A truck sat in the running sewage. A delivery truck. Shelter. Her body swayed dizzily. She clawed at her face as she leaned her forehead against the door. A scream absorbed into the muck. Circe retched for the five hundredth time. Pain shot up her legs as she pressed her bare foot to the jagged iron step. Her neck craned and her head lifted.
“WHY CAN’T YOU MAKE IT STOP!” she screamed to the rooftops.
Nobody heard her plea. Nobody came to help. What else was new? Something would soon split her skull and be birthed from her head. She was certain of it. Eyes bulged with the pain of an explosive force as a purplish ghastly glow of violet interlaced with dark scribbles. Scratches and cuts laced her nearly bald head, which ached as if a barber just shaved the skin straight off. Pulling out her hair hadn’t helped, not even for a second. But she had to try something, right?
Trembling, cold, dying, alone, and breaking, Circe reached for the rusted handle of the truck door. Opened it. Of course, she screamed. She always screamed when her hands or feet stepped into something too new because the resonance of the pain changed. There were no seats when she crawled inside. What kind of nonsense!? She couldn’t even sit down?
“Why?!”
She bit her lower lip to cut her laughing. Bit it hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to leave a scar. It didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter anyway. She had always been ugly.
This tin can was as good a place as any to die. But she didn’t want to die. Maybe there was something in the... NGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Why did it hurt so much!? Her body doubled over. Circe crumpled as she coughed. Bloody spit pushed past her lips. She tumbled from the passenger cab into the back.
Rusted and empty package trays barely clung to the shell, like her soul. Where was her macho, kick-ass, hero now? Nowhere. Roaches poured into the old delivery van as Circe broke into tears. They crawled up her legs, over her fingers, up her arms. They licked at her wounds. She pet them as they passed under her fingers, one after the other; giving them color that couldn’t be seen in the dark made them happy.
“Glow in the dark?!”
Could she make roaches glow in the dark? Why not? It had been done with fireflies. It wouldn’t hurt to try. Pain tackled her mind. Concentrating on anything for too long became impossible when they wouldn’t leave her the FRACK ALONE! These tendrils, tendrils everywhere licking her skin and making it feel like she had no skin! She couldn’t tell an injury if she had one, no pain outshone these tendrils. The inside of the truck bent and curved, blurred and shifted as the pain pulsed and made her eyes snap.
Heart raced. Mind snapped. Neck turned. Circe whipped to face her assailant. Nothing stood behind her. She went down on her hands and knees and banged on the rusty tetanus infected floor with her bloody fists. Bits of skin sheared off from sharp gouges. A scream at the top of her lungs reverberated throughout the truck several times.
Divergent
Divergent
Divergent
DIEVERGENT!
Outside, red and black glowing eyes opened from behind the pillars, on the other side of hardened mounds, behind bookshelves, and from the recently deceased carcass of a bite-bite mite. A forward party approached the well weathered, rusting, and battered vehicle.
From a distance Mike cast mage-light and hung it high over the truck. The screaming led to a thud, and then silence. The goblins closest to the truck held up their spears as they listened to gurgling, gasping, broken cries for air.
“Blooooody fingers, bloody fingers… oooohhhhh!”
Circe collapsed on her back and lifted her bloody fingers. The way the blood squelched between the dry and broken skin made her giggle. Maybe she would kick her leg, break it more, all over again, so she could feel the splintering bone bust through her skin. Feel anything besides these tendrils. She began talking to herself.
Please don’t do that!
I don't want to kill them all.
I think the pain Is too much for me...
But she worked so hard to fix that leg.
Why won’t anybody help me?
I don’t want to do that.
So please make the hurting stop.
Please
Making
The
Hurt
Stop
Me.
No I don’t think I’m gonna do that.
Why won’t anyone help me?
Maybe it’s because you did something bad.
I hated synogogue and,
I never did believe in God, so there's that.
Does everybody really hate me that much?
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
You deserve to hurt!
The doors of the back of the truck creaked, groaned, then broke apart. Circe tilted her head. Green men with threatening looking stone spears and halberds greeted her with serious frowns on their ugly faces. They were like her! She couldn’t bring herself to move as roaches scattered out of the truck and around the goblin crew.
She squinted at the glow of the mage-light and gasped, yet giggled manically, “Are you here to save me? Please... save... me?”
Petite, sliced, broken and bloody hands glowing with the power of the half-moon brands on their backs. Tendrils danced as fingers flexed and tightened against the pain of what felt like flayed skin. Back arched with the flickering agony dance, spine popped.
Safely across the plain behind a pile of rotting bookshelves protecting a dry mound, the knight and the goblin elder watched. Powerful stalagmites flanked their position as the rear guard formed square formations in the muck. The elder looked upon the knight and his mummified mistress.
“Is this the one Azoria marked for death?”
“It’s her,” Michael said, “I’m sure of it.”
“What shall we do?”
“Kill her, of course. I require her head.”
Circe continued to wave hands and flex her fingers with no sense or pattern. The goblins watched, mouths slightly opened, some sniffed and others stepped back. One dropped its weapon and reached inside toward her gently, almost reaching her. A horn blew and an order shouted.
“Shalashalat!”
A whip lashed inside the vehicle to catch both her wrists in mid-sway. Circe giggled as her body flung out of the van and lifted into the air. She hung by her wrists. Feet hung listlessly as blood dripped from her toes. Glowering half-moons on her soles glared at the crew below.
A goblin halberd with a sharp stone cutting edge swung for her neck. Circe instinctively swung back, yet it cut deeply through her trachea. Blood sprayed with a gutteral gurgle as she squirmed like a caught fish. The wound clotted and bubbled as tendrils sprouted from her open flesh and carressed the wound before their eyes.
Cut hands sliced off their skin to escape the whip. Now she was truely flayed. Exposing muscles and tendons received a hateful caressing from tendrils as she slid from the whip. Her bare feet hit the muck with a sloorp. Eyes rolled to the back of her head as tendrils burst forth from every brand in a brilliance of violet aura. Roaches swirled out of the muck. They jumped off the vehicle onto the goblins.
Squirming, purple, toxic, tendrils merged and sealed her neck while forcing her to her feet. Blood pumped into her brain. Heart raced.
“Argggreee... Frrrrr.” Circe sputtered.
They took her voice. They took her voice? Why!? What had she ever done to them? WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU!? She tried to scream but couldn’t. Coughs, gasps, and the gags of a monster, a gremlin, escaped her throat.
They didn’t give her much time to think about it.
The pitch of a horn signaled three goblins to attack together. Another halberd came for her head. She leaned backwards to dodge it. Fight through the pain! I don’t want to die! I don’t care, I don’t want to die!
Circe gurgled; her voice crackled like some wicked demonic creature. She hissed at them. Her body twisted away from a spear aimed at her left shoulder. But another spear caught her right side and ripped flesh and organs as it pierced her. Pieces splattered behind her. Tendrils from her chest and leg merged to stop the bleeding as she slid her wound down the wooden handle towards the offending goblin. A hand clutched his neck. At first it felt so soft, but the tendrils gave the grip pain and force. Circe revealed her gaping missing tooth gap as she smiled.
“Why?” she whispered.
The pop echoed as goblin brains sprayed the open doors of the delivery truck. She pulled the spear out of her ventilated side and dropped it. Roaches wound up her limbs to cover her body.
The other two goblins recovered and hopped at her. A halberd swung for her chest, but with the aid of the roaches she hopped back out of range.
With a silent scream, Circe let a burst of violet energy release from her form. Roaches flew like bullets in every direction. The projectiles sent goblins in attack formation dropping. A goblin in mid-jump became caught in the pulse. It gripped its face as it fell rolling into the muck.
The true form of Alteration is Chaos, embrace Chaos, and live.
Circe floated not too high from the ground. Her feet hung. Blood dripped from her wounds. Her eyes remained squiggling violet terror. She opened her arms to embrace them all.
A rain of spears flew, she weaved through them, dodging, darting, left and right, up and down. None of them touched her. A goblin flew forward with an ax swipe, missing. Another jumped at her with a knife. A tendril slap sent it skidding, rolling, thrashing all the way back to the rear formation.
To either side of Circe, roaches melded into towering pillars with a cascade of colors under the mage light. They grew ever thicker. Circled ever faster. Roach golems in a melted mess of colors stepped out.
The first goblin to approach became a green gooey splat blending into the muck. Circe clutched at her neck, desperately wanting to speak but unable to form sound. Everything came out in mangled whispers. The tendrils didn’t need her voice to keep feeding, so they never healed it. Not having a voice caused a new form of anguish they found delectable.
“Why?” she whispered.
With the roaches covering her flanks, fewer attacks found her. Still, a goblin whacked her in the face with a big hammer and sent her flying back. Like she needed to lose any more teeth! When it rushed her her for the finishing blow she was already on unsteady feet. An arm reach forward. Tendrils wrapped its neck. The hammer dropped. It asphyxiated while she watched until the legs stopped kicking. Then she threw the corpse aside like some rag doll. Circe returned to floating.
“Why?” she whispered
This time she attacked, grabbed first, felt her fingers squeeze so gently around a green neck. With the intent to kill, she tightened. The mark on the back of her hand glowed brilliantly as the goblin’s head burst open.
“Why?” she whispered.
Another lunged at her with a spear, she sideswiped the attack and came face to face with the goblin. Her ghostly expression made it scream. She clutched its neck. Stared with so many glowing eyes. Its face popped.
“Why?” she whispered.
The two roach golems at her flanks cut through goblin formations. Goblins caught in their fists experienced the shredding of their flesh as it turned into bone and minced meat for the critters to devour.
Back on the mound, behind the safety of improvised fortifications, Michael surveyed the battle. His shield and sword remained at the ready as the dried corpse clung to his back.
“I think we’re losing, love. Should we join the fight?”
“Too risky. Call a retreat,” Michael said, he looked down to the goblin elder that stared at the scene with mouth agape and tears in his eyes, “We need a plan to deal with those roach golems she summons. Once we have something together, we’ll come back and finish her.”
“You’re most merciful. I’ll sound the retreat.”
A horn sounded. Goblins ran in a full-fledged route. The roach golems would not give chase without Circe.
A stubborn goblin refused to back down. It made it through the golems and could only attack Circe. It jumped again and again with a stone dagger. She dodged. It landed behind her. The sploosh as it jumped out of the swamp gave it away. She rolled around in the air and kicked with her healthier leg. The goblin registered that the kick felt like nothing, but only for a split second. Pain rocketed through its little body. It dropped the knife, which Circe caught in her palm before it landed. She landed over the creature and sat atop it. The ragged stone dagger became bound by tendrils in both her hands.
“Blorababa! Baba!” it screamed as tears formed in its eyes.
She recognized it. It was the one that had reached out to her. It had looked so sad. But? She started crying, coughed, and gagged in a futile attempt to scream as tears streamed down her bloody cheeks.
“Why?” she whispered as she raised the dagger and plunged it downward with both hands.
She stabbed into the muck several times before she tossed the dagger toward the approaching roaches. No longer sensing danger, the tendrils returned to pain at full blast. Circe collapsed over the goblin to writhe in her never-ending agony.
It patted her gently on the back. Then it struggled to lift her limp body gently above the muck. The roaches didn’t attack it, for now. The goblin did his best to lift the taller, broken, woman and keep her on her feet. It started carrying her back toward the wrecked truck. It mimmicked a word in a croaky voice.
"Why?"