Chapter 71

“The smell of death.” Part 2

Warning: this chapter is a bit dark and may contain innuendo and scenes that may hurt the susceptibility of sensitive readers.

Kalysto stared at the emptiness in front of her.

Gone was the fear of being kidnapped, the repulsion at the lustful gaze of that strange merchant or the paralyzing fear of dying under the blade of the semi-human bodyguard’s sword.

Everything seemed to run in slow motion as her senses went numb to the painful memory that appeared out of nowhere.

Memory flickered in front of her confused eyes, giving her little glimpses of what was happening in the real world. But none of that mattered now. Her numb heart seemed to have been encased in a shell of pure darkness where nothing existed but cold and shadows.

Where only eternal emptiness and immense darkness existed.

No pain or emotion whatsoever.

And Kalysto felt herself floating in the middle of nowhere.

The image in front of her flickered again, going from being a little girl with blood on her hands in front of the lifeless body of the man who had robbed her of the only family she had left, to becoming an adult again. Sitting on the floor on an expensive soft carpet while a thick cord of black smoke began to materialize out of nowhere, slithering down her left arm like a snake. Which upon reaching the palm of her left hand cracked the handcuffs on that wrist and then spread out like a whip of darkness. Crystallizing into the tip of a black spear that pierced the guard’s chest without any trace of mercy.

Ripping out his heart.

The demi-human had no chance to react.

Although Kalysto seemed to notice the world around her in slow motion thanks to her dulled senses, everything had happened in a matter of milliseconds. As fast as the blink of an eye.

The groans of the merchant could still be heard in the distance but Kalysto’s ears couldn’t register it. Her only focus was the memories of the past that she thought she had forgotten, and that she always felt were missing pieces of the puzzle that had been her life. And now, she had finally recovered one of the many pieces that had been missing.

A giant puzzle suddenly materialized in the vast emptiness, filling her dark mind with some color. Among the hundreds of missing pieces, a new one took shape and clicked into place, causing the image in front of her to change. And Kalysto found herself transported to the moment that was painted with vivid colors among the pieces, as if they were part of a beautiful and incomplete landscape.

The next second Kalysto was inside the image, seeing a smaller version of her. Shivering in fear under the bed in her bedroom on the second floor of the house she grew up in as she listened to her drunken stepfather come home in a bad mood and argue with her mother on the First Floor.

<> That voice in her head had said to the little girl, but even from the doorframe of her old room, Kalysto could hear it with perfect clarity.

<> The little girl climbed out from under the bed and opened the window, the same one through which she used to spy on her missing father. But as soon as she climbed into the frame with the intention of jumping up to the thick tree branch below her window, her mother’s loud scream stopped her. And both Kalysto and the little girl turned to look up to the First Floor.

Fear burned her insides and her hands began to tremble as the premonition of what she was about to witness seized her.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

And in that instant Kalysto ceased to be an adult, to become again that frightened little girl who ran downstairs only to see her stepfather kicking her mother’s body inside the kitchen. A pool of blood began to spread under the bruised body of her mother, who barely had the strength to beg her attacker to stop. Her face streaked with tears and the bruises from the previous day’s beating still fresh on her mature skin.

“You fucking bitch! How dare you defy me? And where did you get that money?” shouted that beast who in her small eyes looked like something that had just come out of hell.

“Stop it! Stop hitting her!” The young Kalysto pushed the drunkard away and ran towards her mother, covering her with her thin body, smaller than the rest of her schoolmates due to malnutrition. In spite of being fourteen years old, Kalysto barely looked like she was only ten years old.

“Get away from there you little brat! I’m teaching that bitch a lesson!" Kalysto earned a couple of kicks as soon as she refused to stop protecting her progenitor. Or at least that was until that man grabbed her by the hair and pulled it hard.

But the girl didn’t scream.

Instead, she just gritted her teeth and tried to focus on her mother, letting that feeling of coldness that sometimes saved her from the pain of her stepfather’s continuous beatings, invade her. And out of the corner of her eye she watched the knife with which her mother had been chopping the few vegetables she had managed to get to make soup.

If only I could reach it! she thought. But the monster threw her against the wooden table and her limp body bounced to the floor after hitting her head, a trickle of blood running down her haggard face.

“I’m going to teach you how to treat your elders with respect!” Said that beast with his eyes shining as he unbuckled his belt. The problem wasn’t the couple of lashes he launched against her back and arms, the problem came later, when seeing her reduced to a small quivering lump the expression on the drunk’s face changed.

“Ah, that’s better!” And Kalysto’s blood ran cold as she watched him adjust the lump between his pants. “Now, come here," he ordered with a lust-laden smile. “Let’s put that pretty mouth to better use," he growled, after running his lust-laden gaze over her developing body.

Disgust churned her stomach, her hands began to sweat, and bile rose in her throat.

<> shouted that voice in her head, and Kalysto obeyed her immediately though she stumbled and fell to the ground for a few seconds near her mother, before getting up again. But before she could reach the kitchen doorframe and flee through the front door, a blow resounded against her back knocking her to the floor.

Stunned, she noticed the knife in her left hand, which she didn’t remember picking up.

And how did that get there? She wondered in an instant of confusion, which she dismissed as soon as she felt the man’s weight on her. And kalysto twisted and screamed for help as she tried to run away from that perverted monster, but despite her efforts, her strength was not enough.

No one came to their rescue. Just as she could not get rid of the libidinous claws of that despicable being.

<> Desperate to avoid what was about to happen to her as that thing tried to lift her skirt, for the first time the girl accepted the proposal. And her body relaxed as the darkness clouded her vision.

A second later, Kalysto was expelled from her body.

She was able to see the whole scene again from outside herself. And she watched with morbid pleasure as the small version of herself transformed in front of her. Her long light brown hair turned black, as did her eyes, and with an agility that was unknown to her, the small teenager turned and plunged the knife into her stepfather’s neck. She then kicked him, knocking him off her, only to bury the knife against his side again and finally get him off her.

Kalysto watched the scene as sadness, and guilt began to overwhelm her.

If only I had known how to heal my mother, none of this would have happened. She reproached herself. If only I had been stronger than that monstrous man, he would never have used us as a punching bag.

But she hadn’t been quick enough to run away from him and alert the neighbors, or strong enough to avoid the damage ‘that thing’ had done to her mother and her with his libidinous hands.

It had been Persephone who had saved them.

And though she was frightened to see her small, trembling hands covered with the blood of that foul monster when she finally regained control of her body, the young Kalysto, full of hope, ran to the corner where her beaten mother lay immobile, while the floor was stained with the blood pouring from one of the wounds he had inflicted on her mother with the knife that now lay buried in the man’s abdomen.

But all her joy at having survived that close encounter with death at the hands of that monster, along with the hope of escaping with her mother and getting her to a hospital, died when its younger version finally reached her.

Her mother had long since stopped breathing.