STOP
Have you read the preceding chapters?
If not then read it from the beginning
or
Read the preceding chapter...
Go to the beginning:
Previously on Listening For That Sweet Tune:
Maybe me seeing the ballroom dancers was
all in my head. As I looked at them dancing then to Bale he looked where I was
looking and he seemed confused judging by the look on his face. It was a face
like; what are you looking at or what do you see? Both of which were only
stressing to make me question my own sanity. I wanted to ask either of them if
they could see what I see but it most certainly was not the time to ask. A
ceremony—as you will—was being conducted and it could only cost me if it was
ever so ruined by the likes of me.
I then looked back to—who I was hoping to
now become—Lana. The sun and the stars my very own sweet little girl—I named
her so she must be mine. Bale began to walk slowly towards Lana then stopped
when he was right in my view blocking the visual path from me to her. He then
turned around to look at me and waved his hand motioning for me to get on the
stage with them. I ran to my left to reach the stairs at the far end of the
stage then began to ascend the stairs. My shoes clicked on the hard wood that
made up the platform of the stage and clicked the whole way to her. I looked to
the ground to see further imprints of feet that charred its way through the
wood.
Bale and Vitiate took a few steps back
from the girl as I began to stand above her just mere inches away from the
blood that was pooling underneath her. She looked pretty even though she was
dead. A small stream of blood flowed from out her nose and down her cheek—this
means her lungs were pierced in the process of the stabbing. Looking down to
her chest a small stab wound pouring blood came out the right side of her
chest. There weren't many blows—maybe a couple—but they were all centralized in
one area. Vitiate's blade was long enough that when stabbed it would go straight
through her, apparently missing any rib that would be in the way.
'How does she look?' Bale asked.
'She looks at peace.' I replied. 'That’s
going to change isn't it?'
'I’m at peace Ben. What makes you think
that being a Wretched means no peace?'
'Because you have the appearance of
evil.' Bale looked at me for a minute’s time with a look of disgust.
'And who tells you that this is evil?' He
asked angrily. I was seconds from replying back to him but he elaborated
further. 'People die. It's inevitable but what happens after death? This does.
We are the next step. After death it's us, it's that simple.'
'So you are God then?' I asked. Bale
looked deep into my eyes and thought about what the truth was.
'I’m not God. We simply came before. We
may be considered gods to many and yes we assumed that role but we are not god
to you.' I was confused like times before.
'So who is my God?' I asked. 'Because I'm
sure he is nothing like you.'
'Ben. You know nothing about who God is.
You only assume that he has your ideals but the truth is that you are far from
it. You assume that God is what you consider good but the truth is God is God
and you have no say in what he will act like. God is simply a supreme being who
understands life to a certain point that is further than your own. There's no
book in how a god should act. To each his own. God can be merciless one day and
forgiving another. God is unpredictable much like life in itself. People build
a concept that there is someone who is good and another who is evil and this is
far from the truth. There is no good or evil there is just a set of boundaries
that some are willing to cross and others do not. We are supreme beings and we
have a far better understanding about life than you so yes we are gods but we
are not your God.' Bale raised his hand while he was philosophizing and poked
my chest with his index finger. I felt a burn under my skin but it was painless
and a discomfort at the same time. My mind couldn't make out what it truly was.
'You can become one as well Ben. Just as me or Vitiate or this little girl that
you named Lana. Isn't that what everyone wants? You can decide for yourself
what kind of god you want to be but you need to understand always how you got
there. Everyone was a mortal once and there's no denying that but it's who you
will be that will determine your future but remember that there are rules to
existence no mater what your position is. Supreme or not, there are always
rules you must follow.'
I was intrigued with what Bale just told
me and at that same moment a glow began in Lana's chest near her stab wounds
but she continued to lay motionless. If everyone is bound to a set of rules
then who made them? Could it just be a set of actual rules or is it something
natural like the basic concept of gravity or heat. Things that stay the way
they are no matter what you do. I guess everyone and everything would be bound
by those things no matter how supreme you are.
The small glow in Lana's chest grew to a
bright light and Bale took a few steps closer to her and leaned on one of his
knees. Bale then snapped one of his fingers repeatedly towards Vitiate for him
to come closer as well. Bale mumbled a short sentence to Vitiate and he
elaborated further then nodded back. As vitiate was positioning Lana's arms to
her sides rather than her chest Bale reached into his jacket to take the
stiletto blade back out of his pocket and into Vitiate's hands.
The light in Lana's chest spread to her
limbs as she soon began to shake ferociously I then noticed something was off.
I blinked my eyes to see her just laying there with no light or even movement.
I rubbed my eyes firmly then looked back to see her shaking ferociously again.
I looked around the room to see if anything else was going on in the room and
nothing else was moving. Looking at her in my peripherals I noticed she wasn't
moving again but when I looked straight at her it was a crisis.
'What’s happening to her?' I asked while
trying to hold her body down with Vitiate and Bale.
'Her body is now pulsing creating more—'
Bale paused mid sentence. 'The Wretched inside her is duplicating itself in a
rapid fashion. If it consumes her too much then she will be no more than an
average Wretched.' Bale nodded to Vitiate and Vitiate took the knife to Lana's
wrists and cut deep. Black goo started to ooze from her wrists and began to
pool under her arms. Steam or maybe even smoke rose from the pools of goo that
left her wrist and started to burn its way through the floor.
Whatever was on the floor turned into
vapor and vanished in the air. Lana soon stopped shaking and beams of light
replaced the cuts that were in her arms. Vitiate then have the knife back to
Bale and took a few steps back. Bale soon rose to his feet to do the same. I
stayed, sitting next to her just waiting for the next act to happen then Bale
put his hand on my right shoulder and motioned to me to get up. I followed him
back down off of the stage and waited beside him as he stood in front of the
stage looked towards Lana.
'Why don't you want her to be a full
Wretched?' I asked. Bale scratched his chin feeling the stubble he had covering
his face then turned to look at me.
'Sometimes it naturally happens. Quite
rarely really. The pulling effects aren't too overwhelming and you become
something more than a Wretched. You become greater. It's what I am and Vitiate
and the rest of the Wretched that sit in the Wretched hierarchy. We are given
the gifts of self-control and intelligence. We are in some words are similar to
humans with psychopathic characteristics the prime species of its kind. They
are methodical and unable mentally to make any mistakes. They are the best of
the best and so are we. When you are first turned into a Wretched the thing
that looks to you like black ooze multiplies from a tiny speck in your blood
and multiplies. It then floods the body and takes control of the whole system replicating
everything inside of you. It then leaves the body to deteriorate and rot. What
it takes out is only the spirit. The life force of the man or woman is sucked
out of them then placed into the darkness that will become a Wretched. It can't
live without a spirit so it takes what it had. Only The Wretched can see this
spirit taking form into one of us and you are only half way there so I'm sure
you have seen discrepancies in your vision.'
'If that happens to one kind of Wretched
then what does the other kind face?'
'Us? The prime?' Bale asked. 'We let out
enough of this darkness that it can't replicate the body so it takes the body
it has. Keeping the creatures organs preserving them into an immortal state it
uses the body as the vessel. Keeping its brain means we remember everything
that we were previously thus makes it so we can learn and adapt.'
'So if I were to cut you open right now I
would see all the parts I have correct?' I asked. Bale laughed then
responded.
'If I were human first then that would be
the case but its not.'
'So this happens to all creatures? So
what does that make you?'
'This only happens to superior beings and
what you are is a superior being.'
'I’m not human? What are you saying?'
'You're right you're not but you are
modeled after one but I don't want to spoil the surprise you have to find out
for yourself. If I told you it would kill you.'
'Where would I find out?' I asked.
'Maybe that man your looking for knows,
he can probably get you closer than I ever can.'
'You keep saying 'black ooze' or
'darkness', what's it really called?'
'You're not ready to know.' He
said.
'So then—' I cleared my throat. 'What are you then?'
'Something else.' He said nonchalantly. I
could hear his now crooked smile twist and turn across his face, as he got
giddy with joy holding secrets from me.
Lana's body soon began to shake again and
I suspected that she would need another cut but as I started to take a step
forward Bale took out his arm in front of me to stop me. I looked back to him
and he nodded no hinting that she was ok. I nodded back acknowledging that I
understood and took a step back. Lana's slight shaking turned ferocious and she
started to scream. What was originally a high scream that would come from a
little girl turned darker as if she was being possessed by something.
'The darkness must be trying to capture
her soul.' I said aloud but nobody and I laughed out loud. Bale looked at me
with an off expression on his face but I looked away. Calling the vicious black
liquid that consumes living souls an 'ooze' or 'darkness' seemed like a joke to
me but with the lack of a better word I was at a standstill.
Her small scream turned into a roar of a
lion, a child and rushing water. It echoed through the air and hurt my ears.
She continued to yell and thrash around as if she was possessed and in reality,
she was. My heart soon began to turn with fear and loathing for the poor
child even more so than when she died. I felt as if this was her second death,
the death of her soul and that could only be worse than a physical pain. I was
going through the same pain that she was only it was slower like boiling a frog
slowly, it doesn't notice that the water is getting hotter until its to late. I
am that frog.
Lana's body soon began to levitate over
the floor and the cage that she was in began to shake then crumble. Every inch
that she went up higher the cage crushed more into a steel ball. She was then
several feet above the ground with her arms out making a t. The force of the
levitation was near the small of her back because the rest of the body slumped
backwards carrying the rest of her weight. She looked graceful how she was but
she was still yet to open her eyes like a newborn child. The red curtains that
framed the stage soon ripped out from their respective spots and spun around
Lana in circles blocking our view of her periodically on and off. The walls and
the floor of the room began to shake and boards got pulled up from the ground.
What was real to The Wretched and nothing to everyone else changed drastically
as everything turned to the most concrete as the ground beneath us.
Her screaming began again forcing me to
cover my ears. As I looked back to Bale and Vitiate they stood there and
reveled to what was happening. Looking back up to Lana she soon curled up into
the fetal position and fell to the floor. Bale tapped me on the shoulder and as
I turned to look at him I noticed that during the havoc something sparked a
fire and the building was soon going to be engulfed by flames.
'You and Lana better get out of here.'
Bale yelled. 'You don't want to be in here when the place falls.'
I jumped up onto the stage holding Lana
in my arms. As I began to jump back down Bale and Vitiate already disappeared
from the situation leaving me and Lana to deal with the mess. I rushed across
the room to reach the heavy steel doors and I pushed my back against them
hoping that they would open. The doors burned my back through my clothes due to
the fire being so close to the doors but I made it away from the fire. As the
doors were closing—once I made it through—the ceiling collapsed on the other
side throwing charred wood towards the ground. I hurried down the hall
approaching the double doors trying to avoid the scattered papers on the ground—which
were now on fire. Lana began to stir in my arms by beginning to stiffen up then
become loose again but she was still yet to wake up.
Pushing through the double doors I saw
that the fire pushed further than I have. Looking down the adjacent hallways
the fire crumbled walls and destroyed many of the rooms. Smoke began to fill my
lungs and I started cough and gasp for air. Lana became heavier in my arms and
I began to loose my grip as my vision went black and came back. I entered the
chapel and the fire stopped on the other side of the walls. I thought of how
The Wretched created this building and I thought that maybe this building would
never catch fire because of the will of The Wretched but I then thought it was
a joke. The building was made out of stone.
Exiting the chapel I could only manage to
take a few more steps before collapsing to the ground. Falling on my knees I
looked forward. People who lived here gathered in front of me as I gasped for
air. The sun was now setting and the sky looked like it was covered on blood,
my hands were covered in blood. I laid Lana down on the ground releasing all
the weight that was fatiguing my arms. Just then I saw Lana's father push
himself through the crowd and start to cry.
'Thank you! You saved my little girl!' He
ran up to me and picked Lana up into his arms. 'Oh sweetie, its ok now. No more
harm is coming. You're safe now.' Lana's fingers began to twitch as she began
to yawn. Lana's face was facing me as she opened her eyes and just as I got up
she smiled at me. Her eyes were pitch black much like the other Wretched I have
seen in the past. She looked up to her father and her father gasped mid
sentence.
'Your eyes sweetie, what happened to your
eyes?' She leaned forward to whisper in her fathers ear and the look on his
face was astonishment but in a rage. Before he was able to make another move to
either throw her on the ground or to attempt to kill her first, she was able to
make the first move. She placed her hands on his face lifting up his head
giving her complete access to his neck.
Chewing ferociously, blood spurted out on
her and the surrounding crowd. People began to scream and run for their lives.
Her father fell backwards to land flat on his back as Lana began to stand up
straight on his stomach. She let out an ear-searing scream then began to hover
above the ground. The lack of oxygen I had previously started to affect me as I
swayed side to side where I was standing. Time started to move faster as she
jumped on more people and ate their bodies and before I knew it buildings were
set on fire but I passed out just as things began to get interesting.
Up next in Listening For That Sweet Tune:
Remember me
