Kapitel 7: Half Doppelganger
It wasn't alright.
"AAAAAAARGH!!!"
Ashy's screams resounded in the empty mansion. He rolled on the ground, clawed his face with his hands, slammed his head to the walls, and coughed up murky blood. Yet, nothing stopped or even distracted him from the pain.
"That is what you get for using my thigh for lecherous purposes~"
Agonizing spasms coursed through his body. The places he scratched bled dark red, almost black blood, and slowly closed as if there was no wound to begin with.
"AAAAAAARGH!!!"
Bloody black tears fell from his eyes, burning his skin, leaving traces, and causing sizzles, his blood was boiling.
His skin wriggled as if worms were moving underneath. Then melted into smooth and unblemished skin paler than before.
"You are pretty lucky to survive so far~ or should I say unlucky~? Hehe…"
"SHUT UP!" Ashy roared as he punched the floor again and again, desperately trying to hold the strings of his sanity.
His very being was changing with every passing second. A sinister, deadly transformation from human to a… creature like Elissa.
"AARGH!"
Sudden pain assaulted him once again, his bones — even the broken ones — shifted, stretched, and melted. This metamorphosis was like a grotesque embrace, each transformation slowly moving him away from his human self with irreversible changes, enveloping him possessively.
"URGH!"
His senses blurred, overloaded by the malicious whispers and visions. The smell of cooked meat and the metallic taste lingered in his mouth, reminding him of the desperate choice he made for survival. He was straying from being human every passing moment.
"I WILL FUCKING SURVIVE!!!"
While Ashy was struggling to stay sane in this torturous rebirth, his shadow became less corporal and began to morph. Limbs twisted and reshaped, fingers turned into claws and his canine teeth grew longer and sharper, turning into fangs. His eyes, once gray, transformed into pools of crimson blood.
The pain felt unending, Ashy already lost track of time. An hour? 6 hours? A day? A week? A month? A year? He didn't know and couldn't care less about the time.
Then suddenly the pain stopped.
Ashy's head fell to the ground and his eyes closed.
"Wow~ you survived. Did you become somewhat like me? No, I feel like you are not completely like me."
Ashy's consciousness slowly returned as he felt like restrictions lifted from his mind. He felt different, an eerie awareness was coursing through his body. Opening his eyes, he found a dimly lit room brighter than before, no, the world itself felt brighter and sharper than before.
He lifted his hands to rub his eyes but he noticed his claws — overgrown, sharp nails that looked like pure white metal — and chose not to do so. The taste of blood was still on the tip of his tongue, and when he inhaled, the scent of decay, burned wood, and metal filled his senses.
The room that once felt familiar now seemed distorted by this new perspective and illusory voices that were whispering into his ears. He felt like he was seeing things that he shouldn't see, hearing things he shouldn't hear. Every passing moment was hurting his mind and soul.
However, he felt like he wasn't able to comprehend these things. It was fortunate; some things were better left unknown.
"This is a bit troublesome to have though…" Ashy complained about his new senses and claws.
When this thought crossed his mind, his claws retracted into his previously human nails, his vision returned to normal, and the whispers disappeared, albeit with some slight extras such as now he could hear better and see in the dark.
In a broken mirror, he could see that his skin was ghastly pale. He was already a pale guy in nature but this transformation made him paler.
However, the most shocking change was in his eyes. They were like a pair of gray crystals, polished to the extreme. When he willed, his vision distorted once again and his eyes turned into a crimson pool of blood.
It was as if there was an on/off button, Allllshy could change between the visions however he wanted. It was like moving a limb, he could just do it without not knowing how.
"Well well~ you are not entirely like me but about half?" Elissa purred with a smile, her beheaded head was tied to a nail by her hair. "You changed because of my flesh, does this make us mother and son? No, maybe, you are still half a human, so like siblings~?"
"Shut up," Ashy growled. He wasn't in the mood to play with Elissa or believe her words.
"Ahh~ don't be so down, Ashland~ Didn't you want to survive? Now that you are alive and well, and also half of my kin, I won't do anything to you. I am your big sister after all~"
"Disgusting bitch!" Ashy cursed. "After I severed your neck and limbs, do you think I would believe that you don't resent me?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Elissa looked genuinely confused. "These kinds of things can happen. I will recover with a little bit of time after all. Though I don't mind if you give me a small part of your flesh to hasten the process~"
"..."
Ashy stopped trying to understand this creature. It was obvious her values were different from his, as a natural-born monster it must have been a normal thing to lose an arm or two once in a while.
'Well, at least I can get information from her now that she considers me her… ugh… kin.' With this thought in mind, Ashy parted his lips.
"Then tell me about yourself. What are you?"
"How sweet of you~"
"...?"
"My kind is called doppelganger among the others."
"Doppelganger? More like a devil, I say."
"Hehe~ that is what other humans said so too~"
"...why do I have a claw while you don't?" This was one of the important questions Ashy had.
"Well…" Elissa got quiet, she was deep in thought. On her side was a severed hand that was nailed to the wall, it was counting something.
"One, two, three, four… nine, ten, eleven…twelve? Yes, twelve."
"What twelve?" Ashy asked.
"I couldn't eat something nourishing for twelve hundred years~ I don't have the energy to show my claws!"
"..."
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
'...is this what a legal loli is?' Ashy thought before opening his mouth.
"Seriously? You didn't eat for twelve hundred years, and instead of eating me, you played with your food?"
"I wanted to spend some time with you~ it is boring to live alone for so long."
Ashy chose to stay silent. Although he could more or less understand that Elissa was too lonely, so instead of eating him immediately, she decided to play with him, it was still strange.
Understanding a monster was hard.
Though, Ashy sympathized with the loneliness Elissa suffered. Although he wasn't a greasy shut-in with no job, he was alone most of the time. Not by choice but because of him being sensitive to the sun
So, even if he wasn't lonely as much as this creature, he could feel a fraction of it.
'However, this doesn't mean that I will forgive her. She tried to give me poisonous berries, gave me the scare of my life, broke my wrist, and indirectly changed my very being. Although the last one is mostly my fault, she could warn… whatever. Expecting a warning from her is idiotic in itself. I must have lost a little bit of my sanity.'
***
A group of five, three men and two women, were traversing through the mountains, behind them were a few more groups made of five people. All of them were wearing dark-colored armors, light or heavy, to easily hide in the darkness.
In their hands, were magical lanterns similar to Ashy's, but these ones were radiating a bunch of different colored flames with high intensity. However, all of the flames had one thing in common, they weren't pure, all of them were slightly or moderately darkened.
The leader group halted, and other groups also stopped after seeing them.
A gray-haired woman with clear wrinkles on her face stepped forth from the leader group and easily climbed the highest point of the mountain.
"At last…" She whispered after seeing a city so large but so empty and dead. The outer part of the city was filled with gray, dried corpses walking on foot, and the internal part was empty of the undead. "We found it…"
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein