Death Angel

Chapter Three - Rabid

Maritae’s legs collapsed underneath her. Chang-Hau was no longer in his bed, but lying discarded on the floor. His body was shredded into bloody bits and pieces with his head unattached, nowhere to be seen, although there were bits of flesh scattered across the floor. Strands of Chang-Hau’s silvery hair lay strewn across the mattress of straw, and clung to the overturned stool and the dissembled table. Across the walls, his blood was splashed across along with multiple claw marks. Even across the body, there were welding claw marks.

Maritae sat there in shock, unable to tear her eyes away from the twisted corpse. Something wet slid down her cheek and she reached up with shaking fingers to touch the wet substance. When she removed her hand, clear liquid clung to her fingertips suspended before sliding down her palm and wrist. Was she…crying?

She looked up again, more aware of the tears on her face. She crawled over to Chang-Hau’s abandoned body and her fingers hovered above it. His clothes were sticky with redness and when her tears dripped from her chin, it dissolved into the red. She picked up his hand, which was severed from the main body, and cradled it close to her chest, letting her sobs tear away the silence.

She had no idea how long she cried, but when she next looked up, it was dark with no lanterns lit. A small scratching noise made her stand up and peer cautiously into the hallway. The scratching continued, moving closer to her. She tried to see what it was, but the light had disappeared, leaving the hallway thick with shadows. She stood motionless and the noise moved closer.

Finally, her mind registered the possibility of what it could be. A rabid. Her fear was true and soon, the large bear-face of a male rabid liquefied from the darkness. Maritae gasped and withdrew back into the room. She reached for the door, but it still lay in ruins.

Several minutes passed with no event, and Maritae wondered if it was just her paranoid imagination playing tricks on her. She was about to release a sigh of relief when the rabid appeared around the door. She screamed involuntarily and the rabid turned his head to stare at her. She clapped her hand over her mouth, but before regret and fear could even fully set in, three more appeared.

The lead rabid growled and the other three followed lead. All four tried to fit through the door at the same time, but failed and they backpedalled. The lead rabid growled threateningly at his companions and they stepped back to allow him to enter first before entering single-filed after him.

Now that the rabid’s full body was in her line of vision, Maritae began to register its sheer enormity and horror. The more she stared at them, the more she felt her body shrink and shake from fear. The rabid’s body was larger than any rabid she’d ever seen. The rabid could barely fit through the door and scrapped off bits of wood in the process of entering. The other three rabid were almost half his size, but still loomed over Maritae. All four had the same spiky black fur that stood up along the strip of their spine. These rabid were bear rabid, their front legs shorter than their hind legs. The only difference that set them away from normal soul bears were their eyes. Their eyes were wide, round and a mix of glistening colours: icy blue, emerald green, acid yellow and steely silver. All rabid had the same shaped eyes with the same glistening texture. Their eyes were what defined them as rabid.

Chang-Hau had once told her that rabid were like animal forms of Maligmas. Death Angels didn’t bother with them because they weren’t as dangerous as actual Maligmas. Occasionally, a Death Angel would come to deal with a particularly bothersome rabid.

A whimper pushed its way out of Maritae’s lips and for the very first time she’d been a soul, she felt actual trepidation. The leader’s silver eyes brought images of her living death to mind. The rabid opened his mouth revealing a double row of sharp glistening teeth and thick saliva.