(Her) Divine Punishment

5 - Salvation

          The sounds of chains hanging from the ceiling echoed through the dark narrow cave tunnels as Vince entered the bowels. His flashlight beamed a strong light forth, though the darkness still surrounded him. He would step forth further, desperate for some kind of answer, his boots would step onto what he presumed was water seeping from the cave walls. A little girl's giggle was heard from down the tunnel way, followed by a loud unearthly growl; Vince pulled out his gun and rushed toward the little girl's giggle. It was an instant reaction when he knew someone was in potential trouble.
          Once he arrived at a big room, he saw the little girl standing in front of a rather large door, pointing toward it with extreme interest. Once Vince took one careful step toward her, her body vanished in front of his eyes. Like a ghost; a being not of this world any longer.
          The large door was quite interesting, but frightening at the same time. He lent his ear on the door and listened, hearing distant winds from behind the rock. His eyes widened once he heard a woman's voice from behind,
          "... Help... Me..."
          Vince gasped, "S-Sophitia!?"
          His powerful fists began hitting against the big door, only dealing damage to himself. His fists grew bloody and bruised as his desperation lost the fight. As time passed, he began painting from his loss of stamina. His head hung, looking down at his damaged hands. He decided to sit on a tall rock near the door, searching into his first aid box attached to the side of his belt attachment to retrieve some ointment for his wounds and sighing.
          "Who am I kiddin'?" Vince asked himself, tending to his wounded hands.
He wrapped some black bandages around his wrists, proceeding the wrap to his hands and to end at the bottom of his fingers, making the wrapping look like he was wearing short-sleeved gloves. After the self-treatment, he stood off the rock and gripped his fists, testing the amount of pain he would feel. And judging by his slight eye twitch, he was still in immense pain.
          His attention once again focused on the large door that had piqued his interest before. His furious attempts to break open the door showed absolutely no damage to the door at all. But what he didn't notice was the red outline along the edges of the doors, and the amount of strange symbols that amass the doors rocky edge. Leaning his hand on a symbol gently, he wondered what they could mean.
          Suddenly, a big shaking caught his attention. It was as if the whole world was having a horrific earthquake just outside, or this very cave at the least. Vince huffed, looking around as his face clearly showed his panicked state.
          But the center of the floor had started moving, creating a circular staircase that led downward. The stairs were shaky like they were not stable what's so ever, but it was the only lead Vince had of getting passed the door to the sound of Sophitia.
          Once he careful descended down the circular stairs, the sewage tunnels presented itself to him once again, forcing him to let out a painful sigh from his lips.
          "This place again...?" Vince muttered in annoyance as he pulled out his flashlight and lit up the hallway just in front of him.
          The bright light showed the escaping piles of snakes that once covered the walkable floor, retreating back into their safe haven in the sewer water. The sounds of his footsteps echoed along with the lone drip of water, it seemed like this tunnel went on forever.
          "V-Vince..."
          A creepy voice echoed into the two sounds of the tunnel. Vince drew out his handgun and aimed it back behind him, wondering if someone was following him down here.
          "Trinity...?" Vince whispered, making his voice shout louder, desperate for a response, "Sophitia!?"
          The creepy voice laughed at his response, as the figure walked forth into the flashlight's powerful light. Though her body was still shrouded in shadow mostly, the long black hair gave it away. This was to be a demented form of Sophitia; her skin was old and wrinkling, her teeth were stained in blood, her eyes were scratched out with her eyeballs only slightly showing her true eye color, her fingernails grew extraordinarily long and sharp, but her hair stayed just as long, straight and beautiful as he remembered it to be.
          Her laugh made her cough, burying her head downward as she forced out her painful coughs. She held onto her chest, grabbing onto her right breast and squeezing with her sharp fingernails, extracting blood from the source.
          "S-Stay back..." Vince ordered hesitantly, aiming the barrel of his handgun right at the head of the threat.
          The demented being laughed once more, "Would you really tell her that? To stay away, even when she had that sickness?"
          "No..." Vince resisted, grabbing at his forehead once a painful migraine pierced into his skull, "Ahhh! What the hell is this pain!?"
          "Realization!" The demented being screamed vulgarity, stepping closer toward Vince.
          Without realizing, Vince was struck by the demented being. His face was aggressively struck by the long, sharp nails of the demented being, throwing him toward the ground. He grunted, letting the tips of his fingers rub along the bloody three cuts on his cheek. The blood smeared on his fingers, as well as down his cheek.
          Droplets hit the ground, slowly changing the overall color of the floor to resemble the color of his blood.
With haste, Vince held up his handgun and shot right at the demented being's head. The shot went clean through her forehead, jolting her head back slightly from how strong the gunshot was. Though to his dismay, her head rose up once again, allowing the blood to pour down her face. The bullet hole slowly healed right in front of Vince's eyes as she smiled at his discovery.
          "Do you really think you can kill off anything with violence?"
          Fear running through his spine, Vince unloaded the rest of his clip into the demented being, watching as her body reacted to the bullets, but then almost instantly healed. Vince's eyes widened; he quickly reloaded his handgun and begun his attempted to kill this being once again. Clip after clip; he backed her up against the wall, shooting right into her face, puddles of blood creating a mild flood in the room.
          Vince growled and began beating the demented being with his gun until she eventually burst into a pool of blood, exploding from his final hit.
Vince jumped back in order to get away from the explosion of blood. His breathing hyperventilated, his arm wiped away some sweat from his forehead, wiping away some blood unknowingly as well. With no more voices but his own, he put away his handgun and ventured more into the sewer tunnels.
           One could ask why Vince keeps returning to these dreaded sewers, he even wondered himself. He held his nose shut to prevent any of the sewer's stench from entering his nostrils. Though, through an exposed creak in his covered nose, he could smell fire. A cloud of thick smoke began covering the area, and it even made Vince's eyes swell up in tears, burning through him. He coughed violently, walking through the smoke that held it's source in a room at the end of the hallway. The door laid wide open as if it was inviting him in.
            Vince coughed loud before peeking his head in the room. The darkness of the smoke covered the majority of the room, with the exception of a patient's bed that sat at the middle of the room, with a woman sitting on top, hugging her knees in a fetal position. The woman was shaken up, allowing her long locks of hair to cover her face.
          "Sophitia...?" Vince whispered before rushing to her side, "Sophitia!"
He sat down next to her and grabbed at her shoulders, shaking her violently in an attempt to shake her away from her traumatic episode. Though, it did naught. Sophitia only bit down on her chapped lips, her head twitched to sound off bones cracking, her hands laid flat on her upper arms to dig her dirty long nails into her pale skin, extracting amounts of dark red blood.
           "Get away from me," Sophitia spoke quietly as her head hung low. Her head then jolted up to face him directly, exposing her eyes that were missing her eyeballs, "I SAID TO GET AWAY FROM ME!"
          Her screams were deep and dark, a disturbing voice tone for a woman. Powerful winds shot out at Vince that pushed him against the wall, just missing an area that was now engulfed in flames.
           "Don't you remember!? Don't you remember what you did to me!? You've tortured me, and now you want to torture me even in death? You... You monster!"
          The flames grew in size just as Sophitia had grown angrier, Vince was forced out of the room as the iron door shut behind him. A loud lock was heard once the door had shut. Vince's head looked down to find a large chained lock on the door, his fists gripped in sudden frustration.
           "I'll save you, Sophitia, no matter what it takes..." He mumbled to himself.
As he turned around, the entirety of the sewer tunnels was gone, replaced by a mere wall with a little booklet taped to the wall. Vince narrowed his eyes and took the booklet into his hand, looking down at the cover with his flashlight giving him some light to look at the detail.
          The cover art showed a roughly drawn picture outlined by a simple crayon as if a child drew this themselves. The picture on the cover showed a man in all black with a big smile on his face. The man was surrounded by what appeared to be greenery, or fields. It looked like a happy children's book, with the exception of the lone man in black.
"The Man and his Burning Love..." He whispered the book's name as he flipped to the first two pages, the only two pages in the book.