[ostrzeżenie: gore, śmierć, krew]
The deceased, Nazari of Amani, intern of the scholar Patroclus.
Critically injured after a tiger attack, she arrived at the camp in need of immediate medical attention, with ward Asmoday of Buer.
Bilateral paralysis, multiple trauma wounds, ecchymosis on internal organs, hemorrhage. As a result of the attack, her eyes and tongue were torn out, and nearby tissues were lacerated, indicating extensive use of force. Fractured hyoid bone, possible mechanical asphyxia.
Unable to ascertain the cause of death.
As a result of the tragedy, the expedition is immediately terminated.
They buried Nazari in a nearby meadow and immediately set off on their way back. Since her death, almost no one spoke, everyone seemed too detached from the real world to say anything. Asmoday brought her to the camp in the middle of the night, her screams of agony waking everyone up. She was dying for hours as everyone tried to help in any way, fighting for her life without the necessary supplies. In the end they had to give up when none of their efforts helped but only made her worse.
However, Asmoday was unable to return without reaching his destination, so he cleverly manipulated their return route in such a way that they would stumble upon the location he wanted. That's how they came across a huge, strange doorway, almost completely overgrown with vegetation. The door was made of a rare metal, locked with a strange mechanism. Despite the fallen spirit of the entire team, they could not pass by such a discovery.
"So… should we just step in for a minute?" Haiko proposed, looking at the machinery.
"Nazari wouldn't want us to miss that opportunity" Patroclus agreed, thereby ordering the wolves to find a way to open the passage.
Even before the beginning of their journey, Asmoday knew how to open such a lock, but he still looked around carefully so as not to arouse suspicion. They already looked at him extremely unfavorably after last night, but he wasn't surprised. When, without a single wound or even an abrasion, he brought with him a completely butchered female, it was like he was begging for accusations. But still no one has accused him of anything, maybe because they simply couldn't imagine him as a monster who committed such an insult to life.
"Got it!" Arashi exclaimed, when she did something with the mechanism and the sounds of turning gears were heard in the forest.
Almost immediately, the happiness faded from her innocent face as she remembered the events of last night. She cleared her throat as if trying to distract herself, and the whole team looked at the door, which began to open on its own, although any magic did not power it. They cautiously walked down the dark corridor that revealed themselves to their eyes, keeping close to each other. They didn't know how long they had been wandering the dark passages, but certainly enough to make most of them paranoid, jumping at every sound. Suddenly, they heard a click, and their professor's silent curse, indicated, that he must have stepped on some hidden button accidentally. They heard more mechanisms firing up, and the entire tunnel trembled. Suddenly, a passage opened in one of the walls, and a library stood before their eyes, filled with books in unknown language. However, it was unknown only to the others, for Asmoday himself had studied these words for so long that he was convinced he had spoken them in his sleep. His usually immobile tail began to jerk, as if it was trying to wag but unable to.
"What is that…" his professor sighed in delight, but his face twisted as the smell of books reached his nostrils.
Books were covered with wolf fur and written on their skin. The books didn't stink, but their smell became repulsive the moment they understood. Asmoday didn't care, though, immediately shooting across the room and looking around the library, taking in its splendor. His whole life so far had come down to this moment, to the discovery of this very bibliotheca. Everything he has done so far has led to this moment.
""Day, what are you doing?" Arashi quaked, watching Asmoday, overcome with complete madness, run between the shelves, pulling random books from the shelves, and gasped with delight as he looked through them.
The male didn't seem to hear her, his eyes shining with a delight so deep it seemed to cut him off from reality. After a while, however, he stopped suddenly, looking at his companions, his red eyes glowing in the darkness. They stood between the bookshelves, looking around with disgust and fear, and impatiently waiting for the moment when they could leave the library. Asmoday realized that they too had seen this library. They knew where it was, they saw the knowledge that was in it, though they did not realize how great the discovery was. If they went back to the kingdom, to the academy, they could tell everyone else about it. The academy would take all the contents of the library to study, they would probably consider the knowledge contained in these volumes to be illegal, heretical. Asmoday would lose all his meaning, his destiny would forever remain unfulfilled. He couldn't let them go. Just as he came to this conclusion, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of an inactive machine sitting motionless against one of the walls. It was a humanoid automaton constructed of metal. Some elements were covered with ancient runes, and in the center of the machine was a hollow circle, resembling an eye. Asmoday had never seen this machine without missing parts, but he knew that a small piece was missing in the center of the eye, which happened to be found a few days ago during their expedition. Immediately, a light bulb went on in his head and he immediately filled the gap with a missing part. The eye lit up, and the button-like triggers sank into the machine, as the whole mechanism slowly started to work. Steam and dust flew into the air, and all the noise made the rest of the wolves stand behind him. The machine slowly rose, standing on its two massive legs and glancing down at the wolves at its feet.
"What did you do?!" Patroclus shouted at the young wolf, who stood gazing raptly at the machine.
"I'm sorry, I can't let you leave" he confessed as he approached the machine.
Oh, but fate was vicious. Just as the male approached the automaton, assuming it wouldn't attack the entity that woke it up, the machine swung. A huge metal hand hit the wolf with a force that sent it flying, knocking over several bookshelves on the way, finally stopping against a thick stone wall. On impact, saliva, and blood were expelled from his body, and the clang of breaking bones reached the ears of his companions.
In shock, they looked at the massive machine, its weird eye locked on them. Losing hope that Asmoday could even be alive, they immediately dispersed, trying to escape their own inevitable end. The entrance to the library slammed shut, leaving them in a cage with a huge iron monster.
Arashi was the only one still standing. Her teacher tried to fight back, but was ripped in half when the monster grabbed him, spilling blood and organs on the floor. Haiko splattered under the creature's leg as it stepped on her with a force that shook the entire room, knocking books off the shelves.
She limped forward, one of her hind legs was severely damaged, forcing the female to drag the throbbing leg behind her. Arashi looked around for any shelter from the metal monster, but to no avail. Finally, when she had given up hope, preparing for her death, she heard the sound of debris hitting the floor.
Her ears rang, a sound like singing, something alluringly beautiful and mysterious. By one of the walls something began to rise slowly from under the rubble and stones, legs trembling, blood flowing from the mouth and nose, creating crimson streaks on the prominent bone covering the creature's face. She wanted to assume it was Asmoday, but it was something sinister, something eldritch and incomprehensible. The machine turned abruptly, resigning from chasing the female further, focusing on the new opponent. And yet, it stood still, as if it was still afraid to approach, despite its lack of awareness.
When the wolf finally fully rose, its eyes were still fixed on the ground. An ominous smile appeared on its face, rows of sharp teeth showing, stained with blood, markings on its body glowing red. Slowly it began to elevate its gaze, two eyes empty like an abyss that would consume everything in its path. Arashi looked into the creature's eyes, trying to find something in it that she knew before. And at that moment, when their eyes met, she saw eternity and was driven mad.
Immediately cowering, she tried to silence the scream that began to reverberate in her head, causing excruciating pain. She screamed herself, writhing in agony, crying her eyes out as the screeching in her head got louder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the beast approaching the machine.
The machine began to shiver, spurting steam, all the elements of its iron body began malfunctioning, runs written on them glowed, as in panic. Then the beast opened its behemothic jaws, threads of saliva and blood slowly trickling down to the ground, as the whole room was filled with a terrifying clash of metal. Right after the sounds of crumbling metal followed the sounds of cracking bones, for when the machine began to break, one of the beast's legs twisted unnaturally. The metal monster was gradually crushed by some strange, invisible force that weighed down on the female's lungs, as if she herself felt its pressure. A terrible, loud shriek pierced her ears as the metal was finally crushed, leaving only useless pieces and splinters with unnatural, bent shapes.
Along with this, the cries in her head stopped, and she finally breathed a sigh of relief, wanting to get up and cuddle up to her friend, who miraculously turned out to be alive. But when she looked at Asmoday with a smile, the same beast still stood before her, without any flicker of familiarity in its blazing eyes.
It was slowly getting closer as she realized it wasn't over and started running again.
However, after a few leaps, she looked over her shoulder and saw that the monster wasn't chasing her, but instead began to giggle, as his eyes softened.
"Sorry, I was just kidding. If only you could see the look on your face!" he laughed, and his face grew back to the smile she knew so well, though his mouth continued to trickle with blood.
"You scared me, man! What the fuck was that?!" she giggled, forgetting her pain for a moment.
It seemed irrational to make jokes after the whole situation, but at least she felt better, definitely safer. Yet as she looked into his comforting eyes, all recent traumatizing events faded into oblivion, even if the remains of their other comrades lay a few steps away.
"Well, what can I say? I'm a badass" he came a few steps closer, but there was still a red light in her head that told her to move away.
"So we can go home now?" she begged.
His smile disappeared, the expression on his face and his eyes soaked with ice.
"Oh, no. You're definitely not coming home, Arashi."
"What? You are joking, right?" she started backing away.
He was, in fact, not joking.
"I'm so sorry, but I have no other choice. Don't make it any harder than it has to be, I promise it won't hurt" he approached slowly, letting her move further away.
He knew that, one way or another, he would eventually catch up with her. However, he really cared about her and wanted to take his last chance to explain it to her. He wished that he could just make a wish and become a better person, but he couldn't. Seeing the tears on her face as she realized the truth broke his heart.
"Please, Arashi, just hear me out" he begged.
The female stopped, looking angrily into his eyes, and sat down on the floor.
"Fuck you and your god-damned tragic eyes" she sighed.
She continued to cry, and her heart was shattered, but there was nothing she could do. Even if she ran, she would not be able to get far on her own. She'd also seen what Asmoday had done to a murderous machine at least five times her size, so what chance did she have with that kind of power? Not to mention her feelings that just wouldn't let her run away and leave him. Love, after all, has always been the cruelest curse.
"You killed Nazari, didn't you?" she whined, unconsciously knowing the truth.
"I did" there was no guilt in his voice, no emotion at all.
She wiped away her tears and looked at him again, as if looking for reasons to hate him. Yet despite what he had done, despite the fact everyone would die because of him - that she would die, she still couldn't hate him.
"I set out on this expedition just to find this library. I knew I'd get rid of all the witnesses before we even left. But… it's you." he raised his uninjured paw to approach, but when Arashi flinched, he decided to stay put.
"Everyone tried to warn me about you, but I didn't listen, you know. And I always knew it would end badly, that I've fallen for a lie. But even so, I was still ready to give you my heart. And worst of all, I'm still ready to give it to you" she smiled.
"I told you not to get too close to me"
Arashi sighed. It was her fault that she ended like this. She felt dull inside. And the worst of it all was that Asmoday hadn't even asked for it, but she had already forgiven him. It's always been like that since they met. Every mistake of his was forgotten as soon as she remembered their moments together.
"Please tell me that at least part of it was real" another wave of sobs flooded her body, as her words forced their way through her constricted throat.
"I- I wish I could answer you like others. That it was always just a lie. But I can't. I do care about you, Arashi. That's why we are talking"
"Can you… hug me before you do it?" she gulped.
The male approached, limping heavily. When he was close enough, Arashi snuggled under his chin, inhaling his scent mixed with the smell of blood. She was aware that she was in a comfortable enough place that she could tear out his throat if she wanted to, but she also knew she couldn't do it. She felt her heart breaking apart. It hurt. Her skin felt like it was on fire, burning her alive, turning her into ash.
"Why does it hurt so much, Asmoday? Why do I feel like you've broken my soul? Please, tell me why."
The male licked his teeth, a single, solitary tear ran down his cheek.
"I wish you never trusted me, Arashi" he whispered.
"Just make it quick, all right?" she asked, inhaling his scent one last time.
"Forgive me. It was always inevitable."
"I hope we both rot in hell, Asmoday" she vowed as her last words.
Sinful girl.
Slaughtered.
Too rotten to eat.
Nagroda: 2 x 10 punktów do inteligencji
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