to think of anything other than rushing forward, it simply leaked out of my head. Instead, I yelled, outright screaming my lungs out. I could feel pain in my throat. Something warm trickled down my left arm. I ignored it. It wasn't important. Nothing else mattered. I raised the sword up overhead, leaping.
I was on the creature's back. My longsword was stuck into its flesh. Rivulets of blackened blood dripped all over me. It was warm. The stray deviled cried. Its warbled tone echoed out like that of a hurt child. It was loud, extremely so. The monster bucked. Both of my hands held a weapon. The sword tore from the devil's back. I couldn't hold on. It threw me to the floor. I think my ears were ringing.
A large line was drawn down the monster's back. I pulled myself up. The creature screamed. Faster than I could react, a limb shot toward me. Pain came from the middle of my shoulder. One of its blackened appendages stuck through to the other side. I quickly grabbed the limb, dropping the revolver. Growling, I wrenched up my sword. It sliced through the offending limb without any trouble. A large piece stayed embedded in my flesh. It hurt. I could still move. The wound wouldn't kill me.
The stray screamed, falling back to the ground. Its limbs flailed. Black blood leaked out from its wounded appendage. It came like a fountain, spraying all over me. I felt its vital fluids prick at my skin; the blood burned. My lips twitched. It was screeching, flailing on the ground. My teeth were bared. My lips curled to my gums. I felt great. This was fun. I grabbed my dropped weapon. This was the most fun I'd ever had. I laughed aloud. I've done things I've enjoyed before but this? This was living! Nothing else could compare. I was truly alive. I'd give everything else up for this feeling. It was rage. It was malice. It was bloodlust. It was entirely unnatural. It was a mixture of all these things.
It was pure ecstasy.
Blood dripped down my chest with the thunderous rhythm of my heart. I raised my arm. The revolver was light in my hand. For a second, I waited. I stood there, staring into the thing's many eyes. I was going to kill it. I don't know why, but I was going to kill it. It was going to die. I wanted it to die screaming. A small thought came to my mind. Shouldn't I care about killing something? It wasn't a person, but still, there should be something there. For a second, my arm dropped. A fire raged in my heart. My thoughts blurred, quickly slipping away.
I raised the gun and fired.
Bullets ripped into the stray devil. It screeched. I kept pulling the trigger. Six shots came out of the barrel of my gun. I frowned as a clicking noise came to my ears. I threw the empty weapon to the ground. The stray devil twitched on the ground. I approached it on the floor. Hundreds of yellow eyes watched me. There was something in them. Fear. It tried to crawl along the ground. The beast left a trail of black blood as it moved. It held its limbs above its body, cowering.
"Useless," I said. I gripped the longsword in both hands. A voice called out from behind me.
"Damn Jack, you just gonna steal the whole show?"
Who? I thought. Freed. I ignored him. He wasn't important. He wasn't a threat to me, not now. He wasn't my enemy. He wasn't an ally either. I looked back to the stray devil on the ground. I needed to do something. My body moved without any input of my own. I lifted the sword up over my head. It swung down, swishing through the air. It wasn't a pretty strike. There was absolutely no skill carried in it. It was simple but brutal in its effectiveness. I used the sword like an axe, chopping at the stray devil's flesh.
The stray devil twitched a final time. Its bulbous body leaked black on the floor. I frowned. I was missing something. I stabbed it again, slowly pulling the sword in and out. The stray didn't move. Why? My frown deepened. I still felt like I was missing something. Why wasn't it getting up? My head felt cloudy.
"That's it?" I muttered. I could hear Freed approach me from behind. I stabbed the beast. It didn't move. My face contorted with rage. My foot flew out, smashing into the stray's side. I felt pain in my joints as it hit. The monster's side sunk in. It refused to move. I was seeing red. Glaring, I said, "Get up already!"
I heard a man laughing. It was child-like, almost innocent. At the same time, I knew there was nothing good about it. It grated my nerves. Leaving the sword where it was, I turned around. Freed watched me, a wide smile on his face.
"Feels good doesn't it?" He laughed again. The stray exorcist watched my face. He was looking for something. If he found it, I couldn't tell, but Freed continued on all the same. "Really sends shivers down a man's spine. Sucks that the worthless devil was such a quick shot though."
The burning pit of fire in my body started to go out. Small embers of it reached my mind. The presence, the god, whatever you wanted to call it, was gone. My body hurt. It felt like I just ran a hundred-mile marathon without stopping. I felt weak, weary even. My bones ached. I was alone. Alone with Freed. Without thinking, I mumbled, "Yeah..."
Freed smiled. He was quick to respond, "I know right?" He stopped for a second, examining the dead devil. Hatred burned in his eyes. They shined a fiery red, I could practically see flames behind them. "You should've made it suffer. Shitty devils and those bedeviled by them deserve the worst you can offer."
What is his malfunction? I thought. He had to have a reason to hate devils so much. It was almost all he talked about, beyond wistful bits of poetry about murder. Freed was an annoying, murderous puzzle. It was one that I also had absolutely no intention to solve. I had too much on my mind. Happy and worried thoughts were myriad. I'd won. I'd killed the stray devil. I frowned. For some reason, it didn't feel like a victory. It left a dirty taste in my mouth. For a few moments, I stared at its corpse. I was disappointed. The stray devil was disappointing.
The fire inside me died.
I tried to step forward, putting out my right foot. It collapsed under my weight. I gasped. Acute pain rushed up my leg. Tears built up in my eyes. I could feel it ripping into my nerves like a shark. I was on one knee, just barely holding myself from the ground. I quickly exhaled from my lungs. I tried to push myself back up. That was a bad idea.
More pain came to me, from my shoulder. I still had a piece of that thing stuck in me. The appendage was about an inch in diameter. The limb was black and dark. I could see spines. It had spurs, like the barbs on a hook, facing from where I had cut it off. Shit. I'd have to push it the rest of the way through. How could I still move my arm? The attack went in the front and out the back, taking a large chunk of my flesh with it. Red blood steadily leaked its way from the wound.
Freed stood over me, gawking. He still had a grin on his face. He lightly poked the spear-like limb. It hurt. I grit my teeth and glared. With a small chuckle, Freed said, "It got you too, huh? Nasty bit of work there."
I was ignoring every word that came out of his mouth. I felt nothing other than pain. Trying not to jostle my body, I turned myself over. I let out a slow breath before laying on my back. Freed was still talking.
Many questions rang in my mind.
What happened back there? How did I do that? It left me barely standing, but I'd cut that monster to pieces! That and...My eyes glazed over.
Memories came to me. There was something else there. The mark had done something. I saw it. There was smoke, fire, and a river of blood. It hurt to think about. Something had been there, it rooted through my head like it owned the place. Then, it laughed at me. It mocked me. Called me a coward. I yelled back at it.
Numbly, I thought, Did I yell at a god?
I brought my left hand to my face. The skull-like mark was there. Its face mockingly stared back at me. I was forgetting something. I knew of this thing from somewhere. Memories of an old tabletop game came to my mind. It was on the tip of my tongue. I stared at my hand. The mark of a god. A name. It had a name. I knew its name.
The mark burned. Distantly, laughter echoed in my mind. It sounded like thunder. My head hurt. I looked back up at Freed. The man was standing over me, smiling. I weakly laid my head on the ground. He was still babbling. It was something about Asia and the devil we killed. My head hurt. I winced. Briefly, I glanced at my hand. Everything hurt. It felt like I'd gone through a full-body workout in the span of a few minutes.
What was I thinking about again?
AN: And that would be chapter six folks. This chapter has the first actual fight scene in it. This chapter was a little hard to write. Specifically, it was hard to balance Jack as a character. I can't just make him whip out skills and strength he's never had. I've got a specific development plan for him, but none of that matters if his progression is not believable. It takes a lot of setup and work to make an average twenty-year-old college kid start picking fights with the supernatural. It takes even more to make him win and still be believable.
I hate it when you have overpowered characters for no reason. It makes things get boring very quick. Sometimes, characters lose. You can't always win. When you can fight the entire world and win, there's not much left to do is there? I think you can make it work sometimes with humor, i.e. One Punch Man, but most of the time I just plain don't like it. It's one of a few things that can instantly ruin a story for me. That being said, Please tell me what you thought down below. I won't spoil anything about the future story or plot, but you all can always speculate. Also, if you notice any errors in the writing, I'd greatly appreciate you pointing them out. Moving on!
No fic recommendation today. Sorry about that, but it's late and I don't feel like picking through my bookmarks for a good one. Maybe next time. Speaking of that, the next chapter should be up soon. You can probably expect the next few chapters to be the final tie-off of the opening as well as Jack actually trying to figure out what his "blessing" does. It might also jump straight into the next arc, we will see. Well, until then...
~ciao