Darkness. A repetition of the dread that Alan had felt multiple times, a numbness familiar to his body. He knew where he was. This creeping horror, these unending chills in his spine, had welcomed him before in this nightmare. His body felt like it was floating in air until he opened his eyes and suddenly, his feet found crimson ground. His eyes took in the view of unending carnage in the still air below the familiar dark crimson sky.
"Why?!! Why have you called me n—-" Alan began, his voice echoing in the oppressive silence.
He knew the ritual, the procedure, but this time his soul beckoned no curiosity. He was near his goal. He had experienced eternal happiness moments ago; he didn't want to be here, no matter the importance or relevance, which he never found in the encounters with whom he waited for.
Alan just wanted to return to his wife. As that haste began to curl on his tongue, his words halted as another eerie view materialized before his eyes. The six mounds of torches with blazing dark fire atop now only flaming on two. His eyes fixed on the second last of the mound with an eerie patience, knowing what was going to happen next.
The flame danced in the nonexistent air, flickering here and there, almost wearing out Alan's gaze. His lips began to give up, his mind holding onto a hope that maybe it was something waiting for him. Then suddenly,
——phthooppphhh!!!!!—-
With a snap, the reflection of the dark blazing fire in Alan's eyes extinguished, startling him. His lips moved to speak, but he felt his naked body twitching before it jerked.
His limbs stretched out with strength, a force more powerful than his own will contorted his body, suspending him in mid-air. The desolate scene before him began to get enveloped in darkness. An eerily familiar shrieking mixed with a demon's grumbling reverberated through the fading scene,
"YOUUUU FOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!"
The voice halted his words in his throat. Everything had been familiar until now, but this—this intensity, this ferocity, the disappointment and rage lacing the voice of the being—was new and horrific.
The size and form, when it emerged from the devouring darkness, were overwhelming. The shape might have been the same, but the titanic figure made Alan feel like dust beneath its dreadful steps. Never before had he felt anything in this place, apart from his emotions—the conflict, the dread, the chaos, the horror, the suffering, the despair. He had seen them, grown accustomed to them, but the sensation that now crept into Alan's body as the being lashed out, writhing with rage, was entirely new. Blood seeped from his eyes and his ears as the being continued,
"You fool!!!!!!! I warned you!!!!! Again and again and again!!!!!!!"
It brought its shrieking visage before Alan's stunned, bleeding body. Though he could not hold a gaze on the shrieking darkness of its visage, Alan could see, he could feel its contorting gaze piercing inside him, dredging up fears his experienced mind was unaware even existed.
"I told you to kill him!!!!! I showed you!!!! I gave you hints!!!! I told you again and again, I did my best to prevent what has happened!!!!!!"
The being's shrieks reverberated through the air, shaking the very ground Alan stood on. His body trembled uncontrollably, suspended in mid-air, as the creature's rage enveloped him. The weight of its wrath pressed down on him, suffocating, unbearable. Every word it uttered felt like a physical blow, striking deep into his core, tearing at his resolve.
Though Alan's body remained contorted and stunned, his face showed no emotion whatsoever. Relentless streams of blood flowed from his eyes and ears, as though he had met death upon witnessing the horrific being before him.
But his mind was alive, contemplating the being's words in confusion, trying to fight back the numbness and control his tongue. He wanted to ask what it meant, because now Alan only cared about its cryptic words and the rising anticipation laced with fear that he suspected would pale in comparison to what he felt from the being at that moment.
"YOU!!!!! You are the reason it happened, you are responsible for it!!!!!" The being roared as it grabbed Alan's suspended, bleeding body in its hand, straightening up and bringing Alan close to its dark mouth. The writhing darkness shaping its form lunged as if to bite Alan's head off, filling him with even more confusion and fear. The being continued,
"I threatened you, Alan, and you didn't listen!!!! You should have killed him when you had the chance. Everything!!! Everything would have gone according to my plan, but no!!!! Your emotions, that old Alan was right—you are nothing but a sentimental fool, clinging to your weakness, and now it has brought you the pain that will tear you to so many shreds from which you will never recover!!!!!!!!"
Alan's mind and heart were tied in the dark constraints of this nightmare, barring them from moving or controlling his body. But the rising fear crossed the limit, his mind couldn't contain it, his heart couldn't keep it inside.
It burst through Alan, turning into dreadful fury, erupting from the veins of his throbbing head and the sockets of his bloodshot eyes. Alan's face contorted as blood broke through the grasp of the stun around it before his jaw moved, and a cry of anger, a bellowing of his anguish, tore through Alan's lips. It rivaled the being's grumbling shriek before turning into ragged breaths and rasping words.
"Whhhhyyyyy? What!… Do… you… mean…"
Suddenly, the darkness drowned in silence. Even the shrieking form of the being halted. Only Alan's bloody rasping filled the vacuum of the void. For moments, only eerie silence returned in reply to Alan's fury. Then, suddenly, a small white sphere appeared on the being's dark visage, instantly stretching into its familiar pristine white grin before being engulfed by circling darkness.
The head of the being leaned towards Alan. Dread and horror flushed his bloody visage, a scream beginning to gather at the top of his throat as the being continued.
"Not too much is lost, Alan. There is still time. You have everything you need. Use the rage! Use the despair! Turn them into weapons and slay him! Kill him, Alan! Kill him!!!!!!!"
"Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!" The gathered scream erupted from Alan's mouth as the spinning darkness of its white grin little by little engulfed Alan. His eyes saw nothing but darkness, numbness filled his body, his ears were filled with his own scream, until everything halted with the gruesome sound of a heavy stab.
bhhhhhaaa!!!!!—-hufff!!!huffff!!! Ahh!!! Ah!!!! AHH!!
Alan's scream followed him into reality as he woke up abruptly, a fear and dread louder than ever before gripping him.
His rasping breaths burned his lungs and throat, his jaw, his face throbbing with pain, while the cold sweat rolling down his temple sent chills down his spine. His mind still shivered with the darkness from the nightmare, the shrieking echoing in his ears.
Confusion and dread clutched his trembling body, his fingers gripping his chest as he tried to calm his spiraling heart. His heavy breaths echoed inside the chamber until a drop of blood from the flesh bore his tightening nails inside fell onto the fur he had laid upon.
A deep breath calmed his nerves. His body was covered in sweat, his vision darkened and blurred, almost fading, his strength seeping through his body. Leaning back, his head suddenly collided with the wall. Sharp sensations of pain emerged from the freshly healing wound on his head, jolting through his body and jerking it in agony. A sharp groan escaped him, returning him fully to the dreadful reality.
"Ahh!!! Ahh…Ah!…R…Rel..Relecta..Relecta!"
Gasping breaths formed into the name of his wife, calling her out for support.
But only dimming silence returned to his gasping calls. Alan, somehow struggling through the pained breaths, tightened his muscles, pulling his limbs together. He removed the warm veil of fur from his naked body, staggering up. His vision slowly ran around the chamber.
For a moment, he couldn't find her. Then, with a blink, his eyes took in another view of the chamber, and he found her, sitting with the support of the statue on her back, her face turned towards the small altar of Minerva, almost motionless, maybe asleep.
"R…Relecta! Honey? You asleep? We...we have water? I...I feel thirsty…" Alan's voice came in ragged breaths, his eyes straining as he looked at Relecta, who sat unresponsive. One hand clutched his hunched chest, the other clenched, summoning the strength to move forward. With each step, a small measure of strength returned to his body, his upper body rising slowly. His strained eyes opened fully, grasping the view ahead with no blur. His mind finally registered the strangeness of the situation.
Even if she were asleep or his words were barely a whisper, his abrupt awakening and slow, echoing footsteps should have received some response from his still-sitting wife.
As his mind cleared of the earlier nightmarish darkness, an eerie sensation began to overwhelm him. His hand just started to move away from his chest when his unclenching fist tightened again, fingers grasping at his chest. His heart began to beat with a resonance that filled Alan's ears with the words of the being. His calming nerves started to pulse with realization, now echoing with fear—a fear of a nightmare turning into reality.
"H..h..honey?..Honey, what are you doing? Rel—-"
Alan's stammered words trailed off with a splash that echoed as he approached Relecta's quiet form. His hesitation and movements ceased abruptly. The first dreadful silence stunned his eyes and halted his mouth. Moment by moment, his already clenched fist tightened further, his fingers digging into the skin of his chest until his nails drew blood. Drops fell to the ground, mingling with the pool of crimson beneath his feet—The pool of blood that flowed from the unresponsive body of his wife.
Slowly, his eyelids began to tear apart, almost to the point where any further movement might have dislodged them from his head. His mouth followed suit, stretching open as if to release a scream that would tear through his lungs, but instead, only a silent contortion of dread and despair crossed Alan's face.
There she lay, Relecta, her eyes closed, dried streaks of blood tracing down her face. Her lips formed a calm, soft smile that belied the horror of reality. The sword, the very one Relecta had shown Alan earlier, was now stabbed into her chest, piercing through her heart. Her slightly leaned body indicated the path the sharp point of the sword had taken, emerging through her bare back.
The wound was nightmarish, gut-wrenching. Blood and pieces of flesh spoke of the struggle the weapon had endured to tear through her skin, gouge into her flesh, slice through bone, and finally, silence her heart. Yet, even this paled in despair compared to the fact that the hand that had driven the sword into her chest belonged to her. Her hands, too, stained in blood, her right hand especially bearing signs of the massacre—three chopped-off fingers and a vein sliced from her wrist.
The horrific reality before Alan's eyes battled fiercely against his mind, disbelief projecting through every fiber of his being. Instead of a scream, Alan's voice emerged in a trembling, rasping denial:
"N… No… No… No.. No!!! No!! No!!!! NOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"
Each word of his refusal echoed through the chamber, accompanied by ragged breaths that guided his trembling limbs. He attempted to move forward but collapsed onto his knees, crawling slowly toward his lifeless wife. With quivering hands, he gathered Relecta's blood-stained body into his own, cradling her lifeless head and upper body against his trembling chest.
Unaware, Alan shivered back and forth, the grip of denial still clinging to his lips before a guttural scream finally tore through his trembling jaws:
"No! No!! No!!! No No No!!!! RELECTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Alan cried out, despite the grim reality laid bare before him. His mind, heart, and body waged an unwinnable battle against acceptance as he cradled Relecta's head in his lap, gently patting her cheeks and attempting to open her soulless eyes. Desperation drove him to call out, pleading with her to wake up, to end this nightmare.
"Relecta! Relecta, honey! Wake up! Wake up! It's just a nightmare! Yes, an illusion, just like before. Come on, my love, wake up! I beg you! Don't do this to me! Please don't!!! Please!! Please!! Why?!!! Why?!!! Why did you do this?!! Why?!!! Why is this happening?!!! Why won't you wake up?!!!"
His widened eyes brimmed with tears and blood, his trembling hands shaking her gently, his voice cracking with anguish. But there was no response, only silence and the haunting stillness of death. Relecta remained lifeless, peaceful, a stark contrast to the turmoil raging within Alan.
His shuddering agony caused her grip on the sword to falter, her hands slipping and splashing into the pool of blood that now soaked them both. Alan's cries echoed through the empty chamber, his confusion and grief piercing the once-mystic, fragrant air, now tainted only by his profound sorrow.
Suddenly, Alan's shivering gaze shifted, his ears ringing with his own grief, as he heard a sound—a soft fluttering, distinct amid his cries. A book, old and weathered like the chamber itself, yet preserved from the ravages of time, caught his attention. With little to no air movement in the chamber, save for Alan's wheezing, crying breaths, the top page of that open book on the altar fluttered gently. It bore stains of crimson, with a trail leading back to the pool of blood around his wife.
A dreadful apprehension, an ominous sense of anticipation, coursed through Alan's breaking body. Struggling to stand, he gently laid Relecta's lifeless head on the ground. Though the book was only two steps away, those steps felt like burning coals beneath his feet. He staggered, collapsing and crawling the rest of the way.
Gently, he placed his bloodstained hand on the fluttering page, stilling its movement. Alan's blurry, bloody eyes blinked, clearing his vision enough to read the crimson words on the weary parchment.
His already shattered heart broke into even smaller pieces as he realized the ink used to write those broken words was blood—the same blood that stained the paper, the same blood that stained his body. It was her own blood, and these were her last words.
Before he began reading, of which his eyes, his heart, his whole body struggled against, Alan saw a small thin piece of stone, one of its tips stained deep in blood, an obvious realization of the instrument used to write the words now held under his shivering gaze.
They were painful, they were horror-instilling, they broke through all of Alan's hopes and expectations that wanted for the words not to be from his wife. But the broken sentences, the misspelled words, the pain in them, the love in them, the confession, the reason in them, broke more and more of his already weary vessel. His lips didn't move, but the whole chamber heard the words of the letter that his dreading mind read:
"Alan Mi Love,
I love you, I love you more than anithing in thes wuld. More than mi parant, more than mi life. And I am sorri. For lieving you like thes. But no matter what I can nevar forgev miself. There is no exuse to what I did, for what he did. When we farst entard inside these floors, I too felt what he said. The Lust. It was everywhere, so were those cretaras. First time after fiting them, we were tired, and when we found a chamber to sleep, that is when it happand. He came to me when I was aslip. I cryed out when he touched me, I even slaapd him. But he resisted, he told me that it was these chamber, the air that was effecting us. First it soundad like exuse but I felt it too. He told me if we didn't do it, it will take over our mind. It will make us kill each other. Alan, my love I am sorri, I am not sure what it was, fear, worri, or something inside me, but I gave in. I startad hating miself after that, I thoat that I will tell you everything when you wake up, and say sorri to you, accept whatever panishmant you give me. But with the constant fites, and taking care of you, I became weak. He had changad and saw that and startad forcing himself, again and again and again. I could not fite back, I hated miself, beacause somewhere inside, my body, an emotion, it looked forward to all that… I am sorri Alan, I dont know what happenad to me. I wanted to kill miself before, but…I couldn't have lieve you alone with that monster. Not until I know that you were alrite. And two days ago…I think. I felt something inside me, I have been feiling sick for a while, I had vomit many times, I was more hungri, and then somehow I felt another hartbiit inside me.
Alan I am not sure but I cant do it, I know you would have argud with me, even would have accaptid me and this thing inside me. But Its me I cant do thes I cant birth thes monster. I dreimad to bare your childran, no thes seed of evil. I wated for you to wake up. I wanted to see your smile last time, your touch, your feel. I wanted to tell you everything but I fearad that you would never forgeev me, but I fearad you would not, because I have sinned and mi mother taout me that betrayal is the sin no one can ever repant. I have betrayad you Alan, I have betrayad our love. And no matter how much I apology it wont be enaff. I am sorri Alan, I am sorri for everything. I dont ecept you to forgeev me but I want you to know that I have loved you, every piece of mi biing, every secand of mi life ever since I met you. I dont know what will you think of me now or what will happan. But If you find in your haert please make it out of here alive, find someone bettar, someone more loving than me, stay happy for me, for both of us. I bilive you if anyone could do it its you my love. And pleis dont let that monster win.
Your Love,
Relecta."