A Late Night Soulmate

Frankie stared in horror and listened aptly to the hissing of the stones moving from a shape it should not have. Something was terribly wrong. But she had no voice within the mansion. If she did, she still would not have had enough power to leave and assert guards to their alert to the bellows. Her heart shook and shivered within its fleshy, bloody, bony cage. The wall was now at a urethral pace where it seemed to be gliding away from its certain place in the wall. The rumbling now shook the entire foundation, sending Frankie from her proper footing. The moment her flute fell from her grasp, her eyes widened in horror and she gasped, desperately stretching her short arms for the totem to her heart.

The ground continued to shake. The unfathomable warmth escalated instantly, persuading the young woman’s sweat glands to work overtime. Within a few short breaths of exercising her panicking lungs, she began to gasp. The warmth was increasing at a devastating pace; inflating faster than her lips could handle. Instinct told her to skin the material protecting her body off, but much like desire, there was only one thing in mind. She couldn’t see her lips chapping, but she could feel it with every desperate attempt at gaining more air, on top of regaining the air she was losing. Rapidly.

Despite the aching in her lungs, her eyes remained on the instrument that was tumbling away from her. The rock beneath her wasn’t deteriorating, but the way it eased underneath her fallen form, it felt as if she would soon fall into the pits of Hell itself. She fumbled for an assisting position. Her panic, however, outweighed her frustration. She needed her flute more than she needed to stand and wrap her thoughts around just what exactly was happening. She needed it for her family. She could practically feel their lives drain with every second passing in which she wasn’t gracing her flute with her passion. She knew, with the dread placating her, if she were anywhere else but in the mansion, her tears would have ignited her fear and enlightened her with hope. But in this mansion, hope was no alternative.

Clamping her eyes shut, and with one final rush of strength, she lunged forward on her side. With her fingers outstretched before her, she reached for her flute. The unbalance of the entire world seemed to be the tendrils restoring a mirage within the bellows because Frankie could feel the lack of pressure with the last of her energy surge through her. She didn’t need to open her eyes and search for the distance upholding her fear; she already knew she had failed.

As the momentum of her energy carried her to what she believed was her end, the sticky momentum of the angry foundation stopped. It didn’t wither away or diminish slowly for an echo as its aftermath. Just as roughly as it had begun, it ended. And it was quiet. The fire had been disturbed but it still glowed its darkening glow, now shadowed by the debris of the bellows’ fallen surrounding structure. It was never the only light in the bellows. Candles decorated the columns preventing the bellows from caving in on itself and allowing suicide. But now, the fire was the only light. Candles lay deceased where they fell, either alone or joined by what held it up so high.

Frankie did not have the strength to humor her pain. Instead, she knew she would not be leaving the bellows alive. She just wondered how much longer she could remain on the floor collapsed. The sweat, dirt, and rock that coated her flesh and clothing held no definite weight on her, but she knew even if she had the heart to move, she could not. Something was holding her down; something was making her add to the indention to the foundation. As if to make the bellows understand that its presence in the world was no longer entertaining to those it mocked.

Then, lightning struck.

Frankie’s eyes shot open in shock. Where she had fallen, the torture of where most of the bellows’ hand had struck, was beginning to sink. She could feel the stone give into the abandoned influence of the bellows’ hard fallen structure. The impact was far too overwhelming. She couldn’t see, but she knew some parts of the stone had already been taken victim to the hand.

She didn’t know how far the earth was from the stone, nor if there was earth upholding the bellows at all. Frankie could feel an insulting puncture of relief of the stone finally releasing its fulfillment. She may not have done the best for her family, but the passion she had for her family would be remembered more than the coin she had provided for them.

She closed her eyes and waited.

The stone beneath her cringed, easing away from its mold reluctantly. Her skin was tearing just as slowly as the stone was giving up. She could feel the blood sliver away from the growing wound, and the aggregative sting from dirt invading the tender flesh. In several places against her skin – across her back, thighs, shoulder, arms, and neck – she felt the reluctance of her blood ease from her body. It felt as if her blood refused to give way in a place as horrific as the bellows. If Frankie had no fear coursing through her veins, she would comfort her wounds and grant them the permission to flow as freely as they wanted all over her body. No matter the relief, she knew somewhere deep within her soul that no matter the devastation of her body, this was not the place she wanted her blood to flow. Through the cracks, she believed her blood would fuel the horror that first created the bellows. She would grace the bellows with her gift, but never her flesh, bone, or blood. So, she waited for the earth to take her before a trace of her was left behind.

Just as reticent as a whisper, the groaning of the stone and rock hissed. Before the stone and rock could fall into the pits beneath the bellows, before another rage of anger could upsurge the remaining silence, a massive force picked Frankie up and tossed her across the bellows. Her pain was overshadowed by the roar of the stone caving in and emitting its own pain and frustration for not holding on. Her eyes winced shut from the sudden rush and she missed the eastern wing of the bellows disappearing from sight. The sound, however, numbed her sense of hearing. Even though she was far from danger, but not far enough to be dismissed from it, the sound was distant. It sounded like a dream. Dreams were rare to come across in the mansion, but she still remembered what it was like to dream. Even so, there were small fragrant of reminders within the mansion that brought to life a dream from her village. The confounding sound did not bring her comfort or confusion. Her mind processed it altogether as misleading and instead focused on her pain now that the option of erasing her fear had been taken from her.

To the best of her abilities, she writhed on the ground. Her hip was in excruciating pain, and as much as she wanted to lay on her back, lying on her hip was the best option for her for her shoulder and arm felt as if they had been obliterated with a warrior’s weapon that had been blessed by the Gods. Her head was throbbing, on top of that. She was pleased her mind was still working. Frantic, but still working nonetheless. For the moment, her mind was telling her to stay still but to acknowledge the body’s need. However, the body’s need was to move.

She could not answer either without bringing pain to both.

“Scyn eruss erukcyn.”

Against her will, Frankie opened her eyes. Just enough to squint, she was able to see something. Across the bellows stood a magnificent form near the billowing hole where the mantle was placed at the southern wall. Dark mist oozed from its opening, creating shadows and eerie whirs of wind around the form. For a moment the form looked to be an image coated in her fear. She blinked once more and realized it neither to be a forgotten piece of the bellows that refused to accompany the fallen stone of the bellows or a masked horror of mist. The thing was massive and white. It was a blur in contrast to the debris obscuring her view, but as it was glowing, it was getting closer to her. She tried blinking to clear the film in her eyes, but her actions continued to impede her sight.

“Gyttcyn umcho srulenn orrewlychn ysslue.”

The sticky heat brought with it a stench. Even without it, Frankie could not speak or even question her mind to wonder just what the thing approaching her was, or what the odd gurgling hiss was coming from it. Instead of extending her curiosity, she closed her eyes once again and moaned in pain. The aching had now flooded through her entire body. What she could not feel before the acceptance of death she could feel now and she desperately wished she knew just what got in nature’s way of shepherding her with the bellow’s foundation. Not only did that act cost her more of her suffering, it elongated the desperate measures that needed to be taken. If placed in a disadvantage, how was she to fulfill those measures?

“Scyn eruss erukcyn.”

In comparison to extended warmth in the bellows, a very soft touch skimmed across Frankie’s cheek. It wasn’t the unparalleled difference that caused her to open her eyes, or the closeness of the odd voice. As if unveiled for the first time to the world, her oceanic eyes took the sight before her in absolute horror and disbelief. The initial reaction to feeling something so cold took her breath away, but when she opened her eyes, the fear of not being able to grace her gifts diminished wholly.

Kneeling before her was a monster. A terror she only heard of through spirited spouts by traveling warriors who were looking to place their coin in the comfort of an inn or a well cooked meal. They spoke highly of it only through the spirits they drank. Their words described the terrors in absolute fear and disgust, even in the honor of having vanquished such a feat. They, themselves, promised to the hilts of weapons for their rulers who benefited to whom served them, scoffed at the valor of having memoirs permanently etched into their skin. Scars, no matter for whom or received from whom, remain as scars; a deflection of skin, ignorant of reality. Once upon a time Frankie looked up to them, pitied them, and even feared for them. Regardless of what she felt, her attachments were formed by word of regret, so her emotions never stayed too long.

But the monster before her – she knew the fear evoked would stay for quite some time.

“Eirsh ulbewmessrn ichessn aseghyn.”

The fear causing her blood to percolate faster cleared her senses just enough to make out more of the creature kneeling before her. Against a pallet of a stone white exterior and dark hair or fur were green gems where eyes would be on a human. They were dangerously dark, but they were the brightest features to be identified on the creature. She couldn’t tell if the material swathing most of its exterior was clothing, fur, or something else entirely. She could tell by the rugged punctures protruding from it that it was not as soft as the touch just moments before. Now realizing just what was in front of her, she was no longer curious about that touch.

“Lady Francine.” The voice, just as odd, harsh, and unique as before, whispered. “You are my Lady. . .”

Suddenly, fatigued coated Frankie’s sweet-ridden, dirt-clogged pores more thickly than the blood pooling from her wounds. Now, upholding the strength to keep blinking proved to be difficult and the further she tried to keep her eyes open, the more delirium was setting in. There were too many factors to blame to really pinpoint just one.

“Your gift. . .”

Just once before, maybe a month or two after Frankie had first been brought to the mansion she heard a voice during her nightly display. Amidst the desperate cries of pain and for mercy, she heard a voice. It was very different in tone from the screams. Upon her first arrival, she had been told what her duty entailed, and that was the first and last time she had spoken or been spoken to about just what she would be receiving coin for. She had been told she would be performing for a man; a man tortured beyond belief for imagining minds that differed from his ruler. She can’t remember just what the man had said when she heard that voice, but she knew that voice belonged to the man who ate his torture away.

The voice, now speaking in an approach she was familiar with, was similar. Blinking as if her life depended on the next few moments she was spared, she retired her stare from the fallen rock lying beneath the crouching creature and scaled her gaze the furthest it could go without tilting her sore neck.

“Are you going to eat me – too?”

“Scyn eruss vyugkhi.”

Then, thunder struck.

Frankie knew she had some kind of weight compressed onto her legs, forbidding her from moving a great deal. Her pain and overwhelming need to protect herself surged beyond that factor, but she was still confined to being stuck. However, within one breath, the pain eased and her eyes closed.