Just then, a gentle knock is heard from the large church doors.
Calen jerks his head toward the door, his breath hitching. The behemoth's presence still claws at his mind.
Ronan and Kaitlyn quickly lower down. Ronan moves to the benches and crouches behind them while slowly approaching the door.
Kaitlyn presses herself against the wall, crouching low as she peers through the cracks. "It's quiet," she whispers.
Lyra gestures for Calen to get down, jolting him from his fear. He doesn't just crouch he drops flat. The floorboards groan beneath him.
Everyone pauses and looks at the door... nothing.
Ronan approaches the door, the walls are closer on each side than in the main room. He motions for Kaitlyn and Lyra to move closer.
"What if it tries to eat us?" Lyra whispers.
Everybody sits on that for a second, "We have to kill it first." Ronan steels his face.
Kaitlyn looks like she is about to object, but stays quiet.
Unsure with the thought of killing something, Calen leaves that to his better prepared friends. He opts to watch from behind the safety of a bench in the church.
Another soft knock echoes through the silence.
As on cue, Ronan tenses his muscle and bursts through the wall beside the door. A pile of dust builds up, obscuring the hole in the wall.
Following him, Lyra runs past the dust, causing it to disperse.
Ronan slowly drags the blade out of the sheath, a horrible screeching noise is heard. Then suddenly... a spark, then, a large show of explosions follow.
The explosions kick up the ashy floor of the outside, once again obscuring Calen's vision.
With shaking legs and knees, Calen slowly rises. Kaitlyn snaps her head back and uses her metal hand to motion him closer. He holds his breath as he runs to her side.
"What's happening out there?" Calen says, holding back the urge to vomit.
"Don't know... I gotta help." Kaitlyn rushes through the hole in the wall, disappearing into the ash cloud.
"Fuck... fuck fuck fuck... FUCK!" Calen curses in his head. He clenches his fist and also steps out of the church via the hole.
He quickly scans the immediate area, nothing. The same shabby, quiet ghost-town. The ever too black, starless sky and the gray ash covering everything on the ground.
Just then he hears a voice just around the corner. Calen slowly turns it.
"So... you're part of this church?" Kaitlyn asks curiously.
A squeaky voice comes from a small figure hidden behind Calen's friends, "Yes... Here for... cleaning..."
The voice sounded so weird, unnatural.
He looks at his friends, they all brandish their weapons, trying to appear intimidating.
"Was it their Souls that really made them that fearless?" Calen asks a question to himself. He stands behind his friends.
Lyra asks with disgust dripping from her voice, "Why do you look like that?"
Calen, wincing at Lyra's bluntness, steps forward to get a better look at the figure.
It's a frail, small human looking thing. It has gray wrinkly skin all over it, like it's wearing a large adults flesh on its small frame. It wears tattered cloth, thankfully enough to cover everything. It has a blindfold around its eye, with the weird symbol from the church in the middle of it. It doesn't have a nose, just two holes in its face.
"What do we think?" Ronan asks his companions.
"He does have that symbol on the blindfold." Kaitlyn admits.
"Looks too small to pose any threat." Lyra comments.
Calen's stomach churns at the thought of even communicating with whatever this was, but it quickly subsides as a posing question comes up.
"Why did an explosion go off?" Calen inquires.
Ronan raises his Ruby-Dragon Sword. "The sheath secretes something... volatile. Maybe there's metal inside that ignites it?" He eyes the sword curiously. Ronan continues, "I wasn't expecting it to blow up, but our friend here has explained everything."
The group sees the weird creature inside.
"So... what's your name?" Lyra pries.
"Karduth..." He states, "Name is... Karduth."
"So what happened to this place?" Kaitlyn adds on.
Karduth explains the history of his town, a war, and what happened to the area.
A civil war between one political party and another had broken out, splitting a large city into two. A few years after the war had started, each party went to nuclear measures to win. The every-day use of radioactive materials had mutated the genes of the people, causing their skin to mutate to resist the radioactivity.
The land had previously been lush and full of life, but due to over farming, burning of areas, and a super-mutated virus, the entire area never was given a chance to flourish. All the gray ash that sits on the dull soil are the remains of eviscerated people of the city.
Although, their eyes didn't come out from a weird mutation. Karduth explained that years after the war had began, the death of the farms had led them to radical solutions. Soldiers would barge into innocent civilian's homes and commit horrible atrocities. Cannibalism was common for soldiers in the latter part of the war. After about a year or so, a woman went mad after her husband was violated then ate in front of her, she clawed out the eyes of the soldier, then her own. It started a huge religious movement, believing that removing their eyes would make their god, Kizareth, favor them. It has been tradition to do so ever since.
Karduth says that their god told them they had Souls, but due to the extreme trauma during their life, they would lose it and became Soulless as they age. Many of the older survivors are now walking husk, a large hivemind following a higher authority.
"Do you have a Soul?" Ronan asks.
"Fair thing to ask." Calen says to himself.
"Soul... I have a... Soul. Kizareth... said so." An unnatural voice explains, as if each word is a world of pain.
"What about one of these?" Kaitlyn gestures to her hand, the sword, and then the watch.
"No... I don't have... a... Manifestation." Karduth replies. He then continues, "I can use... my dormant... ability... though..."
"Dormant ability?" Calen looks around like an idiot.
"Yeah what's that?" Lyra tags on.
"Dormant... ability?" Karduth thinks on how to say it, "Like... a skill... everyone... has one."
Everyone looks at themselves, and then like power-fantasized crazies they barrage him with questions.
"How do I know mine?"
"Are they powerful?"
"Will they make me strong?"
"Tell me what mine is."
Karduth is visibly overwhelmed, the two holes in his face flaring, "I... bring you to... my god... he tell you..."
Karduth moves through the church with eerie certainty, as if he sees every step in his mind. Blind or not, he walks with unwavering confidence.
He approaches the weird symbol and reaches his wrinkly finger out, tapping it. The symbol wriggles and writhes, becoming undone.
Calen can't tell if he is more scared or more disgusted at the sight, "It's like intestines being pulled." He suppress the urge to vomit.
The symbol unravels completely, revealing a portal into a crimson, gore-soaked chamber. Without hesitation, Karduth steps inside, gesturing for them to follow.
He is seemingly fine, so the rest reluctantly follow.
Ronan is the first to enter, then Kaitlyn, then Lyra, then finally, Calen.
The portal seals shut behind them. They stand in a fleshy chamber, its walls slick with dripping blood. The space is cramped, barely wide enough for five people to stand without touching. At the room's center writhes a grotesque mass, a pulsing sphere of raw meat. A tangled mess of organs and severed anatomy shifts within it, each breath making the grotesque lump expand and contract like a living, gory heart.
Karduth points at the ball, "This is Kizareth." The boy follows after letting the silence sit, "My god."
A voice burrows into their skulls, vibrating through their very bones. "Why are you here?" It is so heavy with dread that Calen's vision swims.
"This can't be... real." Calen thinks to himself and he falls to his knees, despite his best effort, the green puke that leaks out of his mouth contrasts against the deep red of the room.
"Dormant abilities." Ronan replies, "We want to know what they are."
Calen wipes his mouth on his wrist and looks up, Ronan's face is pale.
"Why did I come here... this THING is going to kill us." Calen talks to himself, his breath becoming ragged and short.
"Be expelled." Kizareth demands.
Karduth melts into a puddle of bloody goo, it then seeps into the floor and disappears.
"What the fuck..." Lyra stares at where the boy disappeared, she takes an instinctive step back.
Kaitlyn jumps at the sight and falls on her ass.
Ronan's knuckles turn white as he tightly grips his sword.
"The boy is not dead." Kizareth states, "I am Kizareth, Keeper of the Second Floor, and Monger of Flesh."
Calen looks at everyone, wondering if they are scared as he is. The fear of death and pain rings in his head, a very loud ringing. If they are scared, they don't really show it like him.
He rises to his feet, with wobbly legs. The puke that once stained the floor is now gone. The ringing that once dispersed is now back in full force, drawing his attention away from anything else.
"Come forward, swordsman." Kizareth beckons.
"Why should I do that? You just melted that boy." Ronan protests.
"I guess you could say that. It's painless for you frail-bodies though, and doesn't cause death." Kizareth argues.
Stricken with fantastical thoughts of powers, he gives in.
Ronan steps forward, and as if compelled, touches the meatball.
"Dormant ability... Focus." Kizareth determines, "I'll show you how to activate it."
Ronan faints as his hand is sucked into the ball, then a second later, awakens. He pulls his hand out and stumbles backwards, his hand is perfectly clean.
"You guys... It's okay. You can do it." Ronan clears the danger.
"You. Metal hand... come here." Kizareth demands.
Kaitlyn slowly approaches, and places her metal hand on Kizareth, unidentifiable pieces of anatomy squirm under her arm. She looks like she is going to puke.
"Dormant ability... Danger Identifier." The silence sits for a second, "I'll show you how to activate it."
Kaitlyn goes limp, being held up by her stuck hand. Then she slowly rises up, and tugs her hand free, and quietly returns back.
"Boy... come forward." Kizareth sounds fed up.
Calen knows it's talking to him, his curiosity and fear combats itself. Eventually his greed and curiosity win over. He drags his legs over.
Closing his eyes and placing his hand on Kizareth, "Will this hurt?" He asks.
Silence fills the air for a second, "Shouldn't." Kizareth replies. After a second Kizareth had determined, "Dormant ability... Treasure Vault." Kizareth stays silent for an extended period of time, "I'll show you how to activate it."
Calen feels his conscious slip instantly.
He awakes in a black room, floating in front of him is seemingly Kizareth, its formed altered. It's now a red humanoid, dripping pieces of gore that soon seep into the black void.
Calen instantly feels focused, more focused than he has been ever since he entered The Dark City. Suddenly he feels a warm burning in his heart, then his head, then his hands.
"Call on that burning, stay focused." Kizareth teaches.
"Call on it? What type of shitty advice is that?" Calen thinks to himself.
"I can hear you." Kizareth says, dejected.
A deafening silence makes things more awkward rather than spooky.
Calen focuses as hard as he can, soon, the burning is expelled into a yellow portal in front of him.
The portal is entirely yellow, that doesn't feel right.
"What's wrong with it?" Calen speaks out loud.
Kizareth pauses before speaking, as if calculating what to say next, "This reality is fake. It isn't real. Despite my prowess in knowing the body... the mind is not my forte. I can read your mind, not see it."
That explanation made no sense to Calen, but before he can ask further, he blinks and is back in the gory room.
Feeling instantly light headed and thoughtless, he pulls his hand out and backs up.
"Come here... the remainder." Kizareth sounds tired.
Lyra walks forward, with a steeled and cold face. She lays her hand on the ball.
Calen tries to focus, but his mind is so empty. The ringing has diminished but is still in the back of his head. It's hard for him to pay attention, completely missing Lyra's reading.
She comes and stands next to him.
"That being done with..." Kizareth instantly snaps them all to attention, "Now I have a task for you."
Calen internally moans, nothing ever came for free.
"I need you to stomp out the morale of this opposing force on my floor. They don't see me as their god and it is quite a pain." Kizareth explains.
"How do we do that?" Kaitlyn and Ronan asks at the same time.
"Simple..." Kizareth pauses for a second, "Steal a precious heirloom from their treacherous church. It's a statue of this nasty, mutated beast." Kizareth audibly sighs, "Anyways... you must be on your way."
The balls squirms, and then a warm, wet feeling is on Calen's legs. He looks down and chokes on his breath.
He is melting.
He looks around and his allies are also seeping into the floor.
"What is this?!" Ronan exclaims?
"Calm down, I'm simply sending you to your location." Kizareth says.
Kizareth then follows up, "Also... the statue is radioactive, plutonium. Thought you should have a head-ups."
They sink completely into the floor. Calen grips onto sanity the only way he knows how, humming a tune in his head.
The wake up in the middle of a large, gray, dead city. The large buildings are cracking and look like they could fall over from a sneeze. The road is cracked, with ashes filling the holes.
They look around for a place to rest at.