Chapter 117: Intertwining Gold And White
A boring white room.
A clock.
A crib.
Sitting with our backs against each other, we lay in the weighted silence for a lengthy period.
Peals of shimmering gold and snowy white intertwined like fated strands, sparkling with each ray of light bouncing upon them. With Esme dressed in a plain black dress, and me in white, we sat in this dismal room.
Distant memories sparked in our minds, reigniting the months of boredom spent in each other's company.
That was 14 years ago.
And now, 14 years later, we are back here.
Just me and my sister, in her final step of Approval.
No Mistress.
No Nobles.
No Altar of Blessings.
No Altar of Curses.
Just two sisters, a room, and a crib.
"Alora." Sister's whispery tone caressed my ears.
"Yes?"
"Will you finally explain it all?"
Right.
I promised.
And today is the day.
Once we take this Step, the rumbling gears will click into place. What was set in motion from the day we were born will burst ablaze with the flames of hope.
"You go first, Esme, and I'll fix your misunderstandings as we go."
As I spoke, a hand rustled through our intertwined hair and slipped over mine. Her slender fingers tightened over me.
"My Curses. You've taken them as your burden." Her fingers squeezed even harder as she finally spoke the words she feared most.
And I-
"...Yes."
-I could only confirm the truth.
"Mother forced you?"
Quiver.
Shivers cracked like lightning down my spine;
My cowardly, pathetic spine.
"No."
Immediately after my response, "Then why?" Her voice came out in a hurry.
I stared down at my useless body; at my pathetic little self, "Because I gave up. I caved in. I couldn't bear it anymore, so I dedicated it all to you instead."
"...Caved in? Bare it? Bare what?"
"The punishments, as mother calls them. I deserved them, and, precisely because I deserved them, I had to dedicate it all to you."
"Punishment? How so?"
My thoughts echoed into the past, into the shattered memory cells, "In every way you can imagine."
"...Okay. So this 'sickness'. This 'weakness'. It's all a result of the Curses, right?"
"Yes. It is."
"And that book? Your Manifestation?"
"It amplifies everything in exchange for power."
Willing it into existence, the accursed pages fluttered open with dense, shrieking Curses before my sister's eyes, "Those are my Curses..."
"And mine." I added, "I never received Blessings, only Curses. So I have mine and yours within me."
"Mhm." Mumbling, Esme dug into her pocket for a moment, then took something out. I heard the sound of the tinkling of a familiar material-
Ting!
-Esme promptly tossed it up. It arced in a parabola and clattered beside my stiff legs.
An old, used vial.
"How about that? Would you like to tell me what that is?" Esme's voice held little patience at this point; this wasn't something she was willing to play and skirt around.
My drugs.
She found them.
"Where?" I asked.
"When we first found The Canary."
Oh.
I had left behind a vial in my mess back then. I had completely forgotten that I'd consumed a full vial of stimulants to keep myself working long enough to prevent the Book of Heresy from dropping its guillotine on my head.
"It's my drugs."
"Since when?" Esme asked instantly, with sweaty hands rubbing over mine.
"Years ago."
"Who?"
"Just me-"
"No, tell me, who helped you? You couldn't have done it on your own with your Manifestation and Curses limiting you so much. Was it Hilda? Was it her? Even after I asked her to-!"
I quickly cut her off before she made any more incorrect assumptions, "It wasn't."
Esme, sipping a breath to cool herself, asked again, "Then, who?"
I sat in silence for a few seconds and thought it over. If I told Esme, I could imagine how it would turn out for the girl in question.
But I promised her the truth.
So...
"Vanessa."
The fingers wrapped over mine stiffened, "I, I see." She stuttered, failing to hide her shock. It was interesting, though. She was more shocked by hearing that Vanessa supplied me with drugs than by the fact that I had absorbed all her Curses.
But, to be fair, she had expected this. All I did was confirm her suspicions.
Knowing that Vanessa was supplying me with drugs, on the other hand...
I think I may have created a slight fracture in their relationship.
So be it.
That's my fault, so I'll mediate it.
I stared at the distant door in silence. The eerily white surface bore a faint reflection of my unmasked self; Esme has yet to see my face, though. Hilda placed me in this position, unmasked me, and let me be.
I want to do it myself, to show Esme my face.
My Cursed, Perfect, filthy, little creature's self.
Suddenly, amid our silence, "My Approval is complete." Esme dropped a bomb on me.
Esme never told me what her Approval process was, nor did she inform me of why she had to complete it in this room, in this state, but as long as she needs me, I'll help her no matter the cost.
And now, that help is complete.
It is time for us to take the Third Step.
It's time to become a-
"Cleansed."
"Profaned."
Our words came simultaneously.
The synchronisation came naturally to our inner selves. Even after years of separation and differing growth spectrums, in the end, we are truly sisters.
We are twins.
""We are one.""
It appeared.
From above us.
From below us.
From every angle, from the depths of the curtains of space itself.
Majestically flowing Blessings sizzling with golden lights sparkled, swayed, and flowed like oceanic waves around us. Crowns, necklaces, bracelets—they manifested from thin air in colours of gold and snow-white.
Our colours.
But, with Blessings, came Curses.
Vile, putrid, Curses.
Doused with the Souls of millions; shrieking with the cries of the damned. Bubbling from the depths of the abyss of despair, manically cackling with the laughs of the broken.
Every inch of the room empty of Blessings became full of Curses.
It surrounded us; it attempted to embed itself upon us.
Esme's Blessings and Curses descended upon her, and I, my Curses descended like lightning.
But I didn't let it.
With my Curses; with my Authority, I pulled upon Esme's Curses.
As I tugged at the accursed streams of insanity, they fought back. They pulled in reverse and attempted to drag me into their midst. But I held my ground; I kept calm and thrust every module of Authority and thought at the swaths of Curses.
After an annoying back and forth, the Curses lost their stability and crashed down on me like a snapped string.
From every angle in the room; even from beneath me, from the microscopic cracks in the ground leading to the insulation, the Curses flooded into my veins.
Once they entered me, the pain one would expect from the Curses never arrived.
Nor was there some form of intriguing sensation gushing through me.
Instead, nothing.
Nill.
I felt nothing.
Sensed nothing.
All seemed normal.
...Yes, that's the word, 'seemed'.
Because it wasn't normal.
Nothing that was occurring within my body was normal.
The Curses flooding through my veins began transforming me from the inside out. It was a qualitative change—my capillaries, veins, arteries, heart muscles, lungs—everything began to transform.
The dark-stained, Cursed blood vessels were no longer stained.
For just as blood cannot be stained with blood, Curses cannot be stained with Curses.
The cells bridging my body together were collapsing, condensing, and transforming into vessels for Curses.
It was a nigh instantenous transformation; there was no prolonged process, it's as though my body had long been prepared for it.
Which it was.
And, soon enough, I no longer had blood vessels.
I no longer had a normal heart.
Normal lungs.
Instead, I had Cursed Vessels, a Cursed Heart, and Cursed Lungs. My mortality was stripped and condensed into the crushing madness of Curses.
But it wasn't done just yet; my scalp, at the final moment, at the brink of what I believed to be the end of my transformation, prickled me.
The golden hairs that had entwined with Esme's buzzed with Curses—the 10 new Curses originating from Esme's Ascension into a Cleansed and my Descent into a Profaned, 5 from both of us.
Each strand's keratin was singed and plunged into the abyss alongside my vessels, heart, and lungs.
I now had Cursed Hair.
The colour remained the same, but the core ingredient making up my hair was now nothing but Curses, my 28 Curses.
With my existence falling further into Profanity, my 3rd Step was approaching completion; unlike the 2nd Step, there wasn't an intrinsic change, such as comprehending the existence of Authority. Instead, this Step refined your already existing self.
Without this refining...
Without it...
...Ah.
It entered me.
A thought.
But it didn't come from me; this thought came from the world itself.
The 4th Step.
The transformation before the Moulting into the 5th Step.
It all made sense then.
The reason behind why we unlock Authority, why we must refine ourselves...
I get it.