Shrike's Heart (#2)

[idolpro]

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

Comments

[nihilmancy]

I believe that these were the people that Shrike fought with when... ah, they would massacre people indiscriminately. This is an army of the dead, fighting to swell their numbers.

Shrike believed, sincerely, that life was suffering, and to be compassionate was to kill the living. I know this much. She has told me of the massacres she committed, and this whole town may be put to the sword.