Chapter 3
Prism
Vore was gone.
I’d hoped the fog would kill me swiftly.
My grief was a heavy stone buried in my chest, pulling me to my knees.
Blue mist shrouded me as I fell, my sobs the only sounds penetrating the dense, cold atmosphere.
Death would come, death would come and this would be over.
Death would come, and I wouldn’t have to imagine a world without Vore.
I couldn’t endure a world without Vore. My monster had embedded himself into every blood cell that pumped through my veins.
Vore was each ragged breath and hoarse whimper.
I couldn’t breathe without him.
How could my own sister do this to me?
I hated her.
I hated her.
“Please,” I begged the darkness. I didn’t even know what I was asking for. Death? A way to turn back time? To not exist. “Please,” I sobbed. “Please, please.”
Tears pooled under my cheek, soaking the plush, moist moss beneath me. My brain couldn’t function adequately enough to ascertain why or how I’d come to be lying on moss. How had I left Willowspire’s brittle grass and come to be upon velvet earth?
It didn’t matterbecause my thoughts hushed at a terrifying sound. Though terror isn’t so terrible when all you desire is the tranquility of nothingness. A low, ancient voice echoed around me, vibrating through my bones.
“Malefic… Malefic…” The voice rumbled, enunciating each syllable as if tasting the sound of my last name on their tongue.
On weak bones, I sat up, staring through the blue mist. “Hello?” It came out more like a question than a greeting. “Who—who are you?”
What are you?
The voice echoed again, closer this time. “Prism Malefic.” Whatever it was, it sounded as if it just realized who I was. How did they know? Where was I? “You’ve finally arrived.”
“Arrived where?”
Silence stretched across the mist as I sat on the moss, awaiting an ancient reply to ring again. Suddenly, something reached forward. Panic gripped my throat as a long, boned hoof extended through the fog. “Come with me,” the voice enticed. “Come with me, Prism Malefic.”
Staring at the skeletal hoof in confusion and horror, I hesitated. “I don’t want trouble.”
“I know what you want.”
“You do?”
“There are answers within me that you haven’t even the notion to ask—yet I shall reveal them to you anyway. Come and find what you do not know you seek, Prism Malefic.”
“What I seek is death because my love is dead,” I answered the fog. “Can you give me that?”
Thunder rumbled through the atmosphere, and I couldn’t be sure if it were a coincidence or the doing of the concealed being I was speaking too. Frankly, I didn’t care. I’d seen enough magical monster mayhem to last a century after all that had just transpired in Willowspire.
After a long moment, the voice responded, chilling my bones and prickling the hair on the back of my neck. “Death… Prism Malefic… can be charmed.”
My breath locked in my chest.
“To charm death… do you mean… is there a way?” It was nonsense; it was impossible. It was a thought my rational mind would never entertain… and yet…
The hoofed arm extended, flicking its wrist. “Come with me.”
I could have stayed in misery on my moss patch, awaiting my demise, praying for an end to my agony.
Or… I could accept the help of an unknown force and maybe… maybe…
Vore was gone… and he’d taken my humanity with him. I’d do anything, chase any ghost, follow any haunted path. What did I have to lose when I’d already lost everything?
I took the boned hoof in my hand.
It pulled me forward.
And the fog cleared.