Alexei rushed the huge oak door that blocked our entrance into the manor, and smashed right into it, knocking the expensive looking ornate fixture out of the hinges. We rushed in, and after making sure that none of those monster things were chasing us, we finally settled down a bit.

“Woah, boss...” Becca said in awe, staring at the huge, sprawling place before her, “You sure we can find the pass in this place? It's fucking huge.”

And she was right. The entrance lead to a very big open room with beautiful marble floors and a lovely staircase that lead to the upper floors. To the side were creepy sets of ancient medieval armours, and equally creepy carved statues. Although the sounds of the fight outside still radiated through the now busted front entrance, the interior was still oddly silent.

“Hm...” Alexei muttered, “This place really is too big. I doubt that the people outside can hold out for too long with those monsters. We should split up!”

Becca went wide-eyed, and half-screamed, “You gotta be kidding me, Alexei! That's like, what every shitty horror movie cast does, and this place is seriously giving me the damn haunted house vibe. I am not getting eaten by fucking zombies! I say we stick together.”

“Impossible, Becca.” Irina said, shaking her head, “My husband is right, if we search together, we will almost certainly be unable to get out of here alive.”

“Bah, fine!” Becca replied with a frown, “But if I turn into a zombie 'cause of you people, I'm going after your brains first!”

Alexei and Irina laughed.

“So...” Becca continued, “Do we split up completely, or go two by two?”

“We'll go in partners.”

“Ok, let me go with the b-” Becca started, but Irina whispered something into her ears, and she stopped her sentence short.

“Oh. Uh, on second though, I'll go with Irina. We'll leave you two men to do that male bonding thing. The bromance or whatever.” Becca said, she walked towards Irina, and looked at Alexei and I in a strange way, and muttered, “Hmm... I can see you two... not bad, not bad. I'd ship that.”

“What are you talking about, Becca?” I said, not too pleased with her current train of thought.

“Nothing, boss, nothing!” She answered, smiling again.

“Anyway,” Irina said, steering the conversation back on a productive level, “Becca and I will search the top floor; we'll leave the bottom floor to you two.”

Becca had a pesky glint in her eyes as she said, “Speaking of bottom... Irina, between the boss and your husband, who do you think is the-”

“Becca!” I half-shouted.

Irina giggled, before whispering something else into Becca's ear. Becca nodded approvingly at whatever it was she said to her. I really hope that she isn't getting sucked into Becca's crazy fantasy's.

“We best be going now.” Irina said, still smirking.

“Right...” I grunted.

* * *

It's been over an hour since we left the ladies to search the bottom floor, but room after room, Alexei and I found absolutely nothing of interests. In fact, we also didn't find any kind of resistance from Frankenstein's side, and I don't think it's because he was lacking guards.

“It's awfully quiet, don't you think?” I remarked, opening another drawer, only to find nothing inside.

“Indeed, my friend.” Alexei said, I could tell he was unsettled, “Reminds me of the days where those Inquisitor bastards would stalk us back in Europe, no?”

“Don't remind me.” I grunted. Hiding from a group of a few hundred Religious nut-bags was not the best time I had on Earth, especially in medieval Europe where the roads were covered in horse shit. I recalled one particularly bad night where I had to wade knee deep in that crap after one particularly rainy chase. Not fun memories at all.

“Still.” Alexei continued, “I did not expect the two of us to have a chance like this again. It is a thrill.”

“You have a weird sense of fun, Alexei.”

“Not so! What is life without adventure?”

“A very happy one?”

“Of course not! It is not one that I would want to be a part of!”

“Yup...” I muttered, “You're definitely insane, Alexei.”

Alexei burst out in a friendly laugh, and said, “But I do hope that something will come soon. I am getting bored of searching through furniture.”

At that very moment I heard a loud noise coming from the opposite side of the door, and turning around, I saw a group of monstrosities crashing through the door. That bastard Alexei, he just had to wish for it. I always knew that God had a sick sense of humour...

These particular creatures were smaller than the ones outside, but they were no less grotesque. There were about six of them, and each one was the size of a grizzly bear, and built like one too. Each one had too-long arms that looked out of place, and the sewn together mass of rotten flesh that held it together did not add to the aesthetics either. In the middle of its stomach was a huge gaping hole, and although the lighting wasn't bad in the room, I couldn't see what was actually inside of it. At least they didn't seem to be too fast.

I secretly swore at Alexei under my breath and dropped what I was doing. I willed Hellfire into my fists, and sent a big fireball towards their general direction. I didn't expect that it would do any actual damage, but I hoped that it would buy me enough time to avoid a sneak attack.

Alexei transformed into a mass of black, formless shadow and immediately rushed towards those figures, following up on the earlier fireball. I gathered my wits about me and followed suit. I didn't want to find out what nasty tricks these things had in store for us.

Once the smoke from the earlier Hellfire cleared, I smashed my sword directly into the head of the first monster that I saw. The blade met with some resistance, but it was nowhere near as bad as those things from outside. Thinking that the first creature was dead, I was about to move on to the next target, but I quickly realized that those things are tougher than I gave it credit for. Even with half its head gone, the thing I attacked was trying to swat me with its spindly arms.

It seemed like a pretty useless effort, considering that it was completely blind and brain dead. However, I found out why that first thing was still struggling so desperately, even when I was chopping it limb from limb. I noticed that the air around me growing colder and denser, as if raw energy was being sucked away from the space around me. And it was. I expanded my concentration further and noticed that the creature behind the half dead one, who was mysteriously not attacking at all, was gathering a lot of energy into that hole in its body.

It didn't take me long to figure out what it was planning to do.

I swore out loud, and turned to focus my attention on the other creature, hoping to kill it before it could turn me into a fine paste. At least I tried to. It seemed that the first fucker still had the sense of mind to cling onto my whole body with whatever was left of its energy. I struggled, madly slicing and burning everything around me. I swore again, and noticed that the constant stream of energy that was being sucked towards the other creature suddenly stopped.

Fuck.

I ditched my sword, which the creature was clinging onto desperately, and willed a massive amount of Hellfire into my left hand. I willed the fire up my whole body, and with one desperate kick, I loosened myself from the dying creature, and slammed my whole body towards the nearest wall. I crashed into it, breaking through to the room over. I fractured my left shoulder and a few ribs in the process, but it was definitely worth the pain. I saw a blinding white light that temporarily blinded me, and I felt a rush of intense heat and air pass the through the space that I was just at.

Even though I was outside of the direct path of the attack, I could feel my clothing burn and melt painfully into my flesh. My right shoulder, which was closest to the blast, was completely incinerated, and I had to force my flesh to regenerate. I gritted my teeth in pain, and I could already start to feel the exhaustion settling in.

The attack lasted exactly eight seconds, and after I made sure that there was no follow up beam, I quickly escaped from my hiding spot, willed a small concentration of Banefire into my hand, and smashed my fist into the thing that almost made BBQ out of my face. This time the Banefire did its work, and the creature did not struggle onwards when its face disintegrated from its body. At this point my head was pounding from the effort.

I was about to celebrate the hard earned victory, when I felt a huge force slam directly into the side of my head, knocking me flying backwards. I crashed into a table, fracturing even more bones.

After my head stopped spinning, I realized that the thing that tried to play baseball with my skull was another one of those monsters. There was another one of them behind the first, and judging from its immobile state, I can guess what it was planning to do.

I cursed myself for forgetting that there was more than just those two. Grunting, I looked around, and noticed that I couldn't see Alexei anywhere, but I also didn't see two out of the original six creatures either, so I'll have to assume that my friend was busy as well.

I grudgingly got up, and after summoning even more Banefire into existence, I turned to face the two fuckers. This time, I didn't bother wasting my time with the first one, and rushed immediately towards the one gathering energy. As I ran towards the one in the back, its partner burst into life, and moved at a speed that I didn't think was possible. It crashed into me half way, and with sheer momentum it sent the both of us flying to the side.

Damn it!

It seems that the only purpose of the first guy was to buy time for its buddy to finish me off. I screamed, and grabbed onto the thing and shoved the tiny amount of Banefire that was still in my hand right into the gaping hole on its stomach. Before I could will the fire to expand and consume the creature entirely, I felt its bulk expand around me, and before I could even react, the thing exploded into a mess of black goo. It smelled of tar and rot, and since I was so close to the damn thing, I was covered entirely.

I cursed again, harder than ever.

The damn goo was like some sort of super glue, because even with my enhanced strength, I was unable to escape. I tried to burn it all away with Hellfire, and although that did do the trick, the speed in which I could disintegrate the material was much too slow, and I realized the problem too slowly.

The air around me condensed and thickened, and before I could even scream, I felt that same intense light engulf my surroundings.

My whole world turned white. It was almost blissful.

Then the pain hit.

The pain was indescribable. It took everything I had to just survive. I could feel the chunks of flesh fall off my body, again and again as I willed new flesh to take its place. I wanted to scream, but the very air seared my throat and burned off my tongue. I wanted fall into madness and just escape from it all. I couldn't even crawl under the intense heat of the beam, much less escape.

When I thought that I could take no more, the heat suddenly stopped. I fell onto the floor, barely having the energy required to move. I used what little reserves I had left to heal. When I had eyes again to see, I saw that Alexei was the one who saved me there. I whispered a breathless thanks, before collapsing completely.

* * *

I woke up a short time later to pain. Pure, undiluted pain. I must have been in a pretty bad shape, by the look that Alexei gave me, but I couldn't even muster up the energy to look at myself right now. Alexei himself didn't look too hot either. His left shoulder was a bloody mess, and there were various burn marks on his body, and that's not even counting how physically and mentally fatigued he was as well. Alexei must have been protecting me while I was out cold.

“Mark, my friend.” Alexei said solemnly, “I think it is best if you leave the rest to me. You... you are not as young as you were before. You should not overwork yourself. Do not worry about me, my friend. I already owe you so much, and as long as there is strength left in these old bones of my, I will go on. Just rest, my friend.”

I stared at the wounded man; a man who was willing to go to Hell and back for me, and cursed at myself for even wanting to take him up on that offer. In reality, I wanted so desperately to just let him do the work, to just leave it up to someone else to pick up my slack like I've done my whole life. It would be easier to just give up. I wouldn't have to be in pain, I wouldn't have to stress about my own failures. It would be so... easy. After all, I've been running away my whole life.

But I couldn't let everyone down again. I knew that if I accepted his offer to just lie down and give up, then I'd have failed everyone I knew. Again. I couldn't accept that. But right now, even if I did want to continue, I wouldn't be able to. I've exhausted everything that I had to maintain this body of mine.

No. There is one way. One method that I swore to myself that I would never again use, because it represented everything that I have ever lost. It represented everything failure that I've every made, every mistake that I can never fix. It represented my betrayal, and on the day that I fell, I swore to myself that I would never again use that form again. Because... because it would be easier to just forget the past, than to live with it. I wanted more than anything to just forget my failures, even if that chose leads to my death. That is why my own Hell is the very image of the Heaven that I can never again see...

But I guess some things are more important than even that.

I took one final, painful breath, and I changed.