The sharp pain gets worse and worse as the blades plunge into you continuously—the foreign material being forced into your body until eventually the onslaught of pain became a dull cramping as flesh and muscle were relentlessly torn open and your organs pulverized from the incessant pecking of multiples knives entering your body. Feeling your life drain away as the crimson essence of your body escapes from your gaping wounds along with your consciousness.
The elfwin priestess awoke with a start. Her body sat upright as she howled in pain, clutching at the blanket wrapped around her and trying to forget the feeling of dying mercilessly.
“Hey now! Whoa, it’s okay! You’re alright now, Sister. Calm down.” Ashton sat next to her, leaning forward against the back of the turned chair he had brought over when he decided to watch over her. He grabbed hold of the thrashing woman and held her tight to prevent her from hurting herself. “You passed out earlier after something you saw got to you. I don’t know what it was, but I’ve never heard someone scream like that the way you did before fainting.”
“A-Ash? B-By the mad maidens, it was so awful! They—they killed her. Brutally. I couldn’t even tell what was happening, it all went by so fast. But I felt every second of it… It was so terrifying. So violating. I never want to feel something like that again. I don’t want to feel this way. I feel so—I feel like part of my soul has been ripped away. I can’t feel her anymore. A living being isn’t meant to feel this way. I never knew such a horrible sensation could possibly exist.”
“Her? You mean your twin? Who killed her? How could someone even manage to get the jump on you?” He asked incredulously. She groaned in his arms, slamming her fists against the bed. “Hey, it’s okay! You’re safe now.”
“It was those bastards! The Lost Knights! Who could have possibly predicted they had a base around here?!” Tamsin tried to pull away from Ash, only to be pulled back. Despite enjoying the warm sensation, she didn’t want to seem weak right now. “Let me go. I’m not in the mood for your perversions right now.”
“You sure you’re gonna be alright?” Ashton gently released his hold on her. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve just been through, but you should probably keep resting. I don’t think you’re really fit to do anything strenuous right now.”
“They killed my sister! They killed me! You expect me to just let that slide? Screw the mission, I’m not leaving this fucking city until I get her back!” Tamsin coughed. She noticed a pile of stubbed cigarettes on an ashtray by the nightstand with one still lit, leaving an acrid smoke to continue filling what seemed to be the grimy old motel room she was brought to. She waved her hand in front of her face unpleasingly. “Ugh. Couldn’t you have gone outside for that?”
“I ain’t saying you can’t have your revenge, but it sounds like these are some very dangerous folk and you’ve been bedridden for days.”
“Wait, days?” Tamsin bit her lip until blood trickled from her lip. “I can’t believe they took me out of commission for that long. Goddess knows what they’re doing to my body! We need to get my other half back, pronto!”
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“Want to give her a proper burial back home, eh?”
“Yes! …Well, no. I’m going to reintegrate her. That’s a part of me. I think… I think maybe if she combines with me again, I can heal her.”
“Whoa, you think so? Sounds dangerous. Like giving yourself an almost-mortal wound and seeing if it’ll heal. It might just be too much for your body.”
“My body has already experienced the worst. If anything, it’ll feel like reattaching a missing limb.” She looked down at her arms resting on the tussled blanket still covering her half-broken body. A plethora of old scars covered her limb from limb. “Besides, I’m used to receiving punishment by now.”
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“It feels like we’ve been down here for days,” lamented Bart.
“Well lucky for you, it’s only been a couple of hours,” retorted June. She held onto her brother by a pinch of cloth. “Where are we, anyway? I can sense how dark it is here.”
The two siblings had traveled down one of the abyssal corridors, slinking against the wall like a couple of thieves raiding a tomb. On one side were rows of locked chambers sitting silent in the dark, while the wall across from them had old, decaying windows every few steps and littered with shattered stained glass on the floor below them. On the other side of the windows there seemed to be some kind of shallow, inner yard between the edge of the cathedral’s exterior and the rockface of the cave interior where the building had been sinking into. The gap was just large enough for someone to fit into.
Bart squeezed the grip of his looted weapon in hand, afraid of how soon he might actually have to use it. He wasn’t too familiar with the feel of a blade aside from the knives at home he would use to practice cooking—not that royalty would ever need to practice such a thing, but cooking had quickly become a comfortable hobby of his. Bart waved the dagger at the shadows in front of him. The musty air was becoming too stifling to bear.
“Bart?” June yanked on his coat. “Don't zip your lips now! Did you spot something?”
“June, I can't even see my own feet in front of my face. Not to mention it reeks in here. I can't even imagine how bad that must be for you.”
“N-No. The smell is particularly strong and acrid, I admit. But it makes my mind race wondering what could possibly be causing it. I can already count past both hands with ideas on what it could be. So don’t feel bad! I don’t mind this smell. It gives the place… character.”
“This dank, subterranean murder-crypt has character?”
“Well, I didn't say it was a righteous character!” The princess clicked her teeth. “Let’s just keep going! We’re bound to find something.”
“Oh, June—! You aren’t fooling anyone! Just admit you're living out one of your sick, macabre fantasies. You’ve always been into the terrifying stuff. Always with that sick habit of making me read you some gore-addled tale. At least when you had movies snuck into the castle, I didn’t have to stick around while you listened to those poor victims get gutted or worse. You know, I should’ve known when you hardly reacted to that woman getting ripped apart earlier—Wait! There’s a light up ahead!”
Several feet further down the corridor was a flickering light escaping from an open room.
“Keep quiet, Bart!” June spoke in a hushed tone. “If there’s a light, there’s definitely a source and that source might just kill us this time.”
“The light is coming from an open room down the hall, though I can’t be too sure of any masked and hooded occupants that might be dwelling inside.” Bart trod forward at a snail’s pace with his blindingly audacious sister in tow. His painfully tight grip on the knife had turned his knuckles white.
“That is much too highly suspicious to be just an ordinary room,” noted the brash princess. “We must move gracefully and without making a single noise. Let’s use some signals for what we might run into. If there’s someone or something inside, then poke me with your finger like so. Just one! You got that? If they spot you, then scream to draw their attention and so I’ll know you’re being attacked. But if the room is empty, then just say so.”