The Hunter and her fleeting fire.

by TheAdmiral_T

Summary:

Celine was wrong, or was she right? Rumi is drowning,the Honmon is gone, friends are corrupted, and more outside forces are coming to intervene. Rumi suffers in her fleeting reality. After her confrontation with Celine, Rumi is left alone.

Notes:

• Inspired by The World Wasn't Ready by ShadowIllusion

Chapter 1: Evanescent

Pandemonium. Sheer pandemonium. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; the world’s entire safety being reliant on three individuals and their actions and their relationships with the masses is a massive undertaking, and thus if we were to place all our trust in these three individuals, what would come of ruin if they were to fall? What would happen if the seeds of mistake the seeds of fear to break out amongst them? What would result in the rest of us? What would happen to us all?

An undeniable truth

Under dim moonlight, she fades; amongst her friendly-enemies, she falters. Upon the sound of silence, pulsating fluttering, rhythmic patterns thump in a labyrinth of skin, pores and clothing; the eternal cogwheel, reverberating hums of corrupted flesh, so rancid, so unpalatable, the mark of a demon, a charity to all’s eyes. Purple ponytail flailing, head looked downwards at malformed hands, elongated, longer. As long as possible; claw now. Puce and prepared, reaping souls with claw is but a medial task. Feline eyes glare, yellow light blares in excreable horror.

Rumi’s lumbering body, slumping, crawling amongst empty streets. Right, they were all. Right. Celine…Jinu, And now…

“Hello.” So silent, hushed corruption condensed, produced into the eardrum like a parasitic organism. The catchiest tune of hell. “They all hate you because you’re a demon.” A smile, comprehended from tone. It is smiling. “But I can fix. That.”

Ah, raise the lamp of life

Clanging steel seems so. Cold Hardness produces a gratifying sound. If right circumstances align. Dull, parkerised, lubricated gently. Repetitive sounds of constant metal on metal. The Bolt carrier slams. Clear chamber. All perfect. Depress the Bolt Catch; easy does it. Align the magazine, insert with click. Once more, bash in the bolt catch. Parkerised steel smashes into parkerised steel.

“We should get goin,” sparkling eyes, blinding scions of helios above. An unusual sternness appears, melded into the fanged canines of bare face. Swooshing vials in small compartments on a plate carrier. They stink, iron smell. Horns weave gently, camouflaged under strands of black.

“I need to double-check my things… Give me a sec, would you?” Buzzing, swathing chantings of initialised ear protection. Whether gunshot, demonic whisper, nor hell’s scream shall penetrate.

The nature of responsibility is that if a single group is chosen to bear them alone, their failures are not of their pure fault but the fault of the collective for leaving them struggling, handicapped and alone. The goal of the Prusinian Security Service Division. In great depression, there must be forces disinterested with the needs of some,but for the needs of all. Demon, Hunter, Men, Woman, Child, Monster, nor Mortal, circumstances matter not. The good of the people shall come first.

Deceive it

Stare, stare deeply, try. In those puddles, through blurry tears. Yet the image still remains consistent. Glowing Amber, transitory humanity. “Denial, how pathetic.” Oh, Gwi-ma. Oh, hell’s voice is so beautiful. The host’s eyes squint as hard as possible. Purple hair squished as arms fire upwards, holding sides of the head with maximal pressure. Block out the voices.

“N-No” Weak, voices muddled. Demonic? Human? What was it? Who, was it? Rumi was fleeting. Lamplight shines deep. It pains, whispering wind. Street empty, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Bubbling, it burns. Burning away soul, he corrupts. Transient, the shield of masses. So feeble. Blues fade, red- a replacement. Her failure is clear. Demonic fire, smothered, in previous, blanket, now dissipated, roar. Wild purple spreads. Hellish Wildfire. In the end, what could she shield? What could even be protected by a shield made of rotten wood? What could be stopped by impure steel? “I-I’m a hunter; I’m supposed to protect. I wil-”

“Don’t attempt to deceive me,” Careless, Whispering tunes, perpetrated by unholy forces. Prepare for desecration; mistakes pile. Such deep and inconceivable corruption – there is no good left. The voice, reassures of this.

Flickering now, streetlamps wild, raging matadors under dim moon. Scream, pulsating demonic influence. A wave, impure to individual frequency. In mind, blood poured, seeping, corners, grates, the lamppost. Drowning, Blood up to her neck now, the resilient sea. Too vicious to swim, too merciful to suffocate. Sound unmuffled, more distorted, mind ephemeral. She’s evanescent. No escape; reach for blackened skies. Yet, clambering over the sea of blood, touching the black sky. She simply realises.

Rewrite the scores of the sky with that blood

Maniacal, giggling on. He does. Like mice in a mousetrap, they approach. The food is in sight. But they won’t get it; he’s made sure. Melodically, his puppets dance. The circus of ants yet so amusing. Give them their bread; they’ll be satisfied. Helpless, they’ve dug, Not Bunker nor raid shelter, yet grave. His victory is in sight. Gwi-Ma watches on, in triumph.

Everything changes in the hideous endgame

Red, primary such a hue, blaring, in duet with clanging alarms. The haste marches at ridicule speeds. Sharp drifts on hallways. Blaring Light of helipads, blocked by occasional silhouette of uniformed operatives. Chugging, ascended to the heavens by engine and blade, tilt, forwards now, onto burning city embers below.

Radio, hiss, an acknowledgement of primate communicative civility. “Good evening.” A shrilled muffling, produced by a staticky radio, revealing the pleasantries of a young man. “I will get to the point. We suspect occult activity at Namsan Tower. From what we’ve gathered, nearby satellites show little to no signs of life in Seoul outside of the aforementioned location.” Click three switches, quick succession; darkness now. Low insertion, darkness is preferred. “Whatever occult is there, we have given you occult jammers and ORAs; that should do the trick. I remind you, you have three ORAs each; they have ten metres of effective range in a radius. Estimate ten steps in each direction.” The voice cuts out under static; unmitigated blades seem to silence themselves as the words reappear. “I bid you good luck. For the good of the people, for the benefit of exclusively none.” Dulcet nodding all around.

In a short corner, wide smiling, eyes glow, ethereal heliosic sunlight. She giggles.

Yes, just like this, break apart

Notes:

This chapter was based on a song! I'll say what song it is next chapter for fun.
Have a nice day

Chapter 2: As above,

Summary:

Rumi begins to descend deeper into Gwi-Ma's hands, as outside forces are forced to resolve the Namsan Tower crisis, with or without the hunters. As mere men and woman fall, forces beyond few's understanding a forced into intervention.

Here we're all so free

 

Yet drowning, barely afloat. Between flashes of lucidity and the red sea. She lies. Shuffling with the bare remaining pieces of mortal coil. Reverberating echoes of twitching, corrupted skin. Knees buckle, fists bash headfirst into the ground, producing unforeseen craters. The fist and its master lock eyes. Necessity, Rescue. Them. Friends, they are hers. They are family. From her praying altar, patterned claw slowly pushes, body slowly ascending. In hushed cries. Head raised, raised above the blood. Above.

 

“What are you doing?” Whisper, once more. Radiant smiles blossoming as flame. An undercover inferno, sweet nothings. Ignorance has passed. Limbo has come. Yet, it passed like the autumn breeze.

“I-I’m going to fix this.” Oh, so passionate. Oh, so stupid. Yet futile, the march of half a soul continues. Stubbornness incarnate. So, march on. Guided by blinding lust for resolution. Unobtainable salvation. False pictures in smoke and mirrors. “I am going to save them.”

 

Distaste, whispering in mild annoyance. “How noble.” In its hellish beauty, the empress of hell leans. In closer. Right up to the ear. So clear. Right next to her now. “But you’ll fail.” Some factor of glee, deep satisfaction incarnate. “But I can help you succeed.” So sweet. Truthful so. Perhaps not. In spiralling staircases bound within the confines of the mind is a stalemate. Neither shall nor shall’t. Win. No victory. Finish line chalk washed off by murky tears. 

 

“No… I won’t let you.” Resolve strong, seductively short, in straight shot, straight for the finish line. Family.

 

Here we all stand with you

 

Whir. Listen to it chug, rotary spinning. It whooshes. In the air, reverberating through buildings. Floating along in the heavens like a vast balloon until it freezes. Ropes like streaming tears, splurting out like final regret. Crunching as boots slide. Black rain; Operatives. Footsteps louden, rotors fade. There is silence. A temporary peace, broken soon after. Ellen, she stands. Amongst friendlies, empty streets. Silent peace, rifle in hand. It’s genteel scratched wood. A grocery list of names, owned now by nothing but gravestones. Beginning, an empty march of a thousand droplets of blood.

 

“Antigone”. Averted eyes refocus on simplistic smile. A neutered appreciation of self-existence found on her squad leader. “Get us some overwatch after we breach, would you?”

 

Downwards, look at the ground in your relative existential realisations. “Yes.” Yet, reply so trivial. It’s not war to you, just business. Hand inching, cold plastic pushed aside to allow a sidearm to be removed. Right hand through the sling, spin it to your back. Make sure the barrel doesn’t touch the ground. Surrounded by idiots, bogging in their hope. There is no backwards step. 

 

Hope they understand. Perhaps they do. 

 

Forwards, an unreturnable trajectory. Unobstructed. Such a mockery, so close yet so far. Hell is wide open and accepting. Roaring crowds, the blaring purple limelight. Victory yet so close. Yet, a foggish numbness begins to plague. Repressed screams start to howl in muffed tongues. Upon the darkness, death. Faceless, they begin to crawl. In a charge, they approach. A pointless march.

 

Rattle. Listen. Steel, it impacts primer over and over. A flurry of flashes; soot flavours the air. Spit the belt links. Spring steel in its repetitive yoyo. Brass in it’s final clink. Yet, forwards, lead dissipates. Untouched, faceless encroach. The demonic tidal wave soars ever closer. “Throw me an ORA, you idiots.” Firm as his beard, unyielding, matador in hand. 

 

Rolling among the casings, the occult restabiliser. Bowling towards the stampede, an airy blast, a ring of transparent blue smoke. In it’s ten meagre metres, the framework of death applies. Banishment reigns in it’s covenant truth. Hurling mass pounds flesh. From hellish ashes returns to lumps of flesh.

 

As a small child, I was a Thälmann pioneer

 

Fade. That’s all you can do. An inescapable truth. Defeat. It’s dark cloud looms. It weaves it’s tune into your melody. Can’t you see? White boots stained brown. Stepping on the black floors of Namsan Tower stage. Wavering voice, as feet arise. Stepping up the short dark stairway. The stage is in sight. 

 

“I was a ghost; I was alone.” In corrupted essence, lyrics still harbour their attempted meaning; deliverance now torched; the result is crucified. In hushed fiendish accidental frivolity. Teetering on the edge of meaninglessness. Ground held within inches. The outskirts of a mind’s capital, in enemy fingers. “Eoduwojin-” 

 

“Are they really still here?” Welcome back; it's return in filth. A sudden abundance of voices now. 

 

“How can we be together if we can’t tell your lies from your truths, Rumi?” Hideous innocence. Zoey’s voice, so sweet, but it feels so different, no? Having that sweet voice interrogate you for the truth.

 

“I knew it; I knew you were too good to be true.” You can almost hear it. Her unamused face, once in support of you. Your backbone has left. And what does that leave you with?

 

“Why couldn’t you just hide it? Why couldn’t you just turn the Honmon gold?” cacophonous. The singing ceased once more, another failure. The fluttering gold blanket reacts; it’s patches of remaining blue turn gold, yet muddled red interweaves its fabric. Is this a demon commanding it, or a hunter? Deplorable or Desperate. Intent unclear; why should it listen to an indecisive master?

 

Collapsing, the floor now seeming like soft solace. Amid the rising melody of gunfire, as demonic essence floods the fields of innocents nearby. Under dawdling limelight, sinking in whirlwind destruction. Rumi lies, eyes glazed over in demonic amber, twitching. Engravings in her skin weave, a final price, the mark of the dead.

 

A, B, C, the best Army, and D, E, F, an accurate shot

 

Corpses lay strewn. Their stillness sings it’s distressing melody. Rapid Response forces have been dissipated to thirty per cent of their deployed numbers. This validly calls for a response. Under the fading afterglow of the trumpets of Namsan Tower, fluttering in the wind, in ascension, a simplistic female form enters the south entrance of the tower. Dissolving the ranks of the RRTF whittled away their ammunition, a mouse trying to conserve the little cheese it had left in bitter winter. Top of the stairwell, out of ammunition, Ellen drags the fleeting souls remaining backwards. Pathetic strength lugs unconscious forms across the rough floorboards. Buckled, bent, frayed, rifle lay astray on the floor. Placing squad leader behind vending machine, attempting to re-engage. Three magazines left. 

 

“Save that useless metal for something else would’ya?” Arrogance, sounding of unpreturbed child. Yet, facing up was a pretty face; sunlight radiance blew from gold-and-black eyes. A radiant warmth emanating from an innocent warmth that justified such arrogance. 

 

No appropriate response. Such an entity shall not exist in such a place. Yet, as church bells or performance bravado rang, so did the radio. In intrusive tone the radio barked, signalling a new communicative procedure. “A special operative has entered the AO; all RRTF personnel regroup at southside, prepare for exfiltration.” 

 

Such cold callousness. 

 

Simply another order. 

Looking down at the seeping blood below. It’s mercury red blares in helpless chaffing. Grabbing upon collar, beginning a slow heave. Eternally slow retreat. 

 

Descending the stairs, limp on. As far as you can go. 

 

Salvation is in sight. So close, yet so far. A clot of remaining operators, emplaced within the southside. Firing outwards with dwindling ammunition. A straight run, straight for the washed-away finish line. No time to look back. No need to double-check. No squadmates left. 

 

Just her and her squad leader. 

 

Now at the finish line. With fleeting grasp the clot gets smaller. Hordes of demonic grunts mitose into more and more hellspawn. The dark purplish line pushes forward. Closer, and closer.

Whirring overhead. An unrelegated hope dawning. Hovering above, descending from the clouds. In praying alter the dark black line recedes. Encroaching around salvation. Flood. Flood in, orderless, battered souls board. Ascending to the clouds. The rapture has come. 

 

Then, fire.

 

Upon the dark main stage, staring from elevated seating. Corrupted minds attempt to justify. Relegated to singular march, sinking. Manipulated by their failures. Her short hair flows as it turns, in unison. In Chorus, the audience’s eyes lock with a single soul. Walking with an inherent arrogance. The middle of the stage is stolen. In new limelight. Freya smiles. “So, who’s the shithead who wants to get it first, hm?” 

 

Arising, contorted beyond belief. Soul bent and will corrupted. Rumi stands. Under equal limelight. Locking eyes, Gwi-ma looks satisfied. Rumi’s gaze, murked with demonic happiness. Zoey and Mira can only look on in sudden cruel lucidity. As clawed, violent and horned, Gwi-Ma’s champion approaches. As above, so below.

Notes:

Thank you for reading this chapter again. I hope you enjoyed
This chapter is again based on another song! It's really easy to guess this time.
Yesterday's song was the amazing "KillKiss" by Ave Mujica; go give it a listen if you like Japanese rock.
Anyways, thanks for reading again. I'll try to get the next chapter out soon.

Chapter 3: So below.

Summary:

Surviving the failed extraction. Forces of the PSSD regroup to try and hold off the wave of demonic entities. Rumi, fully corrupted, has a bout with this new pompous face that has appeared in her sight.

In rubble, fugacious dusk begins to fade. Helios’ tip preparing to breach the darkness of the horizon. Among the corpses, she remains. In bloodied hands and broken bodies, streeling carcasses, upon, yet out of, the wreckage, Ellen appears. Across bent rotor blades, the thin black line recedes to single file. Clink. Jam up, soot fills the air. Upon the wreckage of Chalk Nine, the thinning resistance from operatives fire outwards. Looking down, the bruised face smiles back, wheezing in pneumonic exasperation. In dwindling light, defiant laughter reigns free. “Don’t cry, Antigone.” The blank stare replies solemnly in a cold silence. The mad hysterics don’t return much of a reaction. “Cry when you think of me next.” Sudden thrust, a rifle now in her hands, loaded, the still smiling face now a simple crate. Loot the magazines; capacity is now at 4+1 magazines. At one round per two seconds and thirty-round magazines, that won’t last ten minutes. Eyes up now, the dwindling line is forced back by blasts of spikes. Embers of purple remaining on the downed bird, moving upwards now. Joining the forward line. Clattering casings clutter as the break of the trigger is surpassed. Over and over.

 

Watch out for falsehoods

 

Maniacal, such entertainment. Choppily, bone-chilled cracks reverberate through her frame. Approaching now, legion approaches, the unimpressed yawn of it’s opponent maddening. “What…arrogance.” smile widening, its slinking approaches yet closer, body buckled, bent and burnt, marked by its sin: being born. “I will enjoys draining your soul.” In it’s pantomime, the rustling creaks harmonise, as the broken bones, bent out of shape, reform, as dark, horned crystalline patches peak from skin. 

 

“I didn’t know I came for a Jar Jar Binks impression contest.” Sly smirking, the ephemeral shimmer of golden eyes seemed to cast mocking sunbeam. “So, when the fuck are you going to try and smack me dead?”

 

Now in murderous rage, the hideous beast smirks back; it’s clawed hand soars, and it’s body reappears next to its victim's corpse. Yet, the corpse’s head turns simply, it’s hand grasping onto long ponytail. 

 

Across the barricades, a shy observer watches. In his viewership. Lux overwatches his deity. Though himself wouldn’t regard her as such. Scope glint shining pointlessly into plastic cover, he watches his spectacle. The fight between a queen ant and a large mammal. Such unfairness hangs in the air. In one entity’s entertainment it allows itself to be battered. In feign injury, it staggers. A small noise leaps from the radio. “Ugh, this is too boring; if I just knock her teeth right out right now, can I go get gelato?” He sighs, looking at his radio in disappointment. “Yes…fine.”

 

Upon the floor now, golden eyes glare into the sky, as purple ponytail seems to caress her neck, compressing it’s living essence out. In mangled reverberation, the beast vaunts it’s victory. “I’ll enjoy draining the life out of you.” It smiles widely, opening it’s mouth in a small crack, ensuring it’s amber eyes lock with the black hair of her victim. “I’ve never had to get this up close and personal.” It pulls the girl’s neck up closer, pulled by plate carrier. “Such satisfaction, the simplicity of consuming you.” 

 

Flames, pure golden radiant heat explodes within; the beast, now in unimaginable pain, leaps back. It’s retreat gradual. Its victim rises, wiping minute drops of golden blood from it’s face. Smile, glaring now. “My turn, numbskull.” The wild swings of the beast are suddenly tamed by beggarly yawns and a solid grasp of the ponytail. Hair burning, seraphim wails, flittering around like mad cicadas.

 

Purple Fire, staring at its champion's failure, launches it’s own assassination attempt. A pure ball of flames reaches into the heathens above, buckling Eden in it’s monstrous rage. It wings, encroaching on sanctuary, as golden eyes catch it’s sickly bathing light. A simple sigh. A singular hand raises. It rises towards the sky, forces below imploding, the circles collapsing under the weight of judgement. 

 

For freedom

 

Afar, blank eyes stare; the night sky pales in it’s darkness. Bleeding eyes look about. Magazine is now depleted. 

 

Purple sky, it reigns on, as she lies backward. Adjusting posture as rifle meets heart. Staring to corrupted horizon, she sits. Mitosing demonic forces approach. Numbers spreading like wilted rosebuds, falling from their graces. Upon cold, damp concrete, her hands fall from their preassigned regiments. Falling out of wounds of immeasurable sizes, burns deeper than the darkest labyrinths of hell. No reason to stop the bleeding now. It was over. 

 

Under dwindling twilight, she cackles softly. Continuing her eternal pantomime. Her tearless mercy. Twenty steps away now. The sounds of fading ORAs mark the stains of sin approaching her. Ten steps. Eyes shut as tight as possible. In bare drowsiness, will forcing away adrenaline imposing insomnia. 

 

“One,” Soft, it was. Bare deafness forced into retreat by the smooth count. “Two.” Falling back from her decisions, eyes blare open. A face is on the other side, standing in a casual red-and-black flannel. His eyes examine, lips contort into slight dissatisfaction. “Good morning.” He turns away, pushing his hand through his sling, returning it to a position around his neck. Ellen’s blurring vision looks towards the rising sun, the purple sky suppressed by blaring golden rays, piercing through her weary body. One last time, sound. “One survivor; prep her for Medevac, please. The rest of you two, let’s sweep top down. Thank you.” 

 

Slowly, dwindling into sleep, the mark of a red cross on someone’s arm bellows brightly.

 

Now it’s just a matter of burying them, Antigone.

 

Against the tyrant

 

He stares; demonic marks blare in his veins. Master whispering. He watches the ragdoll, her purple hair flailing as the black-haired girl brutalising her flicks her away. A fly swatted by another angel. Jinu watches. Horror. Can he feel it? The boiling gut feeling as the heavens buckle and his master’s defiance is met with the rain of priests. Banishing hordes of demonic essences to dark corners. Looking beside, they’re already gone. His little quaint demon K-Pop group. Pathetic, in dawn they burn to a crisp, under the watchful gaze of the girl with golden eyes. 

 

He backs away, trying to make daring escape, as he’s reeled back in like bass, his head fitting into the perfect slot between the gold-eyed girl’s thin fingers. She tuts a few raspberries. “Where’d you think you’re going, Ugly?”

 

Watching, purple flame attempts at his respective mad dash. He forms into a smaller flame, moving himself to re-enter his minute layer so below. Yet, suddenly so full. The hollowness dissipates. Feeling a sickly tangibility. His mortal head creaks backwards. His charred face meeting the light. Gentle metallic hum, ticking. Smile now, Helmeted, a human looks at him. Adjusting checkered flannel shirt. “Fine Morning”. 

 

Shot, a large reciprocating mass produces a metallic clang.

 

Heavy steel reindexes in it’s proper positioning. Another round chambered. Heavy .45 super rounds dispensed into the now mortal corpse of the lord of the demons. Removing the ORA on the floor. He walks off, the corpse melding into the ground, becoming ash as purple embers fly off. Satisfied, T walks off.

 

And nine your best friend

 

Zoey and Mira look on. Eyes widened as their haziness dissipates with the crowd. The form of five now has split into the form of dozens. Packing armament, the shouting. “All of you, clear the fucking area! Move it! Get your ass moving! Out, everyone, this way!” Barking instructions, regents, as the uniformed militia begins ushering survivors out.

 

Outside. The first spectral layers of light have grown. In the silent sombreness of Namsan Tower’s shadow. A crashed bird lay, it’s bent metal looted of all it’s corpses and equipment. Only hollow shell remains. Zoey’s eyes slowly turn, meeting Mira’s. Her mouth opens, unable to say much of a word. Head turning. “Where…where is Rumi?”

Notes:

Hello there!
Now that this little prologue arc is over and I can get to the actual main story of this fic, I just wanted to ask, reading the past three chapters, do you have any comments you want to give me? I understand my writing is a bit hellish to read at times; that's the kind of general style of this fic. But if you got any comments, I'd love to read them (in the comments, of course). And, if you haven't noticed, the last chapter's and this chapter's songs are the same. Pardon me for revealing it right now, but it is IFA Wartburg's "FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend)
Again, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I apologise if Huntrix has not been much in the limelight. However, I assure you they will be very important in the coming chapters.
Have a nice day, and thank you for reading my works again.

Chapter 5: Void

Summary:

As Rumi's memory lingers, Zoey and Mira begin to fall into their own death spirals

It's so blank, it's so long

 

Dull light streams from the clouds. Descending from the heavens, in genteel caressance of those remaining below. In the lingering backlight, lying in their respective rooms, the two final members of Huntrix awake. Warmthless, the penthouse creaks emptily. Sofa untouched, pantries unraided, a black hole was now at the epicentre. Refusing even small glances at each other when they meet in the living room.

 

Walking past, no pleasantries as usual, glued to the sombre liberating light of her phone screen, Zoey sulks in her room. Stare; it’s light producing hideous comprehensions. Alone, looking at the world below, listening to the sounds of the television. Subdued into self-deprecating silence, Mira looked on.

“In other news, citizens of south korea have begun to riot over the Prusinian Security Service Division’s continued operations, sin-” The light and sound from the device were shaded back in darkness. Mira sat windowside. Looking below, seeing smoke arising from rioters, street clashes galore. Looking away, back to the window now. Leering into the false LED sky. Smallest pricks of whisky falling from pupil to stain puddles on the ground. No more. Alone once more, cast away, unwanted fish, lying dead on the riverbank. Once again, against the world. Stand alone, because the ground she wanted to stand on was too small for anyone else. The ultimate cost, alone.

 

Giggling. In gentle emanations of muddled humour, an attempt to bathe the tears in fleeting falsehood. Through panes of glass and clouds of grey, the sunbeams are cold. Goggling endlessly, finger swiping up and up. An endless cycle. Guilt muted under pure stimulation. Dopaminic allusion momentarily dulling the truth. Shame.

 

So many words I don't understand

 

Living room. So empty. A listless stare bathes the couch in bitter melancholy. Becoming two. Both eyes lock for a moment. Their mouths contort in their respective mannerisms. In attempt to convey all in one. No answer arises. The black-haired one collapses to the couch first. Illusionless, her face digs itself into alluring blank whiteness. Couch fabric now bloodstained in tears, the other sits beside the sulking one, trying to find will to hold tears. But there is no purpose. Straightened backs falter, sliding down, lying in suffrage on the soft couches. Inches between, unfilled by warm food, laughter or smiling faces. 

 

Still looking downwards, reddish hair messily untied in a long stream, in tender disillusion to their perpetual wolf cut state. “You haven’t eaten anything.” Her eyes drift slowly towards the void between, a photograph, one of three blacked out by permanent marker. 

 

“I know.” Black shabby hair rocks slowly, tears deepening into the fabric. “I think you should eat something too.” Through suppressed words, her companion scoots closer. Void thinning.

 

Today is no different than that day

 

In perfect lines, reaching for the ends of the earth. Dull navy crowding uniforms, covered by black, under rainfall. Line held within transparent shielding and raised batons. Looting. Come and gone, now just a crowd, throwing obscenities, signs and occasional brick. Streets crowded with angered citizenry, unblinking gazes of foreign legions in the interests of the people. Or so is stated. 

 

“Get the fuck out of our country!” 

 

“We don’t want you!”

Unwavering yet still, the line remains. Until push and shove, the force of hundreds outweighing the force pushes them back towards the base of Namsan. Exasperated sighs and screams. Shouting amongst personnel. “Get back! Do not move!” shouting into a deaf crowd. No effect; rioters begin their barrage, moving the officers back more. 

 

Sighing, watching a bit behind the line. Metal scratching, clink. The gentle brass of a bullet flies out the ejection port. Caught within the hand. Walking forward, a blank is loaded within the chamber; the magazine is returned to it’s proper position. Slide clanks back into place. In engagement distance with the crowd now. Arising, up above the clouds, pointed towards the heavens, the break is surpassed without second thought. 

 

Rippling crowds, the puffy air fills with sootish smell. The rain dulls momentarily to attention. The flash ripples through an audience of eyes, weapon kicking nicely back, moving itself towards it’s holster. “Please return to your households. This is your final warning. We will not hesitate to deploy rubber bullets if you endanger our men.”

Momentary haze crumbling, the shock waning results in a stampede away from the line. Moving off, spreading like wildfire, all disappear. A deathly silence now as the crowded streets retreat into respective households. The demons had been slain, but in truth. Demons are defined in action and not form. It is simple colloquialism; anything so can be demonic if one wishes it as.

 

Will filling in this blank solve everything someday?

 

Dull, the warmness is. A unified melancholy had devised by the rainy morning of the second week since Rumi’s absence. Out to the couch again, Zoey emanates silently. Inert. She looks up from her phone for a moment, staring at Mira, watching the television. 

 

“Regarding the Seoul Riots last night, an emergency meeting of the Prusinian Security Council has decided to enact Clause 4 of the Prusinian Competences Declaration Treaty…”

 

Zoey’s eyes turned in a minor spark; she sits down close by to Mira. “W-What are they talking about?”

 

“Dunno. Some kind’ve response to the riots last night I think.” Mira’s eyes lose a little dullness as Zoey nudges a bit closer, seeming to cling on for warmth. 

 

“A nationwide ballot to democratically vote for PSSD withdrawal is now open in South Korea.” Eyes rotating back to the main screen, sitting in momentary silence.

“Voting…them out?” 

 

A nod.

 

In now suicidal hung silence. The TV is shut off. Zoey backs herself away, her head laying now on a pillow on the opposite side of the meagre couch. The two sit in this silence. Their fingers twitching in minute nervousness, faces in a farce. An emptiness is consuming. Perpetual motion, rotating in their endless struggle to find the soul to face it. Neither having the key to unlock their freedom. Both the bread and key out of reach.

 

“About…” It can be seen. Zoey silences herself before the door to the room with the elephant can be reached. She looks away again, scooting herself up on the other side of the couch. A void of thousand paces. Each melancholy moulding into their own meaningless suffering.

 

“About what?” Sounds pissed. Intentional or not, she’s spoken her sin. Her eyes trying to convey as little wrath as she could. Yet, deep down, there was a deep strum that pulled her to pissed. She turns her head towards Zoey. Ten thousand now.

 

However, tears prevent either from doing anything. In anger and sadness, both of them. Both realising, they wipe themselves off. In sudden awkwardness, they dust themselves. Deep strum burning a wildfire, barely controlled by the quelling sea of tears. Mira speaks up once more. “Let’s go vote. Then we can talk.”

As strong of a nod as possible, replied Zoey. Faking as best of her weird smile as can do. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

 

There's no right answer; there's no losing

 

Streetside now. Paved perfection crunches between their footsteps. Concealed by hats and sunglasses as if it would reek them salvation. Lining the rims of each ballot, the navy-uniformed men stood. Indifferent silence reeks; like mechanical beasts, a salute is produced every time a ballot is dropped into the box. 

 

Through winding lines, discomfort. Staring uneasily at the back of Zoey’s head. Silence impenetrable, wavering mouth trying to weaken the despondent ungainliness. “Are we voting for them to stay or not?”

 

“I think so.” Never seen her reply so quippily before. A radiant unhappiness which seemed to emanate from some deep void within her soul. In consideration, Mira didn’t expect that reply. “They can protect these people better than –” Silence. Caressing a deep gash in the mind, Zoey retreats her hand to her face. Gentle caressance as she inches forward in line.

 

Yet, rippling pain cascades to Mira. The spark relighting the pissant fire inside of her. She bites her lip, trying to quell her anger. Following forwards. Yet, the weird warmness that used to project from Zoey had left. The gaping maw seemed to widen, bridges burning as islands split apart, cast to far corners of respective worlds. 

 

The last digit of their social security numbers written, the institutional white of the ballot descends into the box, turning to leave. In silence, they walk side by side, apart on opposing streetsides. The gawping cheers of a crowd emanate from a dingy corner. Rejoining, walking both now opposing the large crowd. Ever so curious, Zoey leans forward. Halting, an exasperated smile as a muffled rush of momentary happiness hits. “God…”

 

Following, Mira too, halting, yet staring off away, still forwards. In vain attempts to shelter her agitation. “What is it?” 

 

Under binding allure of dulling pain, gravitating towards the anglerfish, Zoey crosses the street to the other side in lustful haste for some semblance of fleeting happiness. Boiling inside, her red-haired counterpart dashes across with her, joining the blip of crowd. 

 

“It is her…” A hypnotic smile appears, some sort of celebrity-induced pleasure. 

 

Sigh, Mira looks on, in faux attempt to woo Zoey, to dull her suffrage for a moment; she pipes down, covering her flame a thick blanket for a momentary calmness. “Who?” 

 

Pointing, the tip of her finger ends on two. Flowing black hair wraps around the shoulders of a girl in dull grey, her golden eyes glimmering. Her hand is wrapped around a boy, likely her age, mid twenties, arms wrapping around him tightly, seemingly to his dismay as she wobbles him left to right as she throws unperturbed obscenities at the crowd. 

 

“Who…is that?” Eyes drawing down to her friend confusedly, as the black-haired girl looks back in puzzled perplexion. A sigh, as the black-haired girl looks back down at her phone, scrolling through her saved reels. 

 

“Her!” The sudden exaggeration throws Mira off momentarily. Eyes gazing upon the image, now in horror. 

 

Scanning the screen, her isolated mind rejogging it’s memory of language. “She’s so hot! I’d let her flick me straight to heaven!” Was the title and a GIF of the same girl, in the same garments, flinging-

 

“No. We are not doing this.” Grabbing the other’s arm. The bridge fire spreads to their respective islands.

 

Looking sideways at other people's box

 

“Seriously, Zoey? That girl? The one who killed Rumi?” Livid. Blanket burnt into ashes, her wrath had burnt clear the moment that they were back in the listless penthouse once more.

 

Once innocent eyes contorted into sombre, deluded anger. “She didn’t! She didn’t kill Rumi; Rumi attacked her even!” 

 

Quipping back, bluntly staring in concentrated hate. Mind had left long before. Standing before her was just like her old family, not understanding enough. Always taking the opposite side. “Why are you on this girl’s side and not our friend’s?” 

 

Gentle brown welled with betrayal. Her once detached face returning to stare at Mira. “Then why…why did you raise your weapon at her! She just wanted our help! And we didn’t give her that. We should’ve – we had to help her. But we just. ” Returning to the verge of tears. Legs throttling down. “We just raised our weapons at her, like she was just some…dirty animal.”

 

It was some ironic crying contest now. Throwing spear and dagger at eachother. Seeing which of either will pierce the other’s heart dead first. “Well, she had patterns. She had patterns, and that meant she was a demon. You know this, Zoey; this is what we were tau-” 

 

“And you were taught to get in line and I was taught to go between two worlds a-and We were taught so many wrong things, and now you think that this can’t be wrong too?” She violently arose to her feet. Returning to her room. “If Huntrix was this place where we could all be enough and we can all be us. Then we stopped being us when we stopped listening to Rumi.” 

 

You would think It's wrong to think everything is fine like this

 

Faint lullaby writhes in the ears, the ringing melody of formatted statements revolving in an endless staircase deep somewhere in Mira’s mind. Guttural drumming in the hole of the head, in uninstictual need, bodily mass moves itself towards the pantry. Hunger had set in. Not in the mind of physical need, yet asphalt to fill the potholes of her woes. 

 

Stale dryness emanate deep within the pantry, suffocatingly empty of a smell, just pain air, unpopulated even by droplets of water. Reaching in, stomach too defiant to consume anything, blind arm receives a reward of a cup of ramyeon. ‘Rumi’s superstar flavor’ In horror, reaching back into possibly find something else, her hand finds only a void of silica packets and random candy. Unamused by the cupboard’s gatekeeping, she moves her head in to inspect more clearly. Yet in it’s bemusement, the cupboard’s void doesn’t produce any other options. Sigh, pupils transfixing towards the cup and back towards the other options in the cupboard. Yeah, Ramyeon would be preferred.

 

Scorching invisible rays coaxing, the slow softening of the noodles is observed. In despondent eyes, using plain plastic chopsticks to stir, in slow rhythm. Narcotising the heat with a simple, halfhearted puff, lips moving in the the strands of noodles. 

 

Recoiling, she pulls her head away, chopsticks falling limp as her head slowly crawls down to meet the marble countertop. Deeply, the wink and one eyed stare of the cup responds. The purple hair of it’s graphic shines in it’s mockery. 

 

Once again, she grabs the chopsticks. Pulling herself backwards until her head is laying sideways on the edge of the counter. Too sullen to arise, she sombrely pulls the cup down, grabbing the chopsticks again. Large wads of noodles are procured as they’re scooped up and deposited in her mouth, and by the fourth-or-so wad 3/4ths of the cup had been depleted. It tasted terrible. But Rumi loved it so. 

 

Freeze, lifting the cup back over her head, back on the countertop now at eye level at the figure. Oddly sentimental. In remembrance, a mausoleum of someone who was fine with how brash and aggressive she was. She was eating it. She was a cannibal. In life no shred of merciful understanding left her, and in death she would consume living mementos. No more will to consume. The heartless beast stands, grasping the cup and dragging it along like the corpse of it’s graphical reference were actually being dragged with it. Walking to the trash, absent-minded. She throws. It sinks, the waterproof paper-plastic distorts as it begins to brine in the muck of old posters and half-baked lyric sheets.

 

Yet, as the beast walks off in her perceived freedom. Asinine taste of old memories lingers on the tongue. In false freedom she goes to get a drink; a glass of milk from the fridge would be nice. Floodgates opening, the fridge ejects a similarly unworthy occupant: “Doctor, Han’s miracle tonic!” A blank unamusement, but in vengeful annoyance, the packet is robbed from it’s resting place and taken down in a quick gulp. It tasted like the past, like some stupid drink that Rumi would insist her drink. They were Rumi’s weren’t they?

 

Hunger now partially staved off, she returns to the couch. The television returning to it’s screaming. “In other news, the voting period in response of- That ramyeon tasted terrible.

 

It was Rumi’s but, how could she have such bad taste. It was terrible, trash even. It lacked taste; it was just spicy. I know I like spicy, but it was too bland to be fun spicy, too, and too tasteless to be anything. My old family’s cooking was better. Old family… I guess I have two old families now.

 

I don't know if it's gone or if it's begun

 

Alone, soul entwined, Zoey cuddles close to her phone. Her mind melting into the romantic rays of the UV blaring at her eyes. 

 

Blaring edits of red and orange, those golden eyes, staring tenderly at poor old Zoey’s heart. Just that look made her warm, so so fuzzy. It was almost like the owner of those eyes cared of her. “Damn, is the sun goddess such a mommy.” Such a humorous caption, in true deservingness of a like, there she goes, another like provided to another Freya post. Hope she’s happy.

 

More and more reels. In gluttonous consumption once more. The backlit sky seemed to dull just for the clarity of those beautiful moving pictures on her phone. Such clumsy grace, just like her, the most perfect person for her. The goddess’ fanged smile seemed so inviting, like an invitation to run away, to go somewhere far and forget all. No need for Huntrix, no need for Mira, or song lyrics or Rumi. Just her and that sweet pretty face. That could stave her off forever. And when she dies, she’ll live among the stars, and then once in a while, the sun’s gaze will land on her, blowing her loving raspberries and love letters in faux insults. Scroll on, more and more corners of that girl. Perfection, more and more. Gluttony, more angles, until in her head there was an imagination of her in every pose. Every light, there she was, those glowing gold eyes and an extended hand. The offering of permanent love. Because she wouldn’t go anywhere, would she?

 

Farther down, posted. “She has a boyfriend??? She’s not single, y’all. How did we get beaten by this bozo????” Blasphemy! In haste, go check the evidence. But there it was, all of it. Photos interlude by little blotches of text sometimes so nonsensical it was almost as if the goddess the preceded the giver of all life was illiterate. Smiley faces with little bodycam photos of debriefings, her hand sneakily tugging at someone else’ arm in the rare corner. Another cafe visit, two-three others, and beside her that same face. Damming still, Namsan tower itself, in a pixelated corner of security camera footage, he’s seen following her about, voicelessly complaining with facepalms…

 

Even gods have their own lives. Too occupied to care about her. There was no awaiting escape. Now lulling lullabies sung from those sweet fangs. All was farce. But still, that was gluttony, consume more. Because if she stopped. She’s simply be forced to consume herself. And that was a bit too scary to face. Because she went all in with her soul and organs on this girl, and yet, the goddess’ smile almost was mocking in a way that told her. Those gold eyes wouldn’t fold. Even if Zoey could fake having the best deck in her life. It wouldn’t matter. As a god would have their way, and she’d just have to move out the way. The divine are so tasteless for minute specs.

 

There's no way but to go forward, right?

 

In her sullen expression, dreamy dreams of those beautiful eyes shattered, she stands across from the sink mirror, staring. Once stating the imaginary fanged mouth that was smiling back at her, now was inhabited by none but her own soul. Hollow.

 

Looking down, she still had the stage makeup on, while, it was a while since her twenty minutes to nine had struck on the clock. In regrettable pain, she knew the truth, she had to molt, there was no rescue, no Freya to come save her- No Rumi, No Mira. Nobody to impress, lonely path. Honmon sealed and Gwi-Ma slain, expectationless now. Floating, hand now placed upon makeup removal wipes, slowly peeling off the artificial skin she’d kept on for so long. Long back streaks of mascara melded into the white. The paper lay stained. She stared at herself. Pure. With a goldless glimmer, and a faint smile, she stood there. Rumi was gone, but yet maybe that made her inhuman in a way. Her memory wouldn’t fade; Zoey would make sure to all hell that only happened when she died. And in death, the three would be reunited, Zoey, Mira, and Rumi. Freedom. Halfway done now, yet wipes expended. Disappointment, a half full recovery. The faint light from the living room door draws deeper in it’s warm copper. Sigh, it’s time.

 

Into the dimly lit kitchen-ajoined living space, the faint copper light fell as if a spotlight, centering on the slumped form of a girl, staring endlessly at a stain-ridden and crumpled cup.

 

In slow approach, the black haired girl produced her hand in gentle nudge. “Hey…are you awake?” scootching onto a chair beside, gazing at the silent thinness within the air.

 

Replyless- a nod suddenly appeared on the still corpse. It’s red hair strewn unhappily on the white marble as if bloodied rivers of the mind. Dampness poured onto the countertop like spilled tea, suppressed sniffling. “I tried to eat.”

 

Cozily, a slow hand reached for the cup. “It-It’s okay…We can always buy some more if you’d like some” 

 

In hushed silence, the despondent heat from her internal flame burns itself into stupidity. Thus, entertains the manicures of a mentality. “I’m the monster here. Trying to erase every bit of her” 

 

In surprise, faint understanding, another head is laid on the marble chopping bloc. “I tried to replace her.” a ironical-pessimism radiated through a shrill giggle that was howled. The dim light of a phone reaches the darkened eyes of Mira, the hand and voice behind urging her to take it. “Doesn’t she look so…secure? She’s perfect and…dreamy…and pretty and..” The countertop receives more helpings of tea. “Still…” A picture emanates with a swipe, kaledoscopic, “She has a boyfriend”, “Well he seems supportive”, “Looks pretty brash if I’m honest”, “Woah, my man really god lucky asf”, “Wrap it up guys and gals, she’s taken.” A faint smile as forhead bashes into the back of red hair. “I forgot to actually remember even gods have people they care about more than me.”

 

Sobbing now. A bit more tears to ease itself into disintegrating the marble, how great. Yet, as sniffles begin to spread like diseased animals. Wavering mouth opens itself, brashness gone for split instance. “I want to move on.”

 

A faint smile, the hand bringing itself to smudge the rest of the makeup remaining. “I’ve got a glass case, we can put that in after we wash it and…I’ve got a stash of food I’ve been hiding. So…should we eat?” 

 

There was a faint warmness that had returned, not to the point of the fire that used to burn silently throughout, however, the warmth of steam over hot soup. Silently, Rumi’s room stood still. Hanging up their outfits, announcing a hiatus. All was silent, however, now filled with the afterglow of laughing, food and love. 

Notes:

Hello there!
This chapter was a bit hellish of me to write, so please excuse any grammatical or logical errors. However, I hope you enjoyed it, I know it's a massive brick of a chapter but I genuinely hoped this was entertaining. This chapter is based on the song "Void" By Togenashi Togeari, it's a great song and a very iconic one to few (wink wink) anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little look into how Zoey and Mira are doing before we return to an old mentor next chapter.
Thanks for reading!

Chapter 6: The Crow, The God, and (A tiny bit) of Bobby.

Summary:

As Rumi tries to reach out for help from Celine. Mira and Zoey are pestered on the street by a familiar figure, as Bobby hangs on to employment as best he could.

As I paint the twisted sky, I think

 

Dim limelight burning her tattered skin. Tattered form floundering in it’s majestic burial, unknown dungeonous street corners open themselves for residence. Rodents writhe is it’s vegetative induction, soulless soon to come. In muddied regret the last fortalice of the demon king heaves itself on. Closer to its shallow salvation. 

 

Among coined purpose of will, further onto its victory. A mule of a beheaded head. Patient zero of hell’s grasp. Awake, now alone. Tattered, concealed by tactless mismatches in outfit, some with labels still on. The whisper of husks softly lulls in lullaby, begging for more. Everything was. More and more, done the spiralling staircase to the end of the line. Looking out of the cage at the cold sky, the bird only wishes to reach itself out of its bars and fly in the falseness before it realises in a final breath, hitting the walls of columbary, splattering and falling to its grave. 

 

“Come on, You have to eat my dear~” Its lulling voice became closer, next to her true self. A primate mockery of her voice. Its roots were in, ready for insurrection, guillotine and all. Nibbling, it eats away, mice at work. “Don’t deny our body its food. I can feel our hunger, and it’s unbearable. We should find some nice food. Something delicious.”

 

“Go…away” The rodent reaches out of its throat, squeak. “Please” Its pallorous patheticness melding its skin, pulsating with violaceous colour, spread all over, mark the plague. Tighter, the strings of the hoodie enclose, caught on protrusions of bone on the head, their sharp ivory shining in the neonic urban. 

 

“How can we part, honey~” A laugh, few steps forwards while turning back; its ribbing burns deep, so close to the warmth. So close to those bowls of Ramyeon laid on the couch, so close to the warm cuddles wrapped under blankets, so close, yet in infinite truths, the millimetre of separation was no mercy. “We’re simply two sides of the same coin.”

 

Yet, long march yields its fruits. The lights dimming, onto a plain, slightly outside the limits of the city. A clean little patch of clearing, surrounded by wood. Seonangdang swaying, leaves in wilt as they blow off with the last puffs of soft wind.

 

I touched something sacred

 

In the creation of Babel. Click, then slowly drag of mouse traffic's warm nostalgic echo onto a different plane. Puffing the air with faint metallic patterns, sears into perfect reflective cues. Clangour, white plain of disc is retrieved by ginger hands, marker newly scrawling a black sentence “Ramyeon Flavour Reaction” Unremittingly, disc now encased, Mira stares for a parting moment at the Blu-Ray. Valecdictorial mirth, as the disc disappears into a rack. It’s case now adorned with “#138”

 

“Hey.” Short hair, led down from its usual pigtailed appearance, omens the arrival of now solemnly genial Zoey, in golden amber, eyes sparkling like doubloons. “Should we go eat something?” 

 

Tidying unkempt hair slightly, effort to control the spiralling obsessiveness, she smiles faint. “Go first. Give me a sec.” 

 

At the disappearance of the black hair, she returns to the shelf of discs, in lulling lullaby, a short count begins, hovering finger checks every number, reading over the entries, from the latest to the first. Reading the label in her head, mellow memorium, “First meetings”. She looks longingly, returning to workstation, grasping a thumbstick which sits neatly. “Backup #1” Turning, the stage’s entrance is before her, turning off the room’s lights, she leaves.

 

Tonight, become my myth

In arid frost, a peracute coldness hung in the now winter air, yet bathing in warm sunlight assisted in a way. With the temperature dropped, snow was likely soon to come, likely to Zoey’s excitement. 

 

Done the streets of Seoul, still disguised, to a local spot, hidden within cracks and dents of the urban sprawl. Rounding corner, the small open-air place had a sudden, unexpected vibrant air. In arising question: had the ajumma running it finally given in and said Huntrix dined there regularly? No, likely not. Good old ajumma wouldn’t do that. Right? Yet, there was a large crowd poking their heads through the thicket of hair, heads and backpacks, found the silent snoring of a black-haired girl and her companion, who was wide awake and silently watching the news. 

 

“Ohhhhh, It’s her again.” The sparkle seemed to only lighten in Zoey’s eyes, moulding to become the light of a comet flashing straight into poor Mira’s eyes. 

 

Squinting, best as she can to control the searing Zoey-based radiance “Who?” Opening, her eyes widely as she pushed her friend’s head to the side, in attempt to dim the amount of light around. “Oh. Her, again.”

 

In sudden loss of the intense incandescence, Zoey shrinks back down to normal size. She scoots a bit closer to Mira, offsetting the push. “Right…You don’t like her.”

“That’s strong of a statement.” The fiery flame returns; it burns in a controlled bore as it fires out of her eyes to scrutinise the pathetic sleeping form of something that seemed nothing more like a humorous art piece. “How can that thing even sleep at a time like this? Does it have the sleep schedule of a child?”

 

Smack, on the shoulder, as Zoey signals a little ‘zip it’, looking at her in serious look of widened eyes. “She’s a goddess, you know; you should be nice.” 

 

Rolling oogling eyes, a sigh, she huffs in laughter a bit. “Why should I even care? I don’t think this goddess can hea-.”

 

A sudden large gasp in the crowd; Mira looks up, her eyes tired and ready for some trivial match of insult hurling. “What? Did I say something wrong?” Yet, no eyes were pinned on her; however, the small TV screen on the cornerside of the restaurant blared.

 

In cold clinicality, plain words undressed. “In harrowing news last night, ex-Sunlight Sister was recently discovered critically injured by police in her home.” Hearts tremble; Zoey and Mira instantly turn to leave, but the crowd swamps them. In sluggish escape, they are halted by one more statement. “Yes, Mr Lee, even more surprising, the PSSD has discovered prints belonging to the shoes of stage idol, Missing lead singer, Rumi of Huntrix, but we can only speculate, now can we?” Condensed horror begins to disperse as the dissipation of the crowd leaves a silence in the air.

 

“You two.” Lazy-eyed and promiscuous to unrelenting degree, two golden eyes pierce slothfully in semi-earned delirium. “Huntrix. Come play with me.”

 

In slow, deadpan turns, they look in horror as the sun goddess stares back, sprawled lazily over the table, arms reaching towards the floor.

 

Look, you can't escape

 

Beforehand,

 

The quiescent regalia of the evening sun slices gently through the plains, it’s gentle undertone welcoming its visitor. A pair of copper lanterns fights gently the torrent of fading sunbeams, prepared ambush when dusk settles. Purplur marks in imprudence, giving away its oncoming assault. 

 

Inspecting, the askance clean gold lines glow under trained eye, it’s completeness in contradiction. The jigsaw puzzle is complete; however, there is yet another piece remaining. Celine’s eyes continue to scan. For these foreigners knew nothing; there was no killing him – the unending Hydra. Slicing one off simply resulted in a new one sprouting anew. A new tree of corruption sinks its roots into the pure soil. For there was no Trojan horse; Troy down below shall stand in its eternal inviolable statehood.

 

The fine mist enters the air, rumpled of familiar scent: a gentle sage which puffed up the air in violent revolts to the nose; once strong lavender now could only be sensed, its vestigial existence harbouring its owner's final fanfare of mind. Substituted, a sweeping coup of Ylang Ylang held its forceful suffocation in the cold air. “H-Help me, Celine.”

 

Horrid recollection in its grand raiment, the odious tune of profligacy smiles. Turning a catatonic stare, a figure stands before the mentor, her partisan weeps tears of blood. copperish-saffron mixed in a cascading blend with usual brown in the eyes. Crucified in hell’s bathing light. “Rumi?”

 

In mice-speak, shrieking unattainable words escape their cage. “I need help.” Eyes towards malformed claws, inching out like blades as they touch blood-hued horizon. “He-She’s inside. She-”

 

In sudden incoherence, garbled suddenly trivial, suddenly malformed words reform under soft echo. Unwillful horror bubbles, face contorting into component-drowned exasperation, in pantomime, trying to eject vicious streams of red from her windpipe. In slithering seductiveness, a new face begins its insurrection, contorting the discommoding drowned face into a smile, little cracklets of bone bending piece into new reform. Gwi-Ma’s smile appears on Rumi’s face. Its disgusting soft-mellowness almost seems more human than the girl herself. In warm-cold radiance, its veristic smile stares at Celine, a matter proof which had been inherited, yet missing from the girl. “Oh~ Celine, my dearest motherly Celine,”

In inundated primal knowledge, katabasis arose in an attempt to run. Right turn of maximal haste, attempting a wild dash for her escape. Yet, the gentle sharpness of blade produces a small papercut-like gash on her neck before she could stop and recoil in horror. In whispers, gentle cradlesongs of the past whisper sweet death in her ear, lulling her into grave. “Come on, my other half wants to talk; don’t dare keep her waiting.” 

 

“C-Celine…” The disingenuous truth of her foster daughter's voice returned. In muddled nostalgic disconnective pattern, a moulded statuette of hidden corridors on endless mental hallways which kept every insecurity as a minotaur in separate labyrinth. “I need…to die.”

 

Woolly, the tears of Niobe weep the short summer bloom smell of the corpse before her. In amitial-malign nostalgia, gandalfian, Celine moves in for a caress. Colligation, yet so close, the cold winds which blow from Lady Macbeth’s marks. Scars reveal underlying patterns, mingling in an endless waltz, till the end of all that was. Her. A sanguine enters the eyes; a blade is formed. Crackling like shards of broken glass, the once marine colour melds deeper red. “No, Rumi. I won’t do that.”

 

In disfigured horror, the puppet’s strings force it up to a gaze with its mentor. Its eyes force a plead unable to be replicated by mouth. One more repetition, to satisfy the masters above. “I need.” Now, voice in mangle, the beauty of gray’s image, contorting into broken bits of cord, crushed pipe and growling howl, echoing, blind mountain goats, unknowing of the reflective nature of its statement. “KILL. ME.” A blister of red spreads to the horizon; the gold Honmon falters for a moment, its lines blurred by the bloodied horizon.

 

In retaliation against the encroaching demonic visages which lazily bloom, Lycoris radiata under the light of false dawn. Blind lamentations of hell, gurgling in the mouths of those indoctrinated into sinful blindness. “I…can’t.” Depraved long-departed nostalgia tolled in eager memoires in presence of cadaver. “I told you before… I vowed to protect all that was left of your mother-”

 

“D-Do you call this having something left?” Washed-up, in desperate sinking, the blood sea arose inch by inch. In utteral defeat. An unmet gaze remains hung in the air, executed by the wrath of the queen. There, cakeless, but still well and ready. “It burns. I burn. How can you be so blind?” In haphazard, beguiled welcomes of betrayal, the formation of godless thoughts, a lovely lullaby once more, of a question refused asked aloud, now rippling through the cold air. “Why did you let me suffocate in the fire?”

 

“Rumi, this was for you. This was a defying of all I knew.” feigned stirring in the eyes, maybe truthful, yet trapped in its delusional sub-segment of reality. “I accepted you with open arms.”

 

In upheaval, a sneer. Two impure metals molten into cognate. The empty circus in the darkest depths of the mind finds its first visitor. In liberation of the trapped attractions, once bottled now uncorked, the heart’s champagne spills like congested blood. Then, sudden, galling intimacy. Her master’s head pulled close to her right shoulder. Provocative whispers, like trapped weeping and gnawing. “Tell me, Celine. Tell me you love me. And we’ll let you go~” 

 

“I-”

 

The gentle blowing winds cascade. They fall short on the black crow’s body; it stands over its false kin. In self-revered horror, the black crow and its feathers coax itself in blood; it stains as it tries to fly away in fear of the coming sound of the vultures, there to liberate the carcass to its next position. In amber eyes, the crow’s hunger whispers alibis as it flies away into the night. Celine lies in a puddle of blood. The red mercury of fluid puffs up the air in an ironic smell, its warmth nourishing the ground below, eyes wide, staring into the cold night air, the glimmering gules of corrupted blade flash once more in her eyes. Her daughter falls from grace, ever so deeper. The pits of hell open in warm welcome.

 

I want, I wish you weren't here

 

The unending freeze-frame resumes; now Zoey and Mira are closer to their satirist, whose golden eyes glare in their contemptual amusement. Lovely mundanity at its best. The replacement superstar smiles in her radiance. “You amuse me.”

 

The fist which grasps the belligerent’s collar tightens ever so harder. The red hair flails in glaring rage. Little fireplaces burn bright into a structure fire. Blaring in the written letters to the departed and in the ashes of the dead. “If you even say another word about Rumi, I’ll smash your face in.”

 

A smile ever so wide. “I’d like to see you try. Trust me, girl, my face’s just stronger and prettier than yours. You look like Admiral Ackbar compared to me.” A forceful feeling of discomfort arises in the throttling hand; its grip releases as the fabric of the shirt sighs relief in long puffs. “Plus, I just did you a little favour; I just. Blooped away a little thorn.” Inspecting the horror melt from the black-haired girl's crumbling face, a faux puzzlement emanates in response. In trenchant, half-assing huffs, the words upon the mouth tumble up in circus. “What? Did I say something wrong, gals? Demons have patterns? You kill all demons? Am I wrong anywhere, hmm?”

 

Repentant sorry boils the younger one. The noir black revealing itself as her face retreats away to its respective corner of darkness. Running off like grazing deer. There is only the other one now. Just her and it. Its smiling face staring at her again. The red hair bristles in reply. In another strike, her fist grabs the goddess’ collar, lamenting the brutalisation of its court-jester appearance. “You are so going to die now. I am going to hit you in the face so fucking. Hard.”

 

A sudden raise of its holy fist as its middle finger raises, calling for temporary ceasefire. Bringing its pink, flossed-gold, engraved phone to her ear with the other hand, its eyes seemed to ream like an enticed feline. “Hey…Whatcha callin me for hmmmm?” Bamboozled, the death glare tightens tenfold. The fist flies forward in attempted liberation from its chains towards ’its final destination. Yet. The first freezes. Its eyes stare back annoyed, yet it doesn’t speak. At least not yet.  “Oh, don’t worry; I was just messing with a recently divorced polygamous couple.” Toned now more like a suspicious avoidance, it puts its phone away, returning its gaze. “Really didn’t think this through, did you, numbskulled moron.”

 

She snarls; against its gold eyes, she can imagine her fist smashing in, the squish of that face – she’d love to ruin it. Oh, to destroy the pompous and holy. Down with it, down with all. Doesn’t it seem so tempting, hurting the spitter at Rumi’s grave? Doesn’t it seem so tempting, beating the meathead that made Zoey cry? Doesn’t it seem so tempting to just beat it and be done with it? “I’m going to kill you.” The patchwork colours of her glaive form from the bare gold which had barely been achieved. Dully, its tip glares as she raises it in the air. “You are soo, so dead.”

 

Yet it laughs; in cacophonous orchestras, it bellows silly howls like challenging purrs. It pulls her hand off its collar quickly for a moment, moving backwards to buckle down in laughter, starting to roll on the floor like a maniac that had been supplied an inch too many doses of fentanyl recently. “You are so cringe. I love it.”

 

Brushed and ticked off, she stares. It’s right there. It’s head on the chopping block, and she is the guillotine. So close, so, so close. And not even far; she can simply just bring her glaive down on its neck and just.

 

The dull gleam of the tip ripples through the afternoon sunlight as she looks away. In simplicity. The destruction of demons held detached murder. Now it was something like her own kind; it was much more difficult to comprehend. Yet, it wasn’t her own kind. Why shall she not look to confirm if she’s completed her task?

 

Muffled by metallic chews of grinding, articulating its point through full mouth. “This thing tastes pretty good.” It chews on the glaive’s tip. Returning it normal stance, bringing the weighted armament up with it as it spits it aside. “Now. If you’ll be nice and not a piece of shit to poor ol me.” A paralysis is upon her; as it moves closer, now in intimate distances, it forces her numb form into a seat, passing her a cup of tea. “I want to hear all about you and your little. ‘Friends.’”

 

Please accept me

 

“Why the absolute fuck should I hire you, you demon-harbouring piece of shit?” 

 

All looking from above. On their high chairs, on their little thrones sitting on wads of cash and the stable concrete foundations that they held. Bobby was alone now. Huntrix gone, cash was drying up. It was slow, a basin of millions of gallons drained drop by drop. But the titular former manager knew. Having a job was better than having the risk. “...” No reply was truly constituted, enstretched million miles wide and shamed by each that saw him; it was no true surprise that no one wanted to hire the manager that managed the group with the demon as a lead.

 

“Get the fuck out of my sight. Before I get those foreign freaks to come drag you off.”

 

Once again, defeat. He moved back out of the room. Cold shimmering of fluorescent shine bleaches his eyes. Slinking along towards no end. He returns to the streetside. Weeks of job hunting, for what? Acceptance is such a far imagination. 

 

Upon the crackling pavement, he heads for a usual restaurant, a silent little western place. Emplaced at his usual seat, he stares with minute smiles at his usual. In slow consumption, bite by bite, savouring the grinding ponderousness of his little plate of pasta. In gentle interruption he feels a thudding tug as a familiar coldish hand brashly pulls him. Mira stands, her arm dragging along the puffy-eyed form of Zoey, who appears to have dumped most of her fluid content in the last few moments. “Bobby, I want a press interview. You can have 4% now.”

 

Sneaks an unreasonable dream

 

Fading in crumbling castle, the blinding white fluorescent medical instruments beckon her slowly towards no end. In unbridled, suffocative depreciation, Celine's mind wanders back to simpler times. In the fading daylight, as she sees her once more, smiling. Her long black ponytail as she waits patiently for her in the waiting room. Blundering in darkness, flying away from the body as if in ascension, Celine begins to gasp for the final pieces of life she can. Yet, in the drowning blood river, her lungs slowly fill with muck, dragging her deeper down into her hellish inferno of purple flame. In infinite unavoidable suffrage, she is going. Closer and closer. To the circus gates she comes. Escaping from this coil which binds her so tightly

 

Yet, it doesn’t let go. 

 

Celine gasps once more the muffled groaning and inconsiderate shouts of medical personnel as a black wad stands in the corner. Their guns holstered as they overwatch. In silence recording her movements, in shortened groan, she waddles herself closer to her salvation. Yet, she remains. In forceful intrusion, a tube snakes its way down the gullet, invading as if roots of the forbidden fruit. Glistening, it’s pure artificial material into her body in slow corruptive puffs. In meticulous rhythms, dollmakers slowly stitch, repairing tears like circular rhythms. 

 

She was in the ICU; maybe she was too delirious to understand. She breathed in slowly, the mechanical puffing of the machine beside assisting her uphill battle for the final grasps of air in the atmosphere. There she was again. The long ponytail and fading eyes are becoming. Closer now, just outside of the window. 

 

Unfulfilled, and yet I want

 

Out the water, tears indistinguishable from the wetness that has overtaken her face, the cold, empty basin of a gas station sink sits in the same position. Not once moving. Unlike her. Face below the water once more; give it a little chance for retribution. In its corruptive love, it bubbles up as water drags into her lungs. Becoming closer to her. Medusa’s alluring stare reflects through the white porcelain. 

 

Then, Freedom. Her face peers. Over the darkness her lips graze fang. Gnawing hunger becomes close to oblivion. Her face tries to resist, but the warm embrace of her intimate need forces her face back into the basin. Far from purified, unbaptized soul emanates from the puddle; the thirtieth dunk’s the charm. In tired soullessness, her tired eyes provide thin solace, the spindly blindfold which hides her from her own gorganic gaze through the mirror. 

 

Yet, the tolling gas station bell marks the return of her ambrosic voice. “Now now, we’re in a toilet, not a church honey~” In reverbeting concert sin, the image of a smile creeps towards her wetted features. In lazing distraction. She turns away, looking elsewhere but the mirror.

 

Decrepit peeling of the wall-laden posters. An unearthly escaping light at the end of the tunnel seems to glow from one of the ripping edges. As weedy as man’s control, she grasps, the falling flower petals of poster paper, revealing the derelict, grease-stained smile of three girls. Adorned above in big, highlighted letters. “Thank you for voting us as the winner of the Idol Awards!” Think fireworks spread from the eyes’s slits. 

 

Yes, Us.

 

There was, a Us. There was a We. Before.

 

Notes:

Hello there. Apologies for the time between uploads. I've been enjoying some other things and haven't gotten to doing this fanfic too much. However, I hope you enjoyed it as usual. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments. I put too many references in my writing.

Additionally, this chapter's song is Ave Mujica's "Imprisoned"

Thank you.

Chapter 7: Because the locker is so small.

Summary:

The world crumbles as Rumi clambers.

I can’t catch up.

 

“In a shocking development tonight, the Prusinian Security Service Division has announced a revocation of the previous exfiltration plans. This will mean soldiers from the division will remain in South Korea. All members of the citizenry are instructed to listen to all instructions of operatives to ensure good safety practice, but the division said any concerns may be addressed, and investigations will be launched if there is any malpractice from any operatives that may concern the citizens. Netizens postulate this may have been from the recent mauling of ex-popstar Celine of the now-defunct Sunlight Sisters.”

 

“It’s all chaos down there…” In hushed inverse musings, it was back to the loving halls of the resident educators in Burbank. Lonely helplessness, as everything moved on without her. But at least, this time, Zoey wasn’t alone. Shoved into the little locker that was their penthouse, Mira was with her. That was warming.

 

The waning moon dimmed its lights in assistance to the shine of jet aircraft, roaring low on the metropolis. Yet, they are of no concern; the slits in the locker are too thin to see them clearly, too blinding to let them care. In as bright of a glow as could be properly emanated from the dark penthouse at witching hour, the glow of the TV seduced Mira’s eyes as she stared on at the news. In typical radicalised foolhardiness, pestilent news crews clamber on the now-fortified bulwark upon Gwanghwamun Plaza. The lumbering sloth of the South Korean Armed Forces lunges its long claws at the PSSD aircraft, the lights of burning metal bits and defecation of small clouds of metal producing fruitless explosions midair. The horizon wavers in its resolve; the darkness deepens in glee. Echoing on his beautiful melody, Mr President says his perfectly rehearsed bout of speech. 

 

“My fellow citizens. I can express nothing but disappointment for the arrogant bravado the world has towards us. It is almost discriminatory. First, they solve one of our problems, causing the slaughter of their own men, ruining our soil with deep pockets of red blood. Now, they wish to return? All because of what? Because there is a possibility that demons can roam the earth?! Eongteoli! That’s all this is. This is the free world’s attempt to oppress us; they have brought their right hand. Far across the lands and seas. To terrorise us! This is why we have mobilised! We have brought our good men and women to arms! Not because we are warmongers! But because we are the people of justice, because we will not surrender to this. We will not fall; we will rally, in defence of our streets, in our bars and our fields; we shall hold this land until the world, or possibly small segments of it, comes to their true grasp. Until the world returns! Rallying too in our freedom! Down with those trying to defeat us! South Korea reigns mighty!”

 

Restrained laughter, in its ultimate chastity, erupts in bellowing gallows of humour. Yet, in response, the darkness doesn’t reply. The abyssal white noise of rotors silences, the great puffs of cold winter air puffing about. 

 

Descent into Yeongdeungpo. Internal Security Bureau, Alpha detachment.

 

In vain confusion, colluded hope to find misthought. “This is South Korean assets protecting Seoul’s Yeongdeungpo district. Unidentified Helicopter, this is a restricted area; you are on an incorrect heading. Exit the airspace. Over." 

 

Yet, in eternal damnation, his eminence of hell replies with his longest finger. “This is an unidentified bogey identifying as a Prusinian Security Service helicopter. We are on the correct heading, over.”

 

Through the thin streaks of light between the lockers, out into the open hallway, the massing mechanical buzzing bees crowd the air, resistance empty, the scaffolds which attempt to hold the structure hollow, left as clattering pieces of metal on the floor. The river is surpassed; in futile inability, warships below splatter their firecrackers in the air, the rattling brass falling into the oceans as anti-aircraft seem to bend away. The locker’s slits allow the light through, gatekeeping no more the true reality. For a brief second, all is clear. 

 

Mightiest of men, defenders of the land, stand to their signposted. In preparation of an early-medalled grave, awaiting the right hand of the free world to beat upon them for the mistake of one. One in front, his weary eyes, awoken within dreams of his mother at home, cut through the blinding night upon the form of camo-clad marauders suddenly imposed upon the footpath, where once lay the lights of lampposts guiding weary travellers of before. 

 

Then, one behind, the solid feel of steel gently kisses his nape. The gentle click of a protruding hammer entices him to its master’s will.

 

“What’s your name, dear friend?” A sweet, gentlemanly hue emanates through the silent night, barely traceable through a gas mask worn thickly and tightened to garrote. 

 

There was yet no reply. That was understandable – that was fine.

 

“I think you have a family, so we aren’t going to burn anything down; we aren’t here to be malactors. I would like to request you leave your gun on the floor and leave the premises.”

 

Maybe he was too much of a coward, or maybe he knew this cause was not one worth dying for; perhaps he simply wished to eat his mother’s kimbab another time. But his scuttling form slowly faded into the darkness; his rifle lay bare on the concrete.

 

 The burn, it sears deep, does it not? The feeling of sloughing skin radiates gently like the sweetest of deep lullabies in Rumi. Deeper and deeper, closer to an extinctive flame. She hurtles, in a sluggish lust for sustenance. Beautiful, smell it? Fading soul as it is. Oh, she was hungry. She was so convincing. Among the clattered rifles and clinging casings lay him; his blood lay upon the floor like some mercury wine, his pallor looked as enticing as a rich cream,  his soulless eyes were like supernovas. But yet, he was still alive; the bare huffing of his drubbed ribcage could still be heard clacking as his heart thumped in vain. She smiles. She didn’t know which 'her' was doing that. Crawling in a creak, simply slow, approaching his cheek, she smiles. Finally, food at last. Wide-mouthed, she begins her regale. The slow fade of horror from his eyes, dulling as the bluish hue of his life faded into nothing. It invigorated her so deeply. She felt alive again; there was silence. Whose silence was that? That was her mystery. She cocked her head to the sound. A horrified girl stood across, a beautiful face – just like hers. A great melanoid stream of black hair was paved down behind the helmet that adorned her like a crown jewel. She was the perfect dinner for Rumi. A match made in heaven, wasn’t it? This is what ‘fate’ means. She looked…

 

Just like Zoey…

 

Maybe in some lucidity, perhaps in a painful clarity, the sudden veil on the bride’s face had been lowered once more, the transition into unity stopped, as Rumi was now – defiantly – her. As defiantly as there was a “her” left. She bit her own lip with her fang, trying not to cry in front of this horrified girl. Yet, unlike the warmth of Zoey’s hug, the girl refused to yield the same, simply once more, the searing blister of gunshot wounds.

 

Bleeding tar now, slowly she lugged, at the base of the floor, cascading black from mouth and newly made pores.

 

But perhaps death was preferable to this defeat. Because if she did die. The other one would die too. That’s what Rumi thought. That was her victory. If she wasn’t supposed to live, if she was some mistake, she should die solving a mistake too; she can be a blank slate. Neither good nor bad. A simple neutrality. That would be her freedom. Her defiant salvation above all.

 

Pig. In patheticness. An attempted tyrant now bowed. Before the barrel of a rifle. Shoved to the square of his head. A man so cowardly as to put the nation in jeopardy, so as to ensure his shred of power could be preserved. In selfishness. 

 

The committee was silent. The cabinet too, the newsmen and the bystanders in the crowded parliament. All was still. 

 

With his head still at the barrel, hands now zip-tied and ducted behind him like some felon, the checkered man once more took the podium in replacement of the last dictator.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, apologies for the setbacks. This is a legally mandated power redistribution operation. Apologies for any issues. No parliament personnel have been maimed or killed in this operation. For the crime of coup d'état against emergency global intervention under recent UN Monnet Law, the president will be brought to the ICJ within a few weeks. Voting will begin for a new prime minister in two weeks. Please call back all forces. And please do not interrupt Prusinian Security Service Division Operations. Good night.” Hastily leaving, dragging the screaming and kicking child by the arms, off to some unknown holding cell until his unceremonious transfer to prosecution. 

 

“They’re…really tearing each other apart, aren’t they?” She looked like some saddened pup. Something which had seen its parents torn to shreds. Mira couldn’t help but sympathise. She curled up next to the already shrimp-like Zoey.

 

“It’s all right. It’s over. We should go to sleep, Zoey. It should be over by tomorrow.”

 

So close. But still not full.

 

Ten souls already, but still, she’s unsatisfied.

 

Rumi lumbers, but she goes in circles

 

In the labyrinth in her mind, she can’t find the minotaur except when she looks down.

 

But what…

 

Black midnight, the gentle rays of darkness kiss the wide-awake forms of the survivors of Huntrix. Watching the skies in the perfect gold of the honmoon. Yet it brings them simply no solace. There is no peace in limbo.

 

Clattering. The pans and pots falter as they sink into dented malformations, the sound of brittle marble separating into its factors.

 

They re-enter the hallway, both in a groggy state.

 

Staring, it’s amber. Two pupils glow and dance in the moonlight. In and out. The patterns of unholy origin play to the eyes, dancing on poles as seductive hits of alcohol.

 

It was her. She was back.

 

The lights binarily returned to the room as the elevator door opened, and the flood of perceivable agents walked in – the type of ones from spy movies, the ones Zoey would talk about.

 

However, the warmth was gone now.

 

Movies were a dream of the past now.

 

Impasse, a three-way.

 

Huntrix.

 

Rumi,

 

And the world.

Notes:

Thank you for reading. Hope you have a nice day. Apologies for few and far between updates. Please comment your thoughts and opinions
Good Evening and Good Night.
Thank you.

Notes:

Thank you for reading; it's been a long time since I've written, I hope you've enjoyed it.
Cheers guys

Inspired by ShadowIllusion's "The World Wasn't ready"

Is Bobby going to die!!?!?!?!?!?!?