I’d like to thank Scott for tagging me, though I’m going to point out the thought of trying to write part of a story I don’t know the end of is kind of terrifying as I don’t have a clue if what I’m adding is actually helping the plot along. Still, this has been a fun project to watch develop and I had quite a bit of fun trying to figure out what should happen.
THE RULES FOR THIS STORY TAG:
- Copy the post you’ve been tagged from the rules down (with the links)
- Go here and read the rules
- Write your name and link it to one of your posts (The main character is called NoGender, and as the name indicates, does not have a gender, so if you want to speak in the third person use the word “it”)
- Write your paragraph (max 300 words with 100 words margin, so basically you can go further until 400)
- Tag someone’s post who wasn’t tagged before and say the following rule in the same phrase “You have 3 days to accept this tag”
- If the person you tagged doesn’t answer or doesn’t want to participate tag other person (again, tag a post and not a page)
- Write the Title “Let’s All Write a Book | Chapter 2 | Part X”, being X your paragraph
- If you are writing Part 10 link it to Arthifis again
- Copy and paste at the end of your post all the people who have already been tagged in chapter 1, unless it says the contrary you can’t tag them again;
- People who said they want to be tagged again, if you do get tagged and write a part for this chapter delete the part where it says that you want to be tagged again in the list, the idea is to have only one tag for each chapter.
- To read Chapter 1 go here
CHAPTER 2
The seven maisters had created a circle with NoGender and Ligeia in the center. They also had diminished the light of the room and now the only light present was coming from the 7 candles positioned at the front of each maister making scary shadows in their faces.
Below of NoGender and Ligeia was a complex diagram written in blood, its center starting where their bodies finished. NoGender was scared, he didn’t know what was happening and it had received zero explanations. Ligeia had used all the time for explanations arguing and saying she didn’t want to do this, that she didn’t know NoGender and they were asking too much of her. However, after a while she understood this was an argument she wouldn’t win, she accepted defeat and decided to go along.
– Very well! – One of the maisters said, NoGender could not pinpoint which one – The time is near, you need to strength your bond before the time runs out. What you did in that library is just too rare and in the timing that happened… We can’t just say this is a coincidence. I’m not one to believe in destiny, but maybe you will prove me wrong. In conclusion, we can’t let this opportunity pass by, you need to become one before the time runs out and your wavelengths stop being in accordance.
– You will do the test of the tests. However, I’m afraid to say that it will only become harder from here. We will transport your souls to the spirit World. There you will need to find your way, work together and be able to come back. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s imperial for you to reach plenitude and reach your full potential. Water and Soul need to become one.
After this being said, everyone went silent and, without warning, all seven maisters started mumbling in unison some kind of spell in a language which NoGender did not recognize.
Wind, water, fire and earth, the four elements appeared and started circulating NoGender and Ligeia. It started to get more condensed and closer to them until the moment where anyone from outside would only see a multi coloured ball in the center of the diagram.
NoGender didn’t know what he was feeling, he just knew that it was not good! When he though he would not be able to take it anymore and just throw up, everything went black.
The shroud of black that enfolded NoGender and Ligeia D. Mortem slowly began to disperse, revealing to NoGender that they were both still standing in the circle. It looked around confused, it seemed as though nothing had happened, until looking down it could see both of their unconscious bodies laid at their feet. Feet that were no longer quite touching the ground.
A hazy mist had separated the two of them from the maisters and NoGender couldn’t hear anything they said, even though it was pretty sure they were still speaking or chanting. Where are we? NoGender tried to ask the Necromancer, but rather then actually speaking it felt like its words were snatched away from its mind and blown away in a fierce wind.
Her head snapped around sharply and she glared at NoGender with her sharp green eyes. Her words too, came from somewhere other, Did you not pay attention in the one class that I teach! We are in the spirit world!
She pointed upward towards the ceiling, but as NoGender looked up he saw that the ceiling was no longer there and that instead it was replaced by a seemingly infinite expanse of great lights. They were not stars, they were too large, or perhaps to small for that.
Ligeia reached over and grabbed NoGender by the arm, which now appeared to be attached to a shoulder that was whole again, and began to pull on it as she moved upwards towards the lights. When they began to move, any sensation of being solid left NoGender and if it had still had a working stomach, any leftover breakfast would have left it.
Where are we going? What’s Happening? It asked.
Without stopping for an instant, Ligeia’s soundless answer traveled back to NoGender, to see what we must do to begin the trials. I would like to get home as soon as possible and I ask you to do your best to not get killed.
Ligeia heads towards the room’s exit, leaving NoGender behind to catch up. Once at the door, NoGender reaches out to grab the handle. A silent gasp escapes NoGender’s lips as its hand goes straight through the solid object.
NoGender hears a scoff coming from somewhere. It glances up to see a head shaking with disapproval, sticking out through the middle of the door. “Where’s rest of your body?” NoGender mumbles, voice echoing around the room and averting its gaze from Ligeia’s floating head.
Ligeia’s head just snickers, “You’re sure taking your sweet time. Keep this up and you’ll be dead within the hour.”
NoGender freezes at the mention of death, again. It shifts awkwardly from side to side as it tries to purge its mind of dark thoughts about its corpse being mangled, tangled, or anything else.
“You coming or not?” Ligeia prompts, gesturing with a swish of her head for NoGender to follow.
So, ignoring the strange tingling sensation now in its hand, NoGender pushes its entire body through the door.
“We have to go into the forest first,” Ligeia informs NoGender once NoGender’s through the door. “That’s where the first trial will be.”
“But I’m a water-bender!” NoGender interjects, its voice now resonating more in the open hallway.
Ligeia snorts, “Any idiot can bend when they’re surrounded by their own element. It takes actual talent for someone to complete their trials in different elemental places though.”
But before NoGender can argue the point further, Ligeia ushers NoGender towards an open window at the end of the hall. NoGender peers out over the sill and sees the forest that surrounds the west wing of the school, stretching out for miles.
“Here we go!” Ligeia calls, and dives out of the window.
“Wait!” NoGender cries. NoGender leans out over the sill, feeling its eyes widen and its forehead crease together with worry. NoGender searches for any signs of Ligeia.
“You’re not in your physical body right now!” Ligeia calls up at NoGender from the ground, seemingly unharmed. “So nothing from the physical world can hurt you here! I mean, of course your physical body can still be damaged… But don’t worry! The maisters will look after them for us!”
“That’s reassuring,” NoGender mutters darkly under its breath, before jumping off of the sill.
NoGender landed with a jarring impact. It cursed under it’s breath, “I thought you said nothing can hurt me Ligeia!”
Ligeia’s head smirked at it from above, “Well, what’s the point of a trial if you can’t feel the pain of your mistakes huh NoGender? Don’t worry, the injury won’t be there, you’ll only feel the pain. Now, stop dilly dallying and start walking already.”
‘Dilly-dallying?’, NoGender frowned and followed Ligeia’s bobbing head. ‘She’s enjoying this a little too much….’
After walking for what seemed like an hour, NoGender finally lost it’s patience, “Ligeia is this trial a test of patience or wha-”
It was interrupted by a shrill scream. “DEMON! GO AWAY!”
When NoGender looked around to see who it was, it came face to face with a pretty young girl on her knees, trembling with fear and trying to push away Ligeia’s floating head.
“H-Hey Ligeia! Get away from her!” NoGender pushed Ligeia’s head away and offered it’s hand to the young girl, “Don’t be scared, she’s not a demon.”
The girl, her eyes wide stared at it’s hand before grasping on tightly. A little too tightly.
“Y-You! You’re a water bender right? P-Please. Give me some water. I beg you! I’m going to die! Please!”, she began to sob and beg NoGender.
Surprised, it turned to look at Ligeia for some help.
“If she’s here, it’s for a reason NoGender. You should leave her.” Ligeia’s face was grim.
“NO! PLEASE! I’M SO THIRSTY!” The girl began to scream and fell to NoGender’s feet, “Please! I’m begging you! Water! Water. Please.”
NoGender noticed her hoarse throat and her slightly shriveled skin. It looked to Ligeia again. She shook her head (Or rather herself), “You shouldn’t. Leave her and come.”
The girl sobs grew more desperate and NoGender shuddered, “I- I have to. It would be unfair not to….”
Against Ligeia’s warnings NoGender concentrated on the ground beneath it’s feet. It took every bit of it’s effort and concentration but a rivulet of water broke the ground.
The girl gasped in joy and jumped towards it, gulping and drinking with deranged intensity.
Ligeia tsked, “Idiot.”
“Huh?”
A sharp pain came from NoGender’s side. It yelped and looked only to find the young girl gnawing at it’s skin. It’s blood ran down her chin and her eyes were bright with lust.
“More. More. MORE!”
“There’s a reason some people shouldn’t be helped. Take this as your first lesson.”
No Gender looked on in utter shock as the girl began to lick the blood as if this was her last life line. When something is taken away from someone for so long and then they are given but a brief taste of it, their response is always the same; they desire more. What No Gender was seeing wasn’t just lust or desperation. This was something more akin to a forced fed addict whose supply had been cut off only to be given the briefest taste of heaven.
No Gender forced the girl off of it and took a couple of steps back as horror masked its face. The girl was on all fours now, hair covering her face as she began crawling towards him, still chanting her mantra of “More, more, more”.
The horror of what it witnessed only stayed a while as No Gender began to understand what it had done as the words from earlier echoed in its head. It had been told countless times that the water created by a water bender is different to natural water that is part of the earth. As a water bender, No Gender had the ability to control all aspects of water in all its states but there was more to it than just that. The element created by any bender is infused with their personalities, making each water bender’s water different. In colour and in taste. No Gender knew this. It also knew that because of this, drinking water created by a bender, though not forbidden, was inadvisable. After all, the taste of the water can be anything. It can be sweet like honey, intoxicating like alcohol, or even lethal like poison.
That was not all. How did this girl, someone it had no recollections of ever meeting or seeing, know that it was a water bender? It hadn’t mentioned it and neither had Ligeia but somehow this child, this girl, knew. And yet, she displayed a thirst, an addiction, to a water she had only ever tasted once.
This was a girl it should never have helped.
NoGender stared, eyes wide and quivering, as this demonic creature—for could it truly be called human?—suddenly stopped and rolled upward like a corpse reanimated. The disturbing fluidity with which it reared called to mind something from a long forgotten nightmare. NoGender swallowed once, and the creature pinned an eye—once blue, now a hollow, iris-less black—on them from behind its tangled mass of auburn hair. It howled in unholy anguish, clawing at its own neck with nails suddenly grown so very long, and through the cacophonous sound still echoed remnants of a single discernible word: more, more more.
How could they have made this costly mistake after being warned so many times to stay away from reliance on their power to meet another’s mortal needs? How quickly had NoGender forgotten this most important of lessons in light of a sweet, young face in agony?
The creature’s claws drew blood as they dug deeper into its throat when, without warning, it launched itself at NoGender, flying forward with force enough to move the ground beneath it. It slammed into NoGender at breakneck pace, and the two went tumbling to the solid earth below. There was no time for acclamation as the creature bit deeply into NoGender’s neck and began to suckle greedily on their life’s blood. NoGender screamed, a long and painful echo through the twilight-dusted trees.
Through the haze of pain and their own howls of anguish—distinguishable from the burning of the creature’s now protruding teeth buried deeply into NoGender’s flesh—they could feel on their face an altogether different sensation.
Their burning cheek was wet.
This creature—the inhuman thing feasting obscenely on their blood—was crying.
And in their mind, NoGender heard an echo.
“Kill me. Kill me. Please.”
SCOTT – CHAPTER 2.7
With the creature sucking, it didn’t see a way out of this. NoGender’s strength was slowly leaving it as the creature was slowly digging further and further into it’s inner body mass. There seemed to be no way out of this for NoGender. It was still young and there were so many things NoGender wanted to achieve still. Death from a creature that was seeking its own death seemed ironic and inevitable at this point. It prepared a final prayer for itself in it’s seemingly final moments.
That was until NoGender felt heat out of nowhere. NoGender’s face was on the ground, so it had no way of knowing where it came from. Things got better, because the creature on NoGender’s back started shrieking in pain and then the creature’s weight was gone. There was nothing else consuming its flesh anymore. Maybe it will live after all.
With the removal of the weight from his back removed, there was a soft but firm grip that helped NoGender to it’s feet. Having expected its savior to be Liegia, because that’s the only person NoGender knew was in the spirit realm, it was surprised to see their speckled classmate Fernelle.
“Fernelle, what? How did you get here?”
“Well, um, that’s ah um, a complicated story. Something about me dying and slowly returning to the normal realm.” Fernelle shyly adjusted her glasses.
“Whatever the reason is, thank you. Thank you so much.” NoGender started crying.
Fernelle looked around not knowing what to do for a few seconds, but she decided that the best thing she could do was just put an arm around it and provide comfort. They both turned to the dying creature burning up on the ground. There was an odd beauty about the thing having a smile on its face while burning into ash. NoGender nodded knowing that this is what the creature wanted.
“Let’s get you back home.” Fernelle motioned toward a vague direction to their left. She felt something calling her back to the mortal realm in that direction.
“No yet.” NoGender had a determined face under it’s tears. “I still have to pass my trial.”
“You can’t handle this on your own. At least let me helped you.” Fernelle urged.
Unsure where to go, NoGender and Fernelle slowly walked to where it first met the creature. A few minutes later, Liegia ran up to them completely out of breath.
She looked at Fernelle with a confused look.
Karandi – Chapter 2.8
“Unexpected,” Liegia murmured more to herself than to NoGender, but it seemed as though she’d made a decision as she’d uttered the word. “Up ahead, take the path to the right,” she instructed and then promptly disappeared.
Looking around, Fernelle’s eye’s widened. “Could she always do that?”
“No idea.” NoGender peered at the trees ahead of them and wondered whether it would be wise to follow Liegia’s counsel this time given the disaster last time NoGender had ignored her advice. Still, there was something about her tone that had NoGender concerned. “Are you coming?”
Fernelle nodded and the two of them pressed forward. They soon found where the path split, with the left side winding into the trees and disappearing from sigh and the right side angling down and seemingly disappearing into a cavern.
“Would it be too much to ask that common-sense prevail and we don’t go traipsing about a cavern in the dark?” NoGender demanded of the sky. Naturally it didn’t respond and NoGender was almost disappointed by that.
“Come on,” Fernelle whispered but grabbed NoGender’s arm as she started moving forward.
“I don’t suppose you could give us a light down there?” NoGender asked.
“Sure. I certainly could do that. But, you know, things that live in caves tend to not really like it when you start illuminating their home.”
“Wouldn’t that only be true if this were in the physical world? I mean, I’m not exactly worried about running into a bear in there.”
Fernelle giggled. “Bear in there.”
The path was slippery so they didn’t talk again as they concentrated on reaching the cavern entrance without slipping and then they simply stopped and stared. The cavern mouth stretched open wide and was lined with vines that draped part way down. There was the sound of water trickling within and that was the first time NoGender felt even a little optimistic about entering the cavern. Inside there was water. And from the smell, probably a lot of it.
NoGender was about to suggest they enter when a sound rumbled from within the cavern and enveloped them. It shook NoGender to the core and NoGender felt its limbs turn to jelly. Then the sound came again and NoGender collapsed onto its knees.
I’m going to throw this over to Lita Kino(you have three days to accept this tag – let me know if you pass). Hopefully you can have some fun with it. Or at least figure out where it is supposed to be going, which is something I think I still failed to do.
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
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