Heartworm

I watched with rapt wonder as Phern’s collection of ingredients began to mold together slowly. The pieces were pulled together as if they were magnetized, only to melt into one another to form something altogether new. When enough of the metal shards were pulled into the amalgamation, it erupted into a roaring fire. It took an odd color, unlike the natural warm oranges and reds you might see in your average fire, instead glowing with a ‘core’ of sickly green. Soon enough, all of the ingredients had been absorbed to grow the nauseating flickering beast of green fire. Phern moved towards me, soft wetness underneath her eyes showing her lingering hesitation.

“You ready?”

“I’ll be fine, Phern. Just try to make it as painless as possible.”

“O-Okay.”

“I’m just taking a power nap, yeah? It’s okay.”

Phern nodded and slowly wrapped her hands around the handle of the baton. She took a deep breath and pulled it from where it was lodged in the top of my head. My teeth grinded together painfully as I held back all of the noises of pain that so desperately wanted to be free. She held the bloodied baton in front of her, resting ominously in front of my face as she prepared herself. Theoretically, with the already fractured part of my skull at the top of my head, a strong swing from Phern would kill me instantly. The onus was more on Phern. She would need to steady herself enough to be willing to swing at full speed. I could tell she was hesitating, which while understandable, was not something we could afford.

“Um… would a catchphrase help? It seemed to make you brave in the story.”

Phern looked at me for a moment before letting a short laugh sputter out of her mouth. “Maybe. Lemme just think of one.” I gave a reassuring smile back, but responded by saying, “we don’t have a ton of time Phern. It’s gonna have to be off the dome.”

‘And onto our dome, as it were.’

Thanks, Lilith.

“BATTER UP, BITCH!” If that was what gave her the confidence to kill me, then so be it. I watched her bring the baton towards my head. For just a moment before everything went dark, I felt the baton crack against my skull, and I was gone.

* * * * *

“Mr. Sylberith? Are you listening?”

“Yeah.”

I was reluctantly listening. There wasn’t much point in listening, since he seemed to say the same thing each and every day for our meetings. I had wondered near the beginning if this repetition was part of the plan. A week can feel like a month if every day is repetitive enough. I had gotten so ingrained in this routine over the past three months that I could recite our conversations almost word for word. Unless I was being offered an entirely new question, I could give my list of responses before he even asked the question. I didn’t, obviously, but I had certainly thought about it.

In the first few months, my answers had changed around quite a bit.

“What are your feelings towards the deceased demon known as Vyra Thrusal.”

I said anything along the lines of-

“What does it matter to you?” I had asked in the first week.

“My feelings won’t change the fact that she’s dead.” When I said that in my third week, it was met with skepticism.

“How would you know if I lied to you in the first place?” I had said that after the first month, and it had set back my ‘progress’ tremendously.

But after enough time had passed, I stopped wasting both of our time by offering the response that Dr Rectin wanted.

“I hate her.”

Dr Rectin smiled at me and took some notes onto the magically summoned paper that he always had. I didn’t think that he was supposed to show emotion one way or the other, but in the third month with him, he had started to smile whenever I gave him answers that he liked.

“How do you feel about demons?” Theorin Rectin asked, in the same exact delivery as always, to an unsettling degree.

“I feel disgusted.”

Our questions carried on in the same monotonous rhythm that they always did, until we had arrived at the end of the checkup, and I stood to walk back to my room. They had given me a new book around a week ago, and though I had already read it three times through, it was the only things new in my isolation, so I would be starting on my fourth read of it when I got back to my room.

“Hold on a moment, Mr. Sylberith.” He raised his hand politely as the magical paper fizzled away into the air. He pushed himself up from the table and looked at me with a concerning amount of joy. What did he have to be excited about? “You have some guests today. It took some time to get this meeting permitted, but we have finally been given the go ahead for some visitation. I will bring them to your room in a few minutes, if there is any tidying up that you would like to do.” He spoke of my room like it was a slovenly sight. A rather insulting suggestion since he knew as well as I that I had no personal belongings. I don’t think I could make a mess in my room even if I tried with the scant few items I was given.

“Oh. Very well.” I walked to my room like I had over a hundred other times, like a lifeless puppet that was being idly pushed along through the cold hallway. There was no agency in my step, for why should there be? I had nothing to get back to, no time to save when time meant nothing at all. The only thing that mattered to me, was that the hours would tick by each day towards my return to normal life, and they ticked by regardless of what I did to pass the time.

I waited in my room for the few minutes it took for my visitors to arrive. When I heard a knock at the door, I prepared myself for the likely visitors to walk through. There wasn’t anyone that it could be other than my parents. The only friend who would have noticed my disappearance was lacking the distinct ability to think. Or move. Or do anything.

“Son.”

“Mother.”

“Son.”

“Father.”

I didn’t bother to pay myself on the back for my correct assumption. It wasn’t like there was any chance of being wrong in the first place. This was the first time I had seen my parents in some time. Varenthell had dormitories for the students, meaning most students would only see their parents over the weekend, or during the breaks throughout the year. I wasn’t that lucky. My parents had always told me that they were too busy during any of the breaks to be able to house me in our home, so I stayed in the academy during most of the breaks. The only time that I did end up seeing them was during the longer breaks that separated the semesters of our studies. I was thrown into isolation at the end of a semester, meaning it had been eight months since I last spoke to them in person.

“How is your recovery fairing, son?” My father spoke with a cold tone, not at all the comfort one might expect from their parents who were visiting them in priso-isolation.

“Better. I want to go home. I hate it here.”

“Of course, son, but we need to be absolutely certain that the awful demon has no hold over you before you return. Clearly its influence on you was affecting your performance in your classes.” My mother was speaking about my performance in classes throughout this semester. I knew that they had been dipping, but truthfully it was because I was spending all of the time I usually spent studying instead hanging out with Vyra as Ester. I was doing worse in classes, sure, but it felt like I was actually enjoying life for the first time. I couldn’t admit that, however.

“Right. But the influence is gone! You have to tell them that I’m okay now!” I was aware of the tightness in my throat and the pooling beds of water in my eyes. I was so tired of being in this place. It felt like the life was being sucked out of me with every fucking check up. If anyone could get me out of here, it would be my parents. They had so much influence! They could pull some strings and I’d be back home by the end of the day.

“Clearly, the influence remains. I never taught my son to cry like a girl. Or dress like one either, as I’ve been told by other student’s parents.” My father spoke clearly, and mercilessly. Even if I was standing, my father would tower over me. The height difference was made excruciatingly obvious as I sat on the bed of my isolated room. It felt like his words were turning the blood in my veins to ice. More than anything, I wanted to stop fucking crying. But I couldn’t.

“That demon’s influence still clouds your mind. We couldn’t possibly let you out as you are. Could you imagine what people would say about the two of us if you were found acting like a demon’s familiar in the dorms again?” My mother seemed to be far more concerned with her own reputation, than the desperate pleas I had let slither out of my mouth.

“I-I can’t stay here! I feel like I’m dying in this fucking room! I have twenty fucking books that I’ve read through at least four times each!”

“I’m sorry, son. We want you out as soon as possible. Your graduation date will already need to be pushed back, but if at all possible, we want to limit how much later you will graduate. It’s already back enough that the Sylberith family name will be tied to a child that has been held back a year.” My father spoke sternly. His apology felt hollow.

“But graduating at the top of your class will clear that right up, darling!” My mother added on, like it would somehow cheer me up to know that I hadn’t completely dishonored the family name. That was the least of my worries while I was caged up like a fucking criminal beneath the academy that I had been taking classes at for the past few years. This room had a suffocating presence. It crushed my rebellion before I had a chance to even muster it for a response.

“O-Okay…”

“If we aren’t busy, we’ll come by to check on your progress.”

That most likely meant I wasn’t going to see them again for some time. My birthday was coming up in a month. I suppose that would be celebrated alone. I guess that makes sense. Why would I get a birthday dinner if I didn’t even have any grades to show for the semester?

My parents left as soon as they arrived, and I sat unmoving on my bed. My ‘new’ book sat next to me on the bed where I had left it to read once I got back from my checkup. The Docile Dominion of the Determined Debutante. It was a relatively short story, about a young woman who learned that rebellion only destroyed her life more and more, and that through her obedient loyalty to the Empire, the life she thought she had lost, was returned to her. It was gaudy and obviously meant to fill the agenda of whatever program this was. But it was the only new book I had gotten in a month, so I read it gladly.

Time passed, slowly, and yet at the same rate as always. I was now eight months into my isolation. I had missed an entire semester from start to finish during my stay here.

“Mr. Sylberith? Are you listening?”

Why wouldn’t I be listening? There was nothing to be gained by defying Dr. Rectin. The more I demonstrated my cooperation with him, and by extension the Empire, the closer I was to returning to my normal life in the academy.

“How do you feel about demons?”

“They are the enemy of the Empire.”

“Good.”

The checkup concluded after the repetitive line of questioning. I walked back to my room, where I was keen to read the new book they had graciously gifted me. Each day that I spent here lately, I had been told that I was making excellent progress. I was excited to be able to rejoin my fellow students at the academy. I’d be a year behind where I should have been, but I could make up for it. If my stay in isolation had taught me anything, it was that a student with discipline was unmatched in the classroom. I’d be able to make it back to the top of my class with ease. My stay here was dreadfully long, but I knew it was for my own good.

* * * * *

If you thought about it hard enough, the sword sticking through the guard’s throat was for his own good. He would die a relatively quick death, whereas the rest of the guards in this disgusting sewer would not be assured the same mercy. I kicked off of the guard that I was holding onto, pulling my Dahlia from his neck as I landed elegantly on the stone floor. There were four guards, actually three now, that were guarding the entrance to the abandoned prison in the sewers. Oddly enough, they were not wearing the armor of the Thrieve guards, but instead a much more adorned set that must have come from the capital. Were these guards sent ahead of the Council? I could only hope so, the implication of them arriving with the Council was far less fortuitous for us.

I needed these guards out of my way quickly if I was going to get Phern and Bandit out before the Council arrived. Time to use a little cheap trick that Phern had taught me to speed things up. I slipped a hand into one of the pockets on my belt to retrieve a solidified piece of Phern’s magic. Many years ago, she found out that she could condense a large amount of her goo into a singular sphere, and then cause it to go dormant until reactivated. They were nifty for a lot of different reasons, but in this specific instance, it was dispatching two of the guards before they had a chance to react. I launched the sphere between the guards, shattering it on the wall behind them with a deafening CRACK as the dormant magic activated in an instant and coated the nearby guards. They might not die quickly, which is a real shame for them, but I needn’t worry about the two of them anymore.

Which meant it was just me and- Oh shit.

“Are you running? You didn’t even give me a chance to fight you!” I called out towards the final guard, who had already turned and started to sprint in the opposite direction down the sewers. Under normal circumstances it would be good to eliminate some of the loose ends, but I had no time to chase after a random guard. I raced towards the prison, my shoes slick with the sludge of the waste in the sewers. I wish I had my boots right now. Hell, I wish I had my entire set of armor instead of these thin day clothes.

When I had gotten to the all too familiar hallways of cells that I had nearly died in eight years ago, I was overcome with the thick stench of burning. It wasn’t wood that was being burned, or even stone from what I could tell. It was a nauseating mixture of burning flesh and metal that lingered in the air like a heavy fog. If I hadn’t just been running through the sewers for an hour, it might have made me retch.

“What the fuck kind of barbeque did they host down here?” I muttered under my breath as I waded through the vile smoke. Each cell that I had passed so far was empty. A writhing worry was starting to spread through me, crawling into all the recesses of my mind. Had the Council already taken them? Was I too late? Eventually, I stumbled across the source of the stench that permeated the dilapidated hallway. The bars of the cell were melted. There was a vomitous amount of charred flesh on the ground of the cell near a wall with more melted chains. The lingering glow of a substance on the ground made my eyes widened with realization. That was Phern’s alchemy. Which means they had escaped, recently even by the looks of the still cooling alchemical fire.

“PHERN!!!” I called out into the hallway, hoping that she had simply chosen a place to hide from threats amongst the building smoke from the bubbling metal.

“CiCi!” It was a weak response, but it was a response nonetheless. A response that came from the exact person that I wanted it to. I raced towards the direction of the sound, which seemed to be further down the hallway of cells, close to the end. Was Phern attempting to leave from the way that we had first stumbled across this prison? It made sense, going out through the traditional way had to have been a much riskier option.

I rounded the corner into the final cell of the hallway, the one where my life had been saved by the same short woman. A woman who was now holding the mangled, charred, and simultaneously regenerating body of our Deathless friend. It was revolting to look at, but the signs of quick regeneration put some of my anguish to rest.

“Cecelia!” Strangely enough, my name had not come from the mouth of the person I expected it to. Instead, it sounded like Sebil Partillo’s voice. I turned my head to the side to see the earlier unaccounted for inventor. It was fortunate that he was safe, but it only seemed to bring more questions to the forefront of my mind. I started to form a response in my mouth, before I noticed two more figures come into view through the smoke behind Sebil. Lucas, and the same guard that was to escort him from the prison. My heart dropped as Lucas raised a glowing golden hand. I wasn’t sure if my warning would reach Sebil in time to be useful, but it pried itself from my lips regardless.

“SEBIL WATCH OUT!”

Sebil was turning, but it was not nearly fast enough to avoid the incoming attack from Lucas. I watched as the Marked’s fist glowed with a radiant holy energy before swinging… into the guard beside him. The guard let out a short gasp before he collapsed limply to the ground, stunned by whatever spell Lucas had just performed.

Okay. I had far too many questions for Phern, Lucas, Sebil, and the currently dead Bandit. I wanted answers. But first, I wanted to get the fuck out of this underground prison.