And so we have done it, my readers. We have made it to the end (for real this time).
...Try not to cry
too much.
Chapter 14 - The Beast in All (Wrote by Austin Hostetter)
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~Sayyaf~
“A fair fight?” Carter spat incredulously at the proposition from his father. Skuli gave a subtle nod as he tossed aside the mana crystals wrapped around his neck and drew out his sword.
“No magic, no tricks. Just one on one,” Skuli calmly stated as Carter unsheathed his sword with an unsure hand.
“You have my honor,” Skuli tried after a few seconds of silence.
“Your honor means nothing to me.”
Skuli winced a bit at Carter’s words, and I smiled darkly at his confidence. His father hadn't an ounce of honor left in him, and I’m glad that Carter could recognize that.
“Carter…” Skuli sadly closed his eyes and lowered his sword, making the room fall silent as I swiftly looked in between Carter and Skuli.
Carter looked tough and ready to fight, but at the same time, I could sense the fear in his body. His words were clear and mighty, but his actions were fumbly and unsure. Skuli, in the meantime, had a look of genuine anguish on his face as he slipped his hand into his pocket to pull something out.
I gave sideways glance over to Vera, and saw her in the same way that I was: prepared for battle, but waiting for a signal to strike. Her blue eyes shimmered in anticipation as her hand laid heavily on the hilt of her broadsword.
Through the overwhelming silence in the room, I heard Carter’s breath shakily gasp. I whipped back around to see his jaw hanging open with wide eyes as Skuli revealed a pearl necklace with a large black pearl on the end of it. He looked Carter sentimentally in his eyes as the poor boy tried to speak.
“Th-those are…!”
“Your mother’s prayer beads,” Skuli softly finished as he closed his eyes and wrapped them slowly around his sword.
“Your mother was always praying for you, Carter. Every time I was with her, she asked the gods to bring you peace and happiness above all things.”
Carter’s held his sword with shaky hands as he spoke.
“No! You’re a monster! You didn’t love her!” Carter angrily shouted, on the edge of hysteria.
“I did love her Carter, and I still do.” Tears formed in Skuli’s eyes as he continued.
“You just want to see me as a monster because it’ll make it easier for you to kill me, Carter. But I’m not a monster. I’m just a man, a husband…” Skuli closed his eyes as tears flowed softly from his pained face, “... A father who made many mistakes.”
“No! I- You can’t! No!” Carter sobbed as his body trembled with emotion.
Skuli steadied his breathing back to a calm beat before clearing his throat to address Carter once more.
“I know you hate me, son… But I’ll always be your father, no matter what happens.”
“No! You need to die!” Carter screamed as he gasped through his tears.
Skuli looked down silently to the floor with a sigh as Carter wiped away the evidence of their emotional exchange.
“I know I do,” Skuli said in barely a whisper, before shooting his eyes up with searing intensity to Carter.
“But I won’t let you kill me, Carter. Nor do I want to kill you.” Skuli raised his blade up into the air, causing me to prepare a fireball spell in the palm of my hand.
“So I choose neither!”
Skuli suddenly flipped the sword to face himself, driving the blade deep into his chest as he screamed and fell to the floor, impaled. My gut dropped at the grisly sight as Vera and I froze in shock. Carter, though momentarily stunned by Skuli’s bizarre stunt, was quickly over to his side.
I followed suit and rushed to the side of the quickly dying king as his blood pooled into his fancy carpeting. The beads that had been wrapped around the sword slipped off the blade and now lie in the growing stain of red from the wolf’s fatal wound.
“I-I don’t understand,” Carter confusedly mumbled as he looked into his father’s dying eyes. It truly was remarkable how similar the two looked.
“The souls of the damned consume me…” Skuli panted with his dying breaths as his hand gripped tightly to Carter’s arm. Skuli shut his eyes tight and groaned, a faint glow surfacing from the beads lying on his chest.
“What?” Carter demanded as the beads seemingly soaked the blood from the wound and changed from a creamy white to a sickening mix of red and black. My jaw hung open at the impossible sight as I tried to piece together what in the gods’ names was happening.
“The souls of the damned consume me!” Skuli screeched at an agonizing pitch, his eyes shooting open as he dug his claws powerfully into Carter’s arm. Carter yelped from the sudden pain, ripping his arm back from him as Skuli screamed out once more in a cry of immeasurable suffering.
Skuli’s eyes rolled back as he screamed, streaks of black and red lines rippling across his body as the blooded beads seared themselves into his flesh. I stepped back, horrified as Skuli’s muzzle extended out and his teeth burst from his changing form. The lines continued to spiral across his body at a terrifying rate, the sound of his bones shifting and snapping within his growing form sounding throughout the room.
I quickly formed a circuit of electricity in my hand and sent the bolts shooting from fingertips towards the monster. The blast was deflected by a barrier of energy that surrounded Skuli during his transformation and my hands shook in fear as I watched the once normal wolf hunch over his hulking body in an animalistic conversion to what could only some sort of demonic being.
A growling squeal came from the disfigured Skuli as the vertebrae from his spine ripped through his newly patterned flesh and formed a ghastly row of spikes. My heart racing, I sent a stream of flames from my hands to the beast, but it glanced off ineffectively.
The beast screamed again as the bone from its massive paws tore through the flesh of his hands and formed a new bloody set of bone claws. Running out of options, I formed dagger like shards of ice and sent them flying towards the demonic being, but the glowing dark red aura building around him quickly melted the ice into harmless water.
The hideous beast once known as Skuli yelled out at an ear piercing volume as its muscles bulked larger than what living creature should ever have on it. I heard gagging and heaving from behind me as the beast finished its transformation. I looked back to see a clearly shaken Vera stepping back away towards the door. Carter shook violently as he tried not to vomit at the wretched sight before us.
I whipped my body around towards the door and bolted as fast as I could out of the entrance.
“Get the hell out of here!” I commanded as I charged by, the pair eagerly leaving behind their death sentence at the hands of the monster.
We burst out of the doors and frantically spilled into the corridor, startling the guards we had set up just minutes ago.
“What’s happen-” one of the guards started to shout out behind us, but was interrupted by the explosive sound of the beast tearing through the bricks of the wall.
“Holy [censored]! What the hell is this thing!” the other guard yelled before I made the mistake of looking back at the horrible scene. Skuli’s grotesque form was hunched over a soldier, ripping him apart with animalistic fury as the other guard backed into a corner with pure terror.
I quickly hurled a pair of conjured flame discs over to the beast to grab his attention. The blasts staggered him off of the soldier’s corpse, but only for him to let out a blood curdling cry and race on all fours towards us.
My chest heaved with the effort of the sprint, my aching limbs burning worse than any flames I could conjure up. The beast just a few paces behind us, we rounded the corner of the archers post. I sprinted down the pathway away from the rest of the soldiers, wanting to keep any more from dying.
“Sayyaf!” I heard Vera’s young voice cry out as I whipped my head behind me, my heart immediately sinking as I saw Vera and Carter running in the opposite direction, the beast hot on their tail.
“God… Damnit…!” I panted heavily as my spent body struggled to run back to endangered soldiers.
Though Carter and Vera were much more agile than I was, they didn’t stand a chance escaping from Skuli’s new form. Carter had hastily laid down a trapping rune, but the creature charged straight through it and swept Carter right off his feet.
“No you don’t!” I shouted, launching a powerful fireball into the beast’s back. It stumbled forward and let out an enraged howl, slamming Carter’s body into the stone floor before charging after me. He curled up into a fetal position as Vera rushed to his side, leaving me with a beast hurdling straight towards me.
I stared it down as my chest heaved with exhaustion, standing my ground until the perfect moment. Just as the behemoth lunged forwards for a swipe at my drained body, I darted to the side. Skuli’s momentum caused him to stumble and fall into the cold stone of the walkway, giving me the perfect opportunity to strike.
A thick stream of intense flames burst from my hands as I bore the heat down onto Skuli’s back, the beast letting out a cry of immense pain as I seared off the fur he had left on his body. The giant brute suddenly charged through my fire streams and swiped his bony claws down towards me. I hadn’t expected anything to make it through such a scorching, and the attack surprised me so much that I didn’t have time to fully dodge the swipe.
I saw the claws dig into my chest before I felt it, since the adrenaline in my body was pumping at full power. The blow knocked me off me feet, sending me into the ground with a huff and cutting off my fire spell. I quickly wrapped an arm around my chest and hopped back to my feet, concealing the sharp pain of the wound behind the urgency of finishing off the beast.
Even though Skuli had been able to break through my spell to hit me, it hadn’t come without a price. His entire front and back side were terribly charred, and his beastly form stumbled around blindly with rage, swiping wildly around it. The walkway smelled strongly of his cooked flesh, and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched the mighty beast fruitlessly trying to attack me.
A orb of fire swirled around my palm, ready to launch for a final blow. I reeled back my arm to release the spell, and I sent the orb hurling towards the crippled beast. Though I expected a bigger fireball when I shot off the blast, it did set him off balance as he fell to the ground. With my arm still gripping at my chest, I quickly tried to summon another spell in my hand to finish this once and for all.
“What the…?” I gasped as I looked at the dull spark in my hand. There was no way I could be out of mana crystals already! I made sure to keep an abundance of them across my…
I looked down to my chest in horror as I realised what had happened. Moving my hand away from the wound on my torso, it became clear through the deep gashes on my chest that Skuli had completely torn off the mana crystals I kept secured around my body. I looked up to see them in a pile of string and unused power as the singed beast rushed towards me, my fire spell giving away where I was at.
I heavily swallowed the frozen air of the mountains as I stumbled weakly away from the attacking beast. I closed my eyes with pain as the wound on my chest started to pulse with the loss of my adrenaline. Skuli clumsily rushed by me as I leaned against a wall, unable to make it my only hope at succeeding. When the beast realized he had missed, it lifted its muzzle in the air and sniffed dutifully.
“[censored]!” I gasped aloud, realizing how easily I’d be traced by my bleeding. Just as I suspected, Skuli fumbled towards me with an infuriated growl as I closed my eyes with focus. There was only one option left.
The world around me melted into a shapeless and silent abyss as I placed my arms straight out in front of me. I planted myself solidly into the ground, my body trembling as I summoned all the strength left in my ravaged limbs. My teeth gritted so hard together, I thought I would crush them before I could summon my final spell.
I felt a surge of immense power and energy flow through me as my eyes shot open. Skuli was no more than a foot away, and he was about to deeply regret being that close to me.
I shrieked at the top of my lungs, an ear piercing cry shattering through the icy air as I stream of sickly black and blinding white slashed out of my hands and into the demon that stood before me. The streams of pure energy poured channeled through my arms and cleaved right into Skuli’s chest, a cry of eternal suffering raising from his now bloodied muzzle.
I watched the mighty beast’s body tear away and disintegrate into the beam of power as the flesh on my arms tore away into nothingness, shriveling into disgusting black stubs as I drained every last drop of my life force into my black magic attack. Tears streamed from my eyes as I cried out in such pure and intense agony, the crippling pain of the attack surging through every nerve that was left in my body. My eyes shut tight as I looked down to my gnarled and twisted body, the final drop of my life wasted away, the white of my lifeforce expending away seared into my eyes.
<><><><><><>
“Hey…”
A gentle voice sounded off in the sensationless darkness, tickling the fur on my ears as I struggled to think.
“Hey!” the voice cried out more powerfully, bringing some more of my senses to life. I felt warm sunlight and a gentle breeze blow over my body, my thoughts and body slowly merging together once more.
“Wake up, sleepyhead!” the familiar voice called out, causing me to blink my eyes open with confusion.
My eyes were greeted with a canopy of trees, midday sunlight streaming through the branches as the crisp, fresh air filled my lungs. My thoughts were cloudy and disconnected, strange memories flowing through my mind as I tried to remember what in the world was going on.
Before I could construct any solid thoughts however, a heavy body fell onto my chest, knocking the wind out of me as I looked down to see a bright, big pair of blue eyes staring into mine.
“Andrina?” I drowsily questioned, propping myself into a sitting position against the tree I’d been napping on. Her beautiful golden fur shimmered in the sunlight as she smiled at me, her tail wagging steadily.
“Heh, I knew I’d find you napping here, Sayyaf,” she wittily commented, gently patting my cheek as she rolled off of my chest and sprawled out beside me.
“Gotta say, you’ve got quite an eye for these kind of places,” she complimented, looking up to the streams of sunlight that lit up the brown ground beneath our bodies.
“Have any dreams while you were being a lazy bum out here?” she teased with a smirk.
“Well…” I thought deeply, unable to remember what had been happening just moments ago.
“I think I died?” I sighed scratching my head as I desperately tried to remember.
“Heh, that would explain a few things! It took me ages to actually wake you up!” she laughed, resting her hands on her stomach. We sat in silence a few moments before I spoke.
“Andrina… Am I dead?”
Her stayed locked onto the warm canopy above us before she shut them and let a knowing smile draw across her lips.
“You arm looks better,” she happily replied, dodging my question as she lightly patted my chest and made me blush.
“Well I, uh… Something was wrong with my arm?” I thought for a moment, unfamiliar with what she was talking about.
Andrina snuggled under my arm and set my heart racing as she wrapped it around her smile and let out a satisfied sigh.
“It’s good to have you back to normal Sayyaf, I couldn’t stand watching you like you were.”
“Like I was…?” I questioned, a bit worried that I’d been roped into drinking with some friends and ended up passed out here.
Andrina chuckled lightly and nuzzled into my arm as my face flushed with nervousness and affection.
“A different life, Sayyaf.”
I thought for a moment and frowned as I looked down on at my body clothed in school issued robes, cloudy memories of friends and loved ones from my other life floating around in my thoughts.
“So I am dead…” I sadly sighed, closing my eyes.
“You were a hero,” she said as she looked her bright eyes into mine with compassion.
“A hero?” I echoed with disbelief. She flashed a mysterious smile, tilting her head sideways as her eyes hooded with playful scrutiny.
“I always knew you’d be my knight in shining armor,” she commented playfully, teasing me with a nudge to the shoulder.
“Hmph, I’m not sure I was that good of a knight if I died,” I smirked, crossing my arms as she laughed.
“Touché,” she replied through a giggle, scooting closer to me.
I watched as Andrina crossed her leg over mine and gave me a flirtatious smile, sending me into a blushing mess.
“Uh… Your leg…” I commented weakly, trying my hardest not to look at her but failing miserably as our eyes locked and she flashed me a glowing look of happiness.
“I know. I like it there,” she teased with a smile, resting her head on my shoulder as we lay together.
“I- uh…” I stammered awkwardly, trying to distract myself from warmth of her body against mine as she closed her eyes and sighed with contentment.
“I met some of your friends from down there,” she smiled, brushing her hand lazily through my hair as I blushed with a grimacing smile.
“Y-you did?” I asked with an unsteady voice.
“Uh huh! I like them, they’re quite an odd bunch.” She smiled and added, “Not as weird as you though,” before setting back to massaging my scalp with her nimble hands.
I let out a sigh of joy and peace as I timidly let my fingers brush through the lush golden hair that sprawled across my shoulder.
“I’ve missed you.”
I felt the warm breath of her whisper rush over chest as she spoke, and I looked to see tears flowing down her cheeks. Her tears jerked at my heart as I lifted her up with me and hugged her tight.
“I’m here now, and that’s all that matters,” I whispered back into her ear, her hands gripping into my back as she huddled her head into my neck.
After a few tender moments of hugging, we released each other as she wiped away her tears and gave a joyous giggle.
“I love you too, Sayyaf,” she announced with a gentle kiss on my cheek, shocking me as I fell on the ground and struggled to speak with my heart nearly beating out of my throat.
“You? I- d-didn’t… b-but?” I stammered as my stomach flipped and tied itself into knots, Andrina laughing sweeter than the daylight on the horizon.
“I heard you say it down there silly, and I wanted to make sure you knew I felt the same,” she happily replied as she stuck her hand out to help me up.
“Now you better get off your butt, foxy boy, because we’ve got a lifetime of missing each other to catch up on…” she trailed off with a wink, sending my organs into shock as I latched onto her hand and let her guide me into the white glow at the edge of the forest.
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(But wait, there's more! What? We can't just end the book with Sayyaf meeting his dead wife in a heaven-like realm! We have to have an epilogue! Don't you want to see what happens after this? No? Oh, okay...)
Y-you don't mean... he's gonna...? Gah, now I really can't wait for the next chapter.
)
