Shadow Dancer: Vertigo

[Kiki]

(Using the monsterous power of the Sable Amethyst, the Faceless have taken control of the ghostly assassin Raven.)

It could have been years that I remained in my prison...An eternity past as day after day, I was violated and tortured beyond the meanings of the words. Though I felt no physical pain, my soul screamed with an anguish that could not be silenced. So I cried aloud...which only urged the Faceless to continue their seemingly endless quest to destroy me.

In the small stone cell, time was meaningless. Night could have been day for all I knew. And I felt myself slowly falling into the sense of vertigo...into the sense of madness. Until one day, I began to chuckle. I had lost myself so completely in one particular passage of pain that I erupted not in tears of agony. What replaced it was sheer insanity.

This, of course, angered Shifter to no end. I was no fun anymore...I didn’t yelp like the rest of his victims. At least that this meant Shadow would most likely be my new master...He would possess my heart stone...The Dark Amethyst...And at last I would cease to be fought over like a new toy. Perhaps that is what I was to them; a doll that could be set aside when I became boring, and brought into the light when I could be useful. I shuddered at the thought...Of my power, my strength, and my very being a puppet.

It was on the day that Shadow summoned me that I noticed my short locks had become ivory cascades. Not only that, but I had slumbered. Being one of the dead, it is rare for me to sleep... my madness must have triggered a sort of shut down...A reboot, if you will. In the time what I was on standstill, my subconscious must have grown out my hair. Why this occurred I am not sure, but I vowed to myself this. I would not remove it. I shall keep it as such as a memory of what occurred in this wretched place...So that when I escape, and I feel wind upon my cheeks, I shall remember. And I shall hate. And with my rage, will rise a power, that will be the key to my vengeance. On that day, I swore; the Shifter would die.

While these thoughts raced through my still fuzzy mind, a rattle of the barred door snapped me to the present. Beyond the gate, a child no taller than I stood, her red eyes looking intently on my form. This girl, I knew, was Plague; the inbred monstrosity that Katherine had shown her kindness upon those long years ago. She had not changed since our first encounter at the doctors lab; frail, strange and almost stunned in appearance, as if in a dream. Her third eye, looking about the room from its crevasse in her forehead, lay upon me. I could feel its telekinetic waves through the air as it slowly lifted me head, forcing me to face her.

“Shadow wishes to see you,” her slurred speech reflected her expression in a way that proved me right about her state of mind; somewhat gone.

I myself in a state of corruption, found myself rising without my regular resistance. My torn limbs had yet to repair themselves from their latest beatings, but I was still able to rise as gracefully as intended. My black flames slowly began to flow from my back, a stream of energy desperately needing to escape. My wings; my tattered proof of my identity of fallen angel, had been bound within me for so long... The Faceless knew that I could not be allowed any room to summon my power, and so they locked it within me. However, now it was feeling fairly...normal.

Plague motioned for me to follow. To walk...had it been so long since I had put one foot before the other in the attempts of motion? Had I really been a hostage in this hell for so long that I could not do what I taught myself as an infant? I tripped, but recovered my composure. I would not let the enemy see me as weak.

Down the black corridors we travelled. People littered them like rats, the few slaves about scurried with heads hung low in misery and fear. I could not help but feel sorrowful for them. They felt pain, while I did not. But I remember what pain felt like, and I could not imagine what had happened to them. The ghosts of their family, either slaughtered or having naturally passed, wept about them, crying out for the hurt to stop, for their freedom. They saw me glance and see them, and began to wail at me, begging for me to free the loved one that was so cruelly treated. But I ignored their plight. There was nothing I could do. For them, I could not be the messiah they longed for. Perhaps one day, I would return to free them. But it was not that day. It could not be that day... Though I felt my power return to me, I knew that if I tried to release any more energy than necessary, it again would be imprisoned within me, and I would be forced to return to my prison.

Seeing my thoughts, Plague stopped her march ahead.

“I feel bad for them too, sometimes. Father is awfully cruel...isn’t he?”

I nodded, knowing that the girl merely wished for a voice to talk to. Ever since her mother joined with Shifter, she had become second placed. She was lonely, like I was, and need companionship. Perhaps that is why she chose to visit me every day, if only to glimpse upon me. She rambled on for awhile longer, still leading me to Shadows chambers. She talked of her brother and how he bullied her. She talked about how much she missed her sister, and how she was stolen from her. Apparently, she locked herself in her old room for three days straight, holding a doll replica of the princess. The poor creature... In a way, we were similar. Though now I was far from what I was as a human, I knew the feeling of abandonment, lose and cruelty. If our lives had not been so different in other ways, I would have liked to have been her friend.

“I didn’t...get a chance to thank you for before.” She had fully halted, her gaze still fixed ahead. “I know that Rayon man isn’t all that bad...But that room was so white and I was so scared...And you helped me. So, thank you.”

I again said nothing, and simply nodded in her direction. But being the mind reader she was, I could sense by her delicate smile that she read the quiet thank you eradiating from the back of my thoughts.

At last, we had reached the black gates of Shadows stronghold. Apparently, the mind of the shadow lord had reached and touched Plague, for she randomly nodded and stepped to her side, leaving me to walk forward alone. With an expressionless face, I opened the door bracing myself to whatever horrors I may encounter.

The room was spacious and eloquent, like one of the main living spaces in my childhood mansion. For a man of suck wicked proportions, the elaborations suited him. It may have been an illusion to bring back the dreaded memories of my past, but I had learned to remain neutral in these emotional times, and the Faceless, either purposely or not, educated me to simply not care for these sort of things. He, my summoner, sat in a black velvet chair on side of the room, his eyes barely looking up from whatever he was reading. Most likely some archaic torture rituals that he would attempt on his latest batch of victims.

It was when the door closed that the errie mental command to walk forward waltzed into my mind. I approached, fearlessly towards the jawless man. It was only when I was about five steps away did he lower his book and gaze me in the face. Being unable to physically speak, his words came in the form of thought. The eerie and chilling voice of his twisted its way into my brain, demanding to be heard.

“Ms. Tristi.”

“Shadow.”

“I assume you are wondering my I have asked you here so suddenly.” I laughed, my chuckle still with a trace lunacy.

“Ah, why ask such meaningless questions, Fallen One? You know I am not stupid from what your prying hands have discovered. The Shifter bores of me...I lack the reaction that I had once had. Pain to a sort of mental instability.”

“That is partly so...”

“So I was right to think of myself as a toy in your little games.”

“What else would you possibly be in our eyes?”

“There would be nothing else for me to be but dead. And we all know that THAT isn’t possible.”

The faceless lord nodded, rising from his seat. His mask, messly stitched to his face expanded as a sigh left his physical shell. Like a predator surrounding it’s prey, he circled, inspecting me like one would inspect a uniform.

“In the time of your stay, Raven, I have learned much about you.” His pace slowed, his strides far apart and few. “I have learned of your... “gift”, in the terms of seeing past illusions and the dead....Apparently, you can see through peoples disguises as well, can you not?”

“Yes.”

“So you see me as what I am.”

I looked up at him, black meeting green as we stared at each other. Yes, I could see beyond his physical shell. It was only that; a puppet at his command so that he may remain upon the physical earth. It was also a prison, my like body was to me. I let my eyes relax in their sockets, allowing for the image of his humanist masquerade to drift away. What truly stood before, was not the Russian generally he controlled, but a magnificent and demonic creature not of this world. A herald, to be precise. One of black skin, wing and piercing red eyes that could destroy the composure of any mortal. He was a monster. It laughed as my expression seemed to falter from nothingness to wonder.
“You fear me, Raven?”

“I fear no one, Shadow. I am merely surprised that you resemble myself when I am not playing the facade of human, like you are now.”

“I suppose we are similar, creature. Apparently, like myself, Hell itself cannot hold you.”

“No.”

“Interesting...very, interesting.” He paused, obviously in thought.

“I do not intend to sound rude, Shadow, but these 20 Question games of yours grow old. What is the reason of my presence here?”

Again, our gazes met.

“The reason, Raven, I asked you here, is because I can do whatever I want with you now. You are mine to control.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t waste your OH so precious time by simply talking with a lowly demon like myself?”

“No. But, as my servant, I have a task for you.”

“A task?” This, truly, was a change in events. Was I to honestly go from physical slave to errand child? At first, I thought this a lie. But after seeing no falter in his request, I continued. “What sort of... “task”.”

“Raven, I have seen your thoughts. I know everything about you; what you are, your weaknesses, you desires. Everything. And from your memories, I grasped two. Both of which, you defeated the Shifter.”

“What does that have to do with anything.”

“The matter is that it has to do with everything. I can count on one hand the number of times he has been defeated. And you take up two fifths. Only the most powerful can defeat a demy-God of such proportions. Not only did it require strength, but skill. And both are hard to come by now a days. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. It makes the world much easier to crush. And with one of these rare beings under my control, why not give it a test run.”

My focus narrowed as I frowned, knowing what was to come would not be pleasant. Shadow approached me, like a snake to a cornered bird.

“You and eye, in terms of power, are quite similar, Raven. Both of us possess the manipulation of darkness. Both of us, are creatures from both above and below. The devil himself has named you an Angel of Death, am I not? The underworld is truly indebted to you for delivering such a wondrous amount of fallen souls...He even attempted to make you his queen, if your memories tell correctly.”

“Leave my mind at once, you prying demon.” I hissed.

“I will not be spoken to that way, dog...”

What happened next I knew was bound to occur. From his pocket, he drew a black and shimmering stone. My heart stone...OUR heart stone; the Sable Amethyst. I lunged forward in a desperate attempt to retrieve it from his hand, but it was no use. As he clenched his grip upon it, I could felt my very soul being crushed in a similar action. The pain was unbearable, and I screamed at a nearly unheard octave. But I dared not to beg. The enemy could and would not be satisfied. After a passage of forever, his hand released its embrace upon the stone and returned it to the shadows of his pouch, leaving me still writhing upon the stone earth.

“You shall respect your master, and do as you’re told. You are mine, and I shall do what I like with you.”

I did nothing but stare at the ground, my lung less body gasping in a primal instinct to breathe air.

“We need more spies on our field, Raven. Shifter is emmensly useful...Strong, agile, but far from subtle or stealthy. His idea of a surprise attack is to randomly destroy a wall. But that’s not how you do things, Dancer.”

It was then I felt the cold hands grab my face. Again, the piercing black of his iris washed over me.

“You can do what he cannot in many regards. Perhaps that is why he hates you so...And that is most likely why you have defeated him on those two occasions. And it is what you possess which will make you an asset to the Faceless.”

“I will NEVER join your sickening crusade, Shadow.”

He chuckled, a rare and disturbing sound that rang in my ears.

“You never had a choice to begin with.”

[SkittlesMeTimber]

don't know why i haven't gone through this sub forum before.

[Kyle]

That would explain the lack of replies

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