Throughout the ashes and fallen timbers, I can detect not a single heartbeat. Most of these buildings are but frameworks, the vaguest hints of what they may have once been. More than once, bones can be discerned beneath the rubble, buried like the foulest form of treasure.
I have no knowledge of what caused this town to suffer such a fate, nor what it may once have been called. It does not matter; it would avail me naught. Gristle clicks his beak softly as he trails me, a nervous tic. It is not within me to usher him to silence, knowing what lies ahead. This darkness, I fear, has already sensed our approach.
It does not take long to find the center of the pall draped across the soot and dust. The Abandoned Theater lies seemingly still, perhaps the only building nearby with any standing walls. No light can be seen through its burnt out windows. The roof, caved in some years past, sits in wait like a starving maw, eager to be fed.
I alight on rubble across the causeway from the theater, motioning for Gristle to follow my lead. Words fall from my beak like so many pebbles, hoping to quell the fear I can see taking hold of him. I am no poet. With each further syllable I croak out, the same thought tolls throughout my mind: is this for him? Or for myself?
Such questions lie beyond the ken of my heart, so I cut my speech short. The best support I can offer Gristle will be my swift action and position as vanguard. Our wings beat out as one, lifting us to circle above the gaping chasm of the theater's roof. Slowly, faking an easiness that does not reach my core, I spiral down.
The first thing I notice is the smell. The thick, heady scent of decay and death shrouds this place as a lover's veil. More on reflex than conscious effort, I land on a moldy rafter, half-fallen into the audience seats. I wait for my eyes to adjust to the shadows. The second Gristle's talons land beside me, pink flames birth themselves across the stage.
If the smell was distracting before, now it is near to a siren's call. The scent helps me make sense of the strange hue these lights cast: the torches are wrapped in human flesh. I can make out snatches of facial features, hair & skin of myriad colors. No cut of meat was spared by this butcher's blade.
Gristle lets out an unconscious cry, a call to feed. He would have taken wing, if I had not darted forward to grasp his tail with my good claw. I can feel myself puncture his skin slightly, and as the blood begins to flow, the hunger leaves his eyes. Reacting to me, he whips around, beak poised to jab, as I cuff his head with my wing.
His rebuttal dies on his tongue as a sound begins to emanate from the stage. It is that unforgettable, singular sound of human machinery- ah, how to describe it!-, the turning of wheels, the clangor of metal. One last light blossoms where the ghosts of humans still tread the boards. Rising to the height of a small child, an automaton unfurls itself from where it lay in wait beneath a pile of bones.
The creature seems malformed, half-complete. The gears powering it can be seen, rusted and green, against the motley assortment of hides it wears. Gristle gags to my right. Somehow, the abomination must have ached for whatever was missing from its construction; stretched taut in some places, hanging loosely in others, a ragged mesh of skins cloaked the doll's burnished copper. Adhering to its limbs, fat as leeches, are what appear to be human entrails that disappear into the fly lofts above.
I consider my options as the entrails pull taut, lifting the figure to float ten feet above the ground. First one arm, then the other, raise in a mockery of a pirouette. The doll's sparking eyes stay locked on me, even as its waist begins to rotate back to front. Each turn, its skeletal legs kick at an angle too harsh for a human, and each kick lifts it closer to our perch.
Puffed up and terrified, Gristle tries to hide behind my form. It is his touch that brings me back to my senses. I recall the weight I accepted by allowing him to join me, to take the place by my side left bloody by my failures. My eyes narrow, as my membranes close across them. I leave my bit of Blood Ivy on the rafter, taking up my typewriter key in my beak.
If my intuition was correct, I would have exactly one shot at ending this quickly, without risk of reprisal. I lean forwards, tensed and ready to surrender to gravity. There! The moment just as its kick descends, it opens the lips sewn together on its face, and I see the minute cogs turning within.
I let go of the rafter, and hunch my shoulders close. I would need to be fast to hit my target, and lucky beyond what any mortal can hope for. Nonetheless, I give myself to the fall, my beak aiming true.
The automaton's leg comes sweeping down on my left, brushing the pinions I'm keeping furled. I release the typewriter key, and tilt myself to the side, rolling away from its grasp. As I flare my wings wide to cease my descent, I can hear that my attempt has borne fruit.
Slowly at first, then with increasing frequency, hiccups begin to interrupt my foe's movement. I wheel about to face the foul creation. The entrails begin to spasm, and smoke begins to pool in the doll's mouth like saliva.
There is one last, echoing clack as the typewriter key jams itself solidly into place. As if it were nothing more than a child's plaything, the creature falls limp into the audience seats. The entrails land in coils surrounding it, cut from the power of whatever dark puppeteer had been at work.
Adrenaline continues to coarse through my veins, unable to believe the encounter had been finished so quickly. I find myself shaking, a chill wicking itself off of me, replaced with a gentle warmth. The doll has been put down.
With a cry of joy, Gristle flapped his way towards me as I set down on the bloody stage. For him, this was over, and the evil banished. The complete emptiness of the fly loft spoke with certainty on that matter to my eyes. Someone had imbued this cast-off shell with will and want, and I doubt the hand behind this spun only one plate.
I let Gristle have this moment, do not tell him what tempers the triumph in my breast. Leaving him to guard the stage, I hop into the wings, searching for any further clues. All I find is madness.
Partially skinned bodies lay in heaps behind the soot-streaked curtains. Some, I can see, have been......remade, limbs of various size sewn together in a facsimile of the human form. I tell myself that these mortals had been dead before meeting the dread automaton, doing my best to ignore the freshness of the corpses. Seeing nothing more of merit to be found, I take off towards the broken roof after collecting my Blood Ivy, calling Gristle to me as I go.
Cleansing raindrops begin to fall from the blue-grey skies above, a promise that all wounds of this earth can be healed in time. The sickening aura that had greeted us on our arrival could no longer be felt.
I find us a spot to land somewhat shaded from the downpour, thanking Gristle for his company and assistance. When he attempts to downplay his role, I upbraid him; though he may not have engaged with the wretch directly, it was his presence that gave me the courage to take decisive action.
I bid him to return to his flock, as he promises to sing forth the tale of what we encountered this day. I find it difficult to imagine what sorts of music could be made from this dismal affair, but I bow my head to him regardless. With a promise of future aid if needed, Gristle takes wing, leaving me alone amongst the wash. I sigh deeply when he disappears from sight.
My eyes close, and I picture how they would have praised me, the feel of their fingers tickling my neck. I allow myself this indulgence, this window into what could have been. My spirits will have need of whatever balm I can manage. As I feel the love in their smiles like the warmth of a distant star, I open my eyes, and set my shoulders. I will do no good sulking in this grave. It is time to seek the next shadow I can dispel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Objective 1: A Living Doll is trying to create an army of undead cultists. Head to the abandoned theater and try to stop them. COMPLETE
No prompts used for this entry. All that occurred mechanically was a round of combat on the living doll, which had an injury capacity of 1. I was thankful for Gristle's assistance lending authority: I drew a 3, then a King for my attack. The living doll drew an 8 for their evade, meaning my King won out.
No comments:
Post a Comment