This is Emmorta

38 Daddy

Phantom

At the risk of not knowing if Evander is well and truly unconscious, I wait. He can't keep his mouth shut for more than twenty seconds on average, and since he seems to be in better spirits, I will give him the benefit of severe doubt.

We were not raised to behave the way these two have, and as it stands, I wish she would have parted from him, but we were not in the most advantageous position. She seems to believe there is hope for change in him.

Again, I am full of doubts.

Rune is determined to seek good in people and things around her since she has only ever known deceit.

The last stitch of a haywire weapon used against us eases, and like my own cage within her body, a barrier is lifted for me to move about, no longer trapped within her.

I'll be sure to remind her we do not want to engage with that weapon again. When she wakes, I'll suggest we not so much as touch it with our bare hands. How it warps the mind for its own gain is not something I have found to be of any true form in nature.

With her fingers, one broken and twisted because she hit the vile god beside us hard enough and has yet to notice the damage done to her own body, I tap against his forehead.

If he were to assume she was conscious, Evander would not take his eyes off of her. He wouldn't be so vulnerable unless she mirrored the same vulnerability. So, with caution, I take my exit from the vessel to inspect the remaining damage he inflicted specifically to keep me locked inside.

He knew what he was doing. It was clear in his rage. To think Evander could have been the dribble down his mother's thigh.

My life would be much simpler.

Identical to the way he tore into her rib, my own is shredded, and the pain, what I would expect from something meant to steal life and power at once. The meat from inside of me has purpled, bubbled, and swollen trifold. It burns where the blade touched, and even the scorch marks remain. Still relevant, though tertiary, it bleeds, clots, dries, then bleeds again. Along the sides of the wound, a yellow goo sticks. Probably infected.

She needed his blood more, after that ruthless display of his earlier, so I didn't take anything. If and when she realizes there is a problem, I don't need her to feel guilty about my well-being.

The weapon, itself, gives enough insight into the draconian rule Fate might set out before he swarms everything back into darkness. It's precisely how he must gain more power.

As much as I despise this god creature and all the rest of them, Rune seems to have put him back in her good graces once again, and we shall see how long it lasts this time.

It's silly for them to sleep, but Rune can't help it, never could. This god of the moon sleeps like the night isn't his anticipated waking hours. But I will credit him one thing: he freed us both from our overlords. Perhaps it warrants a short rest.

However, curiosity gets the best of me as I stand over them both. Limbs tangled around one another like they couldn't possibly break. His cheeks twitch every so often with that thing inside of him.

He freed us from a mess of ties and ownerships, so I'll repay the favor by taking a trip inside of the impenetrable god of the moon.

The interior complexes of his brain are encased in what appears to be the house the four of them lived in briefly. Clean on the outside, normal, and existing beneath pink and orange skies. Blissful and visually appealing on the outside, just like him.

I'm sure the horrors are the rot that makes him all the more distasteful.

The front door is unlocked, but requires my full force to shove it open. On the other side of it is a puzzle that fills the home. It's an indiscriminate shape where the pieces are scattered with no matches or fits in sight. His memories, thoughts, ideas collectively deflect from one another in a mountain of chaos in every room. Some are jammed together while others have been discarded in the corners.