Behind the door, steps kept stitching closer.
Floorboards creaked with a pressure unknown to the ordinary.
The door teared up when opened, a figure with a long mane that covered her from head to toe entered the once lively room.
[.....]
The lights flashed into Morse, the mother glared daggers at her 'son'. Under that analyzing gaze, Feigling tilted its head toward the woman.
They stared at each other for a long time, the lightbulb dangling above swayed left and right through a pressure only they could emit.
Finally, Feigling lips parted a gate.
"....What brings you here....Mother?"
A subdued voice came, one completely devoid of resistance.
It didn't show any signs of discomfort, sending a nihilistic gaze toward her.
Her gaze peeled layers off of her own son, layers it didn't even know existed, however.
There were layers even she couldn't simply peer through and peel open.
Only when her son looked at her with the softest and kindest smile did she relax and leech her sight downwards.
Blood and flesh mangled into a scene of crime, chains melted and still fuming with steam.
Her blue eyes held her son close to her. Unable to tear ways.
Feigling met her gaze with indifference sketching plainly on its expression, behind that mask boiled a mix of emotions.
But for now, it'd partake in the play.
"We were just playing"
It answered with a curved smile that stretched unnaturally for a boy.
Hearing it herself from her own boy made her relax the tension she sprayed on.
Eyes flickered on her son's face full of innocence before lying down, bare feet naturally following the trail of blood toward a wardrobe, she traced the steps toward it.
Her fingers brushed against the mahogany wood old with dust.
They found the handle, for a moment, she stopped.
To her, Cale was not useful any longer, she wanted him for interrogation, but knowing her son was still here....
She decided to kill him. Just like everyone that wanted to kill her son to satiate their fanatic desires to kill a demon in their lifetime.
Creakkkkk!
The wardrobe creaked slowly and sharply.
Feigling yawned on the bed. Not caring whatsoever.
[....]
Her eyes stood at a standstill, unmoving and locked.
There was nothing inside, just terrible quality clothes breaking naturally down.
They didn't have much of an income after all.
"Told you"
Feigling found the time to chime in, rubbing the salt in.
The mother walked slowly toward her son, cupping its cheeks with care and delicate fingers.
Feigling still smiled, caressing a collar with a gem shaped like a bunny's in its lap.
She took notice of it. And so, she asked her son with nice, simple words filled with love one would use in a kitchen.
[Where did you get that, my sweetie?]
Her voice, sweeter than chocolate drilled into Feigling's mind, not that it cared since it did nothing on its mind.
Still, it answered the mother with the smile she was always used to seeing in the mornings of the past.
"Found it here"
It lied, it stole the collar from Cale when first hopping on top of him, sensing its importance, it decided to decipher its origin and potential.
The mother didn't notice the lie. Carrying joy for the item that brought her son something to play with.
Scrunch!
Her soft eyes took a sharp edge at the distance outside the window that the human eye couldn't cross, snow crunched, no one but her noticed.
[We are leaving]
Feigling's expression faltered, a click of a tongue faded, it tugged at her finger.
"Do we have to?"
It asked, eyes holding nothing dear inside, save for instinct.
The mother kneeled, face covered by her black kelp.
[Sweetie, you know that we cannot stay in one place for long]
At the words, Feigling's face scrunched, but then turned into a soft expression befitting of a son who understood the troubles a mother goes through each day.
It obeyed, not capable of refusing.
The mother stood upright and extended a hand toward it.
Feigling grasped it, feeling the tight grip her hand exercised.
She took a step, as she did, she looked around one more time.
Specifically at the bed.
If, by chance there was someone hiding and the trail of blood led to a dead end with no sight of the person.
The next hiding spot would be most obvious to one grappling any intellect.
Under the bed, there was enough room to hide a body and would also not make anymore bloodstains.
A perfect hiding spot one would crawl towards.
Her hair whistled, the long mane responding to her desire.
Crash!
The bed crumbled, destroyed in an instant by the spikes of black that rained from above.
Drip!
Blood sharply dripped, wood splintered after years of being forced to support a bed.
Like a fountain, blood washed over the two.
Before any of the blood touched Feigling, the mother's hair stretched unnaturally long to shield him.
The intestines flowed and broke down into pieces.
Watching the scene, satisfied.
She didn't care to check, it wouldn't matter if her once prisoner survived.
The two waltzed right out the room, leaving the room to breathe once more.
Humming high above and dangling was the lightbulb on its last hind legs.
It shut off, dead, fire becoming the only source of light in the cabin devoid of life.
Time trickled down the hourglass, its specks of sand falling like a small avalanche.
Thud!
A giant suitcase tumbled down from the top of the closet.
It awoke the room drowned in silence.
Seeing that the room became lonely. Cale, from above the closet landed with sluggish motions, stroking his wrist he had cut, the amount of blood flowing froze, glazing his skin with red icing.
It didn't make much sense since there was a fire right there, but he felt his body cool, throat coating itself with tiny spikes of ice.
Eyeing the blade on his left hand, he wanted to waltz toward the two and chase them, however, he knew that was not the play here.
Cale glanced at the torn carcass that resembled a human child.
"....."
He didn't know that a child lay dead beneath him as he slept.
He did think that Feigling likely put it below since the one who supposedly killed her, didn't know about the body being below the bed.
Of course....
It wasn't like he cared, a child he didn't know dying wouldn't affect him all that much.....Especially in some fake world.
Sad? Yes, he'd feel sadness gripping tightly around his heart, but that's it.
Would the sad emotions fade? Yes, they would. He knew that even if he felt sad for a child as young as her dying, it wouldn't accompany him in the future.
But, that's the future, not the present where he is right now.
So for now.
Cale kept silently looking at the dried tears that were still visible on the partially skinned child.
Bile settled on the back of his throat, he felt nausea crush him as the fire kept cackling wood and coal like a madman.
He walked toward the carcass, grabbed it gently up and picked the other pieces of the body parts, the little girl's severed hand clutched tightly shut.
He took a step forward, the blistering heat swayed against his skin, wafting a smell that oddly resembled incense.
As he did.
Rustle
"...?!"
Cale's eyes jolted awake at the sudden squirming from the black haired child, contrary to what he thought, the little girl was still dead, with one subtle difference than before.
A smile, one that cracked ear to ear.
Her face was covered with strands of hair that clung to her pale face that had parts torn off and burnt.
And the hand, unclenched. Revealed a glorious silver key that shone brightly.
"....."
Where it would fit wasn't a question needed to be asked.
Throwing the key on the desk, Cale picked the last pieces of strewn flesh and moved to the fire blistering with intense passion.
He burned.
It hurt, he didn't have to do this, yet he also couldn't let the dead be disrespected like this. Even if they might be fake.
His moral compass just wouldn't allow it, because Cale in the end was still a human being that housed respect to the dead.
A few burns for a proper send off for the child who once had a bright future was a price he had no problem paying.
He pondered whether it was right to do so without asking someone, but felt like the smile was also the confirmation.
In the end.
Thud!
Fwooosh!
He would never get to know.
He would only think he did something good by cremating the corpse.
Crackle!
Flames crackled, Cale's back turned to face the flames towering higher and bursting.
Cale snatched the key and beelined for the keyhole.
"....."
It seamlessly fit. Cale twisted the key.
Clack!
With a sharp click of clarity, Cale's eyes burned with curiosity as the drawer opened.
Sat squarely on the drawer was a black envelope, the same one he had seen prior.
But that wasn't what caught his attention, what drew him in was the gray silver twinkling with its cold barrel.
A gun, with 8 mags untidied and unorganized.
Wasting no more time, Cale flicked his fingers across, pecking at the envelope.
There was no address or to whom it was sent nor the one who sent it, just a blank fancy envelope with a wax seal.
With the blade, Cale tore open the envelope.
Inside the envelope was a piece of paper.
When reading it, it starkly reminded Cale of when he browsed the items in the supply of the merchant.
「 Demon Exterminator 」
Immediately, he frowned, forehead creasing as his lips stuttered to understand what the hell is this.
Cale's thoughts drifted before reading the description of the gun presumed to be an item.
"Is this.....Where they get the items?"
He did think that there had to be some sort of supply when first getting the items.
Not that he thought he could find it, just that it existed for sure.
'Will they allow it?'
They seemed stingy when it came to items, since in order to get one, you had to first have money.
Since he was in the storiem, he decided not to delve deeper into something he didn't know and continue reading the description.
| Demon Exterminator is an item created and found in the storiem 'Wire Maiden's Cage' that takes the form of the last weapon Charlotte Erfinder ever held tightly before her death. The soul and insight of the girl is engraved within the frosty sparks of the cold Desert Eagle.
Once shots are fired, the body temperature of the user turns permanently colder by 0.2% of the current body temperature the user first grasped it at. When the user's body goes above absolute zero, they shall turn into a glacier that will not melt naturally, afterwards, the percentage of 0.2% will be permanently multiplied to the power of 1.5x.
The emptied mags naturally form back bullets into place from an hour ranging to 12 hours depending on how exhausted the user is, the bullets expend the mental strength of the user.
May the cold sparks of frost accompany your fate sealed in glaciers |
A description detailed to the brim, but just when he thought that was it, there was more.
Cale's eyes dragged to the end of the page, where a strange note took place.
A flavor text, one that detailed a certain helpless rage that needed someone else to help quell it.
'The demon took everything from me, my joy, my family, my brother and even my own body that it munched on. Exterminate them, do not hold any reckless sympathy for their lies' As he read it, his fingernails turned frosty, silver breaths came rustling.
'Exterminate the demon that killed and gnawed at my body and I shall follow you, no matter the twisted nature inside you is'
'Charlotte Erfinder'
On the last line read her name, but next to it seared away another.
'Cale Dice'
With Cale's name stamped in red, cold ink.
Fwoosh!
The paper burned, sealing the contract between two souls and announcing it to the world itself.
When the last bit of the paper burned.
"...."
Cale felt his mind refresh in clarity that he hadn't felt since sleeping.
His fatigue lessened.
No, as the bonds of time stretched, he understood that was not the case at all.
'That...Is it freezing it instead?'
His mind numbed at the piercing headache, fatigue stopping its long march.
Crackle!
The fire crackled in the back, this time with a strange crackle that didn't suit it.
Cale's head slowly twisted toward the fire.
There, limbs detached, black blood oozing away from her as her flesh burned constantly.
Was a girl, a girl with hollow eyes, skin as pale as a ghost's and.....A smile as grotesque as a monster's mug.