[I always planned to continue the contest entry as a journal of sorts, depicting the RPs Rye participates in. I wanted to do this for Mari but got waaay behind and just gave up, so I'm starting it off now before it gets too far ahead.]
One.
It's the fire that I hate, that I loath, that I dream about at night with the pillows and sheets tossed in such a terribly devastating disarray as I envision its greedy fingers stretching towards my face. They'll tell you it's not a living thing, that it's inanimate and that it can never bode ill will towards another, it is merely a force of nature. But they lie, I know they do. The fire was alive when I watched it. And I watched it with my back seared into the planks of the walls already ravaged by its relentless, ravenous hunger. I watched through a veil of smoke and flame as it stretched across the rooms, voracious and depraved in its cruelty. It wrapped its arms around them like a lover, and I had to watch as it clawed at their clothing and their eyes and their skin. I had to see them throw their heads back in agony and run about in frantic motions, arms beating at their sides, trapped in a raging inferno and unable to escape. Fire doesn't just like to give the dead things life. It doesn't just creep into the empty cracks and fissures of the fallen logs and rotting leaves. Oh no, I know the truth. What it really hungers for is living flesh; to scorch through it as a sculptor molds clay into the pattern they desire. Except fire does not want to create beauty. It wants to devastate and to leave gnarled and writhing, to leave behind nothing but an empty black husk with missing eyes and grinning teeth.
I drug myself on hands and knees. The floorboards crackled beneath my touch, caving in, sending cinders up to blind my eyes. I pressed my body against the door, and I could hear their screams echoing in my head like a chaotic chorus. The wall crumbled and it should have crushed me. Gods, how I wish it had crushed me and ended me there. Perhaps I could have wandered in the death realm with my family till the end of my days, till the Dark Lady's kingdom sucked the power from my muscles, the life from my blood, the marrow from my bones. That end would have been sweet as honeysuckle, I would have welcomed death with open arms and raucous laughter.
But I did not die. I stumbled away from the burning house and collapsed in the snow, sinking deep into it. The cold was a knife; it sunk into my steaming flesh and made a home inside my heart. I could not cry, I could feel nothing. I was numb as I lay there in the icy blanket, watching the roof of the house collapse and the walls fall in with a crash, crash, crash. The cacophony reverberated in my chest. The strong beams fell in as though performing a well-practiced dance. Conductor, arms held out to the instruments, now this, and that, and follow the rhythm. The fire lapped with desperation at what remained until there was nothing left behind but so much black ash and tinder. Then it destroyed itself, fizzled out as though it never was, leaving nothing but those deviously innocent looking embers that glowed softly upon the ground.
My breath fogged the night air with cloudy crystals. I raised my hand and stared at the morphed, hideous flesh for the first time. Red, weeping flesh, already showing the craggy evidence of the fire's crooked fingers. My gaze followed the extent of the damage down to my body. Bits of clothing clung to my skin, and I peeled it away from where the cloth had melded with this now cracked carapace that had become me. I felt like my mind was cracking as well. I could feel it splinter beneath the weight of what had happened. It could not grasp the devastation it had just witnessed. It needed something to blame, something to point an accusing finger at. It needed evil to pursue with valorous intent, something to wreak vengeance upon.
But no one had done this except the fire.
Two.
It was months before I killed myself the first time. It's quite funny how incredibly fragile and delicate life is. How easily it can be forced out of the body. Simple as one artery severed just so, one organ malfunctioning for mere minutes, one thick piece of twine wrapped round the neck and held there for so long...
All it took was a simple draft of clear, thick liquid, and I awoke upon the threshold of Dakkru's door. I meandered my way past the entrance and onto the rocky face of the twisted path. I could feel nothing there either, and despite my dying, my skin remained ruined beneath my clothing like a perverted memento. My tongue felt stuck to the roof of my mouth, perhaps the residual leftovers of the sappy substance that had allowed me to be here. I opened my mouth and drank deeply of the stale air, filling my lungs and cupping my hands to my lips. And I screamed.
“WHERE ARE YOU?”
My voice bounced off of the walls and from the depths of the canyon below my feet. It came back to me and repeated my query, mocking me.
Where are you? Where are you? Where are you little girl?
I walked until my feet ached within my worn leather shoes. The soles slapped the stones in a staccato flop with every step that I took. The hissing of the strange flying creatures followed me, their beady red eyes glaring at me with fury at my trespassing, their talons flexing and groping in the darkness. I counted my footfalls in my head to keep me calm, one two, one two, following the path that wound farther and farther into nothingness. My lips formed these numbers, one two, one two, again and again, wordlessly mouthing them as I stared down at the ground to keep from acknowledging whatever hideous atrocities I might see if I raised my eyes to glimpse my surroundings.
How ironic that soon numbers would become the very thing that tormented me, yet in this moment, they kept me from losing my mind.
I rounded a corner down into a narrow path, and I let my palms drag along the jagged walls. I saw the purple light throbbing like the pulse of a large beast's heart then, dancing upon the wall to my right. I watched it in confusion, thoughtlessly, before I turned my head towards the doorway that was leaking this ethereal glow. My feet stumbled their way into the room and I gazed upon Her blasted crystal for the first time, my eyes reflecting the light it generated like mirrors in the dark.
The voice that spoke to me was more of a hum than a whisper. It traced with the barest of breaths over my mind, rather than gently tapping my eardrums so that I could hear. It was eerily childlike and strangely soothing, that voice, but I know that the softness in it was a lie. I would grow to hate it. I think I hated it even then, as it spoke to me, because I knew the moment it stated its request that I was going to become something that all rational beings would hate.
“It's your family that you want, child,” Dakkru said softly. The dark crystal thumped and shimmered in time to her words. “But I grow lonely, oh so lonely, down in this place. The people do not appreciate all that I do for them up above, and I wish more could come and see my glorious domain. One hundred lives for the four you seek. Bring me one hundred, and I shall set them free.”
My voice squeaked past dry lips, past a tight throat. I used my tongue to try and deliver some moisture to them and raised my voice, but even then I could barely manage to utter my reply.
“One hundred?”
“One hundred lives, dear. I'm certain you can count that high, though I admit, judging by your size perhaps that math is a tad too advanced for you. One hundred lives, I do not care how you do it. A slit to the throat, a poison in the beer, perhaps even something more elaborate once you become a bit more creative. Your number is one hundred.”
I felt the chill spread out into my limbs then, colder than anything I'd ever felt before. I was small, barely past childhood at the time. Even if I wanted to agree to the outlandish request, how could one such as me kill one hundred people all alone? And even if I could manage that, what would become of me after it was all said and done? Even if I managed not to be caught and thrown into the glorious crystal above, my soul would be tarnished like oil leaking into water. I would never be the same. My family would look upon me and raise shaking fingers to gaping mouths, saying monster, monster, monster.
My head dipped once, twice, a mechanical motion. Even as logic raved against passion, I knew then what my answer must be. I could not leave them down in this damned place. I could not let them dwindle into nothingness until their carcasses collapsed in devastated dilapidation. I had no choice. I must do as this goddess demanded.
I agreed to soak my hands with blood.
I agreed to become as relentless and cruel as any fire.
I agreed to let this evil pump into my veins and layer my emotions in stone.
My number is one hundred.
Three.
The first life was the worst one to take. I remember the way I sobbed, begging him to stop struggling against my thin, boney hold. I surely would have failed if I'd not selected such a weak and sickly target; the old beggar hobbling amidst the alleyways and sending rats skittering away from his stench. I kept my body gripped onto his as a leach latches to its host. I cut off the supply of air to his lungs and had to listen with my ear right by his mouth as he gasped again, and again. One, two, three, four...
He stopped breathing. He went limp and his eyes rolled back in his head to stare up at me as if he wanted to say hello. He toppled forward and I heard one of his arms snap beneath him sickeningly as it took the brunt force of his weight. The bone pierced through some of his skin and he lay beneath me upon the cold unforgiving ground, neck twisted at an awkward angle, eyes boring holes with their haunting emptiness.
I darted away from him and fell to my knees, my tears staining my cheeks as I relieved my stomach of what little contents it had. My tiny fingers curled around the stones and I had the urge to smash them to bits with them, to break them for this transgression that I'd been forced to commit. I heaved again, and again, until I slumped down in exhaustion in this puddle of my own vomit and sobbed openly, staring up at the azure sky that glowed with brightness to mock my darkness.
My body twitched with erratic spasms upon the ground for a long while. The beggar's corpse was long gone by the time I'd pushed myself to my knees and roughly wiped the snot and tears from my face. I staggered to my feet as though I was intoxicated and sagged against the wall.
That was the first real crack in the foundation of everything that I had been. The innocence and wide-eyed contentment of the child I was was being torn away from me. It left me bare and empty. Empty and waiting to be filled with something else, something that I cannot name. I only know that then, my old self died, and the new self was forced to assert itself with malicious intent. I thrust myself away from the wall and strode from the alley, my eyes fixed straight ahead and my fists clenched tightly at my sides.
My number is one.
Four.
It is strange how easily a person can change. Kind to evil is, what I would tend to believe, the true transformation that takes precedence in society to be. There is simply not enough good to prove otherwise. If there is, I've not seen it. I've only seen how the land is laid out so that certain individuals are loved. The pretty ones with lovely eyes and noses that fit just right upon a perfectly formed face. The effervescent ones that always know just what words to say to make those around them laugh or feel at ease. The intelligent ones that awe and astound the mind with their complex and intriguing thoughts.
But ah, the outcasts. So many of them there are; those that do not fit into the stereotypical norms that define these strategic and stubborn societal strains. They are like a stain upon a well-planned tapestry; a missed line of threading inside the intricately woven pattern. And as such, they are hated by the artist, by the rest of the people wandering about in their daily lives. I feel compassion for them. They have become my targets, because, though most of them have done nothing truly wrong, it is amazing how forgiving or forgetful the masses can be when one of them experiences an unpleasant accident.
Oh, brilliant dance. Wonderful facade. Lovely and glorious and glamorous play. One only needs to walk into a room and look for a few moments before they can spot them. The shady one there in the corner, with his hood drawn over a face that is riddled with scars, his trembling lips nursing heavy liquor. That one, over there, sitting all alone at a table with sad eyes and a broken heart, her hands shaking as they grip her glass. And yet another, right there, leaning, looking over the railing at those gathered but too afraid or perhaps unable to make the connection that he seeks. So he is forced merely to watch, and to be forever, forever alone. One, two, three, like me.
I like to think that they receive a bit of a break from these vices when I kill them. And I don't do it with cruelty, oh no. I am very kind and gracious. I am quick and nimble and assured. Sometimes, I bet they don't even know what hit them. One moment they are fine and breathing, the next, dead, a sack of potatoes smacking against the floor and then a lost soul left to wander the Realm for a undisclosed amount of time. I tell myself this to make me feel better, but what terrifies me as I move from city to city is that slowly, oh so slowly...
I am beginning to believe it is true.
My number is thirty.
Five.
Someone save me. Someone show me that there is something left, a tiny little sliver of salvation, a small smidgeon of grace. Silence the voices in my head and scream and shout in harsh whispers. Tell them that they are wrong, that what they say is not true. I cannot fight against them much longer. I cannot force them into the corners and batter them with arguments against their accusations. What's the matter, Rye? Can't stand looking in the mirror? Can you see the decay as it spreads up from your scars and envelopes your spirit?
But worse is the growing nonchalance about the entire thing. The increasing level of callous uncaring. The side of me that is beginning to kill and maim without a second thought as to the wrongness of the deed. Before it was simply a niggling, but now I feel myself becoming contaminated by it, body and soul.
I am losing the last vestiges of my humanity. I am no longer capable of feeling anything, truly feeling anything, anymore. I am a massive hollow cavern wrapped in sweet caresses and flirtatious smiles. Enjoy what you see, dear brothers and sisters, for if you delve deeper you shall face something darker than the deepest crevasse of the death realm. I do not understand what stuff holds me up and keeps me walking. I feel like a moving vehicle of bone and blood and skin, but what is the spark that keeps me alive? What is the thing that fuels my desires, my motivations?
Only my goal is left with me now. I've been scraped clean of everything else. My identity lies in tattered ruins around my feet, flung into the proverbial abyss of what is right and what is wrong, and what lays in between.
There is no longer any black and white for me. There is no dark and there is no light. There is only the gray, the petrifying greyness of dispassion. Lo and behold, I have become that little snippet of nothingness that you experience right after you die and before the Dark Lady whisks you off to be hammered and molded back to wholeness. I am that putrid stench that assails your senses when you stumble upon the rotting body of some unfortunate being long dead.
Do not look long, for surely what lay beneath will scald your thoughts with travesty.
My number is forty six.
Six.
My mind and body are honed for this. I feel no remorse and no chagrin for what I must do. It is merely a part of life, as sure as drinking water or breathing air. As sure as the crystal will cycle, so I must kill for the freedom of my family. My guilt corroded at my purpose; my shame squelched my noble intent. So I crammed it down into the smallest crevice of my consciousness to eliminate its effects. There was no use for it that would help me carry out my assignment. For surely there is nothing more righteous than laying down the lives of others for your friends. Or was it laying down your own life?
I've almost lost track a few times. I've never experienced such plain, bald panic before. I had to go through them all meticulously in my head, reliving every little detail in vivid first person perspective:
Thirty six, drowned in the pool of stealth, forty three, strangled with a leather belt, fifty five, pushed from the eagle bridge...
I've taken to drawing their images, the way I saw them before I killed them. I draw their pictures and label them with the names I've given them, sometimes I rhyme them with their allotted number just so I can more easily keep track of what I have done and what is still left to come. Their faces are branded forever in my mind, reminders that used to torment me, but now I see them almost as kin, forced into this morbid series of events by my own hand.
I can only spend so long within each city before people grow suspicious. It is a blessing that my appearance is so unassuming. They see the lovely girl with the delicate chin and brilliant eyes. They see the slender girl with generous locks to frame a dainty face and pink, smiling lips. I find it ironic that their own stereotypes often become the end of them. They do not suspect that my level of depravity can hide behind so slight and guiltless a form. Nevertheless, even a blind man can smell a fire if he's left long enough so that the fumes reach his nostrils. So on and on I travel, ever upwards, spiraling towards the sky so that I can drag more down to the depths with me.
My number is seventy four.
Seven.
I've reached the end of my grueling journey. Sometimes my hands tremble when I write, and I do not know why. My writing has become a part of me, and though I know this journal will be my doom if I ever lose it, I cannot bring myself to throw it away. I cannot bring myself to destroy it. It is the only evidence I have that what I do is not because I am truly wicked. I only do what is right. I only do what I must. Perhaps after this is all through, somehow, I can find redemption. Perhaps the deepest part of me still has something inside that could be salvaged amongst the reeking refuse of my own soul. I count the things that I have done right in my life, and I feel as though I cannot even label a number high enough to match the fingers on my hand. One. Two. Three. Forever damned ye be.
So many lives, and so many years. I began as a child, and now I am a woman with a heart as cold and lifeless as any void. I am near the end of it all, and I ponder what I shall be when I am through. I've no skill beyond this impure motivation to exterminate. When I have finally finished what I set out to do, when I finally shake my fist in Dakkru's face and jab my finger towards that final soul that I sent into Her realm, and when I can finally glimpse my family once again, what will become of me? I already know that they shall flee in horror from me; the hideous creature that devoured their sweet little girl that they remembered with smiling eyes and dimpling cheeks. They shall not know me, and I shall sneer at them for their weakness.
There is nothing left inside of me that is good. I now only carry out this mission because there is nothing left for me in this world. I am the faceless body that personifies death. I have no individuality, nothing that I can claim as my own any longer. Death has sunk its tendrils into my entire being; it permeates throughout my very core. It is all that I dream about, and all that I see, and the ultimate end to everything that lives or moves or breathes.
Yet despite it all, here I stand before the precipice, before the edge, where I shall make my final leap and offer up my final sacrifice to the goddess I serve and the goddess I loath. I bend the knee to do Her bidding and curse Her name beneath my breath.
I shall finish it here in Hydlaa. I shall perhaps begin with that slight looking klyros to my right, I would relish the chance to kill a red way mage. Perhaps with that nolthrir to my left, she seems so happy and smiling, with a funny little amulet of Xiosia hanging from her neck no less. Dakkru would like that. Or maybe even that menki in the corner, yes, that one right there. A clamod with a crystal way staff betwixt his paws, I believe I could beguile him into following me. Best set to work, little girl, before they truly see, before they see the darkness infesting thee.
Ah, there is my candidate, lucky lad. Why don't we sit and have a chat over some brew, don't worry, I'll be nice and gentle when I deliver you unto oblivion. Yes, note this warm expression upon my face, this divinely fictitious visage. Come closer, and I shall whisper things that make you feel wanted and loved and secure, fill you with the lyrics of a broken bird that suffers just as you.
It'll be too late for you when you realize the canary is really a snake.
My number is ninety three.
MY NUMBER IS SEVEN.
