Roaring Thunder

Chapter 2.5: Death Of A Heart

I follow the lady obediently into the tavern and next into an empty room at the back. Somehow, I just can't take my eyes and my mind off her. I enter before her as she closes the door behind us. Again, somehow, her eyes are glimmering brightly in the room, like two golden balls in them. With hesitation, I ask her. 'So, what makes you bring me to here? It's really dark in here you know.' She remains silent, still standing before me with the door locked behind her. For some reasons, I feel a sense of uneasiness amidst that silence although I know that she cannot speak. I stand there facing her, now standing like a doll on display when at last I finally decide that I cannot take it any longer. I walk towards the door and put my hand on the handle to pull it open when suddenly she hugs me around my shoulder from behind. Her fingers crawling down my chest and her breasts touching my back. 'Are you not satisfied with me?' A voice enters my head. 'Am I not good enough for you?'

I stammer in my reply.'Of... Of course, you are good enough or perhaps too good for me.'

'Then will you take me with you?'

'But my journey is nothing but a tiresome walk with harms from every direction.'

'Will you marry me?'

'I...' I pause momentarily. 'I can't and I shan't, I am afraid.' I lower my head sadly and softly say. 'You are simply too perfect for someone as weak and low as me. I could not protect a friend of mine in the past and now I am left alone with a hole in my heart. I... I can’t afford to lose another person because of me. I am but a criminal now. My head will soon have a price on it. And...' She cut in before I manage to finish my line. 'Stop.'

'No, I just can't ' I repeat.

'Stop.'

'I just can't lose anyone precious to me anymore! Because of me...because of me.' I shout out in both frustration and despair.

She gapes shockingly at my remarks. But instead of loosening her arms around me, she tightens it. She lowers her head next to mine and whispers softly into my ears. 'Hedera, bring him the light of life. Show it... (she grins) the beauty of death.' What are you saying, I respond to her whisper in a low, sad tone.

All of a sudden, as though a rush of water comes flowing into my mind, my alertness rises to the max. Vines start growing out of the floorboards in an incredibly fast rate. Before long, the vines are already filling the room until the parts below my knees are completely submerged into the bush of vines. I try to reach for the door's handle but to my surprise, the vines seem to be pulling at my legs. It looks like there's no other choice but to cut them off with my lance. I turn my head around only to find myself looking straight into her eyes, her arms still around me. 'Do it.' Her words strike fear into my heart. And so, some of the vines merge together into a massive thorn-like tipped vine and... drills into my left side of my chest where my heart lies more to.

'This is the end I guess.' My eyelids slam shut and my consciousness drifts away into an unknown abyss. Bzzz... Bzzz. What is that sound? Am I dead? The sound becomes louder by the seconds. My eyes swing open. Wide- eyed, I scan my surrounding with utmost curiousity so as to determine my present situation. This doesn’t look like the afterlife to me, I thought. My surrounding is dark with no lights except for some lightnings striking the ground every few meters. Wait...

'Lightning?!' I blurt out, suddenly aware of the streams of lights shooting down from the sky. Then, I notice something out of the ordinary. Something strange. The lightning does not disintegrate after touching the ground. It remains there! With the number of lightnings remains attached to the ground increasing, I soon find the darkness around me gradually being overwhelmed by the light emitted by those lightnings; I soon find myself in the middle of a bare land; I soon realise that this is not just a normal land. It is the Valley of Lightning.

I have barely capture the sight of the legendary site completely in my eyes when a thundering roar is let out without a moment's notice. The roar, like that of a lion, is so loud that it occurs to me, the thought of its striking resemblance to the sound brought forth by one of man's greatest fear of nature: Thunder.

I search my surrounding upon hearing the roar, every now and then hoping that it does not belong to a beast. The roar sounds again, this time so loud that it could have burst my eardrums. I clasp my palms onto my ears, trying the shield off the sound. 'Reveal yourself!' I demand. The area becomes quiet again. It has been so quiet for a long duration of time that doubts begin to surface deep within my mind. Was I imagining the roar just now? Have I been hallucinating about it? It is then that the roar thunders once again. Only, this time, I can understand the roar. I can hear a man's voice in my head.

Slurred but clear; Rough and dense, the words go like this. 'Having doubts, aren’t you? To have doubts during only times of clear uncertainties and not in the face of peace. You, humans, really are a hilarious bunch of species. '

'What do you mean? Explain yourself!'

'Do you really thing that this world is void of uncertainties. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they do not exist. Just because you haven’t heard of it, that doesn’t mean that it is not there all this while. Danger, is just like the uncertainties. They come when u least expect it. And they disappear when u most expect them. They are simply unpredictable, young man.'

'Simply unpredictable...' And his words tail off as the voice slowly fades away.

And in the fraction of second, from my zenith, a lightning shoots down at me. The ground I was standing on nearly a second ago tears apart into rumbles then sand and finally, into ashes. And nevertheless, I am not spared. I can see my own limbs slowly disintegrating like a paper being ripped into pieces and burnt at the same time. I can see my body slowly disappearing from not just view, but existence. I can see that Death claims me again.

I die again.

Meanwhile, in the small, empty room at the back of the tavern, a scream pierces through the eerie silence.

'What's with these electric currents?!' The lady immediately backs away from the body she hugged a second ago after getting burnt all over body by the sudden burst of electric currents enveloping the man's body. The unconscious man, despite having no support, stands by himself on the vine-covered floor. She steps further away from him until she reaches the wall and begins her chant.

' With light I shall overcome darkness. With darkness I shall overcome light. Come forth, Laburnum, and let the seeds of darkness fall upon it!'

Small buds erupt from the vines as the vines grow even higher and taller than the man and its master. When it is tall enough to carry out its command, the buds bloom into yellow flowers that can charm even the toughest of man, and shrink into small ball. The flowers stop moving and the vines stop growing. Everything and everyone in the room is static once more except for the lady who is muttering some chants under her breath. All of a sudden, the balls exploded into thousands of seeds flying across the room towards their one and only target. The electrified man. Or to be precise, the unknown residing within the man.

'The poisonous seeds show no mercy towards its target. He, the man shall be freed from his sufferings.' She thought to herself. However, reality isn't so promising for her and completely contradicts her initial thoughts. The seeds rain down upon the man who still does not move an inch, like a dead body on display. Or so it seems until the second the seeds are about a centimeter away from touching his skin. And...

He vanishes from sight.

Some traces of electric currents are left on the site he stood at. Unfortunately, the disappearance of the man is missed by the eye of the lady, still standing with her back facing the wall. The rain of seeds keeps crashing down onto the floor, believing that their target is still there. This is it, she said as the last wave of seeds crash falls heavily onto the floor, smashing the wooden planks that make up the floorboard. She is about to advance towards the damaged spot when, at the speed slightly slower than that of light, the man appears behind her. His right hand enveloped in currents, he thrusts his fingers into her chest from the back. She is stabbed in a flash.

'Urgh!' She vomits blood from her mouth. She pulls her hands towards her chest where the hand that stabs her passes through and lies at. She clasps her hands together over the bloodied hand as the tears welling up in her eyes drop onto it. And her tears rouse the man from his unconsciousness. The drops of tear wake me up.

'What have I done?' I gasp at my hand, covered in blood and still planted into her chest from the back.

'Silence, my love. Silence. Let me have my last words spoken, will you?'

'I am sorry for this.' I hold in my tears forcefully, not wanting to show her my weak side in her last moments before death. 'Say it.'

'You know, I have always had a monster deep inside my heart and somehow I know it. In fact, I believe that everyone has one in them, including you. Unfortunately, some monsters are evil and these monsters if left unattended to will eventually cause their human vessels to be evil as well. And I... And I spend my entire life trying to free the humans from them.'

'But alas, such is not my fate. Unaware, the monster inside me is evil as well and one day, I wake up to be who I am today. Men killer. I killed the adventurers who were weak by heart, luring them with my body. And it was during this killing spree that I stumbled upon this village which once happened to be a famous place amongst the adventurers. To my disappointment, the rumours of the un-Beings having been spotted in this village has scared away those who were afraid to come into contact with the un-Beings. I was about leave the town, seeing that my preys were decreasing in numbers and that the villagers are slowly gaining courage to face me, a plant witch which they believe that I, myself, am an un-Being. But everything changes. Yes, everything changes when suddenly, you came. My saviour. Your tales reignite the sentiments once present in my heart.'

She chokes on her blood for a second there before coughing blood into the pool of blood below the stab wounds. I rub her back gently, hoping that it will ease her a little although in my heart, I know that it won't. She then continues describing how much changes I have brought to her in a period of time no longer than a day, about the being living inside of me which triggers my unconscious actions along with my abilities and how she threatens the village head into letting her build a tavern as her base here. She was nearly her limit despite casting a spell on herself to prolong her life for a little longer when finally, with her last breath, she utters the words every man longs to hear.

I pull out my right hand from her chest. With her death, she falls onto my body. I wrap my arms around her as I close my eyes and envision her mouth with those beautiful red lips on it, saying her last words.

'Te amo.'

My eyes burst into tears, I reply to her words in my heart.

'Gracias, my love.'