Tales of Astora: Legacy

Chapter 20: Cruelty of fate

Chapter 20: Cruelty of fate

While searching inside the building, Maria stumbled across a strange wall. But this was nothing new for her. She quickly managed to find the odd brick and pushed it, revealing a passage behind. The two followed the long stairways to the underground.

"What the..." Alastor uttered as he saw where he was.

They were now inside a grand hall. The room was dark as there was no source of light from the sun down here, except for the numerous candlesticks being lit on. At the end of the hall lay an altar.

At first Alastor found it weird because of its red color but then he realized it. Traces of blood were present on the altar. Based on the trail, something or something must have been left to bleed to death on it.

Examining the altar, images of Shana bleeding on the altar came to Alastor's mind. The mere thought of it terrified the boy.

But when he looked at the woman beside him, she had an even grimmer expression. For she knew what kind of place this facility was. A living hell she wanted to let go, together with her dark past. The altar it reminded her of an unforgettable scene. And if she was correct, she knew what she would find next. Maria took a deep breath in, preparing herself. She thought she hardened herself enough after all these years, all the killings. Nonetheless it was not enough.

"Are you okay?" asked Alastor.

"Oh..yes... I am fine! Let us move on!" Maria shrugged.

The two continued their progress, taking the door on the side. This place was huge. Room after room, Alastor found vials containing a red liquid in many of the chambers which seemed to be used as research room. But this many, just how many demons did they have to kill to have such a large quantity of it?

Then Alastor heard a noise coming from the next room. The small voice of someone mumbling about something. He gave a silent gesture to Maria who has heard the voice as well. Together they carefully prepared their weapons, approached the door and kicked it down.

In the corner of the room, a young boy was standing, moving his head forward and backward against the wall. He muttered so small Alastor could not understand what the boy was saying. He put his hand on the wall in front of the wall to stop him to hurt himself any further. As the poor boy saw someone else, he started screaming.

"Please make it stop! Make it stop! I will do anything! I won't be a bad kid anymore." pleaded the boy as he covered his ears. Then he started to convulse violently.

Alastor and Maria tried to hold the boy down without hurting him but the boy seemed to be much stronger than they thought. Then it stopped. The boy stopped shaking. He started talking to Alastor.

"They are calling for me. Can you hear it too, Alastor?"

Alastor was shocked. He did not know the boy yet how did he know his name? He was not one of the kids at the orphanage so he could not have heard his name before.

The strange boy raised his hand to the dark ceiling above him as if he wanted to reach for something but he collapsed. Just like that the boy died.

"Just what the hell is going on in this place?" Alastor turned to Maria. "Tell me!"

"More than ten years ago, a researcher discovered that the key of the demon power resides in their blood. He wanted to harness that power and used against the demon threat. And so he kidnapped countless children and injected demonic blood into them. This place is one of his testing ground, or at least people who shared his ideal.