Finding Contentus

Chapter 129: Chained

Countless deaths coursed through the Reigning Reaper in the form of suffocating mists, like sharp needles to the skull that phased into his membrane of remembrance. He did not weep. He reaped what he sowed, creating despair and destroying dreams. The grim skeletal hands of each cull killed him, piece by piece without killing him as a whole.

I kill and am killed, over and over. Those I kill rest while I cannot rest. Such is the disease of a killer. Must there still be so much noise to render noiseless? Hadi. Ramsis pleaded for the souls to be soundless. Curse me. And he pleaded for the souls to be sonorous.

The insistent chatter was static, abhorrent in it's pestilence, like chalks scratching on boards and plates shattering on marble floors. It was the pitiful sound of animals whimpering after being choked to death by the chains of his own craft. It was of howling hounds in foaming fogs.

Non-ending fields of reeds stretched beyond the plains of forwarding light itself. Deceased souls sailed over the black rivers of the underworld in fleets. Anubis was there. The jackal headed God conducted, judged and scaled them, before they were allowed to join the hectares of harmony.

The physical insensitivity flayed his body alive. The mental sensitivity shredded his mind like expired cheese. Food poisoning infiltrated his sick stomach. The bacterial infection stemmed from the passing corpses. Woe entrenched itself in sorrow. Except the use. What use was there? Depravity was more useful to a mass murderer like himself. Imperfection perfused his rake of a raw-boned heart.

Kamilah. Ammon. Asim. Asenath. He read their names that were embedded in his soul. Mother. Release me from this abyss. Whatever you may or may not be plotting I want no part in it. You understand more than any other. Life takes away all our precious wants and desires. I embody what you told me yourself, firsthand. So let this living body of mine succumb to the damned I have exterminated. I saw it, written in the sky by the Impundulus that forked it out for my prying eyes. Did my hopeful gaze deceive me as it has for all these years? Am I going blind? I was certain that Ishthrylla would be my liberator. A green glare. It should have been her. Now she's gone from my grasp. And Renero. When will you finally agree to free my enslaved soul?

"I can hear your thoughts without even hearing them. They're like pestering flies on the ears. Stop whining. Are you a slave being whipped?" A condescending voice berated him.

Wounded air left Ramsis's mouth like the rotating wind that made the yellow leaves swirl and spiral. The dark forest sighed as Ramsis did in resignation. The daylight of dawn dripped down the pores of the fractured canopy.

The leaves were blown in his direction, landing in his thick dreadlocks. He picked one out, considering the underwatered or overwatered extremes that made the leaf dry and yellow instead of fresh and green.

His eyes, a mixture of green and brown, looked into the leaf closely, as though he observed it under a magnifying glass. Yellow. That colour funneled into the moisture of his bloodstream, making it orange.

"Let me guess, you dreamed of your niece, didn't you?" Ramsis asked in his brooding voice without looking up at the scarred, shirtless Renero who placed his spear down casually.

His lion cape flapped about him. So obnoxious. Ramsis thought. Warriors. Always demanding attention, always showing off their muscles at every chance they get. At least Musa was humble during his wrestling matches.

"I felt your Impulse dream. What was different about it from all the others? It was as though I sensed—"

"A part of yourself. Or rather, parts of yourself." Renero finished, taking a stroll down the lanes of his memories. His dangle earrings glimmered like hanging blocks of gold.