The Old City

0.37: The Occupation of the Grand Bazaar Part 3

The Underground

This is Hell, Seneca decided, rubbing his hand against the wall once more. But this wall looked just like that one, and the one they had seen an hour ago. Everything was the same.

The sameness everywhere was enough to drive a man mad - or to remember things better forgotten. It reminded Seneca of the West Ridge and its subterranean caves. It reminded him of maelstroms of suffocating ash and lava that scorched his lungs. It reminded him of the first friend he'd lost.

"I fuckin' hate the Underground," Mika said. She paused, finally noticing that she'd passed Seneca and left him behind.

He was no longer listening. Seneca's thoughts evaporated like clouds against the burning sun. In their place came the boom of his ghosts. He fell to one knee, unable to hear her over the cacophony of voices crescendoing around them.

Radivar stepped out of the dark with an ethereal hand outstretched. Dreadful green aura oozed out the spirit's skin, dipping with malice and regret. It was nothing like the warm energy he'd been endowed with in life, and yet it bore all the familiar tones, the quick pulses, the heavy pressure.

"Where did we go?" demanded this ghost of Radivar only he could see. "WHERE DID WE GO?" he accused.

Seneca clamped his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands. *He's not here. Radivar is dead...when you open your eyes, he'll be gone.*

Yet when he opened his eyes, his once-friend still stood before him. He was a little clearer, more like the last time Seneca had seen him. Now a wide gash appeared, running from neck to navel, from which more phantom ooze spewed. In places, it bubbled like the maggots that had begun to eat his flesh. His eyes were a terrible shell, pale irises glowing from within their sunken sockets.

"You're not real."

"Who's not real?" Mika tried to ask, yet her voice was drowned out by a new specter.

"Did you know how long it would take us to die, boy?" Perigras spat. He carried the tattered lance he used to fend off his foes in battle. Arrows protruded from all over his body, each bubbling with the same green ectoplasm as Radivar. His eyes were raging vapor, screaming blame on Seneca.

"This is Hell," Seneca finally groaned aloud.

"This isn't Hell."

Seneca grew cold at this third voice, which cut through the others. His earlier fear was swallowed by the great nothingness that he so often called companion. The voice stole even that from him.

"Even me? You could not share your plan even with me? Did you ever think of our years together as you crafted the schemes? Have you nothing to say to me, brother?

"This isn't Hell, Seneca. This is a prelude, But don't worry old friend. I will drag you down soon enough. And you won't fight me, because you know you deserve it."

Young Stelamar hung over his shoulder, a few feet off the ground. His neck was horribly bent, with grotesque bone jutting straight up that should have been connected to his head. His arms and legs hung loose. As he drifted nearer, they brushed up against Seneca, giving him the chills once more.

Seneca was buried in his despair. It kept him, crushed, on the ground and unable to move. Mika could not understand what was happening; he had been fine mere moments earlier and now seemed to face invisible demons. His groans were those of a wounded cub, desperate and incapable, yet Mika had no idea what she could do to help.

***