Chapter 17: Honeymoon (2)

1.

Lily collapses on the floor, clearly out cold.

Shit, they poisoned the wine.

I run up to her body, she is still breathing, I don’t think it was fatal.

Her pulse is normal, was she just put to sleep? Not poisoned?

“My goodness finally, now we can talk.”

It’s the girl with the ginger hair, behind her are two bodyguards, huge bodyguards.

The men behind her looked terrifying; the reason being simple.

They were both about 6’6 bulky dudes which is terrifying enoughbut also, strangely, their eyes were completely white, like just the whites of the eyes.

Their skin looked dead and gross, like it was in the beginning of decomposition. A blessing maybe? Or do they just need skincare?

The skin of the girl in front of me also looks unnerving, but it looks like makeup was used to make it look less noticeable. It’s hard to tell how old she is due to this.

Why am I always at the epicentre of everything bad that could possibly happen?

“Who are you? This is some pretty bad service you know? 1 star.”

She giggles and speaks to me like she is reading a script.

“It doesn't matter who I am, what matters is who are you, Z. That healing blessing of yours is something really special.”

Shit she already knows about my healing?

There goes my element of surprise, it’s really the only thing I have here.

“What do you want from me?”

“We aren’t after you, actually, we consider you a victim in all this.”

“Okay?”

“Do you want to help us? We are taking Lily, trust me it’s for the good of the city.”

Do I want to help? Is this some sort of trafficking scheme?

Hell no I don’t, but I can say I do want to help, to catch them off guard. Acting mode activated.

Tsk.

“This god damn bitch has been driving me crazy all day, I’m glad you finally shut her up.”

My acting career began and ended with this simple sentence; I am hoping she fell for this pathetic display.

The ginger girl chuckles, “I understand, the Cullington family are a disgusting people, you not included. Help us carry this girl outside.”

I step closer but she holds her hand out.

“Also... I've been watching you, you are really an interesting person you know that? I think you can do great things, great things in the future.

Thank you for all your sacrifices.”

Oh geez I’m blushing,

I am going to feel bad for what I’m about to do.

I stand up, slowly make my way towards the bottle of wine, my steps are calculated and cold.

Every movement in this bakery can be heard, there’s no background noise, just a ringing in my ears.It’s giving me a sense of focus.

I grab the wine with a smile on my face, holding it up towards them dramatically.

“Can I take this home? As a reward for helping? Expensive stuff right?”

“Sure, we don’t work here anyways, take it. Take whatever, it’ll disappear when we get back anyway.”

“What? Disappear?”

“Oopsie, I said too much.”

Interesting… Are these the people that cleared out the streets? How did they do that? How did they make this place empty?

The two men begin to pick up Lily.

I need more information.

“So, what’s your name?”

“My name? I don’t have a name anymore, not after dying of course, I was reborn in the wild, surely you understand, we don’t need names.”

“Dying?”

“Yeah? If you don’t know I’m not going to be the one to spoil it, sorry friend.”

“Uhh… alright, do you live here?”

“What is this an interrogation? I guess I can tell you even if you betray us, we live in the wild, out in the snow where we are free, where you were free.”

I take a step forward.

“So why do you need Lily?”

“Secret. Listen Z, I think we could be thegreatest of friends, we are doing a good thing here, please join our cause.”

Nah, sorry.

I take a step forward, my hand grips onto the edge of the bottle, and,

SMASH.

I hit the first man in the back of the head with the bottle. An obvious dent appears on his head. An easy one hit kill.

I hear a groan, the man stays upright.

Wait that didn’t knock him out?

He turned to me and grabbed me by the neck.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The bottle I had in my hand drops onto the floor, completely shattered.

That was thick glass too, and this guy didn’t even budge.

“Now now, be gentle with him boy, he is our friend remember? He is just confused on which side to fight for. Disappointing nonetheless.”

The ginger girl smiles at me.

“I understand, you are kindhearted, but Lily deserves nothing but pain, I was hoping you’d see that.”

The man is completely lifting me off the ground, it hurts so bad.

His pure white eyes are staring at nothing, I don’t think a single thought is going through this man’s head.

I grab onto his wrist and try to break it, I can’t.

I can’t reach towards his face either.

I’m in a constant state of blacking out and then healing myself.

“Hey Z? Hang in there okay?”

The ginger girl and the second man begin to pick up Lily, taking her outside.

I’m just stuck hanging in the air, this man’s grip does not falter.

Okay what to do what to do.

I can’t even kick this guy, I wish I wasn’t so short. Urgh.

He isn’t even squeezing enough to kill me, just to keep me out of oxygen and contained.

The corners of my blacked-out mind begin to form a plan.

I remember a story, a story about how a mother managed to lift a burning car to save her child.

This was because she had used more than the amount the brain lets you use a muscle.

Since muscles tear against themselves if they are used at such force.

How did she manage to lift the car then?

Adrenaline.

I can get adrenaline from pain. As long as my brain recognises it.

I bite my tonguesuper hard; pain shoots out and my brain awakens, I’m given full clarity.

I begin to squeeze this man’s wrist, I feel my forearms tearing apart then re-healing then tearing apart again.

Actually, I could hear it, I was squeezing so hard my muscles snapping made a boing sound.

His wrist breaks and I drop onto the ground.

He doesn’t move, his wrist is broken, and he doesn’t move. Is he some monster? I expected at least a grunt of pain. Anything.

Suddenly he looks at his snapped wrist, then back at me.

I need to run; I need to run now.

I push myself of the floor, the wooden planks below me allow me to slide a bit as I get up.

I take my first step to get out, turning my head for a split second.

A sharp pain ripples through my side, I had been kicked with enough force to flip a car.

I fly to the other side of the room, smashing into tables and eventually into the barcounter, my back breaks and I fall into the service area.

The man just grumbles and walks towards me, slowly.

“Let’s just chill and talk this out like adults okay?” My voice is wavering, urgh I don’t want to feel pain again, why is everything so painful?

He doesn’t even register my words as he picks up the pace.

My body snaps back into place with a sickening crunch, I quickly stand up, not really having a plan.

In a desperate attempt to stop him I throw bottles and glasses from the bar towards him.

The glass breaks on impact and slashes his skin, but he doesn’t slow down or show any emotion. He isn’t even bleeding, the deep wounds just being black in colour.

Is he even human? His body is damaged so he should be slowing down, and the dent in his head from me hitting him with the wine earlier looks like a severe injury.

But he doesn’t stop moving.

I run backwards into the kitchen area, yet again nobody is there. Everyone everywhere disappeared somehow.

I hear him enter, he is like an unstoppable force. Intent on apprehending me.

I grab a pan of boiling water that was left on the stove and throw it over his face.

I can see the skin bubbling and falling off, but he doesn’t stop moving.

Shit.

I get hit again by a punch, hitting me directly in the ribs.

Flyingbackwards into a metal table my body breaks on the metal counter, a ton of kitchen equipment rattles onto the ground.

“Whyyyy” I try and move my body, but it’s clearly broken and trying to reconstruct itself.

I’m losing my cool, this isn’t good.

“Stop doing that prick… dick move…” My breath is heavy, the wind completely knocked out of me.

I’m cornered.

“Hey uh how about we settle this with a coin flip? I promise I won’t tell your boss okay?”

I crawl backwards, it would take too long to get up, he would most definitely grab me if I did.

“This floor is disgustingly greasy, this cannot be regulation, how about we go tell your boss okay?”

Any attempt at communication with this guy just doesn’t work, what’s even the point of talking when this guy is just a husk?

He should 100% be dead by now.

He continues to step towards me, I grab a knife off the ground and throw it clumsily.

It stabs into his arm before falling off.

His wrist is clearly broken from earlier so he can’t use that arm, meaning I can stop him from moving, I just have to find a way to break his legs.

Okay, I just need to get u-

I am slammed into the floor by a kick, I lose my vision.

I begin regenerating on the other side of the room, too slow to do anything before I get pinned down. This whole place is covered in blood and body parts, the ground being super slippy due to the blood.

I smash into a wall of hanging knives, they fall alongside me onto the ground.

He is standing basically on top of me now.

I regenerate enough to be able to see and think again,

“Okay… please no more… I surrender okay? Stop hurting me.”

His leg rises and slams back down onto my stomach.

An unconscious scream of pain leaves my mouth.

It flattens my body, his foot going through me and onto the floor like a hydraulic press.

I can’t move my legs, the clatter of cutlery was within reach.

I can barely control my arms, I keep losing the ability to move them and then gaining it back again.

I grab another knife off the ground with my shaking arm and stab his leg over and over again, hoping he would move his foot from the inside of my stomach.

After around 8 slices he moves, the sound and pain was nauseating,

“Please no more… I surrender? White flag? I concede this win to you.”

His foot now covered in blood rises again, and slams down into my neck.

Shit I can’t move anymore, I am completely paralysed.

I can’t even fight back, my arm which was holding the knife falls limp, he can just stay in this position with his foot constantly crushing my neck and spine.

Urgh this is bad, this is really bad.

I keep dying, I keep dying over and over again.

I feel my brain being sent into nothing then I get brought back to reality, its making it hard to think.

My eyes don’t work I’m just in darkness.

I can’t do anything here. Do I just give up? Is this really all I can do? This is such a stupid power, whycan't I be overpowered like everyone else?

I think about how I once regenerated with no hair, because of the fire.

Back then, sometime between me dying in the crystal impact, and being crushed, my hair was magically back.

What were the rules? I kept thinking about this, my brain was working overtime.

Do I regenerate depending on how I perceive myself? I aged after the first sacrifice; I did feel a sense of maturity and accomplishment; I thought that what I did was selfless and adult.

Because I was told adults are the epitome of self sacrifice and perfection as a kid, well actually I just assumed that.

I always thought adults were perfect in the modern world orat leastsupposed to be perfect.

My eyes turning red could be from me subconsciously thinking I'm a monster? Since monsters have red eyes.

I'm trying my hardest to figure this all out, anything to get me out of the pain I'm feeling.

If I regenerate depending on how I perceive myself. Can I in some way control it?

I begin to envision my spine, healing in a way that it would wrap itself around this man’s foot and squeeze it.

It was disgusting to think about, I just kept envisioning it.

My spine, I pictured it like a snake, wrapping from the back of my brain to the top of this man’s foot.

I kept seeing it, in my mind, I squeezed it, I pictured my spine cracking under the pressure of the force I was putting it under.

I could sense the feeling, like an anaconda taking out its pray.

I pictured it turning the man’s foot into a paste.

Eventually I hear a pop, and someone fall on the floor.

My body regenerates to how it was supposed to be, my blurry vision comes into focus.

It looks like the man’s foot was completely mangled; he can’t stand anymore.

Next to him, a piece of spine that was snapped in half, it was curled and didn’t look right, it looked kind of just like a random bone, I guess I didn't envision the shape right.

This was big... I could actually do something...

He fell backwards and is crawling towards me.

How did I even do that?

I really hope this is something I can do on command and not just something I can do when I’m desperate.

I get up and easily make my way around the huge man, he is a nonthreatnow.

I grab a knife as I leave and run outside.

There was still nobody around, and I could not see the ginger girl either.

I need a better view. The building I was just in had 3 stories to it, I could easily climb it and see the whole inner circle from there.

As I begin climbing, I notice something that I did when I was climbing the cave wall to the crystal.

I felt stronger, knowing what I know now, I feel like my body was subconsciously adding muscle to my body, to make it easier to climb.

Because I perceived myself as a good climber, naturally I would have the muscle for it.

Interesting, I can’t wait to test out all my theories, I’m so glad there is more to me than just my healing.

This is the first bit of happiness I’m feeling in a while.

I reach the top of the building and look around, there was nobody on any of the main roads, nobody through any windows, nobody anywhere no matter how far I looked.

This is incredibly weird, was I in a different dimension or something?

“HEYYYY!!! WHERE ARE YOU!!!!” i scream, it breaks the silence, the deafening silence, it echoes infinitely.

I don’t know why i thought that would work, next I’m gonna try to shout Marco and hope they reply back.

How do I find one person in a giant city? They could be hiding in any one of these buildings or alleyways.

“URGH.”

I jump back down the third story building, landing with a thud, not caring about the damages to my body, I stumble back into the bakery.

The man is still crawling towards me, on a never-ending mission.

“Hey uh, I’ll join you okay? Take me to your boss or something and I’ll help out.”

This was pointless, this man had nothing going on in his mind. But there’s gotta be some telltale sign to tell me where that ginger woman was.

“Alright this’ll get a bit gruesome.”

I use the knife to sever the head from the body, he keeps trying to bite at me like a zombie. I hold him up by the hair.

“Okay friend, become my metal detector, my ginger detector.”

I take thehead outside, holding it out, I do a quick 360 and sure enough the grunts he makes get quieter in a certain direction. Like he didn’t want to upset his boss.

“What a stupid weakness.”

There was no way to know for sure this would work, I just got incredibly lucky with the mechanics of this guy, maybe he was told not to make noise near her? he seems to follow commands well so that could be the case.

I hold him out and head the direction where he makes the least amount of noise.

2.

“I come bearing gifts my friend!”

A ginger girl walks into an alleyway with lily’s body in her henchman’s arms.

“Got her just like you asked!”

A woman in a black cloak and a mask stands up from a bloody circle drawn onto the floor. She moves efficiently and mechanically.

She speaks in a monotone voice.

“That was quick. The circle isn’t done yet. Where is Z? This wasn’t the plan.”

“Urghhhh he tried to kill one of my men, boytrouble, right?”

“Did you explain the plan?”

“No? You think I’m stupid enough to leak sensitive data?”

“No.”

The woman goes back to the ground and continues to paint the floor with blood, the bucket beside her being full of a deep shade of crimson.

“So what’s this little art project? Or do you not trust me enough to explain your blessing?”

“I don’t trust you enough.”

“Fair! But we are a team now, so maybe in a few business days you can explain?”

The henchman drops lily onto the ground with a thud, making her grin.

She reaches into her pocket and looks at her watch, it’s completely frozen.

“Ba ba ha ha baba da da da!”

She sits on a barrel kicking her legs. Drumming a beat.

“Stop it.”

“Then make conversation! Why do people suck at socialising now? I just had to talk to a boy who seemed completely disconnected from his surroundings, while i had to act all mature and convincing, and now I gotta talk to you, a robot person basically. Back in my day people were friends!”

“Don’t call me a robot person. That is rude.”

“If you don’t want to be called it then don’t act like it.”

Footsteps and grunts can be heard a short distance away.

“Uh oh, how’d he get out of my sticky situation I setup?”

“What? Did he find us?” She begins to fidget with her cloak.

“Yep! What a clever young man. I didn’t expect him to actually pose a threat to this scheme we got going on.Well, it’s your fault since you wanted the kid, we should’ve done this separately, first lily then the kid.”

“Lily almost never leaves her manor without a bodyguard. Except for today, this kid poses less of a threat than her usual blessed Guardians.”

“Yeah yeah whatever, all smart I get it. I’m gonna go stop him.”

She walks out into the open street, a figure holding a severed head is walking towards her, covered in their own blood.

“That’s… gross…”

“How’s it going guys?”

End of chapter 17