Mother Martyr

[Golden Emblem]

Chapter 1

I didn’t know who she was, but apparently Mother Martyr was the only one who could save my life.

You see, I had received letters every week since I was seven from a person who would only sign the letter as “the child”. It couldn’t have been one kid though, since I was twenty now and they still wrote like a kid, and drew me little pictures. Mind, I had to wonder. The drawings were all in the same style, and the writing was the exact same.

I’d say I was going crazy, but my parents knew about the letters too. I could say that it was a factor in their divorce, but that was a lie: it was the only cause. The first letter was fine, but then they began to become graphic, and my parents started to feel the rage creep in. It became bad when a picture of our dog was drawn, crudely burst in half with guts that, with crayon, looked more like ribbons. It was gross, but we really didn’t think anything of it.

Well, at least, until some asshole drove over him with their truck. The letter had said, and this is an exact quote, to “watch out for flies”. By the time we noticed he was missing and found his body on the next street over, the flies were swarming around.

At that point, my parents started pointing fingers and getting angry. This behaviour continued for years, especially since the letters said for me to “hate my father” several times, and that he was a “bastard that hated me”. More pets would die, predicted by the letters, in ways that could have been prevented. Hell, the letters even predicted deaths in the family, and when I would get a bad grade at school.

Eventually my parents did divorce, since dad thought mom was writing the letters, and she continued to deny writing any letters. Mind, it was weird. The letters followed us whenever we moved or went on vacation, and when my parents refused to let me read them, I got copies in my backpack at school.

Now, that’s not the point, but you know what? Fuck you, audience. You need some back-story before I can explain why Mother Martyr will save my life.

After my parents divorced and I moved in with my dad, the letters continued, but they got angrier and more violent towards me. I was threatened with torture, rape, and death. The police were involved, but no one could prove that my mom was the one writing the letters, and no one could get them to stop. They continued, once a week, until I was fourteen. At this point, my parents had been divorced for a year, and I was off after school to my mom’s house, just for a visit.

It was about time for my letter to come in, so I checked my backpack and there it was, sitting there. But this was one was strange.

It said “mommy is on the rope swing in her favourite gown; go there quickly to get her down”. There was a crude picture of my mom hanging by her neck from a rope. I should have thought more of it, but I took my sweet time walking home. I even stopped at the corner store nearby to pick up a drink.

When I got home, mom was hanging on the ceiling fan, a rope around her black and blue throat. She was wearing her wedding gown. The police said that she had been dead for about an hour, but I somehow felt responsible, especially after they deemed the letter I had received to be a suicide note, and the final letter I would ever get from this enigma of a child.

And it was, for a long time. A few years actually passed, and I was eighteen when I got the next letter in the mailbox. My dad and I had gone on a vacation, and when I ran into the post office to check our mail, I came out with the newest letter.



The police were called again. They don’t take to random death threats kindly. They really grilled my dad, fearing that he was behind the whole thing, but they couldn’t find a single thing. There was still nothing they could do, and so the letters continued. Now, whoever sent them only put them in the mail box whenever I was going in the post office to check the mail. I decided to keep it secret, since these things had caused so much crap in the past.

Now I can tell you about Mother Martyr. You see, in some of the letters before my mom died, she mentioned that Mother Martyr was a sweet lady, and needed to be punished. I had always assumed that Mother Martyr was my mom, but when she died and references to a still living Mother Martyr continued, I realized it was someone else, someone who knew about this girl. I looked up Mother Martyr on the internet and at the library, but I couldn’t find a single thing.

Now, this past month, the letters got hardcore violent. I wasn’t even kidding. Whereas before, I had a death threat once every few months, it was now every single time I got a letter, which was now every single day. There were also constant mentions that Mother Martyr was the only person who could save me from certain doom, because I would never stand a chance alone. I was starting to get a little worried, too. When I walked home from college classes at night, I swore that someone was following me all the time.

The letters had even predicted how my days would go. Every mark in class, every important event...it was in those fucking pieces of paper that looked as if they were drawn by a five year old. I had started to just throw them out, but the thrown out letters started appearing at my house. Not on my porch, which would be obvious, but on my window sill. I was now reading them to make sure that they weren’t threatening to be at my house with a knife that night.

It was maybe ten at night now. I was reading over the most recent letter, which was predicting that “home would be my solace no more, get your bags and walk out the door”. I had gotten this letter about two hours ago, so what it was predicting would probably happen tonight or early tomorrow, if it did happen. Which it always did.

This kid must have been around nine or ten, but they put any adult to shame with what they knew.

“Yo, Emmanuel, can we talk?”

That was my dad, standing at my bedroom’s door. He liked to use words such as “yo” and “wazzup” to be hip. We had a love-hate relationship. I knew he was trying, but he insulted mom to no end, even though she was dead, and he liked to make fun of me for various reasons. Abuse? I wouldn’t really call it that, but it wasn’t good, whatever it was.

Thankfully, I hid the letters in books I was reading. He hated the letters, and would burn them on sight.

“Yeah dad, what is it?”

“Are you still going to your aunt’s wedding?”

I had forgotten. Tomorrow morning I was going on a bus to go to a wedding on my mom’s side, for her younger sister. She was a kind lady, and had taken me in as her own after mom died. I visited so much, but with school just ending, I had completely forgotten about it. Stress does that to me. I’d forget my own name if too much shit was going down.

“Yeah, of course. Why?”

“I don’t think you should go, Emmanuel. You’re there so often, and really, they’re a bunch of assholes.”

“But mom’s sister is getting married, my aunt! I’m not just going to say ‘tough shit, I can’t come because my dad hates you guys and wants to control me’. It doesn’t work that way, you know that.”

This is where I could see the vein in his neck twitching. He was starting to get angry.

“You aren’t going,” he told me, a hint of anger showing, almost like an appetizer before the main course. “You live in my house, so you’re under my fucking rules, you little piece of shit.”

“You’re being a little bitch,” I replied. I didn’t ever get a chance to swear back at my father, but it felt good. “You’re just pissed off that mom was the one to initiate the divorce, and that while you always blamed her for those stupid letters, she was never responsible!”

“It’s her side of the family behind those letters! They did it!”

“Dad, stop the bullshit. They knew what I’ve been doing every single day; it has to be someone in town.”

I didn’t say I was still getting the letters. It would make things worse.

“Emmanuel, you’re not going. Suck it up.”

“What are you going to do if I go?”

He smirked. “You’re twenty. You don’t need to live here. You can just get the fuck out.”

I wasn’t really that surprised. Our relationship was more like that of a tenant and landlord than son and father, so it was really only a matter of time until he kicked me out. Besides, I was going to a different college out of town come September, so I’d be moving anyway. I had never really kept much so that, if I suddenly needed to move, I could. A duffel bag of all my clothes, a small laptop, and a crappy mp3 player were all I needed. I never took my clothes out of that bag unless I was washing them, so I could actually leave right there.

“Okay, bye.”

I stood to leave, which I think shocked my father beyond belief. He expected me to say something like “oh father dear, I will never reject your wisdom again, please let me stay”, and when I didn’t, his ego deflated. Yeah, he was my biological father, but he was also a massive douchebag. I couldn’t care less if I was staying with him or on my own.

“Emmanuel, are you sure? Come on, I was joking.”

I had grabbed my duffel bag and my backpack, which held my laptop inside it. I didn’t need to say anything to him. I just walked out the door and began to walk away into the night. The nice thing was that the bus station had two leaving times for the city I was going to, and one was in an hour. To get there would take me half an hour, so I’d be good on time.

It was a long walk, but I managed it alone. However, I felt like there was someone following me, and I could swear I heard footsteps. However, when I turned around, there was no one there, ever.

Not until I got to the bus stop.

I had just gotten there, and stood in the light of a lamppost before I walked in, so that I could get my money out. I glanced into the shadows from where I had just walked, and I saw something that definitely wasn’t a human, but also wasn’t a dog, cat, fox, or other stray city animal.

It was supposed to be human, I knew that. But it wasn’t. The thing was strangely muscular, as if someone had doubled or tripled the muscle mass a normal person would have. You know those freaky bodybuilders that look as if they could pop at any time? Imagine one of them, but three times the amount of muscle. It had dark coloured skin, or was it the fact they were hiding in the dark? I’m not talking about this guy being black. His skin was almost like a dark purple.

He didn’t have eyes. Instead, there were tubes drooping from where eyes should have been, which followed my actions. I could almost see a mouth on his stomach, and there was a spike on the top of his head, almost like a freaking unicorn.

The stomach-mouth smiled at me, and there was something in the mouth. It looked like a cat.

I decided this was the best time to run inside, make sure I didn’t piss my pants, and then get a ticket to go on the bus. Who was I going to tell? People would think I was on drugs, so I decided keeping quiet would be best. I waited for the bus in silence with about fifteen other people. The college and university in the city had just finished with classes, so people were going home to relax.

Where was I going? I didn’t have a home.

The bus quickly boarded, and before I could think anything else that was depressing and shit, I was sitting on the bus, cruising along the highway from Sudbury to Ottawa. I had my headphones in, and I was listening to some music. The louder and the angrier my music was the better. It made me feel better.

Ooooh, Devon,
Won't go to heaven.
She's just another lost soul, about to be mine again.
Leave her, we will receive her.
It is beyond your control, will you ever meet again.

Devon,
One of Eleven,
Who had been rendered unwhole.
As a little child, she was taken and then-

Oh God what the fuck is that!?

That wasn’t part of the song. People were screaming, and when I looked up, I saw why. The bus was headed straight for a hole that I’m sure wasn’t in the highway before. It wasn’t as if it was just a massive sinkhole, either. It was a perfect circle, and it was absolutely massive. I wasn’t sure if we would be able to stop in time.

The bus driver was trying his best, and when we finally stopped, we were right on the edge of the hole, that seemed to sink into the deepest reaches of the earth. I pulled out my headphones as people breathed sighs of relief and clapped for the driver.

However, I still felt uneasy about the fact that we could have just died in that pit. Why was it even there?

Someone suggested that we get off the bus, and the driver said something along the lines of blocking the road and that people should stay inside in case cars were going to try and pass by. Someone said they were scared and wanted off, a few people stood, and then the bus began to move forward. People began to scream again, and I happened to glance back to see what was going on.

The thing was there, pushing the bus into the pit. I tried to yell for people to get out of the bus, but before we had a chance, we went screaming into the abyss.

[pyroflasher]

So Creepy.
Very Silent Hill-ish.

[Admin]

Story to beat right here.

[Golden Emblem]

Chapter 2

All I remember was screaming.

“Stop the bus!”

“What the fuck is going on?!”

“Thomas, no!”

The abyss was deep, but not deep enough that all of us would instantly die on impact. We fell, the bus’ front end slamming into whatever “ground” there was, everyone falling out of their seats and hitting the seats in front of them.

There was more screaming. I... hated screaming. I’ve never heard so many people scream so much, either.

I had also never heard screaming go silent so quickly, when the bus hit the ground. I got lucky. Less focus on screaming and more focus on protecting my head allowed me to slam into the seat in front of me, getting major bruises for my trouble.

“Honey... are you okay?”

“I’m fine Aaron, are you?”

I heard a couple that had been sitting near the front talking, but there wasn’t much else in the sounds of movement. There were a few groans, but that was it.

Well, at least until the bus creaked and fell forward, onto its roof.

I fell onto some shards of glass, and I felt one go through my hand. A cooler someone had brought with them nearly fell on my head, instead crashing a short distance away from my neck. I saw a few people moving, and I sat up, tearing the glass from my hand. I didn’t bother to wrap it up, since I wasn’t even sure if I was alive. What if I had actually died and I was in some limbo?

I hoped not, because some people were bawling their eyes out, and that would make for a horrible experience in limbo. The sound made the hair on my neck stand up on end. It was horrendous. I knew I should be more focused on the disaster I was going through, but I guess I wanted to focus on something other than the fact that there was blood pooling on the roof. It was a lot of blood.

A guy next to me stood up and glanced around, his eyes darting towards me as he surveyed what was going on. “How many of us lived?”

That was a good question.

“Are you okay?” the guy in question, who had been sitting across from me, asked gently, in a voice that showed he was confused as fuck, rather than scared. He had blood dripping down his face, and several of his fingers looked wrong somehow.

“Yeah, I guess,” I replied, standing up carefully, watching my balance on the curved roof. There was a lot of blood, and the body of one person, a teenage girl, lay close beside me. It looked as if she had smashed her face on the seat in front of her when we originally crashed. She really didn’t have much of a face left; it just looked like a smashed mix of blood and flesh.

As we walked to the front, I counted only seven people alive. There was a mother who had earlier boarded with her baby, and she thankfully still had the baby swaddled in a bright blue blanket.

“Hey Thomas, it’s all okay,” she cooed. “You’re a good boy.”

Well, the blanket had been bright blue. It was now a deep red. There wasn’t any moving from the blanket, either.

The guy who had checked in on me noticed too, and pointed it out silently. I nodded, but as we made our way to the front of the bus, we didn’t say a word. Who wanted to ask any mother if the baby they were holding was a dead one? I knew eventually it would need to be asked, but as we passed by more dead bodies, I didn’t feel like seeing one more. Most of the dead were around our age. There were even two sisters, arms wrapped around each other in death. It felt almost like incest, how close they were. Who would ever want to get that close to someone?

The survivors were making their way to the front of the bus, where the windows had been smashed open. The bus driver, poor bastard, was still hanging from his seat, as his seatbelt hadn’t let him go. A shard of glass, a huge one, had cut his stomach open, with his organs hanging loosely from the split. I didn’t want to touch them, but they were hanging right in front of the opening, so I just held my breath and sucked it up. At least I wasn’t dead.

By the time I got out of the bus, I realized just how bad it was. All seven of us were injured in various ways, the worst being an obvious broken arm. Everyone looked stunned, and some people were just bawling their eyes out. No one really looked like a leader, so it would be hard to get people motivated to do something other than stand around like idiots.

The worst part, though?

We weren’t in our world anymore.

You’re probably wondering how I could tell. Well, it was night here, and the black sky was lit up by some beautiful stars and two moons. Yeah, two. One was a diamond shape, yet seemed to be very similar to the moon we would normally see, except that it was a different shape. The other was a circle in the sky, but it would pulse different colours constantly. It even seemed to have a heartbeat as it continued to pulse. They were on opposite ends of the sky, yet the diamond seemed to be moving around.

Then there was the water. We had landed by a small pond of sorts, and it was a very dark colour. I walked over, and it didn’t seem to be a deep blue like normal. Instead, it almost appeared to be a deep violet.

My mom would have loved the colour, but I found it confusing. I decided to put my hand in, and to my surprise, I didn’t suddenly die. It was exactly like normal water, at least in the feel of it. I decided to taste a little, and it was also the exact same. Hell, I was enjoying this purple water, it felt nice to drink after such an accident. Sitting by the pond also allowed me to listen to the conversation that was going on without getting involved.

I didn’t trust these people.

“Excuse me, miss, is your baby okay?” a girl my age, with a shirt that actually identified her as being from my college, asked the mother, who inched away. “There’s blood all over the blanket, let me take care of that for you.”

“N-no,” she mumbled back, stepping away from the main group, and closer to me, even more. “He’s fine, Thomas is fine.”

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask to see the baby,” an authoritative man demanded, showing off some badge. “I’m an EMT; I can check him out if he was injured. Don’t worry about it.”

“I said no!” the mother yelled at him, almost right beside me now. “Thomas is FINE!”

She didn’t have a good grip on her baby, as when she yelled, in her anger she ended up dropping the bundle onto the ground, which rolled beside me. She screamed and dived for it immediately, but I got a glimpse of the baby.

The head had a part missing. The brain... was gone. It was a bloody fucking mess. It didn’t even really look like a baby.
She had it now after diving for the thing, but she looked panicked now and furious, too. And I was the one she was angry at.

“Did you look at Thomas?!”

“Well... yeah,” I replied. What was the point of lying to her?
She began to scream at me, and I stood in order to try and make myself look... intimidating to her, I suppose? “What the fuck do you want?! Thomas has nothing wrong with him!”

“He’s dead.”

There was some silence, but then she got scarily quiet, and smiled.

“You are too. You will be.”

Before any of the other survivors could react, she jumped at me, and sent us both flying into the water. She had her hands around my throat, with the intent to choke me to death, it seemed. What she didn’t know, and what I didn’t mention before, is that I carry a weapon on me everywhere I can. It’s only a small pocket knife, but it makes me feel safe.

I need to feel safe.

And, in this case, when my head broke above the water and I hit her aside, I was able to flip it open. She came at me again, and in the moment, I ended up stabbing her in the neck.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m a sadistic son of a bitch. But my adrenaline had been pumping, and she came at me with intent to murder. In a court, I’d probably end up going free because of self-defence, you know? I ended up dragging myself out of the pond, still holding my knife, as she sputtered and died in the water.

The five remaining people were staring. I knew they worried for my mental state. Or, at least, I thought so, until a woman came over to me and gave me a hug. I tried to get away, but she was hugging me really tight. If I remembered correctly, this woman had been sitting with the EMT near the front of the bus.

“Dear, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I told her, trying to inch away. I glanced at the wreckage of the bus. I could swear I saw something move. Maybe there was another survivor trying to get out, but I’m sure someone else would notice if that was the case. The woman was checking me for injuries aside from the obvious one on my hand, and soon enough her husband came over, tearing off a piece of his shirt so that he could wrap my hand up.

“Son, you should have just fought her off,” the EMT, who if I remembered correctly was named Aaron, tried to reprimand me. Mind, he knew, and I knew, that doing such a thing wouldn’t have worked. “I... fuck. This is serious shit.”

“Yeah, it is,” the guy who was sitting beside me grumbled, sounding more bitter than I ever could. “Did anyone catch how we fell into that hole?”

Another man, who appeared to be a bit older than Aaron, waved his hand and began to sign something with his hands. We all looked at him confused, and he gave us the same look back.

“Um... can you say something?” Aaron’s wife asked. The man shook his head, and pointed to a tag on his shirt. It said “hello, my name is Jean, and I am mute”.

Yeah, damn. I guessed I was going to have to be the one to sound crazy.

“I think Jean can back me up on this, but we got pushed into that hole,” I explained. “It was some weird... human looking thing. Fucked up, to be honest.”

I was worried I’d get called out on being crazy, but Jean nodded furiously, and considering what position we were in and where we were, I shouldn’t have been surprised that there were gasps of shock instead of rolled eyes.

“Well, what do we do now?” the girl from my college asked. “We... hey, there’s another survivor!”

We watched the wreckage as a man walked from inside the bus to join us. It was the bus driver, who we had all thought was dead, trying to join us, one step at a time. He had been dead for sure. In fact, he was still dragging with him all the organs that had fallen out of him. But, there was a strange look in his eyes, and he was smiling at us.

“W-w-w-welcome to the world!” he stammered, blood flowing from his mouth. We all backed away, because Jesus Christ, who wouldn’t?! “I am a v-v-vessel for Father Familiar! He has... told me.. to warn warn warn warn warn you.”

Father Familiar...? That name sounded similar to one I had heard before.

“Who is he warning us about?” Aaron pondered, trying to get the bus driver to speak. Before he could say something coherent, though, the bus driver fell down, twitching and convulsing. But he still managed to get two words out, over and over.

“Mother martyr mother martyr mother martyr.”

[pyroflasher]

1 word.

Obsessed.

[Golden Emblem]

Chapter 3

The bus driver was still repeating “Mother Martyr” over and over as we got what we could out of the bus. I was able to get my bag with all my stuff in it, and we got some food and a first-aid kit, too. We didn’t really talk much about while we did this. What was there to say? “Oh, how are the kids? The weather’s nice here, but it’s kind of dark, eh?”

No one knows what to say after tragedy.

We eventually got all the stuff we could together in a pile and set a small fire out of books and clothing. Someone had packed matches in their suitcase, probably due to a smoking habit or a setting shit on fire habit. We set up watch, with three of us going to sleep right away, and the other three waiting for a few hours in order to sleep.

I was one of the ones to go to sleep first, due to my injuries. We had found a mirror in some woman’s make-up bag, and I had been able to check out the bruises all over my body. I was half black, blue, and purple. It was, admittedly, kind of awesome, except for the fact that I knew when I woke up, everything was going to hurt so much, especially my hand.

I didn’t dream. It didn’t help that a noise woke me up long before I should have, and I woke up looking around, wondering where my bed was. It almost felt like everything that had happened was some sort of sick, twisted dream that I had woken up from.

Then I saw the pulsating moon and realized that was all bullshit. It was a lot brighter now, almost as if it were becoming sunrise, and the other moon was gone. It continued to pulse different colours, but now the sky was a purple tone, an obvious reflection of the purple water. Maybe the pulsing orb was the sun? I didn’t know.

It seemed as if everyone else had fallen asleep during the night, just from the exhaustion of everything. But there was something coming.

There were three of “them”, and they seemed to be flesh-coloured blobs, that I could hear making the weird noises that had woke me up, almost like something constantly being squished. They were running, it seemed, directly towards us, so I did what I thought was the best idea: I nudged the guy who was around my age with my foot and yelled at everyone.

“Guys, something’s coming!”

The things were going even faster now, and as everyone got to their feet, the three beings finally took their pause right beside the bus driver’s body, which would still mumble Mother Martyr under its breath every so often. They looked very much like giant fleshy balls, with strange, slug-like folds underneath their body, and human heads that stuck out of the flesh like it was water. The heads would even bob as if in water, swaying in an inhuman fashion.

Mind, of course it was inhuman.

The three of them surrounded the bus driver and, if they looked like normal animals, I would say they were just rearing up on their hind legs.

But it revealed that those folds... Christ. Their fleshy blobs were hiding what, if I could compare it to something, looked like a vagina. It was almost an identical replication of something that you’d see on a woman, except a few times the size. The... part in question began to move on each of the three things, and then a strange, foul-smelling liquid came out of them in a stream. The liquid, which was a dark red, sprayed all over the bus driver.

It was acid, it seemed. The liquid ate at his body, and he convulsed until there was nothing left of him but very shiny bones. This is when everyone began to freak the hell out, and the college girl that had been on the bus with us let out a scream. The heads on those things looked at each other, then at the girl, who stopped screaming quickly when she noticed she was being stared at, and just froze. The heads glanced at each other again, mumbled something in a foreign tongue, and turned to us.

Everyone panicked and decided to run at this point. Why would we even bother to fight something that could melt us in seconds? It was better to get away before they did the same to us. While everyone managed to run away in various speeds, I was limping behind. Why? Well, remember when I said waking up would hurt due to all my bruises?

They hurt more than I realized.

The monsters came running (I guess you could call it running, or crawling) towards me, and I ended up realizing I was going to die any minute. I ended up tripping over my own two feet, falling onto the hard ground. I knew they were going to crawl on me and melt my face off, so I just covered my head and prepared for death.

Death never came. Instead, the things decided to look through our items, nudging our bags with their heads and crawling over everything. I decided to get up and walk away quietly, joining the group as we watched them pour acid on everything. It was horrible. Anything we had managed to save was gone in a matter of minutes, with the exception of one item one of the monsters took in its mouth.

My backpack, with my clothing and laptop still inside, was being taken away. They left as quickly as they had come, and soon, we were left alone. Yeah, I had wanted to go get my things back, but they were just stupid items. I’d rather be alive than have my laptop as I died. Sure, I had a lot of personal items on that laptop... a lot of porn, too... but they’d just end up destroying it.

“That was fucked up,” I muttered, to the chuckling of everyone around. Awkward laughter was the most appropriate thing to do, so hell, I laughed too. Crying wasn’t going to do a thing about it, and neither was screaming, as was obvious by what had just happened. So, here we were, as the sky grew brighter, with nothing but the clothes we were wearing and a crashed bus full of dead people.

“What do we do now?” the wife of Aaron the EMT asked. I thought I remembered her husband calling her Cheryl, so I was just going to go with it. “We’re in this place and we don’t have anything we can use to help us!”

“We’ll just have to suck it up and try to find somewhere to go,” the guy my age grumbled. I happened to catch a look at the tag on his backpack from earlier, and it said his name was Joseph. Again, I didn’t want to ask him to make sure, because it would require a conversation that I really didn’t want. I just wanted to get out of this and never think about the events that happened again. Everyone seemed to nod in agreement with trying to find somewhere to go, so off we walked.

It took a long time. We were a slow, injured group that was scared of every single shadow. Even though it appeared to be day, we had to be careful of any shadows or movement, in fear of another monster. We saw huge birds flying over at one point, that almost looked mechanical, but they seemed to ignore us, as they hadn’t bothered to land. The landscape was fairly safe, too. Other than the harmless purple water, everything was pretty much the same as in our world.

Maybe we were in some undiscovered land? It was totally possible at this point.

“Hey guys, look over there!” Aaron exclaimed after maybe an hour of walking, pointing towards a hill. There was a building on the hill. It was blue and white, standing out against the dark green grass. There was a cross on the top of what appeared to be a dome that was on the building, so it was definitely a church. It actually looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

However, Cheryl lost it when she saw it.

“That church... it’s the Hellenic Centre from Sudbury! My sister got married there a few years ago! How did it get to here... with these things... is this our world!?”

That’s where it was from. I remembered going to a festival at that church now. Cheryl was right: it was the exact same building, except maybe a bit worse for wear. How it had ended up here, in this world, in the shape it was in... that was the confusing part. Maybe what had happened to our bus had also happened to the building that was here. Maybe we were all dreaming, or on a bad LSD trip. I didn’t know anymore, but at the very least, that building might have stuff in it we could use.

“Cheryl, calm down,” Aaron sighed. “We should go in and check things out. What if they have food or some form of weapon in there? Or even better, a working phone? We could get out of here.”

She seemed to be a bit pissed off, but she didn’t say another word. Soon, we were climbing the hill towards this building, which I didn’t really remember being on a hill in the first place. As we walked, I felt my hand growing sore. Was it getting infected? I really didn’t want to die to an infection. I had always imagined myself going out like most people: old age or a heart attack.

When we got to the building, we quickly found the front door to the church was locked, but a side door leading into the reception hall was not. Jean and I (who was hanging really close to me, which I think was because I helped him convince the others of his point we couldn’t understand) were the last two of the group to walk inside, and when we did, he actually smiled a bit. I didn’t know why at first, but then I noticed it was set up for a wedding, and it was set up pretty nicely, too. Someone had been planning a grand event.

Too bad we got to reap the spoils.

“Hey guys!” Joseph yelled from a back room, his voice sounding the happiest I had ever heard him. He came out a few moments later with a cart of plates, filled with food. There were vegetables, potatoes, and what seemed to be chicken and veal parmesan. I was starting to get hungry, so it was nice to see food. We all crowded around, grabbed a plate and a fork, and began to eat.

I was standing near the college girl. She ate daintily, while I just took the entire piece of veal on my fork and chewed pieces off. She seemed to be getting closer occasionally, as if she wanted comfort. I was more focused on my gut.

“So, where were you going?” she wondered aloud to me.

“Ottawa, you?”

“Barrie, actually. That’s where I’m from.”

“Oh, cool.”

“What’s your name, anyway?”

Finally, I was going to find out this girl’s name without being too awkward. “Emmanuel. What about you?”

She was about to answer. Her mouth was opened to say her name, and her mouth made the sound one would make when saying the letter O. But, before she could finish saying her name, a claw reached down from the ceiling, grabbed her around the waist, and squeezed tight before moving the claw back up. First, the food she had swallowed came out of her mouth, along with what seemed to be several organs. Even her eyes popped out of their sockets.

I glanced upwards as everyone screamed, and I saw the most horrible creature. He was actually fairly small, maybe the size of a child. But the claws were about my size, and they were attached to what appeared to be metal coils, like an old slinky. The creature itself was a deep red, and it had about twenty small legs that ended in suction cups, holding it up to the ceiling, and one huge eye. It tried to grab at me with its other claw, but I managed to duck.

The next part was awful. Everyone tried to run, but there was a second creature guarding the door. Some people tried to throw items at the creatures, but the creatures didn’t seem fazed. They tried to hit us with their claws, but thankfully the tables were good cover, at least for the moment.

Mind, it wouldn’t matter soon. Their claws were snapping the tables in half. Soon, they’d be catching us. It was weird, as I ducked after some of the attacks. I could swear I heard the sound of a horse galloping towards us, but I’m sure it was my imagination.

It seemed inevitable, but soon enough, a claw knocked into me, sending me flying onto the wooden dance floor. The creature that had been on the ceiling attacking us jumped to the ground beside me, and crawled closer as I tried and failed to get up. When it got close, I noticed that there was a giant mouth on its underbelly, which was full of sharp teeth and already gnashing together, as if waiting for me. I tried to grab onto any weapon, but the only thing I could find was a piece of paper that I clenched in my hand.

I was ready and willing to die when an arrow hit the creature in the
side, and it fell over. I glanced up, and saw that the other creature had been killed, as well, and a woman had walked in from the side door. She was striking, to say the least. She wore a black skirt adorned with gold leaf, and a matching blouse. She carried a longbow with her, and even though she must have been in her sixties, at least, she was pretty much flawless. She had her long silver hair in a bun, and her eyes were a soft green.

“Who the hell are you?” Aaron, who had been hit with some shrapnel from a table and was bleeding from his face, snapped, thinking she was an enemy. “We can’t deal with anymore bullshit!”

“Oh dear, you don’t need to yell,” the woman cooed, smiling sweetly. “My name is Mother Martyr. You’re safe now.”

Mother Martyr. The enigmatic woman had finally showed her face, and she had ended up saving our lives. She really didn’t seem as frightening as the bus driver had made her out to be, and... the letters. Mother Martyr was the only person who could save my life, and it was right. I just hadn’t realized it until now.

As everyone seemed to calm down, and others approached Mother Martyr, I sat up and glanced at the piece of paper in my hand. It seemed as if there was something typed on it. It was crumpled up, so I decided to open it and read it.

I wish I hadn’t.

[Golden Emblem]

Chapter 4:

Mother Martyr was speaking to the survivors while I ripped up the letter and threw the pieces onto the ground. I felt tears stinging my eyes as I tried to clean myself up a bit, rubbing them away. The child, who I was guessing was a girl by what they had said, not only had my computer, but it seemed as if I was in her world now, and that she was going to be watching me. Had she sent those monsters from earlier? If so, it made sense that Mother Martyr was going to be the only one to save us. We hadn’t been able to put a dent in those creatures until she came along.

I guess I was just stressed out, but I couldn’t stop tearing up. I had seen people die, and had waded through their blood. I had needed to kill someone in order to save my own skin. I was seeing monsters that weren’t of my world, and... it was just messed up. I just wanted to go to some wedding, party it up with my family, and then find an apartment to get away from my dad once and for all. Instead, I was in this shit hole.

I didn’t notice Mother Martyr walk up to me as the rest of the group went outside. She was actually fairly tall, only a few inches shorter than my six feet. She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug, which was... nice. I’m not sure why she did it, but it definitely felt like a mother’s hug.

“Please don’t cry, Emmanuel,” she whispered into my ear. “You’re safe now, and I’m really hoping you won’t have to watch anyone else die. And, don’t worry about the monsters. You’ll be able to help me defeat them soon.”

Wait, what? Had I said that out loud?

“No, you didn’t,” she replied to my thought. “Emmanuel, could I tell you something?”

Why was this woman we had just met planning on telling me something? I was sure at this point that everything was just some sort of crazy dream.

“Sure, what is it... uh... what should I call you? Mother Martyr is a kind of long name to say all the time.”

“Normally, everyone just calls me mother or mom.”

“I’ll just stick with Mother Martyr, thanks.”

She had a bit of a frown on her face at that one, but she continued to talk anyways. “Well, Emmanuel, in your world, I guess they would call me a god. I’m a bit of a guardian here to the people, and I have powers that you could compare to that one man from your world... he was in a book once that I found here, with someone who had come from your world. I think his name was Jesus?”

“I hate to break it to you, but the book you picked up was probably the Bible...”

“Yes, that was the name!”

“...and it’s a bunch of bullshit. None of it is real.”

“Oh, dear, that’s a terrible shame,” she sighed. “It was such an interesting book, too, but that’s beside the point. Emmanuel, while that god might not be real, I possess similar abilities. I can cure others from being sick, and, if need be, smite creatures who would attack the humans who live here. Like the god of that novel, I am also fighting against someone who wishes to bring this land to darkness.”

“That Father Familiar guy?”

“Yes, him. He is a corrupt being who has caused the creatures to invade our land, and for our landscape to change. The only things he could never touch were the churches. That’s why this building is still here. There used to be buildings all around, but this is the only one safe from his magic in this area. Mind, as you’ve seen, the creatures are able to invade quite easily.”

“Yeah, and he can possess people, right?”

“No, he cannot.”

“But our bus driver... he had died, and then he came back to life, saying he was a ‘vessel for Father Familiar', and that he needed to warn us about you.”

I guess she didn’t know about that one, since her face darkened significantly. See, here’s a bit of truth for you: I knew that I should have given her the truth about the bible, that a lot of people believed it to be true, but I didn’t. But, it would help Mother Martyr in the long run. She was skilled in archery, yes, and I think she has a good understanding of the human psyche, but psychic? Not so much.

There had to be an explanation for everything that was going on. I’d believe in natural mutations before I believe in magic and gods.

“Then he’s becoming stronger, and he already knows who all of you are. We need to leave now.”

She grabbed my hand (thankfully not the sore one or I would have been throwing a fit) and guided me out of the building, to where there was a huge carriage waiting, with only one small horse and no one to guide said horse. Of course, things were so messed up in this world; I couldn’t expect something like a carriage having too few horses to stop Mother Martyr. We got into the carriage, she yelled a strange word at the horse, and when the door behind us was closed, we were off.

Everyone looked exhausted. Jean, Aaron, Cheryl, Joseph, and myself. We were the only five left alive. Sure, it had been a small number after the initial crash, but it just kept on getting smaller. Everyone had to be wondering if they were going to be the next one to get killed by some insane creature, or some insane person.

“So, how is everyone doing?” Mother Martyr asked sweetly. Everyone, with the exception of Jean, answered with some form of okay. He instead looked down, and stayed silent. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be. Not only was he going through the same bullshit we were, but he couldn’t say a single thing to us to communicate how he felt.

“Oh, Jean, I completely forgot,” Mother Martyr stammered, a true look of surprise on her face. “That’s so rude of me, to leave you out of the conversation. Please tell me how you’re doing, as well.”

Jean went to start doing the sign language, but she stopped him with a gentle touch to the knee, and she gestured for him to speak. I closed my eyes and rolled them, so that no one would see me scoffing. Now she was just being crazy. I felt bad for Jean. He was going to try and talk, but not be able to-

“I’m... good...?”

I opened my eyes, to see Jean with a huge smile on his face as he said random words, as if to test his vocal chords. Mother Martyr had a grin on her face, and everyone else seemed to be in awe. I wanted to call bullshit on all of this, but I couldn’t think what happened. Maybe he was a selective mute and her encouragement caused him to be able to speak all of a sudden? No, it didn’t seem to be the case. He had some nasty old scars on his neck, and by the fact he knew how to pronounce some words, he had probably been made mute at some point.

I still didn’t think she was in any way “magical”. What she did had to have an explanation.

“Mother Martyr, how did you do that?” Aaron asked, probably having a better idea than I did about Jean’s muteness. He seemed totally stunned, which wasn’t a good sign. “That’s incredible.”

“All is possible here, dear Aaron,” she told him softly. “I know it might seem impossible, especially given your medical expertise and Emmanuel’s lack of faith, but soon you will be able to do similar, I promise.”

“What about going back to our world?” Joseph demanded, asking what everyone was thinking. “I mean, thanks a lot lady for saving us, but we want to go back home to our friends and family. I’ve got a life there, and I don’t want to spend it in this shit hole. No offense or anything.”

I liked Joseph. We would have probably been friends back in the real world.

“You can never go back. Not anymore.”

“Well, what the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Joseph snapped. “It wasn’t our fault that we were brought here by some monster that pushed our bus into a hole! This isn’t where we belong, and we need to get back!”

“Well, that’s impossible. All the people you see here were sent here in similar ways to you, but we have never been able to find a way to return you to your homes. I apologize greatly, dear Joseph, but there is absolutely nothing I can do to send you home. You’ll have to make a new life here.”

“But... no way...”

“Oh, here we are!” Mother Martyr cooed. We were at a stop, and the door opened by itself (I’m just at the point of saying “fuck everything” at this point), to reveal we had stopped right in front of an olden-style castle, almost like the ones you would find in medieval Europe and the like. It even had a moat we had passed over while we had been traveling. As we all got out, I noticed that there was a cross on the top of the building. I guess it fit in that this had once included a church too, hence why it was still around.

“Well, here is my humble abode,” Mother Martyr told us. “I’ve got some business to attend to, why don’t you take a look around? You might even meet some other people who are inside. There are only a small number of us, around thirty, but everyone will be happy to see you here. They might even give you a tour. Oh, and there is a medical station just straight ahead from the entrance. You can go get checked out.”

She got back into the carriage, and with another word, the horse turned around and charged off, leaving the five of us alone. Everyone else went ahead at the first mention of a medical bay, but I decided to stand outside and look around for a short time. I was still taking it in that we had been saved, and now we wouldn’t be able to go home. The other four seem to have forgotten that.

Why did they blindly trust Mother Martyr?

“She has that effect on others,” someone spoke aloud. I looked around, and there was a man leaning on the stone wall of the castle. He was fairly young in comparison to Mother Martyr, maybe in his thirties or forties. He looked a bit like a hero from a Japanese role-playing game, with shiny armour and a sword on his side. However, unlike the perfect-faced heroes of those games, he had a beard and was riddled with scars, including a fresh one of what looked like an inverted cross on his cheek.

“And who are you?” I was sick of this shit. People needed to introduce themselves by name the next time.

“I’m the bastard Mother Martyr loves to hate, also known as Father Familiar,” he chuckled, giving me a toothy smirk. “However, unlike the bitch there, I also have a normal name for you to refer to me by. Just call me Richard.”

“Okay, Richard, aren’t you the bad guy here? What the hell was with possessing that bus driver?”

“I don’t possess people,” he explained. “Mother Martyr does.”

“But... the bus driver was warning us about her. Why would she warn us about herself?”

“She’s a crafty one, I’ll tell you that. She gets people to trust her, and that’s when things go sour. She wants to use you people. Why do you think she told you there’s no way out?”

I knew there was a way out. There had to be. “What is it?”

“You’ve got to find a portal. I found one on accident, and that’s how I ended up in here in the first place. It’s hard to do, but hey, as long as you don’t get killed, you aren’t going to die of old age in this place.”

“Oh, that’s good, I guess. But wait, aren’t all those creatures yours?”

“Nope. Those belong to the lady.”

I was getting confused, and I needed him to explain more things, However, it looked as if he was getting ready to end the conversation, as he stopped leaning against the wall and he glanced around, as if he knew we were being watched.

“Why are you telling me all this, instead of someone else who might be better suited to help?” I asked. “I hope I’m not the chosen one or something like that.”

“Haha, no way kid,” Richard, or Father Familiar as he was called, chuckled, actually patting me on the head and ruffling my hair. “You’re the only one with some doubt right now. I’ve got to go, kid, but I'll be back tomorrow for you. Make sure you’re ready.”

Then, the only person who wasn’t somewhat crazy disappeared, leaving me in front of the castle by myself.

[Golden Emblem]

Chapter 5:

I didn’t know what to do; now that Father Familiar (I wondered if it was better to call him Richard; that was easier) was gone. He seemed to be the only other sane person here, and I didn’t want to be stuck alone in a castle filled with people who were blindly following a potentially psychopathic woman with god-like abilities.

Mind, it was either I stayed out here with the monsters or I went inside and looked around. I decided the second option was the better one, especially after hearing a strange roar. Remembering what Mother Martyr said earlier, I decided to go to the medical bay.

There were three people there (two women and a man who was built like a bouncer, and seemed to be “security”) who seemed to know that I was coming, as they were ready with bandages. The man ushered me in without a word and made me sit on the bed.

The two women came to my side and began treating my injuries. I was appreciative, sure, but it was quiet in here, with the exception of their movement. I decided to strike up conversation.

“So... you guys live here?”

Silence.

“What’s Mother Martyr like? She seems pretty cool, right?”

The one woman who was wrapping my hand up in a bandage smiled towards me, while the guard of sorts just nodded, a bit of a smirk on his face as if he was remembering something from long ago. I raised an eyebrow, more out of concern than anything, but I realized that asking questions while they were working wasn’t going to do a single thing to help me out at the moment. I decided to wait until the women looking after my wounds were done to ask something.

“Do you... trust Mother Martyr?”

I seemed to have done something to hit a sore spot, as the guard was very quick to shepherd me out. I was a bit concerned that they weren’t saying anything, so before I was pushed out by the guard, I grabbed his arm as tightly as possible and glared straight into his eyes. I wasn’t giving up without a fight.

“Is Mother Martyr evil?!”

“Ο μάρτυρας μητέρων είναι η θεά! Μην την προσβάλτε!”

With that, he pushed me down, and slammed the door to the medical bay behind me. I had no idea what he had said (although it sounded a bit on the Greek side), but at least I knew why no one in the room had responded to me. With the exception of the man, they probably hadn’t even understood English. Mind that fact brought up another question. Where were they from if they didn’t understand English? Were they just immigrants, or from another country entirely?

But if they were from another country, how did they get here?

There were too many questions for me to answer alone, so I decided to get myself up and look around some more. There were doors everywhere, and none of them were locked. I found a lot of rooms where people were talking, sleeping, eating... hell, I found one room where two people were going at it.

I was sure one of those people was Joseph. I didn’t recognize the other man.

I also heard a variety of languages as I went through the hallways. I understood a bit of French that was being spoken (they had been talking about an upcoming... something), there was some Japanese thrown around, German, and what sounded like Spanish or Portuguese.

Many of these people looked as if they were actually from different countries, too. I had taken maybe an hour or so and only gone through one hallway, but I had counted at the very least a few hundred people in the rooms I had searched.

Hadn’t Mother Martyr said there were only thirty of us? I mean, there were maybe under thirty people in each room, but it still added up to be at least two hundred, and that wasn’t only one hallway in who knows how many. Why had she lied to us about that?

Was Richard right? It did seem, at this point, that Mother Martyr wanted to use us for something. I wasn’t sure what yet, at least until I got to the last room of the hallway. The door was marked with a sign that said “do not enter”, but it wasn’t locked at all. I had to wonder if Mother Martyr was a bit naive when I walked in.

Then I realized she wasn’t naive at all. In fact, maybe I was the naive one to assume such a thing.

There were rows of swords, axes, lances, and so on; a lot of the weapons they used back in the day before guns had been invented. I also saw helmets, breast plates, shields, and other pieces of armour, all neatly arranged. There had to be enough here to fuel an army of hundreds, if not thousands. I walked down the rows, checking the armour out. Some of it looked brand new; some pieces were dusty, almost as if they had been sitting here for a long time, and some of the pieces...

Some of the pieces of armour and weapons were dented, dirty, broken, or covered in a dark brown stain that I knew was blood. Richard had been right about one thing, at least: Mother Martyr was planning on using us in some way, and that way was as soldiers for whatever army she was building. But honestly, how did she plan on making us fight for her? It wasn’t practical for people in our world to fight with these sorts of weapons. I doubted that I could even lift one of those swords, much less swing it around like a pro.

“You’ll learn in time.”

The voice of Mother Martyr startled me enough that I grabbed the nearest piece of armour (a helmet that had an ominous hole where the left ear would be) and threw it at her, thinking that she was here to attack me. I had been hoping that it wouldn’t hit her, and, at the very least, she grabbed it as it sped towards her face. She didn’t seem too impressed, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I had thrown something at her or because I was in an off-limits room.

“Emmanuel, why didn’t you listen to the sign?” she asked, sounding almost a tad mournful. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I felt a bit bad for what I had done. She seemed upset, and it was my fault entirely. Maybe I had-

She has that effect on others.

I remembered what Richard had told me. Mother Martyr was good at manipulating others, and if I wasn’t careful, she would do the same to me. She was probably just acting sad in order to draw me in, make me feel bad for her.

“Why did you tell us there were only thirty people when there are over two hundred, at least?” I demanded back. “That was a bunch of bullshit, wasn’t it Mother Martyr?”

Mother Martyr seemed to realize I was onto her lies, as she looked down, and didn’t respond at first. I was proud of myself for catching her in a lie, sure, but I could have sworn that she glanced at one of the lances on the wall. It must have just been my eyes playing a trick on me, because she’d never try to kill me for catching her in a lie, right? I mean, it’d be so easy to do, but she wouldn’t stoop to that sort of level, right?

I knew I was just fooling myself to think like that. If she wanted to kill me, she would have right at that second, but there was a reason she wanted to keep me alive. At the very least, she could use me as cannon fodder or training practice for some of the people she was keeping here to fight for her, against Richard. I might even be useful to feed one of those monsters that either she or Richard owned.

“Yes, it was. I wanted to protect you all from the truth.”

I was sensing bullshit, and I wasn’t going to stand for it. “Come on, give me a break! You’re just doing this for your own good, aren’t you?! Richard was right, you just use people!”

If I was afraid Mother Martyr would kill me before, it was nothing compared to how afraid I was now. Her eyes had murder burning inside them, and she looked like a murderous grandmother. She actually grabbed an axe that was hanging on the wall, and before I had a chance to react, she swung it with all her might. Thankfully, it wasn’t at my neck like I thought it was going to be, but at the wall. She had a good swing, as the blade was now stuck in the wall. She noticed my fear, as she took her hand off the axe’s hilt and took a deep breath.

“He... was here?” she whispered, breathing heavily. I simply nodded, trying not to anger her further. I was lucky, though, as she decided to calm down more and continue speaking. “He was at the castle?”

“Yeah, right after you left.”

“What did he say to you, Emmanuel?”

“He said you possessed the bus driver, not him,” I began. Telling her everything was probably my best choice at the moment, since she had quite the temper, and could probably tell if I was lying, anyway. “He said you wanted to use us for something, and that there was a way out. He also mentioned that the creatures were yours and that...”

“What is it, Emmanuel?”

“He’s going to come back for me tomorrow.”

This set something in motion in her mind, as she had a smile on her face. “Oh really, is he? I guess he wants you to join his little band of monsters.”

“Well, uh...”

“Emmanuel, if you would grant me a favour, I have an idea.”

---

I don’t know how I had been roped into Mother Martyr’s plan, but it had been a few hours since she had explained her plan: she was going to use me as a lure to draw Richard (she wouldn’t use his name, instead calling him Father Familiar) towards the castle, and then attack him from above with her bow and arrow. She promised that her aim was good enough that she wouldn’t hit me, but I didn’t like the sound of this plan at all.

I had asked her to shoot an apple off someone’s head to show me how good she was, but she had just smiled at me and told me to get some sleep. She had even let me sleep in her own bedroom, which was, to say the least, absolutely massive. The bed was so comfy that, after hiding my whole body under the covers, I fell asleep. It was nice to get some rest.

That was, at least, until a few minutes ago. I had suddenly woken up and glanced over to an old-style clock on the wall, which said it was about one in the morning. Mother Martyr was probably going to be arriving soon to wake me up for the plan to be set into motion, when the door opened to reveal someone who was very much not Mother Martyr.


It was a young woman, and that dark purple beast from before. I hid my head under the covers as she approached the bed, the beast standing behind her. It was again chewing on something from the sounds of it, but the woman didn’t seem fazed, like it was a friend of hers.

“Mommy, I wrote another letter like you asked.”

I didn’t say anything, but I wished I could take a sneak peek. She sounded as if she was older than me, but it was weird that she was still calling Mother Martyr “mommy”.

Why would she call her that, anyway? Unless...

No.

I wouldn’t believe it.

“I even signed it again! My writing is getting better, mommy. I wonder if Em will ever send me a letter back!”

Em? Who the hell was that?

It couldn’t be... not me.

I was cursing my mother’s choice of name for me at the moment. Was I Em? I was hoping that wasn’t the case, but the sinking feeling in my stomach told me otherwise.

If it weren’t the fact that I was hiding from the monster that the woman who was probably The Child had behind her, I would have come out of the covers and punched her across the face. This lady, acting like a child, was the one who had harassed me for years on end (or, at the least, I presumed it was the Child). But, if the woman had been telling Mother Martyr about these letters, it meant that Mother Martyr was behind it all.

I had to get the fuck out of here. Mind, I had to wait for the child and that thing to leave.

“I gotta go, mommy. Deckarba will be outside waiting for the bad man.”

Soon, they were both gone, and I jumped out of bed. I hadn’t gotten out of my normal clothes, and I ached, but I had to get to the entrance of this castle. I had remembered, thankfully, where to go, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

The screaming gave a lot away, along with the people running for their lives.

I should have been smart and run away with the lot of people, but no, I decided it would be best to run towards the yelling. A lot of it dimmed down the closer I got towards the entrance, but I heard a few familiar voices arguing.

“Why did you do that to my husband?!” came a woman’s shriek. I recognized that as Cheryl, from earlier. I hadn’t seen her since we had gotten here, but she sounded devastated. Something horrible must have happened to Aaron.

“The idiot came behind me with a knife,” Richard replied calmly. I could hear him stepping forward, his armour clinking with every step. “You’re blinded by Mother Martyr.”

I reached the end of the hallway, and peered around the corner. Cheryl was against the wall, shaking as she faced Richard. I looked around for Aaron, and then I noticed him lying on the ground, trying to stuff his intestines back into his stomach, tears running down his eyes as he did so. I think he knew that he wasn’t going to live through his, as his motions grew weaker.

“I don’t want anything to do with this!” Cheryl yelled at him. “I’m sick of this world! I just want things to be back to normal with Aaron!”

I knew what was coming next. Richard’s sword was stained with blood, and he didn’t seem to mind killing people, judging by Aaron’s dying movements and the three bodies already on the ground. He stepped towards her and, with a quick slash, removed her head from her body. I was so used to seeing death on this trip that I didn’t feel sick, but it was still horrible to see. He even went over to Aaron and stabbed his sword into Aaron’s chest to finish off the job.

I had the choice between Mother Martyr, who was going to manipulate me to suit her needs, and Father Familiar, who was possibly a serial killer. I decided, at the least, I could walk out and see how Richard was doing at the moment. He noticed me as he pulled his sword out of Aaron, and he smiled. He seemed like an old friend, but could I trust him?

“Hello, Emmanuel. Are you going to be coming with me?”

I wanted to tell him that this was a trap, that Mother Martyr was going to be shooting him up with arrows at any minute, but I didn’t get the chance.

“He’ll be staying with me.”

I felt Mother Martyr’s hand against my shoulder, and she stepped in front of me, as if to guard me from Richard. She had her bow in her free hand, but she also had a quiver of arrows and an axe at her side, attached to a belt she was now wearing with the outfit I had first seen her in. Richard was smiling, and he seemed to be mocking her, stepping towards the entrance.

“Oh, Mother Martyr, about time you showed yourself,” he chuckled. “You’ve been hiding away for so long, it’s been years since we last saw each other.”

“The time has been too short,” Mother Martyr sighed, walking after Richard as he went outside, drawing an arrow from her quiver. “I didn’t miss your aggravating company, Richard. You cause disaster where ever you go.”

“Well, I think it’s time then, you foul woman seeking redemption,” Richard responded, waving his sword at her, as if to taunt her forward. “Come at me now, Li-”

Mother Martyr let out what I would guess what was a war cry, so I couldn’t hear her name. She threw her bow and the arrow aside, and charged at Richard, screaming that strange battle cry along the way. For a woman who could be my grandmother, she was freakishly agile on her feet, chasing Richard as he ran away, laughing the entire time.

He was having fun with this. She certainly wasn’t. At this point, she was getting close enough to actually attempt to hit him, which she did try to, swinging the axe up to cleave him in half. He managed to take a step back, so instead it just left a cut up his breastplate. He didn’t seem too impressed with that, as he returned the blow with a similar one from his sword. She managed to parry the blow, and they were currently locked, their weapons shaking against each other.

I had stepped out of the castle a bit, but I knew it was best to watch from afar. If I was hit with that sword or that axe, even as a mistake, I’d be dead in seconds. I didn’t want to think about it. Mother Martyr and Richard had split away from each other, but they charged at each other occasionally, slashing and stabbing with their weapons.

As I watched, I noticed something weird going on. While they weren’t hurting each other with their weapons, they each had injuries from the battle. Mother Martyr had several cuts on her arms, along with a broken nose, while Richard was coughing up blood, and it seemed as if he was now missing a finger on his left hand.

Had I not been following the battle well enough? I squinted, trying to see if there was something I was missing.

I noticed, looking closely, that the wind was stronger around them than it was over where I was hiding, but that couldn’t result in their injuries, could it? I rubbed my eyes, and looked again.

Monsters.

They were small, but there were at least fifteen swarming Mother Martyr and Richard, attacking the foes of what I guess were their masters. Why hadn’t I noticed them before? Was my sight really that bad, or was I just going crazy?

At least, for now, the monsters were halting their attack. Even Mother Martyr and Richard glanced my way.

“You’ve got to make a choice, son,” Richard explained. I thought Mother Martyr would take this time to cut off his head with that nasty axe of hers, but even she nodded in agreement. “You’ve seen too much for us to just let this slide.”

“What do you mean?” I stuttered. Talking to two people who could kill me on a whim was nerve-wracking.

“You can see our pets,” Mother Martyr sighed. “I didn’t think anyone could. You’re also noticing things others haven’t. Now, you need to choose a side.”

“A side..?” What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“You come with me,” Richard announced, “or you stay with the darling here. Your choice, but make it quick.”

I had to choose one, it seemed. It didn’t seem fair that I had to make this decision so quickly, but they seemed adamant. I didn’t even know if either one would let me live after what had happened. I held my head in my hands for a moment, trying to think. I knew the two of them were staring at me, and I knew I was in way over my head.

But I knew the best thing to do.

“It’s a hard choice, but, I’ve made up my mind.”

They both spoke in unison for a change. “Well?”

“I choose neither of you!”

And then I ran, as fast my legs could carry me. I didn’t know if they were following me or not, but I did know one thing.

I couldn’t trust anyone here.

[pyroflasher]

Frustrating and dramatic cliffhanger ending. You're doing it right.