Yay for my first fictional story, right? I’m going to do these every now and again, because I really enjoy creative writing, and this blog gives me an excuse to write them. Anyways, this one will most likely be a trilogy. I don’t quite know when I’m going to post parts two and three, but hey, at the time of writing this blog has one follower – myself (seems arrogant but I don’t know how to undo it). So this will be up when you find me. Maybe, as you read this, parts two and three are already up. For your sake, I hope so. Cliffhangers are so frustrating.
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Information about this new series:
Set in an unknown location in 1300, this is the tale of two English siblings (brother and sister) whose parents have recently died. An information broker sold them the location of an ancient amulet that is rumoured to be able to bring back the dead. The brother jumps at the opportunity to revive his parents, and brings his sister along for a mix of reasons: he wants her to witness their parents coming back, he wants her to be happy, she enjoys travelling and he feels he may need backup. But the brother has extreme drive to retrieve the amulet and can’t accept failure. After travelling for two months, they find the hole the information broker told them about, but when he and his sister eventually enter the cave, someone else is only an hour behind them…
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THE AMULET PART ONE
Petrus and his sister, Ysabella, looked into the hole in the ground. It looked dark down below, but they had torches. They needed to be down there. “You sure this is a good idea? Should we even do this?” Ysabella asked her brother, frowning in distaste at the hole. Ysabella didn’t notice Petrus’ eyebrows furrow in annoyance, but she noticed the slight snappiness of his tone as he responded “Don’t you want them back?” Petrus asked? “Of course I do! But they’re dead! This is… this is unnatural,” she said. Petrus closed his eyes for a moment. “They didn’t deserve to die like that, in that accident. They deserve whatever we can do for them. They are worth the risk, aren’t they?” Ysabella looked at her brother. “Yes. Okay. What about the horses?” The siblings had travelled for two months to get here, and their respective horses had taken them most of the way. They’d even suffered through a ship voyage. Both loved their horses, Ysabella’s being dark brown, and Petrus’ being black with a dark mane. “We’ll have to leave them here. We can’t leave them down here.” Ysabella frowned. “But what if they’re stolen or something,” Petrus looked at her. “Have you seen another person around here? Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll be fine.” They’d hitched the horses to nearby trees so they had no chance of falling down the hole after them. Ysabella nodded then picked up a nearby stone and threw it into the hole. A splash sounded from about ten feet below. “There’s water down there,” she said. Petrus smiled. “That’ll make getting down easier. We just need to anchor the rope to something for when we climb out.” He looked around, stepping away from the hole, trying to dampen his excitement. There might not be anything down there yet. But Stacius’ information had never been wrong, though his price this time had been extremely steeper than usual. He’d demanded 40 pounds and eighty shillings. They had been forced to sell their stable and four horses to fund the deal. They’d only kept two horses, which would now be kept tethered under an apple tree henceforth. Ysabella hoped it would be worth it, and her parents would come back to life, but Petrus hardly had a doubt it would work. He couldn’t contemplate the possibility that it wouldn’t work. He needed them back. Ysabella on the other hand though, she had an inkling this was not going to work, and besides, even if it did, surely it would be against the will of God? “Perfect. Are you ready, Ysabella?” She shook herself out of her thoughts, and pushed her reservations below the surface. She looked in his direction. He’d tied the rope around a tree. Ysabella watched as he tugged on the rope, testing whether the rope would support their weight. It didn’t budge. “Yeah, let’s get down there,” Before this, Petrus would have instantly noticed her uneasiness. But he didn’t, preoccupied as he was with the amulet said to bring the dead back. Ysabella couldn’t prevent herself feeling slightly sad about this. “Petrus walked over the hole leading underground. ”Swan dive!” he exclaimed, as he dived perfectly. Ysabella heard of body hit the water and forced a laugh. She let herself plunge feet down, so she didn’t get her top half wet.
Ysabella hit the water and gasped. It was absolutely freezing! Beside her, Petrus was gasping like a fish out of air. His swan dive meant he was soaked to the bone. He was muttering and gasping between each word: “oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Ysabella sniggered “Why’d you do that dive you fool?” Petrus smiled at her jape “Oh, I wanted to look cool for someone very important to me who may or may not be right next to me, not soaked right through to the bone.” This time Ysabella’s laugh was genuine and heartfelt. They both started laughing and she located the exit, which was a small ledge leading to a tunnel. She pointed it out to him and they both started to swim for it, Petrus’ strokes furious, loud and quick, Ysabella’s strokes measured, quiet and leisurely. Petrus reached the ledge first and extended a hand to his sister, still smiling. As she took his hand and he hauled her up, one hand clasping her arm, the other holding her hand, Petrus’ smile melted and he looked at her, still holding onto her hand for a moment. “My torch is going to be soaked through. Please, tell me yours isn’t.” They could just about see thanks to the sunlight shining through the hole leading to the small underground pond, but that was it. She started to reach for it, then happened to look up. “It probably is, but it doesn’t matter. Look up. Convenient, isn’t it?” Petrus looked up and saw the same thing she did – an iron torch scone attached to the stone of the door. “Oh my god,” he said, his eyes starting to brim with tears, “we’ve found it!” Ysabella smiled warmly at him, though she wasn’t as sure as he was. She noticed another wall scone on the other side, opposite the one Petrus was already pulling the unlit torch from. By the time Ysabella, short of stature compared to her brother, managed to reach up and get the wall scone, Petrus already had his torch lit with the piece of flint he kept in his pocket. “Hey, you mind doing mine too?” Ysabella asked him. “Of course, pass it here a second.” She did. In no more than five seconds, it was alight with fire. Petrus gave it back to her. Petrus gestured in front of him. “Ladies first!” Ysabella shook her head. “I really don’t like this, Petrus.” Petrus grinned “Then I shall go first and protect you, my lady,” Ysabella looked at him. “I’m being serious here.” Petrus felt a flicker of annoyance, but it softened instantly when he spun to look at her. She looked terrified. His gaze softened, and he held her eyes for a moment. “It’ll be fine!” he insisted, his voice as smooth as velvet. “Even if this amulet doesn’t work, we can just go home and live our lives.” Ysabella didn’t want to go down, but she loved her brother and trusted him more than anyone else. He was a good person, even if right now he was a little… focused. She nodded and, Ysabella clutching her torch like a lifeline, Petrus holding his out in front of him, they descended into the tunnel.
The silence was complete, and it was unnerving. There was no light aside from the measly flames of their torches. Yet Petrus could hardly contain his glee. They were so close. After travelling for three months, they were so close. They’d slept in ditches, they’d spent hours riding horses. Both were in discomfort from that. They’d even suffered through a fortnight long sea voyages. The horses had hated that. But they were nearly done, though they were not looking forward to the journey back home. Even so, they were nearly done! Petrus was delighted. Ysabella was unsure what to think, though she still had a bad feeling about everything happening right now. As both of them rounded a corner, both were shaken from their thoughts by the sight directly ahead. There was a strange marble wall built into the stone wall of the cave. Its trademark shine had faded over the however many centuries since it was built, but its beauty was still breath-taking. Petrus and Ysabella had never seen anything like it. The dingy by comparison castles of England, of which they’d only ever seen three anyways, were nothing to this. At least, that was the case to Petrus. He stood there, awestruck at its beauty. Ysabella was less awestruck. She saw its beauty, sure, but she saw other details. A statue standing by the doorway of something she presumed was a deity. But the statue had dark red eyes and claws instead of fingernails, which no deity she could recognize had. Was this place dedicated to… her thought process was cut off as Petrus recovered himself and walked through the doorway, leaving Ysabella no option but to follow. Ysabella walked faster to catch up, but she crashed into Petrus’ back as he suddenly stopped, sending her torch skittering across the floor. Petrus stumbled, but caught his footing without acknowledging her mistake. “What is…?” Ysabella started to ask but she let her sentence trail off as she saw what he was looking at. There, on a plain stone pedestal, in a room lit only by their torches… wait, that wasn’t quite right, there was a dim dark red light coming from the Amulet itself, which was on the pedestal; it seemed to stem from deep within the Amulet. The Amulet’s only decoration were two eye like shapes that seemed to be formed with some sort of crystal. Petrus looked at her, smiling. He turned to the Amulet. Ysabella thought about the dark red light coming from the Amulet. She thought about the statue just outside, and the fact the Amulet shared some details like the statue, an example being the eyes. She thought about the myth surrounding the Amulet. And she had a horrible thought. Petrus had already approached the Amulet while she was thinking and was now reaching out for the Amulet. “PETRUS DON’T!” Ysabella shouted at him. But it was too late.
Petrus touched the Amulet. Instantly, he was bathed in a dark red light the colour of old blood. His body jerked without a sound, like he was in pain. Ysabella heard a muted gasp from him, but it was strange, there almost seemed to be two voices coming from him. “Petrus?” she asked in a small voice, and, freakishly quickly, he spun towards the sound of her voice. Ysabella screamed at the sight of him. Her brother’s beautiful blue eyes had turned the same colour as the light that had streamed forth from the Amulet. Both of his eyes were completely dark red – there was no sign of his pupils. Petrus… or whatever it was… appeared before her in the blink of an eye, the Amulet somehow around his neck even though he hadn’t had time to put it on. In the split second before his left hand reached for her, she noticed extremely abnormal details about him as she stared in disbelief. Red veins that weren’t there before stemmed out from his eyes, as if his eyes were the centre of a spider-web and the veins were the silk. His mouth was much the same, and the veins there connected to the veins of his eyes. His nose, his beautiful slim nose, it was now non-existent. Petrus’ teeth also looked much sharper than before; they also seemed to be coated in a peculiar dried red colour, the same as both the Amulet and his eyes. Ysabella’s distressed and terrified mind did not ask herself anything about the fact his body itself was partly dark red. Because she had just seen the most terrifying thing she had ever seen in her life. Petrus’ expression was… it was inhuman. His eyebrows were falling out in clumps. His cheekbones, which he’d always been complemented on by suitors, had pushed themselves forward by an inch and made him look as if there was a metal pipe just under his skin. His chin had also curved forward, slightly looking like the curve of a jester’s shoe. But the scariest thing about him was his expression. Though she couldn’t see emotion in his eyes anymore, she knew him well. Even through the veins now covering his face. In the grimace of his mouth, she saw his despair. In the wideness of his eyes, she saw his fear. But in the way his right fist was clenched, she saw his anger. All of this she noticed in less than a second. But then his left hand reached her.
His hand wrapped around her neck and lifted her off her feet in one movement with incredible strength. From Ysabella’s mouth came a terrible “erk” sound and tears started to flow from her eyes. Ysabella had been right about this place. They never should have come here. Petrus… or whatever he was now… the demon that had invaded Petrus… tightened its grip on Ysabella’s throat, constricting her windpipe. Her tears were now soaking Petrus’ arm as she struggled to suck in a breath. Both of her arms were at Petrus’ arm, but she couldn’t do anything against the sudden overwhelming strength of Petrus. Petrus’ expression distorted even further and he tightened his fist even further, and Ysabella’s windpipe ruptured. She heard a loud crunching noise that was her own cartilage being crushed. She felt an incredibly intense pain as parts of her windpipe stabbed into her neck and blood started to flow. But her carotid artery was somehow untouched, so instead of being killed quickly and painlessly she was suffering an extremely intense pain while she drowned in her own blood as it filled her lungs. Her body spasmed violently, legs kicking, arms flailing. Her bladder automatically relieved itself, and urine began to stream out of the trousers she was wearing. Ysabella was trying to scream, but she couldn’t make a sound. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. The fingers on the Demon’s right hand curled up, the fingernails now curved and sharp. Ysabella was still thrashing in agony so the Demon shoved its right hand straight into her stomach. A combination of its finger-claws and its strength caused Ysabella’s flesh to be easily pierced by its hand, and Ysabella managed to groan as the Demon gripped the nearest squishy part it could find and yanked, and Ysabella’s intestines hit the ground with a disgusting wet sound. The Demon finished by getting a hand back into the wound and driving its hand sideways as hard as it could, and Ysabella was nearly split in half, finally killing her. The last sound she had ever heard was a wet sounding “spoosh” sound which was her own intestines hitting the marble floor. The place where her belly button used to be was now just a gaping hole that continued sideways, and the rest of her flesh was missing. The Demon threw her body to the ground, and about two pints of blood leaked out of her body onto the ground in seconds. Ysabella’s muscles started to relax, including her bowels, causing excrement to push out of her on its own. The Demon looked at the corpse a moment with its head tilted. Its face started to relax.
After a few seconds though, the Demon shrieked and started to sprint out of the cave, moving exponentially fast, but without crashing into anything. In less than thirty seconds it had arrived at the entrance Ysabella and Petrus had used to enter the Demon’s tomb. It looked at the rope and snarled at it, as if the Demon hated its very presence. Performing yet another feat impossible for humans, the Demon leaped across the water and just before it hit the wall it drove its finger-claws into the solid rock. Chips of rock fell into the water below as the Demon kept climbing using only his finger-claws. It climbed out, and after closing its eyes for a second against the sunlight, regarded the surface world. It made a sound that was a cross between a hiss and a sigh, picked a direction and started sprinting, only leaving a single footprint every four steps.
An hour later, Osanna came across the hole. She was in a blind panic. She had to stop Ysabella and Petrus from touching the Amulet. After what she’d forced Stacius to tell her… she prayed she wasn’t too late. Stacius had gave them the location of the Amulet and told them about the rumour that it could revive the dead, but he’d left out a very important piece of information – the Amulet held a Demon that could possess the first person that touched it. Stacius had also told her that the secrets to removing a Demon from a person had been lost about half a millennium ago. She’d found the horses of Ysabella and Petrus, which gave her hope. It was likely they were still here. She jumped down into the water feet first, gave a gasp at how cold the water was, and started swimming towards the ledge. She didn’t notice the small amounts of blood in the water in her haste. Pulling herself up onto the ledge, she got to her feet quickly, resulting in something that was almost a stumble but more controlled. The way ahead was lit, thanks to, unbeknownst to her, Ysabella lighting the torches in the wall scones as she passed them. Osanna started to sprint. She passed through the tunnel in less than forty seconds, then came to a bend in the cave. Though Osanna was pretty sure it wasn’t exactly a cave – it seemed too smooth and its path was too straight and convenient to be completely natural. Osanna decided it didn’t matter right now if it was man made or not. She just had to make sure neither sibling touched the Amulet, she told herself for the seventh time in the last hour. She slowed down for a second as she rounded the corner, then, noticing the statue, she gave it a quick one over, noting its eyes, the strength of its arms, and more. And her misgivings grew. The statue had most of the defining features Stacius had described, which meant that what he’d told her was more likely to be true. Still though, she thought, there was no evidence that Ysabella and Petrus had been down here. Then she realized. The torches were lit, but who had lit them? It had to be Petrus and Ysabella. Osanna was more concerned about saving Ysabella then Petrus, as it had been her who had shown Osanna’s mother lifesaving kindness… Osanna saw that the next room was pitch black, grabbed a torch from the wall, and entered the room.
And her darkest thoughts came true. For a few seconds, as she advanced into the room, she didn’t see any sign of the Amulet or the siblings, though she did see human bones, brown and degrading, in either side of the room. Stacius had mentioned that this likely had something to do with the way the Demons presence, power and soul was trapped inside the Amulet. Osanna thought about this as she walked forward, feeling slightly repulsed and sick, then she saw it. First, the saw the pedestal that used to house the Amulet, but it was empty. Her stomach plummeted. One of them had touched the… she saw it… she saw… Ysabella. Lying on the floor, her body looking broken. If her stomach had plummeted when she saw the empty pedestal, now it fell off a cliff. She couldn’t stop herself from emitting a loud but quick scream “Ahhhhh!” She ran towards Ysabella, dropping her torch as she went, and dropped to her knees beside her, hoping that she had somehow survived. The metallic smell of blood filled her nostrils, but there were other smells. Osanna could also smell Ysabella’s dried faecal waste, along with something else, something she couldn’t place. She saw the hole in Ysabella and her throat tightened. She saw intestines on the ground near Ysabella’s body, their contents spilled, and knew with a sickening certainty what that smell was. Without warning her stomach heaved, and she was spilling her guts over the marble floor. Her vomit hit with no sound as her face was close to the floor. She started to sob, her tears hitting the pool of vomit. She’d tried to get here before Ysabella and Petrus, but her efforts hadn’t been enough against their well-trained stallions. Osanna’s eyes widened at the thought of Petrus. He’d been the one to touch the amulet, he had to have been. The Demon had possessed him. And Stacius had sold him the information of where to find the amulet, knowing full well this might happen. Osanna’s fist clenched. She was going to find him, and grill him for information about Demons and how many artefacts trapping them he knew about.
For now though, she just held Ysabella’s body, trying to ignore the smell, and sobbed. Her mother had loved Ysabella. Osanna had too. She sat like this for twenty minutes, then wiped her eyes and mouth on her sleeve, got up, and made her way out of this cursed place, picking up her dropped torch as she went. Osanna walked slowly, in no rush for the first time in two months. When she reached the hole, she dropped her torch into the water. This time she noticed the blood, and her tears started to flow again. She just let them. She was pretty good at rock climbing, and had no trouble getting out. After spending twenty five minutes in the darkness of that place, she held a hand in front of her eyes as meagre protection against the sun. She climbed onto her own horse and rode over to where she had found Ysabella and Petrus’ horses earlier. She bound their necks together with her own mount, then climbed onto Ysabella’s horse. Certainly, Ysabella wouldn’t have minded if she kept it, as long as she took good care of her. Ysabella was a great person like that. Osanna couldn’t recall what Ysabella had called the stallion, so she elected not to call him anything at all. She’d sell the other two horses on the way.
Osanna took a moment to go through her plans. Number one – travel to see her mother and tell her the news. Number two – find Stacius. Number three – Find Petrus. Her eyes still not dry, her heart still in a maelstrom of emotions, Osanna rode off, starting her long journey home.
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So, that’s the first part finished. Sorry for the graphic description of Ysabella’s death. Sorry, but get used to disgusting gore when you read short stories I’ve written. I’m double sorry for the cliffhanger. I’m triple sorry because… well… I haven’t got the plot to the second part COMPLETELY figured out at the time this goes up. Not even half figured out, actually. So yeah, it may be a while, because I’d like the next part to be half decent, you know?
Quick question though, how should I do speech in the future? I know the way I’ve done it here is grammatically wrong, but I believe it makes this easier to read.
I should probably include a teaser for the next part, right? Well, here it is: you’ll find out more about Osanna’s background and Stacius will appear in the flesh. Anyways….
I hope you enjoyed this… FANTASMAGORICAL SPECTACLEEEEEEEEEEE
The Fantasmagorical Spectacle 