Fanfic - Go to Hell (unfinished)
Saturday, July 5th, 2014 01:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcrackloveI wrote a thing but never finished it. Here.
Chapter One: The First Day of the Rest of Your Death
There was something pressed hard against my neck.
I could tell the object was razor sharp, and yet where I knew there should’ve been blood, it was just pure heat trickling down from the wound. On instinct, I tried to breathe. Cold instead of air filled my lungs, filled my blood, filled my entire being with its icy grasp.
Someone… said something? They were words, four distinct words, but I wasn’t sure if they were real or imaginary or just a distant memory.
“I’m so sorry, Vechs.”
The heat spread and mixed with the cold. My breathing slowed, and stopped, and the pain - was there pain? - began to dull.
My eyes were closed, even if I couldn’t remember closing them.
There was black, and then white, and then nothing.
---
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Hey, get up. We don’t have all of eternity.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“I said, get up!”
Something hard slammed into my side and knocked the wind out of me.
“Ugh…” I rolled over onto my back, coughing air back into my lungs and, ignoring my dead tired state, gathered the energy to open my eyes and look up at the sky. Or, well, what should’ve been sky.
Instead, all I could see was red and black and fire.
It occurred to me that the air I was breathing in - am I breathing? I could’ve sworn I wasn’t a moment ago - was hot and arid and tasted of smoke. The world around me wasn’t as colorful as I remembered it being; dark stalactites hung from the ceiling, lava pooled out of twisting caverns, and strange grotesque… things were flying around in the distance.
“What. The. Hell.”
“Exactly! Glad to see someone’s picked up on it for once.” The voice sounded rough and hoarse, but not from misuse… like whoever it was that was speaking was hollow on the inside.
And suddenly there was one of the things leaning in over me. This one in particular - as each one seemed to look drastically different - was pink, with a porkish nose and tusks. Large sections of his body were torn off, exposing rotten green flesh and bone. In contrast to his ghastly appearance, he was smiling, and looking straight at me with his one purple eye.
The pig… thing held out a hooved hand. After watching him warily for a moment, I put my hand in his and he easily pulled me to my feet.
“Where… what… who...?” I sputtered for a moment, before recognizing my lightheadedness and sudden urge to cough.
“Welcome to Hell.” He half-bowed and swept one arm out. “Weather’s great here, as you can see. Haven’t had such a smoke-clear day in a couple million ticks.”
“I’m in Hell.” I proceed to facepalm so hard I think my face went numb. “Ignoring, of course, the fact that I’m dead, I am in perhaps the most stereotypical version of Hell I’ve ever seen. Reminds me of Inferno Mines.”
“And ignoring the occasional zombie pigman,” the stranger added. “You don’t sound surprised to be here.”
“I’ve done a lot of bad things,” I replied nonchalantly.
He studied me for a moment, eye seemingly stuck on my goggles. He then held out his hoof-hand again, this time obviously for something resembling a handshake. “Nebris.”
I shook his … hoof, my face unable to hide my utter confusion. “Huh?”
“You asked who. My name is Nebris.” His grin widened. “And I know who you are. Strange as it may seem, I’d like for us to… Join forces, one would say.”
I raised an eyebrow. “First I die, and now I get a deal with the devil?”
Nebris’s one purple eye rolled in something resembling exasperation. “I’m not a devil - or a demon, for that matter.”
“You sure look like it,” I muttered under my breath. He laughed.
He grin didn’t fade as he continued. “I’ve seen the way you think, Vechs… how you treat people, the nature of the worlds you build and the challenges you create. Even if it’s all just in a game.”
“You do realize that’s not my real name,” I said curtly.
“I’m aware, but it’s what people call you.” Nebris retorted with a hoofed-handwave. “They swear and spit and curse at you. They tell you to go to Hell.” Nebris shrugged noncommittally. “And now look where you are. Heh. There’s not much more you can do now that you’re finally here. So here’s your choice: sit here and rot in the infernal pyres until the heat-death of the universe - if that even applies to a plane of existence like this - or come with me and get a second chance. I’ll even owe you one.”
“I don’t have much of a choice, then, do I?” I rolled my eyes behind my goggles. “Where are we going, then?”
“We’ve gotta get past ol’ Cebby and back to the river Styx.” His one eye glinted in the flames’ unnatural light. “We’re going angel hunting.”
Chapter Two: Who Let the Hellhounds Out?
“‘Ol’ Cebby’? ‘Styx’?” Nebris lead me by the arm across the jagged red terrain, trails of dust and ash stirring up around us as we walked. “Well, I’m pretty sure I know what Styx is, but given the situation…”
“Styx is the river Styx, as you probably expected, the river that takes the dead down here to Hell. We’ve gotta take it to get back to the overworld, and the boatman owes me a favor or two, so it should be a relatively easy passage.” He stopped for a moment, nearly tripping me as I kept walking. The pigman started off towards a wall, feeling along the edges of it with a hoof. After a moment, he pressed hard against it and a section fell away, revealing a secret entrance.
We started off again. “And ‘Cebby’ is Cerberus. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Big black skeletal dog-thing with three heads?”
“I thought he guarded the gates of Tartarus, not Hell.”
“He guards the entire Underworld, not just one section. Should be easy, though, now that I’m not doing this whole thing by myself this time.” A light appeared at the end of the tunnel. “…although, Vechs, I’m going to need you to take off your goggles.”
Damn things were coated in soot by now anyway. I lifted them up into my hair, and he took the opportunity to peer directly, and very close into, my eyes.
A strange chill passed through me for a moment.
“Alright then, we’re ready. And when something goes wrong… run.”
Noticeably, he said “when”, not “if”. Lovely.
Together, we exited the tunnel.
It emptied into what appeared to be another enormous cavern. While not half as tall as Hell had been, it was much wider, stretching far out of my view in three directions. A ghastly cerulean river cut through it, and continued into the distance.
An enormous carved gate covered one section of the cavern. Looking closer at its details, it became frighteningly obvious that the small inscriptions along its edge were carvings of skulls. Bone-white, human skulls.
Lovely.
And, standing attentively on the other side of the gate, was a dog. Not a small dog, mind you. A… hellhound. More than three times my size with fur blacker than death (and I should know). Wispy, ethereal snakes wrapped around his necks, and a long serpent hung where a normal hound’s tail would be. Creaking, rusting chains connected to an ancient collar and bound him to the wall.
Standing before me was Cerberus.
He sniffed the air. Slowly, the great beast turned around to face us. Narrowed red eyes watched our every move with a careful glare. He knelt down before me until we were a hair’s width apart.
Cerberus looked at me for a moment more, then turned to Nebris. After a moment, I could see the dog’s eyes widened and he began to growl. With a hefty paw, he smacked the pigman into the river.
When something goes wrong, run.
So I ran.
My feet pounded hard against the cracked stone. Distantly, I realized that I didn’t hear the jangling of Cerberus’ collar. Despite my best interests, I turned my head to look at him over one shoulder.
The hellhound remained in an angry snarl, violet eyes quickly locking with mine. A look of realization seemed to pass across his face and he leapt forward, struggling hard against the chain that bound him.
My fast pace allowed him to quickly vanish from sight and I whipped my head back around to see where I was going. From behind me, I could hear Cerberus howl the apocalypse, echoing against the cavern walls so long it seemed like the noise was coming from everywhere at once.
He wasn’t going to be breaking free anytime soon, so I told myself I could stop running. Except… I didn’t.
“That went just as I expected!” I chirped, though I hadn’t thought those words nor had I felt any inclination to say them. The words sounded familiar… with the same hollowness as...
Well, anyway, I tried to move a hand, my mouth, my legs… nothing changed.
Was this some kind of shock? It didn’t feel like shock, I just felt... disconnected.
It occurred to me that now, without Nebris, I had probably no chance of making my way back across the river - I didn’t know the boatman, he didn’t owe me any favors, but I certainly couldn’t turn back around by this point. Not when I’d already somehow made my way past Cerberus.
My feet kept pounding hard against the pavement, even when my legs grew sore and my breath ragged. This was probably the most I’d run since they made us do the mile in middle school, and even then towards the end we could walk.
Growing on the horizon was a speck. As I approached it, I could recognize a small rowboat against an even smaller wooden dock. A trio of (hopefully sleeping, but what did it matter down here?) bodies lay sprawled on the river’s edge, while a man in the boat conversed with another standing idly to the side.
“So it’s not really that -” The man on the shore turned to face us, his chocolate eyes locking with mine for a split second mid-step. In that instant the full impact of my constant running seemed to catch up to me, and I proceeded to collapse face-first into the rough ground.
I groaned, loudly.
“Do you always have to do that, Nebris? We were having a conversation.” A foreign voice spoke, who I figured was more likely the boatman. He sounded wavery, like the water.
“I need some way to get out of here.” The first man responded. I recognized the edge again this time. “Tickets for two back up the river!”
“Okay what the - ever loving hell - is going on here?” I protested, silently begging for the pain in my legs to stop and for my breath to slow.
“I don’t think anyone loves Hell except Hades,” murmured the boatman with a laugh.
Slowly and agonizingly, I propped myself up on one hand to look at the duo.
The boatman was tall and thin, his short brown hair swept off slightly to the side. A dark jacket that matched his hair was half-covering his clothing, a strange blue suit and red tie. When I got a good look at his eyes, one shone a bright red that reminded me of Cerberus and the other a deep blue that matched well with the flowing Styx behind him.
The other man was shorter than both the boatman and me. Dark, scruffy brown hair flopped around on his head, and a thin beard went around his chin. A grey vest covered a black shirt, and he wore matching black pants held up by a belt. He looked at me with familiar purple eyes.
“I think I’m - finally catching on,” I panted.
Nebris pointed to himself. “Nebris, former demon, now possessor.” He pointed to the boatman. “Kurt, not-quite-human, boatman. Here, lemme help.”
He held out one hand. I took it weakly with my own and, with a light pull, he tugged me to my feet. My balance, as expected, did not hold and I began to sway. Clearly, the best solution was for him to proceed to shove me right into the boat, which rocked wildly when I thundered to its old wooden floor. I swear at the moment my face hit the deck that I thought I heard the boat … bark like a dog?
“Hey, you be careful with Wolfie!” Kurt scolded Nebris as he, much more gracefully, climbed in. “I’ve been leading him around for a few billion ticks by now, and if he breaks my boss will not be happy.” A canine growling sound rose from the boat in agreement. I decided not to ask how that worked.
Nebris rolled his eyes, but nodded in agreement. “Sorry, Kurt.”
Kurt nodded back and pressed his oar against the shore. Our boat began to drift, then rock, then push off into the flow of the Styx which, I hadn’t realized until then, was flowing. ...Although it didn’t really move any one way, we just kind of drifted in whichever direction Kurt put his oar.
“Man,” I could feel Nebris prop his feet up on the back of my head as I continued to lay face-down in the bottom of the boat. “Haven’t been so comfortable in a while.”
“Did you have to take a waker?” The boatman pushed harder against the water and suddenly we were moving much, much quicker than we had a moment ago. “There’s never any wakers, and we were talking about how he got down here. And considering you hitched a ride on, um…” He trailed off for a moment.
“Vechs.”
“Hitched a ride on Vechs, I’m assuming whoever was supposed to deliver the new arrivals won’t be showing up.”
“Well yeah,” the former demon shrugged. “But he was an ass. And weak willed. Do you want a weak-willed ass delivering your new arrivals?”
“It doesn’t matter to me either way. I just do my job. It’s about the journey, not the destination, you know.”
We sat in silence for a bit before Kurt poked me in the back with his oar. “You know you can get up now, right?”
“I would but I still can’t move my legs.”
Chapter Three: Boat O’er Troubled Waters
“So,” Kurt began as we continued our sailing along the Styx. “You’ve never taken this trip with someone else before, Nebs.” Meanwhile, I began my struggle to put myself into an upright position on the small boat’s seats, my legs still wholly unresponsive.
“I need his help.” Nebris shrugged
“Help? With what?”
My companion looked around suspiciously, almost as if someone might somehow be listening to us. “I figured it’s finally time… We’re going after Etho.”
“No!” The boatman gasped. “So you’re going to the overworld?”
“Last I heard, that’s where he was. Finally gotten off his little winged perch, and let down his guard if we’re lucky. And I’m always lucky,” the not-demon said with confidence.
“What about you, Vechs?” Kurt turned to face me. Something flickered behind him and I realized that he certainly wasn’t human - he had a fluffy white tail.
“What about me?” I echoed back.
“Why’re you tagging along? Did Nebris offer you a deal?”
“He did,” I replied. “I help him and I get my life back… and that he’ll even ‘owe me one’.”
Kurt nodded his approval. “So, what do you want? Money? Power? Fame?”
I blinked. “I dunno. Never really thought about it… What would you want?”
“Me?” He looked down to the boat and patted it on the side. The boat barked. “I don’t really want anything. Maybe more time to spend with Wolfie, but I spend all my time with him already.”
“I think I want…”
I’m sorry, Vechs.
“I want to know who killed me and why. I want revenge.”
Nebris nodded his approval while Kurt looked away. “Seems a waste to me,” I heard him whisper. What should it matter, it was my choice.
Wasn’t it?
Chapter One: The First Day of the Rest of Your Death
There was something pressed hard against my neck.
I could tell the object was razor sharp, and yet where I knew there should’ve been blood, it was just pure heat trickling down from the wound. On instinct, I tried to breathe. Cold instead of air filled my lungs, filled my blood, filled my entire being with its icy grasp.
Someone… said something? They were words, four distinct words, but I wasn’t sure if they were real or imaginary or just a distant memory.
“I’m so sorry, Vechs.”
The heat spread and mixed with the cold. My breathing slowed, and stopped, and the pain - was there pain? - began to dull.
My eyes were closed, even if I couldn’t remember closing them.
There was black, and then white, and then nothing.
---
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Hey, get up. We don’t have all of eternity.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“I said, get up!”
Something hard slammed into my side and knocked the wind out of me.
“Ugh…” I rolled over onto my back, coughing air back into my lungs and, ignoring my dead tired state, gathered the energy to open my eyes and look up at the sky. Or, well, what should’ve been sky.
Instead, all I could see was red and black and fire.
It occurred to me that the air I was breathing in - am I breathing? I could’ve sworn I wasn’t a moment ago - was hot and arid and tasted of smoke. The world around me wasn’t as colorful as I remembered it being; dark stalactites hung from the ceiling, lava pooled out of twisting caverns, and strange grotesque… things were flying around in the distance.
“What. The. Hell.”
“Exactly! Glad to see someone’s picked up on it for once.” The voice sounded rough and hoarse, but not from misuse… like whoever it was that was speaking was hollow on the inside.
And suddenly there was one of the things leaning in over me. This one in particular - as each one seemed to look drastically different - was pink, with a porkish nose and tusks. Large sections of his body were torn off, exposing rotten green flesh and bone. In contrast to his ghastly appearance, he was smiling, and looking straight at me with his one purple eye.
The pig… thing held out a hooved hand. After watching him warily for a moment, I put my hand in his and he easily pulled me to my feet.
“Where… what… who...?” I sputtered for a moment, before recognizing my lightheadedness and sudden urge to cough.
“Welcome to Hell.” He half-bowed and swept one arm out. “Weather’s great here, as you can see. Haven’t had such a smoke-clear day in a couple million ticks.”
“I’m in Hell.” I proceed to facepalm so hard I think my face went numb. “Ignoring, of course, the fact that I’m dead, I am in perhaps the most stereotypical version of Hell I’ve ever seen. Reminds me of Inferno Mines.”
“And ignoring the occasional zombie pigman,” the stranger added. “You don’t sound surprised to be here.”
“I’ve done a lot of bad things,” I replied nonchalantly.
He studied me for a moment, eye seemingly stuck on my goggles. He then held out his hoof-hand again, this time obviously for something resembling a handshake. “Nebris.”
I shook his … hoof, my face unable to hide my utter confusion. “Huh?”
“You asked who. My name is Nebris.” His grin widened. “And I know who you are. Strange as it may seem, I’d like for us to… Join forces, one would say.”
I raised an eyebrow. “First I die, and now I get a deal with the devil?”
Nebris’s one purple eye rolled in something resembling exasperation. “I’m not a devil - or a demon, for that matter.”
“You sure look like it,” I muttered under my breath. He laughed.
He grin didn’t fade as he continued. “I’ve seen the way you think, Vechs… how you treat people, the nature of the worlds you build and the challenges you create. Even if it’s all just in a game.”
“You do realize that’s not my real name,” I said curtly.
“I’m aware, but it’s what people call you.” Nebris retorted with a hoofed-handwave. “They swear and spit and curse at you. They tell you to go to Hell.” Nebris shrugged noncommittally. “And now look where you are. Heh. There’s not much more you can do now that you’re finally here. So here’s your choice: sit here and rot in the infernal pyres until the heat-death of the universe - if that even applies to a plane of existence like this - or come with me and get a second chance. I’ll even owe you one.”
“I don’t have much of a choice, then, do I?” I rolled my eyes behind my goggles. “Where are we going, then?”
“We’ve gotta get past ol’ Cebby and back to the river Styx.” His one eye glinted in the flames’ unnatural light. “We’re going angel hunting.”
Chapter Two: Who Let the Hellhounds Out?
“‘Ol’ Cebby’? ‘Styx’?” Nebris lead me by the arm across the jagged red terrain, trails of dust and ash stirring up around us as we walked. “Well, I’m pretty sure I know what Styx is, but given the situation…”
“Styx is the river Styx, as you probably expected, the river that takes the dead down here to Hell. We’ve gotta take it to get back to the overworld, and the boatman owes me a favor or two, so it should be a relatively easy passage.” He stopped for a moment, nearly tripping me as I kept walking. The pigman started off towards a wall, feeling along the edges of it with a hoof. After a moment, he pressed hard against it and a section fell away, revealing a secret entrance.
We started off again. “And ‘Cebby’ is Cerberus. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Big black skeletal dog-thing with three heads?”
“I thought he guarded the gates of Tartarus, not Hell.”
“He guards the entire Underworld, not just one section. Should be easy, though, now that I’m not doing this whole thing by myself this time.” A light appeared at the end of the tunnel. “…although, Vechs, I’m going to need you to take off your goggles.”
Damn things were coated in soot by now anyway. I lifted them up into my hair, and he took the opportunity to peer directly, and very close into, my eyes.
A strange chill passed through me for a moment.
“Alright then, we’re ready. And when something goes wrong… run.”
Noticeably, he said “when”, not “if”. Lovely.
Together, we exited the tunnel.
It emptied into what appeared to be another enormous cavern. While not half as tall as Hell had been, it was much wider, stretching far out of my view in three directions. A ghastly cerulean river cut through it, and continued into the distance.
An enormous carved gate covered one section of the cavern. Looking closer at its details, it became frighteningly obvious that the small inscriptions along its edge were carvings of skulls. Bone-white, human skulls.
Lovely.
And, standing attentively on the other side of the gate, was a dog. Not a small dog, mind you. A… hellhound. More than three times my size with fur blacker than death (and I should know). Wispy, ethereal snakes wrapped around his necks, and a long serpent hung where a normal hound’s tail would be. Creaking, rusting chains connected to an ancient collar and bound him to the wall.
Standing before me was Cerberus.
He sniffed the air. Slowly, the great beast turned around to face us. Narrowed red eyes watched our every move with a careful glare. He knelt down before me until we were a hair’s width apart.
Cerberus looked at me for a moment more, then turned to Nebris. After a moment, I could see the dog’s eyes widened and he began to growl. With a hefty paw, he smacked the pigman into the river.
When something goes wrong, run.
So I ran.
My feet pounded hard against the cracked stone. Distantly, I realized that I didn’t hear the jangling of Cerberus’ collar. Despite my best interests, I turned my head to look at him over one shoulder.
The hellhound remained in an angry snarl, violet eyes quickly locking with mine. A look of realization seemed to pass across his face and he leapt forward, struggling hard against the chain that bound him.
My fast pace allowed him to quickly vanish from sight and I whipped my head back around to see where I was going. From behind me, I could hear Cerberus howl the apocalypse, echoing against the cavern walls so long it seemed like the noise was coming from everywhere at once.
He wasn’t going to be breaking free anytime soon, so I told myself I could stop running. Except… I didn’t.
“That went just as I expected!” I chirped, though I hadn’t thought those words nor had I felt any inclination to say them. The words sounded familiar… with the same hollowness as...
Well, anyway, I tried to move a hand, my mouth, my legs… nothing changed.
Was this some kind of shock? It didn’t feel like shock, I just felt... disconnected.
It occurred to me that now, without Nebris, I had probably no chance of making my way back across the river - I didn’t know the boatman, he didn’t owe me any favors, but I certainly couldn’t turn back around by this point. Not when I’d already somehow made my way past Cerberus.
My feet kept pounding hard against the pavement, even when my legs grew sore and my breath ragged. This was probably the most I’d run since they made us do the mile in middle school, and even then towards the end we could walk.
Growing on the horizon was a speck. As I approached it, I could recognize a small rowboat against an even smaller wooden dock. A trio of (hopefully sleeping, but what did it matter down here?) bodies lay sprawled on the river’s edge, while a man in the boat conversed with another standing idly to the side.
“So it’s not really that -” The man on the shore turned to face us, his chocolate eyes locking with mine for a split second mid-step. In that instant the full impact of my constant running seemed to catch up to me, and I proceeded to collapse face-first into the rough ground.
I groaned, loudly.
“Do you always have to do that, Nebris? We were having a conversation.” A foreign voice spoke, who I figured was more likely the boatman. He sounded wavery, like the water.
“I need some way to get out of here.” The first man responded. I recognized the edge again this time. “Tickets for two back up the river!”
“Okay what the - ever loving hell - is going on here?” I protested, silently begging for the pain in my legs to stop and for my breath to slow.
“I don’t think anyone loves Hell except Hades,” murmured the boatman with a laugh.
Slowly and agonizingly, I propped myself up on one hand to look at the duo.
The boatman was tall and thin, his short brown hair swept off slightly to the side. A dark jacket that matched his hair was half-covering his clothing, a strange blue suit and red tie. When I got a good look at his eyes, one shone a bright red that reminded me of Cerberus and the other a deep blue that matched well with the flowing Styx behind him.
The other man was shorter than both the boatman and me. Dark, scruffy brown hair flopped around on his head, and a thin beard went around his chin. A grey vest covered a black shirt, and he wore matching black pants held up by a belt. He looked at me with familiar purple eyes.
“I think I’m - finally catching on,” I panted.
Nebris pointed to himself. “Nebris, former demon, now possessor.” He pointed to the boatman. “Kurt, not-quite-human, boatman. Here, lemme help.”
He held out one hand. I took it weakly with my own and, with a light pull, he tugged me to my feet. My balance, as expected, did not hold and I began to sway. Clearly, the best solution was for him to proceed to shove me right into the boat, which rocked wildly when I thundered to its old wooden floor. I swear at the moment my face hit the deck that I thought I heard the boat … bark like a dog?
“Hey, you be careful with Wolfie!” Kurt scolded Nebris as he, much more gracefully, climbed in. “I’ve been leading him around for a few billion ticks by now, and if he breaks my boss will not be happy.” A canine growling sound rose from the boat in agreement. I decided not to ask how that worked.
Nebris rolled his eyes, but nodded in agreement. “Sorry, Kurt.”
Kurt nodded back and pressed his oar against the shore. Our boat began to drift, then rock, then push off into the flow of the Styx which, I hadn’t realized until then, was flowing. ...Although it didn’t really move any one way, we just kind of drifted in whichever direction Kurt put his oar.
“Man,” I could feel Nebris prop his feet up on the back of my head as I continued to lay face-down in the bottom of the boat. “Haven’t been so comfortable in a while.”
“Did you have to take a waker?” The boatman pushed harder against the water and suddenly we were moving much, much quicker than we had a moment ago. “There’s never any wakers, and we were talking about how he got down here. And considering you hitched a ride on, um…” He trailed off for a moment.
“Vechs.”
“Hitched a ride on Vechs, I’m assuming whoever was supposed to deliver the new arrivals won’t be showing up.”
“Well yeah,” the former demon shrugged. “But he was an ass. And weak willed. Do you want a weak-willed ass delivering your new arrivals?”
“It doesn’t matter to me either way. I just do my job. It’s about the journey, not the destination, you know.”
We sat in silence for a bit before Kurt poked me in the back with his oar. “You know you can get up now, right?”
“I would but I still can’t move my legs.”
Chapter Three: Boat O’er Troubled Waters
“So,” Kurt began as we continued our sailing along the Styx. “You’ve never taken this trip with someone else before, Nebs.” Meanwhile, I began my struggle to put myself into an upright position on the small boat’s seats, my legs still wholly unresponsive.
“I need his help.” Nebris shrugged
“Help? With what?”
My companion looked around suspiciously, almost as if someone might somehow be listening to us. “I figured it’s finally time… We’re going after Etho.”
“No!” The boatman gasped. “So you’re going to the overworld?”
“Last I heard, that’s where he was. Finally gotten off his little winged perch, and let down his guard if we’re lucky. And I’m always lucky,” the not-demon said with confidence.
“What about you, Vechs?” Kurt turned to face me. Something flickered behind him and I realized that he certainly wasn’t human - he had a fluffy white tail.
“What about me?” I echoed back.
“Why’re you tagging along? Did Nebris offer you a deal?”
“He did,” I replied. “I help him and I get my life back… and that he’ll even ‘owe me one’.”
Kurt nodded his approval. “So, what do you want? Money? Power? Fame?”
I blinked. “I dunno. Never really thought about it… What would you want?”
“Me?” He looked down to the boat and patted it on the side. The boat barked. “I don’t really want anything. Maybe more time to spend with Wolfie, but I spend all my time with him already.”
“I think I want…”
I’m sorry, Vechs.
“I want to know who killed me and why. I want revenge.”
Nebris nodded his approval while Kurt looked away. “Seems a waste to me,” I heard him whisper. What should it matter, it was my choice.
Wasn’t it?
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Date: Saturday, July 5th, 2014 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, July 6th, 2014 12:45 am (UTC)