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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Funeris" data-source="post: 2727493" data-attributes="member: 22792">Chapter 5: NightfallYup...here comes another Interlude...I so do enjoy writing them (although I admit...I had some help for this one...eh hobbitkiller?) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapter 5: NightfallRhynos screeched silently.  His lungs kicked uselessly against their bone prison, diaphragm trembling and heart roaring.  “Let it bleed, let it scar.”  The warlock drew his legs underneath him, empty sounds ringing through his empty ears.Vertigo clutched his mind, he felt as if he were falling eternally.  Down, down an endless pit of black into the depths of night and darkness his body flew.  His stomach lurched; vomit shot up his esophagus and burst against the back of his teeth.  Rhynos’ lips parted—splatter and stink assaulted his blind senses.  He tried to open his eyes but they were somehow sealed shut.  Clawing at his lids, Rhynos scratched dried blood, mucous, and phlegm.  His jagged nails tore into his own soft flesh, fresh blood spilling into his opening eyes.Everything was still perfectly black.  His eyelids flickered—he forced them to flicker open—closed—open—closed.Still black.The warlock screamed—raw anger, primal rage welled up through his throat.  He crouched over against the damp earth, slave to a coughing fit.  Blood from his eyes and parched throat dribbled into his stomach forcing him into a fit of gagging.“Rhy—Rhynos?”Rhynos stopped moving, forcing the fits to cease.  He listened close to the dark but it was as silent as it was black in this hell.  F*ck!  Now I’m going mad, he thought.“Rhy—Rhynos?”“Who’s there?!” he hissed into the dark.“It’s G-g-g-g-gardone,” sighed a weary voice.  Rhynos’ face slid between his hands, pain boiling through his brain.  The last few moments of memory flashed across his mind’s eye.  Gardone turning on him.  Gardone suffering his wrath.  Pain and a hole through his chest. And something—no someone else—someone fluid and murky like his memories.  He grasped harder, his nails opening fresh wounds along the sides of his face.“It can’t be.  I killed you.”  Rhynos’ arms slipped down to his wound.  There was no hole, nothing but his smooth flesh.  Gardone giggled a raspy laugh.  “Killed me?  Killed me did you?  Well, my exalted Lieutenant, then it looks like you failed miserably.”“I killed you—you godd@mned traitor!”  The warlock leapt toward the voice, his head bashed into soft earth above.  However, his momentum carried him through and he landed on his sergeant.  His arms shot out, grasping a head.  He wrenched and forced it into the damp earth behind—back and forth endlessly.  Gardone laughed—loud and maniacally.Rhynos’ felt fluid splash in his face but he kept moving.  Gardone’s head forward—back—into the air—and into the dirt.  But the laughing did not end.Finally—frustrated and at a loss—the warlock fell away, curling again upon the moist earth.  The peal of laughter continued.  Rhynos tried to take stock of his surroundings:  not so far he heard the drip…drip…dripping of water, the earth smelled of moisture—dank and old, he felt cold but the air seemed warm, hungry—he was so hungry.“How long have we been here?” he demanded.“Forever…and not so long.  Time loses its meaning in darkness.”  “I am not going to play games with you.”“Oh but you should, I do so love games.”  Gardone’s voice had shifted, losing its deep tone as it slid upward; masculinity lost, femininity gained.“G-gardone?”  Rhynos slid back a bit.  He felt a gentle breath on his shoulder.  He tried to spin away but a talon caught him, unbending like a vice it held him in place.“I brought you dinner, child.”“W-who?”“I am your mistress.  I am your mother.”  She paused—allowing the words to settle upon the muggy darkness.  “I am your Goddess.  To me you do owe a great debt.”  A light flared not so far away, her talon receding.  She set a thin, faint candle upon the damp earth.  Before Rhynos, crouched upon the floor, a beauty—flawless, pale beauty sat.  Her long hair was her only covering and even it seemed to despise the idea of modesty.  No, the black hair danced away, luring Rhynos’ urges forward.  He turned away, gripped with uncertainty and the need to see Gardone.  A body lied broken upon the floor.  Despite the week or more of rot, Rhynos could recognize its features—even despite the pulpy skull he had recently smashed futilely against the earth.  Death clung to the warlock’s nostrils.A wail brought his eyes to his Goddess again.  She held a bundle of cloth in front of her body, mostly rags but something inside tossed and turned.  A tiny hand lifted from the pure white—grasping for heaven.  “I have brought you dinner.”  She smiled, her lips sliding easily past jagged incisors.  Her right hand reached around what must have been its throat.  He saw again her talons and watched as the white began to stain red.Hunger clawed at his stomach.  His arms reached slowly—tentatively toward the offering.  She tossed it callously.  He snatched it from the air—the infant was still wailing albeit softly now, he remarked—and brought the warm flesh to his lips.  He felt his lips part, felt the hunger claw outward, felt warmth spreading through his limbs.“Eat, drink and be merry—” she whispered with an amused smile playing across her lips.Rhynos brought the babe closer—its cries had ceased.  He felt the bones break in his strong grasp.  The body crushed in his grip, fluid spurting down his throat and into his stomach.  The hunger wasn’t passing though…it just kept growing.  Stronger, stronger…and stronger.“For yesterday you died.”Rhynos tossed the corpse to the ground.  “More,” he demanded.Lillith smiled.</blockquote>

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