Forever in Grayscale

Forever in Grayscale: Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten – UNKNOWN’s POV (mystery! ;D)

The silver cloak sweeps the ground, gently caressing it. It engulfs me, and embraces me. It feels light, like it could almost be a sheer translucent fabric, but it covers me. Who is underneath the cloak will never be discovered. It’s my first time doing anything like this. That’s why she’s with me.

We’re standing in front of a door, finally, after watching for 24 hours straight. We have it all planned out so no one will know what has happened to the beast. It sickens me that such a beast would even continue living in their miserable existence. At least we get to rid the world of her in the proper way.

Athena looks at me from underneath her low hood and nods. She’s merely by-standing on this expedition to make sure everything goes as planned. None-the-less, I’m afraid this will all go wrong. The girl is a beast, and what am I? A human.

I knock gently on the door, then fly back. In my sleeve is a knife and Athena is armed too. Now we wait.

I hear the click of the lock and brace myself as the door slowly opens. It only opens a crack, only wide enough for someone’s head. The girl’s head pops out and she eyes our cloaks. There’s worry in her eyes.

“Yes?” she asks curiously.

“Are you Carmen?” I ask her in turn. Her eyes flicker in between the two of us and she nods carefully and slowly. I’m sure we don’t look exactly pleasant in our concealing robes, but keeping our identities a secret is vital.

“Yes,” she says quietly. She’s confused and scared.

“Excellent!” Athena pipes up. “Go ahead.”

Carmen’s eyes widen. “What’s going on?”

“Shhh,” Athena coos. I hit the girl hard in the head. She falls, unconscious.

Hidden by the trees, our discretion is complete. Not a soul would locate us this deep in the forest. Athena has pushed back her hood, shaking her long blond hair out, even though her bangs just cover her eyes as much as her hood did. She’s happy and energetic, all the time, but especially now. She pounces playfully over every fallen tree we come across, laughs like a million little chimes. Her hands fly up over her head in her ethereal ballet, lightly batting at delicate leaves and sending them drifting to the ground madly in the wind.

I carry the beast girl on my shoulder, often switching sides to throw off the weight. I must keep my mind clear of all thoughts and emotions. Athena’s already warned me that I’m too emotional of a person and my feelings (which she claims are often speculative) could ruin the plans. However many times I try to keep my head clear, I can’t always keep out that stab of pity. Even though this girl is a volatile beast with a dangerously lacking amount of intelligence, and should not be considered even close to equal with a human, I feel pity.

Athena leads, knowing the path to the clearing, having traced and retraced it many more times than I have. She’s barely older than me, joining the organization at fifteen years old. Now she’s twenty and is in charge of the newcomers like me.

I feel comfortable with Athena. Maybe it’s because she was the one I was forced to tell my history to. She knows what I’ve gone through. What I’ve suffered. What’s been taken away from me.

I cling to that thought. It pushes all the pity out of my mind for this animal. This stupid animal. At least you would hope that she’d have some human intuition to realize it’s not hard to notice a wolf running through the dim streets of Grayscale at night, and it’s definitely not hard to trace her back to her home. We found her quickly.

We rid the world of ungodliness such as her.

I set her down for the moment, leaning her up against a rough oak tree. I’ve memorized her features in the past hour. Her messy, short black hair. Her short, dark eyelashes. Her sensitive skin, turning red as it rubs against my cloak. Even her breathing patterns. She appears like a human.

If it weren’t for her unholy soul.

She’s almost woken up twice now. I’ve hit her in the head each time, seeing pain flash across her face for a mere moment, then dulls and twists into blankness.

Athena turns to me. “Hurry. We’re almost there.”

I nod, slipping the beast girl back up in my arms, now supporting her small frame on my left shoulder. At least she’s small.

Athena and I walk in silence for another ten minutes, then the trees start to thin. An opening in the forest emerges. It’s an eerie place, as the trees surrounding the perfect circle grow inwards to create a ceiling, veiling the light so it’s just as dark and gloomy as the rest of the forest. A stone slab lies in the middle, with acuminous plants twisting their ways up, digging into the cracks in the stone, tearing chunks out over time. Most of it remains.

Surrounding the altar is about thirty people, in a circle, wearing the same silver cloaks as us. By now Athena has drawn up her hood and appears somber. She turns to me and a quick grin crosses her face. If I could see her eyes, I’m sure she was winking.

I cradle the beast girl in my arms, now holding her like a child, with her head lolling over my left arm and her legs draped over my right. I carry her closer to the altar, now beginning to see the faint red of the stone, stained long ago by beast blood. I lay her down carefully.

I step back, joining the circle, casting my eyes down. I will never get used to seeing what happens next.

Our leader, who we call Lament though it’s not his real name, steps forward, wielding a long, sharp knife.

“First,” he says, “we drain the wretched beast of its ungodly blood.” The blade carefully slices two veins in each wrist open, sending a flow of crimson liquid down her pale skin and staining the stone table even more. I cringe. It’s a shame beast blood looks the same as human blood, or this wouldn’t bother me nearly as much.

Just a little bit more pain will wake up the beast girl. At that point it will be wanted. After that point she will most likely be dead.

“This beast has killed our brothers! Our sisters! Mother and fathers! Our children! While maybe not directly, even being a beast has brought her this fate. Her relation with the other beasts can only bring her death. She has forsaken her kin with her asininity. They will soon join the depths of Hell with her. So now. We puncture the epitome of her sin… which lies…” Lament raises the knife higher. “In her heart!”

I close my eyes. This part. This part of the process weakens me. Seeing the knife drive through their chest, seeing their eyes fly open for the last time, then still, then stop breathing.

Afterwards I will lay her body to rejoin the earth.

But something is wrong. There is no one last gasp like there usually is. Something has stopped Lament. I open my eyes slowly, afraid of what I might see.

Never again did I think I would see that wolf again. That huge wolf, with his bristling dark fur, his bared yellow teeth, shining in the darkness of the forest. He reminds me or he is the wolf that will only bring me back memories of my father, my mother, and my ten year old sister. He careens out of the trees, ready to attack, to kill, to save his wolf sister.

Something unsettles me. It can’t be that wolf. That wolf died years ago. I saw it. We captured his. I watched him bleed. I listened joyously to his last breath.

It doesn’t matter though. How can I defeat this beast? At least this way, I can see my family again. All the other members of the organization have their knives drawn; Lament’s still dripping with the blood of the beast girl’s. I am too stunned to pull out mine. I sink to my knees to watch.

The wolf is not afraid of the blades. He leaps forward, targeting Lament first. His great paw collides with Lament’s shaking hand, sending the knife falling to the ground. As the two fall to the ground, the beast’s jaw clamp on Lament’s throat, tearing it out. He just spits it on the ground like it’s disgusting and one by one…

The organization has been destroyed.

Last in line, the beast comes towards me. I push down my hood, ready to accept my fate. And it comes. His bloody teeth sink into my neck.

The world goes black.