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Earlier in the dark…
Rayon was left behind by Zeiss. She was always left behind. Zeiss had run off in the tunnels after Rayon had regenerated his form from pieces of his splattered body. She saw his eyes dripping from his sockets, yet she caught the yolks and put them back within their shells. Maybe he didn’t deserve the honeyed yolk. He was a vessel for her hope, but now she was questioning why she had chosen him.
”Zeiss…” she repeatedly said within the darkness. Part of her pulled her towards him and the other was lost in deliberation.
A rat squeaked on the floor and looked up at her. Rayon dove for the thing ready to bite into the juicy crisp flesh. When she had the poor thing in her grasp, she realised that it was soft and alive. She held a warm blood-beater.
“Can you help me?” Rayon spoke to the rat and its small beady eyes glazed green.
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Zeiss, Rayon, and Yeimi were carried off with a swarm of obedient rats. They rushed around her like a current of a river, however instead of dragging them below, they were taken up to the light. Still, it was relatively dark as they lifted up the basement doors.
There were a few towerfolk hauling metal and they noticed the trio.
“Oyy! What has happened here?” One shouted. The second came closer but stepped back when they saw Rayon. Pink eyes. Green viney body. Beautiful undeniably, but that look; it was otherworldly.
“My god… it’s a demon,” he whispered.
The first man had helped Zeiss and Yeimi who were smothered in liquid and in her case blood and pus. Zeiss had a wound on his head where he was hit by the pipe.
“Get them up to the Alchemist,” the first man said.
“Demon…” the second man said, “Did you do this to them? Huh?! Answer me you beastly thing!“
He picked up a hunk of metal and threw it at Rayon. It just deflected and fell to the floor. Rayon touched the area where she was hit and then looked up blank faced. She looked to Zeiss for answers but he was being hauled away.
“Zeiss…” Rayon said, walking forward.
“Stay back, you creature from the depths!” The man shouted.
Zeiss was being hauled up the passage leaving Rayon behind. She felt an ice coldness in her chest. She began to shrink in size until she was not more than two feet tall. She curled up into a ball and began to weep. Zeiss turned his head back for a moment. I just can’t afford to save you… Then he passed out.
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The alchemist was a tall elderly man with a thick white moustache and a strong young man’s posture. He wore a white buttoned up shirt - unlike most proletarians who wore brown and beige rags. He had more than just numbers and letters - he was a genius inventor and scientist.
He asked his son, Brago, to make beds for Yeimi and Zeiss to rest on. Brago was barely a young adult and had a similar look to his father except with brown sideswiped hair and no moustache.
“Boy! Get the melders tincture,” the Alchemist said.
“Are you alright lad?” Brago said to Zeiss and applied tincture to his forehead.
“Lad? I’m far older than you,” Zeiss said, feeling light headed. Everything was catching up to him now and the weight sent him into oblivion. He slept on the bed like he was an inch from death.
Yeimi was hesitant as the Alchemist brought out some needles for injecting. She winced and put her hands up, “Please… no more…”
“My dear girl what has happened to you,” he sighed and then gently fed her some hot soup through a leather sack. She drank the soup and soon she was exhausted and fell asleep. The alchemist got to work and began to give medications and cleaned the pus and blood off her body. Her body was rife with infection and it was a surprise that she was still alive. The person who was abusing her must have been keeping her just alive to survive the torture. A perpetual pet.
Zeiss was floating in the void. He felt squares of black energy crawl and envelop his entire form. Soon he was consumed and he started to see things from his past and he was transported.
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Back when Zeiss was a young man…
Zeiss and Oldus had been tasked with fixing one of the sewage pipes in the east side. Now, Zeiss was an inch taller than Oldus and had a patch of fluff under his chin. Oldus on the other hand nearly had a full beard. Oldus sometimes looked at Zeiss a bit too long, and focused on his lips. Full,,, Round,,, Zeiss was oblivious to notice.
“Oyyy what the fuck are you not saying?” Oldus said, “You can’t hide shit from me, friend…”
”Nothing,” Zeiss turned away to use the crank to unscrew the large bolts.
“Tell me,” Oldus grabbed his shoulder.
Zeiss looked up into Oldus’s eyes and when the green light flickered in the tunnel, Zeiss’s eyes softened.
”I got Ca’ane pregnant…” Zeiss whispered.
Oldus' eyes widened, “Of course you have with all the time you creep between the walls. I have a niece or nephew? Shit! And you are going to be a father!”
Zeiss sighed, “I don’t want to have any children… I am going to ask her to drink an aborting tea…”
SMASH! Oldus punched Zeiss in the face. It was a thick hard punch where you could see the cowardly skin of Zeiss’s cheek curve around his fist. He spat and coughed looking at the ground.
“You don’t do that…” Oldus said, “You don’t ever do that to someone like Ca’ane…”
Zeiss looked up and shouted, “I don’t care!”
Ca’ane and her mother came to live with Jetta and Pidus. She was half term and her belly was swollen. They hadn’t been married yet, but Ca’ane’s mother thought it would be best for the entire family to be together. It was then that Zeiss sulked in a depression and at some point Ca’ane and her mother left back to her home.
”I thought I could rely on you!” Ca’ane wept as she walked out the door, “Please tell me to stay…” but Zeiss turned his gaze away.
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“I just can’t afford to save you…”
”I thought I could rely on you…”
”Please tell me to stay…”
”Stay…”
”Stay…”
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RAYON! Zeiss woke abruptly. He was breathing rapidly.
“Son! Relax. You are in no harm,” the Alchemist said as he was tending to Yeimi’s wounds.
“Rayon…”
“I need to save her. I need to save Rayon…” Zeiss said, getting up.
”By hell! There is another one?!” Brago said getting up from his chair.
He needed to be that man; the one who would stay. If he couldn’t save Rayon, then how could he look Semira in the eye. He couldn’t give up. Not now…
He looked at himself in the mirror, and a younger man looked back; he must have not been more than seventeen. He had long brown hair which was the colour of clay and soft olive skin. He had no facial hair - not even a patch of fuzz. He was really younger again. Rayon had done this to him. He hadn’t listened - otherwise she would have told him what had happened after they fell. He tied his hair up into a pony.
You saved me from that hellish camp… You gave me a chance to save her… I can’t leave you behind… I won’t look away…
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“What?!” Brago shouted as he tripped over a severed limb.
It was still warm and the blood was yet to coagulate on the bone. They looked up; it was a massacre of blood and guts. Brago squinted his eyes.
”Alexi? Alexi!” He cried, shaking as he held the head of his dear friend. The last horrified expression was permanently set into the severed head. Zeiss knew what was happening.
The familiar crunch and gurgle. He turned and he saw the beast. It was a ten foot molten black creature. An Ichor!
The Ichor stared at Zeiss for a moment without moving and then it leapt for Brago instead. The black goo formed a tendril and it was visible on the reflection of Brago’s fearful eye.
“No!” Zeiss shouted. He felt sparks charge up around his hands — he grabbed the Ichor’s neck. Sparks flew as he burned the Ichor with his bare hands and its flesh cracked away like glass. Zeiss was thrown back. The Ichor recoiled and twitched. This time it seemed to have changed its mind about Zeiss and steadily loomed over him. It leapt towards Zeiss in black tendrils.
“No more!” Zeiss said, charging up the electricity in his hands and then jumping towards the beast.
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Thank you so much for reading Avenge the Dead Fields Season 1. It has been an amazing writing journey over the past year. I will be writing two more seasons in the next upcoming months. Lots of love. Mal. X
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