Sylun's steely sclera assessed the environment beyond the chewed-out ship, drifting like a famished vagabond. There was a faithful whirl of raw, beastly emotions invading his soul, enhancing the flow of power he felt through each pulse.
I need more, he chanted on and on in flustered murmurs.
He didn't mind the parasites leaching his rationale away, however. If that would nurture his strength, he was vying to offer himself as their vessel.
"Sylun, this is strange. His blood became highly unstable. I need a few drops of yours. He might lose his sanity at any instance." Mara beckoned. "It's the only way we can cure him."
Neither did he mutter a single word under a few breaths, nor did he look at the princess tending to his abuser. Streams of deep carmine decorated his entire body.
"I thought he already lost his, and I hope you do, too."
"Okay, I get it! Just come here! Lend me a damn hand and shut your yap, will you?"
"Every shred of help is branded with its own price." He mocked the princess, "And I have mine."
"His life is on the line, imbecile! Is this how you act on someone's deathbed?"
"Did he think twice, or maybe once before abusing my mother and treating us like shit? Tell me, did he? And what did your father do to stop his favorite bitch from sating his bloodlust?" Sylun raised his tone, each as loud as the other. "You stood there as well, observing in silence as we bled."
Retaliation burgeoned in her chest, but she chained her tongue from lashing out.
Sylun hurtled towards the dying, swayed his arms, and fought the fog. He pursued Mara's footsteps and squatted, the grey in his eyes retreating. "I can't let this haunt me for as long as I breathe." He squeezed a fair amount into Derod's speechless mouth as the princess held it open.
Derod wheezed.
"What are you looking at?" Sylun asked.
"Why?"
"Why not? Your beady eyes and that bush you call a beard will curse me as I sleep. Don't get used to it."
"I could say you garnered my respect, even for an Anomaly, but an outcast is an outcast." Derod said with a rather unfaithful, stern look. "I'd rather let those crushing suckers crunch on my skull than be saved by your kind."
The water decolorized into a malicious tone of black as the misty layer thickened.
Derod examined the area with careful turns in each direction, rising to his feet. "Beware, the fog –"
The turbulent ebbs spiraled, playing with the ship. One mighty vortex pummeled the ship out of its course as the inferior ones rushed it along the deranged path. Mara's hands pounced on her companions before the obscurity intensified and grabbed onto both their sleeves, but one was fated to be a worthless shred.
The vessel smashed into a jagged rocky wall, snapping in half and dividing them.
****
The wind dragged in a gut-wrenching odor.
Sylun's nails dug into the coal soil and pushed against the coarse bed of charred grains. He stood up, rubbed his eyes, and gushed the sable powder from his nostrils. A faint, yet icy, wave of black tugged at his bare feet.
"What the hell?"
The murky backwash receded.
Sylun's serried jaws imprisoned his breath.
Dear God! A rotten arm. His head swayed in a steady swing around, counting the myriad of skeletal features—including ribs, shoulder blades, and shattered skulls – scattered along the coast. The parts were smothered in discolored rags, and skin was plastered over them. The rotten strips of flesh he could hardly distinguish.
He turned to his heels and commenced.
What's that strange heap ahead? The thought riddled his mind.
His stance shifted in careful paces as he incurred an overwhelming surge of an eerie aura emanating from the rumbling pile.
The stack of severed, rumbling limbs and other organs was untouched by the mundane palette of remorseless crimson and black and white. They tucked a blade in his cognition; every question scourged his mind.
From a safe distance, he raised his right index finger, circled it, and forged a ring ablaze in a silver fury. The ring's brilliance enlightened the depressive atmosphere. It throttled and exploded on contact. Fumes as dark as his suffering bristled from the stack.
"How… how come it's not burned?"
He sneered at the target as he barreled and discovered the truth: they were smoldering, yet the infernal influence left them unscathed.
"The hell? No!"
Several tubular creatures, resembling leeches coated in white, creeping fur, latched onto their prey. They emerged from the fuming, chopped limbs. They feasted like maggots, boring holes into the skin, slithering in and out like morbid laces. The regions they invaded were shedding their pearly cream and adorning the horrific black of the coastal sand.
Without his own consent, Sylun's fists adopted a sinister variation of carmine. He weeded them out of their feeding site. They reflected tenacity as they clamped onto her skin, sucking blood until they were crisp and collapsed into ashes.
Some defiant members pierced his skin despite the burning. Sylun uprooted them, slinging them into the distance. Others escaped, half-scorched, into the earth.
Sylun absorbed the flames and followed them through a series of cauterizations. He returned to the coast and scooped up a handful of the freezing, turbid liquid. He spattered drops of it on the victim's face and patted on the cheeks.
"Mara!"
The stagnant quietness answered for her.
"Mara! Wake up!"
"You… you don't need me. Why… care…" Her lips parted as she frisked her side pocket. The putrefying princess exacted a fierce emerald vial, and a glass snake twisted around it. She ingested the viscous liquid, some of it cascading from the corners of her mouth. Halfway through, the vial slipped and sank into the sand while her lips welded as one.
Sylun picked up the vial and pressed it against her lips, pouring the leftovers. He speculated that a change would occur, one that would relieve his guilt.
Fate is like a gambler's coin. It can never land on both sides at once, Sylun assumed, staring at the embodiment of his thoughts.