Puddle wasn’t one to believe in hell, at least until a week ago. For a full week he was completely paralyzed, stuck in his bed. Normally, that wouldn’t really be a problem but for some reason his immortal body was now craving food and water. He couldn’t even remember the last time he sweated and now he was drenched.
The only good part of all of this was that it was over. He basically crawled to a small reservoir of water that was present in his relatively small room. Something that he always thought was nothing more than something a part of the aesthetic of the room was now a blessing in his eyes. Once he drank way more water than the small bow should be able to have, he stood and finally decided to leave his room.
His room was one of the many square rooms carved inside a mountain in some random corner of the world. He wasn’t that high up in The Steps to actually know the physical location of their base. The place was well illuminated with the help of magic and the stone was now white also due to magic from one of the more artistic inclined members.
Puddle began to walk across the corridor to the main chamber of the headquarters to see if he could get an answer about anything that happened in the last week. The last thing he remembered was the small girl his boss was after destroying his puppet body as he was playing dead. It had been a week and nobody came for him so something must have happened. Maybe his boss did find what he was looking for and ascended? Those were questions for later.
After a few minutes of walking he finally arrived at the main chamber, only to be greeted by the one person he didn’t want.
“Hello puddle. Everything alright? You look like you need a biscuit. Want one?” An extremely beautiful woman asked from her sofa atop a flight of stairs. The woman had all the curves in the right place and the right amount to not be too much or too little. She looked motherly and sexy at the same time. Her face was a mystery. She was a human, on that everyone would agree, but everyone who looked at her would see something different. Some would see her as taller or shorter than the other, different skin color, hair, etc… But always the pinnacle of beauty.
“Shut it Holy Whore! I have no time to waste with you!” Puddle shouted back at the woman.
“Come on. It’s just fifty steps. How hard can it be? I will even give you a chocolate cookie as a bonus. Also, you sleep with only your boyfriend and suddenly you are a whore. What has the world come to?” She said playfully.
“I said shut it! I need to find out what happened to my boss!” He angrily shouted again.
“Oh my dear Puddle. That is exactly why there is nobody here. How do you feel now that you are the head apostle of the 14th Step? I made sure to not leave anyone in the way of this occasion.”
“...What?” Puddle asked, extremely confused.
“It is as you heard. You are now the head apostle of the 14th Step. Technically you are the only member of the 14th Step but that doesn’t really matter, does it?”
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“They, they are all dead? How?” Puddle asked in disbelief.
“You should know that better than anyone else, don’t you? Their life ended but yours didn’t, simply as that. Right Puddle, the Undying Roach?” The woman asked with particular vitriol in her voice as she said Puddle title.
“Bitch!” Puddle said in anger upon hearing that title. Puddle hated that title. He didn’t know why exactly but the only things that could kill him were things that couldn’t even acknowledge his existence. This power, whatever, came with a price. He was extremely ugly and no amount of power he could get would allow him to change his appearance. Puddle looked like a half-dead man starved to death that lost all his hair. He wasn’t tall either, just 160 cm. His eyes were pure white and his teeth barely looked like they were good enough to be used as such.
“Rejoice Puddle. Now you have all the power you wanted, right?”
“I said to shut up, whore! I have no reason to party! Dozens died and now I have a target on my head!”
“Ok! First, I have a name. It’s Jessica. Second, your dearest wish of really dying will be true sooner than you think. You have no idea how glad I am that your boss did what he did.” Jessica said with genuine happiness in her voice.
“What do you mean!?”
“Your organization kidnaps me, abuses my power and when I finally run away to do the job I was born to do I am kidnapped again before finishing the job. Now, due to the actions of the 14th Step, not only do I know all I have to do is wait here and I will be able to do it but I will also have my revenge while I watch it on the front row.”
“Your job is to be a woman! And you even failed in that, giving yourself away to some random out there just to spite us.”
“But The Steps still think of me as pure, don’t they? Or do you think all of you would still have your powers if I was defiled as you say? Or are you saying you are one of those people who prey on virgins? Not that you would ever get the chance.”
“You shut it! And what do you mean by revenge? Do you really think anyone is dumb enough to try and rescue you here?”
“You see, I knew he was here, I knew he was looking for me but I only thought she brought only half of him and that was partially true. But your ex-boss did the impossible, he broke the seal and released the beast. Now, they will rise, they will battle and I am sure that it will be him that will bring Judgment to me and when he does…I can’t help but imagine the punishment he will drop on all of you.”
“Who is this one you speak of!?”
“He is the inevitable! He is the end of all things! He is Death and he loves me! He will come and leave a path of corpses behind!”
“You are crazy! I need to look for someone who is not delusional!” Puddle ran out of the room, clearly not believing a word out of the woman.
Jessica, for her part, just stayed there, on her sofa, taking any food she could imagine from a table in front of her. The Steps captured her, drained her power to empower themselves and stopped her from doing the job she was born to do. Now they will deal with the consequences that are to come.
She tried to stop it, to calm the beast but now it hungered and hunted her as only her love would truly satiate it. She knew that there would be a hard path ahead of him but she also knew that nothing would stop him. She knew him, the true him, the him that even he himself didn’t know. He was ruthless to his enemies, unstoppable in the face of adversity and now he was truly free. She can only hope that whoever stands in her way is smart enough to leave.