A thick cloud of steam slithered across the surface of the underground lake as his burnt hands made contact with the water, exchanging the scorching heat inside the upper half of his body with the outside.
The man kneeled on the shallow surface, as a dilution of blood, ash, and dead skin polluted the pristine underground lake.
| Cough |
That gave me time to process some things.
'Why is that thing still alive?... More importantly, wh- why does he seem so... so relaxed?'
In a few seconds, the blazing rose inferno radically transformed the kid's appearance, burnt his clothes and skin, and boiled most of his brain and lungs.
I was sure they had because even at this distance I could still feel the temperature on both.
'What is...'
That's when they touched.
A ghastly spark lighted the moment his grievously burnt body made contact with the body of liquid. The ever-calm surface trembled in unexplainable excitement, as tiny, brimming droplets of water moved in unison along the surface.
| Splash |
In the blink of an eye, he was gone.
The kid, what remained of him, dove into the lake.
An exact copy emerged from the waters.
His dark, abysmal eyes gazed back at me.
I staggered back.
'I'm sure I saw 2 of them just now...'
One diving into the lake, another one rising from it.
My body couldn't help but jerk further backward in abject terror,
still not entirely able to process what was going on.
'He is fully healed!!!'
My eyes trembled in commotion as I tried to discern whether my senses were portraying reality or a mere distortion of it.
But it wasn't.
The copy, I could feel it breathing, sentient, and now walking towards me.
'Curses!!...'
I subconsciously gave a step back, as I reignited my flames.
'He is not a joke... He is not a joke.'
My eyes trembled. The kid was a marksman, a water marksman.
His new body was completely naked, so this time there was no denying it.
This was my chance though...
My vision refocused on his torso, arms, legs, and up to his neck.
Thin marks glistened with lusterless radiance, carved by the mark along his body like the sizzling scars of a far-gone time.
Tidal waves.
Bubbles, droplets, streams of water.
Then hearts and brains... Blood.
I gave another step back.
'Think think think. He obviously used the heart and brains on his upper chest to strangle me unconscious. And then the other three... Four. I don't know what they do.'
"Shit..."
I cursed under my breath.
My legs trembled and my gaze lowered to meet the marks of burning rose vortexes along my left leg, turning lifeless for a second.
| Clench |
Cold damp reality hit like a truck.
'He is toying with me.'
The surface of skin covered in marks was indicative of a marksman's power.
The number of themes on his marks described the number of splits he could use.
'Roughly 1/6 of my skin is covered in marks... So I am a fractional.'
The palms of my hands started heating.
'And I have just a single split... This aberrant vortex of flame.'
The tip of my nails reignited.
'That thing on the other hand.
That is at least a full six splits-'
My thought process broke, and my body froze.
Somehow. There was someone right behind me...
POV SHIFT: ???
Marks.
A mark would only tolerate inhabiting within the skin of the ones who had persevered. Whatever kind it was, a mark meant the conquering of a nightmare.
The undampened, unfiltered rebirth of the human soul.
Be it for better or for worse.
Fire meant igniting desire on the verge of death.
The capacity to find meaning when all that waits is a void.
To find a way... To create a way forward into the future.
Just like desire was common among men,
fire was the most common among marksmen.
...
Water wasn't much different.
Just like fire, water was for those who had stared at the very abyss with their own eyes.
The flame had found a reason to crawl back from desperation. The droplet had not.
Water was for the ones who had failed to find meaning, and still made it out of hell.
For the ones who had found themselves unable to accept the cold solace of death and now remained hollow.
It stood for what most would understand as defeat... Defeat of the mind. The death of the soul. The burial of one's humanity.
To the ones who had irrecuperably lost all forms of emotion...
To those, we called water marks.
...
The reaper's steps had always followed close behind me. Each turn of a corner could only mean it was getting closer.
"Old man..."
I muttered in an inaudible voice, my gaze falling to the abyss below my feet.
The faint shape of a skull drifted in the shadows. Its empty sockets stared deeply at my body, its mangled arms attempting to reach me one last time, before seamlessly vanishing back into the maws of the void.
Tick.
Tack.
Tick.
'That sound again.'
My face twitched.
The sensation of having a brand new one was always uncomfortable... Even if the differences were minimal, the little connections between those new hundreds of muscles always changed.
Letting out a long, tired sigh, I let my eyelids slip open.
'It smells like meat...'
I thought as I remembered it was my flesh that had just burned.
'Now... Ahh, yes.'
I stopped walking forward like a mindless pawn. My gaze refocused, skipping the ill-looking silhouette of the girl, instead, they darted directly toward the entrance to the cavity hall.
...
| Step Step Step |
A tall man dressed in an impeccable, elegant dark-purple suit.
Like a lifting veil, his manifested from mere nothingness.
The soles of his sharp, black shoes clacked against the irregular surface of the cave.
His head was covered by a complimenting bowler hat, which somehow obstructed his face from being seen.
'Orderly as always.'
The man brought a folded towel on his left arm.
Even before entering the convergent space, Purple-man's stare couldn't help but settle on the anomalous object sitting right across the room.
Like an automated, silenced rifle, his attention bore holes through the clueless young woman, who couldn't help but weakly jolt back in terror as her flames grew dimmer.
| Grll! |
A low-pitched snarl bounced against the hard stone walls.
One to be expected.
Purple-man was not of the kind to let foreign things invade his turf, which mixed with the pungent smell of charcoal must have brought him some bad memories.
"Thanks."
Halting his pace, the man bent down, offering me a towel and a new suit with both hands.
'He is getting better at this.'
Even though there was no practical need for any of those, I decided against declining the offer. So I wiped the few remaining dead cells along my upper body and nimbly equipped my suit before returning the used towel.
"You can leave..."
Picking the wet towel, Purple-Man bowed down respectfully before silently disappearing into the darkness.
'Now.'
I stood up from the ground, not before letting out a barely audible chuckle.
It had been a while since I had allowed such bad burns on my body. The sensation of having your organs cooked from within was not exactly pleasant.
'Brain soup...'
Careful not to upset my joints too much after reconstruction, I walked my way back to the wooden containment crates I had been sitting on, to begin with.
My hands reached back for the ancient book.
Its cover, although it had lost some color, did resist the advance of time and to my surprise, I had somehow managed to protect its flammable pages from being burnt to cinders.
So I collapsed on the crates and continued reading the book.
...
"What is this."
The girl's voice caught my attention.
'Ahh! I almost forgot... Should I send her to sleep again?'
I thought.
We both stared at each other for a couple of seconds.
Now only a few feet stood between us and I was well aware her mark had been ignited.
So being burned again was certainly not out of the question.
...
Her brown eyes blazed with uncertainty.
Blood left his lips from visible bite marks.
"What is this place?.. Why am I here? And that mn... Wha- What was that thing just now!!"
Her tone cracked. Her voice became shaken by the end of the sentence, her cheeks flared up by the second, her eyes watery. She was about to cry.
'How sad. I guess.'
Of all things, I didn't like people crying, it was a waste of fluids, so I chuckled and answered.
"Nowhere."
I didn't let her finish talking.
One of my fingers raised in the air.
"This place is called nowhere. Welcome."
I continued.
"The reason you are here... Simply put, you don't exist, you never did exist."
Placing my hand inside the half-torn pocket on the abdomen of my suit, I pulled out a perfectly folded piece of newspaper. The article on the main page landed exactly on her feet.
It read: 'No witnesses, no bodies, no suspects.'
'Human-trafficking criminal cell vanishes from Sector T#24 in a single night. Amongst them alleged hard drugs and pawn trafficker Gerth Davis, and long-persecuted murderer Tony K...'
Her shaking eyes hovered above the pages in rapid succession.
Confusion, and desperation built up in her expression.
'...amongst them, suspected hostage Emma Thomson and Anna Paulo, just as more than thirty other anonymous casualties police have yet to confirm... ...Last reports confirm given the nature of the incident Inquisitional forces will be taking over...'
For a few short seconds, I stared at the ceiling...
"People who don't exist are only found nowhere."
I muttered as I raised a second finger.
Her blank gaze focused back on me.
"As for your last question... No one."
Her expression darkened.
"That 'thing' you just saw. That man is no one. A no-man, as I like to call them..."
A cheeky smile appeared on my face,
then I turned around and continued reading the book.
...
"What do you want from me."
I frowned.
Who would guess the girl had turned out to be a moron...
The round of questions was not over, I threw her a bothered eye glance.
"Your body."