The Cult Of Seven Devils

Chapter 11: Cracked Hearts and Memories

Silence filled the room as Sophie was motionless on the dirty wooden floor which was slowly becoming covered in her blood, the wood slowly turning a dark red in each second. Ali ripped the sleeve off of his shirt and used it to stop the bleeding at least for a while. "This should help," he said while wrapping it around her stomach. Sakka and Quinn rushed in a few minutes later yelling for Jaime whilst sounding confused and worried. "Have you guys seen Jaime-", Sakka asked before seeing the horror that was right in front of him, Quinn followed behind. "Wh-what the hell happened here and where's Jaime...?" he asked with a nervous voice. "Jaime shot Sophie," Itsuki mumbled. "She was listening to the whole story that Sophie was explaining and guess what? Turns out they both were in the cult as I said. Didn't I say that? But you all never listen to me." he said with an angered face. "Hey, now isn't the time for that," Ali said, still wrapping his shirt around Sophie carefully. "But yes, Sophie and Jaime are in the cult, but, Sophie here didn't want to be a part of it, turns out, she didn't even wanna kill us but Jaime forced her to do all of this, she was gonna help us escape but it looks like Jaime overheard her and she shot her before Sophie could ever react." Itsuki looked up and over towards Quinn and Sakka. "Wait, I thought Jaime was with you guys?" he asked. "Well, she was but while Quinn and I were searching file cabinets she just disappeared and we assumed that she went on her own because she seemed to be that kind of person. But we heard a loud gunshot and we went to look for her and ended up here," he explained calmly. "I didn't even see which way she went," Quinn added. "We have to find Jaime and make her pay..." Itsuki said with passion in his voice. "But what about Sophie?" Ali asked. Suddenly, her soft whispering voice came to light and filled the room. "Go without me, if Jaime shot me then that means she already informed the cult about my disobedience," she said. "Just go, I don't want to be the main priority, your friends are, remember." Ali looked her in the eyes "But, you're our friend too." Sophie smiled with her eyes smiling right back at Ali's. "I haven't had a friend for years now...if you ever find her tell her...I love her..." Sophie said before her eyes shut with one last smile radiating as she passed on. Ali held her hand close to his chest and looked at her smile even after death.

The room was quiet as everyone felt despair for their new lost friend. Itsuki looked the most concerned as he never really got to know her and immediately judged her, he was right but she was still a good person on the inside. He walked over to her body and stared before dropping to his knees and holding her cold pale hand. "I wish I could go back and apologize for being so rude to you earlier...I was just so scared that you'd hurt me. I guess I was blinded by my suspicions." he said. "But now you can rest knowing you helped us in the end." He got up and walked out of the room. They all watched him and looked concerned. "Well, what do we do with her body?" Ali asked, "We can't take her with us because it'll slow us down." Quinn grabbed an old table cloth carefully laid it on her body and placed one of the roses from the desk on top. "Now she can rest easy," Quinn said. They walked out of the room to see Itsuki slouching up against the wall with a saddened look. Ali walked over to him and leaned next to him. "I apologize," he said. "You were right the whole time and I just blew you over because I was so focused on finding Hunter and Dahlia that I wasn't thinking straight." Itsuki looked down. "It's fine, I wouldn't trust a crazy person like me either." Ali sighed "You aren't crazy, because crazy people don't look out for their friends the way you did, Itsuki. Even if you were sort of crazy, you still managed to figure out those two weren't ideally nice. I should've never threatened you with a gun and said I'd kill you for someone I didn't even know," Ali said as he began to cry, "I apologize." Itsuki began to cry as well and hugged Ali with a big embrace. "Don't apologize, I understand just don't do it again you dumbass," Itsuki said. Ali chuckled, "Alright, dumbass." Itsuki giggled as tears ran down his face. Sakka and Quinn watched from behind and smiled at their happiness. They looked at each other, "Ready to get out of here?" Ali asked. "Yeah," Itsuki replied. "We have a Jaime to catch," he said. "But where do we go? Sakka said, "We have zero info on where Jaime went." Itsuki looked at the map. "The church isn't too far from here and it's in the southwest direction we were going, maybe Jaime went that way," he said. "Yeah, but how do we know?" Quinn asked. Itsuki turned the map to show them and said nothing. They all gasped and looked shocked as if they showed something truly disturbing. "The Cult Leader's Church?" Ali said confused. "But, why didn't you say something before?" he asked. "Because it wasn't there before," Itsuki said. "What do you mean it wasn't there before? Quinn asked. "Then how did it get there?" Itsuki folded the map. "When I set the map down on the desk earlier Sophie asked could she see it and I gave it to her and I came back to the map being on the desk folded, I opened it and I saw that text but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to cause a problem," he explained. "I see," Ali said. "Well our only choice is to go that way then," he said. "Shall we go then?" Sakka asked. "Yep," said Itsuki.