After finishing her breakfast, Anise walked to Madame Rem’s house. It was well into the day now, so the streets were crowded. The sun hung languid over the people, sloping ever more toward the horizon, the light barely phased through the mass of pale clouds. Anise reached the madame’s house and entered it. She was not in.

“Must be delivering clothes,” Anise remarked. No sooner had the words left her mouth that the door creaked open behind her.

“Girl, whatcha doin’ back here?” Madame Rem growled behind her. Anise turned and saw the old lady to be much more pale than before. She also saw the old lady was being propped up by a healer from the Church of Aalok.

“Madame Rem, you should not move so much. Any sudden agitation to your condition is bad. Do not be stubborn and lie down.” The priest said as he helped Madame Rem into the house.

“What is wrong with her condition?” Anise asked quietly. She felt as if there was a stone lodged in her heart; it was a suffocating and heavy feeling.

The priest first bowed to the young lady before replying, “Young Lady Tan’ae, greetings. From my examination and check up, there is no illness. It is simply the affliction of old age. Entropy and decay. Simply a stage of the cycle of life.”

“Shut ya mouth, boy,” the old woman coughed. “The girl be gettin’ married soon. As a holy servant, why ya gotta muck everything up? Bringin’ bad luck in with ya talk of death!”

“Yes, yes. This servant is wrong. Let’s get you to bed,” the priest said with a smile.

“I ain’t dead yet,” Madame Rem growled, shaking free of the servant. “No need for ya ta carry me like a corpse.”

The old lady hobbled over to Anise. “As ya can see, ya can’t come here in the near future. Take ya clothes and leave. There’s a box next to the cabinet, take that too.”

As the old lady walked to her chair, she stumbled and almost fell were it not for Anise catching her. The priest rushed toward the pair and once again supported the old woman. Madame Rem tried to shake the priest off of her to no avail.

“Age shouldn’t make someone so weak. She was so healthy just this morning,” Anise whispered. 

“She must be sick! She has to be. There must be a way for her to get better. This can’t just be old age.”

“Young Lady Tan’ae, there is not much I can do. Madame Rem is neither sick nor cursed. She is of the ripest age imaginable, and she has lived her life,” the priest replied as he settled the old woman into her chair. Madame Rem moaned and closed her eyes.

“It wasn’t a full or happy life,” Anise mumbled under her breath. She clutched the hem of her dress.

The priest did not hear and continued with his sermon. “She has made clothes for all the great families from this capital. That is not an accomplishment common to all people. Madame Rem has created much beauty in this world with her designs, and now she must go back to the Circle. Now, now, you may be sad and upset, but you must look her pass with a smile, else the spirit may linger and become Regret. Go gather what you have ordered from Madame Rem and let her rest.”

With grave steps, the girl went and got her adventurer’s clothings. The box next to the cabinet contained her white wedding dress. It was simple yet elegant. Anise stored her adventurer’s garb neatly with the dress.

The priest walked Anise out of the house. The young lady glanced back as the door closed.

The friendly priest said farewell and walked away from Anise, leaving her alone in the crowded streets.

Anise was unable to relinquish the image of Madame Rem. Death. Old age. How could Time wear away at Life so easily? From morning to the afterglow of noon, the old woman had shrunk drastically, shriveled like dried husk.

“One day, I will become like that,” Anise said into the lid of the box. “I never want to become like that. I refuse.”

The girl did not understand death. She was unable to piece the wisps of heaviness striking against the walls of her stomach. “I never want to get old, or die,” the girl kept mumbling into the box.

Absorbed in her thoughts, the girl ended up at Solana’s stable. The horse gnawed at the girl’s dress-sleeve. Anise did not take notice. Even as the fabric ripped, the girl continued to do what she did in a daze: getting her essentials from the box, strapping on the belt and baldric, and preparing the saddle.

At the end of her patience — mainly because Anise fixed the saddle uncomfortably and haphazardly, Solana snapped her jaws near the girl’s eyes. The girl fell backwards. Her eyes flickering madly. She wiped the cold sweat from her face. Breathing heavily, she closed her eyes.

Anise untied a scream from her throat and it bolted away from her on pitiful smashed wings. Everything was just so terrible. She just wanted to run away from it all. There was no one there for her; there was only herself. There was no future for her; there was only herself. There was no choice for her; there was only herself. She did not want to live in this city of Ardin anymore; she most definitely did not want to die in it, to be buried in its hard earth, to wither away, to waste into nothing like yellowed parchments, to be nothing at all. Anise did not want her sense of self to cease, for her name to fade letter by letter, year after year, until there is nothing left — an empty space easily replaced.

She did not want any of that.

“Solana, why won’t you move,” she shouted angrily. The young lady moved to get off the horse and set off by herself. This prompted Solana to comply with her master’s command.

The horse bolted from the stables. Anise hugged the mare’s neck tightly. Her face was a mess.

The rider and steed rushed through the city streets, causing a huge commotion. No one was able to stop them as no one else was ready on their own mount, and simply for the fact that Solana was much too fierce. It did not take long for the pair to leap through the official city gates and into the countryside.

Once they were out of the capital’s jurisdiction, Solana slowed.

“I should go back, shouldn’t I,” Anise sounded.

The horse snorted in agreement.

“I don’t want to go back there.” The girl replied and had Solana continue forth.

The pair went on a little more before the girl spoke again.

“I’m being selfish, aren’t I? Even though we have been away from the city for so long, only now, do I wonder if Madame Rem is fine. Only now, do I worry about Auntie Elspeth and Mari. I wonder if Boo is fine. I kicked him down there after all.”

It was met with agreement, once more. Still, Anise made Solana trot further away from the city until its citadels sank deep into the horizon. The hills began to lurch over the sky when Anise asked another question.

“What should I do?”

This question, Solana was unable to answer. Anise had her enter the forest. The sun had set. The sky above was now covered in a pitch black sheet.

Anise shivered. It was cold. No matter how much she wrapped the fabric of her dress around her body, she was not able to become warm.

“It’s appropriate if I am selfish, right? It’s only human.” She whispered.

The mare shook her head. She grunted. Anise took notice and bit her lower lip. She had Solana go deeper into the woods. The edge of the wilderness had been engulfed in darkness behind them. 

There was little going back now.

Anise asked no more questions as the two traversed the woods. The silence of the woods unnerved her. It reminded the girl of the last time she spent the night in the woods. She stroked Solana’s mane as the quiet of the woods seeped into her soul.

By fate, the pair soon chanced upon the inanis from the morning. Under the moonlight, the monstrosity had taken on a rather ethereal aura. The faces which decorated the beast shined under the moonlight, glimmered even. One would mistake the faces for those of angels’. It was enthralling, deadly so. Yet, the moment the serene faces smiled or moved, the illusion was broken, shattered beyond repair. The smiles illuminated were grotesque and otherworldly. The skin peeled unnaturally like sinew over an open drum and the teeth were an eerie white.

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Solana tried to retreat and take another route. However, even with the muffled snow, the inanis took notice.

It roared. And it was then that the gaping blackness could be seen. It was the wound from this morning. A purple miasma bled from the wound and where the miasma landed, the plants would wilt and the snow would melt.

Solana bolted.

The monster followed as the many faces began to chortle with delight.

Under the influence of the night, the inanis showed its true strength. The power exhibited prior in the day could not possibly compare with its current abilities. From the mouths of its victims, several more tentacles bulged forth. Its speed was greatly increased in addition to the distance covered by each stride. The ooze which dribbled from its orifices was of higher viscosity than before, and it was spewed from its victims’ eyes as well.

The beast launched a tsunami of tentacles at Solana as the mare found itself in a dense thicket of trees. Under the barrage of so many spears, Solana couldn’t help but fall. In her fall, the mare tangled her legs and flipped over onto her side. The horse was unable to get up.

Anise was thrown off the mount and skidded several meters into a tree. Wearing a simple dress, the impact of the collision shattered several of her ribs. Blood gurgled forth from her throat and spilled from the corner of her mouth.

Solana had already stopped moving completely. The entirety of that powerful body tore apart as tentacles sheared through flesh as a swarm exploded from underneath the ground. Red snow splattered in a circular vicinity from Solana as the epicenter.

Even as blood poured from the sky onto her face, Anise was only able to muse stupidly on how pretty the blood looked on the snow.

The inanis pulled what remained of Solana — a pile of dead flesh — into its torso. Since Solana was a horse, it did not become the inanis’s friend. Instead, the beast moaned as blood leaked from its torso. At last, the monstrosity turned its eyes onto Anise.

The young lady’s entire heart pounded. Her lungs were on fire and she felt like throwing up. 

Surprisingly, the girl started to laugh. Hysteria had set in.

As the inanis slithered toward its prey, the young lady pathetically dragged herself up and stumbled a few feet before falling once more. Her face slammed into the snow. She was unable to feel the cold. Everything felt so warm. The girl’s tears soaked into the snow.

“I don’t want to die,” she cried.

The inanis crept up behind the girl. Its tentacles latched onto every limb of its prey. The girl was limp like a fish and was easily carried deep inside the beast’s torso.

The inside of an inanis was a sight unknown to most. Whereas the outside hung perfectly preserved faces, the insides was much more grotesque.

Some bodies were pristine of course. The bones as white as the pale moon. Each femur and tibia in its proper place. Other bodies were in the process of decay. Maggots swam through the muscles and sinew.

Anise cried ever more desperately. She did not want to die — to become like them. Even if she were to be saved, if half her body was decomposed, she would have already died.

The tentacles nestled the hysteric girl in the place where the “boy” from this morning had previously resided. Located on the girl’s right was a skeleton; on the left was the pungent odor of decay.

The decay was not too far along. The sagging pairs of fat told that the victim was female and the bulge of the stomach told of the unborn child. The breasts of the unfortunate mother had been eaten through somewhat, such that several colonies of white maggots suckered themselves into the walls of the large cavities carved into the two mounds. The belly was similarly eaten to the point that the skull of the unborn child peeked through.

Anise swore that the dead fetus had on the same smile as portrayed by the inanis’s “friends”.

The girl screamed and kicked and cried. There was no one. Soon the internal tentacles of the inanis shoved themselves deep down the girl’s throat. The girl struggled to no avail. Her flailing arms and legs bent and skewed. There was no hero this time.

The corners of the girl’s face contorted, twisted, into a grand old smile. The corners of her eyes were stained with tears. The tentacles gingerly wiped the tears off.

The inanis howled at the night sky in jubilation. Soon, his new “friend” would join its others and play with only it.

As the girl’s consciousness faded into the abyss, she heard a voice.

“Accept me,” the voice called out. It was a cold voice laced with agony and hate. “You who hold the same hatred and regret as I do. Accept me.”

With an ardent desire — an ugly desperation — Anise hounded at the unknown entity.

“Good. You are worthy of being my new vessel. I am the fallen goddess Usha, the eighth children of Arushi!” The voice echoed in Anise’s head, the reverberations tearing at her soul.

Her harsh screams belched out even though tentacles stuffed her throat. Her eyes snapped open, an iridescent shade. Blood flowed from her ears and nose. Veins popped on all her muscles.

The pain caused her to claw away at the inanis’s insides. Her nails dug through the flesh with such force that it pierced through the mass of muscles like paper.

The beast screamed and slammed its tentacles down onto the earth. Its wails sounded all the way to the edge of the forest.

“Ane!” Bolverk shouted as he heard the wail. He called for the search party to run faster. The guards all complied immediately. On each face was a grim expression. The men hoisted their torches up high and ventured deep into the woods.

When they found Anise, they all balked and stumbled back except for Bolverk who whispered, “Beautiful”.

Anise laid unconscious in a pool of black blood. The miasma which overflowed from the inanis never came near the girl. The wisps of miasma would inch forward and immediately disperse. In her hands and teeth, flesh could be seen. Though her head was tucked into her chest as her body buckled into a fetus position, Bolverk could see that his love had on a twisted smile.

The moonlight swept through the young lady’s red hair and the wind blew as the snow sang. The gods above felt the coronation of this new power.

From his throne, the lethargic Aalok smiled. “The game marches on once more.” 

End of Act 1

Author's Note:  This is the end of Act 1. All the characters that I want to have certain emotions associated are established. The atmosphere (which honestly could have been done a lot better and established in much less words) is coming together. The setting and world still need cementing, but we have the gist of it now. And the foreshadowing is also laid out. 

I went a bit too rambling with the whole Madame Rem reaction scene. I feel that it was in Ane's character and natural, but maybe not. 

Time for everything to be amped up to 11. Strangely enough, I wrote the majority of this chapter listening to Teresa Teng. Thanks for reading. Feedback is, as always, appreciated.