Shadow Slave: In The Eye of The Beholder(chap8)-Performer Puppeteer

The massive iron gates creaked open with a sound that echoed through the stone halls like a distant groan of something ancient and forgotten. Silas stepped inside, his eyes narrowing as they adjusted to the dim light. The air was colder here, carrying a faint scent of dust and metal. 

His footsteps echoed off the high vaulted ceilings, the sound of each step magnified in the oppressive silence. The walls lined with frames that were able to run rampart, the paintings covering the walls, as if an attempt to hide the dark stone that constructed the walls. 

golden light attracting his attention, quickly sparing a glance in front of him, the light being a thread that travelled down a spiral stairway, across the flooring, all the way to him. [Beholder of Strings] had caught the movement heading his way. 

He continued to stare at the thread, putting the leather pocket containing [Mad Cows Canine] gripping the handle, He then heard the pattern of footsteps heading down, a pair of sleek boots coming into view as they treaded down the stairs, a lean fitted pair of leggings shown themselves. 

The figure continued to walk down the stairs, more of the body being revealed between the gaps until Silas could finally see them. Dusty brown hair that seemed awfully rustled, scars and scratches spreading bellow their hairline. with pale green eyes, and monotone expression. 

in fact, the individual hadn't moved the eyes once, they just followed the path of the golden string, without any life, no extra movements, no style, no personality being shown in the way they walked. every movement dull and robot as possible. 

They finally touched the stone flooring, yet made no change, walking dead set to Silas. 

He readied his hand just in case, but didn't see the golden string before the man extend to him, and instead the string that had been fulfilled and faded away appeared again, the thread extended behind him and going up the exact same path he had walked. 

The man to Silas Suprise, raised his hand, and as if a puppet to a string, it moved awkwardly as he gestured Silas to follow. 

Silas hesitated, his hand still resting on the handle of [Mad Cow's Canine]. The figure before him moved with such mechanical precision that it was unsettling, as though it lacked any will of its own. Silas couldn't help but wonder, 'has the terror taken over him?'. 

The woman had acted like she was kind-hearted, yet such disregard for the life of the man in front of him just made him more cautious, but against the better judgement of himself, he decided to follow. 

Without a word, the puppet-like figure turned, leading Silas up the spiral staircase. Each step echoed in the silence, the only sound accompanying their ascent. As they climbed higher, the light grew dimmer, the air thicker, as if the weight of the castle's history pressed down on them.

At the top of the stairs, a large wooden door loomed, its surface carved with intricate patterns that seemed to shift and move in the flickering light

The guide ahead of his reached the door, grabbing its handles and pulling, the light of the room seemed to flow in the new entrance, flooding the dark room of the castle, the light made him quickly adjust his eyes, desperately trying to take in the information that lay ahead. 

 A long banquet table dominated the centre of the room. the myriads of expensive chairs without company, with only the end table having people. 

Sat at the largest chair at the end, was the most beautiful woman Silas had ever seen on, shining beige hair and a warm smile, deep orange eyes that bore into him, with a sense of deeper strength held within her figure.

Beside her was two people, one being his 'uncle'. The burly man that could barely fit in the chair seemed uninterested, yet still paid some effort to look his way, no shame or guilt from his acting ever showing, he simply didn't care. 

Anger emerged from Silas as he looked at the man, who showed him love that he had simply lacked in his life, someone who had used his grievance to fool him. He did not know what for, but by the dead gods he will find out.

To the opposite of his uncle was a dazzling man with sapphire hair, gentle features and annoyed expression, his regal body strewed on the chair, any respect was simply not there. Though like the terror, he also seemed to radiate a feeling, he seemed different to the mundane around him, his presence seeming ever deeper 

And behind the three, were a multitude of people, all standing in a line still as if they were frozen, blank as if they were merely objects instead of people. their conduct being the same as the guide, all robotic with no emotion, puppets of the same string. 

The room's silence was broken when the terror first spoke, her alluring voice echoing throughout the room.

"Welcome." She spoke before pausing, pursing her lip and looking into his eyes, the pupils expanding slightly as her smile bloomed once again. 

"Silas, ah that's your name, it's hard to find it out honestly, people never really knew it, well I guess that girl, without her I would have had to ask" her expression completely cheery despite the implications that she made.

Silas shivered, the fear he experienced back in the fields coming back to him, the invasive feeling of something digging into your head clawed at the back of his mind.

'I didn't even feel it, yet she went through my fucking head and saw that.' Silas internal thought slurring with malice, his mind drifting back, the faint image of a small girl, the brown hair obscuring her violet eyes as with a troubled expression she lifted a knife and drive it towards his head. 

.....

Silas expression was quickly being overtaken by anger, a desire to walk up to the girl, his sly uncle, and maybe the noble, and drive the [Mad Cows Canine] deep into through their neck. Of course his survival instincts prevented from such action, in this talk he held no power. 

His face deadpanned as a result, but fury still seen deep in his ashen eyes. 

The trio seemed to notice this change, the uncle gaining slightly more interest, the terror seeming unchanged and uncaring about it, while the noble just seemed more annoyed at the intense emotion he could see. 

The woman continued. 

"We have been waiting for you of course! so, take a seat, I'll tell you about us, since well you passed our usual charade" she gestured outward. 

Silas took the offer, sitting at the opposite side of the table, not losing eye contact with the terror while doing so. Curiosity overwhelming his anger as he thought of one thing he might as well ask.

"Why are you even telling me this, can't you just kill me and call it a day, you're a terror after all, it's all business yet you're not coming over here and eating my soul you disgusting monster." his attempted mutual question being disillusioned by the grinding of his teeth. 

She looked at him, her calm expression finally showing some change as her eyebrows raised the slightest inch, she looked towards him and then answered. 

"Well, I would at any case eviscerate your mind and kill you, letting the nightmare reset, allowing the process to reset, ready again for another soul to be pulled into the original body of the 'nephew'. To start again and again, a fresh slate in every instance."

She then leaned forward, her long locks falling down to the table, her eyes locked with Silas as she reached out her hands, her fingers morphing like liquid, into miniature figures as she began to puppet them, visualising her storytelling. 

"I would make the aspirant happy with my powers, have them experience the wonder of nature that is void in the wasteland that is earth, then have uncle come over and show them the warmth and unconditional love that is missing from so many families".

She danced two figures around piloting them to a house made out of her Pinky. 

"Have them visit a safe warm place, one that feels completely safe, a place where the aspirant can rest without the worry of a gate opening and destroying their neighbourhood, or an insane drug filled awakened barge into their house and slaughter their family, a place far away from catastrophe that is so present in your world, so they can finally sleep without dread."

Her wring finger morphing into a cow as it trotted inside the small house. 

"And to wrap it up, I corrupt one of the cows into a nightmare creature, luring it into the deep sleeping aspirants' room.

the house figure expanding as a small figure of a person sleeping on the bed is shown, the cow being walked to person, before the cow bites down on their head. a Visceral pop as the liquid that made up the person splatters on the table, before being drawn back into the terror. 

The hand figures being morphed back into her fingers, as she pointed back to uncle. 

"And start the cycle over again, of course he could just kill you, but to make sure the experience of slaughtering his 'nephew' over and over again doesn't break him, I just use the cow."

She then gestured to the blank mindless servants lined beside her. 

"Don't want him to become like the hollows, they used to have a mind but it simply broke over millennia of this process. Its already lonely as it is."

She then gripped the table, the well manufactured wood cracking and splintering in her grasp as she looked dead on at Silas.

"You might be wondering, wait I know that you're wondering, why would I keep doing this, until the repetitiveness drives me fucking insane once again!" She yelled, her composure breaking under, as the gentleness faded, replaced with rage that surpassed anything Silas had ever saw.

"It's the beholder of course, the wonderous deity decided that your world had too much suffering, and decided to alter this nightmare, restoring me from the eternal damnation of being corrupted beyond humanity, as well as others of the nightmare constructed by the spell."

She released her hands from the table, and began forming them, the small figures once being summoned again, yet instead they seemed unhappy, now with clear strings holding their forms afloat. 

"And puppeteer us in order to try and make the sad people of your world happy, of course to repeat the cycle, the beholder infected people who had little time to live with the spell". She quickly pointed to the bewildered Silas and continued. 

"Like you Silas, you were dying from multiple diseases and had few days left in your miserable life, so like the many others of your world, you were infected and brought here, to experience some happiness and then be killed, ending your suffering and repeating the cycle again as another aspirant takes your place."

Some amounts of sadness showed on her face as she revealed. 

"Yet you somehow woke up and killed the cow, an awakened monster at that! despite my desperate begging and pleading for the all-powerful beholder for something else in this fake manufactured life, it ignored it. 

But YOU, the fact you survived impressed it, and now after bloody centuries of the same crap, its decided that it might need to change, you might wonder why I don't just kill you and end it. It's because the Beholder has other plans. It wants to see if you, a dying soul, can offer something new."

She then got up from the chair, spreading her arms out to the uncaring emptiness of the hall, the uncle and the noble looking back towards Silas in expectation. 

She then exclaimed.

"So, then Silas, what do you think?"

In the Silence that dawned.

He answered.