The wintry breeze caressed Sylun's gaunt, hollow cheeks, chilling him to the bone. The first bounty secured in two weeks – a measly dozen of copper coins succeeded in carving a smile onto his face, one embraced in scars. He evaded the townsfolk, slipping into the outskirts – a sanctuary for the damned.
This should suffice for a month, he thought.
He hiked to the brothel, humming a triumphant tone through the journey. Despite the contentment, a premonition whispered images into his mind. He disposed it, until he reached his destination.
What the hell?
The bag slipped from his frostbitten fingers. The door snapped in half, dismantled from the hinges, injected anxious jolt in his heart. He stepped in. Streaks and blotches of dark crimson spanning across the mossy walls plagued his sight. An agonizing bellow pierced the air from the end of the corridor. He hurdled the mutilated corpses scattered on the granite floor, edging closer and closer to the echoing scream.
God please tell me she survived.
He crept to the room's entry but shielded himself behind the walls. Running his fingers along the doorframe, his guts coiled. He slid his head inch by inch till he captured a glimpse of the scene.
Pulses clogged in his feeble veins. A stalking, lecherous nightmare would prove itself as a more redeemable convict than the view at the far right corner. His mother, dressed in fresh cuts from scalp to sole, bled from her orifices, including her crotch.
"Where's the Anomaly?" a rugged voice demanded.
"I'm not selling my son off to a damned hypocrite like you."
"Look whore, I'm not here to buy your bastard. Tell me where he is and you escape with – "
The masked man sniffed like wolf who caught the scent of it next meal and averted his tenacious gaze, locking onto Sylun. The assailant forsook his crushing grip on the half-naked harlot, tossing her aside.
"Well, well, well, not everyday does the prey waltz into the predator's maws." he said, licking his lips as he leered at him.
"No need to be shy. We can all settle this in the painless fashion."
"Sylun… run!"
He squirmed, struggling to tear his bare feet nailed onto the icy granite.
"There's no need to flee, Anomaly. You know you can't." he paused, chuckling, "Let me just say that my lord wants you untouched. Can't say the same about the slattern.
A violent shock stung Sylun's brain, slithering down the spine and enslaving every nerve in searing torment. Seething, he responded with a frigid silence.
A twisted concoction of wrath and desperation rooted its dominance. It extinguished the control he grasped over the soul and conscience. Blood vessels bulged like a network of throbbing ridges underneath his pallid skin. The grey pupils abandoned its mundane ashen shade. They adopted a coal black hue, pillaging the remaining white.
Sylun's arm shot up, aiming at the target. A sable vortex spiraled on his lacerated palm, expanding like a rampant tempest. Blasts of darkness erupted and swept through the target.
The curtain of smoke unveiled the victim, erect and unscratched, sheltered by a wall of golden hexagons.
"Calm down, I have no time for your games."
The barrage was far from its last breath. He resumed his attack, projecting ceaseless spheres engulfed in black. Every hit orchestrated to sing the stranger's dirge, however with each burst unleashed, he choked on a mouthful of acrid, malodorous blood. Sylun rebelled against his limits, dismissing the recoil bringing him to his feet. He raised a scaly knee, securing a position and fired.
"Your skull's as hollow as my sympathy for rats. This is truly amusing."
Step by step, he strolled with the barrier, absorbing the strikes and fortifying it on impact. The man stood a feet or two from him. He kept tapping his feet, elbows crossed until Sylun's volley petered out. The Anomaly disgorged a parting gush of stinging blood. His eye succumbed to the gentle lullaby of inky shadows.