“35. 35!” Tremble barreled through the hard blind turn that separated this caged arena from the chute, hitting the side of the wall. “We have a problem!”
“Why hello there 12- oh, 13!” she corrected herself. “Congrats, hon” 35 made her Remark disappear. “Who got got, and who do I have to kill?”
“16, and his name is Adam Kadmon.” Tremble put a hand on 35’s broad shoulder. They were not what one would call close, but she was one of the few people that Tremble respected. A legitimate ally in a game defined by the absence of such. “I’m getting out of here because the guy gives me the creeps. He has no sense and Grand know how he’s lived this long but don’t underestimate him, that was 16’s mistake. He killed him in one blow. Severed his neck, I’d never seen…” she stopped, catching her breath as she relived the moment.
35 had an expression that was not encouraging. “Fuck… and I assume everyone else in your group… fuck. Fuck! And today of all days.” She leaned in and ushered them away from the center of the arena into a side area. 22, her assistant. Who resembled a slightly smaller copy of 35, was conducting sparring matches for the remaining recruits.
“So what are we talking about here? Who’s he for?”
“He’s for himself, or so he says. But I believe him. He’s an Idea that could easily gain traction. Run him through as soon as he shows up.” 13 tapped 35’s neck two times, a private gesture shared between them. I’m leaving to tell Morgan.” No matter what happened next she’d be alive, ready to tell papa Lemure her side of the story.
“Of course. What does he look like, how will I know him?” 35 yelled as 13 ran to the exit.
“Oh, you’ll know, he reeks of death and looks twice as bad!” she yelled back. “You got like… twenty minutes!!”
*
*
*
For an hour, 35 and 22 had been waiting in the now empty sparring room. Remarks drawn, both taken cover on opposite sides of the large sewer entrance of the arena room. It was a large dank chamber with three exits on the other side, spaced evenly. Those they didn’t have to worry about.
The recruits had been ushered back to GutWorth by 35’s cadre of Numbers, but she wasn’t leaving. She had enough encounters with wannabe-king-killers to know the best approach was to meet them head on, and call their bluff.
The fact that the low Numbers had had trouble with him meant nothing. She was strong enough that she could take on all the ranks from 1 to 25 on her own.
She had done such a thing a year ago actually. It was supposed to be a friendly match with no casualties, but she killed five of them outright. No more sparring with the low numbers after that one.
There was a voice behind her, a whisper, “I see you’ve been waiting for me.”
The acoustics of the room made the voice anonymous. How did he get in? She let out a “fuck” and swung her Remark, doing a 90 degree turn with enough force to kill.
A delicate and well manicured hand caught it, stopping its momentum completely. 35 saw a face she recognized, and it shifted into an even more recognizable smirk.
“Please, Butcher, refrain from anything rash.”
“41 … I’m terribly sorry.” She lifted her remark, there was a massive gash on the front of the Number's manicured hand. They didn’t seem to mind, it fit well with the large scar over their left eye.
“Nothing to apologize for, you are waiting for an unknown opponent who has killed our brethren. I would question your position if you didn’t attack first.” 41 looked ravishing, as usual. Their pale face covered entirely on their right side by a tattoo of a Deluge Wyrm. Below was a choker made out of teeth, not Wyrm teeth (they were extinct. Where would one find their remains?) but impressive replicas. The teeth diminished until they became spiked buttons that went down to their waist, where their top morphed into a blood blue combat shawl covering most of their skinny jeans.
“You’re here for him?”
“Yes, same reason you did not run. I was told, I was sent, and here we are.” 41 summoned their Remark, a pulsing biological scythe with a single sharp gummy tooth. They gripped the handle, and the remark gripped them back, the black substance wrapping itself around their clean, off-white hand. They smiled and winked. “I’m excited to meet him.”
.
.
.
Adam Kadmon opened his eyes. Still nothing.
He sighed. While he preferred peace and quiet to murder and noise, the girl had promised him she’d return. And the fact that she hadn’t… well he couldn’t just stay in this spot forever, could he?
“I’ll let myself in, then” he muttered, getting up. He left a dry spot on the otherwise wet marble slope he stood at the top of. He slid into the door, leaving it slightly ajar. It’s hinges creaked in time to his footsteps
The entrance of the sewer stank of fresh blood. The pungency of the smell only increased with each step. The depression in the chamber made Adam stumble, the floor here being half a foot lower than the passage he had emerged from. Getting his bearings, he looked around until he found a sliver of light, harsh and green, and trudged slowly in that direction.
He was not alone.
In the center of a makeshift circular room stood someone. Their stance was rigid and bolt upright, taller than Adam. They were staring directly at him, the specifics of their face obscured in shadow but their blue eyes very clear. In their hand was a Remark. Unlike the wielder, it seemed to be breathing.
“Hello there.” Adam said, “I am looking for transport and mean you no harm, can you point me to-“
Someone or something dropped down from the ceiling and hit him from behind. Adam’s face hit the floor like an unhooked slab of meat.
.
.
.
He did not get up. He stopped moving. He simply lied there in the hours old blood, sewer water rushing past his sprawled body. 22 leaned out from their hiding place from the other side of the chamber. “Is he dead?” They yelled.
An overestimation, a scare for nothing, 35 thought with a grin. The man was finished. No playing with her food today. That was alright, the farm boy from earlier satisfied that urge. She flipped to the sharp side of her hammer, getting ready to use it as a blade to cleave his-
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“That’s enough,” 41 snapped. They had already turned, heading for the left exit. “We’re done here. This place already needs a deep clean from your teachings today, more bloodshed is the last thing it needs.”
“What do you mean, he’s not-”
“Clearly dead,” 41 raised a finger for emphasis, not breaking their stride. “You can check his chest if you want, but I know what it looks like when life lifts from a body. Thats a dead man.”
35 turned the man over. A touch of the breast. Listening for a heartbeat. Nothing. His body was cold to the touch, like he had been dead forever. There wasn’t a pulse or anything. “Well I’ll be struck down.”
“Time to leave.” 41’s said from the edge of the chamber, the shadow of the exit absorbing their body. “Come come, we’ve wasted enough time as is. We can turn his corpse into a shrine of some sort later.”
She shook her head and slipped out a laugh. She thought the man would kill him, and yet now he laid dead! And she, she! Had been the one to land the final blow.
“It’s okay,” she said to 22, who was still crouched behind a pillar. “We did our job. Good work.”
22 allowed herself to feel safe, she held out her hands to steady herself. “Alright… my heart is still beating like the Deluge. Grand… I got scared for nothing. Mind if I stab him? Something about this guy…” they shrugged. “It would calm my nerves, thats for sure.”
“Sure!” 35 said, excited to encourage her bloodlust. “Feel free to mutilate him while you’re at it.” Screw 41, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
22 pulled out their Remark from nothing and crouched down to lean over the stranger. She placed a hand near his throat, one leg stepping on the closest of the man’s arms, which was grasping its own Remark in a cold grip.
Wait. When did he-
Revived with swiftness, Adam lunged. Within a second 22’s remark was on the floor, brought down by a quick stab at their left leg. Within another, Adam’s Remark had cut their throat. Exactly how Tremble had described poor Jerome’s death.
22’s death was instant. Their life lifted with the motion of the knife. She knew because their Remark burned into nothing as soon as the cut was complete. Back into the Visionary.
“Murderer! Murderer!” 35 couldn’t focus on the impossible, only the crime was digestible. He turned to her with shock, his eyes disturbingly guilt ridden. Her weapon materialized in her hand once again, the heft welcome.
He put his hands up, as if peace was still possible. “You have every reason to hate me”
“Shut up,” she screamed, to her surprise this made him jump. “I only need one thing from you, and that’s how you did that Trick. You were dead, I know you were dead! I felt it, we all did!”
“You did, no, you did,” the man seemed saddened, like still being alive was a faux-pas. “You absolutely did. You saw my soul transfer from this,” he patted his body, “to this,” he patted his Remark, gripped in a hand that still looked just as dead.
35 had no response. She could barely comprehend it.
“Wha-”
“This isn’t my body, you see. Not originally.” He gestured widely at his form. “This is my… third.” He slouched a bit and turned away. “For as long as I can remember my consciousness has been in this Remark. I’ve been it, through I’ve never felt much like a Remark. Or a human for that matter. The bodies… all three were willing. Friends I had made, people who trusted me. They weren’t dead to start with, I don’t steal corpses, this one was alive and we coexisted, until- no, now’s not the time. There are things I need to feel guilty about but- this is not-”
35 had had enough. She did a backspin that added thrust to her swing at her target who
Jumped at the exact moment needed to dodge her. She smashed through the wall of the makeshift cage of metal behind them. Her abs cut by decades of rush.
“Please stop,” he said evenly. The Remark, him, she guessed, was dropped to the ground. “You can’t kill me in a way that matters. If you want to end me, destroy my Remark.” He smiled strange, giving away his true madness, “But many have tried before, and I’m still here, aren’t I?”
That stopped her. He was right that it was pointless, but a fight being pointless hadn’t stopped her before. The key difference was what he was a Remark, the lifeblood of their society. The tools they used every day, to kill, to survive. Killing others was expected, it was what Remarks were for. And when their wielder died the Remark remained, their energy returned to the Visionary. But to try and destroy a Remark instead of the human that wielded it? Such an act would be sacrilege.
Her own Remark disappeared. “I yield in turn,”
The body this marvelous Remark inhabited relaxed and slumped down. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll need a minute and I’ll be on my-“ His hand touched one of the larger bloodstains from the chump she had killed before. There was a bit of his arm. Hilariously, the fingers were still twitching.
His blood had mixed with the inch-high water. He brought up a stained hand and sniffed it, his nose twitching.
“This is fresh, who did this?”
“Oh, that would be me. Impressive, is it not?” 35 allowed herself to indulge in the pleasure of life itself. If anyone would understand the eternal game, it would be a Remark (A Remark, she was talking to a Remark. Grand, how exciting). “I was training a new class and had a demonstration. Oh don’t make that face, he was weak and never would have lasted. I gave him immortality, for none of his classmates will forget the way his body burst opened.” And at that she burst into laughter, privately delighted at the memory.
The Remark sighed. Odd. His sudden dour expression darkened even more.
”Why do you say nothing? Did I do something wrong? I’ve murdered, I and another tempted death and I was the one who still stands. You’ve done the same, you know the duels dominate life. The great game. You play. I’ve seen you play! You exist to play!” She stomped her foot, “Answer me, Remark, why do you refuse to look me in the eye.”
“My answer would only anger you.” He said weakly. “My goal is to find what remains of the Grand Council… what governs these murder games and duels… and destroy it utterly.”
35 gave him a moment to explain the joke.
He did not.
She took out her Remark again, wobbling furiously as she resisted the urge to strangle his ridiculous flesh puppet of a body. “You’re a liar, you’re a deceiver,” she pointed at the Remark, the one wielding it still silent and sitting. “That’s probably not even you, that’s probably not even a Remark!” It was a lowercase trick, and to think she almost fell for it.
She felt her rage boiling the chamber. She was sick to her stomach that such an obvious fraud in all sense of the word had her crawling on her hands and knees just moments ago. “Everything about you is a goddamn lie!”
She lunged with her hammer, activating her trick with a phantom swipe. He didn’t even react. That wasn’t good enough though, she couldn’t wait for it to work, he had to die now. She raised her Remark for a blow that could smash cement.
The man back stepped and threw his Remark like an afterthought. It hit her wrist. There was a flash of light in her brain and her remark vanished.
“WHAT?”
“You can disrupt someone’s focus on their Remark. It was a common tactic used during the Initial Comprehension.”
He traversed her body, climbing up her back, picking up the lodged Remark that had gone through her armor by yanking it out of her flesh. “But it went out of style by the time of the Great Deluge.”
“Fuck!” She yelled as the man jumped and rolled from her shoulders, adjusting the positioning of his arms as 35 turned around and
THWUMP. The Remark was submerged again, this time in her forehead. She fell to her knees, still with enough life left to comprehend the injustice of it. He walked over to her calmly, his eyes held a cold detachment that she envied. Even as her vision grew bloody she held on to the thought that she didn’t deserve this. She had done nothing wrong.
He pulled the Remark out of her head and she stopped thinking thoughts at all. She no longer had meaning in this world, and within the span of months no one would remember her.
…
The blood from her body turned the water on the ground from a light red to a deep crimson. The water was accumulating, the leaks and constant dripping from the ceiling becoming a downpour concentrated on the sides of the large chamber. As her body floated past him, going down the right chute, the Remark who called himself Adam walked through the left.
Or he tried to.
His hand was twitching. It was a movement outside of his control, which shouldn’t have been possible and was alarming to him. He glanced down at the severed hand, still shaking. Holding the affected hand up in front of him, it was clear the jittery movement of the two was synched.
Something inside him exploded. Some important organ of some kind, maybe a few bones fell along with it. Would have killed him if this body hadn’t died months ago. Taking a moment, he leaned on the tunnel wall and vomited up a meals worth of blood. Hand was still shaking. That was unfortunate, but atleast he had excised what had burst or gone bad. Adam didn’t feel good but he hadn’t felt good in a very long time. He took a few tentative steps, and was satisfied when he didn’t fall immediately.
It was going to be fine. He would find transport. He would.
And then Adam walked through the left chute.