Leah wriggled in protest, but her body was locked in place. There were too fucking many of them!
“Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble before you… Amen!”
Why didn’t Leah take a breath before this? She could’ve bought herself another thirty minutes. Maybe more. But she didn’t know. How could she!?
She gasped without thought, only for water to flood into her throat. A cough came next, dissipating into the uncaring pond besides. Again, she looked for an escape, but there was none to be had. The weight of the mob was so much fucking stronger and they were forcing her down together!
Their voices rose in intensity, saturating the world around her. Each “Amen!” cut like a knife, right through her soul.
“…I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: So shall I be saved from mine enemies… Amen!”
Leah shook her head. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! But the Beholders continued without mercy, their words bleeding into her mind. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t see straight. The more she struggled, the more perverted the world became. The shadows shifted around, broken only by beams of light tearing in from an unstable surface above.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any sinful way in me, and lead me back in the way everlasting… Amen!”
Something else was out there too, hidden inside their prayers. An energy. A power. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it now. Some kind of force that was stronger than she could ever hope to be.
It was the Lord. Calling to her. Holding out an invisible hand. She was so weak and vulnerable, but He would be there to save her. So long as she listened. So long as His words took hold.
No! Fight it. Don’t let Him take you. Another sound had entered her world, a shrill bleating, distorted in the water. Leah was sobbing… No, crying. Crying and drowning. Both at once.
But even that wasn’t enough to keep Him out. The Lord’s voice rose above her pitiful suffering, pressing ever deeper into her soul. It was so much greater than her. So much more powerful!
Leah wanted to go home. Back to the Lodge. With her friends alive again. Masterman and Karl and Butters. Except that wasn’t right. Their names were different, and they had faces too. But only grey shadows formed when she thought about them. Where did they go? Why wouldn’t they come back?
“Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee. My heart panteth anew, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me… Amen!”
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t win. She was too small, and the Lord was too big. His power was greater than anything else, and she was on her own against Him.
“Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia…”
An image of a flower suddenly formed inside her mind, but not of aloes or cassia. She saw something else, with lilac petals that curled out from a tube-like stem.
A bellflower.
She blinked. The pond vanished, replaced by a sea of jagged, lichen-covered peaks. The sky roared with fury, spewing forth hail below. With each “Amen!” another bolt of lightning struck the ground.
She looked to her hand, but the bellflower had disappeared.
Do you know why I won’t stop? Her own voice echoed. Why I can’t? Because if I do, I’ll lose everything else that makes me be me. And I don’t want the Hollowing to take me too!
We won’t let that happen, another said, his voice high and nasally. A figure towered above. Through the rain and the wind, she could not make out his face clearly, but his eyes were looking into hers. Brown eyes. Human eyes.
Liam, she realized. He’d come back for her in this chaotic, dark place.
If you lose any more precious memories, he said, we’ll just have to make new ones. He smiled. Better ones.
His hand wrapped around hers. Where her flesh was cold and decayed, his felt warm and soft. She squeezed tight, but his arm moved like clay, slowly melding into something else. Lilac petals sprung from where his fingers used to be, and the arms turned again into the stem. Her bellflower returned to her.
Liam smiled above. We’ll get through this. Together.
That was right. It didn’t matter what she lost. Only what she hoped to gain. The two had learned this lesson on their journey across the country together. She’d forgotten until this moment.
Leah blinked again. She was back underwater, with the Beholders chanting above. But the bellflower was still there. Right in her mind’s eye, its purple purity a beauty to behold.
No, the Lord couldn’t have that. This was between Leah and Liam. They earned it together. They’d fought for it. Who cared how insignificant and replaceable their time became in the grand scheme of the cosmos? It was still theirs.
Nothing else mattered. Pandemonium. The Lodge. A mountain of books. Those were just things. Leah didn’t need them. Whatever memories lost could be replaced like anything else. All she needed was that ephemeral sense of life.
All she needed was her dear, old friend.
“Amen!” the Beholders bellowed. “Amen! Amen! Amen!”
Each shout stripped another part of her away, but they couldn’t penetrate her core. Leah fixated on the only part of her that kept her sane.
“Amen! Amen! Amen!”
Her bellflower sat in front.
“Amen! Amen!”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Still strong.
“Amen!”
Still pure.
“Amen!”
Still hers.
“Amen!”
Suddenly, Leah was yanked back up. Light flooded her retinas. She gasped. Vomit came after, the water clearing out from her lungs. No longer did anyone support her. She gripped the ground feebly as her stomach emptied out of fluid.
What the hell happened? The sun wasn’t high above anymore, but inched low on the horizon.
She looked around. There were so many people in white cloaks. Watching her with smiles on their faces. They were so inviting and peaceful.
An older rezzer stared her in the eyes, with wrinkled skin and a thick, white mustache.
“Sister Leah,” he said. “Blessed be the Lord.”
“Praise be His name!” she shouted.
Leah threw her palm over her mouth. No! The words had slipped out without choice, as if something else had hijacked her Rez the second he mentioned the Lord.
Leah caught her reflection in the pool again. Her irises weren’t the vibrant magenta she’d always seen, but diluted under a pale sheet.
Leah bit her tongue. “Fuck y-y-you!”
Santiago sighed. “So this baptism was not a full success… Very well, we have no choice but to feed your body back to strength, and then we will begin again tomorrow.”
Again!? No, they couldn’t!
Leah floundered for an escape, but the Beholders closed in before she could get away, once again using the weight of their numbers to force her into the ground. She kicked and punched, but they had her beaten.
Leah couldn’t go through that. Not again!
She closed her eyes and shrieked.
* * *
Dusk fell as the Beholders escorted her back up the hill. Their party was down to eight Inquisitors now, half equipped with crossbows, while the rest brandished staffs. Not that it mattered. They needed no more than one to keep Leah still. She’d lost the strength to resist. Her arms were tied behind her back and her head knelt low, and all she could do was watch the ground in front.
And then we will begin again tomorrow, Santiago had said. Again. Again. Again. The words echoed over and over.
Winning this battle wasn’t enough. They were going to force her to go through that horror another time. And another. And another.
That was the strength of the Lord. He could engage in this fight endlessly while Leah’s soul would slowly wear out over time. Not even her mental fortress could survive that forever. Already, she wondered if her bellflower would be there a second time.
Sounds rolled down the hill. Music. The Beholders paused and muttered to themselves. One whispered a command in their native tongue, and the others moved in front, their staffs and crossbows drawn.
Is that a guitar? The closer they drew, the more apparent it became. Someone else was out here, playing a song.
The group turned the bend, where a lone figure sat on the side of the path. He calmly strummed his instrument, using a boombox as a chair while tapping his foot to the song’s rhythm. The last light of day reflected off the golden trim of his velour jacket, and a black top hat sat above. One of the Beholders called out, but he did not turn their way. He merely plucked at his guitar, his fingers growing in speed and intensity as he swayed his body back and forth.
Leah’s memory was still fractured from the baptism, but there was something iconic about this moment. Yes, she’d heard this style before. Spanish flamenco music. Only digital records could be played these days. To move fingers at that speed and precision was impossible for a rezzer. Not unless they trained for months to strengthen their muscle memory. Even then, one could only move that fast for short, controlled bursts.
And yet, here this guy was, rocking his guitar in the middle of the woods without a care in the world, his pace accelerating to an unfathomable crescendo. He didn’t even miss a beat when he let the song continue, raising the speaker’s volume while placing his guitar to the side.
The thought came back into focus. Only one man left in the world with this level of dexterity. His name had been born after perfecting such a feat. Leah del Sur, the people of El Dorado liked to call him. A Hunter with the grace of a flamingo.
Flamingo spun around, his skull-shaped mask locked in that perpetual grin. A rapier appeared from the nothingness of his velour jacket, with a guard cast in gold. He pointed the blade forth and bowed.
The Inquisitors charged, but Flamingo danced to the side, delivering a thrust that pierced through the closest one’s mouth. Before his friend could recover from the miss, Flamingo glided behind, using his enemy’s ear as the rapier’s next entry point. The Beholder gasped and fell.
The crossbowmen launched a volley, but Flamingo was already on the retreat, weaving from side to side as he dodged their shots. His feet moved to the beat of the flamenco music that still played in the background.
Leah remembered herself. This opening couldn’t be allowed to pass. She wrenched her body free and ran. Her arms were still tied behind her back, but she knew how to fix that. She slammed her shoulder into the nearest tree, just at the right angle. A pop rang out as her arm dislocated from its socket. She bounded into another tree, repeating the maneuver. With her limbs no longer constrained, she curled into a ball and rolled. The weight of her body jerked her loosened arms to the front of her chest. By the time her captors realized what had happened, she’d already forced her shoulders back into their sockets.
Flamingo had downed another pair, and the surviving four abandoned their ranged weapons and went to melee. Two of them came her way.
My turn. Leah took a deep breath to clear her mind. Now, more than ever, she needed to remember her own strength.
The Inquisitor raised his staff. She dashed first, catching the wood in the lip of the rope between her hands and nullifying its energy. The two locked eyes, his dumbstruck visage mere inches from her own. She beamed.
Before the advantage could be lost, she redirected the weight of the staff. The bottom half struck the gap between her enemy’s legs, sending him off-balance. As the Beholder tumbled back, Leah leapt into the air. With every ounce of strength her weakened body could muster, she slammed her heels into his skull. Grey matter mixed with bone exploded out, dousing her naked legs in ichor.
Damn, did it feel good to be back in the game.
Another blow struck her shoulder, and her bones cracked anew. Leah glared at her next enemy. The Beholder prepared for another swing as she readied for defense.
But then he froze in place, a metal spike suddenly sprouting from an eyeball. The surviving eye curled behind its lid, and the Beholder fell. Flamingo stood in his place.
Leah grunted. “I had him.”
“And other six?” he quipped.
“I’ll give y-y-you them, Flamingo. Quite the entrance t-t-too.”
He tilted his head. “Stutter? Hermanos harm you much, sí?”
“Yep.” She grimaced. “Please tell m-m-me there’s more than j-just you.”
“Sí. Some Hunters fight with me.” He held out a hand. “Come. We must go to them before more Hermanos arrive.”
“Wait. I can’t l-l-leave yet.”
He paused. “Why? What you need?”
Leah stared at the dead Beholders and remembered how much her Rez had been fucked up today. She’d need sustenance fast to mitigate the damage to her long-term memory.
“Brains…” she moaned.
Lots and lots of brains.