Ashes Whisper

Chapter 52 : Desperate Struggle

At night, Samael fled, his breath ragged, his heart a frantic drumbeat echoing his fear. He decide to rest under the tree. Yet, an eerie laughter sliced through the silence, chilling the air around him. "Who's there?" His voice, laced with equal parts dread and defiance, shattered the stillness, ricocheting into the emptiness of the night. But the darkness offered no reply, no tangible figure to confront.

Samael clothes, tattered and soaked in blood, bore witness to the turmoil that plagued him. Suddenly, that haunting voice slithered once more into his ears, a cruel whisper dancing on the edge of his sanity. "Hahaha, no matter your loathing, you're a fragment of your father's essence."

"Enough! Show yourself!" Samael's demand, his anguish palpable, yearning for answers, for a face to put to this torment.

"I am you," the voice taunted, a sinister echo of his own thoughts. "Your inner rage awakened me."

the voice slithered through the shadows, a chilling refrain in the dread. "No matter your struggles, you'll forever be bound by your father's chains," it hissed, its words like icy tendrils ensnaring Samael's sanity. As the darkness relinquished its hold, an embodiment of Samael's inner turmoil materialized—a nightmarish hound, a grotesque manifestation of his seething rage, creeping closer with sinister intent.

"Look at you, a pitiful fool," the creature sneered, its voice a twisted echo of his own thoughts, a cruel reflection of his deepest insecurities. "Did you notice? No friends come to your rescue, my prince. You are abandoned, unwanted."

Samael's voice pierced the chilling air. "Enough," he commanded, his tone wavering between defiance and desperation.

But the nightmarish apparition persisted, its words dripping with malice. "A man seeking to slay his own father, proclaiming to be a savior of the world?" it jeered mockingly. "Even as he tries, he fails to save the innocent. Hahaha, how pathetic."

Those words acted as a damning trigger, unleashing a torrent of memories Samael. The haunting image of Elf children, their innocent faces etched in fear, flashed before his eyes. The agony surged within him as he recalled the harrowing moments when he couldn't rescue them during the brutal onslaught by the Black Order Assassins upon the peaceful people of Elfhelm.

The night swallowed Samael whole as he attempted to flee the malevolent specter haunting his mind. Yet, his desperate escape led him only to a sudden stumble, halting his flight. Before him, the grotesque creature materialized, its twisted form mocking his efforts. "Oh, what's this?" it sneered, blocking his path. "A prince fleeing from his troubles? How amusingly foolish!"

Struggling to rise, Samael found himself ensnared. The spectral visage of the slain Elf children emerged, their accusing voices ringing in his ears, each syllable a piercing lament. "You're a fool," they cried, their anguish resonating through his very being. "Why did you abandon us?"

Rallying against the suffocating horror, Samael's hand trembled as it found the hilt of his sword. With a jolt of desperation, he unsheathed it, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. "Enough!" he roared, his voice filled with declaration.

In a desperate bid to sever his entrapment, to break free from the nightmarish grip of his guilt and anguish, Samael made a harrowing decision. With an anguished cry, he raised his sword, slicing through the air, and severed his own left ear in a grisly act of defiance. Blood seeped from the wound to reclaim control from the torment consuming his mind. With that violent act, he snapped out from the suffocating nightmare, his breaths heavy with exertion.

Samael found himself on the precipice of exhaustion, stumbling towards the edge of the cliff as the haunting nightmares gnawed at his resolve. As the weight of his torment became unbearable, he succumbed, collapsing into the dark depths below, plummeting into the frigid embrace of the sea.