Kahr Looked on in horror and amazement at the thing standing across from him. So many things on the individual were worthy of note that Kahr had trouble processing all of it. But he felt that currently, the most important one was the clothing, or what was once clothing. The shreds of fabric, leather, metallic rods, and a tiny bit of porcelain were something Kahr recognized, but not from an experience-built familiarity; no, this was an outfit Kahr had only seen once before. The one time Kahr had seen this outfit was today, moments before, on the person he'd just seen blown away.
"Mask?" Kahr let out a voice that contained all his confusion and fear at the figure in front of him. Both emotions showed in his voice, but neither to the actual degree that Kahr was experiencing them.
"Is that what he goes by now? Well, no matter." A grating imitation of a voice swept towards Karhs ears. The figure reached up, pulling pieces of a destroyed metal frame away from its body. "No, I'm not Mask." It somehow forced a semblance of disgust into its abominations of a voice. "I'm what he made to stay sane, or something like that. I don't care for the details." Again, despite the nature of its voice, it slipped a semblance of humor into what it was saying. Like a liquid form of the emotion was dripped into the sound. The idea was there, but it lacked the context that made it sound natural. While talking, it continued pulling away shreds of the outfit that could barely be called that. "hmm, I guess I should have a name. What should I have you call me." When all but the shattered bits of the mask and ribbons of the destroyed coat lay draped across it, The creature spoke again. "I know, how about you call me," The creature reached up and threw aside the remnants of clothing with a sort of mock flourish. "Call me Curse" The creature let its voice swallow the area once more, its form now exposed to Kahr's eyes.
What Kahr saw was slightly outside of his expectation. He thought he knew what these monsters looked like, but apparently, that was somewhat inaccurate. He'd seen exactly one of these creatures before, bound and new to the world. The appearance of what he'd seen before was that of a dirty white, fragile-looking thing, almost like it'd blow over in the wind—Emaciated, gaunt, and distinctly slouched over whenever it moved. It was scared at first glance, but that emotion proved false the instant something was put in front of it. Then it ripped into it with bestial cruelty. The one Kahr had seen didn't stand like a man. Instead, it moved like a beast, frequently touching its hands to the ground. And, while the general frame of the one in front of him was the same, it appeared in a form that lacked that same apparent fragility or the beastlike way of moving.
Kahr looked on at a humanoid creature wrapped in pitch black bandages. The limbs appeared to be almost all bone beneath the wrappings, but an abnormal flexing motion like that of muscle disturbed the fabric whenever it moved. Like whatever allowed such movement was so dense that it clung to the bone without creating any disturbance in the flesh-like fabric. Occasionally a spark of odd light flowed between the seems of the wrappings, highlighting them against each other. This light didn't shine in Kahr's eye, like that of a torch or a light stone. Instead, it existed in a way that illuminated nothing, only revealing something when it was directly blocking the source. As Kahr's eyes skimmed across the body, he saw what appeared to be end pieces to the blackened wrappings. They floated out like someone slowed the tongue of a serpent, tasting the air. The creature's abdomen and chest was that of a starved man, emaciated, feeble looking like all the organs inside had devoured each other in a violent hunger. But unlike a man on the brink of starvation, this creature stood with a straight back and wide relaxed shoulder. It didn't slouch or hide, standing with a pride that seemed more akin to a king than a beast. But, even with all of this, the most horrifying difference between the image in Kahrs mind, and the thing in front of him, was the face. Kahr recalled a flat surface like something had sliced straight up at the divide between the face and the neck. A flat plane with the silhouette of a face that had absolutely zero features, nose, cheeks, or chin. And that was clearly supposed to be the same on this one if it hadn't been wounded.
Mask was blown away by the detonation of one of Strauns rifle rounds. If the round had impact normally, then it would have blasted straight through the side of his skull. However, Straun used a skill to cause the projectile to detonate just before impact, leading to a large sphere of flames engulfing the target. Kahr credited that blast to the wound present on the thing in front of him. Strands of wrappings charred a dull brownish-black at the end, floated around a gaping hole in the side of the creature's face. Like the upper left half of its head was vaporized by the attack, leaving a horrendous sight exposed to the world. Inside that hole was an abyss. An abyss that Kahr only glimpsed for an instant before feeling his stomach reel in revulsion at the sight. Tendrils of emotion, wrapped in a coating of darkness, swam about, occasionally whipping outward to places beyond Kahrs perception. If Kahr focused on any one of them, they flooded his mind with the emotion within them, anger, hatred, fear, disgust, and ravenous hunger. These floated around a hollow core that seemed to contain only the concept of something that could see into Kahrs mind. Like an entity once lived in that place, but it was long dead, and all that was left was the echo of its existence. Kahr could almost feel those tentacles of emotions floating out and wrapping around the world, constricting it and feeding off of it. They would look for something, small tidbits of it in the air and people. Occasionally those invisible appendages dragged that something back to fall into the center of that hollow core before it vanished, whisked away to nowhere. One instant, that strange thing was visible; the next, it was gone, like a maw of some unseen monster had gobbled it up.
The sight of that impossible structure of emptiness resonated with the hands on Kahr's mind. Each one winding into an excitable energizes state—that extra energy pushing them into the memory of that man bound to the chair. Then, with a silent glee, those hands took the image in hand and twisted the memory. The man's gagged moans became a piercing whale that made Kahr's ears bleed. An agonized scream of a man whose soul was shattering. In the twisted memory, the man no longer looked around the room in a panic but stared directly into Kahr's eyes. He stared, and Kahr couldn't look away as he was forced to watch the concept of hope leave the man's mind. And with each passing instant, his eyes slowly lost the light of a soul, as the man's essence was overwhelmed by the contents of the gem forced into his flesh.
Unwilling to watch that already terrible memory twist further, Kahr Forced his eyes away from the hole in the monster's face. The resonance with the hands ceased, and the memory returned to its untouched state. But the damage to Kahrs psyche was done. Even if he couldn't recall the changes to the memory, he could still feel the overwhelming sense of putrid fear that watching it had instilled into him. That feeling wouldn't leave, rolling in his stomach, making him want to vomit its content across the paving stones.
"Well, that's no fun. It was just getting good." The voice of Curse mocked Kahr. A horrible sound was made even worse by the attempt at a humorous tone. "But, I'll give you a bonus for escaping the pull on your own." Curse dropped the false emotion from the gaggle of sounds that made its voice. The sound returned to a reverberating mass of whispers and gasps, but that was still better than one tinged with the false emotion. Reaching up, Curse pushed the floating strands of wrapping back toward each other, having them grasp around each other and pull the hole closed. The gap closed, and that abyssal core was hidden from the world to Kahrs relief. "Now, let's play." Kahr didn't get even a second of relief at the hole closing before Curse vanished, and he felt his lower jaw shatter.
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Luna walked from alley to alley, doing her best to stay out of sight. She'd initially been running to keep up with Scales, as she now knew he was named. But, after passing a few streets, the winged serpent had slowed to a pace a little slower than a jog and lead Luna into an alleyway. It clearly expected her to follow, never looking back to check if she was still behind it or off somewhere else. And, If she was honest with herself, Luna didn't know why she was following Scales. She initially wanted to help Mask fight whoever it was that tried to kill her, but the voices had advised against that. They also pretty much told her that following the odd little flying snake was the best way to stay alive. But, that came with the caveat that it was only accurate for the moment and could change spontaneously.
>Would the me of six months ago have panicked at all of this?< Luna thought.
>Heh, absolutely.<
>yep.<
>More than likely.<
>YEA<
>I'd Have to wager you would.<
>Thanks for the vote of confidence.< Luna thought sarcastically.
>We don't intend to be rude, dear, but we cannot lie to you.< The gentle voice said.
>Why tell someone they wouldn't die if they would absolutely die.< A nonchalant voice asked a rhetorical question in a relaxed tone.
Luna wanted to argue that being a little nicer might be, well, nice. But a part of her nudged the words aside, saying that if the voices weren't kind, then that was how a part of her mind talked. That these voices could only talk to her in a way, she might speak to herself. After all, they had to be a part of her mind, didn't they? Luna didn't get much time to think on this series of thoughts or the origin of the voices in her head, as like every time such ideas came into her head, something around her became the priority as soon as the thought danced into her head. It was almost like clockwork. If she wondered about the origin of the voices for long enough, something exciting or dangerous would happen. This time, the event that took her attention away from her thoughts had to do with Scales. The little flying serpent had suddenly looked back the way they'd come and flown off far faster than Luna's eyes could follow.
She was about to chase after the critter when two things happened at almost the exact same time. The first was a few of the voices calling out to her not to give chase, that this was one of those moments where following the snake had become more dangerous than being alone. The second was a wave of vomit-inducing fear washing over the area. A foreign feeling invaded Luna's mind, inducing a nauseating sense of terror in her, freezing her limbs mid-motion. It raked across her mind, instilling a fear toward something she couldn't see. She knew that this feeling wasn't her own, but she failed to shake it away despite this knowledge. Luna could tell that something was forcing this emotion on her, but she wasn't strong enough to rid herself of the invasive feeling. So that is how Luna stood, frozen in shock and fear, waiting for something to change, unable to induce that change herself. Forced to watch the world around her move but incapable of moving herself.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
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Kahr rolled away from a blow he thought was coming. And as he did, he heard to stone behind him shatter into dust. Kahr couldn't see his opponent. He was blind to every attack they made. His left arm hung useless at his side, broken by a blow that came from beyond the edge of his perception. In his desperate fight to survive this event, he'd inhaled more than a bit of bile and blood. Both made his breathing shallow; small gasping sounds escaped his mouth as he desperately attempted to suck in enough air to keep moving. Before he had that air, a blow slammed into his stomach, forcing him to cough out a disgusting mass of yellowish-red across the paving stone. He coughed and coughed, emptying the substance from his lungs, but his inaction invited another blow. A brutal strike slammed into Kahr's side, breaking his ribs and flinging him across the plaza. He tumbled along the stone, earning some new scrapes and cuts along the way. Eventually, his momentum stopped carrying him, and he came to a stop, lying face down against the stone. His breath was ragged, and he lacked the will to roll over, but he still gripped the shaft of his axe tightly. A desperate action, considering he hadn't seen his opponent to swing at them since the beginning of this fight. >Is this a fight or en execution?< Kahr asked himself. >If Mask had this kinda strength, I shoulda died.< Kahr thought to himself. But, he didn't get enough time to follow this train of thought, as a sense of impending doom washed over his mind. A feeling Kahr had come to associate with a need to move or take a blow that would kill him.
Kahr rolled his body over his broken arm, eliciting a series of agonizing crunching sounds. But, the pain was worth it when the stone where his head had just been, exploded, showering Kahr in pebbles and larger debris. Kahr kept rolling, evading a series of similar blows, each shattering the ground with more than enough force to splatter Kahrs skull. After several blasts like this, Kahr used the muscles in his abdomen to launch his legs upward, then used the momentum to drag the rest of his body into a standing position. He spun around, swinging his axe, hoping to clip the nigh imperceivable creature that was treating him like a plaything. But like every other attempt to land a blow, this swing found nothing but the air in its path. Another wave of doom washed Karhs mind, and he stepped toward where he thought the attack was coming from and swung his axe in an upward swing. But, he missed again and took an organ-shaking blow to the chest in response. His stomach filled with blood, and his lungs popped, but Kahr Kept moving the best that he could.
The force flung him through the air for an instant before his feet made contact with the ground, and he stumbled backward, only barely avoiding collapse. His legs shook underneath him, his knees ready to give in and let him fall. Instead, he righted his footing and once again raised his one functional arm, with weapon in hand, to defend against his attacker. That feeling of doom came, and Kahr stepped to his right while swinging his axe across his body toward that spot. An impact sent the blade off track, way over where Kahr had wanted it to go. The force of the redirection left Kahr's hand and arm numb. Regardless he stepped back and let the axe fall toward that same spot once again. His weapon flashed through the air, hitting nothing but eliciting another blow from that unseen monster. A fist pounded into Kahrs back, his spine creaking at the assault before the contained might forced Kahr to his knees. Another blow struck the side of his head, sending him tumbling once more. He couldn't hear out of that ear, but he felt blood trickling down the side of his already broken face. The blow to his head had ruptured his eardrum.
Kahr felt his consciousness fading, but he stood up once again. And he desperately sought a way to identify where Curse was and how to land a blow against him. But, he saw nothing, his eyes betraying him with an image of an empty plaza. His one functional ear was filled with the sound of his own blood rushing through his veins. His sense of smell was worthless, his nose long blocked by the swelling of his jaw and the blood in his lungs. Not one of his senses provided any hint of where his tormentor was or any way for him to fight back against the unseen foe. But, he lifted his blade and prepared to swing it toward the unseen once again, afraid but refusing to give in to that emotion. Impending doom flooded his mind again, but Kahr waited for the blow. He felt a disturbance in the air to his right, or maybe he wanted that to be the case. Regardless, what he felt was moving just slower than Kahr was capable of, approaching the side of his head. Kahr swung his axe with all his might, hoping to land a blow, if only for the sake of his pride. The disturbance moved around his axe, slamming into his chest. A disgusting crunch filled the area. And Kahr felt his blood gush from a new wound in his chest. The blow hadn't been that of a closed fist but instead that of a claw piercing into his sternum. But, he didn't stop his swing in response to the blow. Instead, Kahr threw all of his weight into his weapon, ripping it across the space to his side.
To Kahr's belated satisfaction, this was the first time his weapon made contact with his opponent. He felt the blade catch in something. And a flash of black oily fluid spouted out, filling Karhs vision. But, his rapid blood loss ripped away that satisfaction swiftly. His vision turned red, his consciousness slipping away with every instant. The handle of his weapon slipped from between his fingers as he fell backward. His ear rang with a silent pressure, and his hands felt cold, his body ached, and his mouth tasted like iron. But, all of these sensations faded before he hit the ground, leaving only his red-tinted sight at the end.
What he saw left him a little confused. In his dying state, Curse stood, plainly visible in Kahrs red-tinted vision. Kahrs axe was lodged in the side of the monster, a black ichor flowing from the wound, splattering across the ground in between the two. Behind Curse was a figure. They had the silhouette of a healthy individual, but their body lacked any defining details. Simply a vaguely human set of limbs attached to an obscure-looking body. The face wasn't anything of note to Kahr. They had soft features, just between that of a young boy and a girl. So perfectly undefined that Kahr doubted age would make a difference in either direction. Their hair was short and black, with no apparent style. It looked short but not shaved, like the person cut it regularly with the only purpose of getting rid of excess length. They had black eyes, like the midnight sky of a cloudy night. One of these eyes had a slit pupil, like that of a snake, that one flicked around rapidly, almost scanning the world. While the other had a rounded pupil that moved much more lazily but still in a controlled manner. The features of the person were twisted into a scowl directed at where Curse stood. Their mouth moved like they were saying something, but Kahr couldn't hear whatever it was, his mind fading even deeper into that engulfing black abyss.
Before Kahr's mind faded completely, he took in a final bit of confusing information. The figure stood in front of a building with flames licking out of its windows, and Kahr could swear that he saw the fire through the person's body. But, he attributed this to be a hallucination brought on by his blood loss. Undead couldn't talk, and a spectral would never come to this continent. Those were his final thoughts before he lost the ability to form new ones, his mind fading into a dark abyss.
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"Mind making this easy on me?" The enforcer asked.
"I wouldn't mind." Curse responded in a way he knew was outside the expectation of the enforcer. "But I did make a deal, have to honor that sort of thing, don't we?" Curse responded, letting humor taint its voice.
"What kind of deal?" Asked the enforcers, their voice a little too optimistic. Curse hated that upbeat, opportunistic nature of this one.
"I told this lout," Curse kicked at the body of the man beside him, gently though, didn't want to kill him. "That if he entertained me till you got here, I'd make sure he and his friend got away from this place alive. And, as you can see," Cure gestured to the weapon in his side. "He did an admirable job keeping up his end of the deal. So, I'll be honoring my end if you don't mind." Curse didn't wait for the enforcer to respond, picking up the body of his toy and moving past the perception of the enforcer to a place beyond the pitiful thing. Curse hesitated for an instant before leaving. He could take the man away instantly, but that wasn't going to test any of these new feelings inside of Curses body, nor would it be very fun. So, instead, Curse dug into himself and pulled out something that was part of himself. That thing was left in the area to entertain the enforcer. And hopefully, keep him occupied long enough for Curse to have some fun. After he was sure that the enforcer was distracted, Curse left for the mountain to retrieve the man with the rifle.
"Well, hello. Didn't think you'd still be conscious." Curse said, his voice filled with a genuine shock at the sight of the man with the rifle, still aiming it toward the city. "Am I correct to assume you are aware of my deal with your compatriot?" Curse asked, letting his voice flood the area intentionally.
"Yeah, I heard. Or I guess you let me hear." The man said, his voice scratchy, barely above a whisper. He spoke while letting his rifle drop from its readied position.
"Sharp intuition. If I hadn't already promised to let you live, I'd kill you." Curse let playfulness taint his voice and purposely fed the man a false memory of his own corpse against the tree. When that memory failed to elicit a reaction from the man, Curse kept talking. "But I made a deal, and your buddy here did an admirable job following through on his part. So, I'll be getting you away from the city." Curse said, letting his voice return to its usual form.
Curse didn't wait for the dying man to respond. He had work to do; both men needed medical attention, and one of them was, without his knowledge, suffering from a mild case of miasma oversaturation. So, Curse grabbed the man with the rifle and dragged him through the veil of perception. Curse didn't care to warn the one man who was awake to close his eye; he had no interest in wasting more time with such a thing. So, he dragged him across the world, deciding that a few country's distance was enough to call them safe. It didn't take long for Curse to find a place suitable for the two men. A place in a cave not far from a city in a different country. Curse stopped, stepped back into the normal realm, and tossed the two men to the ground like sacks of food.
At this point, Curse began administering emergency medical treatment to both men. The arrow was ripped out of the lung of the man with the rifle, and the hole forced closed with some string. Curse wasn't going to bother with anything more, the man would live, and he could deal with the rest on his own when he recovered some blood. The other man was a bit more of a challenge. Curse had done a good bit of damage to this one. His heart had a hole in it, his jaw hung, useless from strands of flesh on his cheeks. Several of his bones were shattered, and one side of his head was a meaty pulp. Honesty, he was as good as dead in the hands of almost anyone else. But, Curse latched onto the man's spirit and forced it to nit his flesh back into place. First, Curse set the bones of the man's shattered jaw and aligned the bone in his arm. Next, Curse aligned the bits of the man's skull and rebuilt the bones in his ear. Then it was a matter of closing the hole in his chest, draining all the organs of fluid that didn't belong, and stitching them back into the correct systems. Eventually, truthfully only a few instants, but an eternity for Curse, he finished healing all of the man's wounds, but his heart still sat motionless inside his chest. Curse could use several things to solve such an ailment, but he had a feeling that the issue was that the man still thought himself dead. His mind hadn't yet caught on that his body was healed, and as such, hadn't resumed sending the signals to beat the heart and fill the lungs. So, Curse reached into the mind of the man and filled it with a dream no one would ever want to sleep through. Everything he knew, falling apart, and everything he loved, dying in his hands. A dream custom-built to scare him awake.
The man awoke with a start, his mind filling into the body and finding it repaired. Curse watched as the man took a few shaky breaths before his heart resumed a regular beat. It pumped and sent blood to everything it needed to. So, Curse called his job done. Reaching over, Curse grabbed the handle of the axe he'd left lodged in his side and ripped it out, scattering his perfectly black blood across the face of the men on the ground. Curse swung the axe down, lodging the pic side of its structure into the stone beside the man before he once more stepped into the veil and vanished.
Now it was time to play with that little hero since the enforcer left her side and all. Playing with her was going to be much different than what Curse had just done.