“Oh wow. Three forgotten Gods at the same place. Big deal. We ought to have a party or something, don’t you think? Celebrate. Drink and fuck the pain away.” Kozorog laughs.
Emi coughs when Kozorog tighten his hold, she squeals like a mice going into meat shredder machine.
“Carion, I said: Enough.” Are replies in the same icy tone. “Let go of Gei.”
Kozorog laughs again. His baritone laughter rattling into Asorotany’s bone.
Asorotany wants to move, but can’t. The rapist’s dead orbs bore into Asorotany, the brown pupils dim into a dull, hollow black. Accusing.
His chest heaves as he tries to squirm out from underneath. The man’s body is hot and heavy and smelly. His breath warming through Asorotany’s jeans. His limbs lay astrew, the bald spot on the back of his head gleams. His body shakes from the weight and the agonizing pace he withdrawing himself. His eyes dart from the man to Are to Emi and Kozorog. Muscles taunting.
This is something he shouldn’t be involved. This is something that had strayed too far from Fische’s death.
Maybe Fische was like him, accidentally stumbled upon the world of God and Goddess and was caught as a collateral damage. Maybe Uncle Tarrow was also being tied to one of these Gods and was forced to murder Fische to stifle him from spreading words.
But that doesn’t make sense. Because from what he witnesses, they’re wanting to attract attention back to themselves.
Are steps over the rapist’s body, the end of her cloak sweeping across the ground. She glances briefly down at Asorotany. Sleep, child, her husky voice whispers, smothering over his senses. Ruffling his head, she slips past him.
A pit of darkness yearn opens underneath him and embraces him. He fights to open his eyes wide, digging his nails into his palms. The new tears release a short burst of adrenaline in his blood. But Asorotany’s eyelids are heavy. He keeps sinking deeper and deeper into the warm, sticky hold until it claims him whole.
His senses blur. Asorotany clings onto the cursory alert, but it’s not enough. Sound bumbles and fades into a mere static running at the back of his mind.
…….
Asorotany jerks, suckinging a long breath. He heaves, elbows on his knees, clutching his chest as something stuck inside his lungs. He squeezes his eyes, opening them again. Objects blurs in different shades of black before sharpen.
He looks down and freezes when he realizes he is standing atop of his body lying in a puddle of blood. He on the ground lay with his head crooked to the side, hair mused to his skull, every inch of his exposed flesh is a mess of gore and blood. Dead people usually look peaceful and sleepy when they pass away, yet he looks wrathful. The corner of his mouth turns downward into a hard scowl, bottom lip gnawed raw, fists clenched and turned at an odd angle.
His hand raises and brushes against his side. He doesn’t feel pain. Shocked, he glances at the wounds and immediately wishes he didn’t. It’s a mirror of what splain underneath him. The gory mess of flesh and intestines barely holding together. Slashes scar over the once-smooth plane of his abs, tendons and fibre ripped in jagged, ugly lines.
His head spins, gables the input into something that can make sense.
The one down there is him. But the one that’s thinking right now is also him. Both are spitting image of each other.
What’s he now? A ghost? A soul, like that old man?
“Sirrest,” A voice calls.
A bejeweled hoof steps in front of him. Asorotany snaps his head up, staring up a black ram. The animal towers over him, the silver chains loop around its horns clicking against one another as it walks.
His eyes widen. “You—” Asorotany starts. Cold realization douses over him like gasoline, burning his eyes and skin and filths the inside of his mouth.
He’s dead.
“Carion, don’t make me repeat myself once more.” Are booms, yanking his attention back to the encounter at hand. “Let go of Gei.”
Kozorog Tsks with his teeth. With a final pinch hard enough to turn Emi’s purple, Kozorog swings his arm. Emi is tossed onto the street like a unwanted doll, cheek scratching against the uneven asphalt. She lies there and sobs, hugging her face and curling into the fetal position.
Both Are and Kozorog are silence, casting long glares at one another. The quiet between them pregnant with tension and ire.
“You’re no longer a Queen, Are.” Kozorog drawls, pointing a finger. “Just an old hag still scrambling for some old glory.”
“And you’re the same old brat ratting your way up the ladder and would never reach it.” Are says.
Are’s back is to Asorotany. He can’t anything but her majestic shadow and tense, hunched shoulders. He can envision her aggressive stance. Both legs firmly planted on the ground, jaws jut out, chin tilts high, the skull’s teeth baring in a snarl.
“You’ve never good at planning for a long-shot, Are,” Kozorog says. His lips pulls into his signature slow grin. He crooks his fingers. “Cursed the people in forever pain and promise them a great afterlife doesn’t get you anywhere the living.”
Are doesn’t reply.
Wind collects above his head, faint trails of the currents visible as they channel toward Kozorog, growing spikes and muscles, transforming into a cyclone. Pebbles tumble onto each other. Wind whipping at Kozorog’s clothes, wrestling him from all directions. Kozorog hunches his shoulders, squinting his eyes, but continues to speak at the same intensity.
“Keep up your Nomad lifestyle and continue live in ignorant admiration, weird sister. You’re popular to the dead only.” Kozorog laughs.
Begone.
“Is this all you’ve got? You’re weaken more than you think then, high, mighty Are.” Kozorog roars over the chanting. “I’m on a rise. Soon, Èyùn won’t be your only opponent.”
Are growls, making a zipping motion in the air.
A slit opens. Deafen bawls gong around the edge of his hearing, bubbling over him. Black tentacles and ambiguous muzzles seize around Kozorog’s torso.
Kozorog pries the limbs away, wretching as more tentacles shoot out and mummified him. “You will—”
Are flicks her wrists, cutting Kozorog mid-way.
The tentacles jerk.
Like a Venus trap, the slit snaps and swallows Kozorog inside. Then Kozorog is gone. Like that.
The dirt falls, pattering on the ground like rain all around Are.
Comments (0)
See all