PROJECT MORTUUS: Killer In Silence

Chapter 17: Silenced Warning*

"How can one save another if they do not even love themself?" Death asked Mortuus as he stood behind him in the shadows, which wasn't anything new for the spirit to do. The creepy way Death talked in the shadows made Mortuus feel unclear if this was intentional or just poor interaction skills on Death's part.

Mortuus's eyes never left the cryo-chamber's viewing window as he spoke. "I've never cared about myself since I became this... Thing, but being the savior of the lost makes me forget my own hatred."

Death nodded with the patience and consolation of a silent guardian father. Mortuus's words did, weirdly, make sense to the spirit. "You seem to comprehend concepts beyond your age's understanding, Mortuus." The angel leaned against his scythe as he pondered his words and carefully chose his next statement, "In fact, you understand things that are beyond your species' understanding."

Mortuus nodded in agreement. He was, indeed, quite the intelligent guy despite being completely clueless about most emotions. But maybe it was his lack of understanding of emotions that made him so brilliant. He wasn't burdened by the need to spare his words. He just spoke, and whatever he said, he meant.

Mortuus watched closely as the chamber's window frosted a little. It was pretty cold in the room, which only reminded him of certain place where answers were usually found. Something in his head seemed to tell him that the Cave of Souls held an answer to his question. But was it an answer he would be willing to accept?

He turned away from the cryo-chamber and walked out of the bunker into the crisp night air. It was early October, so the tree leaves were turning and falling. The morning now often resembled an oil painting.

He walked through the forest, going past the strange forest obelisk and to the cave's mouth. He'd been there enough times that he no longer required the map.

He stepped forward into the frigid cave. It seemed colder than before, but probably because now the outside was chilly as well. Not that the cave's temperature was really a problem since the cold never actually bothered him.

It was hard for something like that to bother him when most of Mortuus's nerves were long dead. So rather than turning back, Mortuus trudged through the nipping coldness of the cave even as frost began to creep its way up his legs.

He stepped forward into the main cavern of the Cave of Souls. Its brightly lit diamond-encrusted walls were shining like a summer day's sunset as always. Its crystal clear waters were still flowing all the same as his last visit.

Mortuus's eyes seemed to be drawn towards the fallen tree that Willem had floated down the river on a chunk of. Where he ended up, Mortuus wasn't sure. He knelt by the water, staring into it.

"Why must you be a secret?" Mortuus asked the waters of the cave as if expecting an answer. Sure, there were the ominous whispering voices in the cave, but none of them really said anything specific.

As usual, the creepy whispering only offered ominous warnings at most like warnings of a plane and a number. Mortuus swore he could hear one of the voices saying, 'Beware the man with the burns.'

"The man with the burns?" Mortuus asked as if he expected them to elaborate, but that wasn't their style-just eerie warnings of the future and final words from people's pasts. He could hear "You too, my child?" Being repeated, the last words of Caesar.

He waited to hear something to elaborate-Nothing.

"Just one simple answer. That's all I ask." Mortuus sighed as he peered into the translucent waters, the Koi swimming peacefully.

He sat down by the water's edge and crossed his legs, staring into it. His voice became a hushed whisper as he spoke, and his voice seemed to merge with the others. "Why can't you make this easy on me?"

He silently watched the swimming fish, "Please, I need to end this curse." His voice was gravelly and tear-filled. There was always some new mystery, and Mortuus was growing tired of it.

"Please... Tell me..." Mortuus sobbed quietly as he begged the cave. He was desperately trying to get any sort of information out of them, but they wouldn't.

His sobbing was noticible through his bandages. The voices just swirled with the exact same words as before, like a tornado of torment as it screamed out about the man with the burns.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?!?" Mortuus screamed into the cave. For the first time in possibly centuries, the Cave of Souls was utterly silent. There were no voices, no dripping cave sounds, and not even the river was making a sound.

It was as if the whole cave had simply frozen in time and left Mortuus to stand amongst the inanimation. He was unnerved by this as his anger cooled to a mild annoyance.

"Why is everything so quiet?" He questioned as he stood up and looked around. Nothing was different besides the absence of sound. He could still hear his boots on the cave floor, so it wasn't like he suddenly became deaf.

"Something is very wrong here," Mortuus stated as he stared into the crystal waters of the cave river. A little less than 50 of the Koi seemed to have some weird tinge to them.

He looked closely at the fish. "Whatever you weird little fish are, there's something very off about you." Mortuus leaned down to the Koi.

He tried to grab the nearest one, but it was as if he were a ghost. The fish just swam through his hand. Mortuus quickly drew his hand back, unnerved by the events.

He looked at his hand. Maybe it was just him, he reasoned. Mortuus slammed his hand into the wall beside him and cracked the granite. "Huh... It's not me." He leaned back towards the fish despite the blood dripping down his forehead.

He tried grabbing a different one, thinking maybe it was just that particular fish. Again, when he tried to catch the fish, it simply passed through him. "What in toaster strudel fuckery is this?" He questioned aloud.

He tried again and again, but each time, the fish passed through his hands like he was a ghost. He couldn't even grasp one of the normal Koi. It felt like he was losing his mind, "No, no. I lost that long ago." Mortuus reassured himself, not that it really helped to remember how much of a lunatic he could be when compared to Peter Morgan.