The Doomsday Book

Chapter 14

(Picture of Ouroboros found on Google. I do not own nor claim it as mine.)

Delta's body, though just a vessel, bled and twitched from the golden arrows protruding through her flesh. She'd have been dead if she was human, arrows surely having turned her innards into stabbed egg yolks.

Agonizingly, one by one, the Shadow yanked out the arrows and crushed them in her hand. Her wounds sizzled as smog drifted off from them, turning her blood black. Her pearly white teeth elongated into fangs while her normally brown eyes became enveloped in the same coal color, pinpricks of scarlet spasming over the gloss of her eyes. Delta's skin changed from slightly tanned to shadowy darkness within the second it took to blink.

"You think I'll be afraid of you just because you changed your look?" Present snarled, grip tightening over her pen. "I'll get the Book back. There's nothing you can do to stop the End!"

I was suddenly thrown backwards, skin scraping painfully into the asphalt until it tore. I winced, sitting up in time to see Delta jumping onto the Fate. Without missing a beat, I threw the Book open on the floor and cut my index finger on my scythe.

"Draw the serpent Ouroboros on the page," Delta told me in frequency, fighting the Fate for her pen.

"Do you know how many versions of that there are?!" I yelled.

"Double infinity," she hissed. "Like the four leaf clover!"

"That's gonna take a while."

"Just the basics, bitch! No need for an elaborate painting. We ain't got time for Pablo Picasso!"

"Alright, alright!" I went to work on the Ouroboros, sketching with my blood over the old pages of the Book as fast as I was able.

"Dude, can ya hurry up?!" Delta screamed in Frequency.

I almost flinched. "You try drawing the Ouroboros, Leonardo da Vinci! It's damn difficult as the double infinity!"

Delta growled, snapping the Fate's wrist. The Fate of the Past and Future suddenly appeared. Delta's mouth streamed with smog as she slashed at them in defense.

"I'm done! I'm done!" I exclaimed.

"Great. Here!" She tossed me one of the Fates' pens.

I caught it. "You've got to stop tossing things at me."

"Just write the damn bone runes!"

With a not-too-serious roll of my eyes, I began sketching archaic runes around the Ouroboros. When I finished, the whole picture shimmered purple before melting through the pages. The Book trembled while its pages started flipping in a frantic and chaotic manner.

"Is that supposed to happen?" I asked, getting up and taking a step back.

"You FOOL!" Present screeched.

Delta ran at me, grabbing my arm and jumping into the Book.

I squinted at my surroundings, floating in a dark space of golden letters strung into words. There was nothing but the glowing letters and darkness.

"Cozy," I mumbled sarcastically.

"Are you a virgin?" Delta asked.

Heat crept up my neck. "What?!"

"Your vessel, I mean. Is she a virgin?"

I blinked at her, cheeks probably growing redder by the minute.

"Did you do the do in her body?" Delta asked impatiently.

"Yes! I mean, no! No, I did not do the do in a damned twenty-year-old's body!"

"Then start bleeding and cover the words!"

"Wait, why can't you do it? Aren't you a virgin!"

"Yeah, but I always have tainted blood regardless of whether or not I did the do. I'm a Shadow Knight! They aren't exactly 'pure'."

I sighed and cut my forearm, smudging out the golden words with my other hand dipped in my own blood. "You can still help, y'know! Virgin blood won't be tainted by touch."

Delta dabbed her fingers on my wound and smeared the crimson over whatever words she could reach. It took about ten or twenty minutes, but we managed to cover every glowing words in my blood.

"Now what?" I asked. "Is something supposed to happen?"

"Now, we perform a sermon."

"Huh?!"

"I'm joking. We need to speak the locking incantation. But we have to say it precisely and clearly, otherwise it won't work."

"Great. What's the locking incantation?"

"It takes two to perform it, one in Latin and one in Greek. It has to overlap, but no one can hesitate. Got it?"

"What happens if we hesitate?"

"As you once quoted, 'He who hesitates, disintegrates'. So don't mess up."

"I've got Latin. My Greek isn't the best," I told her.

"I'm fine with either one. I'll tell you the words through Frequency so we don't waste anymore time."

I nodded, drawing a nervous breath.

"In the eyes of the serpent, devourer of life, devourer of death. It is within our own, our powers of Grace, that bid the doors be closed. Under lock and key, in places both far and near."

The space around us shook like San Andreas. The floating words, messed up with my blood, seemed to crumble and liquify. In the distance, I heard three voices screaming in anguish.

A window tore open into the darkness, showing the Earth becoming as it was before the apocalypse. Sunlight was shining down as radiantly as ever and the acid rain ceased. The mangled corpses of the people gradually returned to less horrific looking things. Souls returned to their body, getting up in a daze. Buildings were slowly repaired, as if nothing ever happened.

I turned to see Delta, reaching a hand at the window. Just as the object, her hand couldn't pass through. It was like a pane of glass that stopped our return to the world. The Shadow's eyes began to water.

"My little bro's gonna be okay," she muttered, more to herself than me.

Slowly, the window faded back into darkness, and we were left to ourselves in the dark. I sat down on nothing and crossed my legs.

"I just wish..." My voice got caught in my throat. I swallowed saliva, forcing my way through to speak anyways. "I just wish that Fahrr is okay."

Delta looked around the space of nothingness. "Looks like the Void."

I nodded. "I was told it's also a space of nothingness, a dimension beyond this universe."

The Shadow sat down next to me. "Did I ever tell you how and why I got kicked out of there?"

I shook my head.

"It's a funny story."

A hollow smile found a way onto my lips. "I've got all the time in the world."