Shudders: Retribution

Chapter 57 - The Clash

"Make sure my mother gets my skull back."

        Those words filled his mind. Ki's last words to him in that dream he had.

        Yama still questioned if it was a dream or not. Maybe his mind decided to hurt him, making those two tell him what he wanted to hear from them. Or maybe that wasn't the case.

        Either way, Ki's last request for him was very clear. Although he despised him, he knew how much the quiet one's skull would mean to his mother.

        He sighed and went to pocket it. But there was something dripping on his fingers.

        Turning the mask around, he saw that the entire inside was coated in black blood. He immediately dropped it on the counter.

"Hello... doctor." Came a whisper behind him.

       Yama heard the blood in the tub move and when he glanced back, he saw a head poking out and facing away from him.

        Zankora.

"I thought you were... dead." She spoke, her voice low and raspy with the hint of a lighter one following behind.

       He turned to fully face her. He kept his guard up and gripped the tools he had picked up earlier.

"Xed seemed so... intent on killing you. Did he fail..?" She didn't at all sound concern or was even questioning how Yama had escaped the cell. Almost like she knew it would happen.

"I left him chained up instead. So yes." I narrowed his eyes at her. "He failed."

      The Elitist leader had no reaction. She wasn't upset or angry. Not like the 'caring' and 'humble' mother her followers make her out to be.

       She didn't care about them. She never did.

"I assume... you're here to kill me then..?" She turned her head slightly but not enough for him to see her face. "Another one of your... 'great plans', doctor..?"

       His 'great plans'? How would she know of his tendency to plan? Now thinking about it, how did she know he was a doctor?

"Who are you..?" He kept his eyes sharp on her while his grip on the tools tightened.

"Who am I..? I'm the Mother... of my Elitists. The one... who will carry our King's will." She spoke, her voice holding a hint of aggression.

       But that's not what he was asking, so he repeated again. This time more stern. "Who are you?"

       Silence carried in the air. Filled the room with such tensity that you could feel it. Yama kept his eyes on her while she still kept her back to him. But the blood-filled tub shifted a bit as she slowly rose up a bit, he was able to see her back and upper arm. A thick black substance started almost near her pale white elbows and carried down her arms. Her back showed that she was basically skin and bones, her spine showing clearly through her skin that looked sickly. Barely alive.

"I'm no one..." She whispered. "But my devotion... to the King has made me... into this. His most faithful follower. But you, Yama, are a traitor..."

        A whirring sound came through the air that Yama didn't realize until it was too late. Something flew past him and grazed his mask so harshly that it pulled it off his face. His head whipped to the side as he could feel blood on his cheek as a cut formed.

       And when he looked up, he saw the mask pinned to the wall by a knife.

       The was a wooden board nearby that he quickly grabbed with his abilities and pulled it up as more knives came flying through the air directly at him. They pierced the board as the rusty metal cut the wood like paper from the force at which they were thrown. Using his left hand and attempting to hold the board with his right, he gritted his teeth as he sent the knives flying back one at a time. He didn't know where to aim but he targeted where he last seen Zankora and anywhere else in the room. But the more knives he threw back, the more they kept returning.