Tragedy (Intermission)

Meanwhile, somewhere along the American west coast.

Inside the cold halls of an abandoned building, a lone man skipped along with glee. The lit lantern clipped to his belt shook with every movement he made. As he wandered the empty hall, the sound of his steps and the clanks of the metal cage around his head echoed throughout. His every skip and leap were completely identical in spacing, timing, and rhythm. Only disrupted occasionally as he had to avoid the droppings on the floor from the colony of bats that called the ceiling above him their home, and the puddles that formed from the thunderstorm outside.

He looked up, and his grin only widened further. As he listened to the song only he had ever heard, he became lost in its terrible melody. He stopped and pulled out an apple from seemingly nowhere as he raised his arm up. Almost immediately afterward three small bats, each one only the size of the palm of his hand, swooped down and began to feed on the juicy apple. 

As he stood there, he turned around when the young girl, whose age was clearly no more than eight or nine years, who had followed him had caught up. Her frail legs shook with each step as she clearly struggled to even stand. The broken chains that had been attached to the cuffs around her ankles dragged across the floor.

She weakly grabbed and tugged on the bottom of his coat with her bandaged hand. She pointed to where her mouth would be, were it not also covered in bandages like the rest of her face and most of her body. He gently set the apple and the bats on it onto the ground before he began to stroke her dirty and rough hair. The smile he had worn was gone now,

“I’m truly sorry, my dear, but you already know that your body is in no condition for proper food. It’s just a little bit farther, and then I promise you’ll be… you’ll be better,” he said to her as he lied through his teeth, a pained expression visible on his face as tears welled in his eyes. They both knew that wasn’t true. There was no helping her, no saving her, she had a few days left, at most. He **** a smile back on his face as he picked her up and carried her in his arms. She was light, too light, and he could feel his heart break as the tears that had formed began to stream down his face.

The music within his mind, that had just been happy and fast, was now somber and slow. The music dictated his thoughts and feelings, for without it, he would have surely gone insane years ago.

“Come on, how about we listen to your favorite lullaby the rest of the way?” he asked her as he fished his phone out of his pocket. The thunder boomed as rain continued to pound onto the roof of the building. But through all of that, the quiet lullaby could be heard. He looked down at her through his blurry vision; she had already fallen asleep in his arms. The music began to change once more, a set of drums added to the mix that was only played more quickly and angrily by the moment.

As he looked at her sleeping form, he asked just how cruel could this world be to allow this to happen to someone so innocent and pure? How could Gaia, the immortal and all powerful creator of all things, allow this to happen? And the Order that claimed to represent her will on earth, where were they for all the time this girl, and surely countless others, had to suffer? He gingerly brushed a strand of her hair off her face. He swore that, when she was brought back into this world, he would see to it that she could enjoy the good things in life, the things that others had forcibly torn away from her to ever experience.

A few minutes later, he finally arrived at a set of large, wooden doors. On each side stood a robed skeleton, both of which opened the doors upon a nod from him. He slowly walked past them. Once he was fully on the other side, the doors closed behind him. Within the chamber he was now in stood a group of robed figures. Some adult men and women, others children and elders. One of the women approached him, head bowed down.

“Everything is already prepared, Father,” she reported to him before she stepped back into the crowd. With a solemn nod of recognition, he walked past the crowd and to the stone platform they all stood around. At its center was a small, round, black gem. No bigger than an acorn, but it had a ghostly aura that spread across the entire platform. Tied down, blind folded, and gagged next to it were a man and a woman. His eyes glared daggers of disgust as he looked at them.

Above them and the platform was a single painting. One unlike anything else ever seen before by man. It was black and white and featured a mechanical looking being. Its head was turned to the side and showed two of its four eyes. On its back were four wings, and above its head were two halos. In its right hand, it wielded a great hammer, and its left held scales of justice with one side weighed down by fire.

“My dear, it’s time for you to wake up,” he whispered to the little girl as he lightly shook her, afraid that he might break something if he shook her too hard. Her eyes lazily fluttered open as he set her on the ground to stand. When she looked at the two tied up figures, her eyes widened and she dug her face into him, afraid.

Those two were the ones responsible for all of her pain. The ones who had sold her into the Abyssal **** trade only a few short years ago. But even before that, they had hurt and abused her since the day she was born. The people who she had been sold to were now dead, that he had made sure of. But now only they remained. All that was left now to be had was justice. One of the other robed men opened a wooden case, and from it pulled out a ceremonial dagger. The man handed the dagger to him, after which he kneeled down to meet the girl’s eyes.

“Shhhh, they can’t hurt you. Hey… remember last night, when I took you to the amusement park and you got to ride on a ferris wheel for the first time, and it was just the two of us with no one else to bother us? Remember what I told you during the talk we had? Well, this is it,” he gently told her as he took the dagger and placed her fingers around its handle. He walked her over to the two **** bodies, his hand on top of her shoulder.

She shivered as she looked at their faces from directly above. She raised the dagger up high into the air, but she couldn’t bring it down. He placed his hand around hers, and they brought it down into the chest of the man together, followed immediately by the woman’s in the same manner. In the next moment, the black gem began to shine as a hum filled the air from all the robed men and women. Two dark and inky clouds left the bodies of the now dead pair from their wounds and were sucked into the gem.

As soon as the entire ordeal was complete, the little girl collapsed into his arms. Afraid, he touched her neck and tried to feel for a pulse. For the next few moments, the music became panicked and wild as he couldn’t feel one. But before he lost hope, he managed to find it, weak, but still there. He took the black gem off the platform and pulled out a small, black case from his pocket placed it inside. He put it back into his pocket, where next to it was another case, but this one white instead of black. He pulled that one out and opened it, where an equally white gem was housed inside.

He glanced at the girl and back to the white gem. Unlike its counterpart, which acted like a prison, this gem contained its own little paradise on the inside. At least this way when she… when she passed, her soul would know only happiness until she could be brought back. But not until his mission was complete, not until this cruel and tragic world known as the Abyss would be burnt to ash and then replaced with a **** and gentler one.

He picked her back up and began to carry her away. In the little time she did have left, he would make sure that she would be in peace and comfort, while all the while they could continue to do the things she had never gotten to experience. As he walked away, a sudden explosion rocked the entire building. 

From the doors another robed man ran in, out of breath. “Father, it’s them, it’s the Order, they’ve found us!” 

He nodded as he looked around. “Very well then, in that case, everyone, it’s time for us to go.”