Roses Have Thorns

{This chapter contains heavy imagery that may be unsettling to some readers. Thank you for reading.}

In the darkness loud sloshing and sounds of audible anger could be heard in someone's voice.

"Why the fuck did you jump into the hole?"

Belle who was soaked in a liquid of water like consistency looked at her newly made 'friend' with a vicious look in her eyes.

Karo immediately began profusely apologizing and meowing as a sign of submission. Seeing she was getting nowhere with this nutjob. Belle waded to the edge of what seemed to be a sewer channel and pulled herself up. She then reached her hand out which was adamantly grabbed by Karo

Belle's eyebrows twitch before pulling Chris who had remained silent all this time out of the water.

Belle chanted a few unintelligible words before her and Chris's clothes suddenly became dry. Karo looked at Belle as if waiting for her turn but it never came.

She then reached into her cat pack and pulled out a few pieces of scrap metal. The gear in her head began turning and she crafted a small makeshift fan.

The fan began to spin rapidly and caused a gust that was 10x the size of itself. Weirdly the fan spun without a power source. Well it was only weird to Chris who had stayed to watch her creation. He also began to throw reason out the window when Belle mumbled some gibberish and their clothes immediately became dry.

Chris gestured towards Karo and she followed suit. Belle who was some small ways ahead was angry with herself. If she hadn't gotten the random urge to enter that store she would have been fine. She then thought back to it. What made her want to go to that store? It didn't seem like Karo had any influence as she did not seem to expect someone to come in. However, she couldn't put anything past that wacko. She threw these thoughts to the back of her mind. She still remained suspicious of every coincidence that were to happen.

After an unknown period of time She reached a wall. This sewer tunnel was a straight line and there were no crossroads. She immediately didn't want to stick around but she decided to wait until Chris and Karo arrived.

Shortly after , Chris with Karo in tow came. Looking at Karo Belle saw that she was dry and looked down at Chris. He slowly pointed to the small fan sticking out of her backpack.

Shifting her gaze from the backpack Belle noticed that she was holding the strange device from before.

"Hey, what is that?" Karo didn't respond immediately but walked towards the wall. The device began to let out a small screech before being turned off.

Karo tuned serious and said. "I was right"

Belle thought back to Karo's statements about spirits and increased her level of alertness. Karo maintaining her seriousness looked towards Belle.

"There are spirits here. You are of the divination and shamanism realm of witchcraft. This pathway allows you to see spirits and make contracts with them." Belle's vision flashed back to what Neyman had written and noticed that the first part about 'seeing' wasn't there.

She didn't say anything as revealing her ignorance might cause unnecessary problems.

Her father once said

"Those who do not speak cannot attract the ire of others. The gift of words is squandered by many. Speak too much and you may appear arrogant speak too little and you may appear timid. However, silence is the art of speaking without words. All questions can be answered with silence."

Seeing her silence Karo then made way for Belle who immediately walked forward. She didn't know what to do but she knew she had to do it. She held out her hand and began to think of what spirits were and what they would look like. Her vision then began to warp and mesh into a mixture of bright and monochromatic colors as this happened she could see a certain denser area than others. She reached out towards it and the wall in front of them began to wobble and dissipate like it was never there. In from of them was now a path. The stone tile here seemed to be extremely new and didn't smell like the sewers.

"Good Job. That power you just used is related to shamanism but not exclusive all realms can eventually use that form of seeing what's not there. It's not listed in the basic abilities because it's usually discovered by newly advanced shamans immediately after they advance. In the old era shamans were always called to expel spirits and curses so this was common knowledge. It was a well known profession in the old era. Nowadays people just get visited by a member of the Church with holy water" Belle listened silently wondering if her cover was blown.

Sensing her reaction Karo continued.

"When you as old as me you can tell when someone's lying just by the twitch of their muscles. You lack experience. However, silence was the best option there. Pretending to know more than your enemy is a way to survive a battle." Belle took this information to heart it seemed important.

A shallow yawn was heard and they both turned around with a surprised face. Chris who had a bored look on his face looked towards them and began to walk forward.

They both caught up to him. Chris looked beside him and smiled. He didn't know what they were or what they were talking about but seeing all this supernatural stuff was cool; just not the boring information parts. He couldn't wait to see more if this amazing world.

Their footsteps slowly echoed on the tiles of the floor. Belle became increasingly anxious but she could not put her finger on it. Both Karo and Chris didn't seem to have it. She did doubt how much anything could faze Karo though.

The Corridor the walked down got smaller and smaller. It lead to a small wooden door. The door wasn't locked. Excited Chris enthusiastically opened the door.

The pristine white floors outside were immediately covered with his breakfast. Bodies. So many bodies. All of them broken bloodied bruised. Heads missing and the ones that weren't had terrifying faces on them. It was all women and young girls. He even saw the leg of a small toddler mixed in.

Belle was the next to empty her stomach. She was able to stomach the sight but not for long. Karo however just stood in the doorway and frowned.

"Hmm. A ritual? Cultists? Of which church?" Belle listened to what Karo said albeit with a bit of difficulty. She patted Chris's back and hoisted him away from the sight and smell before chanting something and putting him to sleep. She struggled and asked.

"Church? Don't you mean cult?" Karo looked at her and explained and letting out a chuckle.

"You think the major churches aren't cults?" She didn't explain further leaving Belle to contemplate her words.

Belle thought about the church and how it operated. They took in various donations from the King all the way down to the peasants. They all preached similar stories of their god and how they embody a specific part of the world or our life and how they are able to improve it.

The Church of Holios doctrine preaches about how Holios lights the way of the world and is the eternal sun that gives the world warmth and burns all evil doers in his light. And that His Excellency was always there and always will be. This seemed very normal to her. There was no deeper meaning to be interpreted from these words.

Belle was snapped away from her revel by the sounds of harsh cries . She walked into the gory scene.There was a passage way and further down were cages filled with young women. Their cries were terrifying. It was if satan was directing an orchestra. Their throats were covered in marks and some were even collapsed and healed badly leading their voices to sound raspy and hoarse.

Their bodies were cut and mauled. Some had missing limbs covered loosely by bandages. Injuries that festered and frothed with creamy white puss. Maggots and black worms whirred and stirred in their wounds eating their flesh. Some would wince in pain while others wouldn't even react showing they had gotten used to the sensation. The cages smelt of urine and excrement which helped to masked the scent of the organisms respiration.

Belle looked at them in despair. She knew that helping them right now would be pointless and they'd just end up right back where they were or even more plagued with injury.

Just seeing how desperately the cried for her and Karo to help made her feel sad. Belle then heard a familiar voice call out to her.

"Marci HELP!" Belle's head swiveled right.

She saw Mable inside of the cage crying. Her legs were bruised and her left eye was swollen. Belle walked towards the cage and another voice rang out.

"Free her and you have to free all of them" Belle then looked around at the hundreds of eyes in cages anticipating her opening of the girl's cage and setting her free. Their eyes like animals backed into a corner. They were more frightening than the sight of the bodies. Belle leaned in.

"Wait here, I'll be back" Belle immediately ran back and picked up Chris from the entrance. Chris who had just began to wake up looked towards his sister and a rage unlike any other welled up inside of him. The bodies and injured women around him didn't even seem to be in his vision anymore. Belle immediately tried to calm him down which worked to an extent.

"Chris stay here with your sister and keep her company. If anyone comes go inside the cage with her and be as quiet as possible. Also Don't let anyone out." Chris slowly nodded before sitting in front of the cage with a stern face. He threw up in his mouth but quickly swallowed the acid back as a demonstration of his will power.

Seeing his seriousness Belle ran to catch up with Karo.