6°35’44.9”N 6°04’44.2”W – Near Kouétinfla, Ivory Coast
18.05.2024 – 20.00 UTC+00:00
The wilderness became the natural choice of path. Even Akissi, once she realized how slow Kouadio could move while Sparked by my curse, she agreed that staying on a road was just too risky. Well, it always was because of the nature of our mission, but even more so, because it would be increasingly difficult to explain our companion’s state to even a simple civilian crossing our path.
Admittedly though, the path through the wilderness led by a Sparked body was not only slow but also quite exhausting for me. Once the sun set, we tried to continue, but our progress was so slow that when Guarin suggested we make camp, no one really voiced their opinion for or against that and simply obeyed. Although, no one had really voiced any opinion the last hours.
Akissi knew Kouadio personally, so she was the one most affected by his current state. I could see in her expression that she despised me even more for not letting him find whatever peace he should, but also her uneasiness with agreeing with the status quo. Really, what other choice did we have? If indeed these lands were a domain designed to kill us if we carried what Kouadio had in his pouches, one would have to volunteer to risk his life and carry it instead. Seemed like a pointless argument given how Kouadio was dead already, and no one would want to be my next Sparked.
Guarin had another type of concern. As we sat around the fire and I drank some water from my waterskin, I quickly noticed he looked troubled by thought and busy trying to work out a solution. It didn’t look like a moral trouble like Akissi’s – no, it was something more practical.
“We can’t be far from Kouétinfla,” he said to Rox and I. Akissi was gone in search for anything edible in the surrounding area.
“And why do you sound like this is something bad?” Rox asked.
“Well, for one thing,” he pointed towards Kouadio, standing still lifeless a bit further from the camp.
“Do not worry. As long as I am alive, he is attached to me” I clarified.
They paused.
“That’s not it,” he said in the end “The first problem is he is a temporary solution.”
Rox and I were focused on him – this situation was right up his alley, finding problems in solutions and vice versa.
“I mean, eventually, when we reach the town, we will have to leave him behind. We can’t just walk around with a zombie. One of us will have to carry his things. And we saw how instantly that hex worked on Kouadio. What if the domain extends to that point?”
We all sat in silence.
“Not a fan of the z-word,” Rox said “But I get your worry.”
“Do you believe the entire area is under this scream-hex domain?” I wondered “This would take a very powerful Curse”
“That’s the second issue. We were supposed to meet more support there. After Marin… I called in for reinforcements.” Begrudgingly, he tried to start a small campfire. Rox seemed lost in her thoughts, and I suddenly felt hopeful. The reinforcements would probably have at least one more Cursed, and I would no longer carry the weight of this entire team. Not that Akissi was not a capable threat in a fight, but even she could not do much against such powerful hexes.
“And these reinforcements. Would be of the Cursed kind.” Rox said exactly what I was thinking, although she looked more worried than relieved. Even for a more progressive person like her, a Cursed individual remained a hard pill to swallow.
“Well, yeah. But someone is controlling the area so…” Guarin said.
“…so either our enemies found our reinforcements, or they haven’t arrived yet” I finished his sentence.
“Which leaves us…” he managed to start some smoke with his sticks and matches “completely alone.”
Akissi dropped a basket with roots and vegetables next to us. She said something in Baoulé.
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“We were always alone,” Rox translated.
The atmosphere of the small group only got worse while Rox prepared the sad tasteless stew of whatever those roots were. No one had anything smart to say, and our position seemed as desperate as it could. Even Guarin did not dare discuss what we would do tomorrow: wait for reinforcements that may never arrive or proceed ahead completely alone. Who knows what waited for us in the next town.
“You know, I just need to ask,” Rox said breaking her silence, her voice audibly trembling with a hint of sadness “Why didn’t you do the spider thing with Marin as well? Why didn’t you have him carry all our pouches from the moment he died?”
“Kouadio might have been alive now” I added “Is that why you ask?”
I sighed, I guess it did not matter at that point.
“I cannot spark Cursed individuals. The Curses we bear” I hesitated “destroy what people usually have, you can call it a soul if you want, that my spiders aim to Spark and animate.” I explained. Akissi cursed in her unique way.
“So, the only way for this to work would be one of you to die first. Actually, that is exactly why I was paid for this job” I said trying to sound as neutral and calm as I could. I have gone over this conversation with so many different groups of mercenaries like this before. Some went well, some went bad. But I had learned that if I showed emotion, that was when people got the angriest.
No one said anything. Rox just looked right at the pot she was making the soup in, clearly trying to hold back whatever she was going to say.
“Marin knew this. But still jumped in the middle to save you, not because of the mission. You were never essential. But because he was a genuinely, stupidly, good person” I said in the end.
Guarin stood up and went towards his tent. Rox showed him the pot of boiling muddy soup, but he gestured goodbye. The rest of us had a bowl of the concoction and then turned in for the night. Akissi would have the first watch, not that it mattered to me. I chose not to say, but Kouadio would automatically charge anyone trying to even approach me threateningly.
“Just wake me up in a couple of hours,” Rox said and headed to her tent. As I did as well.
In my tent, I opened my backpack. I took out a small journal, that I kept the past decade through my missions. It was written in a coded form of Dida, so no one would ever be able to read this. Nonetheless, I always hoped that one day, once this diary was filled up with enough horrors, and I ended up dead and forgotten, someone would break its code and read it. Sometimes I even referred to that future reader. It was perhaps the easiest way to battle the loneliness of my Curse.
I wrote everything from the last couple of days, until my eyes could not take it anymore.
I guess. I just really hate what I am.
That was the last sentence I wrote before falling asleep.
At first, I heard the blood moving. Sleepless blood and hearts racing. My bloodsense was strong on dreamless nights – but was this real or just a dream? I shifted and shook on my sleeping pouch. And then in a spike of action, I felt blood moving and striking. I struggled to shake the sleep and open my eyes.
I heard a scream.
“Why PLEASE STOP” were the crying words that made me finally jump up. This was not a dream. I could now clearly hear there was a deadly commotion in the camp. And then – a gunshot.
“Guarin?” I yelled. Struggling to realize what was happening, I closed my eyes: I felt only two more pulses outside, which could only mean one of us was either far enough or dead. I would not take any chances: still inside the tent I commanded “Kouadio, kill”.
Bracing myself, I exited my tent, and to my horror, I saw Akissi holding her machete, lifeless and shot in the head near the campfire. Blood was spilled everywhere around her forehead. Guarin was bleeding out near his tent, lying lifeless seemingly in a pose trying to crawl toward the campfire. And in the center of it all was Rox, holding her hand up menacingly. A small dark pebble floated just on top of her palm.
I tried to register what exactly was happening. Rox, sweet Rox, the one Marin had died for and the only one who I thought liked me in this group, had killed everyone but me. Not only that, but she also had a powerful enough Curse to replicate the effect of a gunshot with all but a pebble on her hand. I could only guess what she could do.
Kouadio was already obeying and was running toward her, following my command. A Sparked man, two times her size. She did not even flinch at the sight of him. She looked me dead in the eye. Was that remorse in her eyes?
I did not even try to take a step to the side. I heard a gunshot, and it felt as if warm water had spilled across my chest. No pain, no breath. I fell to the ground lifeless within a second.
But I was still there, standing taller than Rox, going towards her. My huge arms grabbed her. She looked at me in horror, as if she had just realized her terrible miscalculation. Kouadio had some of me still in him. And I had orders to execute.
“I am sorry, Kouadio I am sorry” she begged screaming as I pinned her on the ground “Please please I HAD NO CHO-”her sentence was cut short as at full supernatural strength, I grabbed the stew pot that was left outside and pushed it over her head.
Again, again and again.
Until I breathed again. I looked at my arms covered in blood and spider webs, and then at the woman with the pulverized head. I looked to my left; Akissi was shot in the head. On my right, Guarin had all but bled out just outside his tent. On my back, I was dead.
Demi’s – my- lifeless body with a big open wound in her chest right at the center.
For the first time in my life, I looked beautiful and peaceful. Rested. I turned to the sky as I heard the noise of helicopters approaching.
I was out of time.