I was awoken by one of the maids of the manor, my eyes still heavy due to the morning lag. Her somber gaze graced my eyes — her next words hitting me to the core. "The Grandfather is here. He wants to see you." My eyes widened — a pang of adrenaline hit me immediately
She left, as I jumped off the bed and started to dress quickly, my feet hastening as I slammed the door open. I ran down the eerily silent hallways — my heartbeat being the only origin of sound. All lights were off, a lively place full of employees was now empty. It is liminal, bizarre — the air carries a lethal weight.
I blitz through the hallways, yet my feet made no sound. He shouldn't have come back from wherever he was in Europe. It seems like Julia unleashed a ton of political waves through the family and country — waves that would never falter.
I took a turn, and there it was. A door which seemed bigger than the rest, with a faint hue of darkness. It feels as if once you go inside, shadows engulf you whole. I embraced this shadow, knocking faintly on the door.
A pair of withered hands pushed it open, and there he was. He looks like a common old man, yet his gaze is fierce and his orbs are gateways to hell. His shadow was as profound as the void, his stance as frail as a leaf pushed by the air.
The pressure my grandfather exerts on me weighs me down to places God could never take me. There is something about him I can't gauge.
My eyes traveled through the room. I saw my father, with a gaping wound on one of his eyes. My sister, mute beyond compare, sitting on a chair by the corner of the room with a dejected look on her eyes.
I don't know what to say in front of you, gramps. My family — including you, have led me all my life. It seems like today I will face consequences that aren't mine.
"You've brought me an adequate descendant, yet your management is so poor." His sight traveled towards my father. The line between him and a prey was blurred.
The blood of my father, streaming down his eye, pooled into his shirt and subsequently towards the family emblem he so used to carry with pride.
"We are a public spectacle." He sighed, his voice getting an octave lower. "You are close to never seeing the light again."
I felt my peripheral vision darken, as my pupils shrank. I can taste it now. I feel it, it's exhilaratingly chilling. A part of me wants to further embrace this feeling, while my conscious self makes me stand by.
I wallowed in an odd feeling of joy. My father now lacks an eye.
"Sit."
I immediately sat.
"When something can grow and loom over buildings, destroy mountains and corrupt the soil, what are we speaking of? Answer."
"Julia."
"A monster, of course." He retorted, eyes as deep as the sea. He stood up, walking next to me.
"You are pathetic."
His words came in a hushed, aged deep tone.
"Such a being, so manipulable, yet you do nothing."
"You are the next in line to lose an eye."
"I want you to marry Julia by tomorrow, or you will disappear."
"Leave."
I quickly left, my expression blank.
This man cannot live in the same universe as me. I slowly decided to hide in a hallway which traversed the one leading to his office. My breath became silent as my shadow merged with the walls.
My father, with a shattered ego, walked through the hallway and saw me. He stayed silent, for his eye can no longer see due to his hands.
My sister, with a shattered will, walked through the hallway and saw me. She stayed silent, for her world can no longer be relied on due to its malevolence.
My sword, with a cold glint, loomed as a cleaver, uncaring about being seen. It stayed silent, for its purpose in the world was about to be resolved.
The air laid thick with the scent of wood and a sense of stillness. The anticipation ran wild through my veins.
I could hear it, his footsteps. Each one of them resounded in my soul. He came in closer, and the moment he saw me I struck.
I have always felt the world through my sword. How the metal vibrates through the hilt lets me know what I've hit. My exhilaration ran short when I pierced through sand and paper. My eyes deceive me, for I see a gaping wound.
His blood streams as a human, yet it slowly converts into a black substance. I felt something horrifying lock onto me.
I ran, my back facing towards him as I slammed through a wall and went outside the manor. A beam so fierce it disintegrated the air followed behind me, narrowly missing me.
He is not human. He is not lycan. He is something he shouldn't be.
I ran as fast as I could, a shadow looming behind me. I feel my neck tingling. Today is the day I will leave this world. I took my sword out, and I looked behind me.
Dread.
Why is it so intense?
Death.
It is so much, it fills everything that I can see.
If I move, I will be engulfed by darkness.
I poured mana inside my body, and I left my mind. I am flesh, skin and blood.
The air whistling around me, the pressure that slowly built against my back. I can feel it all.
My sword cut through thousands of pellets, my body dodging pillars that seemingly appeared from the ground.
My body bent and twisted, making the most refined of movements. I was a frail raft in a torrential storm — a storm of twisted corruption, trying to engulf me whole and tear apart everything that constitutes me.
The earth is against me, I feel it. I need to kill it. It could open any moment and plunge me into the abyss, ending my existence.
More and more pillars resembling the shape of dripstones emerged from the ground at a brutal speed. They tried to predict where I would move, yet a mind can't predict moves where reason is overruled and flesh takes hold.
Amidst his countless strikes, I saw a frail line that signified his death. I leaped forward, my body making way amidst the thousands of attacks.
He started to throw a wave of darkness after another, in a pendular way. My sword made room for my body.
I went forward, generating a sonic boom, and cleaved through the neck of my grandfather. It was a movement so instinctual my mind couldn't even keep up. His detached head traveled towards the ground. I kicked it upwards and incinerated it mid-air with fire.
It looks odd. A fire so white, immaculate. I'm doing the work of a cardinal down here.
His remaining body locked towards my direction and kicked me with an intensity so fierce I was flung around forty meters, towards the nearby forest. His kick had a faint trace of a viscous dark energy which attached onto my body.
I cut through the branches that would've slowed my fall and I ran away as fast as I could, sacrificing everything for speed.
My body has been pushed towards its limits once more and again. I ran for twenty minutes before falling against the ground.
The adrenaline left me, and a pang of pain assaulted my senses. I started to vomit blood, every muscle of mine aching. This can't be real.
It is as if my body's regeneration has been temporarily halted, and its biological processes interrupted. It is probably because of that "power" of his.
Why would he even have something like that?
I did not think about it anymore, as a wave of vomit came out of my throat again.