The Lady in Red (Original)

The Lady in Red.

Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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Another night, another city sailed by.

The train was empty, but I was lucky enough to catch it, before it began speeding out of the city and into the countryside. It was a quiet train, and I had plenty of legroom, and enough space in the car to pace at my leisure. The night was clear, so as time passed, more and more stars began to show in the horizon. 

I knew from experience that I was going to enjoy a night sky filled with stars soon, and in a train car that I had to myself, but the idea didn’t appeal to me as it typically did.

A life of moving around isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly the best. It’s okay. Staying in motels, living out of a bag, and never having a home is far from ideal, but I couldn’t complain. I had a place to live, clothes to lug around, and enjoyed my life.

As far as dying went, this wasn’t so bad.

Fool. I will be released upon the moment of your death. You may have sealed me into your being for now, but all your efforts will be in vain, Stormcaller. I would look as if I were alone to the eyes of any other. However, I was weak. I was injured. I was dying. Therefore, I couldn’t complete my task.  So, my last  foe loomed before me, a spectre of death in the guise of lust, with beauty beyond compare gnarled into a visage of hatred, anguish, and spite. This shall be your end. Powerless. Weak. Decrepit. Your legacy will be that of a man who was turned to ash by a mere vestige of my power. A testament to the frailty of your kind. 

I took her body, scattered its ashes to the winds, but her essence remained. Malignant, powerful, and more than capable of finding a host to shape, mold, and turn into her own. The fight had left me without companions. My wife died. My friends all perished. My mentor was gone. The ritual we prepared had been crushed underfoot, our means of victory destroyed, so at the battle’s end all I had left was my body.

A broken, haphazard vessel that was breaking at the seams. 

My wounds refused to heal. 

Fatigue crept into my bones. 

The edges of my vision were hazy.

All you have done is waylaid my plans, destroyed my concord, and delayed my ascension. I will live to continue my work, while you will die, and nothing shall become of you.

However, worst of all, I wasn’t even being given a chance to enjoy the stars in peace. 

“Oh, just stay dead, you jerk.” Only capable of being malicious and vindictive, she didn’t hesitate to be malicious and vindictive. I expected her to be noble, to gracious, and to pay me a few compliments. She’d been a being who both inspired awe and dread. A queen of monsters with all that title entailed. During our battle, she’d spared no time with insults, merely giving her all, as she crushed us all with all her strength and glory. Yet, instead of congratulations or acceptance, I get complaints and salt on my wounds. “Give me a little peace before the end.”

You killed me, Stormcaller. I would never grant you anything. She was wherever she wished to be in my senses. Compromising my protections for my senses was necessary to stay living as long as possible, but it’s downsides were horrific. Whatever she wanted me to hear and see, I would have reflected upon my reality. I saw her reflection instead of mine in the transparent window. Her gaze radiated embers like a blazing flame, while she bared her fangs. Perhaps, you are worthy of a grave, a commissioned piece which will declare your impotence for all time for the world, but so long as you live I will grant you not an ounce of gratitude nor respect . 

As far as reasons to be petty went, I could understand being petty towards one’s killer. I could only suppose that I didn’t feel particularly enthralled by the notion, as I couldn’t be petty in turn. That particular power belongs entirely to her. All I could do was keep her trapped until I took my last breath as far as possible from the remains of her crumbling, hidden empire. All I can do now is increase the distance between her and what remained of her influence.

It was the victory that I wished for, that those close to me endeavoured to achieve, and the dream we all aspired to reach. We would never part ways to meet one another elsewhere. The moment when we’d grow old and watch our children age would never come. This was the end. Our victory was not even pyrrhic, we did nothing but hinder our opponent, and slow her down. In the end, our actions were a mere footnote in the life of a being who measured her days as we did seconds. 

Still, I did not feel regret.

How many lives did we save from her machinations by doing this? How many generations will pass until she can attempt to ascend once more? How many opportunities will humanity have to muster a force greater than ours, while she must once again begin anew and reforge herself, then recreate another empire which will push her to near divinity?

With my life and that of my companions, humanity has been bought a handful generations to muster another force to seal her away.

Or, kill her.

So, despite her insistence, despite how she glares at me and attempts to take the whole of my vision, I enjoy the sea of stars traveling careening through sky as I speed into the countryside. 

…

At the end of the line, I walked onto the last station. It was lit only be handful of bulbs. The town beyond it was cradled by a pine forest. It was a valley town in earnest, surrounded by two mountain ranges, and I found the starry sky to be framed by the jagged edges of the mountain. What a beautiful sight to lay myself to rest. 

My luggage was heavy. I felt as though I was dragging a building, instead of my constant companion through the whole of my life. The cold air chilled me within and without. Every breath felt like flensing knives to my knives, while every breeze was a tougher battle to overcome than any other I’d ever fought. I felt nothing in my extremities, even as my heart thundered, and as the space behind my eyes ached and throbbed. I was keeping myself alive. Barely. I only hoped my efforts would suffice long enough for me to get lost in the wilderness.

It was only the slightest of hopes, that I would delay her possession of an innocent life for a few more days, but I used that thought to push myself onward.

That was my plan, yet I found that I’d been followed.

At the ramp onto the street, where the station ended and the town began, her closest aide was present. 

Of course, such is the case. Her life is mine. A wicked smile played on my prisoner’s face. It was filled with fangs and malice, while accompanied by a sharp gaze befitting the narrow gaze of a tiger focused entirely on its prey. What better end for servant than to become the next body of their master? Broken they might be, everything they are is mine, and I will accept them.

My foe stood in the darkness in a ruined suit, covered in a burnt curtain, and stood without half a chest and face. An arm, eye, and lung gone, yet she stood before me tall, if bloodied and broken. She was my prisoner’s aide, one of many, a being that I would be able to crush in a single blow without paying heed… yet she now stood before me as a far greater, more indomitable challenge than I’d ever faced.

A mere servant of the foe I’d faced before… barely capable of maintaining human shape… yet I could not do anything against her.

Though I could see her move, though I knew that I needed to intercept her leap and crush her, and though I had trained my body to be able of such things, I could not.

In a flash, ins a single moment, my foe who had been standing still was crushing my throat with a furred, clawed arm. My skin and body held, I still retained my durability and strength which allowed me to survive greater powers, but that would do me no good as I choked to death. The strength to break free from the grip would not come. It never will. I was deeply in the red in terms of what I could hope to expend in this life.

I was not to die beneath a canopy of pine branches and stars, leaving a spirit to wander the forests for days and days, but on the precipice of a town by the hands of a devoted servant of my foe.

My end was going to be more ignoble than I’d ever expected.

Or, such was my thought until a bike and its rider swept into my captor’s legs. 

The weight of a normal human being, speeding upon a bike, would’ve done little to faze the creature choking me at the height of her power. However, she was barely clinging to life in her own way. There was a snap of legs, along with a screech of pain, as I fell upon the ground. 

I felt pain, but it didn’t matter, as I was no longer alone. 

The boy was young and had scuffed his shoulder and torn his cheek for his actions, but he took one look at the monster clambering up upon broken legs, then towards me. His eyes were a muted blue, his hair hidden beneath an insulated helmet, and his form was trained just enough so that I could see the seed of talent and promise blossoming within him.

However, courage and potential lone were not enough for what I desperately wished, but didn’t even wish to consider.

That is, until, the one who saved me spoke to me.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here, man!” No. He did not know the circumstances. All he’d seen was a man being attacked by a monster, thus he mustered his bravery and chose to act. A regular human who could be torn apart with ease, who scored a blow upon a monster, did not seek to eliminate a threat… but instead save a stranger. One he was risking the whole of his life for. His clothes were a patchwork arrangement, telling of a poor livelihood. His speech was unrefined and coarse. However, despite everything, he held his hand out for me without a shred of regret. “Let’s go!”

Knowing that, while considering the danger left to me, I decided to hold onto my last, most desperate hope. 

I felt my life begin to ebb away instantly, as I took my spirit and will away from holding my body together. The seams of my wounds ruptured, blood filled my lungs, and my heart finally felt as though it were laced with bone, as it had been since the start of the evening. Each of my limbs sported ruptures of veins, becoming mottled beneath the skin, while some muscles outright refused to move. 

No! She roared in a manner that shook my brain, that ruptured my ears, and sent what little I had left of a mind into disarray. However, I reached past the mirage, past what my eyes saw, and grasped the hand of the young man who’d saved me. She was fighting me now, not merely watching as I died. She’d been savoring my slow, painful death. Alas, for her, my death was going to be swift. Cease!

I refused, grasped the hand offered to me, then poured all I had left into completing the seal into the young man who chose to save a complete stranger, in the middle of the night, from a monster.

Me.

He screamed, as I took the seed within him, forced it to flourish, and then turned into a cage. What he felt must have been an eternity of pain, but he grit his teeth and bared with it, even when smoke rose from him and his skin turned red. Blood pooled within his gaze, making me fear that my power would be too much, but as he tried to let go of my grip, I knew that he would survive. 

As he writhed in pain, his reward for trying to save a life, I spat out all that I could of what was within my lungs. 

“I’m sorry.” Those were not words he needed. They were entirely, completely selfish. I didn’t deserve to call myself anything besides a weak, frail human being for saying them, when I could have said so much more to help him, as those words will never be forgotten by him, but they were the words I chose nonetheless. “Please, forgive me.”

Then, it was over.

My muscles went slack, pain faded away, and my darkness crept in from every direction.

This is where I died and joined my companions on the endless plains.

All I could hope was that the young man who’d saved me would lead a better life than I.