Zi’da 3, 717
How quickly day turned to night. How quickly the brilliant power of the greater luminary body was snuffed out by the bickering lunar forms above. It was the cyclical nature of time that everything that once had been bright and cheery eventually grew to become dark and mischievous. Of course, because it was a cycle, such unwanted time would pass, surely, but until the clocks had ticked on to that moment, it would remain a short while.
Noth meandered down the street, covered in the war gear that he typically donned, gazing up at the lesser luminary with something akin to awe. Seeing it so beautifully rendered above had distracted his ailing mind for at least a few moments, and that in itself was a blessing of which to be thankful. His mind had been abuzz ever since he had left the older woman and set off back towards the center of town, considering and contemplating all that had occurred in such a short time period.
Before the last trial, he had been entirely unaware of the presence of a malignant serial killer stalking the streets of Scalvoris, and had considered nearly the entire island to be something of a jovial and peaceful place. Upon recognition that there was a certain cancerous darkness lurking underneath its pleasant façade, however, he had set off in hopes of encountering the scum. What had driven him initially in seeking the murderer was somewhat murky, and he was unsure whether or not to attribute the desire to some tainted sense of justice, a vain satisfaction at having balanced the scales of his morality, at least to some extent. After consideration of his financial status, however, he had determined it would further be in his best interest to hunt down the killer and to secure some measure of reward for his trouble.
What had begun as a simple investigation into the local wedding store had quickly turned into something of an espionage mission, and in his endeavors he had managed to scry a name of importance and significance: Padren Oakley. He had suspected Oakley of being responsible for the crimes at hand, because his name had been marked in the record book of the store, and the dates of purchase had coincided far too perfectly with the dates when bodies had appeared, maimed and disfigured. The fact that the name had appeared so often in the stores records had provided another incriminating clue, and he had set off with haste to locate Oakley and convict him of his gruesome crimes.
Locating him had been something of a challenge, but it had been overcome with the help of some public records. Rather suspiciously, he believed that he had been caught snooping into business that he ought to have left alone by the chief worker, and, upon considering the state of Oakley, the twilight hybrid now considered that she might have known he was deceased the entire time and promptly alerted some unknown authority about his suspicious behavior and evident deception. Regardless, she had assisted him in locating the residence of Oakley, and he had gone there immediately.
What he had found, however, had not been the hardened and violent serial killer masquerading as a basic townsperson, but instead an elderly woman who have frustratingly informed him that her husband; the aforementioned Padren Oakley, was deceased. He had learned too that a second body was buried upon the site, the corpse of a young woman who had once been the daughter of a man named Torm. Torm had been the best friend of Oakley in life, but now it seemed that he kept to himself as something of a recluse, waiting industriously within his shop… making wedding dresses.
The door was locked, considered the hybrid as he finally reached his destination, staring at the small store which had been kept mashed between a pair of larger businesses. A simple locked door would not stop the hybrid, however, and he raised his mace and bashed its lock, shattering the metallic construct and sending the entire frame slamming forward, presenting to him an open passage. He did not mind that it was a somewhat noisy affair; he doubted many people were out and about, and even if they were, he knew he’d likely be gone before the Elements could ever be summoned.
The room was still deathly quiet, as though sound itself had been driven away by some strange and arcane quality, but… faintly on the edge of hearing he thought he heard something like a voice, a pathetic mewl, and it reaffirmed that he had been correct. He maneuvered past the stands of dresses and gentlemanly attire, moving beyond the lone table that separated the room from the backrooms, gazing into the blackened hallway at the doors therein. One lay blatantly open, dark and ominous, rows upon rows of stock kept within, awaiting the time when they might be used. The other door was shuddered closed, keeping out everything except the gentle crying mewls, and the burning light which snaked underneath the foot of the wooden passageway.
He raised his mace, and struck it down.
The room was dimly lit and dusky, its floor sloped downward somewhat in what he could only assume was an architectural flaw. There in plain view stood the wiry elder, Torm, his eyes open in evident shock beyond the pair of examining spectacles he kept upon his nose. There too, behind him was a frightening visage, a young woman, her mouth gagged and face reddened with tears that had long since dried hanging atop some manner of stake. He recognized it as one of the items used to hold up the dresses and assorted attire of the store, albeit fitted so that it would be capable instead of restraining the girl. She was dressed in standard clothing, but crimson eyes spied the faint edges of a wedding dress upon the table where Torm had clearly been working in fastidious diligence.
“You… came back.” He whispered uncomfortably, glancing at the table beside him for something and promptly scooping up a long needle into his hand.
“I did, Torm. I know who you are.” He accused, gesturing faintly to the girl whose eyes now gazed with newfound hope and terror at the monstrosity that had burst into the room. “I spoke with Padren Oakley’s wife.” He recited, as though the explanation were inherent, and perhaps it was.
The murderers gazed at one another for a long while, time ticking onward in its cyclical fashion until the hybrid spoke once more, this time in question, “Why, Torm? Why kill so many?”
“For Mara.” He responded quickly, clenching the needle in his hand with strained intensity, his face contorting from its grandfatherly visage into an impression of frustration.
“What does your dead daughter have to do with it?” He questioned, carefully observing the long needle, and maintaining a fair distance from the serial killer.
“Everything. Do you know what happened to her?” His voice grew angrier as he spoke, and the hybrid responded with a simple shake of his head.
“She was getting married. I raised her for so many arcs, taught her so much, and finally she was going to be leaving home. She was so happy, so beautiful.” He choked slightly at the memory, clenching his lips with his teeth until the hybrid thought they might bleed. “We held the ceremony there at Padren’s home. She wanted to look out over the cliff, see the sunrise… it was dark, she couldn’t see.”
Realization came to his crimson eyes as he considered the circumstances and the result. “She tripped.”
That elicited a tearful nod from the specter of a man. “She tripped. It was so stupid!” He screamed, reciting the words like a chant. “Her dress was too long. It sounds so ridiculous, so foolish. You always hear about people dying because they get sick or they get killed. Her life was just getting started, raised her for all that time, and she tripped on a sarding wedding dress.” He seemed incredibly angry, his voice rising in tearful rage until spittle flew from his lips.
“Why start killing? It was clearly an accident.”
“I know… It was awful, but I was okay at first. Eventually I started to heal, I started to get back into my routine, but… as time went on, I started to forget.” He glanced up from the floor, leveling his eyes at the Avriel. “You can’t possibly understand what that’s like, to have raised a daughter from infancy, to watch her die, and then to wake up one morning and realize you can’t even remember what she looked like, to realize that her face is just… not there anymore.”
“I had to see her again, but I didn’t know how. I was distraught, until one trial a customer came in… she looked just like her before the accident, I just knew that she did, and I thought ‘maybe she could look more like her’. Maybe if I make her look like her, then I’ll be able to move on, then I’ll remember.”
“You’ve never remembered, have you?”
“No. I keep trying, because eventually I know I have to remember. The girls are usually a bit too… plump to fit into the dresses, so I have to let their bodies squeeze them a bit until they can fit. I don’t like to hurt them, you understand… sometimes I’ll hug them, and hold them, and help them make the transition until they’re there.”
“And then you kill them.” Noth finished, shaking his head with evident disgust.
“It’s not enough to put them in a dress… they have to look like she looked afterwards, and I don’t want to do that to them alive. I’m not a monster.” He gazed onward, and Noth saw the truth in his eyes, the way that he believed it.
“Thankfully for us all, I am.” He whispered, and stepped forward once more, threatening the shopkeeper back towards his table.
“Stop! Stop! I won’t let you take me to prison. Not until I remember!” He seemed possessed of a horrid ferocity, like a dog backed into a corner.
The Avriel spoke calmly, his voice steady and without hatred, a mild tone lacking in much emotion, simply there to convey fact. “I’m not taking you to prison. I’m not an Element.”
“Oh… you’ll let me continue?” He spoke, his delusional mind beginning to flounder in the face of the terror.
“No. I’ll kill you.”
“Why?”
“Because I can. Because I’m the bigger monster, the greater threat. Because you’ll be neither the first nor the last, but I hope that by killing you I might make up for some of the others. I might have…”
“Justice?”
“No. Balance. At least some.”
“I won’t let you!” Torm shrieked, diving forward like a wild bat, jamming the needle forward like a deranged lunatic, the thing bouncing off of his armor and coming dangerously close to the slot he used to see. The Avriel quickly took hold of the fellow, raising a hand to deflect the needle, pushing him backwards until he was pressed into the edge of the table. They struggled only briefly, it becoming clear that the hybrid was in far better physical condition than the elderly man; he must have used poison of some method to kidnap his victims.
Noth felt the Null Gauntlet press against the man’s cheek, and he clutched at the skin there, activating the implement. He kept it held there as the fellow began to scream, the distinct scent of burnt flesh arching up to his nostrils until finally he released him to plummet to the ground, what appeared to be something akin to a chemical burn covering his face in the impression of a bloody hand.
The Prince of Eternal Mercies began to pace the jittering and thrashing form before him, crimson eyes gazing upon it without compassion. “You’re probably wondering what I’ve done to you, and I’ll grant you that knowledge as a final kindness to your sickened mind. To be blunt, I’m fairly certain I’ve just shut down your organs. All of them.”
“I understand that’s probably quite difficult to understand, especially in your state, so I’ll use an analogy. You’ve seen spiders. You know how they eat, how they inject their venoms and turn all of their prey’s innards to mush.”
“Imagine I’m a spider.”
“Unfortunately for you, that makes you a bug.”
The man thrashed, vomiting out some semblance of gory mess before twitching a final time and falling still.
“Squish.”
