Janus and Oblivion

by Noam Oswin

  It’ll make you feel good for a really short time,

  But it’ll enter your body and turn it to grime!

  Your skin will melt,

  Your bones will puddle,

  All because tiny little slime wants a cuddle!

  Melting skin and puddling bones had sounded so innocuous when he was younger. Perhaps because it was hard to conjure the image, hard to imagine what it would look like for someone’s skin to melt. Now, he didn’t need to imagine.

  “Check your godscripts!” he heard a voice roar. “Check the Bestiary! Check it now!”

  Everyone rushed to do so. Everyone swore as they did.

  Nightmare Bestiary

  Entry No. 3

  NMR-003

  Common Slime

  [Tier 2.0 Nightmare]

  Important Info:

  NMR-003 possesses an alchemical physiological make-up that constitutes an exceptionally addictive hallucinogenic aphrodisiac. Physical contact will render animals and people immobile with allegedly incomparable sensory pleasure. This enables NMR-003 to start the process of thorough consumption of their prey, by forced entrance through biological orifices.

  Additionally, NMR-003 has been noted to create a biological connection with any living being it comes into contact with. Any damage or sensation delivered to NMR-003 while it is touching any biological matter will also damage the aforementioned biological matter as though it and NMR-003 were a single entity.

  Beware that a single drop of NMR-003 on exposed or unexposed skin is capable of triggering the psychedelic effects, and is often irreversible. It can and has driven men, women, children and animals towards a desperate unending pursuit of another drop at the cost of friends, family, livelihood, dignity, sanity and their own lives.

  Note: Unauthorized collection, possession and use of bodily liquids of NMR-003 (street-named: euphoria, bliss, euphie, heaven-seven) is considered a Class 10 Offense under the Restricted Alchemical Tonics and Substances Act of the Eminency of Penance. For more information, kindly refer to the Illegal and Restricted Drugs article found on the Godscript Codex menu.

  “They knew!” One man with red hair roared. “They fucking knew and they didn’t tell us –!”

  “She did tell us!” another with a grey beard cursed. “She said it herself: everything we fucking need is on the Godscripts!”

  She wasn’t exaggerating. The Godscripts included a compendium of knowledge and a wealth of information that could effortlessly make the difference between life and death. The problem was, like most things that came with a manual, most people would never bother reading it. They would ‘figure it out as they went along’ or choose instead to only glimpse through.

  But it’s not possible that absolutely no one here choose to read it. There were now six hundred and forty three recruits around him. It was impossible that not one of those people read it. If anything, it meant that there were several people who did, and yet, choose not to provide such crucial information.

  Why? It was a stupid question. He knew why. They were competing for that favor. For that one request. Everyone wanted it, no one wanted to be in the Lance Brigade.

  This chaos, this competition, the manner in which lives were disregarded – this, this could not be how the AAA operated. No – the image everyone in Alhamis possessed of the AAA was that of order, of diligence and unity and uniformity –

  This was not it. This was the exact opposite.

  There was something more going on, Juma was certain. Something bigger, grander, and perhaps all of this was supposed to be some sort of test. If it were, he could not see it, he could not identify what it was or what its purpose was or how to correctly pass it.

  He did however, know that the only way to find out would be to complete the challenge and attain the highest number of kills against the nightmares. It would be a step forward in the right direction, it would be the first thing he needed to do in order to survive the AAA.

  With that in mind, Juma took a deep breath, and he accessed his Godscripts.

  He nearly slipped up by telling Sophia about his flair. Almost slipped up by telling her the exact number of people present in the vicinity. It was something he discovered and confirmed to be his flair when he first activated his godscript.

  “Activate flair.”

  WARNING: The Godscript counsels against uses of flairs capable of distorting the user’s personality and perspective of reality. Would you like to proceed with the activation of your Flair?

  “It’s now or ne –”

  A ground-shattering explosion nearly deafened him as he crashed to the ground. The earth vibrated with thunderous aftershocks, and a roar of superheated wind sent people tumbling backwards. Numerous shouts and screams of confusion tore through the air.

  “THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”

  Prominent Macey’s voice boomed through the air.

  “AN EXPLOSION HAS EMERGED FROM THE DISREMEMBER FOREST! POTENTIAL ENEMIES DETECTED! WE HAVE REPORTS OF A – ”

  The speakers went silent.

  “ALL AAA RECRUITS ARE TO RETREAT TO SAFETY IMMEDIATELY! I REPEAT ALL AAA RECRUITS ARE TO RETREAT! A NIGHTWITCH HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE VICINITY! I REPEAT! A NIGHTWITCH HAS BEEN DETECTED IN THE VICINITY!”

  Chapter 19

  Isolation

  “You must be joking.”

  Zlosta sat with her legs crossed on nothing but empty air. I wondered if it was telekinesis, or simply some sort of magic levitation spell that enabled her to so blatantly insult the laws of physics.

  “The goal of all masakh is to follow the will of the Mother. To end suffering by ending all who suffer, and you mean to tell me, you do not have any desire to obey this will?”

  “None.”

  “At all? Not even in the slightest?”

  “I have literally everything to lose from mass genocide. What exactly do you gain?”

  Zlosta furrowed her brow. Once the blood was gone from her face along with the insane cheer and glee, Zlosta was attractive.

  That was an understatement. An understatement that slipped into the territory of a lie. Zlosta defied expectations. Reminded me that this was indeed another world.

  Dark locks of hair flowing down the sides of her face like an advert for women’s conditioner that made growing girls insecurely twirl their finger through their own mediocre locks. Dark green skin a shy shade away from a fresh watermelon agreed upon by art students as an ideal muse. A face that one would gaze upon and immediately swallow a building lump in the throat as the subconscious mind identified and highlighted the gap between oneself and one who could raise blood pressures and elevate heartrates by the upward movement of their lips.

  For now, I was grateful for the lack of an organ capable of sexual arousal. Dealing with Zlosta would be difficult otherwise.

  “It has nothing to do with personal gain. It is merely about principle. The world is filled with too many who suffer, and too many who enable this suffering or ignore it. Injustice upon injustice is wrought daily, lives are treated without dignity, people strive for greatness – and fail. There is inequality, and I wish to end it.”

  “By killing everyone?”

  “Death is the ultimate equalizer.”

  I chuckled. It felt good.

  “What amuses you?”

  “Death is only an equalizer if there’s no afterlife.”

  “That is why the Anathema constantly raid the Kingdom to steal souls and spread terror.”

  I digested that slowly. “Heaven has terrorists?”

  Zlosta’s laughed. She placed her hands to her lips in that dignified, upper-class lady laugh I’d expect to find from a bourgeoisie woman in the early fifties. It was hard to believe this was the same person who’d been stabbing a face with barely restrained glee merely a few hours ago.

  “If you want to put it that way, although no one calls the Kingdom... what did you put it...? Ah, heaven. That’s... another odd word. Godfather, heaven, and your ability to read
and understand the Antediluvian Hieroglyphs...”

  A benefit of being a skeleton was the lack of a face. The lack of a face was the definitive poker-face. Zlosta’s haunting red eyes locked on me. It was eerie.

  “I like you, Janus. I really like you. But – you don’t make sense. You do and say things that no masakh should do or say. You’re... odd. A wildcard. Wildcards can be really, really great, or they can be really, really bad.”

  The air felt heavier than it should be. Tentatively, I took an odd step away. She smiled. “Oh come now, I’m not going to kill you after going to the trouble of naming you. Not yet anyway.”

  “Not yet?”

  “No. Not yet. For all I know, you’re either a newborn spawn of an Anathema lacking memories, or you’re an agent of the Prince and his Nine. Either possibility sounds interesting.”

  “I’m neither. I’m not acquainted with any princes, last I checked.” At least, in this world.

  “Oh, but you know godfathers?”

  “A ‘Godfather’ does not necessarily mean the ‘father of a god.’ Or the ‘god of fathers.’ It’s an honorary title –”

  “And you know someone who is honored with this title?”

  The answer to that question was condemnatory. I did, in my previous life, have a godfather, but I could not explain that it was a title given by parents to an individual who they would like to be honored as the child’s mentor or guardian. For starters, a monster should have no way of knowing that, and secondly, it was entirely possible that such a convention did not exist in this world.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “But the first words that you spoke indicated otherwise.”

  I remembered those words. Why do I sound like the Godfather?

  I cursed my slip-up. I had not needed to lie or deceive or play the intricate game of social power struggles via communicative competence to anyone in ages. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  “I’m impressed Janus. You’ve had the ability to speak for less than three hours, and you’ve already begun to lie.”

  The air felt thick again. A part of me, however small, contemplated telling Zlosta the whole truth; I was reincarnated as a worm and brought into this world from another. I dismissed it once I saw the gleam in her red eyes. The contemplating gleam that was eerily reminiscent to that of a professional lawyer who just discovered a loophole in a client’s contract that could be used to make herself millions.

  She was driven by a pseudo-religious belief that a mass genocide of all living creatures in the world was perfectly justifiable. There could be no positive outcome from telling her of other worlds, i.e. other targets.

  “Is there anything you need me for?”

  “You make it sound like you’re leaving.”

  “There’s no reason to stay here anymore.”

  Zlosta gestured to herself. “And me? You’d just... leave me?”

  A warm breeze blew ash and sand across the small clearing. The smell of blood and decomposing flesh filled the air as did the buzzing of flies perching against recently deceased. I knew, however damnable it was, that my answer to that question would have changed if there was a functioning cock between my legs.

  At the same time, I was being practical. Zlosta was not the best guide to have, as everything she knew was most likely several thousand years out of date. Several thousand years was a considerable amount of time, and misinformation could be more fatal than a complete lack of information. There was no real reason for me to stay with her, not now when I could speak, and travel and learn about the world for myself.

  Then, there was Meg. I did not want to be anywhere near it.

  “I don’t believe I owe you any outstanding debts.”

  There was something considerably less warm about her.

  “I named you.”

  “And I freed you.”

  Zlosta stopped floating in the air. Her feet, complete with toes and fingers, dropped to the ground. “Do you know what I am, Janus?”

  “I’ll assume you’re about to tell me.”

  “I assumed you’d know. Seeing how you knew my name before I told you.”

  Another slip-up.

  “You’re a Druid.”

  Zlosta nodded. She approached me, one step at a time. “Druids, or Dryads as we were called in the old days, naturally have the ability to sense and commune with spirits. These spirits are often metaphysical representations of emotions, feelings, and the most powerful of them... concepts.”

  Zlosta reached out, she trailed a single long finger down my exposed ribcage. “Even the masakh have spirits. Dark spirits we call them – the foundations of negative energy and emotions. The desire to terminate and plunder – it exists in all masakh, and often appears in Dryads or Krvavi.”

  “Krvavi?” I asked.

  “Any race of bipedal creatures with red blood, most often, humans.” Zlosta said, smiling. “Fascinatingly, only a select few Druids can see spirits, and only an even smaller few can manipulate them – turn them off or on, and therefore turn creatures happy or depressed enough to throw themselves off cliffs. We can make beings inexplicably enraged to kill their own children or unusually aroused that they would attempt to copulate with a smooth rock. Or, we can use the spirits around us to cast – turned into energy, we manipulate the fundamental forces of nature.”

  Fascinating and game-breaking as it was, “Where are you going with this?”

  “Oh Janus you special little thing,” She took a step back, still smiling at me. “I just told you I can manipulate the fundamental forces of nature. Where do you think this is going?”

  Zlosta’s question came with a sudden desire to kneel. Both my knees dropped on to the earth before I had any say in the matter. My head slammed into the ground following it in an undignified grovel, and I found my hands, moving against their own will, moving until they were in position beside my head, bowing.

  “Ah! There we go.” I heard her clapping. “That’s the proper response you’re supposed to have. What took you so long?”

  “What are you do–”

  “Shhh.”

  My jaw snapped shut. I found, with growing rage, that I could not open them on my own will.

  “Your spirits when you laughed – they intoxicated me. Such pure, unbridled joy from something as banal as laughter. I was stunned, I was in love. It would be a shame, really, if you never laughed again.”

  Different feelings tore through me in an instant. I tried, tried to force myself to stand, to rise, to lift my head, to lift my finger or a single tail –

  “I don’t want that, Janus. I don’t. As I said, I like you. The problem is, however, you don’t seem to understand that you can’t just walk away from me. We promised we’d be best friends forever, didn’t we? We’d be best friends, and best friends don’t abandon each other.”

  Stand! STAND! STAND!

  “I’m not sure if I’ve been gone for a thousand years or ten, or fifty. Alamir will be different. It means it could be more dangerous, there could be strong empires and adversaries who oppose the Mother’s plan. Attempting to do things without caution could get me sealed again, if not killed. And I need you, to be my best friend – to watch my back and make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  STAND DAMN IT! FUCK! STAND!

  My legs refused to obey. Zlosta sat on my back and made herself comfortable, as though I were a decorative chair.

  “Of course you’re a bit too weak right now to really help me, but I’m not exactly at full strength either, so this helps. You have a nice growth rate. I know there are many hidden talents and secrets you have. There are going to be numerous benefits from having you Janus. Numerous benefits.”

  She preened my tail and ran her finger down my hipbones.

  “I’m sure you might be thinking that there’s no way you’d join or help me, but, there is always a solution for things like this, a solution for moments like these.”

  A burning sensation ripped through me. Zlosta wrote down my spine with her
finger, and every motion she made felt as if she was carving out of me with a blowtorch. With horror, I knew what she was doing.

  “With this, Janus – we’ll stay together. Forever.”

  STAND!

  [You have attained the skill: [Lesser Paralysis Resistance] from fighting paralysis.]

  [You have attained the skill: [Mental Resistance] from exposure to mind-controlling mystics.]

  Our positions were reversed in seconds. My tail hooked around her neck and slammed her into the ground. Stakes of granite pierced her hands and feet. I was surprised to hear her scream in pain. Somehow, I expected that she wouldn’t.

  “Janus –”

  I placed one skeletal hand over her mouth, and the other over her throat.

  “You were going to turn me into your slave.”

  I placed pressure on her throat.

  “I will not be a slave.”

  I swung both my hands in opposite directions. The crack was disconcerting. I had never snapped someone’s neck before. Never seen someone’s neck twist around three-hundred and sixty degrees and witness their wrinkled neck as the flesh stretched beyond what it was meant to.

  “Did you think it was that easy, Janus?”

  Despite her clearly broken, snapped neck, Zlosta spoke. It was unnerving, watching her smile and listening to the sound of her bones snapping back in place.

  “If I could be killed so easily, no one would bother sealing me away.” She cracked her neck, literally, and forcibly pulled her hands out of the stakes that bound them. I leaped backwards, putting as much space between us as possible.

  Zlosta rose from the ground, dusting herself. The bloodied holes in her hands and legs from where I’d staked her to the ground sizzled and vanished, as if they were never there to begin with.

  “How?”

  “Meg, or as he’s known to the world, Anathema Omega. When he chose me as his champion, I gained a lot of benefits, one of which included that I can’t be killed unless you kill him first.”

  Kill Meg? Was that even possible?

  “I can still feel pain though. Having my neck snapped – it didn’t feel nice Janus. It. Didn’t. Feel. Nice.”

  [Sixth Sense – DANGER DETECTED!]