Chapter Seven: The Resonator’s Revelation!
1102 Words
Hearth-flames convulsed! Locke’s necrotic visage contorted! The sanguinary contract lay splayed! And upon his thorax—the pulsating abyssal sigil!
Death! Conspiracy! Duress!
*Lub-DUB!*
*Lub-DUB!*
Each throb of the mark hammered Leo’s frayed nerves! Crushing dread seized his lungs—air like molten lead!
Sign?
Indenture to this sigil-cursed lich?
Refuse?
Instant desiccation by that eldritch cancer?
Godforsaken hellscape!
*BWOOOOONG—!!!*
Psychic shrieking detonated in Leo’s skull! A billion white-hot needles impaling his crown! Tearing! Grinding! The sigil’s core vomited pure malice—targeting him!
Gelid! Viscous! Sanguivorous!
Reeking of infernal brimstone—an incorporeal serpent—coiling Leo’s throat! Strangling!
Asphyxiation! Agony! Death’s breath!
Locke’s eyes ignited—voracious anticipation. His rictus widened. Awaiting capitulation… or annihilation.
“Ghhh—AAAGH!” Leo convulsed—a speared animal! Vision drowned in scuttling shadows and arterial spray! The spectral noose tightened! Bones shrieked! Vitality hemorrhaged!
No! Not here! Not like gutter-rat trash!
Primordial survival instinct fused with volcanic rage—a supernova detonating in his hollowed core!
*“BACK! RETREAT TO HELL’S BOWELS!!!”*
Not a shout—a soulquake!
*HMMMMMMMM—!!!*
No longer passive—volcanic!
Something dormant in marrow and blood—ignited by existential fury—erupted! A slumbering sun awakening!
Not from mind—from palms! From heart! From cellular bedrock!
*KRAKOOM—!!!*
Blinding argent light—liquid thunder—erupted from his skin! Annihilating the spectral garrote! Enveloping him!
A wrathful deity—striding mortal realms!
Time crystallized!
Locke’s rictus froze. s******c glee transmuted to stupefied rapture!
“Li...feforce... primordium?!” His shriek cracked—disbelief warping his death-rattle!
Leo heard nothing.
He was combusting! One imperative: Eradicate that obscenity!
Body near rupture from surging power! Agony! Incineration! All senses drowned in argent cataclysm!
Instinct—pure, feral—drove him!
Leo’s eyes—blazing stellar cores—locked onto Locke’s heaving chest. Onto that pulsating font of infinite venom—the demon-sigil!
Perish! ROT IN OBLIVION!!!
*KER-SHAAAA—!!!*
Leo expended his final iota of will—a comet trailing argent fury—launched at the golden bier!
Target: Not Locke.
That writhing oculus of tenebrae!
His incandescent hand—primed for annihilation—slammed onto the sigil’s epicenter!
*SCREEEEEEE—!!!!!*
Opposing absolutes collided!
No explosion—a cacophony of soul-rending howls!
From the sigil: Damnation’s choir! Magma-scream! Razored! Gelid! Infinite spite!
From the argent: Ten thousand sanctified souls chanting purgation! Ethereal! Incandescent! Cleansing detonation!
White-hot brand pressed to gangrenous permafrost!
*“AAAAAAAAAGH—!!!!!”*
Locke’s shriek eclipsed all prior agony—a banshee’s death-throe! His body arced—electrocuted! Spasmed! Limbs torqueing beyond anatomy! Violet silk shredded! Senile veins bulging—black worms beneath parchment skin!
Agony—not flesh. Soul flayed on sacred pyres and hell-cauldrons!
*CRASH!*
A crystal goblet—smashed by Locke’s flailing arm—exploded! Shrapnel hail!
Hearth-flames writhed—dervishes in the energy maelstrom!
Leo fared worse.
His hand clutched planetary core-lava—embraced a critical warhead!
The sigil’s purest corruption—sentient loathing and dissolution—surged up his arm! Billions of necrotic parasites! Gnawing! Rendering! Cryo-toxins!
*SPLATTER—!*
Scalding blood gouted from Leo’s mouth—drenching Locke’s sheets and sigil! Vision blackout! Tinnitus shrieked! Nasal hemorrhage! Seven orifices wept crimson!
He sagged—a gutted marionette—propped solely by that sigil-pinned hand!
Burn!
Incinerate!
Kill!
Exterminate!
Only these twin imperatives remained!
Argent versus umbral-amethyst!
Life versus entropy!
At the point of contact—primal! Savage! Mutual annihilation!
*HISSSS! ZZZZT!*
Corrosive cacophony!
Acrid steam—sulphur and scorched meat—billowed! Choking the chamber!
Red-hot iron plunged into glacial brine! Boiling oil meeting napalm!
Locke’s shrieks crescendoed! Convulsions lessened—but ocular torment intensified! Each clash—countless scalpels flaying his soul!
Yet—
His agony-riddled eyes remained riveted to his chest! To that argent-seared hand!
Terror! Euphoria! Disbelief!
Because—
The grotesque, squirming sigil—
Its edges—that necrotic, cauterized fringe—
Amidst corrosive vapors and colliding energies—
*Its hue—*
*FADED!!!*
The pitch—tar-thick, marrow-deep obsidian—
Was retreating!
As if doused in celestial bleach!
Fractionally!
Visibly!
Lightening!
The amethyst-ichor core? Its pulse… slowed!
This microscopic regression—morphine to Locke’s crumbling psyche!
*“MOOOORE!!!*” His shredded larynx rasped! Disregarding soul-laceration, he arched—impaling the sigil deeper onto Leo’s blazing palm! “SCORCH IT!!! BURN ITS ESSENCE TO ASHES!!!”
Burn?
Leo’s consciousness frayed—crimson rivulets streaking his face. Vision: blood-haze.
His sigil-pinned hand—deep-fried in agony! Bones near fusion!
But Locke’s death-rattle plea? A siren call! A soul-deep compulsion! Squeezing his final dregs!
Incinerate!
Reduce to cinders!
Leo’s teeth ground—enamel fracturing! Blood-copper filled his mouth!
Last ember! Take it!
An inhuman, guttural roar tore from him—soul-cinder ignited!
*FWOOM—!!!*
Argent detonation! Supernova brilliance devoured half the room!
*“GYAAAAAAAA—!!!”* Locke’s howl curdled—a landed fish! Eyes rolled white! Violent tremors! Fetid stench—incontinence!
*SSSSSSSS—!!!*
Corrosive plumes erupted!
The sigil’s pulsating nucleus—
Its luminescence—
*DIMINISHED!*
The charred periphery—visibly!—paled! A gangrenous wound cauterized! Even its micro-squirms… stilled?
Ecstasy!
Locke’s shattered gaze—beneath excruciation—flickered with perverse, contorted triumph! His body: a ravaged doll.
But—effective! Potently so!
That triumph lasted nanoseconds.
Because—
*THUD.*
Leo’s extinguished will—drained utterly—plunged him into void. No cry. Body: boneless slurry. He collapsed—final blood-mist spraying—onto Locke’s shuddering form!
Two beings—
Slaughterhouse refuse hauled from a grinder—
Entangled!
Blood-drenched! Comatose!
Only devastation remained:
Walls! Carpets! Starfield-spattered gore!
Air—
Thick with mingled sulphur, charred flesh, excrement, and copper-tang!
Hearth-fire: guttering embers.
The sanguinary contract—
Its cured-hide cover—
One corner—
Now adorned—
By Leo’s ejected, scalding blood—
In vivid…
Crimson…
Starbursts!
Sepulchral silence.
Only the once-terrifying demon-sigil—
Upon its master’s dying chest—
Pulsed…
Soundlessly…
Its hue…
Indeed…
Faded.
- Writer
