Descent: Part Twelve

Dear reader, thank you for rejoining me for the next installment of this ongoing series. I am desperately sorry that it has taken me so long to get here, but I hope this story will be entertaining enough to make you forgive me.

That being said, please take special note of this content advisory. This story contains course language, allusion to indecency with minors, blood, and cosmic horror. Additionally, some readers may find a scene of self-applied medical treatment to be triggering if one is sensitive to depictions of self-harm. I state clearly that this is not what is happening, but nevertheless it might still be distressing to some readers.

Reader discretion is strongly advised.

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I could smell his breath. Almost sweet, something clean and fresh. Smelling the way you think cologne smells based on the commercials. But underneath the pleasantness was a rancid decay, the stench of a harbour, rotting fish, and months-old coffee.

“You know something,” his voice was calm, the brain-melting mix of aroma and stench stifling. “I never really liked her. Had disgusting ideas about how to handle her charges. But we don’t always get to choose our colleagues, do we?”

Mary’s hand weakly closed around my arm. I could feel her trying to move me, the muscles in her forearm visibly straining, but she was too weak after her ordeal.

“Nor, sadly, do all of us get to choose our fates, it seems.”

Beneath me, Mary moaned. She struggled, but didn’t seem to have the strength to even sit up.

Grabbing for the cane made Mary scream the kind of scream that I imagined made blood run down the inside of her throat. Instead, I swung my fist wildly behind me, aiming best I could for the source of the voice.

“You’ll have to do better than that, I’m afraid. And that was my token first, so better guess again,” the words were mocking. I could feel the shift in the air, the hair standing up on the back of my neck, he was moving. But I had no idea where to, or how to beat him.

Still on the ground in front of me, Mary pointed towards the altar. Turning, I saw Sage standing exactly where I had last seen him. Arms still spread, welcoming Sasha and the boy as they walked slowly towards him.

I could have sworn he was just over my shoulder. Whispering his noxious, intoxicating words into my ear. In fact, I could still feel him there, lingering just out of sight.

“Mary,” I choked out the words around what felt like a lemon lodged in my throat. “Can you stand?”

“No,” her voice was soft. Too soft. It wheezed out, sounding like the hiss of air leaking from a bicycle tire. “Why?”

“I think…” the thing in my throat was bigger now. Something had just filtered into my head, a terrible idea planted there by Mrs. Sherman when she was still gloating. “I don’t…” I couldn’t say it; I didn’t want to admit the possibility of what I was thinking. If it was true, then I would have to go through what I’d seen Mary go through. But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe, because I was less infected?

Somehow, I needed to get the silver to connect with my blood. But unlike my friend, I didn’t have any convenient open wounds to shove the cane head into. Meaning that I would have to make one. A pocketknife had been in Melody’s bag, but did I remember to bring it?

Mary certainly wouldn’t have thought of it. Even if she had similar outdoor skills to me, she had been in shock and recovering from the fight in the dark. So it would have been on me.

“Amy,” Mary’s voice was stronger now, like she healed slightly with every word. “Amy, what’s wrong with Sasha?”

There wasn’t enough time. I needed to work out what to do, Sage was still standing there, eyes seeming to bore holes straight through me as Sasha raised her foot to start climbing the stairs. I needed to get to her, I needed, somehow, to wake her up and get that whateveritwas off her hands.

Doubts whispered in my mind. If I got too close to Sage, maybe he could use that infection that Sherman had talked about to control me. Just the same as she had done to Mary.

Tremors started in my hands. Traveling slowly up my arms until my whole body shook like a leaf in a hurricane. I was so scared. Ranks of frozen students knelt before me, heads bowed as though in prayer. Beyond them, my best friend in the whole world was about to start climbing towards an evil monster who wanted to do God knows what with her. And the monster in question said he couldn’t be hurt by the cane.

My one weapon. The only thing in the world that had been any use at all, now rendered useless. If he was the same as Sherman had been, then he could heal somewhat. And I had watched how hard he was to hit when Mary tried to strike him.

“Something got on her hand back in the entrance room. I don’t know what it is, but she wouldn’t let me look at it and seemed…”

“What is it?”

“There was something, I tried to… wash it off I think?”

“What happened?”

“I don’t remember, I’m sorry.” There had always been something else on my mind. Some other thing demanding all of my attention until I had nearly forgotten about Sasha’s weird infection completely. I stood stock still, thinking, Mary on the ground before me, shuddering and whimpering as the silver still inside her kept purging her system.

“Does it hurt,” my question felt stupid, probably sounded stupid. But she only smiled at me, that smile told the truth, that she was in a lot of pain. But also, that she didn’t think it would kill her. Colour was already returning to her cheeks, and her breathing seemed easier. I couldn’t take the cane back yet, I knew that. Not that it would have made much of a difference anyway. But I couldn’t. Not yet.

Hurt. That was important. The water had seemed to hurt Sasha, almost like the silver did with Sherman and Mary. Maybe if I could find enough water, I could save her? But I hadn’t seen any, despite the fish-like scales and teeth of whatever poor Shunsuke had turned into, no water had been present, only fire. Fire and stone and Mr. Sage’s cane. The cane that had killed Mrs. Sherman. Killed Shunsuke. Why had Sage carried it?

Maybe he didn’t trust his colleagues? Didn’t he say that he never liked her?

One of my dad’s snippets of wisdom played in my head. The one that said bad people tended to follow the rules about keeping enemies closer. Not for the reason of trying to convert them, “they don’t think like normal people. They only think in terms of winning and losing, one side for each.”

First things first, though. I couldn’t run the risk of being infected, so I needed a way to get silver into my blood just in case. I could see what had been done to Mary, but she had seemed so much further along. And Sherman hadn’t been able to control me so maybe I had time?

“Stay here,” I said, ignoring Mary’s confused squeak, and stood. “I’m going to try something.”

I reached full speed in seconds flat, ignoring what sounded like high-pitched cackling in my ears as I tore away from the altar. From the thick, oozing blackness that had finally reached the ground behind Sage. I did not think about how it flowed, seeming to gather and pile like a stalagmite made of used grease gone toxic. Sage could think I was running away, Mary could think I was abandoning her, I didn’t have time to worry about anything other than trying. Something, anything.

Bursting into the antechamber, the one with all the fire, I nearly cried as warmth flooded over me. It stopped dead at the door, passing through was like stepping face first into standing water. The very air of the place seemed to wrap around me like a warm hug. It crushed my panic, driving it into the back of my head and drawing the weariness from my muscles until it screamed in my mind, drowning out the still manic cackling of sage.

Hardly pausing to notice that the bodies were gone, long streaks of black ichor leading away into the lingering shadows at the furthest edges of the room, I skidded to a halt over the small pile of supplies Mary, and I had left behind.

A new voice rose in my mind as I desperately rifled through the supplies – there was water, I’d need that, so in the bag it went – one that told me what an idiot I was. It wasn’t Sage, or the memory of Sherman. It wasn’t any voice I instinctively shied away from; it was my own. Of course, I would have needed the stuff we had found – a small selection of bandages went in next with one laid aside – how could I have been so stupid?

Be prepared, that’s what Lord Baden Powell had said. Be prepared and he would know a thing or two being the last man out of Afghanistan because he forgot his bag. And here I was, there was a desperate edge to my thoughts as I nearly ripped off my earlobe trying to get the silver stud out, playing catchup. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

“Don’t you talk about my sister like that,” my voice, definitely my voice and spoken out loud as I pulled the top off the small bottle of rubbing alcohol. “She had no reason to think that far ahead, try it yourself and see how much you remember in a crisis.” My brother was always saying things like that, always reminding me to be kind to myself.

“If I ever get out of here,” I mutter, using my own voice instead of the insulting imitation of his base tones, “I’m going to name all of my kids after you. Helping me even when you’re not helping. Huh. Barely enough,” I tipped a very frugal portion of rubbing alcohol onto a make-up remover cotton pad found in the pocket of Melody’s bag and quickly ran it over first the earring then the pocketknife. Placing both on a freshly opened sanitary pad, I took a deep breath before picking up the bottle again.

“Have to be careful,” another almost pitifully small amount on another pad. “Where to put it? Can’t swallow it, no guarantee of blood-contact. Arms are easy to damage, and I think I might need them. Legs? No. Can’t risk limping. Fuck!”

Thankful for the first time in my life for the stubborn roll of fat right at the bottom of my belly, I cleaned it as best as I could and took a deep breath. Counting back slowly from five, I slipped the blade of the knife in on three, hoping that I would be able to trick myself into not noticing. I failed.

Maybe it was the shock. Maybe it was the fear. Maybe it was just knowing that I was doing it to myself, knowing that it was completely my choice, but the blade was like fire against my skin. The sense of it slicing the purest agony I had ever experienced. Fire and ice, my hand shook, barely able to keep the knife steady.

Sent reeling by the pain and the unbelievable knowledge that it was at my own hand, I started babbling. “Steel, an alloy of iron and carbon. The discovery of steel and effective means of increased production lead directly out of the iron age and paved the way for all other European social and economic development. Without it, the modern world would not exist.”

Who could have guessed that a weekend obsession with smithing would have come in useful like this?

For a second that lasted an eternity the knife was in my skin. But only a second. I barely felt the blood leaking down my front, soaking into my pants. I could worry about sanitation later, for the moment, I picked up the silver stud with trembling fingers and forced a quick round of square breathing before slipping it into the tiny but sufficiently deep wound in my belly.

I screamed. Long and loud.

Couldn’t stop. If I stopped, then I would think about it. If I stopped, then I might not be able to get back to my feet. If I stopped –

The pain hit me like a cartoon anvil. Fire blazed through my blood, agony washing away thought and fear until only the torment remained. I writhed, hand cupping the fresh wound out of instinct, not reason. It hurt so that’s where my hand went. Pressure, too much pressure.

My head pounded, feeling like Quasimodo was ringing church bells inside. No like my head was a church bell. BANG BANG BANG! Every beat of my racing heart another strike against my brain, sending my vision spinning like one of those gravitron rides at the fair. I could actually feel my brain swelling, near to exploding my head from the inside out. It was every migraine in history condensed into a single moment.

Fire ran to ice in my veins. A million tiny needles piercing me from the inside. I howled like something out of a ghost story and nearly fainted. There was no way I could survive this. How had Mary managed it? Mary.

Her face floated before me. Not the bloodless, pained, terrified face I had left behind. But the one from the dark corridor. The one that teased me, the one that I had been so close to kissing. I needed to get back to her. That was probably what had kept her going. She was trying to help me. Maybe nothing would happen when we left, maybe we were going to die. But I wasn’t going to give up. Not when there was someone depending on me!

Still shaking, I forced my mind to focus. There had to be something I could do, something I could take? Movement was impossible, my muscles and tendons were being torn apart from the inside, I could feel every spike of colder than cold ripping, piercing.

The pain died in an instant, leaving behind an echoing hollow feeling. I fell back, almost believing my bones had been burned to ash and lay still for several long, slow, shuddering breaths. But I wasn’t done. I wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t going to let Mary die, and if it was at all possible, I was going to save Sasha.

Sobs broke through my desperate panting as I struggle back to a seated position and carelessly dumped the last drops of rubbing alcohol onto a fresh bandage – the last bandage. Placing it over the tiny, horrible wound, I stuck it in place and chugged some water from one of the nearly empty bottles I’d left outside the bag for that reason.

One problem solved. That was how I would stay sane. One problem at a time.

If the pain was anything to go by, then I should be safe from whatever infection Sherman’s monsters had given me. But if not, then at least it was delayed until I could work out a more permanent solution. And that delay meant that I could worry about other things. More immediate things.

Quickly, forcing myself to choke down the dregs of another water bottle, I made a mental list of my problems. Mary’s condition seemed stable enough last time I saw her, so that could be pushed down the priority list. Sasha’s curse or whatever it was and Mr. Sage’s Feast of the Chained, whatever that was, were top of the list. But how could I possibly handle them?

Pushing myself to my feet, I gathered up an arm load of spare gym shirs with Melody’s still open pocketknife in my other hand before slinging the bag of water over my shoulder. It was a desperate plan. Or maybe plan was far too generous a word for what I was doing, more like a desperate idea, the last thing I could think of to try and help us escape. Or at least survive long enough to escape.

What I wouldn’t give for Mr. Sage’s cane. It was part of my slowly assembling ‘plan.’ I just hoped Mary was strong enough to go without it.

I eyed the warm orange fires that still burned in the huge stone basins around the room. If only I could bring that with me too, the cold fires in the altar room made me think that perhaps orange fire would be useful. But it’s not as though torches are as easy to make as they look on TV.

“Once more unto the breech,” I muttered, forcing myself to almost run back to where Mary was waiting for me.

“Ancient ones,” called out a voice that could almost have been Mr. Sage’s, “those who are Chained! I bring you… sacrifice!”

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"A Community Story [Challenge]" By: Donna Fox (The whole inspiration for this entire series)

"Descent: A Community Story Challenge" by: Yours Truly

"Descent (Part Two)" by: Mackenzie Davis (who is amazing, and everyone should read)

"Descent (Part Three)" by: *politely raises hand* me

"Descent (Part Four)" by: this dude right here.

"Descent (Part Five)" by: some guy named Alex, seems cool.

"Descent (Part Six)" by - drumroll please.... me!

"Descent (Part Seven)" by: is he still doing this? Yes! I am :)

"Descent (Part Eight)" by who's got two thumbs and a writing addiction? This guy!

"Descent (Part Nine)" retrieved from the jaws of the Archive itself by: the last shreds of my sanity XD

"Descent (Part Ten)" discovered on an archaeological dig, that's why it took so long, by a certain very tall dude with bad time management skills ;)

"Descent (Part Eleven)" recovered from among the lost tombs of the forbidden libraries in Rome by this blue-eyed guy