Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 103: Little Boy(II)

The little boy had short white hair that clung to his sweat-slick skin, his small golden eyes wide with fear and shock, pleading.

Tears streamed freely, his lips trembling.

He was shirtless, wearing only grey pants, the chains making direct contact with his flesh. His chest revealed skin stretched tight against bone, fat and muscle absent.

He was so thin and malnourished he resembled a shrivelled corpse, frail and weak. Scars and fresh burns etched across his frame only added to the pitiful sight.

The little boy looked up, meeting the priestess’ gaze, begging and pleading, tears blurring his vision as droplets slid along the curves of his young face.

He squirmed and struggled, trying to break free, but nothing worked.

As he did so, the chains burned against his skin, spikes of pain repeatedly tearing across his young mind, yet the woman regarded him with nothing more than cold apathy.

She didn’t budge once, not to his cries nor his whimpers.

"Quiet down, my Little Ciel. Please."

Her voice was smooth and silky, soft and warm as she spoke, a stark contrast to her icy expression, only adding to the terror of her presence.

Her voice echoed in the little boy’s mind, partially soothing him, bringing a sliver of peace and calm to his chaotic thoughts and hammering heart.

Seeing him calm down, if only slightly, she nodded to herself in approval.

"Mm."

With slow and deliberate movements, taking her time and making sure not to rush him, she pulled a cloth from one of her pockets and moved to wrap it around his face.

She tied it around his eyes, blinding him. Then she pulled out another cloth, twisting it into something akin to a cord before wrapping it around his mouth and nudging him to bite down.

He trembled in fear but didn’t dare protest. He did as he was told, biting hard and doing his best to hold back his tears and sniffles.

He tried to ignore the pain summoned by the burning chains. Even so, he couldn’t stop a few whimpers from slipping free.

"Great."

The woman ran her long, slender fingers across his emaciated chest, her cold touch sending tremors through him as it contrasted with his steaming, sweat-soaked body.

Her fingers traced the contours of every rib, dancing across the spaces and crevices between them before pausing over his heart.

She felt the thunderous echoes of his terror-stricken heartbeat, then continued, slithering up and down the slopes of his upper body and along the curves of his face, still round with traces of baby fat.

She smiled.

"Little Ciel," she said softly. "Do not scream, okay?"

"If you show the evil within that you are afraid, even for a moment, if your flesh bends under its schemes and impurity, you will only open yourself to more suffering."

"Laugh, if you must, but do not cry. Do not scream, ever. And if your voice must be heard, then roar. Roar to the heavens and call for its blessings."

"Laugh in the face of the evil within. Roar at it." Her smile deepened. "Yes?"

The little boy shivered.

"...okay..." he answered through the cloth clenched between his teeth.

Hearing his response, the woman beamed, her smile pure and radiant, enough to light the darkest abyss and melt the coldest heart.

"You’ve always been the bravest of us all, my Little Ciel."

She waved a hand, and from thin air she summoned a dagger, long and sharp, formed of dark purple metal with an edge of deep crimson.

The handle was dark silver, etched with strange runes that glowed blue.

"When the evil within you perishes and the light of heaven baptises you, I’ll let you have endless amounts of the desserts you so often dream of."

She chuckled.

"I’ll even let you share them with Lilith. It shall be a grand banquet, for you and all else, upon the ashes of your tyrant. A requiem born of light, upon a foundation of ashen shadows."

Her words bordered on madness, yet so did the mind of any child. They invigorated the little boy, dulling some of the pain, some of the terror of what was to come.

"Good."

Her hand glided through the air, lowering until the tip of the blade pressed against his skin.

Little Ciel shuddered but did not complain, biting down harder.

She angled the blade, her wrist flicking upward, and then—

"MMM!"

—she pushed down, slowly and deliberately, puncturing skin and sinking into flesh. The blade pierced deep, right at the centre of his collarbone, sundering flesh and bone alike.

He bit down even harder, muffled screams tearing from him.

"You’re doing good."

Then she pulled.

From the centre of his collarbone, she dragged the blade down across his chest, opening him to the world.

Warm blood spilled and spurted, the thick metallic scent filling the air. The blade sliced through bone and flesh as though they were butter, never once slowing.

She cut until she reached his waist.

There, she stopped.

She set the dagger aside.

After a brief pause, she looked at Little Ciel, who had done his best to hold back tears and smother screams, and smiled with pride.

"You are perfect."

She stepped closer, placed her hands into the gash running down his body, fingers slipping between torn flesh and inside him, and then—

TOH!

—she pulled, prying him open from side to side, as if opening an ancient coffer.

The sickening crack of fragile bones echoed, followed by tearing flesh. His beating heart, expanding lungs, liver, intestines—all were revealed.

They pulsed and steamed in the cold air of the chamber, blood nearly invisible beneath the haze of crimson light flooding everything.

She continued.

"Let’s begin."

...

Uriel watched it all in silence, his mind empty.

He watched it happen, and he lived it.

His perception split in two: one as Ciel, his younger self, struggling beneath his grandmother’s madness; the other as his present self, a ghost observing a once-distant memory.

It was unnerving, to be one person divided across two bodies, past and present unfolding at once, but he adapted quickly, forcing the sensation aside.

’Ciel.’ It felt like a lifetime since he’d been called that.

’I never noticed her eyes were white. Like mine.’

Uriel studied his grandmother’s face—the slope of her nose, the colour of her skin, the cadence of her breath, the grace of her movements.

Beneath her calm exterior, he sensed a storm: madness, sorrow, fear, hope.

Too much hope. Too much fear.

Each time she tore an organ from him, gutting him alive and spilling his insides, his screams only fed her hope and smothered her fear.

As warmth drained from his body and life slipped away, while he begged endlessly for mercy and release, the light within her burned brighter.

It burned even as she stitched him back together whole, as effortlessly as Lirik once had.

It was as though they shared the same spark.

She could destroy him and rebuild him however she pleased.

As the hours passed, she fell into a trance, mumbling fractured prayers under her breath, rocking as she worked. The ritual became primal, instinctive.

Watching her descend so deeply into madness hurt Uriel more than anything she had done to his body.

He sighed.

PAH!

She stopped.

She froze.

Then she straightened, her spine stiffening as her gaze lifted—until it locked onto—

’...me?’