Now the once peaceful town square has become filled with angry villagers with torches and pitchforks, quite literally. Looking around, the first thing that draws your attention is a huge wooden stage, and on it are three women tied to poles that are surrounded by logs and twigs at their feet.
As the crowd chants something in German, you see a priest and an altar boy walk up the stairs and onto the stage.
"Welcome, my children! We are here today to clean these filths from our god's glorious planet and have them judged and groveled at his feet! As we are kind people, we will allow the witches final parting words!."
Upon hearing these words, the crowd abruptly dies down. Out of curiosity, you have made your way to the front and can see exactly who's on the stage. The priest makes his way to the first victim, who is a young girl no older than 13 with shimmering red hair, pale skin, and warm green eyes
He asks her. "Have you anything to say for yourself, child?!"
She stays silent for a second, but you hear her silent sobs. She looks down at the ground, then slowly looks up, and be it by accident or not, she looks directly where you stand, and through heavy tears, she shouts."Please let me go!! I have done nothing wrong!"
Something grips you, something you thought died years ago; empathy, like a child's whisper, tugs at your heart, not making you act but simply saying, "I am still here.". You suddenly snap back to reality when the priest says, "Fear not, child, soon you will meet the maker, and he will clensure your blightful soul!!"
She doesn't try to fight it anymore but simply lowers her head again and sobs loudly. Sprinkling her with some holy water, the altar boy beside him is carrying her, and he carries on to the next woman, but your eyes still rest on the first, that damn tugging again.
"Tsk, why now?" You ask yourself, not expecting an answer, so you turn towards the second victim. It turns out to be an older woman, probably around 40. She has pale skin with flowing blonde hair and blue eyes. When the priest walks up to her, she kicks him right in the jaw, sending him toppling back.
Something that made you chuckle lightly, however, the villagers, on the other hand, are filled with blood lust, and one starts climbing onto the stage to attack the woman when he's stopped by the priest.
"No! She is a vessel for the devil; she cannot help herself; we may only set these poor retches free!" He says before he sprinkles some holy water on her, but this time smoke emits from the contact area, and she hisses at the priest.
As soon as she does this, he reaches for one of the torches from the crowd, puts it on the twigs under the two girls, and sets them ablaze.
Their screams of pain and agony are only drowned out by the shouting and cheering of the crowd of villagers; however, for you, the screams get louder and louder until you want the sound to go away so badly that you reach for the back of your head and start scratching it furiously.
Thankfully, the screams die down and you feel normal again. As the flames rage on, there is still one victim left.
Looking over, you are horrified to see Emilie, a little older now, but you can't mistake it; as the others burn, she carries on struggling and trying to get free of the restraints.
The priest slowly makes his way to the struggling Emilie, and all the while he doesn't even bat an eye at the burning corpses, something that even shocks you. When he reaches her, he turns to talk to the crowd.
"This heathen, however, is different; my children are different; she is not only a witch, but she has also birthed a devil spawn!"
He says that as he points into a crowd at a man holding a baby, the crowd moves over, and the man is none other than Hans Frienlich, the presumed father.
He slowly makes his way towards the stage, but as he does get closer, you see two men behind him carrying a barrel of water. The thought of what is happening takes a minute to get to your brain, but when it does, the feeling of such disgust floods you that you almost puke.
"This, my child, is a demon child, and to make sure this heathen has no precious ties to this world, we will purge it! Now go and fulfil the will of God, my son!"
As he says this, he points at Hans, who is holding the baby. Emilie looks at him with a pleading look and says something; even though you barely hear her, you think she said, "Spare him, please."
Hans heard it too. As his eyes grow wide, he looks between the baby and the priest until his eyes settle on Emilie. No words need to be said.
"I am sorry."
This is what his eyes say, Seeing this, Emilie starts screaming and sobbing profusely He slowly looks at the child and back at Emilie, who is weeping uncontrollably and screaming for them to spare the child. All the while, the priest has a smile on his face.
*What a sick fuck* You think to yourself, but you snap back and look at Hans again. Looking at the baby one last time, his face is flooded with a sudden determination, and with one swift motion, he plunges the baby into the water and holds it down.
There is no struggle.
There is no resistance.
Only light splashing of the feet.
Escaping air bubbles, and then.
Nothing.
The child goes limp.
Hans slowly lifts the baby away and walks away slowly as the crowd envelopes him. The only thing you can hear is Emilie's weeping. The priest turns around to face the devastated Emilie.
"You are now free from any ties to this world and are now to be judged by the Lord!"
Once again, he throws a torch on the twigs, and it instantly catches fire.
Her screams of agony fill the air as she continues to try to break free from her restraints. This time, however, the crowd is silent. Looking over them, you are disgusted to see amusement in their eyes.
When you turn back to the stage, an arm of fire envelops your face in a burning grip, and your eyes are clouded with the fiery red embers. When the flames around you die down and you're allowed to see again, you notice that you're now in a wooden house.
As you scan the room, your attention is drawn to the quiet crying beside you, the source being that of a little girl no older than 6. Her mother holds her closely as a man and a boy stand ready by the door.
The dark room is suddenly filled with a bright light and looking at the source, you see the front door has been opened
Standing in the doorway is a tall figure with wavy hair, but she is floating, which can only mean one thing.
Before the thought renders itself in your head, you snap back to reality with the screaming of a child.
Looking up, you see that the man, presumably the father, lies cut in half with a petrified look on his face, and now the spirit has made its way to the boy and is choking him.
She suddenly lunges her mouth forward and bites into the boy's neck, biting off a chunk of flesh and swallowing it whole. The boy starts gurgling and choking on his blood all the while the spirit looks him in the eyes, and after a while, his eyes roll into the back of his head and he makes no sounds except the droplets of blood hitting the wooden floor.
The spirit then throws the boy against the wall, and hearing the quiet cries of the child, she snaps her head to the mother beside you, and in a blink of an eye, she's in front of her with her hand extended and her finger lodged in the mother's head, who has now gone limp.
As the moonlight shines through the window, the once unknown figure becomes quite recognisable before you: none other than Emilie, if a little more... demonly.
For a moment, she meets the child's eyes and holds the gaze of the crying child sympathetically; however, that only lasts for a second, as in the next, she slashes the child's throat.
She stands over her body for a second, but quickly spins around to head out through the door again.
Following her outside, you spot her floating in the sky, holding a girl by the sides of her head while the victim thrashes around under her grip almost in an instant. She spins the girl, and before she can scream again, she rips her torso and legs apart, sending both pieces into the air as they bounce off buildings.
The upper half lands in front of you, and looking her over, you see horror filling her brown eyes, a petrified look on her face, and her bangs are mixed with buckets of blood.
Looking closer, you realize that it's the same girl she was teaching in her home, if she is a little older now.
You look up from the corpse and take in the whole surroundings. Multiple houses have been destroyed, some are on fire, and the screams of multiple people fill the air as they either bleed to death on the streets or burn alive, trapped in the houses all the while screaming for help.
That's what fills the air; the whole forest is filled with their screams.
While you inspect the situation, you don't notice Emilie in front of you. Slowly turning your head, you see her dead eyes stare into yours. While you try to wipe your ass from the scare you were just given,
She slowly reaches out with one of her bony hands, trying to touch your cheek, but her hand simply phases through you and pulls an older man through you, and as she slowly peels the man's face off, you catch your breath.
However, by the time you recover, Emilie has flown into another house, and in an instant, it's also filled with screaming and pain-ridden begging. However, they soon die down, and Emilie smashes through the roof of the house and instantly makes a beeline for the forest.
You take one last look down at the village, and you don't see or hear any more of the screams. its once again filled with complete silence, almost like you saw in the first vision, except now with the bonus of corpses littering the ground.
Most are so mutilated that you cannot recognize them as humans anymore. You, however, simply shake off this feeling, turn your attention back to Emilie, and follow suit.
As you follow her through the towering trees, she stops in front of one of two houses; one is the church, but of which you're not quite sure. You do, however, notice it is an absolute giant of a house compared to the other houses located in the village.
While you admire the big house, Emilie instantly flies through the church's large window.
You follow her inside and manage to see as she sends hundreds of glass fragments flying into the church.
Looking around closer, you see the priest who burned Emilie lying on the ground with numerous glass shards protruding from his back. He winces in pain, but Emilie revels in this and floats towards him.
The priest doesn't notice her as he crawls towards the alter stairs and sits up, but looking up, he instantly releases a scream so blood-curdling that even you get spooked.
He frantically tries to shuffle away, but his hands and knees are stopped from moving thanks to the glass littered around him. At this point, she is right above the man, and using her right hand, she reaches down and lifts his chin.
As she does this, a disgusting grin plays at the corners of her mouth, turning your attention back to the man you see as she grabs his throat and lifts him, bringing him over to the cross at the altar. All the while, the man screams and begs for her to spare him.
"NO NO, PLEASE SPARE ME, I BEG OF YOU!
I'll give you anything you want!
MONEY!
POWER!
ANYTHING!"
A wicked smile spreads across her lips, and using her bony finger, she shows the number one. The priest looks relieved and asks, "Yes, what do you want!?"
The smile grows even wider as she slowly lowers herself from the air in front of the man.
Seeing this, he struggles one last time, making Emilie release a raspy laugh as her vocal cords were burned out. Once she's done laughing, she simply slams him against the large wooden cross, ripping off chunks of her clothes and using them to tie his hands and feet to it.
As he continues to writhe and kick on the cross, Emilie looks at him with a burning passion or hatred—you can't tell. She slowly puts her finger over her lips as if to shush him, and he does so.
after which she proceeds to grab one of the candles that decorate the church and slam it into the man's hand, making him squeal in pain. She then pulls the candle away and ignites the cross with the priest on it.
As he burns and screams in agony, Emilie just floats there, looking on in silent ecstasy. After a while, the priest's restraints burn off, and he falls onto the floor and starts crawling towards the exit. All the while, his skin peels off and his muscles pop under the heat. But before he can reach it, he goes limp as the fire fully envelops him.
As the church still continuously burns, Emile simply stands over him, looking on as before but now with a blank expression. When the flames finally subside on his body, the priest cannot even be recognized, as his whole body has become black as Vanta.
While looking over the crispy body, you barely notice Emilie leaving the now-burning church. You quickly follow suit.
When you see her outside, she has turned her attention towards the family home, and she swiftly makes her way over to it.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on what perspective, a person just so happens to leave the house, that being Hans, a poor bastard. The man has barely enough time to scream as his forehead is bitten into by Emilie and pulled back, revealing layers of skin, muscle, and skull, and of course, the brain.
Stepping closer, you can see Emilie has her tongue down the hole she just made, and she is scooping out his brain like a slurpy. You almost puke at the sight.
Once she's done with the man, she throws his corpse to the side, making it hit a tree and fall into some bushes. She then slowly floats over to the door and politely knocks on it.
Unfortunately, a young maid opens the door and is in the middle of greeting her. She notices who she's greeting, but before she can even react, Emilie lunges at her and drags her into the house.
You're about to follow her when suddenly two hands grab onto the door frame, and from behind it crawls the maid, who is now missing an eye. She screams into the dark, begging for help, but of course, no one answers, and as she falls silent, a hand grabs onto her face with a muffled scream. She's dragged back into the house, and the door shuts behind her.
You try to follow her, and you find the doors have been locked. Or that's what you thought, because a second later they swing open and connect with your skull, knocking you out clean.
When you wake up, you can't even sit because of the excruciating headache you have, which can only be compared to one after a night of drinking brandy, triple-filtered, then introduced into the body through an emergency induction port.
While you lay helplessly on the ground, you take in your surroundings and find that you are once again in the village.
But unlike before, you can smell the rotting corpses, indicating this memory is only a few days old.
As you contemplate the thought, you hear voices coming from the woods behind you. You lift your head to check it out, but the headache comes back, and you fall back down. Groaning in anger and frustration, you look up at the sky and try to calm yourself.
"Five freaking minutes, just give me five minutes of peace!"
You fail miserably, so slowly you stand up, using one hand to balance yourself while you use the other to stop your head from popping like an overripe watermelon, and after drawing in a deep breath, you make your way towards the sound.
As you walk through the forest in the distance, you see a clearing, and in the middle stands Emilie, ready to pounce on two reapers. Well, this is new. Before the angry woman stands two of your fellow servants in debt.
One has a snake skull while the other has a rhino skull, signifying deceptiveness and lies for the snake and aggressiveness for her friend.
If you don't recognize the two of them, then again, your organization has hundreds of thousands of reapers. As you stand there, you don't quite hear their conversation as you are still making your way towards them, but as usual, Emilie looks furious.
As you approach, you hear the ensuing conversation.
"Back away, you vile monsters!"
"so, she HAS always been like that," you say, chuckling to yourself
"You must come with us; we only wish to help you! We mean you no harm!" Hisses the snake reaper; however, you see the same look of disbelief she gave you and she says
" Lies! deception! You want to kill me!"
You can't see the snake reaper's face, but by her body language, you can tell she's becoming extremely irritated.
Looking over the rhino reaper, who hasn't uttered a word, he slowly makes his way towards Emilie, and when he reaches her, he grabs her arm and starts dragging her across the forest floor.
Of course, Emilie is less than appreciative of this and struggles with all her might, but it doesn't faze the rhino mask as he continues walking with the snake next to him.
In her struggle to escape, Emilie manages to land a solid kick on the rhino's crown jewels, sending the man tumbling forward. The snake instantly reacts by kicking Emilie across the jaw, sending her head reeling back.
As she slowly recovers on the floor, she looks up at her, and in blind fury, she swings her leg at the snake, landing it straight to his side.
As she stumbles back, she grips her side, coughing lightly. In the meantime, Emilie gets up. However, she doesn't notice the rhino charging towards her, and a second later, she's sent flying back through a tree.
Before she can pick herself up, the snake is already standing over her, ready to strike. As the reaper is bringing her fist down to crush Emilies head, she ever so slightly moves her head to the side, dodging the attack.
While her fist is still on the ground, Emilie uses the moment to slash Snake's throat.
At first, she simply stumbles back and holds her hand to her throat, but soon buckets of blood start spilling out between her fingers.
Before she can fall and hit her head, rhino catches her and immediately opens a portal to escape, and with that, they're gone. Emilie only stares blankly at the place they just stood.
Before you can see what she does next, you're sucked into a whirlpool of leaves on the ground, and a second later, you shot out of it and were sent sliding across the forest floor and knocked unconscious.
As you groan in pain from the impact, you look around and can't see Emilie anywhere
*Dammit, she ran away again* You think to yourself, but at that moment you feel a gaze looking down at you, and the ground isn't as hard as it should be. Looking up to check it out, your eyes align with the amber eyes of Emilie, which is a nice change from the ghoul version you saw a minute ago.
You stare at her dumbfoundedly in silence; thankfully, you eventually gather the strength to say something
"Uh, what are you doing?"
"You just looked uncomfortable; I thought this would help."
"It does, but we're not doing this."
After you're done wishing that you were sent to hell instead of getting this job, you get up with a bright red face and start walking away.
Thankfully, you hear Emilie make her way behind you, and then you hear her ask, "Did you find what you wanted?"
Clearing your throat, you answer, "Yes, I did; now I know what we must do to get you moving."
you don't wait for her answer and start making your way deeper into the woods, As you walk together, a peaceful silence fills the air around you until it's broken by Emilie "So, mind if I ask you something?"
You give a nonchalant answer and say, "Sure, go ahead."
Without a moment of hesitation, she asks
"Why are you guys around?"
"you guys?"
"I mean, Reapers, I don't see a good purpose."
"Ouch, that kind of hurt. But well, if you're asking about my organization, it's to keep the balance of power even between heaven and hell. As you've seen before, they don't get along, and this then turns into full-blown wars killing billions and sometimes even harming humans. That's why we're here to make sure they don't get too greedy and start another war."
"How many wars have there been?"
She asks curiously
"Seventeen gruesome wars"
"Wow, and how many have you taken part in?"
"Two, but I would rather not go back to those memories."
She simply nods at your answer, and it's silent once again.
Hello, pimps How are we doing? Actually, I forgot I asked, Well, I hope you enjoyed this weeks story update, I don't really have anything to say. OH, but you guys should definitely go check out "World's Greatest Estate Developer." It just got off hiatus, and the new chapters had me dying. Be sure to support the artist on Instagram too!