Chapter 9: Huckleberry Vasca??

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I furiously yet narrowly rolled clear left as the beast shattered the tiles where my skull had rested a heartbeat earlier. Its hellish velocity kept me reeling off balance, hecticly scrambling to keep inches of distance. Flasks of brown rotten liquor smashed around us as we wrecked an ancient dilapidated tavern - the putrid smell sharpened my focus on not emulating it after my desiccated body was flensed of its fucking flesh.

No span for even my own haughty introspections before jagged fists slammed into my heaving abdomen. The impact, though glancing, had broken me like the many granite rocks strewn around the deserted necropolis. It bellowed loudly as I scrambled to my feet, spitting dark Vascan blood onto the black tile floor.

As I bitterly battled for air through splintered ribs and bloody organs, my sweaty fingers found purchase around the king's obsidian knife in my belt--The beast had planned on a savage bite to my crown. I braced for those gnashing jaws to descend upon my prone form. This is where I would meet my end. Hot breath seared my eyelids with wet drool.

 But as the creature irately loomed overhead, some insane impulse helmed my hands - I drove the long knife upward with all my rapidly fading might. My quick brutal thinking paid off as the blade wetly sunk into flesh, I felt the handle cut my hand from the force as I let go of the sharp black knife.

Hot crimson blood erupted, dousing me fully with sweet liquids of war. The piercing thunderous wails that followed told me I'd hit my mark through the left eye into some deep inner brain pocket. But still, the hopefully lobotomized beast thrashed mindlessly. I rushed away frantically as tapered claws rent stone, threatening to disembowel me. 

Its blind one eye conveyed deep sorrow and rage as it mangled the glistening mosaics of the past I had witnessed mere moments ago. The relics shattered into treasure tinkling cracks as heaps of castle crashed loudly all around. Now with one eye, the albino creature reminded me of my bulky father.

 He too shared that look on his face as he sat beseeched by Svetlan delegates....they had done the same to my father as this animal--I felt a tinge of remorse for never taking the time to really be a true son to him...I felt my dreads sway from my head shaking involuntarily--There was no time to pity anyone...I unclasped the second Vascan ceremonial knife. Though old and stolen, I had seen its better do damage.

Somehow I struggled upright, silently spewing my own crimson broth from my ruptured organs. Our crazed romp continued until my enemy grew lethargic, blinded by gore sheeting its mangled face, and tired from needing to echolocate me. I knew to press the onslaught - I leaped onto white bloodstained fur, seeking to finish it finally. But blood-slick fingers failed to find purchase and I slid off suddenly to the smooth tile floor.

Now we both could barely stand as vital fluid left us by the gallon. Our exhaustive clash had reached a torturous stalemate...what other slimey sadistic human tactics could I conceive to gain an edge before my rent corpse fed these ancient halls?

My bestial enemy was weakening from blood loss, but so was I - we were latched in a mutually savage dance with death. Through the red haze, I realized we fought not just meat versus flesh, but each other's rudimentary yearning to survive. I couldn't read the blank one-eyed watch of the animal but mine seethed more scalding with memories of simple combat with Aiko burned into my muscle memory. 

I flung aside any meddling sense of self instantly, seeking any advantage as we thrashed violently. When its fangs tore into my right shoulder, I embraced the blazing agony, using the leverage to rake its face relentlessly with a cool black knife blade.

Soon we were both just as slick, raw assemblies of mangled flesh nonetheless standing as debris slammed violently from above onto the hulking demi-human beast. I felt its ferocious tenacity waning along with its life force - some deeper instinct seemed to accept its own oblivion. My will roared louder as I smelled its weakness overtaking my own. 

As it whimperingly swiped with pain, I grabbed the dangling limb and drug the blade vertically down its white forearm jaggedly. An unearthly howl burst forth as I mounted its back anew. I felt the momentum of my body carry me with fluidity as I found the crook of its neck with my elbow. I guillotine choked the snarling beast as I drove Vascan dark ceremonial glass into its temple, the blade stuck soundly as the beast flung me to the floor. 

I had thought I reached the limits of this demon and my own...But looking up at its fucking ugly and irate face as it flung blood in my direction I knew the second wind was my only solace.

Sweat and blood mingled, searing my eyes as we painfully staggered through shattered obsidian columns. The ape snarls ripping from our ragged throats echoed louder than my heartbeat throbbing in my ears. All thoughts erased except the crude necessity to be the last one standing.

I flung myself onto matted fur turned crimson, seeking any edge as we thrashed. Foul breath blasted my face as its fangs shredded cloth and brown skin. Embracing the white-hot agony, I jammed rigid fingers deep into the wound left by its missing eye. Hot wetness burst over my hand as I slashed wildly, removing my hand moments before my blade's collision with its sturdy cranium.

Its deafening roars gained a ghastly wet gurgle as dark blood bubbled from the ruptured socket, torn ribbons of facial tissue clung to its shaking face. Still, I relentlessly gouged ruthlessly even as its black claws flayed ribbons of flesh from my face. Bloody pieces of me littered the sacred mural underfoot - the heavenly Vascan mage-king observing our frenzy with stone eyes unflinching in its broken pose.

At last, the fight drained from its mutilated form. With a wretched shriek, it crumpled, pulling me down and yanking my arm out of socket by the elbow. I straddled my broken chest, strands of saliva whipping from gritted teeth as I ruthlessly finished dismantling the last defenses--though they seemed to be the last grapples to anything as their essence broke free. Life ebbed under my trembling and blood-slick hands.

When the final death rattle split the ringing silence, I slumped atop matted fur turned cold - too spent to even crawl from that gory scene. The shadows claimed me, whether in death's embrace or mere oblivion, I did not know. I only prayed my will proved strong enough to choose when sunrise came.

Twilight ingested my psyche-- At first, I feared this void signaled my passage to my snouty Vascan ancestors. But warmth gradually returned to my destroyed body. The metallic tang of blood faded, replaced by a scent like a downpour onto dry yet soft desert flowers.

Tingling energy prickled my saturated skin. I churned weakly, sanities returning in fragments through the ebony haze asphyxiating me. Gurgling water resonated as my eyes peeled open. A deep underground sea undulated, familiar cavern walls vanished below the blue swirling surface stirring with teal radiance. I floated at its core, cleansed in impossible suspension.

Had we flooded these ancient catacombs by spilling an ocean of blood--What a silly fucking question from an idiot who should be dead.... But as I beheld the swelling underwater currents, symbols shone like constellations in no earthly night sky yet glowing with bioluminescence. The same glyphs adorning temple murals...and the creature's fur.

Joyous, feminine laughter rang through saltwater like a horn blast - rich with life yet not human. Tendrils of ever-clear glimmering liquid raised my limp body effortlessly higher till I gazed through the watery lens at an emerging presence taking form. Luminescent fig-colored eyes materialized first, brimming with playful wisdom spanning epochs yet so familiar to me. They punctured my tainted soul, to purposes beyond mortal reckoning.

Scintillating droplets agitated into sweeping robes nestling a strong hourglass frame. Full lips and soft features echoed the statues and paintings of Buriti legends past, yet untarnished by even a ripple of age. She shone brighter than diamonds in the flawless skin of youth but gravity itself seemed to bend around her fluid form as a vacuous bubble of lighter water formed around me. Each breath felt soothing as my mind forgot the sensation of air completely.

We stared for eons across the cold expanse separating godess from man - or so I knew this manifestation must be as I may just be witnessing the last flickers of my existence. Awe muted my watery voice. Had the presence of this deity been dormant beneath the searing white sands, awaiting reawakening? Who was this spirit of the water? Those searching amber eyes penetrated deeper than bone or marrow as she spoke in crashing waves...

"To each mortal a curse, and what Vascan men brought onto our plane--we yet to begin to show our hand...You have awoken my ire with so much hate in your eyes and soul...Like your predecessor, I cannot stop you from your own will. Take heed of my warning...you will drown this world." the radiant clear goddess cried as her form swelled into a tsunami, infinite liquid roaring from that blinding pinpoint. Impact obliterated bloody flesh, firing neurons, waining self - yet still somehow I retained screaming awareness in the churning of my biostasis.

I plunged as one with the deluge through endless lightless caverns, watery breath burst from my lungs in an infinite chain of drowning and resuscitation. The torrent defied gravity, rushing upward, inward, through - cell walls rupturing only to reseal as it absorbed every particle that constituted me, smashing me through stalagmite and raking me over stalactite.

Consciousness and pang melded as I rode the cyclone spun from our unholy cosmic union. I became the flood, surging through oceans of stone, wearing the mountain's face as my own only to cascade through unyielding granite in the next instant.

On and on until the contours of reality blurred into a single form - and I could no longer discern mud from clouds or granite from sky. All washed clean in endlessly renewable cycles beneath those eyes blinking through the surface...all except some indestructible shard that remained-- I Huckleberry Vasca.

Then silence rivaling the void before creation. Darkness once again...yet different. Pulsating. Quickening from dream state back to flesh. The raven waters receded, budding nerve endings, sinews, and bones in their wake. Raw throat stretched resurrected vocal cords as my screams pierced the silent Buriti night. I was sat with my knees to my chest at the edge of a sandy cave mouth.

I rasped weakly for an answer, but only stark silence filled that dead-forgotten chamber. The strange vision and its weight faded swiftly, leaving me with only searing pain in my left hand as evidence it was real. 

I stared at the tiny black glass shards embedded bloody in my brown skin. The glistening shards matched perfectly to the ceremonial Vascan blade I had carried, now nowhere to be found in this lonely cave. Dread clenched my stomach tighter than any beast's claws as the reality of the encounter pressed down. It can't be real.....

"Just a delusion," I muttered, struggling to my feet with a psychosomatic grimace. I groped along the cave walls toward the soft dim light, seeking fruitlessly to steady my reeling senses. The scent of brine and goddess still flooded my nostrils between gasped breaths. 

As I staggered into the cool Buriti night, I expected the swirling grandeur of luminous caves under reservoirs. only stark dunes surrounded me as logic and reason came back to my brain, the desert echoless and dusty as ever. No evidence remained below of vast aqueous caverns, divine or otherwise - only chalky particulate stinging my red eyes with the stale Buriti wind.

I squinted at the bright south stars and landforms, desperately getting my bearings. Nothing stood out at first, the adrenaline flood and throb of now-gone injuries overloading my mental capacity. When at last I spotted a passing plane headed to my left--A small section of undestroyed capital glowed with a slight ambiance blurred small on the horizon, I whimpered, sinking to my knees in the cold white sand. 

The broken capital lay a day's travel away by my guess. With approaching daylight and 110-degree heat, reaching its shelter would prove miracle enough compared to explaining my own stark fucking madness. How could I convince anyone - even myself in the harsh light of day - that I underwent divine judgment of an absentee water goddess? None would believe such feverish ranting...nor stories of ancient mage-kings with sea-splitting power.

Still, each blink of my raw eyes brought back swept images of her immutable amber-eyed essence overseeing epochs no living mind could conceive. I could not scrape them out fully, nor the ringing tone of her warning through the waters. Perhaps I couldn't even believe them into reality or memory. 

Not yet truly within myself honestly anyway. But as I began the long silent trek toward home, I knew already - despite desperate denial against hope flooding sense --I prayed Aiko had secured some sort of high percentage beer or spirits...I am quite literally going to die of withdrawals before any heat or wayward murderer finds me ass-out.

The last thing Buriti needs is an insane raving king swearing fealty to a water goddess in the epicenter of the hottest country on the planet....I stood nervously as I looked out over the purple-tinged dunes--I know so little about the country I call home, it may never allow me to rest again.