Heritage (Under Revision)

Chapter 63: Leon

It’s so quiet. It’s so dark. The only light is that of the one hanging above my head. I never know who is going to walk through that door to dole out new tortures like I’m some sort of a play thing. The only sounds I can hear are those of my blood, dripping from my mouth to the floor. My sweat rains down as well, mixing with the blood and dirt to create a murky substance.

It’s been nothing but pain...endless pain since I was brought here.

Pain and loneliness.

Most people think that hell is a place where you burn for all eternity in a fiery palace. I think those people are liars. This is the real hell. Locked up and left alone in the darkness by someone you love. The only outside contact you can take solace in are the individuals who come to dole out suffering to you.

The only other sound you get to hear in this place is that of their fist thumping against your face and body.

I cried at first. I cried a lot.

The whimpers and sobs were the lullaby that sung me to sleep at night for some time. But soon enough the tears dried up and I felt...nothing.

Every punch in the face and kick in the ribs is simply...numb.

I feel like the Sekrid who take pleasure in my torture have realized that by now and have been showing up less and less often lately.

Come to think of it, Crinza hasn’t visited either.

“Is someone thinking of me?”

My head snaps up to see Crinza’s smiling face. Whether I’m losing my mind or not, the sight of Crinza makes the tears come back as I start to cry hysterically, never happier in my life to see another living soul.

Crinza kneels down in front of me and places a hand on my face.

“I’m here now, love. I’m so sorry you’ve been left here like this. I wish there were some way to free you,”

“I...don’t care about any of that. I’m just...thank you for coming,”

Crinza tilts my face up so that my eyes meet hers.

“Why Crinza...why do these things keep happening?” I ask her.

I see a tear stream down her cheek.

“I don’t know, love. But I want to protect you from it. I want to make sure that not another tear falls from your face again. All you have to do is release me,”

“I don’t even know where you are...”

“Oh, but I do. Haven’t you noticed that my touch is a bit more noticeable now?”

Crinza touches my face again, rubbing her thumb on my cheek and I’m taken aback at the realization that she’s being truthful.

“How?” I ask.

“You’re so close to me, Leon. If you can find a way out of here, I can show you the way. The closer you are, the stronger I am in yo--,” Crinza cuts herself off and stares at the door; I see her silver eyes turn black.

“Your friends are coming. This could be your chance,”

“I don’t know if I have the strength right now,”

Crinza snaps back to me “You must have the strength. I might be able to...,”

“To do what?”

“Well, you know that you aren’t fully cured, Leon”

“What? How am I not cured?”

“How else do you think we’re still connected? Their little cure eliminates the physical effects of my pets. But the mental link is something else entirely. All the so called cure does, is deactivate the ‘parasite’ as you call it. But since we’re still connected, I could always try and activate it again,”

“I...don’t want to do that,”

Crinza places both of her hands on my face.

“Don’t worry, love. I’m not strong enough to make it permanent. It’ll only give you a short burst of strength and then dissipate. I would never let my pets have you,”

I think hard for a moment, remembering what it felt like to be under the effects of whatever the disease truly was. I can’t come up with any other option.

“O...okay Crinza. I trust you,” I say to her reluctantly.

She smiles wide and steps back a few feet from me. Just then, the Sekrid soldiers burst through the door, rifles in hand. I see flashes of light coming through the open doorway and begin to hear faint sounds of explosives and gunfire. One of them walks behind me and unties me.

“Looks like your pink hide will benefit us after all,” One of them says.

“It’s time,” Crinza says in a faint whisper.

Then, like every ounce of adrenaline has been released into my body, I feel a surge of power through my veins. My eyes focus with pinpoint precision and I cease thinking, and start reacting. I stomp down on the foot of the Sekrid behind me that’s escorting me. There’s an audible crunch as his foot shatters beneath mine. I drive an elbow upwards and connect with his nose. I notice lambent blood painting my elbow from the impact.

Before the Sekrid in front has a chance to react I reach down to the one behind’s belt and draw his knife from its sheathe from his right side into my left hand and twist around, slashing at the Sekrid’s throat. The cut is so deep that it very nearly takes his head clean off. Blood spurts out and colors my face blue.

I quickly spin back around, throwing the blade at the Sekrid who was in front of me. It buries itself deep into the Sekrid’s chest, causing him to fall to one knee in pain. I walk over and kneel down in front of him, grabbing the handle of the knife and pushing it upwards until the Sekrid’s eyes are meeting mine.

He stares at me with gritted teeth. It’s then that I feel that gnawing tingle of a sadistic idea. The same one I would get when the infection was active in my blood. I look down at the knife and let a smile form at the corner of my mouth as I start to drag the blade down through his flesh.

The Sekrid tightens his jaw even harder, doing his best to ignore the pain I’m unleashing on him. As I reach his waistline, I see his chest start to open up, revealing his exposed organs through opened ribs. I stare into his eyes and reach my hand into his chest, then tear backwards. He moves his eyes to see his heart in my hands, and then collapses as his body ceases to function.

I drop his heart to the ground like it’s a piece of random trash. I almost fall over as the surge of energy leaves my body, the pain and fatigue returning. I slowly stand up and see Crinza has reappeared, standing over the Sekrid’s corpse.

“That was quite beautiful to watch,” She says, smiling at me

. “Why did you allow me to do that?” I ask, angry.

“I didn’t, love. My pets’ activation was temporary, but I didn’t know how long. I wasn’t able to just turn them off,”

I sigh in frustration. “Just...show me the way,” I say, dismissing the conversation.

“Before we go to where I am, I need you to grab something first. Go out of the door and turn right. Go up the stairs. Be careful not to alert anyone. You’ll turn left at the top. On the left side of the hallway, you’ll find a room, the first door on the left wall, with various items in it. Go in there, I will tell you which to take,” Crinza explains.

I nod my head and begin my mission. Moving up the stairs was the easy part. Once I reached the top, however, is where the situation became sticky. I see Sekrid personnel running all over the place. There are loud rumbles that vibrate everything around me.

Something serious is going on here.

I make sure the coast is clear and then drop to a crouching position and move as fast as I can towards the room Crinza was talking about. I reach the door of the room and hastily open it, rolling inside.

There’s a large window at the front of the room, where the door is. I make sure to maintain a low posture so as to not allow anyone to see me.

Crinza is suddenly beside me “Up there, on the table. The sword, grab it,” She says, pointing.

It finally dawns on me that I needed the sword that Tal and I stole. I quietly creep over to the table and allow myself to stand at this point. I look down at the well-preserved blade, locked inside a wooden case, a glass viewing window on top.

“You’ll need to break the glass,” Crinza instructs.

I take one more look outside of the window to make sure no one can hear.

That’s when I see her.

Tal’Vira is just across the hall. I can tell by her movements that she’s barking out orders to Sekrid soldiers with headsets on. Time seems to completely stand still and I freeze all movements. Even the sound of Crinza’s voice is muffled at the sight of her. I feel the warm wetness of tears beginning to form in my eyes.

It’s like she knows I’m staring at her because she suddenly turns her head towards me, perfectly meeting her gaze with mine. I see her mouth drop open in shock as we just stare at each other. It’s then that a Sekrid soldiers steps in front of Tal and raises a pistol, causing everything to come back in to full effect.

The muffled sound of Crinza’s voice turns into a scream. I duck as the Sekrid fires his gun, barely dodging the bullet as it flies across the hallway, through one window and then the other before finally coming to a stop inside the wall that was behind me.

“Quick, Leon! Get the sword!” Crinza screams.

I jump to my feet and place a fist through the glass and grab the sword out of the case. I look around the room in a panicked state, searching for an exit that isn’t the door.

“The vent! Over there, in the floor!” Crinza points to the corner of the room.

I rush over to the vent and study the grate for a moment. I find the weakest point of the grate at one of the bolts holding it secure and place a few hard stomps on the area. The metal around the bolt breaks. I use the same method at the other bolt sites and then tear the grate off, throwing it across the room. It’s then that the door opens behind me and Sekrid begin to open fire.

I jump down into the shaft as the bullets collide against the wall I was near. I can’t tell how long the shaft was, I just know that it hurt when it came to an end.

The shaft spit me out twenty feet in the air in to a large concrete room that has a massive hole in the floor. I landed on the ground just before reaching the edge and rolled a bit before coming to a stop, causing an arm and a leg to hang over the edge.

I tilt my head to look down and see a very faint red color at the bottom.

This must be how they pump heat through the facility.

I look up as I hear Crinza speak.

“We’re almost there, love. Just this way,”

I quickly spring to my feet and follow Crinza. She leads me to a wall on the far side of the room. Crinza places a hand on the wall, and then turns to me.

“Take the sword in your hands and strike the wall, Leon,”

I look down at the blade, confused.

“Are you sure about that?” I ask.

“Just make sure you twist the grip of it before swinging it,” Crinza replies, placing a hand on mine.

I focus on the wall intently and raise the sword high above my head, twisting the grip as Crinza directed me too. I hear the whirring sound of something powering up. I swing down with all of my strength at the wall, closing my eyes tightly, expecting sword to snap in half. I feel the collision of the blade against the wall, and then the loud sound of a grenade going off as the resistance of the wall disappears.

I open my eyes to see a gaping hole has been made. I look down at the sword again, stupefied.

“The Sekrid were quite advanced, even before the advent of firearms. Though, I suppose that’s what happens when you have a cosmic entity assisting you,”

“Wait, your brother gave them this kind of technology?”

Crinza looks back over her shoulder as she walks down the open tunnel “Did I say that it was my brother who did?” She replies.

I raise an eyebrow at her, intrigued, as I follow her down the tunnel. It grows darker as the tunnel goes deeper down in to the planet below. Surprisingly enough, it stays cooler as opposed to the heat build that accompanies underground traversal. It only begins to grow a little warm as we reach the end of the tunnel and enter an open chamber.

It’s a massive underground cavern, lit by bioluminescent fungi that color the area a greenish hue. I look all around the room and notice a substance dripping from the ceiling that doesn’t quite look like water. I reach my hand out and feel a heavy drop plop on to my hand. I bring it in and look at it, seeing that it’s a metallic substance. I quickly shake the liquid off my hands as I realize that it’s mercury.

I feel Crinza place a much more real hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t worry, love. The old ones of this planet thought it was the same thing. They were wrong,” She says to me with a giggle.

I breathe a relieved sigh and walk out in to the open area. I scan further ahead and notice that there’s a large pool of the liquid metal in the center of the area in what seems to be a naturally formed indentation in the ground. I walk to the edge of the pool. Crinza is right beside me.

“You feel it too; don’t you love?”

“You’re in there...,” I reply as my heart begins to pound.

“It’s much too deep for you to enter. Do you see that small, raised portion of rock over there? That used to be a mount for the sword to slide into. Put the sword in it, and twist it around. It will raise a platform for you to step on and reach me,” Crinza points with a smile.

I make my way over to the area she was speaking of and study the rock. Whatever it looked like before was no longer recognizable, all but for a slot on the top of it. I place the blade into the slot and start to twist. The mechanism seems to have seized over the many years it has been left.

I grab hold of the crossguard and wrench on it as hard as I can. There’s a sudden pop as the mechanism gives in causing me to slip off the blade and fall backwards.

I feel hands underneath my arms and I look up to see Crinza. I look down at her hands, and then back up at her.

“How?” I ask, obviously confused.

She grins at me. “This is how close you are to me, Leon,”

She assists me to my feet and I watch as a stone platform, worn but in good shape, rises out of the liquid metal. I step on to the platform and notice that there’s yet another square hole in the center of the platform. I look around the hole and find that there’s another small, rectangular raised portion protruding out from the platform. It only looks to be as wide as the blade and I make the assumption that that’s what it requires.

I return to the sword and begin to twist it back, assuming that the mechanism will remain in place when Crinza suddenly stops me by placing her hands on mine.

“Don’t twist, just pull this time,” She directs.

I do as she says and watch as the blade separates at the center diagonally. I stare at the blade for a moment, studying it before taking it over to the second slot and sliding it inside. When the slot reaches the crossguard, I hear an audible click and suddenly, a second, square platform rises out of the metal up to eye level.

There it is: the urn of Crinza’s imprisonment.

This one, however, is much different from that of The Green’s. Where his looked like it was hewn out of a stone resembling green jade, Crinza’s look as if it was hewn from obsidian glass. There are numerous images carved into the urn that, though they are faded away a bit, can still be seen to depict death and destruction on them. A red jewel crowns the lid of the urn. It has a faint glow to it.

I reach out my hand slowly to the urn. As my fingertips make contact with the surface, a chilling cold grips me and my mind is pulled deep into another place. I wake up in a room filled with bones.

It’s freezing.

The acrid smell of death permeates the air. I stare around a moment before my eyes center on a throne made of the same bones. It’s there that Crinza sits, meeting her eyes with mine.

It’s almost too hard to bear looking at her for more than just a few moments. It feels like someone is shooting pure energy into your eyes and having it travel down to your feet.

“Come over here, Love. I want to touch you with my own hands this time,”

I slowly step over to her throne.

My hand shakes in fear as I grow closer to her, until finally I’m close enough that she takes it in her hands. She stands up to come face to face with me.

“There’s no need to be afraid, my love. I told you, I won’t betray you. Your mine. And I’m yours,” She says reassuring me.

Without warning she places a longing kiss on my lips, placing her hands on my face. The kiss leaves a sharp tingle, almost a sting on my lips and the feelings that rush through me are overwhelming. The problem is, I can’t discern whether they’re my feelings, hers, or both.

Without contemplation I wrap my arms around her waist and allow her to kiss me deeper. After a few intense moments she releases the kiss and stares at me with a wide smile on her face, revealing fangs, a set on both the upper and lower rows of teeth.

“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you, Leon Blake,” She says to me with lust in her eyes.