Tales of Death´s Daughter

“Why are there sentries here?” No place we visited was as guarded as this one. In fact, we didn’t see any guards at all after we entered the supply area and judging by Markus reaction, this wasn’t something he knew of.

“Let´s find out.” I answered and walked towards the seven sentries that were on high alert. “Hey, what are you guarding there?” I asked the first one that approached me.

“We cannot tell you that.”

“You can.” Said Markus and pointed towards his rank emblem on his shirt. The soldier had a conflicted expression but soon started to state his supposed orders.

“We were asked by Arthur White to guard the explosives he secretly gathered.” said the guard in a convincing manner. True, his explanation seemed almost feasible, even to Markus who was usually told Arthur´s secret plans, but there was just one, no, two slight problems. The guard obviously had his soul hidden, but that wasn’t what made me act.

“Markus, do you trust me?” I turned to Markus and asked with a smile on my lips.

“No, not at all.” He answered while raising an eyebrow. The question was completely out of place, so his reaction wasn’t that unsurprising.

“Thanks.” What was surprising though was the guard who was suddenly a head shorter. Stupefied, Markus only watched as the headless corpse fell forward and landed directly at his feet. I was already running towards the carriages as two sentries stood in my way. Even as I ran, I threw my sword through the right one´s chest and jumped as soon as the other one was nearby. His thrust went through the air as I kicked his face with full momentum.

“I hate fighting against small fries.” I concluded and grabbed the sword out of my last enemies’ lifeless hands. The last five guards soon encircled me while I looked behind me towards Markus. He stood in the distance, unwilling to take part, but also not keen on stopping me. It was the exact reaction I hoped to see. I was the first to take any action as I simply ignored the guards and ran towards the carts once more. Two of them were in the position to intercept me and struck at me as I was close by.

I refused to get hit though and slithered underneath their swings through the grass, not even bothering to turn around and cut their heels open, but rather kept the momentum and ran towards the carts. The sentries, although they tried, had no hope of catching up at all. I was the first to reach the carts that reeked of blood, old and new alike. I listened closely and pressed my ear at the wooden wall, only to be confused completely.

There weren’t any explosives in there, that was for sure, and I definitely didn’t expect an animal to be inside there. I heard squealing, like that of a pig. But why would they protect a pig, and why did I smell human blood in there? I didn’t have time to listen for more as I had to duck underneath a strike that hit the exact place where my neck was just a split second prior. Still thinking about the strange sounds inside the wagon, I pierced through the hand of the man with my sword swiftly.

“Die.” It happened all so fast that I was completely unable to do anything in time. In one second, I was still surrounded by the guards who now spoke at the same time and in the next, a pressure wave hit my back and threw me forwards. Fire engulfed my complete vision as the explosion inside the carts spread outwards and burnt everything in its way. It was a mixture of orange and red that cooked my whole body alive. My skin was burnt in a matter of seconds as I was thrown away from the epicentre like a ragdoll. Sometimes, death was in fact merciful, especially when I would have to live through the horrors of burning alive. But death never visited me that day.

Powerless, I was thrown onto the grasslands with burning trash raining down around me. Soon the area was filled with screams as nearby tents were set on fire as well, distracting the soldiers from the help I desperately needed. After a few minutes of excruciating pain, I noticed how footsteps resounded right next to me.

“Filthy vampires are apparently quite hard to kill. Nah, it doesn’t matter, you will die today.” Said a man as he straddled my belly and flashed a dagger in front of my eyes. My wounds were nowhere close to being healed and as my lungs were also exposed to the hot air, I was unable to say anything, let alone scream. His face contorted into that of a complete madman as he grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him.

His eyes were completely devoid of any soul but his emotions were real nonetheless. Unfiltered hatred decorated his face as he pushed the dagger slowly towards my eyeball. I looked away from the horrifying blade, but it didn’t vanish completely from my sight. There was always this hateful dagger that approached my eyes until it stabbed through my iris. My vision contorted as waves of pain shot through my head. I screamed with all my might, hoping that Markus wasn’t dragged into this mess and was able to save me, but only a rattle escaped my lips. Helplessly, I could only watch as the dagger stabbed deeper and deeper into my eye.

They say that you see your life in front of you, fading away, just a few seconds before your death. I have seen none of that. I only saw a single memory that weirdly resurfaced.

Aska and I were experimenting on the Devourer again, this worm-like thing that apparently plagued me quite often in my dreams lately. After we threw the hand of the supposedly immortal inside her prison, she created offspring. We studied their behaviour for quite some time … around ten minutes until it got boring and we chose to separate them. Armed with two jars full of little wormies, we exited the prison only to find these worms fighting amongst themselves. The winner created its own offspring again and the circle continued for several days, until the oxygen inside the jars was completely depleted. The name Devourer didn’t stem from her ability to eat everything, but from the danger, these worms posed to a whole world, especially when they were outside of the calming influence of their mother.

A strange acceptance started to engulf me as the dagger reached even deeper and enabled me to finally understand why I was having so many flashbacks to this worm. This bitch was here on Solaris, very close in fact. I didn’t know how it initially started or how she did it, but she gained control of all these people, probably through magic. And one of the first people she possessed was definitely this weird mage, Reruoved. Just thinking about her name made my blood boil as I realized I messed up completely. She didn’t even try to hide her name in the end as she just spelt her name backwards as she introduced herself.

The darkness engulfed me and the pain dissipated completely after I lost my vision completely. My hearing though was still there and left me exactly at the perfect time. I only heard a sword slicing through flesh and something muffled hitting the ground. These were the sounds of a man getting deprecated right above me.

This bitch played with me, but she may have done a mistake in targeting me so early on. This wasn’t over.