Best Served Cold

Inhabitation

Note: Heads up on might not be able to update tomorrow, lots of work-related activities morning, afternoon, and evening. We’ll see. There will still be cliffhangers, but none quite as bad as the last few days, promise. I think. After all these characters aren’t mine, they are owned by MysteryBen and Artsy

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            Oddly enough, death didn’t feel like falling, or smell like blood and guts. It felt like a warm gust of desert wind and smelled of hot peppers. He felt his body cease trembling, as what tiny control he’d had was once again wrested away from him. He lay within himself, curled into a tiny ball, mumbling over and over to himself.

             “Lewis. Lewis. Lewis. Lew—”

             Something touched his soul, something warm. He recoiled, crying out, “L-Lewis, Lewis, Lewis!”

            “What have you done?” All the hatred was gone from the skeleton’s voice—if the figure standing in his mind’s eye was indeed the same. He no longer looked skeletal, but flesh and blood. He wore a billowing white silk shirt with a purple vest and tie, his purple hair overhanging the horrified expression on his face. There was something about him that plucked at the edges of Arthur’s mind, but he shut his thoughts against it.

             “No more, please!” Arthur begged. “Please, end it!”

             “Lewis, what have you done?” The Spirit’s voice was devoid of friendliness now, hard and cold.

             The figure stood stock still, and Arthur could feel his memories filling the intruder’s mind, soaking the strange purple figure with all of his knowledge.

             “Leave him!” The Spirit roared. “This isn’t your vengeance! Leave him now before he fills your mind with lies!”

             “Him?” The figure turned sharply, and Arthur felt his body respond, turning to face a pair of glowing green eyes. “He’s the one filling my mind with lies?” A tremble worked its way up Arthur’s body, but not one of fear. “He’s the liar?”

             The eyes stared at him for a moment, coldly measuring them both. Then the Spirit roared, opening a mouth that spilled green fumes through needle-like teeth. “YOU HAVE FAILED! YOU HAVE FAILED, AND NOW I WILL HAVE TO FIND ANOTHER! IT HAS TAKEN CENTURIES FOR TRAVELLERS TO FIND THIS CAVE, AND A YEAR TO STEW HIS SOUL IN ENOUGH SHAME TO FREE ME! YOU WILL BOTH SUFFER BEFORE I TAKE YOUR LIVES!”

             Arthur’s mouth didn’t move, but his body stood, slowly. He felt heat in his palms and at the back of his head, and something deep and dark was rising within him. He could feel it swelling and rising like a wave, higher and higher. He wailed within himself, sure that he would be crushed by the weight of the feeling, but it swept past him, pouring out of his hands—now pointed toward the Spirit—as roaring pink flames.

            “You!” Lewis screamed—the figure’s name was Lewis, wasn’t it?--the flames pouring out of Arthur’s palms as the image of Lewis falling to his death flashed through their minds. “You!” His rage swept over the Spirit, knocking it aside into the wall as they recalled together Lewis and his year-long desire to kill his best friend. A flash of shame underscored the rage of the specter within Arthur as he bellowed, “Because of you!” And Arthur understood Lewis to mean the state of his own shattered self.

           Arthur still had no control over himself and hardly knew where he was within his body, but he stretched himself out, reaching somewhere in the void toward the flaming purple intruder. He spoke the word that he’d been holding onto for hours.