Thomas runs ahead while his exec is trailing behind him. Thomas looks back several times to make sure that he is still there. The final time he looks back, he is alone. He stops in his tracks and looks around him worried and scared.
Within a clearing in the forest, he stands there constantly looking around. For the first time in his life he feels fear, a looming darkness is near him.
He feels it.
Arthur watches him for a bit frantically looking around and feels the thrill of the hunt. "Aww is that his scared look.." says Arthur to himself as he toys with him.
Click
A switch turns on in his head and a memory that was buried so deep in the conclave of his mind that forever haunted him and caused his depravity. Flashes of that horror that slowly turn his eyes black.
Flash
Arthur lays wasted on the ground covered in bruises and tainted with blood. "Stupid Guy" says one the assailants and another replies "That's what he gets for messing with Thomas". They leave him there half dead slowly closing his eyes.
Flash
[Calm Mind Activated]
He regains some semblance of himself and looks at him with fierce eyes.
"You see that too right?" he questions the exec with him, but remembers that he is alone. A loud and screeching rawr can be heard within the forest. His stress levels increase shouting "COME OUT YOU COWARD".
He recognizes that a man full of composure and elegance can also be impatient and frantic, his breakdown soothes Arthur's soul making him enjoy the scenes he is witnessing.
Flash
"You were warned Arthur" says one of Thomas' execs as they attack her on the street. "OMG" "This woman" "Someone call 999". People gather around his mother's body as she drops to the floor. The exec kept the call on as he stood next body on the floor as a bystander. He heard the location on the call and quickly went there turning off the call.
He heard the location of the place and rushes over calling his mother's phone.. "The number you are trying to call is not...".
The gaps in his memory are blinding him from seeing and...
flash
He's there again. Standing at her side looking at her lifeless body with a bereavement visit. A black tear trickles down his face and he sees Thomas standing on the other side of the bed saying "This world has a hierarchy".
"You should of known your place" he says with a cold stare. Arthur can't do anything, but look.
[Calm Mind Activated]
He comes back and the rage inside him boils before the eruption.
Thomas pinpoints the sound waves of everything around him. 'Sonar' as sound travels down to his leg and spreads out on the ground in all directions from where he stands.
Drip
He hears it and rushes in that direction of the single drip and what he comes to witness leaves him in disbelief.
A horrific site, blood pooling down from the tree that he was pinned too. black daggers in every part of his body pinning him to the tree like a crucifixion. From where he is standing, he can no longer hear a heart beat and a voice whispers "He paid the price for his actions". It lingers around so it's hard for him to pinpoint it. "Should I tell you what he did" says Arthur as he appears behind him.
A dark figure with no identifying features and a playful voice pondering "Where should I being?". He thinks for a few moments and it comes to him "Oh" "That time he killed a porter he didn't like the look off". "How about that time he beat up a women for not wanting his advances". "Oh no not that one". "How about that time he raped Susan Everest inside of a rift and then killed her as well to cover it up?".
***********************************
Again and again and again we witness the depravity of humanity and these monsters in human skin don't get punished for their actions.
She is one of many cases who became victims just for not accepting the advances of a man. She rejected him to the point where she feared for her life and yet nobody listened to her. She was screaming and crying for help, but the help never came. A voice neglected for so long it no longer had the will to speak.
Susan just became another name, a name that got it's 24 hours of fame and was swept clean with the dust that had settled on the victims memorial. Nothing happened to him as his version of events inside the rift were accepted and she was just marked as another victim of a rift.
I came to find out about this after a witness that had lost his sanity to the pressure of life and the acts he had witnessed that day got hospitalized. We met at the hospital on the day i fainted from my mother's death and he was strapped to the bed next to me.
From the multimodal analgesia he started to hallucinate and mistook me for somebody he knew. He told me everything and he poured his heart out. He spoke and spoke like a confessional, seeking redemption for himself. I listened to distract myself from my own reality. A day later, the hospital was buzzing from the news that somebody had jumped of the roof of the hospital.
Consequences are only laid bare at the feet of victims.
***********************************
The shock hit him hard as he stood there watching the corpse and thinking about himself.
Arthur's demeaner changes and he gets angry saying "Violent disgusting animals deserve punishments fit for them". "Don't you agree Thomas" he says as he takes his hood off and shows himself as Arthur to him.
"Huh" he says looking shocked with his eyes wide open and his mind lost. "I'll kill you and leave nothing behind" says Thomas as he calms himself down. He puts his hand up and flicks in the direction Arthur. He puts holes in Arthur's darkness but does no damage to him at all. "AHAHAHAHAH". Arthur cries out in laughter from Thomas' attack saying to him "You looked down on people this whole time to be this WEAK!" "No wonder the guild master looked down on you." "He always saw you as a pathetic insignificant thing".
"AHHHHHH" he screams out in anger with his voice echoing throughout the forest and attaching wyvern to his location. He moves and it reverberates the ground causing it to crack as he leaves that spot. He leaps towards Arthur with one arm reaching out trying to grab him, but all of a sudden he slows down. His vision gets blurry and a agonising thumping pain in his head. "What's going on?" he questions.
"Must be the after effects of the Elixir". "I wanted to beat you down fair and square, but I guess not" says Arthur in a joking manner as he laughs and chuckles in his face. Arthur attaches his darkness to the trees and then places it on his wrists and ankles pulling him up and suspending him in mid air. He stands in front of him so he can see what he is about to do to him.
"You see earlier when I told you about what that animal did." "Guess what?" "You're worse". "So let's have some fun shall we" he says with a wicked smile. "1" as he throws a dagger into his calf. He continues counting as he throws daggers into every part of his body. Thomas bleeds, but he remains conscious because Arthur heals him at the same time. Screams that would make Vlad seem like a good soul were cried out.
A red corpse dangling mid air dripping blood from his toes. "Please...Kill me" he begs with his soft voice whimpering as it spits out blood. Each dagger an inch from another littered all over it's body.
"That elixir must have great restoration" he says as..
FLASH
Arthur remembers that moment he was beat down, pleading to get killed by Thomas' goons and they spit on him leaving him in that deplorable state.
He gets him down and force feeds him his blood shouting "YOU DON'T GET TO DIE SO EASILY" as he heals him just enough to keep beating him.
Gasp!
He wakes up opening his eyes seeing a fist coming his way instantly.
Each punch a painful memory that would shatter the mind arises.
[Calm mind Activated!]
[Calm mind Activated!]
[Calm mind Activated!]
He was crying, but didn't feel a thing.
PUNCH
He is reminded of the phone call hearing them kill his mother.
PUNCH
The abuse he got from raider guild members and how he became desensitized to it.
PUNCH
The time he became a servant just to appease the same people that maede him beg to live.
PUNCH
The day he was abandoned by them in the rift that led to the death of the only friend he ever had.
PUNCH
Staring lifelessly at her body and knowing he is powerless to do anything.
Arthur covered and smeared in blood, huffs as he is exhaling heavily after the beating. Thomas died awhile ago, but he kept hitting his corpse to see if he could feel it.
[Calm mind Activated!]
He sits next to his body with his knees up staring aimlessly into the distance. He hears a wyvern coming, but doesn't do anything like it's finish. He killed the final boss and the game is over. He looked at the wyvern for a moment as it floated above him
Rrraaaaooowww
It screamed before inflating it's mouth and releasing a powerful attack.
He looks at his hands and the blood dripping and questions himself, "Is this it?" "My life when i came back, is this all i wanted?". With his mind in daze, Freya comes and sees him on the ground and tells him "Let's go" while holding her blade as she towers over him.
A system notification appears..
[Mission Unsuccessful]
[Exit has been opened and will close in 5 minutes]