In Pursuit of Kronos' Scythe (Completed)

IV - The Temple Like No Others - Part II

Piotr Mikolaj

Fingers crossed, the black-haired girl placed her hands under her chin, looking pleased.

"Alright, here we go! I come to this world in fifty segments, but none can give me any proper names. I can crawl but I can't skip. I can make you squall but I will make a shoemaker's heart chirp. I have armor but it's not shiny since it's all spiny. What am I?"

Piotr rubbed his chin. "What-- What's that? Can you repeat it?"

While the girl didn't respond to Piotr's request, he panicked. His heart pulsated with uneven rhythms and his palms became sweaty due to the poison. His head spun and his ears rang. How could he think properly when he was about to die? Black spots danced in his eyes, mocking him. 

The numbers in his stopwatch seemed to fast-forward.

What in the world has fifty segments? Is it an animal? Is it a long fish? But she said it will make people scream. Fish is cute unless it's a shark. But the shark is not a fish. What creature can make a shoemaker happy? A shoemaker will be elated only when he has lots of business. That would mean that the creature has lots of feet. His stopwatch seemed to have put on a pair of spiky boots. The echo of stomping sounded like a bomb that was about to explode.

Time was running out, so he hazarded a guess. "Erm, a spider?"

"Silly boy." Tharalea reprimanded him. She tried to look cool but ended up coughing. Black blood grimed her teeth as she said, "A spider has only eight legs. It is... It is a centipede."

Their host clapped her hands. Piotr wondered whether she was glad to hear the answer or to see how they had been tortured by the poison. Her mood changed so abruptly as if she was in a drama practice class. One minute she freaked them out with her tranquilizing eyes. Then, she transformed into an impish child. Giggling, she took her own sweet time to ask, "Supposed a centipede has a hundred legs, why would it appear to lose one when it turns a corner?" 

Though he felt dizzy, Piotr didn't want to be looked down by Tharalea. His ears rung again and now he could even hear his heart hammering in his throat. Pinching his nose, he stuttered, "It must be... Erm... It's using one of its legs to make a turning gesture."

The girl grinned wider. "Help should always be offered to smart mortals. Follow me."

She led them to a ceramic pot, filled with seemingly nothing but soil. 

Piotr and Tharalea stumbled over the deck of stairs as their wobbly legs hitched. Piotr could even hear his joints complain, something like "hassling a goat to carry the body of a dead cow". Piotr couldn't blame his own joints. Dead people, or dying people, did seem heavier than when they were alive. His old pessimistic self made him almost want to give up on living. The young girl, their host, was probably just toying with them. Perhaps she was a monster, waiting for her time to attack them when they were at their weakest state. Why waste time? She could have them now. They wouldn't even have the strength to lift their hands to fight.

He didn't even want to know what was inside the pot. His heartbeat was gradually giving up. He could even see the little hands of his heart raising a white flag to surrender; but when the girl brought two squirmy creatures out of the soil, the sparkling mist surrounding them filled him with sudden hope. Tharalea almost passed out when she saw the golden centipedes. Why do girls always faint at the sight of crawlies? Piotr thought they looked fantastic.

Their host bent down and scooped two centipedes up. "We call them Golden Icorapedas. They help to remove any toxin substance in your body. Put them on your skin."

Piotr took the Golden Icorapedas without hesitation. His heart was beating in much slower rhythms, and his fingers were trembling harder. He would die any second if he hesitated, so with his eyes squeezed tight, he placed the centipede on his arm. Once the creature crawled on his skin, he felt instant cold spread along his veins. It wasn't that kind of icy cold that would gnaw into bones. It was a mint-like cold that relieved all his soreness. He studied the creature as it moved its little sucker; its body turning darker every time it inhaled in the toxin. He shoved the guilt down into the pit of his stomach as he saw the magnificent creature lose its charm.