Laurens Hell: Epilogue

Tomoko Nakaya

Tomoko awoke with her face pressed upon the stone floor of an empty hallway. Clutching her aching head, she rose to her knees, trying to figure out how she got there.

"God, I did it again. How much did I drink?" she asked herself, this not being the first time she had awoken on the floor with a splitting headache.

Still, something felt different this time. The woman didn't feel the other familiar symptoms of a hangover. She racked her brain until the memory came flooding back.

She shrieked as she remembered **** on the swarthy fumes and instinctively carried her hand to her throat as if to confirm she could breathe through it. She finally relaxed after filling her lungs a few times with deep breaths.

Moments later, she slapped her own face. "You idiot! You could have died! Again! Why can't you ever just think?" she shouted at herself. "Why am I such a moron?" she asked, looking down in self-loathing.

She held her head in her hands. "Why was I even-" she started, before remembering why she entered the miasma in the first place. Someone needed her help.

Leaping to her feet, she once more dashed to find the one in trouble. With the mist gone, she navigated herself quickly to the stairs and raced for the castle entrance.

She expected to find debris, having heard the destruction before, but the hall was undamaged when she arrived.

For the next few minutes, she sprinted around the chamber, looking down the various halls, just in case she had misjudged the location of the mayhem, but everything was entirely normal.

Tomoko scratched her head in confusion. 'Did I just imagine it? My head does feel pretty fuzzy.'

She shrugged her shoulders, all feeling of urgency lost. She looked around absentmindedly, spotting the large entryway. It dawned on her that some fresh air would do her good.

Stepping outside, she gazed out onto the sea of trees beneath the castle's cliff. Having grown up in bustling cities all her life, this was a completely different experience for her. She felt a sense of tranquility and serenity as she looked out at the seemingly endless forest.

After staring out long enough for the splendor to wear off, which wasn't very long due to the woman's attention span, she turned back to the castle, only to catch sight of something in her peripheral vision.

A girl was sprawled **** on the grassy ground. The goth outfit and dark hair was unmistakable: It was Lauren.

"Hey, are you okay?" Tomoko asked, but Lauren didn't respond. Remembering how to handle **** friends, due to a lifelime a partying, she refrained from touching her. Instead, she asked again, "Lauren, are you awake?"

Lauren stirred at the sound of her name. Her eyelids slowly opened, looking up at Tomoko.

"Huh... where am I?" She asked, groggy.

"You're outside. I found ya sprawled on the ground," Tomoko explained. "Did you breathe the smoke, too?"

Lauren leaned into a sitting position. "What smoke?"

"There was all this noise, like an explosion!" Tomoko described. "And someone was screaming' for help, and there was all this smoke, and..."

"The hell are you talking about?!" Lauren snapped. "This one of your junkie hallucinations?"

"I don't do ****; I just drink," Tomoko replied defensively.

Lauren rolled her eyes. "God, you're an idiot. What are you even doing here anyway?" Her eyes narrowed. "You're not the one who dragged me out here, right?"

"What? No. Why would I?"

"You tell me, pervert!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"Well, let's see," Lauren began, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "You willingly dress like a prostitute, are into girls, and offer yourself to Levi on a dime. And then I wake up with you hovering over me. So what the hell do you THINK I'm saying?"

"Are ya seriously..."

"Still too stupid to get it?!" Lauren snarled. "Well, let me spell it out for you. Keep your hands off me!"

"Jesus Christ!" Tomoko hollered. "Last time I try to help you!"

Tomoko marched back into the castle, thoroughly pissed off.

Now that she was alone, Lauren got to her feet. 'Nah, it wasn't her. She's too much of an idiot to get the drop on anyone,' she pondered. Lauren never actually suspected any of the things she said anyway, but using Tomoko as a way to vent her frustration felt good.

She looked out to the forest, wracking her memory for what happened. The last thing she remembered was walking past Alison after ignoring her warnings.

"That bitch! She must have hit me when my back was turned," Lauren said to herself, justifying how she ended up ****. "Guess I need to be more sneaky."

Lauren swung her head back and forth, looking to see if she was alone. Once she was certain Alison wasn't watching, she marched toward the stairs, about to start her escape.

However, before she reached them, she was overcome by an immense feeling of terror. She couldn't describe why, but every part of her body and mind screamed to not take another step towards those stairs. She stumbled backward onto her butt and instinctively shuffled her feet to move her away. The moment she was far enough away from the steps, she felt herself begin to calm.

"What... what the hell was that?"

Getting onto her knees, she crawled slowly towards the stone path, only to feel a pang of dread as she approached them. She shivered in fear at the sight of the inanimate stone path as if it were a horrifying monster.

To accompany her fear, a sudden image popped into her head of a satanic figure written in snakes before vanishing from her mind.

"I... I..." Lauren stammered, trying to rationalize why she was so afraid of absolutely nothing. Finally, she turned her head.

"I don't need to leave. Azure isn't shit to me. I'll beat her at her own game!" She declared, trying to convince herself.

Getting to her feet, she walked back into the castle.

Hours Later

Impenetrable darkness clung to every tree in the heart of the haunted woods, the afternoon sun unable to reach the cursed land. A flickering light pierced the black abyss—a roaring fire fueled by a grotesque pile of skulls.

Laying naked within this pile of skulls, like some demonic bath, was Subject Number Nineteen. From her head, her white hair extended dozens of feet in every direction, like a spider web, in order to ensnare anyone who came close. Not that she needed to bother, as no citizen of the forest was foolish enough to disturb her.

Her eyes, barely illuminated by the flickering pyre, looked down at the bones she had draped herself within. These skulls were fresh but not from humans. Every one of them was the remains of the wraith that Azure had so callously sent into her and her siblings, woods.

After the disappointment of losing her newest plaything, she had personally tracked down each of them. The other test subjects had all been savvy enough to stay out of her way, knowing not to interfere with Nineteen when she was on the hunt.

Still, silencing all of her creator's minions had given Nineteen little satisfaction, the phantoms being nothing but lifeless drones. Plus, it was apparent that Azure didn't care about them, as she hadn't even recalled them once she had found what she needed.

Yet, despite all this, Nineteen was brimming with a delight she hadn't felt in decades.

"Dear, dear mother. Just what have you gotten yourself into? Do you even know what you're toying with?"

She leaned forward, allowing the skulls covering her torso to tumble down the pile. Her impossibly long hair gathered around her body, wrapping her like a blanket.

"Or perhaps you do. You always had a need to play with fire. I mean, you made me after all." She motioned with her hand, and the flames around her grew higher, completely obscuring the skulls.

"Still, it has been a while since you visited. You may have everything planned in that time. Or perhaps you are still the same arrogant fool, too blinded by pride to see what's right in front of you."

Nineteen looked up toward the castle, utterly obscured by a mile of blackness. "After all, despite your attempts to purify that girl, you still missed a spot. A tiny speck, infected deep within her soul."

Nineteen rose, standing atop the pyre, and recalling her size changing hair to its natural length, ending just bellow her hips. She made another gesture, and the heat of the hellfire rose rapidly. 800 degrees, 1000 degrees, 1200 degrees. The skulls began to melt under the 1600-degree blaze as Nineteen confidently stood, unharmed.

"I look forward to watching you closely, Mother. And once I'm done with my new eyes, I'm making her my pet again."

Laurens Hell: End