The whispers of motionless winds and shadowy flickers across my skin were all too familiar by now, and I opened my eyes to the void. Here, in this retelling of abandoned histories, nothing ever seemed to change.
The emptiness shifted, as it always did, and the first thing I noticed was the chanting, cheers, and jeers of many, many people, only to fade like a prelude at its end. Expectedly, I found myself curious as the darkness continued to paint the realm, and yet that very dark began to mold into something new, something tangible.
Stone walls surrounded me, and the bars barricading the multiple open rooms made up what looked to be a dungeon.
Strange... Despite most dungeons being the same, this one in particular was familiar. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something about it dredged up this sort of biting in the pit of my gut. I felt fairly... disturbed, for some reason, and with it a longing. Not only this, but ever second that passed made me want to escape, to run as far away as I could. It all left me wondering why.
Ignoring the morbid suspense now caged in my chest I began to walk around and inspect the room. The scent was rotten, with a fog of humid excrement ripping throughout my lungs. As expected of many dungeons, there was - at best - a hole or bucket provided to relieve one's self in, but most of the time the prisoners chose to claim a place on the floor. Speaking of, the cracked stone I now stood on was filled in with earthy mud, meaning that the floor I found myself on was located at ground level or lower.
Another disturbing aspect of the holding I immediately noticed was the lack of noise. What should have been a roudy and brazen environment was showing itself to be quite lax, which did nothing to ease my worried suspicions. I recognised this place, and as I told that to myself again and again I came no closer to remembering where I was, or even why I felt so... wrong.
A loud creaking echoed against the crusty stained walls, and from the flood of light I saw a figure; myself.
I was adorned in my older equipment, back before I received my gift from Kali; the same set I lost due to Cinder's trickery. Yet across my shoulders was a heavy cloak of black fur, broken only on one side by my pauldron. Strangely enough the black blended with the fur, and somehow made me feel even more uncomfortable than before. I couldn't help but crease my brow as the other me walked in, wearing a solemn face; plain, but with an edge of pity.
The flames of dread rippled across my body as it came to me, all at once in a painful fireball of recollection. I'd suddenly, and without fault, realized just where and when I'd found myself.
No... not here. The memory held no concern for my silent plea as it burst to life in my mind, seemingly from out of nowhere and in violent detail. I watched as my other passed through me, turning to face a particular cell. He reached out and pulled open the door, which came easy as there were no locks in this prison; the imamates were chained to the rooms themselves, from a heavy iron leash bound to a link in the floor, at the center of their rooms.
The bars in turn were more a choke point in case a prisoner managed to break the chains, and the door was designed to be opened inward, which added to slow a prisoners attempted escape. Breaking the chains however was nearly impossible, which made the open doors more of an insult to the captives than anything else; a temptation of freedom, and a cause of various outcries of hate and malice. The woman in this cell made no such moves, and just stared fearfully at the pale face of her new cell-mate.
"P-please..." She begged with her torn broken voice, moving with a flinch in every motion. Her body was covered in a mix of bruises and cuts, with some burn marks here and there over her more sensitive bits. One arm was bent weirdly; a sign of improper healing. "I-"
"Silence." My cloaked self commanded, and the woman shut her mouth as simple tears blurred her already blackened and bloody cheeks. At this point she was whimpering in terror, most surely expecting another round of torture; the interrogators were anything but merciful, especially I. "Stand."
She obeyed, her form holding a prominent limp. I had to restrain the pangs of guilt digging from within, telling myself over and over again that I didn't know; a lie that never softened the pain back then, and certainly didn't now. Even my other self looked at her with some disgust, but unlike I, he did not yet know the truth.
He would, very, very soon he would, and it would once more bring out a the worst of us, as it had for me just moments before. I recalled none of this until now, but having seen the visions of recollection prior, I could understand why.
"Follow me."
"Where are we-" She was cut off, crumpled over and choking. My past self had probably ruptured something in her stomach with the force of the blow he hit her with, but it didn't matter... not where she was going. His fist left her gut, but she wasn't afforded the time to fall to the ground as his clawed grip began to cut off her windpipe. She couldn't so much as foster the strength to grasp at it with how weak her body was, and the only sound to be heard before my past self started speaking was the pattered, spotty drips of blood mixed urine dribbling to the stone below.
"I did not grant you permission to speak, do not test my patience again." He let her fall, and stared vengefully as she stood again; small hiccups and light breaths making her already sorry state even more horrendous.
His eyes held pity, yes, but not a pity born of mercy. It was a pity consumed by hatred. The only good he saw in this unfortunate woman was her coming fate; oblivious to what he was doing, and the worthless vengeance to follow. Nothing could redeem the cruelty and suffering this girl endured at my own hand, and nothing I did would ever wash away the sins I bore causing her such pain.
At the time I believed it was all justified, but even if the claims made against her turned out to be true, the things I did were not for what was right, but for my own personal desire, my own justice, and all in the name of my lost love.
Angela, I won't ever be able to imagine just how much you must have wept if you knew what I did.
She'd forgive me, I know she would; Angela was always too kind for her own good. I however would never forgive the things I did, and it seemed this memory was here to unearth the worst of my mistakes. At some point I managed to bury it all, but seeing it about to play out again...
I wanted to die.
The world burned in blackened fire, but the baking of my skin was nothing compared to the guilt scorching through my veins, and I swear every breath I took was drowned in tar. Light returned, and with it I looked out to the cheering crowd. There were so many of them, screeching and hollering with wicked vile. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, I was not sure, but to me it looked like the entire kingdom had arrived to witness the coming show.
I looked back, away from the crowd, and was able to catch the moment my wrathful other slipped the noose around the battered woman's neck. The wooden platform below had a very noticeable trapdoor below her feet, but she herself was positioned upon a stool which separated her from it. Her noose was hung higher than any other prisoners before her, and I knew exactly why.
It was my own doing, for the evil display to come.
It was so barbaric, so wrong, and yet my other half looked to be just barely restraining the snarl trying so intensely to break free. The absolute primal joy in his heart would soon reverse, but right now, he lived for this moment. A boy so young should never have felt such joy from this torture, but then again, love and grief can drive a man towards the most heinous of acts. He stepped back, facing the crowd again as he slipped a small paper scroll from under the cloak. He rolled it open in his hands, and I listened as he spoke.
"For the crimes of treachery, and directly aiding in the murder of Angela Mobius, the fifth daughter of our divine rulers: You are hereby sentenced to death. May the merciful pair guide your retched soul through oblivion, and rebirth." The ire in my younger self's voice was prominent, but nobody in the crowd seemed to care, looking more than merely bloodthirsty. I doubted their ravenous cries were born of any care for the tragedy, more realistically caused by the promise of a show.
Had they always been so barbaric?
He let the paper fall from his hands, where it was taken by the winds into the sea of snatching maws, and swallowed up in the stampede of ravenous spectators. I watched him turn to her, and saw his hand reach for the lever. To her credit, she put on a brave face, apparently accepting of her fate. My other self pulled the lever, and as the floor and stool dropped, she was hung. She didn't struggle, even as her breath stopped and her face began to tint red.
This wasn't a normal execution though.
With normal hangings, the neck is usually snapped from the sudden drop; the rope is left loose for this very reason. Yes, there were exceptions to this rule, but the snapping was what caused the hanged to be incapable of movement afterwards, and aided in the strangling. This time though, there was no drop, meaning the woman's neck was perfectly intact, and thus she was choking slower than usual.
I watched him, the other me, walk and stand before her. He unsheathed his blade, positioning the tip just below her groin, and pressing into the malleable flesh. My stomach churned as he gripped the hilt with both hands, and like that all sound seemed to vanish as the world drained of color.
Everything lost its luster, save the spray of crimson flung from the vertical slice.
He almost looked to twirl with the motion, stepping to the side as he moved with the cut, allowing the scene's events to be viewed in full before the cheering crowd, and it was then I finally saw the life leave her eyes. The opening tore about halfway through her body, with the blade of Pale Bloom breaking free from the tip of her nose. From the newly carved corpse all her insides spilled out like the stuffing of a turkey. Her innards fell towards the hole, only to be left hanging from the few connections to the body it still had.
The stringy display of sickening butchery only seemed to fuel the lust of the crowd, and many openly reveled in the crimson that temporarily rained over them. They were little more than beasts, but such a comparison was too good for them, as the beasts of the wild only killed to satisfy their needs. The crowd I looked down upon were monsters; revolting and free from any sense of empathy or civility.
They adored the spectacle, in all its vile glory.
I faced my other self and watched as he sheathed his blade, unbothered by the spray of life glazed across him; seemingly content in his final act of misguided revenge. Yet again I watched as the world began to fade, leaving me all alone in the darkness. I felt it then, the wetness beneath my feet, and as I stared at my naked body I knew exactly what was coming next.
"Ooh~ Didn't like that one, did you?"
"What do you want?" I spat lowly, failing to find the drive to muster any more than a mild grunt.
"Me?" His smirk was there, but it was more so mired in relaxed clarity. "What I want hardly matters. This, right here, is all about you, and your wants."
"I didn't want any of this."
"Lies." He sighed, even as I looked away. "You wanted every second of it, you absolutely loved it even. You only ever felt regret when you learned the truth of the woman's innocence. Don't lie to yourself; had she been guilty you'd still be looking back on it as a fond - if a little overly gruesome - memory, rather than watching in recoil. You may have forgot, but it still happened, and you know this."
I fell to my knees, unable to stand. I saw myself in the reflection below, so tantalizingly clean, unlike the woman I'd made suffer. I heard him walk close, and rather than meet him face to face, I just shut my eyes, unable to forge the courage to look at myself anymore. I felt his hand slide down my stomach, crossing over the very area I ended that woman's life from. He caressed it lovingly and whispered faintly into my ear.
"You know, on a woman this is the place where she brings new life into the world. How poetic of you then, to start from such a sacred point, and guide her into death. You loved it even, knowing damn well the irony of it all." He let go, sliding that very hand up and over my stomach where it pressed. "You felt it, the desire to kill, the starving need to destroy. Obliteration was always a special drug of ours. Be honest with yourself, this hunger never needed a reason to be fulfilled, you just wanted to justify the orgasmic relief it granted you."
"Why?" I coughed up, unable to beat away the chill creeping into my heart. "Why do I feel like this?"
The black fires filled my thoughts, and the images of Angela's murderer screaming out in agony as I melted flesh from bone echoed in my ears.
"Why do I feel better when I kill?"
For a second Ruby and the others popped into mind, and their innocent smiles were almost maddening. This was made worse when their expressions morphed, and for a second they were huddled around Weiss, whos neck was bleeding from a very specific wound, all the while scowling my way.
They made it easy to scold; easy to do away with the vivid rush killing brought me. The shame I felt from the looks they gave, it made me think about what I did; what I caused, and the effect I had on the lives of others. Killing was a necessity back then, ignored and accepted. Here though, it was scorned with rigorous intensity.
"It went away with them; they made it easy to ignore; easy to forget."
The chained woman begged and cried as I slowly pulled the hooks across her arm, both peeling and cutting the skin. Throughout all of this I only recalled satisfaction at the reaping of 'justice' I brought upon her. Had it ever really been justice, or was that just name I gave it; the little taste of sweetness gracing my tongue every time I tore my foes apart?
"Now... now it's teasing me. I almost hid it away, almost forgot the pleasure it offered."
What sane man could so easily accept all that violence? What kind and caring soul could ever excuse the cruelty? Where was the justice I believed in during those moments; the excuses I told my adolescent self as I carried out the will of the kingdom, all in the name of the divines? Why did it all come rushing back now, when I was so tantalizingly close to seeing the goddess of darkness once more? And why, for the love of all there was, had the gateway to these horrors been hidden in the one place to seemingly parallel the lowest point in my life?
I couldn't hold it back; I couldn't hide in the shadows anymore. I opened my eyes and faced him in a rabid act of desperation.
"Why... why did I like it?! Why did I ever believe it was justice?!"
He should have looked at me with disgust and hate, but instead he offered a caring smile, and pulled me into an embrace. I wanted to suffer, I wanted to hurt, all to try and provide the woman I killed some form of revenge, because it was the only true justice I knew. He was torturing me now, with a careful display of warmth and forgiveness, and I began to humor a thought: that maybe this torturous guilt was the punishment I deserved.
Pain would shadow my guilt, and I didn't deserve such mercy.
"We're all inclined to our natural place in the world. Yours is simply to destroy, as was Angela's to change." He chuckled earnestly, his voice reaching a decrepit pit of familiarity in my soul. "She spread so much love for the short time she was around, and brought out the best in you. Angela changed all she touched, just a little bit, even in death. When she passed, her love left a void in your heart, and while you may not have seen it, this void revealed your true purpose, that of chaos."
"I... I don't want to be chaos... I don't want to hurt others." He once again laughed, and cuddled me closer to his chest.
"Chaos in and of itself isn't purely evil. Chaos is change, and change can be either wonderful or vile; it all depends on the wielder."
He pulled up my face, and his lips spoke only a breath away from my own.
"However, your chaos is most prominent in your wrath. That unshakable rage is the pinnacle of your destructive expression. Destruction itself is your element, your chaos, and no matter how you use it, bringing an end to and breaking down life will 'always' be natural for you. You are the end, and there's nothing you can do to change it."
He leaned in, and as his lips clasped over mine I heard his final words mumbled.
"Own it; embrace it."
I caved in, allowing the warmth to consume my mind. I'd caused so much pain, unknowing of what my soul desired all along. Its true needs, its true purpose, all of it came so naturally. As his tongue wrapped around mine, and seeped back deeper in my throat, I allowed the invasive warmth to blanket my thoughts in nursing care. My head was going numb, and I felt as though a weight was being sucked up from my chest.
And then I saw Angela's loving smile.
I threw him away, recoiling and falling back on my knees as I coughed in desperate need. I couldn't stop the burning in the back of my throat as I faced him hatefully. I saw his stupidly simple smile, now bearing a sort of disappointment etched into it.
"B-bastard!" I spat, limply finding a way to stand. "What did you do?!"
He cocked a brow, but his smile soon twisted into a grin. I heard him chuckle softly as he sighed.
"Hmm~ Why don't you take a guess first?"
Sleazy fuck was toying with me now; I could feel it. I grasped at my throat, still feeling light-headed. I wasn't sure what it was, but he'd been pumping something into me through that kiss. Nothing tangible of course, but rather akin to that of aura; spiritual of a sort.
"No mean retort?" He sighed, shaking his head playfully. "Shame on me for trying to keep this interesting. It was nothing you haven't dealt with before really; I just thought you'd prefer something like this over the usual way I impart on you the darkness."
"Oh really, and forcing yourself on me is supposed to be beneficial how?" I accused lowly; my narrowed eyes never once leaving him. The vile copy was having fun with this, and I damn sure didn't approve. He offered a cheeky smirk as he indulged my demand for answers.
"Why tell when you'll just test it for yourself?" His words had me pause, and then I came to understand.
"My powers..." His nod confirmed it, and I reigned in my anger a little. "So that was you."
"Who else?" He clapped his hands and began to fade as color washed in once more. "But let's finish this little drama, shall we?"
The world returned, and I once again recognised the place, as it was the queen's personal chambers. Unlike the shared chambers between her and the king, this one was where she stored her most prized memorabilia. I saw her standing there, staring at the small ring sitting peacefully on its own section of the shelf. The bit of jewelry had a rose carved into its gem, and I remembered how Angela gave one to each of us on her birthday.
And how I'd returned mine to her, to be buried with her in the grave; a final farewell.
"She always made her care for us known." The pale woman lamented. "Even when we tried to dote on her."
I watched her turn to my other self, and it was apparent from a glance that his heart was hollow. I knew this moment: it was just some hours after my private meeting with the king at his request; again, part of this nightmare reborn so suddenly. It had been not even a day after the execution, and he'd informed me then of our folly.
They'd captured one of the other maids stealing evidence of Angela's murder from the archives, and through a separate interrogation being carried out parallel to mine, it had been discovered the woman I'd been tasked with was innocent. Unfortunately, the very moment they'd taken that info from the maid was the same moment my blade tore through the wrongfully hanged.
My past self did not take this knowledge well.
"And now, these heathens of Veilroot have shamed us with the blood of another innocent." Salem; even in the face of such twisted knowledge, she looked upon my other with stern purpose. She, like Angela, wouldn't blame me either; she was the one to place the woman in my custody, and was also the one to suggest several of the cruelties I wrought, to go alongside my own.
She wished for reap out punishment as well, as was her nature as goddess of darkness; loving, yet disciplinary. To her, this was just a form of punishment, and this time, it was for the guilty.
"We've word of the traitor's location. She's hold up on a private airship set to leave at midnight." She handed my other self a black iron nail and a sealed scroll. "I'm certain you'll have no trouble getting aboard unnoticed. Find her, and see that she faces punishment, through any means you please. Taint this nail with her blood, and bring it back to me; I've a special warning prepared for Veilroot as a whole. Leave no survivors."
He just stared at it, blankly, as if he didn't know he was in the world. Small movements fostered, and I saw him birth a grim look. Clenching the nail in his grip, he nodded silently and turned to leave. I watched as he was stopped by her hand, and as it massaged his cheek she leaned in.
"I'll see to it the pain eludes you upon your return, I promise."
She backed away again, and he was off.
Once more the world melted and twisted anew, and from above I saw candlelight flickering in a lamp hung carefully on a wall, all the while a woman on the bed ahead was restrained with her own sheets. She mumbled through the makeshift gag. She was nude, bruised, and panting heavily, all the while my younger self was removing the clasps from the mouths of several wolves. The offered vicious growls, barking loudly with every second past.
The boney forms of their bodies made for a particularly hurtful sight.
"Nothing I do to you will ever match up. I can never replicate for you the tortures your deception had me bring upon that girl." He said, giving a few rubs to the backs of the beasts. I watched him stand, walk over to her, and rub his clawed fingers across her arm. "I could peel the skin, and set free the muscle, cutting off the blood flow afterwards as to keep you from bleeding out."
I saw her eyes widen, and for a bit she shook, but that shaking stilled as he swayed his hand over her chest, gripping and tugging at the plump ball of fat closest to her heart.
"Or perhaps I should take it a step further, and rob you of your purity; shame you before death." His hand stilled as a tiny smile crossed his face. "That's something I hadn't done to her, you know. I was far too hateful to risk it, worried she might experience even the slightest bit of pleasure. But then again..." He clenched, and small droplets of red wrapped around the tips of his claws, only for him to pull away leaving the tiny wounds to slowly spill. "You'd need to survive for that shame to have any effect."
"MFGH!" She tried desperately as her voice came out a muffled mess. My heartless, youthful self only sighed.
"No... I have something a little more... 'special' planned for you." He stepped aside, and stood before a small cabinet. I watched as he took a tiny vial from its place within the pouch sat inconspicuously there.
With frightful eyes her chest heaved with each quickened breath, until he was standing above her; both vial and nail in hand. I grit my teeth as he pressed the nail gently into one of the cuts on her breast, and withheld as much sickness as I could while he rolled it underneath the skin; splitting it within.
Had her torso not been held down with his knee, she'd be thrashing in pain.
"There."
He pulled it out, and after inspecting the nail he wrapped it in cloth and slipped it in the small pack tied to his leg. I never needed the other one anyway, having used it only to carry the poisons and fluids necessary for the job. Emotionlessly he pulled the top off the vial, and while holding it steady, reached down towards his pouch again. Rather than reach inside however, he flicked a strap off the bandage-bound cylinder next to it. With it now free he took it in hand, and with a small flick of his claw, he cut the small wrappings obscuring it, and they fell to the ground.
He held up the syringe, and carefully dipped the needle into the fluid.
"Did you know there are certain poisons able to kill the body's movement functions?" He faced her, dropping the vial to the carpeted floor as he stood over her. "And that, if mixed properly, can enhance the nerves?" "He leaned in." Rather than freezing up your body outright, it then just drains all the victim's stamina, and at the same time invigorates the senses."
She whimpered as he pressed the needle into her arm, injecting the toxin with agonizing patience.
"It makes the skin sensitive to the touch, intensifying both pleasure and pain." He finished, removing the empty syringe and stepping away back to the dogs. "These little guys right here are at the end of their lives. The trainer just down the road from here sells these types of trained wolves for hunting, but the guards sometimes use them to find and capture escaped criminals."
"Mmfhg..." Her struggle was almost non-existent now, but even so I could still see the terror in her watery eyes, and I knew for certain my other half didn't care.
"He told me how he was trying to find the strength to put them down, but was having trouble doing so; he's loved them since they were pups, but they're on their last legs now." He rubbed the back of one, all the while the beasts kept barking and staring at the bound traitor. Had anyone still been alive on the ship, they'd certainly be in alarm.
But I knew better.
"So I offered to do so for him." He smiled towards the one he was petting. "They hadn't eaten in days, and he wasn't willing to waste food on dying dogs. They don't have much strength, but they don't need it, not for this. I've injected them with a similar drug to yours, but rather than dull motion and strengthen senses, it does the exact opposite. These boys here can't feel a thing, but they're itching to go, and starving for meat."
He stood as her mumbles came out in rapid succession, and I watched with immense shame as he walked to the door. He opened it up, ready to leave, but stilled a moment midway through, taking hold of the chain wrapped around the frame on the outer end. All the wolves were bound to that chain, and it was set up in such a way that breaking even one link would free them all to do as they pleased. He cast a single glance back, and offered his final parting words.
"Pray they go for the neck first, otherwise the biting and ripping of skin will be the least of your worries."
He tore apart the chain, and as the door slammed shut the wolves descended on the bound and weeping lady.
I never got to see her torn to pieces, and I was glad I didn't; I wasn't able to handle much more of this. I'd been merciless and hateful, all the things I'd been told Veilroot was, and pathetically enough, all the things I thought I stood against. For a bit the darkness remained, but I could hear the rabid hunger of the wolves and creaking of the bed. The sound of tearing and sloshing was enough to bring about a queasiness only ever experienced from the dirtiest of diseases.
Everything was motionless again, until the moonlight shown down.
There he was, my younger self, staring from atop what seemed to be a building. I was next to him, and as I followed his lifeless stare, I bore witness to the massive ball of flame that had been the airship of his victim. Many down below were scattered about in panic, and the guardsmen were doing their best to both quell the fire and evacuate the citizens from the area, but all my younger self did was stare.
Everything vanished again, suddenly, from one moment to the next.
I waited not even a minute before a creak echoed out, and light flooded the dark room. I was next to a bed, and in it, my past self slept. A haunted look was etched into his face as sweat covered his body, and from the light I watched as a silhouette came through. Her legs never moved, but her body tilted slightly forward as the shadows ghosted behind her. Salem stood next to me now, and she reached down to my sleeping self.
My sleeping self.
What? I had suspicions of the memories before, but this was just blatant now. I was asleep, meaning what I was watching right now wasn't my memory. Before I had questioned why I'd seen things I could not recall, and why it appeared to be from a perspective not my own. Now it was clear: while these were moments in time akin to me, they weren't necessarily my own recollections, but rather that of something else.
Who, then, was watching me, and why was I seeing these particular points of history?
"It's not right to make the choice yourself." Salem was stopped by the voice, and without turning she spoke back.
"He's suffering, Ozma. It's been a month, and yet he's still suffering." The way she said it, with such malice, gripped my chest tightly. "He's still just a boy; he can't handle knowing what he's done."
"And it was us who handed him the role of inquisitor and executioner, was it not?" The king's voice was heavy, but even so, it still carried with it that firm sense of fatherly care.
"He needed to experience the world as it is." Salem tossed back, although her voice seemed to waver. "He... he needed to experience death."
"And he has." The king stated, coming closer as his voice eased up. "But here you are, trying to erase that experience."
"And you wouldn't?" Her words cut through the air with masterful precision. "He was supposed to bring about the respectful ends of criminals. It was supposed to be simple."
"I've read the reports, honey, I know what he did, as well as what you had him do."
"They took our baby girl..." The queen's voice began to crack. "What was I supposed to do? I... I couldn't let them get away with it."
"But she didn't, did she?" The divine of light told this not with scorn, but regret. "She was an innocent woman, wrongly convicted and punished. Her death was anything but dignified, and our champion's rage looked to bleed over into the crowd. No boy should be capable of constructing such villainous ideas."
Salem was quiet, and simply stared at my nightmare-ridden self. I watched curiously, restraining the negative emotions swelling my heart, as she reached down, and pressed her fingers against the my forehead. A shadowy mist snaked around her hand, and looked to flow into my skin.
Before I could question what it was, I got my answer.
"Just this one. I'll leave the other more dignified executions alone, but I won't let him re-live this grievous mistake, not when it's tearing him apart. I've lost one child already, and I'm not about to let a second follow her into death; I'd sooner see the world burn."
"He wouldn't do it. I know what worries you, but he's too duty-bound to even muster the thought." Ozma stated, and I watched as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in from behind. Salem instead continued to look down on my sleeping form, and I saw his face ease into a more neutral expression; the night-terror appearing to vanish.
"I'm not taking the risk." Her eyes glazed over a little, and I could have sworn I heard her say something more, however the words where fleeting and soundless. Yet for some reason I could make them out anyway.
"Not when she promised us salvation."
Everything disappeared again, and I heard him chuckling behind me.
"She puts her faith in that promise, but I wonder, does she still retain the will to see it through, even now after all these years?"
"What promise?" I tried, knowing I'd not get an answer anyway. He merely waved his finger playfully.
"Soon. Not before, and not after." He smirked, and I couldn't find the energy to even be mad at him.
I was too tired.
"Besides, you're in no state to seek anything else; not with all this pain. Sad to say, but that pain will never go away now; Salem's little seal's been broken. It's her own fault really, she shouldn't have tried to hide it's activation; those moments are the most important for our empowerment."
"Any other words of wisdom?" My half-hearted retort drew only a grin, and with a small clap of his hands, he answered.
"Not in particular. You're already an expert at destruction, even if you don't quite know how to utilize it. Don't worry though, Pale Bloom will aid you in that when the time comes; a true relic will always beat out its cheap copy anyways."
He crossed his hands behind his back, and his smile fell on blind eyes as I began to lose consciousness.
"And now, pain will be your weapon. None will be able to escape your reach as you draw it out, clawing and screaming in its denial."
Author's note
...
This was a rough one.
Here we air the dirty laundry, and we get to see V at his absolute lowest point. If you thought what he did to Angela's murderer was bad, now we've seen how ruthless he became afterwards then.
I won't blame you if a good portion of you decide this is too much; it was rather intense. I'll clarify right now though, this chapter wasn't designed to be ruthlessly cruel for no reason, but rather to bring out the necessary regret and history of V's executioner days to light, and to show the extents he and Salem took their wrath.
Hatred is an expert in clouding the judgement of people, and what better showcase than the cruelties people are capable of against one another; all in the name of love.
This is probably the darkest chapter in the story, and will probably stay that way too; I don't think it can go much further than this without becoming over excessive. I'd like my story to retain at least some form of dignity. I prefer my intensity to have purpose beyond simple shock value.
Now then, we've seen V at his lowest, and we've even gotten several essential bits of information as well. While I'm certain there's plenty of things to think about in this chapter, there's one thing that should be taken away from it, if nothing else.
V remembered what he did, and how far he's capable of falling.
See you next time - those of you who choose to stick around anyway - in a suitably less mean-spirited chapter.