El awoke with a sharp gasp, his body feeling feeble and numb. Panic gripped his mind as he grappled with confusion and terror—'How? Where am I? Did I die?', he began to struggle,yet nothing worked,his body because even more numb than before as if it was dying faster.
Yet, as swiftly as those feelings erupted, they faded,numbed, leaving behind an unexpected sense of calm. Moments after, he felt a faint twitch in his hand, the sensation rippling through his limbs; fingers, legs, lips—all awakening slowly.
Regaining some control, he heaved himself upright, instinctively extending his senses. To his astonishment, he found himself alarmingly close to his familiar cave. Furrowing his brow in disbelief, he wondered how he had arrived there. He distinctly recalled being in the snake pit before losing consciousness. As he continued to assess his surroundings, his vision began to blur and fatigue overtook his mind.
"I should rest for now,"
he murmured softly, fatigue lacing his voice. He recognized the necessity of recuperation—his plans had been upended once again, and he needed to prepare meticulously. After all, he had a number of foul, gutter-born abominations to vanquish.
But for the moment, he needed to meet the sandman and restore his mental clarity. Entering the cave through its narrow entrance, he quickly searched for a suitable spot to sleep, hoping to regain his strength.
Yet the cosmos, as he had painfully learned, did not favor him.
El stirred gradually, expecting to feel revived, but he found himself feeling even more drained. He propped himself up slowly, his mind flickering to life, a slight improvement from his earlier awakening, yet his body felt increasingly fragile.
Using his senses to assess his condition, he felt his healing essence still at work within him, though he couldn't identify the aim,as there were no fresh injuries apart from the scars from past battles.
As he continued to scrutinize, something caught his eye at the periphery. If not for his heightened perception, he might have missed it. Tensing his weakened body, he instinctively took a fighting stance; however, upon seeing the figure clearly, his grey eyes widened, and his lips trembled. His throat constricted, and in a hoarse voice, he called out, "Caleb."
The figure remained seated in a lotus position just out of reach, clad in a loose yellow t-shirt and joggers, both soaked in blood from a grotesque wound stretching from under his jaw to his torso. His black hair hung over his eyes, and as if responding to El's voice, the figure lifted his gaze to meet El's.
"Why are you alive?" he asked, his expression void of emotion.
"What?" El replied, confusion taking hold.
"Why are you well when you did this to me?" Caleb reiterated.
"I didn't do that ,I wasn't even there!" El protested,his vision blurring on the side.
"But you let it happen," Caleb continued, his tone unyielding. "You did nothing to stop it."
"No, no, no! Don't put this on me! How could I know they would kill you when they spared the other bloodline holders ?"
Caleb smiled, his expression still devoid of warmth. "So you used me as bait?"
El's lips fell silent; he collapsed onto the ground, head in his hands, "No, I didn't think… it would happen like that—"
"Hey, El," called a soft, calming voice.
Startled, El recognized the voice. "Elie!" he exclaimed, looking up only to be met with a sight that stole his breath— "What happened to your arms?" he asked, nearly in tears, though whether it was the sight in front of him that was the cause of something else, he did know .
"Oh, this?" Elie replied, glancing at her disfigured body, with one arm grotesquely severed at the shoulder and the other sliced cleanly at the joint, both pouring crimson onto the floor. "Don't worry; I'll survive," she assured him, but her smile turned frigid.
"After all, I can't die before tearing the skin from your face for what you did to our family."
El's expression shock and then soured, a sickening sensation rising in his stomach. He gasped as his throat constricted, and thick, black fluid erupted from him.
'Wh-what's happening to me?'
he thought frantically. Only the snake pit offered an explanation, yet he couldn't grasp what had transpired after he lost consciousness.
And this was merely the beginning of the deceptions, his madness, and his profound remorse.
---+---
This troubling ordeal unfolded relentlessly over the course of three days, marked by intervals of mere hours amidst endless deceptions and illusions. Each day, he endured this torment four times, leaving him utterly fatigued, both mentally and physically.
Starving and unable to hunt, his condition worsened, his appearance growing increasingly frail and sickly.
The one flicker of hope remained in the essence that still healed him, though it was perilously dwindling under the strain of continuous restoration.
Despite his advanced mastery over essence energy, he had yet to fully grasp its nature, which contributed to its depletion. Yet even in his depleted state, he managed to use the brief hours of respite to formulate a plan that was both deceptively simple and wildly ambitious.
--+--
A small cave was situated at the ground level of a modest mountain, encircled by towering trees.
A steady flow of cool, damp air emanates from within.
The floor consists of uneven rock overlaid with moist silt, marked by numerous dark bloodstains, which include smeared handprints, lengthy drag marks, scattered droplets, and a sizable dried pool in the center, exhibiting a blackish-red and flaky appearance.
A relatively smooth expanse of pale limestone on one wall serves as a macabre surface for inscriptions. It bears deep scratches, unsteady handprints stained with blood, and dripping tally marks inscribed in the same medium.
Several phrases are etched into the stone:
"Take the killer flowers,"
"Grind it to dust,"
"Bait the vile monster to the cave,"
"Inject it using the parasitic dust,"
"Stab it to death, kill it," and "Then hunt those damned snakes."
Blood has trickled down in slender lines, forming a crust at the bottom. The atmosphere is characterized by a cold, damp quality, enveloped in a profound silence, with the exception of faint, distant dripping sounds.
El lay sprawled in a wide sitting position on the ground, blood staining his palms. It had been three days of enduring this relentless madness, but it felt as though today marked the end of that torment. In his reflections, he was certain that it was the serpentine creatures behind this; they injected their venom into their victims, making them easy prey afterward.
His eyelids flickered and gradually opened, revealing dark patches around sunken eyes. Rising fully, he experienced a rush of euphoria unparalleled in long memory—a sensation he wondered if he had ever truly felt before. A strained smile crept onto his lips; it was a promising beginning for the plans he had laid out. After all, he was preparing to confront a beast far stronger than himself, but first, he needed to gather the right tools.
---
Soon, he found himself standing close to the field of the killer flowers. Tracing his steps was effortless, thanks to his sharpened perception and mental acuity; hardly anything evaded his mind. However, the challenge now lay in harvesting the flowers.
That task wouldn't be difficult, as his healing essence energy protected him from infestation, but speed was of the essence. This energy had been his last bastion, healing him continuously over the past three days and replenishing the blood he'd lost from his hand injury—the very blood he had used to draft his plans on the cave wall. Now, he had to make it last through this crucial phase and the impending battle against the monster.
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