After what felt like an eternity of jumping from building to building, they had finally found a place to stop and breath. From the height of turnbull canyon, orange county streetlights blurred the skyline, like a distant alluring ocean of flickering warm lights.
The sound of racing engines howled through the canyon roads, reckless drivers pushing their limits on the winding paths below. But up here, away from the roads, away from the people who were likely after her now. This place felt almost normal in comparison
Marisol sat on the dirty pavement, hugging her legs to her chest. She sighed resting her forehead against her knees. The adrenaline finally wearing off.
Her teeth chattered, as the sweat on her body began to cool.
Eri stood a few paces away, eyes closed, letting the wind brush through her hair as though it could still cleanse her.
Mephisto lounged nearby, legs crossed, a grin carved lazily across his face like he'd never known discomfort in his life.
Sitting between them here. For once made the question just a little easier to say aloud.
Marisol's voice cracked as she spoke.
"What… is wrong with me?"
Mephisto's grin deepened, happy to finally have her ask the question.
"Wrong?" He chuckled softly. "Oh, little seed, nothing about you is wrong. You're the most right thing this broken world has ever made. You are special."
He tilted his head, studying her from head to toe.
"You simply don't belong here amongst these riffraff."
Eri shot him a glare, but Mephisto only spread his hands, as if to say what harm could a story do?
"oh calm down my queen," his said smoothly, sitting up to step into the beams casted by the moonlight. "If she's to understand what she is, than who better than me to tell her. Don't you agree?"
Eri hesitated, holding down her ruffles to sit next to Marisol. "…Fine. But be brief."
Mephisto smiled wider. "Oh, you know you should never rush art, my queen."
He stepped closer, his gloved hand rising as faint motes of smoke began to shimmer with a sickening green glow between his fingers.
"Once," he began, "the Core reigned beneath all things. She was the pulse of the void, the whisper beneath creation.
Every war, every collapse, every massacre. The core would bear witness to them, and she answered."
The green smoke pulsed, spreading out before pulling in on itself.
"When a catastrophe occured along yggrasils branches, the core didn't let it fade to nothing like her nemesis. She brought it into our Avalon.
The Core gathered every tragedy, every lost soul, every broken building, and shaped them in her image.
Those pieces of dying worlds became fragments floating within the ether. Her collection of the lost, our home the otherworld."
Marisol rose an eyebrow confused. "The Otherworld?"
Mephisto grin faded, his voice somber. "Yes. A world between worlds.
A place where the core once whispered ever so softly that she could save you.
A place where the dead awaken once again on their fragments."
Marisol's heart skipped a beat. Her mind quickly flashed back to that day of the accident...
Perhaps her father would still be alive there.
His grin sharpened while staring into her eyes. "Each fragment is a new stage, little seed.
One could never get board with all the vermin to control."
Eri's voice cut through the dark. "Enough."
Mephisto arched a brow, amused. "What? It's the truth."
"You're twisted version of it," Eri replied. She stepped forward, the shadow animals hidden away recoiling from her presence. Even here the shadows still feared her blackened heart.
"The Otherworld isn't only despair. For every fragment drowned in darkness, another sprouts from happy memories by light. Fragments made from forgotten happiness," Eri paused drawing a dividing line in the dirt. "Long before my time, two god like beings fought for control. They were called Sylva and the Core. One fought for Light using her chosen gaurdians and the other for darkness. And army of souls reforged into its force of enforcers."
She suddenly swiped her foot in one calm swoop. Erasing the picture she drew of the core, from the 2 figures she had sketched.
"Now all that remains is slyva after their battle, but even so the core left behind its child the doom tree."
Her eyes flicked toward Marisol. "The Core is gone now. The balance broken. And you, Marisol, You're its only hope."
Mephisto's grin returned, sharp and lazy. "Ah, my queen," he drawled, "acting like such a good little saint for someone still dripping in her family's blood."
"stay on topic, Mephisto," Eri said, her voice laced with venom.
Mephisto laughed in rebellion. "Very well. Lets not fight in front of our little princess."
He straightened, dusting off his hands. "Let's call it what you will become the Doom Tree. The god of darkness that will rule over us all. Without it, the Otherworld collapses. Light cannot exist without shadow. And you, dear Marisol, are its next mouthpiece. Its Proxy."
Marisol's brows drew together. "Its… what?"
"Voice. Will. Its very soul." His smile softened, almost tender. "You are its heir, whether you like it or not."
Marisol blinked, looking for the cameras. Maybe her family wasn't dead and this was all some prank.
"What am I supposed to just accept that?" She shot back. "I'm not some chosen one in some bad anime plot."
"The Darkness has been protecting you your whole life," mephisto said evenly ignoring her retort. "Dont you find it strange you're still alive after all your accidents."
The words curled around Marisol's mind like creeping vines. "The animal… Shadows?"
"Yes they are your protectors," Eri pointing to shadows hiding some distance away. "just as the tree of light, Yggdrasil, has only ever had Sylva as its Proxy. You too will become the Proxy of the cores child. The rest of the candidates...."
Marisol felt her stomach twist. "The rest?"
Mephisto leaned in. "Dark Seeds. Like you. They Sprouted long ago. Hundreds... maybe millions."
Her throat tightened. "And where are they now?"
"At this point in time…" pausing for effect. He bit his lip before the next words could come.
A sudden rustle in the brush caught him off gaurd.
Mephisto's smile thinned.
"It's bad enough when my queen interrupts my stories."
He turned toward the laughter of the uninvited guest in the distance
Echoing louder than the crickets chirping their song in the background.
His pupils dilated, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"Extras, though…"
He let the word linger like a curse.
"…that I will not tolerate."
Mephisto's head snapped toward the distant sound of voices, and in an instant, Marisol felt her skin crawl.
Further away unaware of the horrors that awaited, his soon to be victims continued to approach . The group was composed of Five teenagers. Three girls, two boys, no older than your typical high school kids.
One of the girls, Ellie, nudged her boyfriend beside her. "Told you, Carlos, this would be better than your mom's bonfire."
"Yeah, yeah," Carlos muttered, grinning. "Until we get caught."
Another girl with her sweater falling off her shoulders rolled her eyes. "Nobody comes up here this late. Except, like… those weirdo canyon racers."
"Or ghosts," the taller boy chimed in with the voice of a ghoulish specter.
They all laughed carefree in teenage bliss. They never saw the trio as they approached just out of site.
Mephisto exhaled slowly, shoving his hands in his pockets. Within seconds he vanished in a wisp of smoke, appearing again behind the poor deliquents.
"Boo."
They practically jumped out of their socks screaming before scattering.
Marisol couldn't keep track of them with all the commotion. She was still trying to process what even happened. One second he was next to her. The next...
A girlish scream came from his captured prey.
The tallest boy in the group wasn't as lucky as his friends. Mephisto's hand clamped down over the kid's mouth. The longer she stared the more she realized, he was not much older than her. His screams muffled as his head was jerked to the side exposing his neck.
"Please not again..." Marisol started to murmur shaking her head in disapproval.
Eri pulled her in close covering her eyes. Her eyes turned back to Mephisto in disgust
"Make it quick."
It happened in an instant.
Mephisto's teeth sank in.
The other teens hiding away watching bolted.
One girl fell, scrambling back on her hands before catching sight of the thing her friend was becoming. Her friends yanking her up, stopping her from screaming in horror before she turned and ran. Her distant sobs becoming sweet music to his ears.
The boy collapsed to the ground, convulsing uncontrollably. His body arched, every muscle locking into a painful spasm. His breath came choked, wheezed breaths.
Then he lay there, stiff as a board.
Marisol's pushed away from Eri's arms. She couldn't fathom what she was seeing.
The boy lifted his head.
His pupils were red.
Slowly, he stood turning to Mephisto. And then came Mephistos signature smile on this boy.
"…Master?"
Marisol had bore witness to the first of many actors soon to be born. Actors casted for Mephisto's grand tale. The great fable of Marisol and the doom tree of darkness.