Black Butterflies

Chapter 25: Prisoner

3rd Person

The monstrous bangs and the demonic howling and begging continued on behind the tightly packed bars of the cage no one knows what's inside. No one knows what type of creature is locked in the spiky metal bars of the cage hanging two meters above the ground. The ground is muddy and full of bamboos fashioned into spikes and stuck tight through the mud, oil and gasoline poured in them ready to be lit once the cage falls.

The Bandits members stood in one corner of the onlookers, head down and hood on. They wouldn't talk to anyone and when someone asked where the Grands are — who goes where The Bandits go — they just shrugged and told them to go away. But the truth is, the three Grandes are buried deep in the private cemetery of The Bandits HQ in Banshee Island. No one mentioned who or what is inside the cage though. They didn't know and never knew its Nico. They didn't realize and hadn't realized its Rogue.

CJ

It pains me to hear her screams and begs. But as soon as I and her friends, my friends can go near her, she turned and attacked. This has to be done. We tried the church but the spirit won't leave her alone. The priest talked to it through Christ and the priest said that the spirit is of high levels he couldn't reach. That the spirit is too evil for him to handle. Too evil my ass.

Now I am, watching the special cage rattle and swing wildly at every hard move of Nico inside. Ismael gave her the nickname Rogue and they started calling her that. We started calling her that. But inside we know she's still our Nico, our Nicholas Liam Mullins.

The cage swung harder than before and Rogue's cries of pain increased. The chain gave in, loosening at every swing. I held my breath and squeezed Alvin's hand I'm currently holding right now. I heard him wince but didn't bother to loosen my grip. Finally the chain snapped and the cage fell down on the spikes. Some of the wooden spikes went in and the onlookers including me heard frightened yelps of pain emerge from inside the cage. I held my breath harder and I think I heard Alvin's bones snap and break.

The executioner approached the cage with a lighted torch in his hands as a young boy poured in more gasoline onto the cage and around it. The executioner positioned himself into a 'throwing-the-torch' pose and when he was halfway into throwing it in, a loud sob and gasping escaped the cage. It was then followed by a black smoke emerging from the holes and tiny gaps of the cage. We thought Rogue burned herself — which is impossible 'cause last I remembered her clothing is just a see-through curtain fashioned to a dress wrapped around her small frame — and the smoke came from the died out flames, but the smoke stopped when its already towering above all of us, some parts of it still inside the cage. The smoke formed two holes on top of a continuously moving circle I assumed is the head. As if by magic the executioner's torch died out like the wind blew against it, but there is no wind.

"You cannot kill the child," a hollow phantom voice echoed and reverberated around the plaza. And just like that, the smoke disappeared after melting back into the cage, leaving all of us baffled and frozen in fear.

Rogue The Ghost

Ha! After years of being held prisoner in a ceramic jar you humans call sanctuary you expect me to go back in the darkness. Such fools, like hell I would. I found myself a host, a victim, a home, there's no way in the land of the living and the dead would I go back in the jar. And now you want to kill an innocent little girl. How pathetic. She should learn how to control her. She should learn how to control me. She should learn how to control us. That way I will happily reside inside the body of this girl you call Nico. I heard you started calling her Rogue, or was that name for me. Eh, whatever. Rogue? That's for a girl right. My name's not Rogue damnit. Its Sacramento you losers.

You can keep me here for as long as you want. Well you can keep the girl in here as long as you want. But me, Sacramento, can wander around freely. Oh right, I forgot, I can't wander off two meters radius away from my human host. If I do, I will completely disappear off of the face of the Earth, which I never wanted to happen.

Which reminds me, I should get her to start begging.

3rd Person

Silence. Silence before the storm. Then thunder clapped and lightning flashed in the distance. Dark clouds covered the once blue sky and the wind picked up speed. The twittering of birds stopped abruptly as forks of lightning struck corn mazes, houses and the street.

Soft groaning emitted from the cage and the sound of someone trying to stand was heard. More passerby's came over to watch. The cops are against this. But its the Hillsian's most respected tradition and tradition is the heart of the town. There is nothing the cops can do.

"Let me out," a girl's voice begged. Everyone's head snapped up to the direction of the cage. "Please, let me out." Slight movement of the cage. "Let me out!" The voice got louder and sounds like a man's joined in. "Let her out," the masculine voice said.

One of the onlookers gained up the courage to speak up and that's what he did. "And if we didn't want to?" It was Andes.

"Let her out," the voice repeated. Andes inched closer, earning excited chatters from both sides of the crowd.

"Just her?" She asked intimidatingly.

"Andes please," Nico's voice broke out of Rogue's — who introduced himself as Sacramento — in a faltering gasp. "Let me out."

"And what if we didn't want to?" Andes raised her voice and forcefully pulled a still intact spike out of the mud and slowly walked around the cage, probably looking for a way in for the stick.

"Just let me out!"

Silence clouded the ears of the onlookers and only the soft yet nervous heaving of breaths floated about the air. Andes broke the silence by telling the executioner who seemed to enjoy what he's watching that she needed some chain rope, the strongest kind, the one that won't break under the strongest pressure, let it be gold if it had to be gold.

Barely half a minute later the executioner wound a seven metre chain link rope around his arms. Each chain piece is the thickness of a normal five year old's arm linked tightly with gold trimmings and silver cuttings. The smiths said its the strongest chain they can find for a beast as strong as what's confined inside.

Slowly, the cage opened. And a slow gasp full of surprise, fear and excitement filled the plaza. For once everyone laid their eyes on the half naked woman inside the cage who's hair stood like its defying gravity, she disappeared right before their eyes like bubble. The woman crouched in the corner with the glowing eyes suddenly disappeared in a whiff of blackish purple smoke, never to be seen again. Or so they thought.

Rogue The Ghost

Ah. Now this is what I call a sanctuary. Fresh air. Nice view. Green grass. Dandelions and tulips. A rocky beach. A lone oak tree. This is perfect. Well my host is too tired. Gotta get some sleep and oh! What's this.

Pushing in through the hole I think I made located at the side of the bark of the oak tree, I found a secret passage off to I don't know where.