The Day of the Dead Villain: The Witchdoctor

Chapter Seventeen: Back to Training

        Sleep eluded me last night far more than any other sleepless night I had. Naturally, since I had nothing to do, I began to study on my own. I kept trying to turn my magic into a physical form, like I have been for the past couple months, but no matter how hard I tried nothing seemed to happen. I could feel the magic within my body twist, shift, and move, but it never came out and made some sort of light. I growled as I failed for the fifteenth time that night.

        "Why can't I get this right?!" I hissed, flopping back on my cot. It wasn't even that comfy. I huffed, running my hands over my face. I sat back up, bring my book to my face. "Let's just try something else for a while," I mumbled to my self, flipping through the pages. Blood Bats? Already learned. Elemental Body? Sounds boring. No matter what I looked at, I already knew how to do it or it simply never caught my interest. I looked through each of my thirteen books written by Thorne, and all gave me no excitement. Except one, that is.

        The Reaver, the twelfth book read, is a sword, much like Excalibur, but comes from the very essence of darkness and cruelty itself. With Excalibur, one must say the chant and they may wield the unimaginable power. The Reaver, however, comes from negative emotions. Anger, sadness, hatred, any dark emotion possible. With the emotion in tact, one can pull the sword out of any open wound approximately eight centimeters (3 inches) long with the chant 'Kom, swaard van die kwaad. Eet my haat en gee my krag.' With that, the Reaver shall come. But, be warned: The longer you hold the sword in your hand, the more life force it will drain out of you.

        Dark emotions, unimaginable power, and losing life force. So, what? The more I use the sword, the less I have to live, or is it it just saps my energy and I'll die if I use it too long? There's only one way to find out. I jump off my bed, placing the book down beforehand. This thing came from negative energy, which I'm a ball of. This should be pretty simple.

        I make a cut eight centimeters long along the palm of my hand. Next, I needed to rile up my emotions. Easier said than done, seeing as I stood there for at least an hour trying to make myself upset. No matter what I thought, nothing seemed to bring my mood entirely down. I feel as though making yourself happy is easier than making yourself upset. For some dumb reason, I decided to try the spell anyway. Clapping my hands together, I chant the words from the book. I can feel power well up in the cut, and slowly begin to pull the blade out.

        With each millisecond, an intense pain spread through my body from my hand. My veins bulged from my arm, slowly growing to the rest of my body. The visible veins appeared black, and blood flowed out of a few places. My hand shook, and I dropped my stance, letting out a pained howl. I gripped my arm, watching as it tensed and relaxed over and over. I panted heavily, watching as the blood drizzled from open wounds. I shuffled to the door, my intent to find some sort of first aid area.

        Hobbling through the hallways illuminated by moonlight, I searched each room. None of them seemed to be the one I was looking for, much to my displeasure. Knowing who's in charge, I doubt he even owns any first aid. I stopped my search, huffing in frustration. I turned back, deciding that it would be better to do something makeshift until morning when I could go to the store and get some gauze.

        Something didn't quite sound right when I walked, so I stopped. Even though my footsteps halted, the sound did not. Someone was coming. I dash behind a corner, hiding my breath. I didn't have anything to fight with, seeing as how I was in nothing but a white long-sleeved shirt and some black basketball shorts - my pajamas. The footsteps stopped, so did my breath. A hand was placed on my shoulder, and I jumped around and attempted to punch the person. However, the person pulled both my arms behind my back and shoved my face into their chest. I struggled to look up at my perpetrator, and met the unamused face of Pride, Viliadarus behind him. That's strange; I only heard one set of footsteps.