Ruin: Revelations

by Bane, Lucian

  “Done,” she whispered.

  “I’m going to talk to you and I want you to focus on figuring out what I’m saying. Don’t speak unless I ask you a question. I’m beginning now.”

  Ruin began reciting what he was doing in his supernatural tongue. He wasn’t sure what it was called, only that he heard it alongside other languages when he learned words. Entering through her eyes, Ruin slowly made his way toward the wall he’d seen when staring long enough into her gaze. He kept his words low and soft, watching her study them as he stepped quietly past her awareness and continued on while she was distracted with unraveling the puzzle he’d given her. He’d laced the words with safe and happy emotions, like a drug.

  When he finally made it to the wall in her mind, he looked back and saw himself at the end of a long dark hall, sitting in the chair with his eyes closed, speaking to her. He saw Isadore’s closed eyelids from the inside, like filtered light through two windows at the end of the tunnel.

  He turned his attention to the wall before him and placed his hand on its surface to discern what it was made of. Immediately, he began to absorb its makeup into himself, bit by bit. Fear, agony, pain, shame, confusion—it all leaked into his palm until the surface weakened. He listened to himself speaking, discerning her vitals. Relaxed. At peace. Smiling even.

  When he created a large enough passage, Ruin quietly slipped through the barrier and quickly shut it before she could become aware he’d breached it.

  The air beyond the wall was dark and frigid, and somewhere in the distance, he sensed Isadore. Another part of her. A part of her that filled him with an urgency to find and protect it.

  Ruin looked around in the dark, feeling a slow growing tremble in the air. Something else was there. Whatever caused her to build that wall was there. Ruin released a small ripple of power, warm and inviting. Safe, into the darkness. He waited, listening as the trembling air turned to low growling. Then he felt it, fingers clutching him and instantly, he began to follow the connection.

  “Isadore,” a voice hissed, low and long. He heard her whimper in the distance. “Come here.”

  “I have to go,” she whispered somewhere. “I have to go.”

  The dread in her voice invoked Ruin’s wrath. “You don’t have to go. You can stay with me.”

  He felt her head shake. “He’ll punish me.”

  “Who will?”

  “I have to go, he’s coming.”

  A doorway leading into another darkness appeared before him. “I’ll come to you, don’t let go. Hold on to me.”

  Ruin made his way into the darkness that was more familiar than he liked. A deep boom resonated behind him as the door in this other place shut tight. Ruin’s eyes began to see around him. It was hot, and something burned his nose with a breath stealing intensity.

  “I don’t like it here,” she whispered.

  She was close. Ruin made out that he was in a long room and at the end was a curtained square. He could see his power here, a rope of fire stretching to the curtain and beyond. She was there. “He makes. I don’t like it.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I’m coming,” Ruin whispered, walking toward the curtain, his stomach twisting with the evil that waited beyond it. The curtain kept moving as he walked, and the room grew. He stopped and closed his eyes, focusing his power, hooking it to something solid near Isadore. He finally reached the curtain and slowly moved it aside.

  A twin bed was the only thing there and something moved under the covers on the bed. He crept forward and saw a dark human head on top of another, making guttural lustful noises. “You,” Ruin called.

  The man jerked toward him with surprise, and confusion slammed Ruin. It wasn’t the guy from the trailer. A face from beneath the man looked at Ruin and nausea gripped him. Ruin found himself gasping through the flames that engulfed him, his own power, a bitter, vengeful rage, out of control from the abomination before him. His sweet Isadore. His sweet Isadore, only a child, being violated in the worst way.

  By her father.

  “You like the show?”

  Ruin spun to the growling voice and faced the reason why the place seemed familiar to him. “Beltizar.”

  “How does the prophesied Carnificem come to be in my domain?”

  “You have something,” he gasped, “that belongs to me.”

  The large demon with the head shaped like a light bulb drew a sword wrapped in razors. “I think you’ve made a big mistake.”

  Ruin closed his eyes and selected a spirit as one selects an ensemble from a wardrobe. His tattoos lit up as the familiar entity programmed an assignment into him with a whispering hunger.

  The spirit’s power came as a dense purple shimmering in a mist before him and Ruin opened his arms, every part of himself taking the power in, all that defined him, his lust and hunger, his mind and soul.

  The spirit took hard possession of him like a mighty iron fist, standing him before the demon in its true form, bearing its singular, eternal name.

  The demon hissed and slowly circled Ruin, dragging his razor sword along the floor, calling forth electrical explosion of Shame, Fear, and Despair. “I do not fear you … ” The garbled words shot through the air. “We, do not fear you. Pain.”

  The power of that name ricocheted off the walls around them like a dance of amethyst flames, licking the cavern with an eternal hunger. Pain stood before the large demon in a form smaller than Ruin’s, his alabaster skin glistening with lavender, luminous eyes harnessing the all-consuming power of Pain.

  Mesmerized, Ruin watched the long ebony hair dance and float upon the waves of wickedness that was of itself and in itself.

  Beltizar howled and charged the form, sword and razors slicing.

  Eyes cast down, Pain tilted his head, erecting The Tunnel Dominion, ensuring no escape. Beltizar roared, running along the cylindrical wall, filling it with his darkest powers.

  Pain, the amethyst demon, chuckled lightly, knowing they were not dark enough.

  “Look upon me Pain!” Beltizar roared, bringing his mighty sword down in a storm of fury.

  Power leaked out of the Pain like flowing honey, pulling his body in a timeless dance of Solitude and Darkness.

  Beltizar foolishly emptied his sword’s power upon Pain, and Pain silently rode that which he had previously conquered in other worlds, until Despair, Shame, and Fear, became one with him again.

  “There is no escape Beltizar,” Pain whispered, holding The Sickle forged from the married powers.

  When the demon saw that Pain had stolen his powers, he roared, “You can’t do that!” Then banged the floor with huge fists. “YOU CAN’T DO THAT!”

  The air shook with his fury and Pain swung the Sickle, devouring that power as well. The demon ran, attempting to seek refuge or escape and Pain pursued. He chased the demon for fun, inflicting his body and soul with the very Pain he tormented with.

  The demon finally fell with a great boom, labored and wounded on the floor. Pain knelt on one knee next to him and whispered, “You will not hold her any longer. You are defeated this day.” Pain stood and swung the Sickle with a final blow, removing the demon’s head. “And she is free.”

  Isadore’s scream erupted in the cavern and Ruin’s form burst free of the spirit that possessed him. She stood outside the square curtain, a grown woman, screaming. Screaming with all her might, her hands covering her ears. Ruin ran to her, not understanding, not understanding what was wrong. What had he done?

  “Isadore,” he whispered, grabbing hold of her. “I’m here, Isadore. It’s me, I’m here.”

  But she only screamed as though she couldn’t stop, as though the truth was … killing her.

  “Caliber!” he roared, desperate.

  “What have you done, Carnificem?”

  Ruin grabbed his head, Isadore’s screams devouring his mind. “I set her free,” he gasped. “I just set her free, that’s all!”

  Caliber looked around at the place. “Hmm. Indeed you did.
Be still, child,” he muttered to her.

  Immediately, she collapsed into Ruin’s arms. “What’s wrong with her, what have I done?” he looked up at Caliber, fear gripping his entire being.

  “Look in her eyes again,” Caliber instructed, “tell me what you see.”

  Ruin peered into her eyes, open but unseeing. His heart faltered at seeing it. He glanced at Caliber. “I don’t understand. Why is the wall still there? Why is she still hurting?”

  Caliber put his hand on his shoulder. “Look at me, son.”

  Ruin locked gazes with the old man, and he sighed. “Seems you’ve inherited her wall.”

  “What?”

  He eyed him for many seconds. “Apparently you inherited the wall mechanism that was engaged in her brain when you were born.” He tapped Ruin’s temple. “That’s not her wall you’re seeing, you indeed tore that one down. This one is yours. As is the pain she screams with.”

  Caliber pressed tattoos on Ruin’s body with a sigh and Ruin looked down to find the same flickering tattoo like before. “Are you kidding?” Ruin asked.

  “’Fraid not.” Caliber clapped his shoulder and stood. “This mission is still on hold until you tear that wall down.” He pointed a firm finger at him. “I mean it, Ruin. I want it…down or so help me, I’ll come in there myself and bust it down for you. And you just may not survive that.