"ERA Codex: {Execute} Cut and Bled"
I had half a second to register the words before an agonizing pain shot up from my left leg like a smack from a hot iron rod.
"Ahhhh!" I fell down with a scream and grabbed my leg tenderly," Wh... Ah..."
"You won't die. This execution form only led to death after bleeding out or infection and I didn't invoke that part of my Transcript." A cool voice said from behind me but I didn't see anyone behind me at all. "You'll just bleed for bit, but you'll be fine... for now "
Was it a ghost? I thought dreadfully but then the most strangest thing happened... well, alot of strange things had happened but this one was very creepy.
From my shadow, a large black form rose up, detached itself like chewing gum and stood before me in eerie silence. With a hand flick, the shadowy mass revealed itself and I felt my body cringe all over, hair standing on end like never before.
Before me was a tall guy with silver white hair, pale skin and a face that was utterly and wholly ruined.
Ruined in that it was covered with slashes and cuts like someone had taken a razor blade and a pair of scissors then decided the guy's face was as good as a canvas, before going to work and carving him up.
Butchered, ravaged, scraped across like a hated birthday cake, each incision was long and overlayed another one underneath it. Worse was they somehow left the eyes alone, the nose was utterly destroyed, as for the lips, they were half whole and half slashed.
How someone could do this to a face, yet the eyes were left untouched was astounding and horrific.
A cold blade touched my neck and I gulped before looking at his now uncomfortably close face.
"Stare, stare away, look deep and hard, mortal girl. This face, it disgusts you correct?" He asked and I averted my eyes a bit in shame.
I didn't like to judge people on appearances, unless it was clothes, but I couldn't help it. I just couldn't understand how someone could look like this, what would have had to happen to leave a face like that?
Odder still, he was dressed very nicely and elegantly, making it a harsh contrast.
A white button shirt, with lowered collar, two unfastened buttons showing his pale neck and collar bone. Black leather gloves that matched his dark trousers and midnight black shoes, as if the night had kisses him out into the world.
On his shoulders was an ethereal black cloak, silky and soft looking, but harsh like ice in a tundra of winter, beautiful to gaze at but touching may lead to frostbite.
"Answer me." The blade touched my neck, threatening and promising pain.
"Why do you care? I don't even know you!" I shouted, my leg, the thigh had been cut and the pain was reinforcing my mind and making me mad," You attacked me first too!"
"To prove a point. I am a Pariah... You're just a mortal girl. No Vessel, not even close. You are nothing like her. Nothing." The blade kissed my skin with each sentence, and I felt wetness and a sting, my blood had been drawn.
Now, I don't know what possessed me to do what happened next. Maybe it was the pain from my cut and bleeding thigh, or that I was accosted and assaulted without warning, or that he was clearly comparing me to some other female.
Either way, my mind went white with anger and my hand struck his face without thinking, giving a bitch slap so loud, it would make a bitch raise her brow.
Slap!
The echo alone bounced on the walls and back to my ears. The silence afterwards consumed us whole. I meant that literally too, for where the night sounds of cars, cabs, crickets and such were before, now there was nothing but a deathly quiet.
It was unnatural, ominous and a creeping chill racing up my spine doused my anger and made me shake.
"Struck by a mortal girl." A feminine voice said suddenly,"That's shameful on us all, even if you're a Pariah."
"No fault of his own. What mortal girl would dare strike at death, Mistress?" Another voice spoke up and I raised my head to see the owners.
The woman from before, Mistress, was walking towards us, Antoinette sat on her head, palm out like giving a head pat. The two were regarding us with curious voices laced with equal parts confusion and weariness. Mistress had a slight cut on her cheek but other than that, she looked as cold, cruel and unusual as before.
"You don't know me? Good. You won't forget either." The man said, and turned to me with cold fury in his eyes," ERA Codex: {Ritual} Submerged Burial"
"Pariah!" I heard Mistress shouted.
"Sarah!" Antoinette's voice filtered in too.
However they were too late, My body instantly sank half way into my shadow, like being plunged into a body of cool water.
I raised my arms, begging for help but the man just looked at me with cold eyes, the only feature on his ruined face allowing for even a glimpse at his emotions.
"Help! Help!" I screamed desperately but no one came.
From the corner of my eyes I saw Mistress holding Antoinette and whispering to her harshly. I couldn't hear it, I couldn't understand it, why they were letting this happen?
The Eye hadn't killed me, the Chancellor hadn't killed me, Antoinette hadn't either, but now they were just standing there letting me die?
Why?
What was happening?
"No Vessel would be scared of this." Mistress spoke up looking at me," Wardens don't breath, nor have we a need to fear the dark or being buried. You are what you physically appear to be, a mortal girl. Why you look like a Vessel on the Spirit plane must be a curse or a sign of a Hidden transcript. We'll know after your death."
What? I didn't understand.
More words and information I didn't know because I missed the memo where this was all known stuff. What I did gleam was that they were really genuinely letting me die, they didn't care at all, it sounded quite normal to them.
But it wasn't to me!
I thrashed, I squirmed and I resisted as my body sank deeper and deeper, the submerging slowed down to a pace like that of quicksand or tar. Nobody moved to assist me, Antoinette was resting on Mistress's head with cool leisure.
Why?
Why was this happening?
I didn't do anything, why were killing me? Weren't they scared of the police?
The police? What was I thinking? They would probably kill the police too.
Glob why?
"Why?" I asked with my last breath, then my face went under and I shut my eyes.
"Because you don't know my name and you are no Vessel." I heard the guys voice muffled but clear.
My arms moved to swim but I hadn't gone swimming since elementary school and I hated water diving. It ruined my hair too many times for me to forgive it ever again, yet right now I wished I had been patient enough to master swimming before dumping it.
I'm going to die, I thought fleetingly, Lucas... Mom... D... ad.
Slowly my struggles stopped, as I felt my mind start to sink into the darkness.
All around me was darkness.
Was this death?
"I hear you." A quiet voice rung in my ears. "I see you."
"What?" I asked feeling sluggish.
"Look up." It said but I refused.
"It's dark... It's wet... I can't see " I said sadly," I'm dying."
"I know. I hear you. I see you. Look up... Look at me." The voice was persistent and calm, infuriatingly calm at my death.
Why would you be calm at a dying girl!?
"Fine!" I shouted and opened my eyes.
A face.
An empty face mask was staring right at me, barely an inch away from my own face.
Pale white skin like ash on paper, eyes hollowed out like a night with no stars or moon and lips pulled up in a calm smile, with pristine white teeth.
"Do you see it? See me?" The face asked and I opened my mouth to answer but closed it instantly.
There was no air! I couldn't talk! How had I been speaking before?
"With your mind. Words can be spoken by more than the mouth." The face said using its mouth," Yes, I can speak, I'm not tangibly here so I don't need to breathe to talk."
"You could have told me earlier." I hissed in my thoughts and heard my voice outloud.
"Learning comes with error. Now, quite a situation you've landed us in. Drowning in a shadow, very grisly and grim. Do you know your body will stay down here and not decompose? In the outside world, the place you sank will be an unexplainable shadowy stain on the ground most people won't notice and not care about. "
"That's horrible!" I shouted in fear and tried to swim again but there was no use, I was sinking like a stone into a dark void. Everything around me was pitch blackness, the only visible thing was the face.
"Spare your energy, we must talk now before I consider the idea of helping you." The face said and I looked at her with wide eyes.
"You can help me? Please help! Pretty pretty pinkish please!" I begged and she smiled.
"Of course he'd never guess, look at you, listen to you, nothing like me. Now, Sarah, heed my words, for I cannot repeat them or you'll run out of air." The face grew grave, it's layered voice serious," The cards you were given were cursed with an enchantment to offer you passage into The Dead Worlds, I don't know which one it was, since much has changed since my time.
"The woman who gave them to you was a witch, a powerful one too and I assume she used divination on you both to look deep into your souls. I blocked her but she still managed to see your Warden's visage, making her think whatever she thought. As for Lucas, I don't know what she saw, he is afterall the only person who's visage I can't see through your eyes."
"Don't interrupt, this is vital and important. The Eye you saw was a guardian meant to keep the Realm safe and when you appeared near it, it searched you both and decided that you were Vessel, a Companion to a Warden of Death, similar to Antoinette." Her voice was calm and clear, making me really listen,
"Lucas was seen as a Damned and sentenced to The Pit, Hell as you would know it. I don't know if he is alive or not, but he is unnatural like you, so he might be."
The face moved closer," I can't take you to him though, even in my prior state, I was never allowed there, with good reason. It is a dangerous place he is at, as is where you were sent. The Chancellor you met was utterly going to kill you had Antoinette not been there, since you were an anomaly."
"I don't know what Mistress's desires are but she overlooked you, which is good or you'd have died the moment you met her. As for the Pariah... this man... he is too filled with self loathing and self pity to even consider mercy to anyone. Which is one reason he is trying to kill you."
"Okay, okay, that's a truckload of information. And I'm feeling stuffy already, can you speed it up before I die?" I asked and the face smiled.
"All that's left is to give you a choice." The face went to my ear," To try and save Lucas now or return home and save him later. I can take you to The Dead World and you can try to find the chasm he fell into but it is a perilous search in a perilous place and will lead to a perilous fate.
"However, if we return to Oakwood, I will assist you in any way I can to find the witch, understand the cards, for there is more to them I think, and find Lucas. But the choice is yours, it will always be yours."
Oh my Glob!
That was a lorry load of pressure to put on me!
"Sarah," Lucas's voiced filtered in my memory, " We're always gonna be best friends. But you should always take care of yourself before taking care of me. I'll do the same. Now eat your chicken soup and stop trying to make me eat it."
It was in the ninth grade, I had gotten a cold from sneaking out and watching the football teams game, Bradley had won the game for the team. It had been worth it but Mom and Lucas gave me an ear full.
Lucas though had stayed with me, bringing notes, helping me with homework and making sure I never got left behind. So I promised that everytime I snuck out, I'd tell him even though he couldn't stop me.
Lucas.
"...Take care of yourself before taking care of me." He'd said.
I clenched my fist and took a deep breath, figuratively speaking of course, since there was no air around me.
"What is your choice?" The face asked me.
I knew what I wanted. There was no way I'd leave Lucas to Hell. Even Heaven couldn't have him!
"Take me home and help me find him." I said and the face gave a wide smile stretching it's lips.
"Now that, is like us." She said floated down to me," You only have to do one thing now."
"What?"
"Put me on." The face said and it's form shifted and stretched, skin becoming silk and thread, until a beautiful light grey veil was left. The head piece was made of intricately linked knots of pearl and silver copper, the satin flowed behind like the hair of a cold night wind.
"Uh... Okay." I reached for her and when I touched her, I felt a momentary lapse in focus before it returned.
"You're about to die, put me on now!" Her voice shouted in urgency.
I shut my eyes, thoughts of Lucas, Mom and home resounding in my head like a flashback of my life. Each moment, each instance of living I had ever had, played before me, without summons or intent to leave.
The last memory, was Lucas reaching out to me, our hands almost grasping, before he was expunged away into a fiery red chasm.
"I'll find you Lucas. I promise." I said solemnly and put the veil on.