The girl stepped into the arena and faced Candy, raising her head to reveal a set of eyes filled with pure malevolence. The sight of such obvious hatred took Candy aback and for a moment she was once again filled with a paralysing fear. Taking a deep breath, Candy shrugged it off as best she could and without waiting for direction she ran full speed at her opponent.
It was a moment too late that she saw her mistake. The momentum Candy had gathered with her sprint sent her off balance, and the girl sidestepped easily, backhanding Candy a blow to the back of the neck which hurtled her towards the edge of the precipice. Candy dug her heels into the gravelled surface of the arena, desperately seeking purchase amongst the dusty chips. With all her weight she leaned backwards and finally came to a halt, the top half of her feet over the cliff edge, her vision fixed on the gaping abyss below. A sudden blast of intuition told her to duck, and she did, just as her opponent swung a fist to the back of her head. Candy landed on her ass, and was too slow rolling backwards to avoid a damaging kick to the face that sent her painfully sprawling again onto the ground. Blood seeped heavily from her nose, the pain blinding her from any further onslaught she could muster and again she received a blow, this time to the small of her back, dead centre in the middle of her spine.
Candy screamed in agony, tears again welling up in her eyes. Then from nowhere came again the white flash. The previous rage again flared up in heart. She could see nothing but a blinding light, a luminous orb that surrounded her, yet now she did not need the sense of sight. Intuition coupled with unstoppable fury overcame her, a warrior unleashed and when she sought purchase for her opponents hair she found it. She knew it was the girls eyes she felt give beneath her tensed fingers, could identify the shape of the girls nose as she bit, chewed and spat, relishing the taste of her opponents imminent demise. The tortured screams of the girl seemed to Candy to be in harmony with the rhythmic violence she was unmercifully delivering, and a joyous feeling began to rise from somewhere deep within, and she herself screamed, yet in ecstasy.
And then the light was gone. The feeling subsided, and Candy, as if returning from a deep trance was once again aware of the jeering and applause from the spectators and the sight of the girl that now lay in mortal agony on the cold gravelled floor. The girl was badly injured. Her eyes had been gouged out. Her nose was lying beside her, sitting in a little pool of its own blood. Candy felt sorry for the nose. The woman was clutching at where her eyes had once been, her legs kicking wildly, and she was moaning, repeatedly in a hoarse whisper,
"Make it stop. Please. Make it stop. Pleeeaaaaasssssseeeeee! Just. Make. It. Stop."
Candy felt a wave of pity for her opponent. Yet it had been kill or be killed. There had been no question of any other outcome and the girl would have taken great delight in drowning Candy in the abyss that stretched fuck knew how far below.
No, pity was as pointless as humanity, as Xcetral had stated. The spectators wanted a show, and a show was what Candy was going to deliver. Standing over the girl’s shoulders, Candy knelt, pinning the weakened girl to the floor. Her victim could not breathe properly without the nose that had been savagely taken from her. Again Candy felt a wave of sorrow for the poor nose. The girl could only breathe through her mouth. In one fell swoop Candy bent down and captured the girls tongue between her teeth, savagely twisting and clenching until she had severed the meaty organ, keeping it clamped between her front teeth for the crowd to see.
Blood spewed forth in every direction from what remained in the girl’s mouth, and Candy showered her face in the red liquid, to the delight of the now incited crowd.
"You enjoying this you sick fucks!" Candy shouted after spitting the severed remains of the girls tongue onto the dust.
"You want to see the grand finale?"
Candy grabbed the girl roughly by the roots of her now bedraggled hair and dragged her to the edge of the arena.
"Here you go motherfuckers!" she bellowed to the demonic observers.
And then in a whisper to herself. "And this is just the beginning."
Candy hurled the body of the defeated girl off the side of arena, into the darkness of the abyss below. She raised her hands in victory.
She had won the battle for her life.
The battle for her soul however had only just begun
They were the Rubiconeteka.
The boundless ones.
Gods and Goddesses of infernal divinity, they totalled eight in number. Great beasts of time and space they existed eternal; their realms and realities on the other side of this one, gateways made of atoms folded inwards, where space overlapped and the black shone brighter than any light.
Like Earthly landscapes painted on reversible canvases. Except not really portraits, for all depicted was made real; traversable windows, portals through which these beings travelled, simultaneously keeping their multitudinous horrors hidden from sight. Worlds of terror and unspeakable pain.
And each of these eight had a key for each world.
A different insertion and twist of the lock and an opening of the metaphorical windowpane would reveal the mirage of the glass' reflection. Where once there'd be Earth there would now be darkness swallowing the light and leading to new worlds.
They each had a name.
RIVVELLS
MEPHINIE
SOWND KA
THE SKIN WALKER
XCETRAL
SHUB NIGGURATH
HORUS
BLISMASATAKK
Yet these names were not meant to be spoken, and nearly each one had been long forgotten by the majority of civilization. Horus of course was a major figure in Egyptian mythology and as one of the first Zeitgeist and consumers of human souls had been invited to join the council when his predecessor had retired, claiming any realm resembling the physical was, after several million millennia, enough fun in soma and sarx for anyone.
The only other being of the boundless ones who some knew of came about by the accidental discovery of the late horror writer, H.P Lovecraft.
Lovecraft himself had hated magik in all honesty, finding it to be of a childish nature and much preferring science as a more mature study of the universe and its various natures.
It just so happened one day that his sister, with whom he lived with was out picking wild berries and fungi for a new recipe she was concocting (her brother kindly tolerant of her cooking skills or lack thereof) and happened to pick close to a hundred liberty cap mushrooms, a hallucinogenic variety known to the British Isles. With them being so small she had simply thrown the lot (after a quick rinse) into the dubious stew she had concocted, and had sat down to eat with her brother when she had remembered that she had had a prior engagement with the local vicar. Lovecraft had forked a good few spoonfuls of the mixture of boiled beef with freshly picked berries and mushrooms while his sister was still in the room, at that time ingesting around thirty or so of the tiny mushrooms, and a great deal more psilocybin in the odd tasting sauce.
He had planned to give up on the meal when his sister had left (thanking god, even as an agnostic, for getting the vicar, his layperson to summon his sister away during this particular meal), however as it happened, although he did not quite like the taste, there remained something curious enough about it that he managed to swallow another forty or so mushrooms before his curiosity gave way to the urge to wipe his tongue clean with a metallic sponge. He took the plate through to the kitchen and poured himself some wine when the world began to take on a strange new look. Colours danced about his eyes and he eyed the wine suspiciously, before erupting into giggles.
However, he was a man of great dedication and despite the growing wondrousness of his surroundings (or perhaps more likely in spite of them) he set himself the task of creating yet another terrifying monster for the purchasers of his novels to read about. Afterwards he had come too, and seen before him page after page of words, marked with illustrations of a goat.
He could remember writing or drawing none of this; instead h
is recall of the night previously had been one only of ecstatic bliss, a feeling of belonging and, although he was loath to admit it, a feeling of divine union. He had felt warmth spreading throughout his entire body, which he first attributed to the wine. However, soon this turned to feelings of pleasure so profound that the reason for this state became unimportant as he found himself reacting in awe to each new sense experience, and engrossed by shimmering geometrical patterns, before finally dancing in joyous celebration for the very fact of being alive, his hands and feet finding rhythms he knew not that he possessed; moving gracefully in a state of trance to the popular music of the time, switching from his usual classical stations to more upbeat ones.
He knew not of course that he had imbibed a mind altering psychoactive drug which rendered perceptiveness to a state unknown to man's ordinary consciousness and that he had gone higher than the chief monk of the secret sanctuaries on the other side of the world in China who had been locked in meditation for nearly a full month now.
Nor did he realise that the ecstasy which he felt was in fact comparable with the depressives' flight into madness, that it had been his mind trying to compensate with coming into contact with a Goddess so ineffable in her horrific nature that it's only defence was to use the psilocybin to contort its discovery into an enjoyable and comforting experience.
The next morning, sober once more he had made himself a coffee and smoked a cigarette whilst looking over the writing, and after the first few pages, which took in illustrations of what this Shub Niggurath should look like he poured himself a glass of wine as a celebratory drink for another well accomplished turn of the imagination. As he raised the glass to his lips he stopped himself. He was not of course a stupid man, and he had sense enough to realise that it was something he had imbibed the night before which had given him what on his death bed he revealed only to himself to be the experience of his life time.
Of course there had been his sister’s stew, or casserole or whatever the heck it had been. The mixture still sat in the pan on the cooker and he picked its way through the ingredients.
There was a mixture of strange berries that he did not recognise, however on closer inspection he identified the mushroom for what it was. Outwardly appalled (and secretly pleased) he had issued a gasp and had thrown the lot in the rubbish. Hallucinogenic foods. Next he would be smoking opium.
He resolved never to tell a soul about his experience and so far as his sister was concerned he told her that the mushrooms she had picked were poisonous, and that he had been ill all night. And that so far as H.P Lovecraft was concerned was the end of it.
The fact that Lovecraft had come into communion with one of the Rubiconeteka was of course unknown to his conscious mind. Only through his unconscious and his stories of the Llygor which arose from it, allowed it a cathartic way of releasing this great secret it, whilst keeping it from its differing awareness.
There were still some though who knew differently of course, and again there was a divide. Those who worshipped these hideous yet all powerful deities. And those who stood against them. It was said that the Rubiconeteka once ruled the earthly realm, that the light had been cast out and dark times had prevailed for aeons, that the rule had begun in time immemorial to any man, woman or child, living today.
And then somehow their rein had ended, with a mere smattering of worshippers to remember what had once been. It had begun as a cult. The worshippers of the Rubiconeteka had offered the sacrifice of humans to their deities, sometimes a small child being the preferred choice. Other times wars were engineered to satisfy their demands. From there the rituals had grown more frequent and somewhere along the line the games had been born.
The games were snuff.
Pure and simple, the more gruesome and horrifying the better. Yet each player would be gifted not once but twice.
After the walk of course a player would receive a gift. However, they would also get a personal understanding of their game, a glimpse into their future path and the possibilities that lay ahead for them to survive, and they would have this magically transferred into their heads, a mass of foresight in the blink of an eye.
The Rubiconeteka fed on the life forces of the dead, feasting on the soul of any player who lost. And sometimes the Gods and Goddesses liked to recruit more followers to their cause.
A person would be forced to defend his or her self, and they would find themselves initiated into the cult through the Covenant of the damned. Either killing. Or being killed. The Rubiconeteka watched it all, viewing each game with a sardonic humour, as each game was recorded magically into the ether, which these beings of horrific proportions could observe at their leisure.
Yet there was reward for those who won their ultimate game.
Each person had to make 21 respective kills, and for each kill they would receive back a gram of their soul. Should they win back every part of their soul, all 21 grams, the curse aspect of their gift would be lifted, and they would be free to live out their lives in peace and grow old and eventually die, and then after that… well that was up to what came next.
However, once the Rubiconeteka had removed the soul of the person they had ensnared to their cult, that person would not age. Yet they could still be killed. And should this be, the Rubiconeteka would forever hold their soul, to torture or feast upon for eternity.
The Rubiconeteka had watched the battle between Candy and the girl with great interest. A few bets had taken place, yet the other girl had been the favourite in the competition for their respective lives and most of them had been surprised when Candy had triumphed. They had watched with some amusement at the theatrics of the victor, and it was Xcetral who had started the clapping and the stomping of feet when Candy had raised her hands in defiant celebration.
“Which gift do we think will befit one with so much feeling?” said Xcetral.
“She is your girl, Xcetral. I think you should decide this matter,” replied Rivvells with a resonating tone which belonged firmly in another realm.
Horus nodded his agreement, and a murmur of consent went round the group.
“Then so be it. If feeling is her strong point, I propose we grant her empathy; the complete ability to sense the emotions, thoughts and feelings of others. It may prove invaluable; despite the obvious torment it will befall her. Yes, then it is so. She shall be released back into the world, into her journey through the game. I foresee a future for this one. Who knows? She may even reclaim her soul and laugh in our faces. As it is said, it is done!” exclaimed Xcetral slamming fist against palm.
Back in the arena, a flash of pain seared throughout the vessels of Candy’s heart and spread out across her nerves reaching into every conscious part of her. The ache brought Candy to her knees, and she cried out in agony. Another spasm shot through her body, and Candy tensed, arching her back painfully. A blast of noise erupted in her brain, and for a moment she blanked out. However another burst of the tortuous hurt snapped her back to consciousness and no matter how she tried there was nothing she could do to block it out.
After what seemed like an eternity the pain and noise subsided, although Candy could sense it in the background, like a radio with the volume turned down. Candy opened her eyes, and was greeted with the sight of Jack looking down upon her, both hands outstretched. Candy put her own hands in his and recoiled, nearly falling back to where she lay.
She had received an unmistakable feeling from him, a feeling as cold as death and it had jolted her like a shock from a small voltage electric fence.
"Jesus, Jack. What the fuck…?" Candy managed to stutter.
"So it’s true. You have been given the gift of empathy. Aye, that’s a cursed gift alright. Perhaps better if you make your own way up," Jack replied, somewhat matter of factly.
"Empathy?" Candy’s words hung in the air.
"I would say my heart goes out to you lass, but I guess I would be wasting my breath as you already know that," Jack sang in sympathetic tones.
Candy
drew herself to her feet. Without word Jack turned and led the way back down the path and Candy quickened her pace to keep up. The crowds in the arena were dispersing rapidly, the nights entertainments finished, and Candy was glad to be away from their ghoulish watchful eyes. The journey through the torch-lit tunnel was quicker than Candy remembered, and soon they were back into the cave, with the stone carved bench, the thick wooden entrance and the candles that would never burn down.
"Perhaps another drink? To settle your nerves?" Jack said, producing another glass of whiskey and offering it to Candy.
"Sure. Why the hell not?" Candy took the glass and drained it of its contents, then with all her might she hurtled the receptacle against the caves stony interior, smashing it into tiny fragmented pieces.
A heavy sob bubbled up in her throat, and she collapsed to her knees, the tears now streaming freely.
"Oh God , oh God , oh God , oh God , oh fuck! I killed her, what did I do, what have I done, what am I? What have I done? What have I done?" Candy moaned, her speech slurry with insatiable sadness.
"You did what you had to do. What all who play in this hellish game have had to do. You had no choice. You were forced. Look at it that way."
"And that will make it better?" spat Candy angrily.
"No. But it will make it more truthful, and in the end that is all we now have. A truth to lend to our damaged perceptions of living," Jack replied.
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