The resurrected Being laid her hand on the clay rim of her coffin and climbed out slowly. She turned away, staggering toward the open tomb entrance. She reached the opening and stared out into the darkness. Even in that darkness, she could still make out the form of a spiky-haired man. He stepped forward as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she could almost make out the face of her mysterious savior.
The man yelled out some words, which she wished he had not; For her forehead began to ring violently, giving her a serious headache. Her ears had grown frail from disuse. Slowly, the man sank into the darkness. She attempted to reach out for his help, but he casually ignored her.
The pain steadily increased, her ears tingling even louder. She fell to her knees, resisting the urge to scream in pain. Still on her knees, she groped about in the stark darkness, searching for a way out.
After a few minutes passed, she located what seemed to be a wooden ladder bridge, rotting in most places. As she laid her hand on its first step, candles of green flame lit along its edges to their very end. It led straight to an open exit.
For the first time, she smiled. She came to regret this as well, for her lips tore and bled slightly, dried and cracked from centuries of rest.
Gradually, the ringing ceased, and the pain lessened as she crawled cautiously out of the lonely mass grave, fearing that she might fall into the unknown darkness below.
***
The sound of a monitor's beep and some mechanical whirring filled the air with a calm undertone, characteristic of the hospital in its nightly hours. The janitor mopped the hallways on the lower floor sluggishly, with his ears plugged, drowning out his thoughts in R&B 80s jams, completely oblivious of the happenings on the upper floor.
Strada walked up to Cain's motionless body as he placed his left hand into his coat pocket, and withdrew a snowy white petal from its mysterious depths. He places the petal gently on Cain's lips as Zora stared at him, fear in her eyes. Swiftly, the petal assumed a glittery essence, which Cain inhaled with ease. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Suddenly, the monitors and ICU appliances began to let off sparks and simultaneously got blown out. In a near zombie-like fashion, Cain slowly sat up, eyes closed.
His lips parted slightly, and a black paint-like fluid shot out of his mouth in a single gushing stream. Upon reaching the floor, the fluid formed an 8-foot large black scorpion-like creature with a leathery feel on its surface and a vicious tail. Using its numerous limbs, it sped past Strada and headed straight for Zara, for it needed a new host to possess. But the host could not be claimed alive; hence, the month-long struggle to destroy Cain internally.
The creature's speed was such that Strada could not react in time to stop it. This was a powerful beast.
Time slowed to a near halt. Strada turns his neck slowly in the direction of the beast.
Zara's eyes widen in terror. The beast had its tail a few meters from her throat, its sharp edge glowing in a faint purple hue. Suddenly, a blinding flash of blue lightning took form between Zara and her fiendish foe. A thin pair of hands reach out of the blue storm, grabbed the beast by its tail and flung it to the other end of the room. A familiar eagle-crested ring rested on one of the hand's fingers. Cain had risen.
Now out of the hospital sheets, his current condition could be assessed clearly. His eyes had sunken into their sockets. His limbs had grown thin, and his shoulder blades stuck out like a starved chicken. His ribs protruded pitifully out of his hospital gown. His skin had gone pale grey. He had hardly survived the ordeal.
Evidently, the ring too was taking its toll on him. Shortly before the beast began its attack, a small black pouch appeared beneath the hospital sheets where Cain lay. A familiar white hand of a spiny haired lord had placed the ring on his "old master's hand". The other four rings lay on a ziploc bag with the rest of his clothes, at the foot of his bed. They had been confiscated at the time of his admittance.
Thunder grumbled. The building shook and the windows shuddered. Cain raised his hand high above his head, and let it fall heavily. A mighty flash of lightning burst through the ceiling and windows, totally obliterating the fiend. All that remained was a faint black smoke. Crisis averted.
The "Otherworld" began to fall apart quickly, the glassy outlook retracting to give form back to Strada's glass marble.
It had been weakened by the thunderbolt. The marble ball fell into Strada's hand and he kept it in his pocket. (His pockets were all different dimensions, "pocket dimension"—if you will. This was his secondary gift. His primary gift was the 'word of God', his speech of command.
Now the hospital floor had returned to normal, free of any damages. Cain slipped to his knees and lost consciousness. Zara had been released from the command by Strada so She rushed forward to help Cain, tears in her eyes.
"Go to sleep," Strada commanded her again.
She lost consciousness and fell by Cain's side.
"The last one standing," Strada said to himself in a weary monologue.
"This has become quite troublesome. The girl has the eyes of God's chosen. (He noted she would not have seen the beast attacking her.) I'll have to take her with us then. What a drag."
He strolled over to the nurse and her patient and tilted his head to the left. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a large red cloth. (Quite large for something out of a pocket.) The cloth was about the size of an altar-cloth with a silky material.
He threw the cloth over them and let it descend on its own and flatten to the ground.
He picked up the cloth and dusted it.
It shrank to the size of a handkerchief. He folded up the cloth neatly and placed it in his pocket.
"Off to the manor then," he said as he walked out of the hospital building, the night wind blowing his coat backward as he moved hastily.