Obscured Dolls // Puppy in my Pocket~Adventures in Pocketville

1: the rise of the demons

Warmth.

There, in the Amber Sand Desert, was nothing but warmth.
It was all that could exist there.

Nothing else could resist there, because hotness would have been the single thing that a living body could feel.

The dunes of sands, shiny like melted gold under the old sun, were visible in the horizon.
Less than an eagle-flight from there, the soft ground was turned into cracked soil that hadn’t met a single drop of water in months.
Some brave blades of grass that dared grow on it had been literally burnt and killed by that deadly environment.
The air was waived by the heat, which made everything appear trembling, including the enormous spiked mountain range that separated the Desert from the Catrea Kingdom.

It was named by the Pocket Kingdom inhabitants as the “Gryphons' Jaw”; or by Catrean the “Firestone War Wall”, sacred to the goddess Ashirami.

The terrible hotness of the daylight was slowly leaving the reddish rocks.
Those were incandescent with a temperature worthy of the paradise itself, due to the dry and paralyzing climate that made that place a living furnace. 
During the day, it got the highest temperature in the whole Kingdom, touching the deadly limit of the fire. Then, when night arrived, it slowly turned into a freeze.

Was it possible for the fire itself to become ice?
Maybe yes, nothing could resist the two extreme differences.

It was like that place refused any contact with living creatures, except for travelling raptors or fast snakes: no one could live or stay, everyone was just allowed to step on those lands only for fast trips.
Being careful was vital: life wasn’t clearly welcome there.

Despite this, those rocks, that appeared to be the children of the fire, belonged to the nature masterpieces: the sunset was shading the neutral blue of the sky into warm colors, from red, orange, yellowish to purple, dark blue and the salmon pink of the clouds.
Maybe it was the only moment when the sky and the Desert shared a silent familiarity, showing to each other alike colors.

That day, just like many others before, the usual loneliness of such a place wasn’t respected.

When stars began appearing in the now dark heaven, just like a merchant uncovers their most precious gemstones, its beauty was disturbed: a dark trail crossed it and cut the untouched landscape.

It appeared from the horizon and ran along the length of the Desert, reaching the Gryphon Jaws Range in less than one second.
It slowed down at its base, slipped on the sharpened rocks and climbed on the enormous body of rocks to the tops. Then, it disappeared.

It slowly penetrated some huge round holes into the rock, dagged by the wind in ages, and entered the heart of that range.
There, it reached an underground canyon, the result of the air blowing into a very small space.
There was barely enough space for a pig to stay there.
It turned into a cliff that proceeded for miles underground, until touching a flat bottom of naked soil.

The dark presence flew down there, slowing down even more until it arrived in the lowest part.
It melted on the natural walls and became a disgusting black substance; from it, some small yellowish points appeared and grew up, getting their real shape and moving all around: they were eyes, feline eyes with vertical pupils injected with craziness.

They rolled on themselves, observing that weird place with indifference, then each of them fixed on a precise point down there.
There, something was lying.

Something or someone, it was impossible to define.
Was it even alive?

It was a four-legged beast, lying on its stomach and flatted on the hot soil like a creepy carpet.
Arms were crossed above his forehead, immoble, while hind legs were strengthened on the ground and one was folded in a very unnatural way.
Its head was round and boney, from the mouth some rotten teeth were dirty of dust and blood mixed with sick saliva. Some gray and dirty hair were glued on its skin by sweat, but a very few of them were still recognizable.

Indeed, his skin was almost totally burnt.
It was like observing a partially burnt paper left in a fireplace, which usually turns black and gets crumpled until losing its original dignity and meaning. Some white bubbles and hard blood covered the destroyed body, while some pieces of torn fabric were still hanging from some parts of its body.
But it didn’t matter: after all, it didn’t appear to need clothes anymore.
For covering what? Its body was gone forever.

Its back was hardly moving up and down, making a disgusting noise with its nose and throat. It was breathing, but who could say it was alive?
Those conditions couldn’t allow any common creature to survive like that, especially for that much time.

The sun has risen and left too many times since it arrived there, humiliated and exiled by Princess Ava after a deadly battle.
All that kept its body alive was a low quantity of magical powers that, mixed with the negative energy that creature carried from its original dimension, was feeding something inside its rotten soul.
That monster, a cursed creature forbidden by any goddess, survived by its own feeling of hate and revenge that, despite all the pain, couldn’t leave its heart.
After all, it was in its nature: humans were nothing but their own hate.

So now that human, whose name used to be Petbuster, was now thrown there like a broken toy that no one cared about anymore.

The black spirit observed it with disgust. As the pet she used to be, she couldn’t feel anything else for such a pathetic and useless creature. So strong and fearless in their sick world, so scared and out of control in that dimension, so meaningless now.

I blame myself for thinking you could make it, you stupid moneky.  whispered a growling voice, which echoed through all the canyon.

The human made a slow groan, maybe a weak swear of anger against that disturbing presence he was feeling toward himself.

The spirit made a low hissing noise.
She was there for one reason, which of course wasn’t admiring that macabre theatre.

He was broken, at the edge of his possibility, unable to move, but enough to stand what she was going to do.
Maybe he could still be useful for her goals.

The black substance slipped down from the walls and became thin lines of black strings, which ran on the ground like snakes and reached the creature’s legs.
Some of them tied around his wrists and feet, others around his chest, throat and head, wrapping his body in eternal chains, just like a puppet is tied to its strings. 
His eyes opened and a dark purple liquid began drooling down his cheek, just like black and impure tears.

Talia’s ghost’s unmaterial being curved her mood into a psychotic smile:
We have a lot to do together, monster. Your existence is needed by the Duchess of the Iced Lake Court. 

The starry night trembled when her voice echoed through the whole mountain.

The dark aura that it spreaded crossed the lonely dunes of sands, arriving at the trees that marked the confines of the Kingdom of Catrea and, on the opposite side, making the grass blades of the Green Field and the bottom of the Endless Caves tremble.
Sone scared and confused animals raised their heads inside their houses, while the nocturnal were alarmed by such a feeling.

But it didn’t get farther.