I remember those soulless eyes. A simple white stone with delicate colorful lines all coming from the same point. This was all that was needed to have an impressive eye…But they might be painted with all the colors of the rainbow…I know them too well, dead and beady as if plucked from a rotting carcass. No matter how often she tried to give them life, it was hopeless. Thus, she made them white. She took those awful white eyes and socketed them in a broken doll’s head.
I broke that doll with my own hands. I tore its implanted white hair and cracked its limbs. I grinded it to dust and lied to her face that it was stolen. So why? Why is it now looking at me with those piercing eyes!?
֍
Inside a finely detailed carriage decorated with gorgeous clothes placarding the spacious interior, a small group of people looking at a map of the surroundings were debating the best course of action they could take.
“If we have to, kill the useless rabbles, and take the food for ourselves. We’ll be able to last until we exit this place.” Said a gelatinous mound of fat that glistened under the dance of nearby candles.
“Then we get overwhelmed by a simple handful of monsters who are after our food.” Responded something akin to an eagle with three pairs of wings and seven talons. “With numbers only can we survive. Unless you are saying you can protect us? If that’s the case, why didn’t you help when we were attacked?”
“H-ha. A-as if someone of my station should be required to display his strength for a bunch of sardines. You’re the one paid for dealing with the trash. Yet you allowed so many people to die.”
“Very well sir. I shall gladly deal with the trash that you are. A being of your so-called station should be able to prove it with acts and not just words, am I right?”
The bird threatened the pile of talking fat who cowered back to sprout insults regarding this strange bird.
“Shut the hell up.” Said a man covered in bandages from head to toe and missing a leg. “If you dare kill my people or put them in danger, I’ll cut your body to pieces and use your fat to cook everyone a meal. Looking at you, I think it’s the only thing you’re worth for.”
“W-w-w-what did you say?! I’m a baron, so know your place, outsider. You’re from the north, right? If something does happen to me, you’ll be executed without even a trial.”
What this noble, in name only, said was true. Rouhong used to live in the north, in a country that used to be at war with the one in the west not too long ago. The world itself almost looked like a malformed donut with seven well-known countries. The west called the land of the night fowl waged war with one of the many empires in the north. The reason was a simple famine in the mountainous north that pushed people to take up arms and try to create a revolution. The war was forcefully stopped when a litch took residence over the battlefield filled with mounds of corpses.
Strangely, the litch left a path between two cliffs alone. It allowed merchants and travelers to move between the two countries but made it dangerous for any armies to use, thus ending the war.
The greedy nobles like the lump of fat in the carriage came to despise those northerners as the war cost them a large sum while having no return on investment. Even if they wanted to make the revolutionary army pay for the damage they caused, they simply couldn’t force them as it would require them to send troops to do so.
“So, you’re planning on causing more trouble than your worth, huh?” said Rouhong who looked down on the noble. He didn’t care about rank and such things as nobility. Where he came from, those things didn’t exist and when someone claimed to be above another, it was because they had the strength to prove it. “A slimy bastard like you ought to know his place. If the only thing you have is the backing of people that can’t even help us right now, then I think you should simply find a corner to rot in.”
“I’ll make you pay for this! “—ENOUGH!”” the noble tried to intimidate Rouhong but was silenced by an old man with an imposing aura.
“None shall be killed today.” Added this old man who sat on a bench while his back made a painful arc. He then addressed the noble with as much disgust as his voice and face could produce. “You were awarded your rank thanks to your father’s countless exploits. If you dare blemish his name by abusing your title, then you shall be the one to be executed for insulting a great hero. You ONLY exist because he had hope that you would follow in his step. Diverge from this path, and you’ll be dealt with.”
The mood in the carriage became gloomy on this. There was once a knight who was loved by everyone and who cared for the needy. He acted as the emperor’s spear that was thrust into any threat to the country. He died about 25 years ago fighting a small scouting force of the creature Yuu had recently noticed atop the snowy peak of the mountain close by. They managed to raze many towns as they simply ‘inspected’ the strength of those living in this world. The last time people saw that knight was when he headed for those creatures’ camp alone. The next day, their bodies which were melting into a strange liquid-dust could be seen yet the knight couldn’t be found anywhere…
This legendary knight’s son whose form was cursed by the creature his father killed was now cowering in a corner of the carriage after the old man’s – his grandfather - declaration.
“Still,” started the old man. “I hope you can pardon my grandson’s impertinence and we can all be on good terms for this meeting. I am Neit and this excuse of a grandson is called Balor. By my left is a boy without a home that I’m taking care of. He goes by the name of Fionn. He has great potential and I hope you can be nice to him.”
So was a boy to the left of the old man who was too absorbed in a book to realize people were looking at him.
“Rouhong. I’m a Yaoguai from Tiantang-Huoshan. It’s somewhere in the east of the country you guys were at war with…I have no clue what it’s called now that the old fart in the ‘Temple’ died.”
“Alexander,” followed the man with the same name instantly. “I am the sword of our and only true emperor and follow his will with my life on the line.”
On this, everyone in the carriage, except Fionn reading his book, had a sour look. What Alexander had said could almost be considered dissidence against the current emperor. The “only true emperor” as he said referred instead to the previous lord of this country who died 200 years ago. Everyone respected this dead legend who created with his own hands the country that is now still standing. But his son who had ruled since his father’s death had an inferiority complex against the old lord. Many liken the old emperor to a god while his son was only a man with the limit of a man.
Thus, talking about serving the old emperor instead of the new one was often linked with issues people usually liked to avoid. As such, the other people in the carriage hastened their introduction to lift the awkward atmosphere.
“Siracusa, headteacher of the student among the impudently called ‘rabbles’.” Said the eagle.
“Ea-Nasir, merchant who has most of the ‘food’ someone wanted to steal from the deserving ‘rabbles’.” A man hiding his face with a mask said
“Kriemhilde. If someone has to die for food reasons, the moving pile of fat is a good start.” She was a woman filled with many scars over her fair body and who hugged a sword of exquisite craftsmanship.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Yuzuha…I’m mostly just taking care of Hongy, but you can consider me like a seer of some sort. Ha, also don’t all think that my visions are great or anything. At most, I can tell the gender of your kid while still in the belly…or how much spice you’ll need to get before cooking which on that Kriri, use plenty of the red powder.”
“Which red powder?” asked Kriemhilde with a sweet and enchanting voice, but glacial like the edge of a dagger.
“Don’t ask, I don’t know. Find out yourself, woman,” responded the blind woman who was angry at how this person responded to her.
Before a catfight could be started, Neit, the old man, coughed heavily, at first only wanting to get the attention of everyone which degraded into a painful cough that only subsisted with some water. “Hum hum. So…We need to work together to find a way to reach Daybreak town safely. The first worry is to find how long we can last with our current resources. So, I would like…” and so they made plans inside the carriage until the sun started painting the sky with its warmth.
The pyre had been extinguished long ago when its size was about to engulf a large tree which would have caused the fire to spread. People were slowly waking up with some sharing a simple loaf of bread baked with some of the flour Ea-Nasir had in his possession. This merchant wasn’t the best of man, but he wasn’t foolish to risk his life by disallowing the use of this precious resource that people would have killed him for.
As for Tsuki, even as the survivors were about to leave the camp they had made, this girl wasn’t back from her expedition. In a cart was a girl stricken by fear that the little girl she strangely knew well wouldn’t return. Small streaks of violet lightning almost imperceptible left her fingers headed into the dark forest like snakes hunting for something precious. “Tsuki,” she uttered with a trembling voice. “Where are you…Why do you look like her…”
❀
“Hmmm, mister cat?” asked Tsuki who was following the strange cat in a trench coat. “Haven’t we been walking for a long time?”
On this, the animal looked at a watch on his wrist and said with a tired and impatient tone. “12 mints and 90 hoses. This is nothing! Are you getting late for your next crime?”
“…”
“Seeeee? Silence is a form of acceptance. I saw enough of your kind, all from the same litter, and never change. We give you a whisker and you take a tail.”
“Mister cat…are you blind perchance?”
“Trying to intimate me, are you?”
Tsuki, tired of this cat, swatted his paw away from her baggy pants and pulled her dagger. “Where are you taking me? We’ve been walking in the same corridor for way too long. You’re wasting my time.”
The cat licked his stinging paw and brushed his long whiskers while deep in thought. What the girl said, even if she was a criminal, was true. In all of his life in service to the people, as he fought day and night for the peace of those prattling without a care of the darkness brought by others’ ambitions, he had never had a hard time finding a table to interrogate someone. Was the girl now pointing a dagger at him innocent or was she someone more dangerous than his nemesis…
He took a cigarette, of poor quality but sold everywhere, and took it to his lips. As for lighting it, he couldn’t. His paws trembled with uncertainty as he doubted all past actions. Maybe she was innocent, he thought for a moment before being reminded of the only criminal that got out of his grasp. His nemesis was El Cato, and he used illicit substances to mess with this detective’s mind. When he came back to his senses, his wife and daughter were missing. No matter how many lost posters he placarded over his city, no one with good intentions called him…
Would that young girl turn like the catnip lord he allowed to go…His feeling told him that she might be worse. But that rested on him finding a table to do his interrogation. No interrogation meant no proof that could be used during a trial. “Then let’s split up to find a table…” he said still in his dreamy world that she would listen to him. But that wasn’t the case at all.
“Watch out!” said Tsuki who jumped toward the small detective and took him in her arms as something heavy landed where he was.
A wooden ax crashed on the ground raising a cloud of dust and broken stones. As the girl tried to escape with the small cat, twisting brambles growing from the point of impact caught her foot. It pulled her back, but she swiftly freed herself with her dagger. She ran back to the way they came from as the corridor of tired tiles and dirty walls morphed into a path of dry stems with thorns sprouting like rocks.
She saw in the distance a battalion of wooden dolls splashed in red waiting and armed with long barbed sticks. As forward wasn’t an option, she tried to look behind her but the loud stomping of something heavy coming from this way dissuaded her. Tsuki was desperate for an exit as her senses were now screaming it was a mistake to get inside this unworldly market just because it had the name of someone she knew.
But it was when despair took her mind that a soft light shone to her right which she jumped into without questioning what it was. As stress and fear crept into her mind, the sparks of insanity flared up and melted part of this nightmare she found herself in. It was now her young wounded mind that was the most potent fright. So, as she left the nighttime tale of the thing lurking in those woods, she entered her own world created from her broken mind…
❀
When Tsuki opened her eyes once again after jumping into the window of light, she found herself in a room she knew all too well. The barred window she knew so well…the bed, the table, the dressers, the kitchen…She was back inside the lonely tower where she lived with Alice for six years.
Tsuki looked outside to see the usual acidic rain pouring on the dead world below. The usual artificial tree stood strong in its lone corner between two large walls built to defend against the outside. But her blood froze seeing something move from behind the tree.
It wore a discolored wig with a hint of once having been a pure white while it wore a reddish kimono covered by a haori of mournful color. Its face was completely disfigured as broken pieces of what looked to be porcelain were glued together by a disturbing darkness. It wasn’t human, this Tsuki knew well but it also shouldn’t be able to move by itself as it was only a doll Alice once made. It was one of the sick girl’s particularities as she excelled at making human-like dolls with little to no tools.
Tsuki looked at the doll which looked back at her with piercing eyes devoid of life. It pointed with its bent finger toward the corner created from the two large walls of stone as dark smoke mixed with vile blue pus began to ooze from this place. Tsuki pulled the curtain instantly at this sight.
“Finally! A table we can use for the interrogation.” Said the bipedal cat full of joy.
Tsuki was too surprised to say anything. The strange doll outside was too scary for Tsuki and whatever was coming from the wall that she heard so much about was also terrifying. So, how could this little cat only care about table and interrogation when some things were now hunting them? Something otherworldly that Tsuki had no idea how to fight.
“NOT NOW!” Screamed the girl while slamming her fist on the table the cat was now sitting at. “We need to get out of here or we’ll die!”
“Now now. It’s no use trying to get away from the claws of justice. So, tell me, what were you doing on the 16 gato of 13?”
“Who cares! I’m leaving!”
“If you think I’ll allow you to leave as that croc did!” responded the detective who attached himself to the girl’s leg but was too weak to stop her.
The moment Tsuki was about to open the door, something else opened it from the other side. The locks as many as they were all broken in a painful cry as a large figure showed itself in the doorframe. “Well well well…If it isn’t Captain Catactive begging for someone to get your fix of investigation,” said the being who had an impressive stature.
Whatever it was looked like a giant plush of a crocodile with the head replaced with that of a cat. Or maybe it was a cat driving a giant crocodile plushie. Tsuki didn’t know but she was somewhat happy to see this strange being and not the creature that was manifesting outside.
“Y-y-y-y-you…” tried to say the catactive, who was taken by overwhelming fear. “El-cato! What are you doing here!?!”
“Your intels are all wrong little boy,” said the catore mockingly as he emphasized the last ‘boy’.
“How?”
El-cato was about to explain his malefic plan to annoy the small detective in front of him but confusion struck him as he himself didn’t know what he was doing. But his confusion was replaced by fear when gurgling howling resonated outside the building. This plushy catore was a predator of the catactive but the sound coming from outside was far scarier than anything he could create.
“We need to leave!” Screamed the girl knowing what was coming.
As she tried to push the catore out of her way, a thin square-like tentacle moving in a straight line mixed with saccade-like turns at harsh angles entered from the window and destroyed the table to the catactive dismay. The thing never created any curve as if it wasn’t something it was able to. The end of the tubular tentacle vomited a vile blue pus which smells quickly spread, almost making Tsuki puke.
Tsuki took the catactive in her arms and pushed the large catore out into the swirling stairway where the hound that was hunting them would have a hard time reaching…