Chapter 2 – The Other Side Part 2

My head was swimming from everything that had already happened to me today, but now the pounding and shouting on the other side of the door frightened me. Sakura must have been worried too, for she instantly sprang up and grabbed her coat. “Shit! I should have figured that an item like this would be hard to hide….” She snatched another coat up and tossed it to me, making me put it on. She grabbed the old sword in my lap and wrapped it back up, somehow making it fit inside her trench coat. “What do we do Sakura? There’s only one way out of this room….”

“That’s what you think. You really think I would be lame enough to forget to have a backup escape route? Heh”

The pounding was beginning to grow louder and it sounded like the door was about to give way from all the pressure from the outside. Sakura knelt to the floor and picked a large floor tile up with a few fingers. Lifting it up, she exposed a hole under the room, and she pointed at me and it. “Okay Hana, jump down here. And make it quick!” Doing as she told me, I went to the edge and peered over, afraid of how deep it really was. Annoyed at my waste of time, Sakura pushed me on the back and I fell into the darkness below. The fall wasn’t as long as I had thought it would be, and my feet eventually met the dusty ground below. Sakura quickly dropped down next to me and held her hand up, snapping her fingers. Under her breath, she said a few words and a tiny pin prick of light floated from her hand, illuminating the darkness. Pointing at the appearance of a long corridor, she moved me along. “C’mon Hana, we have to hurry and make it out of here and the capital!”

“Why are we running like this?” I asked as we ran, not knowing what was truly after us. “Well, it seems that old sword is really more of a pain than it looks. The same goes for you too, since you and it are connected to each other.”

“But that still doesn’t make sense to me! I’m from another world and-“ I cut myself off as Sakura’s light diminished and a door was in front of us, which Sakura responded to by kicking it open with a loud gruff. “I don’t really care if you get it or not. If that twerp of a Princess God says it’s so, you better bet your life it’s so! Now just go!” We ran out of the door and landed in the middle of a dead street, with no signs of life other than the puffs of steam floating from the roof tops of buildings. It was getting later now and the sun had fully set, leaving only the flicker of gaslights in the old iron lamps that dotted the street sides. Catching up to me, Sakura grabbed my arm and yanked me to the left, dragging me with her as she ran down the street. “C’mon, we gotta find ourselves a horse, and get out of town, we should be alright if we can pull that off. But if we run into that thing….”

I saw Sakura’s violet eyes grow wide as she suddenly jerked me with her to an area full of heaping trash. I was about to open my mouth to complain about all the yanking and jerking around, but she had instantly covered my lips with her hand. As she did, something like the clatter of horse’s hooves jolted me to a startle. The sounds echoed louder and louder as they loomed closer to us, making my heart beat faster with every clack. I was afraid of what the sound carried, of what might be riding down the street towards where we were. My questions were quickly answered when was looked like and old and rotting horse trotted slowly down the street, sniffing at the air. The horse alone was frightening enough, but the rider drove the nightmarish image home for me more. On top of the evil steed sat what looked like a human form cloaked in a tattered shroud, with old black armor underneath. Bits of white bone could be seen between the bits of armor and as if the ride could sense something in the vicinity of it, it turned its head to look around. Catching a glimpse of its face was enough to give a small child nightmares for years, as the remnants of old flesh and skin could still be seen clinging to the bone of the riders skull. The eyes in the sockets of the skull swished around, searching for Sakura and me no doubt. A new sound was suddenly hears and the horse lifted up into the air on its two back legs, forcing the rider to move with it. A figure wearing armor with no helmet appeared before the rotting horse and the rider spoke up to the man in a voice that almost sounded more like whispers and hisses.

“So you seem to have lost our prey captain.”

“Y-yes general….we….we got into the single room dwelling, but they seemed to have slipped out through a back way…underneath the…the floor…” The captain shivered and shook were he stood, afraid of the rider in the cloak. The rider slowly got down from its steed, speaking aloud as it did. “And you were unable to follow them through their escape route?” The rider’s armored boots hit the ground with a loud noise and it began to slowly stalk its way towards the shivering captain. “Then the blame rests on you back?”

“B-but…I can find them this time for sure…and…and get the stolen object back!”

“And what if they slip away from you weak pathetic fingers again? Will you say the same thing as you just did now? Do you wish to continually displease me and the High Priestess?”

As we listened and watched the eerie conversation, I saw Sakura’s face react to the mentioning of some sort of priestess. Just as the rider had mentioned it, the captain began to quake and shiver more in his armor, deeply afraid. “N-No sir, I just want to..”

“You wish to keep your life?”

“Y-Yes sir….” The rider hissed in laughter, and the very sound of the laughter made my ears feel like they would explode and bleed. Acting amused by the captain’s fear, the rider raised a gauntlet enclosed hand and pointed at him. “Your life is very valuable to you, yes? However, you make no wish to protect it..” The rider pointed the palm if its hand out and the captain began to float to the rider, against his will. “You are just a pawn, just like this entire city…no, this entire world is. And pawns can be traded off at any time the chess master wishes, and so.” The rider fully grasped the captain’s neck in its hand, squeezing tightly and making the man choke. The skeleton reached into the depths of its tattered cloak and pulled something out. Pulling it out quickly, the rider somehow managed to stab the captain through the armor and out the other side of his body with a wicked looking longsword, causing a massive stream of blood to erupt from the wound. I cringed to the horrible sight, the sight of a man being murdered just for his mistakes. The captain had died instantly, but that didn’t seem to be the end of it. The rider sheathed its blade back within the confines of its ragged cloak and now hoovered its free hand over the man’s face, speaking as it did so.

“Don’t worry captain, your flesh will prove to be helpful…..for a minimal amount of time…..”

I watched in horror as the former captains skins melted off his face and began to swirl like a cloud of dust into the cloak of the rider. Within moments, the dead captain’s body dropped to the ground, nothing more but a skeleton rattling in the armor. The rider now turned his head and scanned its surrounding, and I could see more of its hellish face. More skin entwined the face of the skull, but much of the white bone could still be seen in patches. Not sensing us, the rider stalked back towards the demonic looking horse and spoke in tis chilling tone. “It seems that I will have some nice flesh for a while, until it begins to rot once more. Perhaps I should punish the other men for failing me?”

The rider got back into the saddle of the steed and slowly trotted down the street as it mused to itself. After a few minutes when it had fully vanished into the night, I gasped loudly for air. “What…what the hell was that thing?!” I shouted loudly at Sakura, after the horror of the rider I had saw. Looking at me slowly with anger in her eyes, she spoke softly. “That rider was General Tarvis…One of the rulers under the Priestess that rules Hygar….”

“Can he just do that?! Kill that man over a simple mistake?!”

Sakura looked at me quite sullen, and I worried that I had made her upset. Grabbing my arm, she pulled me with her as we began to run again. “They can do anything they wish to Hana. They are the rulers of the nightmare of a world now, and their High Priestess makes whatever laws she wishes, and the people always suffer the worst….”

“Have they always been in control of your world?”

Sakura bit her lip, not responding to my question as we kept running down the dark streets in the night. “What is going on in this world? Something must have gone wrong somewhere….” I thought to myself as we finally came to a stop in front of a small stable. “Wait here for me in the shadows.” Sakura commanded me as she snuck her way into the building. Alone, I looked up at the stars in the sky and whispered to myself. “What evil had befallen this world? And how do I fit in, with that sword nonetheless! Is it possible that…” I lowered my head and looked at my hands, opening and closing them as I did. “Is it possible to be reincarnated on another world, and know nothing of other life’s….” I was broken from my questions when Sakura walked up to me with a saddled horse. I walked over to her and she boosted me up into the saddle, then she herself climbed up. Sitting in front of her, I could hear her whisper into my ears softly. “Okay love, now we’re getting out of this shitty city. Hold on tight!”

She spurred the horse forward and galloped behind, leaving the stench of death and decay far behind. Now that we were moving along faster, I spoke to Sakura with another of my usual questions. “Where is the Princess God you spoke of?”

“She lives in a forest not too far from the western side of the capital.” ”A forest? Is she the only one there? Sakura lightly chuckled, amused at my questions. “Of course not love. She’s and elf, and she lives with her people in the forest. We will be safe there.” I was amazed to hear that we were going to see an elf, a creature that had only ever existed in fantasy books back in my world. “I’ve always wanted to meet an elf…” I whispered silently to her, which made her smile.

xXx

It took about an hour, but Sakura, me and the horse had finally made it to the edge of the capital with no trouble. The city was massive, but no matter where we went, the streets were always deserted and the homes and stores bolted shut. Trotting to the gate, Sakura made the horse stop in front of the open iron gate. Speaking to me, she laid a hand on my shoulder as I held my cloak closer to me for warmth. “Alright Hana, we only have so much farther to go.

“Will they be able to find us in the forest?” I asked her, which was a wise question, seeing as how we were easily tracked to the makeshift home that Sakura had lived in. “No, the Elves have powerful wards around the forest, and as such, the Priestess makes no moves to challenge them. Which is a very good thing, for it means we can stay there for a time.”

Kicking the horse into gear again, we quickly galloped out of the gate and into the cool nighttime air of the country side. We were unstopped and had made it another good five to six miles down the road and the forest began to loom closer and closer. As I joyed to myself over the thought of not having to run much longer, Sakura leaned to me and spoke. “Love….”

“Y-Yes Sakura?”

“I need you to hold on a little tighter now.”

Doing what she asked, I held onto the horn of the saddle tighter and gulped loudly. Turning my head, I looked over my shoulder and saw something in the distance following. Something wearing a tattered and ragged black cloak was following in hot pursuit of us as we neared the forest.

End Chapter 2