Feet, walking. A city... suburb. The oh so daring knife, steel wrought for death.
Lips grinning, hands shaking. The heart throbbing of pure thrill.
Grabbing, arms strangling. A struggle, broken cries.
The gleaming silver, silencing all. Rivers of red, staining the world.
Tarnished grey, metal ringing as it strikes the stone. Scorned flesh, slamming to earth.
Mouth, parting. Words, forming. A plead... a question?
"Bitch..."
~~~
The sun had shone most brightly this day, breaking through the dreary dark of night. Illuminating that which dared to step into its midst.
A wyrm, the forlorn hope of oh so many, impaled by the hand of a leering demigod. Mouth wide, defiant of all to the very last moment; reaching out, crying for help.
The mountain of corpses, hefting her forever higher. Their marbled faces, shrieking, aghast.
A woman, a divine lord. That which hath taken pity upon the defiant. Reaching in, tearing out; flesh dripping down, an eye?
Upon voices so melodious, so calm, so pure. With words spun of hapless dreams long since forgotten; she spoke her hallowed tongue, "Partake upon my sacred flesh thus that your journey may begin again, anew. My final boon."
Taking the empyrean eye, the divine slid it into the gouged out socket. Light shone through that of every crack, illuminating all in a desperate green glow.
Chained in, the brilliance slowly faded as the ageless eye merged with its host at last. Inscriptions flickered somnolently over the body of the fallen wyrm, knitting together the rotted flesh, ages waiting.
The body, was whole once again; though, incomplete. Missing from the confines of flesh, of visage, of tissue; was a soul.
At that very moment, the body reached out for the most compatible, the most accessible soul in reach. The soul of a Verity Claire.
With watchful eyes, the goddess inspected her work. Satisfied with that which she had wrought, the divine turned to leave.
Golden wings erupted from her back, glistening under the sun's rays. With not so much a single glance, the celestial being sprung into the sky; leaving behind the coils of the mortal plane.
Scintillating feathers left behind in her wake, crashing down upon the world; hard as metal. Balance regained, time ebbed once more.
~~~
"I feel as though... I'm being pulled towards something, someone..." Groaned Verity as she, well, her soul, shot across the cosmos.
"It feels exciting... but also painful... a mix of agony and jubilation." Described Verity.
Her eyes twirled around the many sights. Alien planets, foreign skies, collapsing stars so bright your eyes would sting.
"Where am I going? Will there ever be an end?" Questioned Verity, her mind a jumble of bright lights and confusing sights.
"Perhaps this is what it feels like to die... such would be... acceptable." She frowned.
Soon after, her pace slowed. The acclaimed destination drew near. Verity looked upon it with a mixture of interest and fear.
A planet; it looked as though an artist had dropped all their excess paint upon its multi-colored surface. The many colors swirled like that of an ice cream cone dipped in sherbet. Greens and blues being the most prominent of colors though.
Such a visage delighted the weary Verity. She dreamed of her feet touching the wondrous soil once more; how scorned she must be for her wish to never come to fruition.
Descending, down, down, down. The soul was sucked into orbit. The Exosphere. The Troposphere, and finally... the "sky". From which, Verity had the perfect seat to witness the dying land with her own eyes; just sand and death for miles upon miles.
That's not to say life wasn't clinging desperately to the last vestiges of hope that had remained though. Vines and other plants of strange proportions grew through cracks of this blistering desert.
Even the sick ones remained stalwart in the face of death. Such resilience... it sparked hope within the lonesome Verity.
Flying past forests, plains and overgrown jungles. Verity wondered just how big this planet actually was.
Time seemed to warp around her, for she had lost all track of it. Days seemingly passed endlessly, to which, Verity realized that she didn't even know what a day was anymore...
The stars of warmth were really quite different than those of earth's. Being greater in number and lesser in warmth. Such was one of the few things Verity would remember.
"Interesting... there are three suns." Verity noted "Each rising and setting at completely different times."
Verity inhaled before continuing on, "One is morning sun." "It always rises after the double moons have drifted out of view."
"Another, is the midday sun; it's the dimmest of them all." She described. "Always rising after the morning sun finally falls below the world."
Catching her metaphorical breath, Verity adds, "And lastly, there's the evening sun; having to always rise just after the midday sun begins its descent." "It actually passes the double moons during eventide." Suspired Verity, her thoughts drifting off onto another topic.
"I don't know just who I'm talking to... but just... putting my thoughts out there helps me to remember them at the least... Such is normal right?" Verity Contemplated.
"Well... either way, it doesn't matter. It seems my journey is coming to an end." Sighed Verity, the speed of her astral body slowing to a snail's pace.
From her view, Verity could see a pile of marble statues stacked on top of each other like bodies; but to her dismay, they were actual corpses. Every last one shrieking and howling in utter agony.
And at the top, a wyrm. A living and breathing wyrm.
Blood trickled down from its left eye, which glowed in a dim green light. Its teeth were fearsome and deadly; looking ready to tear anything that got in their way apart.
Being blue in colour, the scales shone like a subtle ocean. Rippling across its serpent shaped body like waves.
Black patterns were spread across the canvas. They matched well with the rare blue that was indeed a pigment. The black formed pictures and descriptions of history long lost to time; battles won and sorrow sought losses.
Two menacing horns spiralled from its head. White in color, they defied the very heavens. A symbol of its nature, its purpose to tear down the heavens.
A last golden patch of scales were seemingly melded together. Like a scar from a great battle wound; the very area radiated searing heat.
Though before Verity could encapture the full visage of its glorious form. She was pulled into a vortex of air.
Verity tried to fight back. Straining her soul against it with all her will, but that just wasn't enough.
She felt her astral body compress and shrink, like it was being forced into a cramped area. Feeling her sight go black, Verity assumed she was being taken back into the afterlife.
That hope was crushed though, dropped down the highest cliff imaginable and plunged into the deepest ocean ever known. For Verity, had opened her eyes, and she didn't like what she was seeing.
Looking down upon a desert of corpses, a mountain of marbled faces screaming for help; was a Verity Claire in a body oh so foreign to her.
Panicking and unable to control her new body, Verity rolled down the pile of bodies. Landing at the bottom with a satisfying 'crunch'.
Though, it wasn't her body she had hurt. It was a giant spider that had been feasting on one of the marbled corpses.
Blood leaked out from the statue. Flesh, it was apparent, still resided inside the cores of these solemn statues.
Spiders from all over turned their heads towards the real prize. A big, fat, blood bag.
Hundreds running at their now frightened prey did well to boost their joint confidence of winning. Clicking their fangs together, they jumped at the vulnerable wyrm.
Verity thought it was over... again, but right as those thoughts came to pass, her left eye shone blue.
Suddenly, Verity felt as though she knew exactly what she was doing. Using her tail, she cleaved through at least ten of the vacuous spiders.
Their corpses rained down upon the hundreds of other spiders still charging. The smart ones got spooked and abandoned the charge to look for easier prey, but the majority of them kept on charging.
She bit into the lead spider, her teeth cutting through it like butter. Then, using her body, she formed spikes and rolled over the front line; impaling all who got in her way.
When her rolling massacre came to a stop, she ejected the spikes from her body and shot them into the faces of any nearby spiders.
With their lines destroyed, the still standing spiders scuttled off in random directions. Fearing for their lives.
As the last spider ran from sight, Verity's left eye switched to a red color and went dark. It would take a few days before the eye could be used again.
Verity sighed and collapsed onto the soft sand of the desert. Her body was shaking, she didn't know what had happened, she didn't like it either.