Bittersweet Revenge

The slumbering fragments|part:2

The young girl shivered as the gibberish sprouting from the mad man's lips rose in pitch and the candles flames nurtured by his baleful words shot upward and expanded in weight becoming pregnant with fiery light conjuring monstrous shadows flanking every crevice and corner in the cave.

The girl tugged hard on the straps, hoping to escape this hellish, abject nightmare, but her body still refused to move. She tried her voice, her legs to no avail.

Suddenly, all her struggling abated at the words that rose in volume, circling around the cave with wicked zealousness and insidious intentions.

"...accept my humble sacrifice o'blessed thee,

This healthy vessel to you almighty,

the bearer of death and life,

And all the things in between.

Grant your servant the power to unleash,

Destroy, detriment, devour and undress the ghastly image of purity,

To paint on the blackness and spread darkness-"

"Eiko! Eiko!"

Her name penetrated her occupied hearing, taking her mind off of the man's evil words until it rang strong and clear.

She willed her mind to focuse beyond the haze that the pain painted to distinguish the reality from hallucinations.

Is that daddy?! Has he come for me? Or is this another cold-hearted torture?

Her father's voice rang loud over the silence that shrouded the cave suddenly.

The mad man's chanting was cut abruptly sending dreadful chills to dance in the air.

Focusing her attention,  she notice her father and she knew it was a reality.

Her father has come for her!

Another thought thwarted her momentarily relief when she sensed the malicious silence of the wicked man.

She wanted to be saved, taken back home and wrapped up in her parents embrace, however, she felt it in her marrow that she was beyond saving, the darkness has already slithered inside her bones and she refuse the same fate to befall her beloved father.

So, she tried to open her mouth to warn him away, tell him that the man slumping, is but a beast waiting to pounce.

The watching shadows, the burning candles, they attest to that.

But alas, her limbs lay still as that of the dead, useless, failing...betraying her mind, her soul and her will.

" Eiko," her father's figure burst through the mouth's cave and came to a halt, stopping dead in his tracks at the sight of his pitiful child strapped to a metalic table like an animal, bathed in blood and tears.

"My girl!" A broken gasp left his parted lips and pushed his legs forward stumbling toward his daughter, unheading the threat lingering in the room.

"Oh, blessed mother, what sort of evil is this?"

"Mercy,"

She heard them come. Several men acompanied her father but stopped -  gasping, praying. Only few dared address their goddess, the rest became silent as if the devil himself has robbed them of their tongues.

With pain filled eyes, Eiko urged her father to leave and take his men with him she couldnt see them or how many they are, her head lolled to the side facing her father's gaze - the only one she wanted her eyes to feast upon and commit to memory before she was no more. She know that an evil presence now lurks among them...hidden in shape yet his aura shown.