Curse Uncurse - ONC 2020 [Completed]

Chapter 16: The Choice

No. No. No!

Not him! N-no.

It's not true! He won't believe it.

He isn't dead. Vid isn't dead!

Like some avenging angel, Zima is kneeling, knees sunk into supple earth, bent over the unresponsive body, her eyes wide and flashing with anger. Electric blue... Her hands are spread like she's shielding Vid... Vid... his mismatched eyes are opened, unseeing, light snuffed out as he's looking up at the blood-red moon. It's almost as if he's floating on a large, dark lotus leaf. It's simply blood. A pool of it, still spreading leisurely, soaking the nurturing soil and Zima's tattered robe.

Plamen can't breathe. He really can't breathe now.

Zima's eyes cry bloodied tears, pinkish in the light of the early dawn as they fall, translucent red as they solidify into sharp, needle-like ice. Her lower lip is already bruised and bloody, but she continues biting into it, and Plamen realizes that the pain is the only thing keeping her from completely breaking down.

She utters an angry cry (or is it desperate?) and sends the needles flying.

Shining armor is the only thing Plamen notices before the person wearing it blurs, going zigzag. So fast, Plamen marvels with his numb mind.

He can't follow the movement, but he knows, he fucking knows where the finish line is.

He opens his mouth to shout, but before he can even spout one word of the warning, a head thumps down the ground, rolling away from the body that follows.

At that moment, something breaks inside him. It's like a volcano erupting inside his head, heat emerges from a deep, hidden part, vicious and blazing, and spreads. With the only conscious part of his mind, he notices that the air around him is warming up, grass lights up, burning immediately, only scorched earth is left behind.

Suddenly, he can see the man clearly, almost as if the time slowed down. That man wields a curved, single-edged sword, and what Plamen has previously thought to be an armor is actually a paper-thin, silver chainmail. The man is approaching him, slowly, so slowly... and Plamen wants blood, he wants someone to pay, and the prey is falling into his lap.

The Dragon King mark feels like an inferno as it brightly glows on his hand, then that red light encompasses his body, from head to toes, boiling hot, but to him, it's strangely a pleasant sensation. It's almost like fire, the light, it rages more and more until he can't see anything.

Then it dies out. Along with whatever haze gripped Plamen's mind.

Oh, gods. What was that? He falls to his knees with a loud smack, panting loudly. He puts his head in his hands as he tries to slow down his galloping heart.

He realizes he's not at the clearing in front of the Castle anymore. There's no grass under his knees, just a white limestone spreading ahead; it's not dark anymore as if the sun is shining overhead; there's no breeze nor any kind of sound. He's not at the clearing where bodies of his dead comrades lie.

And that murderous aura. Was that him? It sure felt that way. He couldn't control his mind nor his body. He spreads his fingers over his face, groping over his skin, maybe to assure himself that he's still himself.

"Wicked, right?"

He jolts his head up at the unfamiliar female voice. And ahead, at the end of this weird place stands a throne. Made from the same white marble as the floor. And on the throne sits a woman. The most shocking thing in her appearance isn't a scarlet red hair, but a vivid orange armor. Because he can't get over the fact that it's moving like it's alive. His hands unconsciously fall to his lap.