Villain Path

Chapter 43. Playing with dolls

With greater difficulty Shen made his way to his room and immediately without undressing sank to the bed. A beneficial dreamless sleep engulfed him.

After midnight the door to his room opened and Muan Era walked in, holding a kindled incense stick. The smoke from it was sweet and sugary, with a slight tart bitterness. Era put the incense at the bed-head and looked thoughtfully at the sleeping man. Enigmatic, dangerous and yet so vulnerable - quite a tempting combination, making her heart trembling. However he threatened her brother's well-being, and that was something she could never quite swallow.

Crouching beside him, Era drew a thin dagger from her sleeve.

The blackness of the soothing dream was interrupted, now he was standing on a hoar beach. Behind the back the dark waves of the sea, reflecting the gloomy preceding a storm sky, caressed the sand. The wind was blowing. Shen somehow had a distinct sense of the unreality of what was happening, and yet everything seemed to him to be a natural phenomenon. On the beach, away from where he was standing, there were many people. Somehow he was certain it was tourists. They were running around in the sand, laughing, buying street food and setting off fireworks. None of this surprised him. He knew he was alone here. He knew he was alone here, as he always was. Turning away from the bustling company, he walked up the wide concrete stairs that descended straight down to the sand.

There was a refined mansion at the top of it. Shen found himself once again in the throng of tourists, stepping inside. Slowly walking through room after room, he grasped he had stumbled into a fake haunted house, a screen for the amusement of the rubbernecks.

In one of the rooms, in front of a large projector a group of people sat in silence and watched a film about a mirror showing the essence of things. Of course, it's all fiction for tourists. Fun.

Thinking so, Shen immediately found himself in front of this mirror, alone in an empty room. He looked into it and saw another human there. He knew him. But as much as he tried to accept that it was himself now, time after time he felt like an alien element, an outsider, a player playing for an avatar. And yet, the longer he gazed into the reflection, the more he realised that he was looking at himself.

The human's pale features began to distort, a bottomless gloom dragged his eyes, scars, wrinkles and cracks cut into his skin, his hair thinning and falling in shreds from his head. Shen was numbed by the horror that shackled him. «No!!» - he wanted to shout, but was unable to utter a sound. He couldn't move and he couldn't avoid what was happening. He now felt more than clearly that what was happening was happening to himself.

Muan burst into the room as Era was finishing tying the last knot on the wrist of the Lord of the Black Lotus Peak. When she had finished, she raised her dagger and cut the rope. The rope bracelets now flaunted on both of Shen's wrists, as well as on his ankles and neck. As soon as she was finished, Muan felt that his presence no longer was so distinctly felt.

"What have you done?!" he attacked his sister.

"Don't worry, brother, I only break your bonds using the lashing of the dead. Now at least you won't be in unbearable pain if he should die."

"What?" Muan rubbed his temples tiredly. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"I spent all day in the family archive! Something similar happened to our great-great-grandmama in the past. She described the method in her notes."

"Are you saying that these ropes can help?"

"They're not just ropes. It was an age-old lashing of the dead. It has a lot of negative energy on its own, plus I did a negative ritual. It worked, didn't it? How does it feel?" Era put her hand near to Shen, but Muan intercepted her hand.