Chapter 46: Fixable

“Come out you fucking thing!” I hissed. “I’m in no mood for games.” 

The statue was quiet, no rustling could be heard, no cracking, no sounds, no nothing.

Why can't anything in this place leave me alone?

I crept forward, once more climbing atop the statue’s shoulders and looking inside the broken face. Sitting perched on the shoulders was awkward, but I managed to hold on with sheer determination not to get ambushed again. 

The skittering resumed, there was definitely something inside, but it was small. 

I craned my neck to get an angled view inside and clicked my tongue when I saw nothing. 

“I’ll get you out. One way or another,” I growled and climbed down. 

With my wand broken, and five remaining bullets I couldn’t very well blow it apart. I looked around the room and walked back to the door while keeping an eye on the statue. It leaked no noises as I moved away, nor did anything escape. I made sure of that. 

I closed the door, and pulled one of the bench rows free with a gruelling effort, propping the door shut with it. If the remaining jailors returned it wouldn’t make a big difference, not with their strength. But anything was better than nothing. 

Beggars can’t be choosers. 

“Now,” I said to myself and drummed my index finger against my lips. “How do we get the little rat out of its nest…?” 

There was the obvious route of smoking it out, but I had no way to produce a flame, and nothing to burn. The room was filled with candles, but a few of them wouldn’t do the trick if whatever scurried around inside was sentient. It would just put out the flames. 

I stopped my finger as it pressed against my lips and mumbled, “If there’s no way of smoking you out. I suppose all I’ve got to do is break your little nest.” 

Subconsciously I felt a sneer begin to tug at the corners of my mouth, I gave into the feeling, and let the unsettling smile form. There was no one here to see me anyway, so there was little reason to care about how others perceived me. 

I summoned Silent scream and stabbed at the statue’s feet a few times, confirming that the edge didn’t dull. A cold shiver ran along my spine as the resulting sparks of the trial stabs flittered into the air. 

“Nope,” I said to myself, “not doing that.” 

I turned the dagger around in my hand, and used the pommel to beat at the statue. After a handful of bashes, I regarded the results brought about by my labour with a sigh. Barely even a scratch had been left in the surface. I don’t know what I was expecting, I lamented and looked around the room. 

There weren’t a lot I could use. The benches were heavy, way too heavy to pry loose and use as leverage. I caught my breath and thought, sparing the barred up door a few cautionary glances. 

If I couldn’t blow the damn thing up, hammer it to bits, or burn it, then what else was there? 

“That’s it,” I muttered and unsummoned the dagger. With my hand free I tore a few threads loose from the veil. The recoil of overusing magic still pressed down on me, but not enough for me to be stingy with how I spent it. 

I climbed up and coiled the threads around the neck of the statue, then climbed back down. There was a pillar nearby that I pulled the threads around, giving me good leverage and something to prop my feet against in the coming endeavour. I took a breath a furrowed my brows in concentration as I put one foot after the other against the pillar, staying low in a squat, hanging horizontally with only the threads for support. They dug into my skin, whitening my still human hand. I clenched my teeth, and cursed, “Come loose you fucking thing!” as I pushed with all my might, activating burst once. 

The statue groaned as it began to topple. I was lucky the thing wasn’t made out of the same rock as the dais it stood on. If that were the case then I’d be shit out of luck, not to mention doomed to go back to the torture chamber unprepared and with a potential monster at my heels. 

The threads snapped, and I slammed onto the floor, scarcely managing to hold onto my breath. My eyes went wide as the face of the statue fell towards mine. I inhaled sharply and rolled to the side, just barely avoiding its stone cold kiss. 

It shattered into a million pieces as it struck the floor. Many of the rained down on my skin like a fierce hail. I shielded my eyes from the resulting cloud of dust as I climbed to my feet again, and summoned my dagger, searching the room for whatever made the noise from before.

Through the cloud of dust I could just barely make out the outline of a shadow, scurrying under the benches, heading toward the door. 

“No you don’t!” I shouted and ran through the middle aisle.

The sound of its feet skittering against the floor sounded like the bare feet of a child. If said child had way more than two feet. It smattered against the floor like a rain of flesh. 

I pushed through the cloud and caught a glance of the thing. It was small, but larger than a rat. It had pink fleshy legs and a large body, like an overgrown spider. 

I jumped onto the backrest of the closest bench and skipped from one to the other, following the thing as closely as I could. It was quick, and slippery. I turned and twisted with no regard for momentum or gravity. I could never get a good view of the damn thing either, it just kept running back into the dark embrace of the bench rows.

“Come out!” I teased with a smile. 

It felt like we were playing tag. Though I didn’t know how dangerous the little thing was, it couldn’t be that bad if it ran away from me. I hoped. 

The sound of its limbs stopped, I used burst to twist my body midair, and launch myself from a backrest, instantly turning one hundred and eighty degrees. And there it was. 

My smile faded, a scowl taking its place. 

“Fuck,” I muttered and landed on top of it, pinning it to the ground with my free hand. I pressed the tip of the dagger close to it. Its eyes widened, the finger-like limbs squirmed as I put pressure onto it. 

It was a face. Or rather a misshaped head, with fingers coming out the back of its skull, like a spider. 

I had to swallow a rush of bile. 

“What in the actual… What are you?” I asked. 

The thing’s pupils shook in place, staring deep into mine. I knew faces, and I knew emotions. Especially that one. It feared me. If it had a body it would be pissing itself by now. 

I lifted the thing from the ground. It was bald, but there was no doubt about the fact that the face was feminine. Not at all like the brusque jailors’ faces. Much more like the symbol of the caretakers. 

It squirmed in my grip, but with no body to twist it was practically harmless. 

“What happened to you?” I asked again, waiting patiently for it to respond. 

Its eyes darted around, they lingered every time they passed the remaining pieces of the shattered statue. 

“I…” it began. “I’m nothing. No one.” 

It bit its lip, and furrowed its brow. 

“And?” I asked. “What happened to you?” 

The head-spider opened and closed its mouth, seemingly lost in thought before it stammered, “I… I don’t know. This is… me.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Taking care of the wayward daughter,” it said with trembling lips. 

“Sera?” 

It looked at me with wide eyes, clearly not knowing what I was talking about. I shook my head and silently lamented the fact that I could not speak of her true name. 

“If your job was to take care of the girl in the central chamber, then you did a shit job. She’s dead. Before then she was tortured for God knows how long.” 

“Y-yes… I know. She was never meant to last for much longer anyway. H-her use expired the day the last caretaker died.” 

My eyes shot open. Interesting. I hurriedly closed them as I realized I was giving away a tell. 

“What was her use?” 

“I-I can’t s-say...” It whispered, its legs floundering to escape. 

I pressed the tip of my dagger into its cheek. Just a few weeks ago stabbing the jailor in the face had given me pause… I was definitely changing. Maybe for the better. Watching Samuel treat this whole thing like it was a game, a way of proving himself got on my nerves. But it also made me realize just how immature I had been about things. Killing was necessary. There was no good or evil here. There was survival and death, and I wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon. I clenched my jaw and watched the face gasp as a small trickle of blood flowed down its face.

“I-If I say I can’t let you go.” 

I smirked and pulled it close to my face. “Oh yeah? What you gonna do?”

Its eyes darted around before it spoke, “I…I’ll curse you.” 

Bluffing. 

“Yeah? Go ahead,” I said and pressed the tip of the dagger further into its cheek. It whimpered, but couldn’t pull away. 

I closed its eyes and squealed, “I-it was Seluvis! She made us… W-we didn’t want to do it! You have to believe me!” 

“Why?” 

“T-the wayward daughter was the key! I don’t know more. Please, spare me!” 

I felt pity for the thing. It clearly wanted to live, but that was no risk I was willing to take. I could clearly remember something below the statue's face smiling at me. The thing was a devious trickster. Leaving it was sure to bite me. 

“I’ll spare you,” I said with a wicked smile and held up a finger as I pulled out the dagger. “If; and only if, you swear to me that you’re not hiding more.” 

Its eyes widened. I sighed. So that’s it, huh. You’re lying. 

“I promise,” it said vehemently. Eyes narrowing into slits, trying to compose itself. 

I nodded and spoke softly, “I don’t believe you.” 

It tried to protest, but its voice was cut short as my dagger pierced its cheek at an angle. I felt a shiver run down my spine. Silent scream wasn’t just any dagger, it was an unsung accolade, and sharp like no other knife I had ever used. Still, it wasn’t sharp to the point that I felt no resistance as it passed through flesh. Even the vibrations as it scraped against bone didn’t go lost on me. When the hilt finally pressed against the thing's cheek, the tip of my blade extended out the top of its skull. I assumed that did the trick as the thing's eyes rolled back into its head. I twisted the blade and watched as its squirming legs grew deathly still. 

“Nonetheless, you have been spared,” I whispered and let go of the thing. It smacked against the ground and sent sprays of red to cover the broken pieces of marble scattered around it. 

I looked at the mess I left in my wake and sighed. If mom was here to see me I was pretty sure I knew what she would say. Or… I thought I would. But as I searched my mind I couldn’t quite find the words anymore. I rubbed my eyes, I still couldn’t recall her name. 

“It would be real nice to talk to you right about now, Sera…” I whispered, and sat down on the dais near the pulpit. A jagged piece of something stabbed at my leg and pulled my mind away from the worrying feeling of forgetting what you hold most important. I twisted to see what it was.

A hatch?