Phantom Chained

Chapter 40. Dead Soul. Elm

I walk across foreign frost.

In a foreign realm I am lost.

Doubting my doubts,

Setting a target for foreign thoughts.

How else would I go about,

In this strange foreign bout?

Adapt, alter oneself...

Become foreign to my own self.

Elm's confusing song.

I can't quite think of a time where I have been more exhausted than right now. It felt as if the snow itself mocked me, easily dragging my feeble legs deeper into itself, whereas it took significantly more of my strength to get them out. This has definitely never happened before!

What's going on, what is happening, ay! There's also this dreadful feeling that if I sink any deeper, I might be stuck here until sleeping beauty kicks the bucket. I didn't have high hopes for the girly either; none, in fact. Her simple and innocent guise gave way to that of the vile Megaera, and how could you trust her? All women are the same; as soon as something goes wrong they start ruining the lives of everyone around them using any means possible. Why did she have to cripple me? It was already hard to move forward, and now I have to do it with a bent knee! It's not that hard to fix it, it's just a matter of making the Megaera see the result of her pettiness! To cripple someone for making a few colourful metaphors, can you believe? For suggesting that the essence of human existence stems from the creation of alternative universes like generators of dreams and realities.

Too bad the girly didn't like the fact that I characterised her abilities as basic, with a standard range of emotional reflexes. As a response to her question as to why I chose a 'boring idiot' such as herself, I honestly answered that I didn't have much of a selection of 'idiots' at the graveyard, but then decided to cheer her up a little. I told her how thanks to her innocence she was quite fresh and tasty, hehe... And in response, she just went apeshit and began to kick and punch me wherever she could.

A part of a phrase, 'neither cast ye your pearls before swine' seemed fitting at that moment. Just as one of them dug its hooves into my side. And the worst part is that I was just about to deliver another one of my genius thoughts but it got interrupted in such vulgar matter. What would have happened if I finished? Megaera would have pummeled me into a pancake, that's what.

Would I be hopping on one dismembered leg out of spite?

I am so sick of her; it's one thing after another. Just gotta make it to the wraith, then we'll see.

Dissatisfied with the unpleasant neighbour and the boringly unchanging scenery, I decided to spice up this trip by performing parts of songs that suited my current rebellious mood. Figaro's Aria has always been a favourite and I must've repeated it five times without pause. Escamillo's Aria, on the other hand, was more difficult but harmonised more with my determination. I sang it eight times, only breaking it up once with Hermann's part in 'The Queen Of Spades'. I let out demonic giggles every time the girl threatened to break my other leg; those pitiful protests only heated up my enthusiasm and attitude.

Soon, however, a strange phenomenon that appeared out of nowhere made me tense up and stop in my tracks from disbelief. The girl's momentum pushed her further so I had to pull her back and place a finger to her lips.

It couldn't have been my imagination; an incredibly thin, almost unnoticeable noise cut through the silence. The cut was sharp but had lots of slip-ups, as if done with a rusty razor. The shrill dissonance terrified me with its alien existence amid the general texture of the astral plane.