Chapter 14: Paradise Lost

Chapter 14:
Paradise Lost

 

DAFYDD PLANNED TO HOLD a lavish banquet that night at the research lab for Flum and her guests, along with Gadhio, Tia, Kindah, and Claudia. After finishing their tour, he told Flum he would come calling for her once everything was ready.

“It sure is getting late.”

“I know. We’d normally have had dinner by now.”

Flum and Milkit were lying side by side on the bed, chatting while they waited for time to pass. However, Dafydd still hadn’t shown up. Flum figured that researchers tended to work erratic schedules, and that he probably ate dinner quite late, but even so, her stomach still rumbled in annoyance. She blushed deeply as Milkit looked down at the source of the noise.

“Hey, listen, today was really busy…”

“Being hungry is a completely healthy thing, Master. Should I make something simple to eat? There’s a kitchen here, after all.”

“No, it’s fine. Besides, it’d be awkward if you were making something when he showed up.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“My stomach’s just a little impatient, is all. I’m totally fine.” She had to be strong, even if it was only a matter of pride.

Milkit wasn’t so easily deceived. “Hm.”

Without any further conversation, the room fell into silence. The only sounds to be heard were those of their breathing. It was so quiet that Flum started to feel sleepy.

“You can sleep if you’d like. I’ll wake you up if Dafydd gets here.”

“I guess it couldn’t hurt to nap for a half hour or so.”

She decided to take Milkit up on the offer, slowly letting her eyelids fall closed. Within moments, she felt her consciousness begin to drift away.

“…a…ena…”

She was on the edge of deep slumber when a voice broke through the silence.

Flum’s eyelids fluttered open, and she looked up to find Milkit watching over her.

“Is something wrong?”

“I heard…I heard a person’s voice. Did you say something?”

Milkit shook her head. Figuring it was just her imagination, Flum was about to close her eyes when she heard the voice yet again.

“…W…hy…”

The voice kept cutting in and out, making it nearly unintelligible, but she could tell it was male.

“There it is again!”

“Oh? I’m sorry, but I don’t hear anything.”

Flum hopped down from the bed and closed her eyes to focus in on what she was hearing.

“…must…oh…”

There it was again. This time the pitch was higher, like that of an older woman. Flum moved slowly toward the door, where the voices emanated.

“But tha…dest…”

“The…will f…”

Flum was sure now that there were two people out there. Why would they be talking outside our room?

She considered throwing the door open to see what this was all about but decided it was more prudent to put her ear to the door and listen instead.

“Why should they live?” “Just destroy them.” “Who cares about those lives?” “Kill.” “Start with the arm.”

“Cut the arm open for a taste.” “Rip the skin off.” “Let’s put it in a box.”

“It’ll fit if you snap the spinal cord.” “It must be done.”

“Must not get away.” “What’s wrong with murder?” “No permission yet.” “Must connect.” “How will we lead?”

“Must open the vortex first.” “Get inside and connect to the brain.” “Become one, we all become one.”

“I want to see its squirming insides, even if only once.”

“We’ll kill this time, then connect the next.” “Cut it off.” “This is not fit for connecting.”

“Better to bleed.” “I say we cut the stomachs open.” “Where’s the connection point? How should a hole be made in the skull?”

“Three, four, two, five, seven…” “We won’t hurt at all.”

“Aaah, it’s tight, so tight.” “I want the uterus.” “I cut off the nail beds.”

“They must suffer.” “Kyiii, kyiii, kyiii.” “I hear a siren.” “We must take it.”

“I’ll stitch the arteries back up.” “D-d-danger…”

“Still not enough.” “Eeugh, it’s…good enough…” “You must do it.” “It’s too late, it’s all too late.”

There were so many different voices that she lost count—at least several dozen, if not more. Flum felt a shiver of fear run up her spine. She stumbled forward, and her elbow banged against the wall.

The voices stopped immediately, though if she listened closely, she could still hear the ragged breathing of multiple people just beyond the door. They were still out there. Blocking Flum and Milkit’s only means of escape.

Could they really get so many people into such a narrow hallway without me hearing any footsteps? When did they get here? And how??

That raised another question: were they even human?

One voice spoke up. “Tonight.”

Another joined in. “We will act tonight.”

The rest of the crowd voiced their agreement.

“Yes, tonight is best.” “Tonight, tonight.” “I can’t wait any longer.” “I can finally feed.” “We will wait until tonight.”

“Master…?”

“Stay back! Just…just wait over there, Milkit.”

There was nowhere left to run.

Considering the target-rich environment, it would be easiest for her to fight them at the natural choke point formed by the doorway. Flum gripped the Souleater tightly in her right hand and grabbed the door handle in her left. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to steady her breathing and start building prana.

She pressed down on the handle, and the lock released with a loud click. She threw the door open in one swift motion.

There was absolutely no one there.

“Huh?”

She dashed out of the room and scanned the hall. It was completely deserted.

“What did you hear, Master?”

“You really didn’t hear anything?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Huh, so I guess…”

She wanted to say “just my imagination,” but cut herself short. Perhaps she needed to be even more cautious about the Necromancy project than she had been. She’d had a weird vibe ever since they arrived in Sheol—to say nothing of the strange looks everyone gave her.

Were they all a part of her imagination as well?

“No, it can’t be.”

She knew what she was sensing was real, which could only mean there was something strange going on here. However big or small that something might be.

“There’s something I want to check out. Come with me, Milkit.”

“I’ll follow you anywhere, Master.”

Flum took Milkit’s hand and fled the room.

She needed to discuss this with Dafydd or one of his other researchers, so she made her way to Experiment Room #1. It was the biggest room in the facility, so she figured it was the most likely place to find someone.

 

***

 

“Hey, Gaddy, what do you think of this dress?”

Tia stepped in front of him, looking down at herself. The banquet was going to be her first opportunity to formally introduce herself as Gadhio’s wife. While Gadhio planned to just go in his normal clothes, she had no such intent.

“Why don’t you reply, Gaddy? I know you’re looking at me. Listen, I know you’ve never been good with things like this, but sometimes a lady wants to wear something the person she loves picked out for her, okay?”

Clink.

Tia heard a metallic sound and slowly, hesitantly turned around.

“Ga…ddy?”

Gadhio held a black sword in his right hand. He stood there silently, his face devoid of any expression. He just stood there, cold and emotionless, like he had become one with the blade. He angled the tip toward her.

“Wh-what are you doing? Why…why would you do this to me?”

No response.

“Are you mad at me, Gaddy? I guess I can understand that, we’ve been apart for six whole years. But you don’t need to do that! You’re just trying to scare me, right?! Cut it out, Gaddy, this joke has gone too far! You’re scaring me!! Just put the sword down…”

Gadhio maintained his silence.

“Please…please cut it out. I didn’t come back for it to end this way…”

“Tia…”

“Wh-what?”

“I love you more than anyone else ever could.”

“Then why would you do this? Is it because I’m not normal anymore?”

Now that Tia thought back on it, Gadhio had been acting strangely ever since he got back. He’d had no interest in her dress for the banquet, only providing vague responses when asked about her hairstyle or other choices in jewelry. She had no idea what had happened to make him change so suddenly, but she couldn’t imagine anyone could so callously kill the one they loved.

Tia’s eyes began to overflow with tears. “I’m…not normal, is that it? Was I really that strange?”

“No, it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it? I’m back, I’m alive again. I thought that we could finally be a couple, that I could be your loving wife once again! Sure, I’m stuck in Sheol because of the focal core right now, but someday I’ll be able to leave this place! I…I’ll finally have my life back!”

“No, you’re finally alive again, and that’s enough. You’re perfect…too perfect, in fact.”

Gadhio longed to cry, but no tears came. Maybe that was because he’d left her behind once before. As far as he was concerned, Tia was already dead, and his heart had been frozen ever since that fateful day six years ago.

No matter how hard he trained, he still couldn’t change the past. It had all seemed so pointless. But the fact that his heart had been frozen for so long carried its own significance.

“There is one small difference. And try as I might, I can’t change the fact that I know you’re not the same Tia I once loved.”

The way she breathed. How her fingers moved. The way she cast her gaze. How she spoke. None of it stood out individually if he didn’t pay attention, but taken all together, the little differences built up.

“Just…you can overlook all that, Gaddy. You know, there are a ton of places I’d been dreaming of going once we were reunited! We can visit the ocean off to the south and relax at the hot springs in Franda! There’s more, there’s so, so much more to do, Gaddy!”

“I wanted to go there with you, too!” Gadhio cried. He’d hoped to just kill her without a word, but now that he stood before her, it was impossible. More than anything else, he would have loved to be with her. “I wanted to…but…that’s why I can’t turn a blind eye to all this.”

“Gaddy…”

Tia wasn’t the only person in the room suffering. She knew all too well that Gadhio had agonized greatly over this decision.

Her whole body slumped in resignation.

“I need to put an end to all this.”

“…I know.”

“While you’re still Tia. Before it’s too late…”

“Before I become…not me? I…I guess you’re right. It was a tiny, nagging feeling in the back of my mind, but I noticed it. I told myself it was just part of being brought back to life, but that’s not it at all, is it?”

Tia truly believed that she was Tia Lathcutt. But, much like Gadhio, she could also sense that there was something slightly off about her.

“Honestly, my mind’s been fixated on the lab for a while now,” she said. “Whoever or whatever is inside of me is making me focus on it.”

“That’s probably because Flum’s there.”

“That’s probably it. That thing inside me is desperate for her.”

Whatever that feeling was had nothing to do with Tia.

“Dafydd told me once that you couldn’t bring people back to life if all you had was their body. You needed their spirit, too. I guess that means I’m just an empty shell, huh?”

“Is that possible?”

“When someone dies, their soul moves on. All that remains is a shell. If you put something else in the shell, then that thing takes the form of Tia Lathcutt.”

“That’s…a completely different being.”

“That’s right. I…I want to believe I’m Tia, but I know that’s not the case.”

Now that she’d admitted it to herself, the feeling that her own skin was foreign to her crept over Tia. If things had been slightly different—if some other being had worked its way into what remained of Tia Lathcutt, maybe she could have accepted it more easily. But that wasn’t what had happened. She was a failed attempt at recreating Tia, and that was unacceptable. If even she couldn’t accept it, beginning to reject the core within her, the connection that kept her alive would begin to fracture.

Tia offered up a mirthless laugh. “Well, this is pretty impressive, isn’t it, Gaddy? At the very least, I get to be killed by a friend this time. I guess I should be happy about that.”

Her right arm started to convulse. Something squirmed just underneath her flesh.

“Your arm…”

“I think the Necromancy core can’t suppress it any more, now that I’ve accepted what I really am.”

He wanted to refute it—to hold her close—but Gadhio just couldn’t do it. He had already killed his own heart.

“I’m sorry, Gaddy, I shouldn’t have said all that. And now I’m making you do this, too.”

“Don’t apologize. This is something only I can do.”

“I know our time was short, but I’m really happy we could live together again as husband and wife. Really, I was so very happy with you, Gaddy. Hundreds of times happier than any other wife ever was.”

“I…I’m glad to hear that.”

“That means…you’re the best husband any woman could ever ask for, Gaddy. Anyone who’s with you will be happier than they ever thought possible!”

Even now, Gadhio’s eyes were bone dry.

“Tia, I…I…!”

Meanwhile, tears streamed down Tia’s face.

“I’m still a little crybaby, I guess. But…you’re just so sweet, I can’t get over it. That’s why I fell in love with you in the first place.”

“Tia…I love you more than anyone else in this world ever could!”

This was probably the first time he’d ever expressed such strong feelings for another human being. Gadhio had always been shy. He’d barely managed to fumble his way through proposing to Tia, but she’d loved even that part of him—and now, she was overjoyed beyond words to hear him express his love with such passion.

Gadhio lifted his sword up into the air. Prana filled the blade.

He wasn’t strong enough to destroy the core, but he still needed to remove it from her body.

He couldn’t afford to hesitate, though reluctance weighed down his arms like a heavy chain. Gadhio let out a powerful scream and smashed through it as he swung down with his blade.

“I love you!”

As the blade tore through Tia, the prana seeped into the cut. Her body opened, and a dark orb flew out of her.

“Ga…ddy…”

She lost consciousness for the second—and hopefully final—time. A puddle of blood pooled around his sleeping princess. The most honorable and beautiful creature to have ever lived.

After wiping away the blood, Gadhio let his arms hang loosely at his sides as he burned the scene into his mind. “Wait for me, Tia. I’ll be with you soon enough.”

His sword never left his hand. His farewell said, his heart was set on what he had to do. His fight was not yet done.

“But it’s not my time yet. There’s still someone I need to face.”

The word “Chimera” rang through his head. He hated everything about the church, but it was Chimera that had ripped the most important person in his life from him, and Chimera he was obliged to repay. As he stood there, steadying his breathing, he could feel anger and hatred welling up to fill in the hole in his heart.

He’d lost all hope of a bright future. The only thing that could satiate him now was seeing his grudge through to its end.

With each breath he took, his nostrils filled with the coppery scent of blood.

Opening his eyes, he gazed upon the stained corpse of his wife, her organs spilling from her wounds. He needed the image. If he ever let himself forget it, he couldn’t go on.

After some time, a man intruded upon this sacred place. Dafydd had finally arrived to summon them to dinner.

His eyes went wide at the incomprehensible scene. He was completely beside himself. “But…why…?? Did you do this?!”

Gadhio slowly turned to face him. “Yes, I did it. Did you know about all this, Dafydd?”

“Know about what?! No…no, there’s no possible excuse for what you’ve done! I thought you were like me—I thought you, of all people, would have understood my dream!!” Dafydd could see this as nothing other than betrayal. “You loved Tia, didn’t you?! How could you possibly do this to her? You’re no different from Chimera!!”

Gadhio grabbed Dafydd by the collar and slammed him hard against the wall.

“You’ve no right to say you brought her back from the dead. She was barely more than a copy. Tia told me you knew—that those you’d brought back were just empty husks!”

“You’ve got it all wrong! That’s all humans really are—the Origin core returns them to their original state!”

“Not quite. That Tia…thing wasn’t Tia at all. I’m sure the other people living in this village have noticed, too.”

“And what’s that? You’re mistaken, entirely mistaken about all this!”

“They’re all just too afraid of waking up from this dream.”

“And what’s so wrong about dreaming? If you never wake from a dream, then it’s no different from reality!”

“No, you’re wrong! They’re constantly walking on eggshells, afraid that it’ll end! But the end is already closing in, isn’t it??”

“You have no proof of that! There’s no way…”

As if to mock Dafydd and his denial, a loud siren cut through the air. The two men glanced outside, a sense of foreboding rising within them.

A moment later, a man slammed against the window and began to bang on the glass. “Help me! Heeeelp!!!”

A woman—likely his wife—came up from behind him and took a bite out of his neck, tearing through flesh and ripping away muscle and tendons. The man’s head dangled unsteadily to the side.

“No…it can’t be… That siren would only sound if… No, who would do that to the focal core?! Let me go, I must return to the lab!”

Gadhio immediately released his grip on Dafydd, who hastily dashed from the building to make his way back to the lab.

“The focal core is in the lab…” Gadhio muttered to himself. “Flum might be in trouble.”

Just as he stepped out of the house, Eterna came running up with Ink in her arms.

“Gadhio!”

“Eterna, you’re covered in blood…”

“I’m guessing the same thing happened to you.”

In Eterna’s arms, Ink chewed nervously on her lip. Her voice was unsteady when she finally spoke. “I’m so, so sorry…”

“It’s probably better it happened sooner rather than later.”

“You were attacked?” Gadhio queried.

Eterna nodded. All she had to gain from giving into the fantasy was regret and guilt when it ended.

“I’m guessing this siren is coming from the lab? Flum’s probably in danger.”

“I was about to head over.”

“I’ll go with you.”

The three turned in the direction of the lab. Though Eterna would have preferred to take Ink somewhere safe, it didn’t seem like any such place remained in Sheol.

“Waaaugh!! Help me, someone, please!”

“Why…why?! I’m…I’m your wife!!”

“It’s…nightmare…living…nightmare!”

The cries echoing through the village as the dead turned on the living put a stop to their progress. Neither Gadhio nor Eterna could turn their backs on the people in danger.

“Hyah!” With a mighty swing, Gadhio chopped a woman in half as she attacked her husband.

“Aqua Shot!” Eterna’s water bullets blasted right through a man’s heart as he strangled his daughter.

Both victims fell limp for a moment, but the surviving cores within them stirred their broken bodies to action. Those left among the living now had to confront their collapsing dream.

Ink heard footsteps approaching them.

“Eterna, behind you!”

One of the undead, having killed his loved one, had moved on to the next living thing he could find.

“Ice Lance!” Eterna summoned up several of her fish around her. One of the fish opened its mouth and skewered the man where he stood.

However, their problems weren’t over yet. They were completely surrounded.

“Gah…I guess we’ll have to take care of all these monsters first.”

“I hope Flum’s okay…”

The two heroes swallowed their frustration and steeled themselves to fight the swarm.