Categories > Games > Soul Calibur > Return of the Knight
Dead or Alive?
0 reviewsAn archeology student in Europe with deep desires of finding something that may change the world finds herself in a huge mess. Is it good to dig for the stories of the past? (Original Character inc...
0Boring
Dead or Alive ?
Days, months, maybe even years, time has lost relevance to me. All I see around me is darkness. The heavy air that surrounds me makes me cough, but not as often as before. I used to loose consciousness at times when the air was so heavy I couldn't even breathe. The smell of dust in my nose and the taste of it in my mouth made it seem as if I have been eating soil for so long. I would kill for some company sometimes, but once I consider all wrongs I have done. I realize I don't deserve it. I have walked around in the same place for so long I don't even know what I am doing, I don't go forth, I don't go back... I stay just in the same place. Sometimes it feels like I have stopped and everything around me moves... everything keeps going but me.
I sit down sometimes and touch the iron of my sole companion. A single sword... I wish I could just end my life with it, but so many times I tried, and I couldn't... it wouldn't let me. Soul Edge, the thing which made me the monster I have turned to be: left me so long ago. It started fading in the natural process of decomposition of flesh. I could smell it; the stench of rotten flesh beside me was nauseous. From time to time I touched the blade and could feel the stickiness of the rotting flesh, the voices in my head became quieter and quieter, from loud shrieks that could frail the last bits of sanity in me to whispers that were barely understandable. Meanwhile the sword began to fall apart, sometimes with my touch I could feel the tearing of flesh and iron until one day I either became acquainted to the disgusting odor or it simply faded away. There were no more voices, no more flesh, just cold iron and darkness. Many, many times I thought of simply making the jump to where that stairway used to be, leaping to the emptiness and ending my misery, but I couldn't. I always sat at the edge, between iron and darkness.
I don't know if I sleep anymore, maybe this is a dream, maybe this is death, and I am in my own carved tomb, with no tombstone or no one to remember. I used to be aware of the time I spent sleeping. Sleep was when I couldn't see the torches that used to light the cave. In those occasions I saw the bloody deeds I committed, I heard the shrieking clamors of my victims, I saw the merciless monster I turned to be in a death delight massacre, soul hungry and blood thirsty following orders of a superior being to myself. But one day, that difference between torches and screams ended when the torches finally consumed and there was no more fire light. It all turned to be darkness. But I wonder if I am already dead.... And this is my hell. My Inferno is to wonder for ever if I am dead or alive in darkness. Sometimes the logic of my thoughts make me realize I am dead... if I was under the protection of the demon inhabiting the sword, now that there is no demon... there is no way I can keep living, if this can be called a life. I somehow realized I wish this which I am living... I hope it is death, but if I am living it ... then I am alive. Nothingness is so confusing sometimes. All I know is, I exist in darkness, but I don't know if I exist. I could maybe pray to that God which I forsook once from my life in my quest for glory, for answers... but I don't find the strength to ask. I feel like screaming to the emptiness, but what for? I will be the one listening to my dumb screams till the echo fades and once again there will be darkness, and stillness and silence.
I used to love, to be loved, to idolize and be idolized. Somehow all that turned to hatred and murder and endless battles for a so called priced possession that had me possessed. I wonder what has been of all those that knew me or knew about me....
"Am I alive or am I dead?"
"Kiddo... It's almost dinner time... we can do this tomorrow, besides, we are heading back home in one day, let's just relax...." One of her companions said as she climbed through a rock holding a flashlight with her neck.
"But... But..." She said as she looked back at the other three, a black haired guy wearing jeans and a dirty white shirt, a redhead girl who was sitting down and with her amber eyes scanning the one with the flashlight and a Mulatto who had been complaining about everything.
"Kid... Come on, we've been in Europe for almost a month and all we have done is dig shit out of everywhere...- Said the redhead.- After this night all of us will go back to our normal lives and you will be back to your nice one bedroom apartment and to your History classes and we will be back to our job which is go dig some more shit somewhere else... This is an internship, not an adventure for you..." The blue eyes of the one they called 'Kiddo' looked at the redhead fiercely. She wanted to enjoy her experience as an archaeologist as much as she could. Even if it was a cheap internship for the summer.
"I want to find out something that will change history..." The blue eyed replied, the Mulatto walked to her and looked at her hair. It seemed to be a light shade of blonde, but it had spikes colored in every shade of blue and purple known to mankind.
"You have done already Spiky... you discovered that human hair can hold up any shade of blue and purple in the rainbow... now come on... let's go get some European booty before we have to leave..." he said smiling.
"Um... what do you say if I wander around here for ten more minutes and then I catch up with you and we get some booty...? OK?" She asked as the others simply sighed.
"Ok Kiddo... We'll leave the address for the club in the front desk... if you decide to do something else tonight than to run around in this bat infested cave... find us. Otherwise, see you in the airport tomorrow..." Said the black haired taking the hand of the redhead. The Mulatto simply sighed.
"Ok Spike... but remember to join society... it's cool you are so fascinated with digging up history but you also have to make your own history..." And the third one left. Spike simply sighed, crawled up the rock in which she was half hanging and kept her way. The night was muggy and since it had been raining all afternoon, the echoes of the raindrops in the cave gave it one of those images one could only find in Dante's Inferno. She walked secure and slowly around the cave, trying to evade at all costs to illuminate the ceiling of the cave with her flashlight. It was going to be a nightmare if she disturbed the bats like last time.
"Come on... just something I can find and get my name in the pages of history..." She said as she turned around a corner and found a fork in the cave. The left way was dark, and marked as if some archaeologists have already been working on schedule there. The right side, as Spike simply pointed her flashlight at it went a few feet and had some 'do not cross' yellow strings and it seem dark. She pointed back at the left side and back again at the right side.
"No use checking where someone already has been..." She said as she walked to the right side of the cave and crawled underneath the yellow lines. As she walked through the darkened path she could feel the runaway water drops that had ran through the stalactites and were now more consistently falling on her face and on the floor, she could even see small water flows around the floor. Her instinct told her to follow the water and so she did.
After a good twenty minutes of following water she looked back, she was way down in the cave and the climb was going to be hard because of the humid soil.
"Better make my way back now if I want to be at the hotel soon..." She said as she placed her foot back on a stone and her boot slipped and she fell on her abs and started slipping down, hitting herself with stones and scratching herself with all that was in her way till she fell off the edge.
'This is it... I am dead...' She thought as she started to fall, the sensation of adrenaline ran through her body not knowing how long it would take to fall before she finally crashed and crushed all her bones to a painful and lonely death. Her legs hit the edge of the cliff and she fell back first in a pile of rocks, rolled down them and ended in some strong and flat surface. She was looking up and could see the light of her flashlight pointing at the cliff from which she fell.
"Damn... -she said as she breath a relief.- Better check if the extremities are still attached and functional...- she moved her legs and waved her arms in front of her face.- OK... now the back...- She said as she turned around and kneeled to then stand up. She was a bit bruised but she was alive and was maybe going to feel the full impact in the morning when she woke up.- Ok... how am I going to get back up...?" She asked herself as she walked to the flashlight and accidentally kicked it, walking to where it was she took it and saw that where she was standing was a bridge and it was all destroyed.
"A bridge? A path somewhere?" She asked herself as she took her light and pointed at the other side, there seemed to be the next step of that pathway leading to a chamber.
"What kind of place is this one....?" She asked as she looked back, it was not hard to get there, why the people who discovered the cave didn't say anything about a rundown pathway and a chamber at the other side. Then she remembered one of the many lessons the guys taught her... when some caves are marked as do not cross it is because they are either unstable or unsafe in some way. She sighed and walked a little more to the edge, even when the way was dangerous to the other side, she could make it. She had the equipment to do so. Not thinking it twice she climbed down the edge of the pathway and stepped in the first of the much debris which made the path. She hit with her heel the next one and since it looked firm enough she carefully stepped on it, and so with the next and the following one till she found herself facing the other side of the path from bellow. Taking out a small hook from her backpack and tying it to a rope she tossed it and after securing her weight and making sure it could hold on, she climbed up and dragged her aching body to the path, rolling out of the edge as soon as she could trying to keep herself from causing her own death. Standing up, she took her equipment and once again her flashlight and pointed deep in the chamber... a few creepy crawlers lurked around disturbed by the light that suddenly invaded the dark corner. She saw what seemed to be a lower level with a huge door and slowly walked her way to it, descending some steps she stood before the door which had some amazing Gothic period carvings. She took out her digital camera and took a picture of the thing... maybe the whole place would collapse and she was the only one who would get to see it.
The door had handles made out of solid iron and they seemed to have gargoyle heads as decorations. She sighed, there was no way in Hell she was going to be able to move that door.
"Maybe I can ask Mephistopheles... I seem to be closer to hell..." She said as she smiled and took her hands to one of the handles of the door and pulled it. She let all her weight pull back and heard the stones of the floor being rubbed against the door. putting in some more strength, she pulled it a bit more and a bit more till she could slide her body inside. She saw a stairway, a shell like stairway that was destroyed in the middle, she was inside a weird chamber, there were about four connecting bridges to the center of the chamber but all of them were destroyed and it was not like the one she crossed where she could see the debris and make her way through it, they were really rundown and the bottom of the chamber seemed to be really deep. She started her way down and secured her steps till she was at the edge of the stairway. She took out an iron ring and nailed it to the stone stairway, wrapped around the rope to her waist and got low enough to push herself to the other side of the trashed stairway. As she swung towards the step she could hear little pebbles falling from the stairway. With one hard push she made it to the other side and pulled herself up, nailing another iron ring to the floor and tying her trusty rope to the ring so she had a way back and was not plainly walking to her own tomb. She was now in the middle of the chamber and walked to the edge, pointing her flashlight down she only saw darkness. She took a small rock and tossed it down, waiting for a while to hear the almost untraceable crash against the bottom. She sighed, that entire trip for an empty chamber, as she walked around she saw a pile of dirt and what seemed to be glowing metal.
"Wow... maybe I did find something..." She whispered as she walked to the thing. Taking a small brush she began passing it in the metal and found the edge of a sword.
"Yes... I found something..." She joyfully said, disturbing a few bats, and then kept brushing upwards of the blade, finding the handle to have an iron glove attached to it. She was fascinated, there was an armor attached to the sword. How would a knight make it inside that cave...? Maybe it was not a cave when he made it inside, maybe it was the dungeon of a castle... she wondered. Leaving the brush aside she took a small cloth and softly wiped all the dust from the armor. And as she did, she found something more than amazing.
"H-hair...?- she said as she took a strand of dark hair from the edge of the helmet onto her hands.- Maybe it is a perfectly preserved corpse... WOW..." She said as she turned around the armor very carefully. The flashlight showed it was a dark-iron armor and that in the eyes area there was skin, dark skin. She gulped and carefully removed all locks from the helmet and took it off. She fell on her ass seeing a young looking skin and a beard, a long beard, her highest expectations were to see a skeleton... she took her hand close to the nose and could feel warm breathing coming from it.
"OK... You seriously lost it... how someone can survive here... it has spider web on it for heavens sakes..." She said as she looked at the thing and pointed at it with her flashlight. She could only hold her breath as she saw the brows cringe and the eyes to slowly open revealing gorgeous aqua-green eyes...
'This bright light... it's blinding... is this a new stage of my hell?'
The knight moved his hand to shield his eyes from the light and then saw beside the light a silhouette of a face....
"R-Rhaea...?" He asked as he now more clearly looked, the face was delicate, womanly, but the eyes.... Shined.... It was not his maiden. He heard a scream from a woman and saw the light taken out of his face and it was flying away... where? It stopped and came back slowly... once again the blinding light was beside him. What new demons came to lay tricks to his tormented soul?
"Y-You...c...can... talk...? You are alive...?" It could not be a demon, the womanly spirit was as scared as he was.
'I do not know for certain...' The knight's eyes closed once again. Spike seemed to be as freaked out as she felt and even thought of simply running away. Looking at her watch she saw it was about 9:30 p.m. and she had to go back to the hotel, but how was she going to leave a living being there...
"Come Mr. Knight... I am taking you with me..." She said as she dragged the knight to the edge of the stairway and tied him and the sword and she climbed to the other side and secured the line and pulled him for a while and almost fell to the abyss trying to pull the guy. It was going to be the hell of a climb but she was surely taking him out of there. As she took her dangerous way back, dragging the knight with her, she could only wonder. How could someone make it down there in such a gown? Who was that guy? And most importantly, what was she going to do with him? The answers laid within the thoughts of the swooned knight.
Days, months, maybe even years, time has lost relevance to me. All I see around me is darkness. The heavy air that surrounds me makes me cough, but not as often as before. I used to loose consciousness at times when the air was so heavy I couldn't even breathe. The smell of dust in my nose and the taste of it in my mouth made it seem as if I have been eating soil for so long. I would kill for some company sometimes, but once I consider all wrongs I have done. I realize I don't deserve it. I have walked around in the same place for so long I don't even know what I am doing, I don't go forth, I don't go back... I stay just in the same place. Sometimes it feels like I have stopped and everything around me moves... everything keeps going but me.
I sit down sometimes and touch the iron of my sole companion. A single sword... I wish I could just end my life with it, but so many times I tried, and I couldn't... it wouldn't let me. Soul Edge, the thing which made me the monster I have turned to be: left me so long ago. It started fading in the natural process of decomposition of flesh. I could smell it; the stench of rotten flesh beside me was nauseous. From time to time I touched the blade and could feel the stickiness of the rotting flesh, the voices in my head became quieter and quieter, from loud shrieks that could frail the last bits of sanity in me to whispers that were barely understandable. Meanwhile the sword began to fall apart, sometimes with my touch I could feel the tearing of flesh and iron until one day I either became acquainted to the disgusting odor or it simply faded away. There were no more voices, no more flesh, just cold iron and darkness. Many, many times I thought of simply making the jump to where that stairway used to be, leaping to the emptiness and ending my misery, but I couldn't. I always sat at the edge, between iron and darkness.
I don't know if I sleep anymore, maybe this is a dream, maybe this is death, and I am in my own carved tomb, with no tombstone or no one to remember. I used to be aware of the time I spent sleeping. Sleep was when I couldn't see the torches that used to light the cave. In those occasions I saw the bloody deeds I committed, I heard the shrieking clamors of my victims, I saw the merciless monster I turned to be in a death delight massacre, soul hungry and blood thirsty following orders of a superior being to myself. But one day, that difference between torches and screams ended when the torches finally consumed and there was no more fire light. It all turned to be darkness. But I wonder if I am already dead.... And this is my hell. My Inferno is to wonder for ever if I am dead or alive in darkness. Sometimes the logic of my thoughts make me realize I am dead... if I was under the protection of the demon inhabiting the sword, now that there is no demon... there is no way I can keep living, if this can be called a life. I somehow realized I wish this which I am living... I hope it is death, but if I am living it ... then I am alive. Nothingness is so confusing sometimes. All I know is, I exist in darkness, but I don't know if I exist. I could maybe pray to that God which I forsook once from my life in my quest for glory, for answers... but I don't find the strength to ask. I feel like screaming to the emptiness, but what for? I will be the one listening to my dumb screams till the echo fades and once again there will be darkness, and stillness and silence.
I used to love, to be loved, to idolize and be idolized. Somehow all that turned to hatred and murder and endless battles for a so called priced possession that had me possessed. I wonder what has been of all those that knew me or knew about me....
"Am I alive or am I dead?"
"Kiddo... It's almost dinner time... we can do this tomorrow, besides, we are heading back home in one day, let's just relax...." One of her companions said as she climbed through a rock holding a flashlight with her neck.
"But... But..." She said as she looked back at the other three, a black haired guy wearing jeans and a dirty white shirt, a redhead girl who was sitting down and with her amber eyes scanning the one with the flashlight and a Mulatto who had been complaining about everything.
"Kid... Come on, we've been in Europe for almost a month and all we have done is dig shit out of everywhere...- Said the redhead.- After this night all of us will go back to our normal lives and you will be back to your nice one bedroom apartment and to your History classes and we will be back to our job which is go dig some more shit somewhere else... This is an internship, not an adventure for you..." The blue eyes of the one they called 'Kiddo' looked at the redhead fiercely. She wanted to enjoy her experience as an archaeologist as much as she could. Even if it was a cheap internship for the summer.
"I want to find out something that will change history..." The blue eyed replied, the Mulatto walked to her and looked at her hair. It seemed to be a light shade of blonde, but it had spikes colored in every shade of blue and purple known to mankind.
"You have done already Spiky... you discovered that human hair can hold up any shade of blue and purple in the rainbow... now come on... let's go get some European booty before we have to leave..." he said smiling.
"Um... what do you say if I wander around here for ten more minutes and then I catch up with you and we get some booty...? OK?" She asked as the others simply sighed.
"Ok Kiddo... We'll leave the address for the club in the front desk... if you decide to do something else tonight than to run around in this bat infested cave... find us. Otherwise, see you in the airport tomorrow..." Said the black haired taking the hand of the redhead. The Mulatto simply sighed.
"Ok Spike... but remember to join society... it's cool you are so fascinated with digging up history but you also have to make your own history..." And the third one left. Spike simply sighed, crawled up the rock in which she was half hanging and kept her way. The night was muggy and since it had been raining all afternoon, the echoes of the raindrops in the cave gave it one of those images one could only find in Dante's Inferno. She walked secure and slowly around the cave, trying to evade at all costs to illuminate the ceiling of the cave with her flashlight. It was going to be a nightmare if she disturbed the bats like last time.
"Come on... just something I can find and get my name in the pages of history..." She said as she turned around a corner and found a fork in the cave. The left way was dark, and marked as if some archaeologists have already been working on schedule there. The right side, as Spike simply pointed her flashlight at it went a few feet and had some 'do not cross' yellow strings and it seem dark. She pointed back at the left side and back again at the right side.
"No use checking where someone already has been..." She said as she walked to the right side of the cave and crawled underneath the yellow lines. As she walked through the darkened path she could feel the runaway water drops that had ran through the stalactites and were now more consistently falling on her face and on the floor, she could even see small water flows around the floor. Her instinct told her to follow the water and so she did.
After a good twenty minutes of following water she looked back, she was way down in the cave and the climb was going to be hard because of the humid soil.
"Better make my way back now if I want to be at the hotel soon..." She said as she placed her foot back on a stone and her boot slipped and she fell on her abs and started slipping down, hitting herself with stones and scratching herself with all that was in her way till she fell off the edge.
'This is it... I am dead...' She thought as she started to fall, the sensation of adrenaline ran through her body not knowing how long it would take to fall before she finally crashed and crushed all her bones to a painful and lonely death. Her legs hit the edge of the cliff and she fell back first in a pile of rocks, rolled down them and ended in some strong and flat surface. She was looking up and could see the light of her flashlight pointing at the cliff from which she fell.
"Damn... -she said as she breath a relief.- Better check if the extremities are still attached and functional...- she moved her legs and waved her arms in front of her face.- OK... now the back...- She said as she turned around and kneeled to then stand up. She was a bit bruised but she was alive and was maybe going to feel the full impact in the morning when she woke up.- Ok... how am I going to get back up...?" She asked herself as she walked to the flashlight and accidentally kicked it, walking to where it was she took it and saw that where she was standing was a bridge and it was all destroyed.
"A bridge? A path somewhere?" She asked herself as she took her light and pointed at the other side, there seemed to be the next step of that pathway leading to a chamber.
"What kind of place is this one....?" She asked as she looked back, it was not hard to get there, why the people who discovered the cave didn't say anything about a rundown pathway and a chamber at the other side. Then she remembered one of the many lessons the guys taught her... when some caves are marked as do not cross it is because they are either unstable or unsafe in some way. She sighed and walked a little more to the edge, even when the way was dangerous to the other side, she could make it. She had the equipment to do so. Not thinking it twice she climbed down the edge of the pathway and stepped in the first of the much debris which made the path. She hit with her heel the next one and since it looked firm enough she carefully stepped on it, and so with the next and the following one till she found herself facing the other side of the path from bellow. Taking out a small hook from her backpack and tying it to a rope she tossed it and after securing her weight and making sure it could hold on, she climbed up and dragged her aching body to the path, rolling out of the edge as soon as she could trying to keep herself from causing her own death. Standing up, she took her equipment and once again her flashlight and pointed deep in the chamber... a few creepy crawlers lurked around disturbed by the light that suddenly invaded the dark corner. She saw what seemed to be a lower level with a huge door and slowly walked her way to it, descending some steps she stood before the door which had some amazing Gothic period carvings. She took out her digital camera and took a picture of the thing... maybe the whole place would collapse and she was the only one who would get to see it.
The door had handles made out of solid iron and they seemed to have gargoyle heads as decorations. She sighed, there was no way in Hell she was going to be able to move that door.
"Maybe I can ask Mephistopheles... I seem to be closer to hell..." She said as she smiled and took her hands to one of the handles of the door and pulled it. She let all her weight pull back and heard the stones of the floor being rubbed against the door. putting in some more strength, she pulled it a bit more and a bit more till she could slide her body inside. She saw a stairway, a shell like stairway that was destroyed in the middle, she was inside a weird chamber, there were about four connecting bridges to the center of the chamber but all of them were destroyed and it was not like the one she crossed where she could see the debris and make her way through it, they were really rundown and the bottom of the chamber seemed to be really deep. She started her way down and secured her steps till she was at the edge of the stairway. She took out an iron ring and nailed it to the stone stairway, wrapped around the rope to her waist and got low enough to push herself to the other side of the trashed stairway. As she swung towards the step she could hear little pebbles falling from the stairway. With one hard push she made it to the other side and pulled herself up, nailing another iron ring to the floor and tying her trusty rope to the ring so she had a way back and was not plainly walking to her own tomb. She was now in the middle of the chamber and walked to the edge, pointing her flashlight down she only saw darkness. She took a small rock and tossed it down, waiting for a while to hear the almost untraceable crash against the bottom. She sighed, that entire trip for an empty chamber, as she walked around she saw a pile of dirt and what seemed to be glowing metal.
"Wow... maybe I did find something..." She whispered as she walked to the thing. Taking a small brush she began passing it in the metal and found the edge of a sword.
"Yes... I found something..." She joyfully said, disturbing a few bats, and then kept brushing upwards of the blade, finding the handle to have an iron glove attached to it. She was fascinated, there was an armor attached to the sword. How would a knight make it inside that cave...? Maybe it was not a cave when he made it inside, maybe it was the dungeon of a castle... she wondered. Leaving the brush aside she took a small cloth and softly wiped all the dust from the armor. And as she did, she found something more than amazing.
"H-hair...?- she said as she took a strand of dark hair from the edge of the helmet onto her hands.- Maybe it is a perfectly preserved corpse... WOW..." She said as she turned around the armor very carefully. The flashlight showed it was a dark-iron armor and that in the eyes area there was skin, dark skin. She gulped and carefully removed all locks from the helmet and took it off. She fell on her ass seeing a young looking skin and a beard, a long beard, her highest expectations were to see a skeleton... she took her hand close to the nose and could feel warm breathing coming from it.
"OK... You seriously lost it... how someone can survive here... it has spider web on it for heavens sakes..." She said as she looked at the thing and pointed at it with her flashlight. She could only hold her breath as she saw the brows cringe and the eyes to slowly open revealing gorgeous aqua-green eyes...
'This bright light... it's blinding... is this a new stage of my hell?'
The knight moved his hand to shield his eyes from the light and then saw beside the light a silhouette of a face....
"R-Rhaea...?" He asked as he now more clearly looked, the face was delicate, womanly, but the eyes.... Shined.... It was not his maiden. He heard a scream from a woman and saw the light taken out of his face and it was flying away... where? It stopped and came back slowly... once again the blinding light was beside him. What new demons came to lay tricks to his tormented soul?
"Y-You...c...can... talk...? You are alive...?" It could not be a demon, the womanly spirit was as scared as he was.
'I do not know for certain...' The knight's eyes closed once again. Spike seemed to be as freaked out as she felt and even thought of simply running away. Looking at her watch she saw it was about 9:30 p.m. and she had to go back to the hotel, but how was she going to leave a living being there...
"Come Mr. Knight... I am taking you with me..." She said as she dragged the knight to the edge of the stairway and tied him and the sword and she climbed to the other side and secured the line and pulled him for a while and almost fell to the abyss trying to pull the guy. It was going to be the hell of a climb but she was surely taking him out of there. As she took her dangerous way back, dragging the knight with her, she could only wonder. How could someone make it down there in such a gown? Who was that guy? And most importantly, what was she going to do with him? The answers laid within the thoughts of the swooned knight.
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