Ashovania's Demon

Chapter 3

"You've doomed me. I shall never sleep, nor gain peace of mind," whispers the Prince as he eyes the medical machinery. Which now looks like extra appendages on his father.

"How am I to bring utopia with a confused, passive, disturbed mind? With my father's mind? This is torture."

Meanwhile...in the military base area of Veodia,

Up in an oubliette, Drago, blonde-haired, muscular, with a demonic aura,is torturing his captures. His eyes black as starless space, skin sun-beaten, with a split tongue war wound. Every time he speaks, people are reminded of a snake's slither. He's pulling on a rusted chain that's lifting up a prisoner.

Screams never surfaced from within the submerged cobblestone chamber, where the forgotten became dinner for the rats. The haunting black walls transitioning to carmine from the coat of blood applied every day. Similar to the fear he applied every day, placing a blanket of dread on all of his captives. Death to them being the best option. Confidently, he assures them much worse than a trip to Arcadia. The community theorized that even ghost was terrified of Drago. A devil in the flesh, welcome to our true villain.

The detainee displays a malnourished body, ribs showing and is balding rapidly. He's being hoisted by two bloody hooks dug into his armpits. The man screams in agony as Drago keeps pulling him up. He stops at eye level.

"Is it a shame to find poetry in pain? Or am I just...off-balanced?" Drago slyly asks.

The prisoner shakes and coughs up blood. Drago jerks back, dodging it. He likes blood, the shedding of it, the smell, the sight. But not dirty blood, not slave blood.

"Here, I'll make you a deal. Plus, I've grown tired of 'The Boot.' You remember that technique, right? The Mihr would make it a high boot, crafted with spongy leather. Place you near a fire, all tied up. Then pour boiling hot water on the leather, and watched it eat away at the flesh. It even dissolved bones."

He reaches down and finds a rusted sica with no handle.

"Ah...memories."

He chucks it up and down while looking menacingly at the prisoner. The dagger represents the flimsiness of his life now, for both of them.

"If you have the strength to pierce my heart with this, I shall grant you one more day of sunlight. Why I may even grant you freedom. But do you have the forte? You certainly have the guff to remain fictitious in your portrayal of telling me the truth about yourself, and not a word of any military secrets, no Avalon personnel. I admire that, mainly because I shall shortly be killing another man of whose name I'll never know."

He places the sica in the prisoners' hand, who struggles just holding it. His hand begins to shake uncontrollably, and he drops it. Drago picks it up, places it back in his hand. He maneuvers the blade and slowly begins to insert it into his own chest with the prisoners' hand at the handle. He looks him in the eyes as he forces the dagger deeper, and blood begins to leak.

"This is but foreplay compared to what I did to your king."

Drago chuckles coldly.

"Immortality can be a drag."

He pulls out the sica from his chest and plunges it into the prisoner's neck. With a few inches of the weapon still showing, being a perfectionist, he slowly pushes it all the way in with his index finger. The captive yelps as blood squirts out from his mouth. His neck stretched on both sides with the dagger sitting in the middle, hugging his skin and flesh, neighbors with his Adam's apple.

Felicity, a petite beautiful woman, trembles in fear as she appears to be next in line for torture, chained through the ankle to the ground. She held an attractive cherub-like face, which hid the fearlessness in her heart. Drago lays eyes on her, and she fiercely shuts hers.

"I think sometimes what I miss most of all..." Drago steps back to dodge the fountain of unclean blood spilling out.

"...is the pain of life."

In the filthy hallway of a metropolis building, about fifty miles west from Veodia, in a city known as Ducad...

...lies Viola. Despite being statuesque she is a dreg in the Alastair society. Occupation janitorial. Blessed with long brown hair, deep dimples, piercing light purple eyes and perfect teeth. Her lips full with naturally arched eyebrows. Her frame looks like a painter's interpretation of beauty within a dreamthat's been placed into reality. However, she is cursed. She will never die, she is immortal.

She's waging her own war against dust, and it is no match as she sweeps the vestibule diligently. Followed by other various areas, bathrooms etc. Sweep, sweep, sweep. Her beauty is disrespected every minute, as passers-by chuck coins at her. The currency falls at her feet mirroring the pattern of her sweat, both worthless.

She could only be insulted but so much. When the tension needed to be cut, she solved it with tobacco in a hand-rolled cigarette, smoked outside. The streets of Ducad are plagued with ripped political posters, as well as banners plastered on the stores and walkways. Many of them show the picture of Avalon's symbol, a dragon silhouette, with a red 'X' going through it. Fake prophets scream into steam-powered megaphones while standing on shabby brown boxes; the homeless' podium. Exclaiming that the 'End of days' is upon us. Almost every corner has at least one that preaches into the night, spotlighted by the moon and championed by the mad.

The sweet sensation of freeing smoke from her luscious lips is met but once, and her superior smacks her in the back of the head. Temporary paradise tumbles to the ground. The superior, an older woman, ugly on the outside, uglier on the inside, looks angrily at her.

"No one allowed you to leave this area, there is no breaks, wench!" the superior belches, as her face wrinkles, resembling a dying Shar Pei. Her foot tapping the ground, mimicking Morse code.

"I do apologize ma'am. I was merely getting some fresh air."

"Fresh air, with a smoke? Get back inside. Killing yourself every day, don't you see the layers of smog floating above this city? You will get 'fresh air' when your job is done."

Viola treads unhurriedly back into the building. Clutching her broom on the way in, glimpsing at it, like it's her orphan child. Her head hangs low and she crawls her way to the elevator. The doors gradually engulf her back in hell, but not before a silver coin vaults its way in, splashing at her ragged shoes.

Nightfall arrives, and Viola sees the superior walking to her steam powered-car from the high-rise window. The superior pulls into the street and is sideswiped by another-karma. Both cars stop; both drivers exit. Squabble match ensues. Viola giggles at the calamity, secretly desiring death upon her.

She locks the janitor closet with a huge metal ring flooded with keys. There's no room to add another. She changes her dingy work clothes into little of an upgrade from her own attire. Then steps into the bathroom and washes her face with the small remains left of soap. A splash of water on her face, when ABRUPTLY a child-like apparition with small golden wings appears standing behind her. Viola begins to panic and the lights follow suit, flickering in a strobe-like manner. She splashes more water on her face while viewing the phantom in the mirror. Hoping the liquid would make her sane.

"...please....please do not haunt this poor soul tonight. I can do without," she murmurs under her breath like a rehearsed prayer.

She exits the building and franticly walks down the Ducad streets. Many lampposts crowd every corner of the sidewalks. Steam cars, trucks, and wagons speed by. They resemble automobiles from the early 1900s. Except their lights are streaming a trail of illuminating hue. It has a hallucinogenic effect. She could see the streak of colors left behind from cars that have already passed by as she walked through them to cross the street. A loud boom of thunder hits. She looks up and sees Avalon dragons flying by as webs of lightning begin to show, which creates a silhouette effect on the dragons' majestic shape.