19 - Brief Intermission

The air was stale and cool. Crickets chirped while cloaked in darkness, filling the atmosphere with the sounds of nature. The moon was but a waning crescent that slowly rose higher and higher into the sky.

Suddenly, all the crickets stopped screeching, replacing the cacophony of sound with an eerie silence. In the distance, the building noise of metal on ice began conjuring in the woods. The air seemed to dry in response as the scratching grew louder and louder.

“Damned General. Because meeting anywhere but the middle of the woods would give the rebels access to every single piece of information ever,” Pierre griped as the sounds of his skates began to liquify. With a sigh, he looked up from the ground, snickering as the sight of the rickety cabin became clearer.

The walls were painted at some point, though that time was clearly long ago. The door had fallen off one hinge already, and the second seemed a second away from breaking as well. With an obnoxiously loud creak, the door to the shed-like structure, revealing a burly mound of a man.

“General,” Pierre muttered as the sound of the crickets chirping began picking up again. “Pierre, good see you. Which is why I was so sad when I heard you cursing at me. It’s not my fault, you know. It’s just—”

“Protocol, I know I know,” Pierre sighed, interrupting his boss as he gandered at the rotting, wooden walls lit by a single lamp. “Anyway,” the General began, “I was quite surprised to hear that Áh… Ándromeda?” Pierre sighed. “Ándras, sir.”

“I was quite surprised to hear that he disappeared. What makes you think the rebels were involved,” the tall, black haired man asked. “They erased his smell,” Pierre groaned. “Figured,” the General sighed.

“Anyway, what was that ‘not now’ about? Do you actually have something to report,” the General asked with surprise. Pierre scratched his hair while his eyes drifted. “Well, I… uh… hm…” Pierre closed his eyes for a second. “On second thought, it’s nothing,” he eventually said, raising the General’s eyebrow. “If you say so. Anyway, the Commander in Chief seemed a bit… odd,” the General commented while scratching his beard.

Pierre’s eyes widened quite a bit. “You mean he tele… messaged you something,” he asked, though the correct term for the thingamajig seemed to evade him. “Yes. He had quite an interest in Ándres. It’s a shame. Anywho, if you ever get the opportunity, could you take a look for his corpse? I know it sounds a bit odd, but it would bring the Commander… closure.”

Pierre furrowed his eyebrows. “Um… I guess. But I doubt I’ll get the opportunity to do so anytime soon,” he muttered, suspicious. “I know. It was just in case. Anyway, I have a new task for you,” the General sighed. “There’s a woman I need you to execute. Be careful, she’s a bigger handful than we originally suspected.”

While speaking, the General handed Pierre a small piece of cloth, drawing a sigh from the tired Lieutenant General. “Do I have a time limit on this,” Pierre sighed. “As long as it's done in the end, it hardly matters to me. But this is a job from the Commander, so you might want to get it done a bit quicker than you usually do,” the General added, drawing yet another tired sigh from Pierre.

“Alright, fine,” Pierre groaned as he held the cloth up to his nose. A thin, almost unnoticeable line seemed to appear in his brain as he cloaked the piece in water. “Anything else you need me to do?”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The General smiled. “That should be it. Do what you need to do.” With one last sigh, Pierre turned around and reached for the doorknob; however, his hand stopped before he could turn it. “Oh yeah, one question,” the skinny man muttered. “Why is there a lamp here and not one of those lightbulb things?”

…

Magma bubbled up from a crevice, sending small particulates of molten hot metal splashing over the obsidian-black floor. The air was heavy and filled with the thick smell of sulfur and ash.

The room was practically a perfect box made out of smooth, jet black stone. The only light came from the lava, allowing one to notice the somewhat spherical object covered in a mop of black hair nailed to a wall.

Suddenly, the sound of rock rubbing against rock echoed throughout the tomb as a door-sized slab in the wall began sinking towards the outside, leaving a rectangular hole in the room. Slow, deep footsteps began reverberating through the obsidian box as a large, imposing shadow appeared in the glowing doorway.

“Greetings, head. How have you been,” a deep booming voice inquired. The hairy object remained silent. “Oh come on, I know you can speak. I made sure to leave your vocal chords intact,” the broad, tall man snickered.

“Haah, what do you want, Hades?” The head spoke in a deep, yet apathetic tone while shaking, causing some of its hair to fall out of its face. The large, broad man stroked his mind bogglingly black beard. “That should be pretty obvious, no,” he snickered while walking over to the head and grabbing it by the scalp.

A sound similar to unstrapping velcro emanated from the head as Hades grabbed a wad of black hair and yanked it, causing the disembodied cranium to lose its scalp. A small hiss of pain escaped the head’s lips.

“Hm… I’m afraid that wasn’t quite adequate enough,” Hades sighed as he hovered his hand over the head and created a glowing, transparent liquid. Top of the head began letting off steam as the scalp repaired itself, leaving the head bald, but uninjured. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”

Again, Hades ignored the daggers coming from the head’s maroon eyes as he ripped yet another scalp off. This time, however, the head let out a blood curdling scream, causing a small smirk to appear on Hades’s face. “Much better.”

Without another word, the god of the dead turned around and exited the prison, leaving the head in near darkness once more.

…

“Hey, can I get uh… number 3 with cheese and ketchup only and a large milkshake?”

“Yes sir, pull up to the second window.”

The pedal of the Jeep was pushed down, causing the engine to roar as the man in the front seat did as he was instructed. The man sat outside humming a tune, his brown eyes gazing upon the vibrant sunset made of a mix of warm colors. “Here you go, sir,” a woman said after opening a window and handing a paper bag full of items to the man.

After securing the food to his seat, the brown-haired young man hit the gas with one hand on the steering wheel as he circled the parking lot. “This’ll do,” he muttered before pulling into a pair of white lines.

The man reached his hand into the paper bag with one hand while scratching his beefy, second chin with the other. The paper crunched as he dug towards the bottom and pulled out a box with the words ‘double quarter pounder’ printed in plain text.

With a smile, the light skinned boy flicked a couple of dials on his car, causing music to play at extremely loud volumes as he shoved the burger in his mouth at breathtaking speeds. “I’ve created a monster, cuz nobody wants to see bah bah bah bah, they want shady I’m chopped liver. Well, if you want shady this is what I’ll give ya,” the man spoke at a rhythmic pace with a full mouth.

After swallowing the last of his sandwich, the guy pulled a lever downwards, causing his vehicle to begin reversing. The man drove for quite some time, resulting in the bright colors of the sunset to be replaced with the sparkling stars. Eventually, just after turning on his headlights, the man parked at a gas station and, after making sure nobody was looking, walked behind it.

“Will,” the chubby man nodded towards a silhouette. “Ethan,” the man called Will echoed. Ethan, who was wearing cargo shorts and a shirt with a red and yellow diamond, dug through his pockets while Will, who was wearing baggy jeans and a jacket reached for his side. “The usual, please,” Ethan muttered. In response, Will handed him a small bag full of herbs without making eye contact while accepting the twenty dollar bill he was being handed.

“Much appreciated,” Will muttered. However, just as Ethan began walking away, Will coughed. “You know, just in case you were looking, I’ve gotten a few… stronger things on me right now. You interested,” he whispered while barely holding out a ziploc bag full of a white, powdery substance. Ethan raised his eyebrow. “Hm… how much?”

Will smirked. “This one’s on the house,” he muttered. “Hm… deal.”