Chương 40: The mind is a trap
The guards surrounded Das as fast as possible, their spears pointing at him. These were not young boys fresh out of home, they were men in their forties or fifties, so the initial shock left their bodies and they firmly held their position.
Gunter pulls out a sword and takes a glance at the staff, his eyes widening in recognition of who its wielder must be "The mage?"
As if bringing him from his trance, Das's purple eyes raise and meet Gunter's. The old guard takes a step back in fear.
"He is young! we can take him on!" Gunter shouts at the other guards, who take a step forward, almost close enough to lunge at Das.
Time stood still as the fog seemed to thicken. Some men swallowed hard, others secured their grips on the long shafts of their trusty spears. Most didn't even blink.
They take another step forward "LUNGE!" as soon as the first letter is heard the ten men thrust their spears at Das, who takes flight several meters above them"ON ME!"
The guards quickly rush to Gunter's side, except one.
Each step he takes only takes him back as if moving forward became walking backward "W-What is going on?!" he looks back and sees corpses piercing through the muddy ground, stretching their decaying limbs at him "WHAT?! NO!!"
He throws his spear away and runs faster, while the other guards urge him to hurry, but he just quickens his destiny and the bodies get a hold of him, dropping him to the ground, climbing up to him, and tearing his body apart.
"We have to get out of here!!" one of the other guards runs away, together with three others.
"DON'T BREAK FORMATION!!" Gunter yells but it's useless.
The three men run away deeper inside the swamp, dropping their lanterns and separating. Until one of them realizes this and stops "My lantern, where is IT?!" he kneels on the ground, searching through the shallow water of a puddle, when he sees someone behind him.
A corpse falls on his back and bites him in the neck, tearing his flesh and drowning his scream in blood as another appears out of the water. Not just any corpse, but the corpse of the other two guards.
"AHHHHH!!!"
Two guards scream in horror as they frantically undress, taking out their upper garments to reveal countless bugs crawling under their skin. Soon, cockroaches, grasshoppers, and worms begin to pour out of their eyes, noses, and mouth as they squirm on the ground.
The rest of the guards panic and also try to run away, but Das throws a wall of blue fire that consumes them. They scream and roll on the ground as the blue turns to a normal orange.
Gunter is shaking, hyperventilating, and can barely hold his sword. He looks at his shaking hands with anger and tries to force himself to remain still when he sees a familiar hand grab his.
He looks up and sees Ida, her white eyes filled with red tears that fall down her cheeks and join the deep red still coming out of her neck. Before he can do anything, she kicks him on the leg, but with such force, it breaks it.
With a painful scream, he falls on his back. Unable to move as the corpses of his friends hold each one of his limbs to the ground. Still burning, still being eaten, still vomiting insects.
His screams are now little more than an airless whimper as he looks around in terror, only for his head to be held in place by none other than the mage, the two of them exchanging looks before Das slowly forces him to look back at Ida.
She holds his sword with both hands and swiftly thrusts it through his stomach. She twists and enlarges the injury with sadistic enjoyment, all while looking directly at the eyes of Gunter.
Who after a few seconds, lets out his last breath.
And Das collapses against the tree.
He is breathing heavily, the magic still growing the missing parts of his face, now the right side of it starting to resemble what he used to look like. His purple eyes vanish to his natural, hazel ones.
He hadn't moved from the tree.
In front of him laid the freshly dead bodies of the guards. Some had spears going through their bodies, others covered in mud, in and out, coming from their mouths.
Others had torn their necks with their own hands. Or simply laid immobile on the mud, foaming profusely of the mouth, their eyes rolled back.
And Gunter laid on his back, hands still holding the handle of his sword embedded firmly between his open torso and the ground.
Das slide his body on the tree until he could sit down. Using two new spells on a row was undoubtedly exhausting, especially since he was still healing his face.
After a few seconds of avoiding it, he looked at Ida once again, even if only for a second. The sight of her, along with the light provided by the nearby lanterns left nothing to the imagination. All fluids on her body almost made him puke.
But he wouldn't. He couldn't.
Hours passed.
For him, it was simply a few minutes.
He came back to earth when he noticed how much he shivered. His clothes were so badly torn and burnt, along with him forgetting to use magic to keep himself warm, made him freeze.
This sparked a memory.
His mind was awake, but it didn't feel that way, he stands up and begins looking around until he finds it. The intact cloak of fur and leather.
He walks up to it, picks it up, and cleans its surface off dirt with his hands. Then moves to Ida, carefully placing her body on top of the cloak and lifting her corpse.
Walking up behind the tree he sits her inside its hole. covering her entire body with the cloak, and then reaching for the hood.
But he stops as for a moment, he sees Ida looking at him with her sheepish smile.
He knows this is not real. And after closing his eyes hard and looking again, all he sees is the blank expression on her face, and those hollow eyes looking at his. They look so...sad.
Putting the hood on, he closes her eyes with his hand and takes a few steps back from the tree. Only one thing missing.
And with a wave of his hand, a lantern levitates and places itself at Ida's feet.
It's a near-magical image. The young girl is kept safe from the cold by the warm cloak that almost swallows her whole. Dirty golden strands of her long and messy hair cover her face barely visible.
He had met this girl for such a short amount of time and yet...this hurt.
It hurt more than he thinks it should. It was a new thing for him since the number of people he deeply cared about were few, and even if death wasn't something common in his life, there was no doubt in his mind that from the day his father died, he would be seeing a lot of it.
A quick glance a the corpses at the other side of the tree made him wonder.
Was he really something more than a monster?
Killing those people he felt nothing. Nothing except anger. Like a rabid bull hitting its head against defenseless cows, an impulse. And no matter if they were horrible people, shouldn't he feel ANYTHING?
Of course, he knew that the reason he didn't care for their gruesome deaths, was because, in his eyes, they were monsters.
How quickly a normal human he would hesitate to even hit became no better than an insect worth being crushed by his feet.
And then, he looks at Ida.
He cared about her...didn't he?
No, he had known her for so little. Of course, he cared for her as he cared for any other human, especially someone so vulnerable. It was what she represented, what she became.
A young mind that didn't see him as a monster, and with that simple thing, someone he didn't want to lose. Because he needed it.
The remainder that he wasn't a monster. From anyone else but himself.
Put that way, what made him different than those men who wanted to use her for their own need, if he intended to do the same? Had he always been aware of this?
He didn't know. Maybe he was thinking too much.
It didn't matter anymore, she was dead, and whether he wanted to save her out of good intentions, or selfish ones, there was no point in thinking about it.
Das stands there, looking at her or rather, through her, for a few seconds until he notices a few light rays that manage to escape the black clouds above him. He didn't stand there for a few seconds.
The mist begins to swallow him and the last thing he clearly hears is the cawing of a crow before he is back at the palace.
Each step feels, unreal. Like when he levitates or flies, except he isn't doing so. He sees the soldiers training but hears nothing. Walking through the corridors and up the stairs, he swore that if he looks up, he would see strings attached to his body that made him move.
It reminded him of how he felt when he was younger.
The world had always appeared strange to him, why did he have to walk like everyone else when he could fly? Why did he have to talk out loud when he could do so through his mind?
Everything had always felt, unreal. And sometimes, he didn't feel real.
"Welcome-" Ann stops. She is reading a book, leaning on the bridge as usual, and her welcoming smile fades as soon as she takes a good look at Das's poor state "Had a rough day huh?"
Das walks past her without even bothering to glance at her. Ann lets him through saying nothing else, instead, giving him a weak, sympathetic smile. Knowing that there was nothing she could do or say.
In a blink of an eye, Das had bathed and now stood in the middle of his room. Taking a glance at his body to make sure he is wearing clothes and dry, thankfully, he is.
So he sits down at the edge of his bed.
His still semi-wet black, long hair hangs freely from his head as he looks at the ground. Hands on his knees.
"I'm sorry about this, child," His father says, sitting next to him, the bed creaking under his weight "Sometimes, it doesn't matter how close we are to making a change, the chance is taken away from our grasp in a single snap" he snaps his fingers.
Taking a good look around, he giggles at the sight of the messy bedroom "I was hoping you would keep this place cleaner than I ever did" he reaches out but stops mere centimeters away from Das's shoulder, retreating his hand "I have always told you to not think too much. It's how it begins, you doubt yourself and get filled with anxiety. Am I good? Am I bad? Those questions eat your brain slowly until all that's left is an empty space ready to be occupied by the demons in the shadows"
Vater stands up and walks up in front of Das "Look at me, son" Das doesn't move a muscle, so he gives in and kneels "Stop thinking, you will only worsen this curse...I couldn't stop, and you know how I ended" he grabs his hands "I took wrong choices and there is nothing I can do about it, but you are still here, there is still a tomorrow. You can make a change, you can change"
His father stands up and places a hand on his son's head "So stop thinking if you are a monster...and go out, prove everyone you aren't" his voice becomes ghostly and far away "And visit your mom, I bet it would make her happy"
With his last words, the room falls silent, even if it had always been.
Das collapses on his bed and rolls to face the hole in the wall he calls a window. Closing his eyes finally feels as if his mind became one with his body as it should always be.
"It has begun" he whispers, squeezing tight the blanket on his bed. The horrifying reality is that despite his young age, the most horrible and inescapable curse of the mages has appeared.
Madness.
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PenguinSam64
PenguinSam64 I'm trying a new way to write. In the mornings and at night I read the whole thing to fix anything and upload it, hopefully, this will allow me to correct anything and overall make things better and more enjoyable for all of you.
We are close to ending the first volume! Hope you have enjoyed it thus far!
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