by Lucian Bane
“The queen tricked you! She’s a liar!”
“I told you to silence her!” Master bellowed.
Somebody made moaning noises in the distance. They sounded half dead and tortured. God. It was him.
Chaos screamed again. Panic exploded in him. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even lift his head to see what was coming.
Hot pain shook him again. There was no holding on this time. He sought for an escape, for a place to be, anyplace. Anyplace but there, where his bones shook apart, his blood burned like fire and his need to live and make them pay morphed into a desperate craving to die.
****
Time. Solomon lost it. Something in his mind said he needed to find it. Find what time it was. No, not what time. He needed to know… something.
But what?
He struggled with his brain, struggled to remember how to make it work. He was stuck and needed to come back from wherever he was. Before it was too late. Before he was gone for good in that living death, that open grave.
Chaos.
Her name hit him like a fierce wind, and he gasped loudly from it.
Chaos.
Where was she? He tried to make his mouth open to call her, but his body wasn’t connected to his brain yet. Not the part that he could command. How did he make it come back?
An inconceivable amount of time later, he realized he was lying down. Was it a floor? A bed? He focused on details. The smell said he was in a dark place. Earthy. The cell. He remembered the cell. The trigger jolted his mind and body, bringing everything flooding back, everything he never wanted to remember and never would forget.
“C-Chaos,” he finally managed it, but only a rasp.
He worked on getting his mouth to coordinate with his tongue, then his throat to work with his brain. The difficulty of it alarmed him. Was he paralyzed?
“Chaos!” he panted. He repeated her name over and over until it didn’t hurt his brain. He needed to move and see where he was. Maybe he wasn’t in the cell. Maybe he’d been dumped somewhere else.
His heart raced with dread and urgency. Something said he needed to hurry and he didn’t want to know why. Because it screamed bad, bad, bad. Worse than before. Every day that’s what it seemed like. Worse than before.
His only consolation was that he wasn’t supposed to die. He tried to remember how credible that source was. Chaos. She’d said that. A new fear snaked through him now. What if she was wrong about that? What if it was torture, then death? Or what if plans changed? Plans with the insane could change from day to day, minute to minute.
After an intense struggle to make one of his limbs move, he got a twitch. Soon, he was moving both legs and arms. He was on the ground, some ground. The cell he was sure, it felt familiar.
“Chaos,” he called louder. Pain shot through his fingers as they passed over the rough cement, searching for anything. Using his arms, he dragged his lower body, heavy and limp. He didn’t know which way he was headed. Feeling with his hands as he went, he finally found the door and lay there, gasping and sweating from the effort. After a long while, he set out to pull himself up. His muscles protested with violent trembling. The state of his body added to his growing dread. He’d never be able do a thing in this state.
He held on to the door handle with one hand and quickly knocked with the other before losing his balance. A high pitched ringing pierced his head followed by the need to vomit. Slowly lowering to his knees, he struggled to sit using some part of his body that didn’t bring agony. He ended up in a tight fetal curl, shaking and fighting the sudden onset of nausea.
Escape. Think of escaping. Think about Chaos.
But when he did, the sick inside him got worse, like he knew it was all impossible. He crawled to a corner and made himself vomit, hoping for relief. For thirty minutes he dry heaved, until his stomach screamed stop, please just fucking stop.
Solomon collapsed in exhaustion, not caring if he vomited where he lay. He just needed to try and… preserve whatever strength he had.
Images of his uncle came to him. Then his dad. God… where was his uncle? Had they gotten him? Why didn’t he come?
Solomon bolted at the sound of somebody approaching outside the door. He fought to move, but his limbs were back to being locked.
The door opened, and he still couldn’t move, he could only lie there, uselessly shaking.
Please be Chaos. Please.
But it wasn’t. It was two demons. Two demons that took him and dragged him to hell again.
This time there was no kicking and screaming or fighting. There was just a ragdoll body, ready for everything to be over.
Chapter Seven
Solomon’s fight returned upon entering the auditorium and seeing Chaos tied to a chair, blindfolded. She faced another chair with straps large enough to hold a giant. Confusion and terror hit him at seeing a coffin next to that chair. His brain raced to figure out what was coming. But it wasn’t the coffin or the giant square structure with the black curtain that had him terrified. It was the straps on the coffin.
Growls began to tear through him as they forced him to sit in the chair before Chaos. But the fight was short lived. They lifted the blindfold off of Chaos and sickness slammed into him. Then rage. Rage and pain boiled up inside him at seeing her eyes. Something was wrong with her fucking eyes! He began to growl out a wail at realizing, at seeing. They’d sewn them open! Oh God, they’d sewn her fucking eyelids open!
Solomon roared over and over. “You fucking monster! You fucking monster!” he screamed, jerking around in fury. “How could you do that?! How could you fucking do that, you motherfucking animals? You fucking animals!”
Chaos screamed and cried as Solomon aimed his rage at the man standing off to the right in his black turnip clothes, who fiddled at a small table.
He lifted a strange metal tool and turned to the audience. “And now… let us purge the blood in preparation for his rebirth.”
He came toward him and Solomon jerked around, shhhhing Chaos who screamed in such torment. “Shhhhh, shhh,” he said, tears streaming down his face. “Don’t cry Beautiful,” he gushed on a sob. “Don’t cry, don’t give them that, that’s what they want!” he roared at the man before him. “They want your pain, don’t you fucking give it!” Solomon jerked and spit repeatedly at the man.
Hands from behind him, grabbed hold of his head and the dark figure leaned in with the silver instrument, oblivious to Solomon’s words and rage. Solomon eyed the tool as he growled and fought to get out of the grip on his head. He’d never seen anything like it, or more fucking scary. Like a steel plunger.
Just before his face, the man pressed something and multiple small razors shot out and went back in as he clicked it casually like a Bic pen. “This will help me to draw the sins, my son,” he mumbled as he placed it on Solomon’s neck. Sharp pricks came with the click of the tool. “There, that wasn’t so bad, now was it? Just a few more of the same.”
He moved the tool along his body in no coherent order, droning about balance. Solomon strained to see what he was doing and saw blood filling the back side of the tool. When it was full, the monster turned and emptied it in a metal bowl.
He went from his neck, to his arms, then torso, then legs, and feet.
Solomon growled and huffed through a wave of sickness. He was getting dizzy. There was nothing to focus on. He couldn’t look at Chaos with her eyes, so he shut his and rode the sickness. But her constant, broken wails tore at him. She was beyond reaching, beyond comforting, she was consumed by the pain and its inescapable clutches.
Just like he was.
“And now,” the monster announced, turning with the bowl of blood to the audience. “The rebirth!” he shouted in eager triumph.
Solomon’s wheezes turned to loud heaves as four people unbound him. “Don’t… don’t do this,” he said, thrashing once he was free.
“Nooooooo! Noooooooo!” Chaos shrieked while the crowd began their terrifying chanting, unreachable and
lost to any other reality.
The coffin with the straps was opened to reveal shiny black satin. Solomon screamed and twisted in panic, kicking his legs in every direction. When he got to the box, he braced both feet on the side and shoved with all his might. The mob holding him jolted back as the coffin skidded several feet.
More monsters came to help cram him inside the coffin. Solomon repeatedly grabbed hold of something, only to have them pry his fingers off. “No, no, please!” he roared when they finally got him in. He shot his legs and arms over the sides while they used a long stick to jab him back inside.
The lid suddenly shut and he screamed, banging his palms on the inside of it, fighting to breathe. Light shimmered through holes along the top and sides. “Pleeeeeeease!” he screamed. “Please don’t,” he choked, looking around as much as he could, his mind searching for anything to use as a weapon, a sliver of hope.
The coffin began to move, and he peered through the holes, straining to see. He was being lifted up. He caught a glimpse of the large black structure that got closer.
The covering was being removed.
Terror jolted through him at seeing a water tank.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, please, God, please.
Solomon fought, his body gripped in panic. What were they going to do? Fuck. God, please. Please help me, please he prayed, sobs of terror escaping him.
The box lowered and Solomon began to hyperventilate again at seeing he was being submerged into the tank. Cold water quickly filled the coffin and he lay there, clenching his eyes tight. It would be over soon. It would be over soon. “God, I’m sorry,” he gasped as the water got higher in the coffin. “Please forgive me for all my sins. Please help Chaos, please take my fear, please. Please let it be fast!” he screamed.
The water covered his body and instinct had him fighting again as it crawled over his face. He strained to keep his head out of the water, pressing his face against the lid. The water reached his mouth and he gulped in the last of the air and held it tight. His body floated in his watery death as he kept his eyes clenched tight. Begging. Begging God to help him make the crossing. Please help me die, please help me die, I’m scared. I’m scared God, please!
His heart hammered in his ears, faster and faster, making that demand to breathe. Solomon jerked his head, focusing on the sorrow and rage before sucking the cold water into his lungs.
And the fight to live began.
No matter how much he tried to just die, his brain refused, his body said no. He thrashed in the pain and agony and fear. And finally… he felt it right there. On his right. A chasm between here and there. A threshold. He turned his head and looked, and he somehow knew that this was the thing that bound two worlds into one. His mind was freed and moved to it until it was there. He turned back and looked, watching his body still thrashing with the remnants of survival. Sadness and pain filled him. He saw everything from this place. His eyes passed over everybody in the stadium, men, women, children. More sadness overwhelmed him. They all watched the coffin, some with looks of sadness, some hopefulness, others eagerness.
Then he saw Chaos and his entire being filled with agony. Her agony. They held her to the floor, forcing her face toward the coffin.
Solomon felt a warmth on his back and looked over his shoulder. A small light was there and seemed to be getting bigger. He was curious over the nothing feelings. Not nothing. Terror was present but without the physical feeling of it—he only knew he was.
Solomon watched as the men hurried and lifted the coffin out of the water. Solomon moved closer to see what had them in such a hurry suddenly. They quickly unlatched the straps and threw open the lid. That knowledge of terror grew as they hauled his dead body to a table nearby.
They placed him on his stomach and opened his legs and he realized at that second that it was all part of their plan, everything was in place for whatever was coming.
Another black figure hurried forward with something strange that Solomon didn’t recognize. Hands held him down, and his legs were opened more as that terror increased inside him.
At seeing the long tube leading from the strange tool, Solomon went in a fast reverse to get away, get far away. He didn’t want to see what was coming, he needed to go, run, run as fast as he could into the arms of death.
Bury himself in its darkness where they couldn’t find him or reach him.
Chapter Eight
Chaos held Solomon close to her, rocking him back and forth, trying to remember that song he’d sung to her. But she kept getting it wrong, she was sure, and then she’d cry. And crying was hard when she couldn’t blink and that made her cry more. That’s what she got for her hideous sin—what she deserved.
She stroked his head in her lap, her dirty filthy lap, crusted over with unspeakable things. All things she deserved ten times over. Twenty. No, fifty times over. When they didn’t let her be with Solomon they were having their way with their little demon whore. That’s what she was, and she deserved every bit of it.
She shook her head when her mind tried to sneak the visions to her. Horrible images of everything Solomon had endured. Her mind hated her. Everybody did, as they should. She gave her head another shake, more vicious. She couldn’t snap. If she did, she wouldn’t be in control. She couldn’t get that way, she needed to be aware. Aware and alert and ready, in case she could… fix it.
A loud sob ripped through her and she swallowed it quickly back down. No crying for you, no crying for the demon whore.
“You asked me if I wanted a wedding and I’ve been thinking,” she whispered, smiling. “What would it be like to have a wedding on a mountain top? Mount… Rushmore even.” She laughed softly. “Yes, we could have a wedding on the head of Abraham Lincoln.” She giggled and petted him. “It’s different, don’t you think? Like us? We’re different you and I, but a good different,” she hurried, not wanting him to think otherwise. “You’re the most beautiful person in the world,” she whispered excitedly. “Did you know that? I’m sure you did, of course you did,” she went on, rocking and stroking him carefully. “How could one be so beautiful and not know that? They couldn’t now, could they?” She wiped her nose on her shoulder, not wanting to drip on him.
“And you could invite your Ms. Mary? And your uncle.”
Chaos swallowed quickly as images of Master’s men tackling Solomon came. “And your aunt. I haven’t met her, is she nice? Of course she is. And beautiful too, I bet.” Chaos thought of her own ugliness. She’d be a disgrace to the family. And if they had children, maybe they’d come out deformed because of her many, many, unforgivable sins.
“Chaos.”
She jerked down. “Solomon?” her voice squeaked with the effort to not scream his name. She rained kisses all over his face. “Solomon, Solomon,” she cried bitterly. “I messed up so bad. I messed up. I messed uuuuuup,” she sobbed.
“Sh….shhh.”
She grabbed his hand at feeling it searching for her and placed it on her cheek. “Here I am. I’m right here, see? I got you, I’m not leaving.”
“Beautiful,” he barely croaked, making her wail.
“I’m not beautiful, I’m not.”
“Shhhh, don’t,” he whispered.
At hearing the pain in his words, she quickly got control. She’d not hurt him more. Never. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.”
“W-wh-”
“Shhh, don’t talk, don’t waste your energy,” she said, not wanting him to ask questions. Not because she didn’t know the answers, but because she did. Any minute, they would come for him. It was the final day of preparation. The sixth day. And they would do something worse than before. But she didn’t know what. Everything Master did was new to her. Horrors she’d never dreamed of.
She didn’t dare think about what could be worse than watching him drown and have them do what they did after.
She didn’t dare.
A sound reached her ears and she froze, gripping Solomon. Like her evil mind had summoned them just by thi
nking it. She was a witch. A demon whore that needed to burn in hell.
She needed to try and save him. This was her last chance. She couldn’t fail this time!
****
Solomon bolted to life at Chaos’s blood curdling scream and the outbreak of yelling and fighting. He fought to move his body and then collapsed. “Chaos,” he huffed, struggling again to move, to see what was happening. Her throat shredded with shriek after shriek of, “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!” She sounded like another person, not even human.
Those monsters… they’d done this to her.
Before rage could loan him its strength, he was being dragged again. His legs scissored as he fought to gain his footing so he could fight. Memories of drowning stabbed his mind, followed by a massive shot of adrenalin. He broke free for several seconds before being slammed to the hard floor. The crack of his cheek bone ricocheted in his skull followed by sharp pain as he roared out every breath.
Once again he was hauled to a chair in the main auditorium and strapped down tightly. His head fell back as he fought for breath, his mind swimming and confused. Chaos’s shrieks mixed with garbled inhuman growls as they forced her to a similar chair before him.
To watch.
Helplessness resurrected a rage unlike any he’d ever felt before. And he screamed over and over, just screamed with it and thrashed with the burning and rabid need to kill.
The audience began applauding loudly, shouting and wailing and chanting. He finally made out what they were saying. Release the demon. Release the demon.
A man in black waved the audience to silence with a bounce of his hands. Then he began his sick sermon. “Today is the final day.”
The people erupted with praise and clapping.
“The curse… is finally coming to a close.” Like it was the final chapter of good old times. “Today, after we release the demon plaguing the families of this beautiful town, we will then send it back to hell.”
Another eruption of applause.
