The bathroom slled god-awful. It was impossible to completely block the connection to the septic ditch, given the more than obsolete fittings. And since they'd closed the door and left a small power crystal to provide so illumination, Tristessa had no choice but to breathe through her mouth and do her best to ignore the fetid atmosphere.
Naked and shivering, she sat on a large wooden tub, her legs braced against her chest, hugging them to keep so warmth. She understood that Tiara had forced her into the freezing water to "cool down" her hysteria.
After all, she'd made quite a scene in the atrium.
“But I didn't do it on purpose... I ca back from Death, again.”
Thinking of that phrase, Tristessa looked down to see her Baptism in Ruins, beating under her skin like a second heart made of black ice.
“Every ti I die, will I return to that mont in the atrium? Am I trapped in an endless loop? And this mark... The [Baptism in Ruins] keeps getting bigger...” Thinking about that, a terrifying thought popped into her head. “Do I have a limit? What if this mark is the way to show that the ti will co when I can't return?”
Truly, thinking about dying and returning was sothing she would never get used to. The pain of Death was sothing no human being should experience, and yet, this was the third ti for her.
Luckily, Severus made sure it was done quickly…
“Severus… He doesn't know now. He doesn't know who I am…” That woeful, tearing feeling of solitude broke both her heart and soul alike in an instant. She couldn’t avoid the tears from falling, thinking of that blood elf, him sleeping in her lap, his smile full of confidence, the warmth of his hug, his kindness and selflessness in helping her... All lost forever. “F-fuck…Fuck! My god, it hurts so fucking much…”
Her heart could not tolerate such a twist of fate. Nothing would ever be the sa, not even if she t him again under so other circumstance.
What assured her that she would find Severus again in the Sea of Trees, right on ti to save her from those vargs seconds away from devouring her and Jin?
What assured her that all the events of the world, even the flapping of the wings of a bird crossing the Dominion from end to end, would not result in unpredictable changes in the future?
Vel’Moran, the God of Chaos, was the architect of such phenona. Cold, heartless and apathetic… The god who watched over her through his servants, Endrel and Margules.
Over her every Death, her every Rebirth, her every Resurrection.
The past was erased from everyone, but herself. She was cursed to rember every lost relationship, every happy mont fading into nothingness, every tragedy and calamity, a warning of every imminent disaster…
“Severus… If he cos here, he'll arrive the day of the Coven's attack! He will…die…”
And not only that: everyone in that house had a noose around their necks at that mont. It was only a matter of ti before their executioners arrived to trigger the gallows: the witches had said so, whispering among themselves, admitting that the attack had been planned on the day of the dinsional shift event… Or, Tristessa recognized, also known as the Evil Dream.
“They said a certain Lord had predicted it… A Book of Sin, a book of forbidden knowledge. [An inescapable future],” she thought, chewing on frustration with every second she spent pondering what action to take. “The attack is going to happen; the rcer-Archeos family have to know. But how? How can I tell them that I returned from Death and watched them all die at the hands of the Coven?”
Tiara and Lucahn had seen a girl who had lost her temper, not soone who had returned from the future with information critical to their survival. She had a lot to explain to them, and she had to explain it with care and intelligence if she didn't want to screw up and complicate the situation even more.
And ti ticked on, unstoppable for her or anyone else. From that mont on, Tristessa had six days to do sothing that would help reverse the dire fate that awaited them.
Six days to save Jin, Lucahn, Severus... And that woman who had just entered the bathroom.
“Mrs. Tiara... Eeek!” Tristessa looked over her shoulder and looked down right away, her face burning as she caught a fleeting glimpse of the naked housekeeper.
“What a silly reaction. You have nothing to be ashad of when you see a naked woman.” The girl listened to Tiara placing towels and utensils on the small table, and then the sound of water splashing before feeling the cold touch of the woman's fingers against her hair. “I'll help you clean up.”
"W-what?! There’s no need!" she said quickly, letting out a shriek.
“I say it is necessary, and if I say so, then there’s nothing you can do to avoid it. So shut your mouth and let clean your hair. And calm down, will you?”
“I'm sorry... I'll try,” Tristessa whispered, though there was no way she could manage it.
She was abnormally nervous, feeling Tiara's fingers caressing her dirty, greasy, black waterfall of hair and rubbing the skin on her shivering back. Then the woman moved on to cleaning her back with a wet towel, causing the emotions surrounding her heart to increase at a critical level. There was sothing about that action that didn't leave her calm, and left a painful emptiness in her chest.
As if the re touch was slowly killing her.
“I don't feel well... What's wrong with ? Why...?” she thought, her soul suffocating with a new kind of fear hidden in the darkness, with no intention of showing itself but taking the air from her lungs and covering her eyes with fresh tears. “What is this fear…?”
“Tell , what was that you said about the Coven?” Tiara asked her after finishing cleaning her back and breaking all physical contact. The terror that gripped her soul eased, and Tristessa breathed more calmly, even daring to spy out of the corner of her eye and see the woman beginning to clean herself. “It's not sothing you can just say out loud without any repercussion. Explain yourself.”
It was the mont of truth. Or at least a truth sustained by a narrative she had to fabricate at that very mont. If only she'd had a little more ti… But no one did, not with Death looming over all.
“I was…kidnapped by the Coven. And I escaped from the refuge they have in the woods. I don't rember how it happened… I don't rember anything about my life, before I woke up in that camp full of crazy won.” Lies, more and more lies, but told with enough confidence to appear real, with a grain of truth mixed into the story. Truth about the horror she'd witnessed in the invaded house. “There were people being skinned, c-children being…being…”
She thought of Lucahn, and that sa bathroom she was sitting in now. Of Tiara and her unborn child. That diabolical image of that hooded witch, destroying and desecrating their bodies… The ghosts of the past threatened to return, to haunt her, forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut.
“I-I can’t…” she muttered, tornted and earning Tiara’s sympathy.
“You can leave that out. But go on, tell more about what you heard, about your escape.”
“I-I only rember a witch talking about so Lord…Lord Moebius, I think. And a Book of Sin.” As she said those key words, she heard the pregnant woman gasp. A positive sign for her story, perhaps. “She said the book spoke of an inevitable future. About the Evil Dream, and that on the day of that event, they would attack this house. In six days. Yes, in six days, all of them will co to…to shed the tears of the innocent.”
The witch's song, echoing inside the bathroom in the nonexistent past, echoed inside Tristessa's head, creating a crack in the already fragile stability of her mind.
Fear filled her, the truth now more important than the narrative, and that was what scared her most: that what she said in the end was true, and it was now up to Tiara to believe her or not. It depended on that woman, who was maintaining a ditative and disturbing silence, second by second.
“I see...” she said, finally. “You brought very bad news to this house, girl. But I thank you, for giving us the opportunity to prepare for the day to co.”
Tristessa felt insects scratching her throat, and a suffocating heat, upon hearing such a response.
“Prepare?! Are you crazy?!” she asked, almost shouting, intending to turn around to see if Tiara had truly lost her mind. “Didn't you hear when I told you they're coming to kill you all?! You must run for your lives…!”
Just as she turned her head, an arm crossed in front of her neck and pulled her back. Tristessa was thrown from the tub, and another hand locked her left arm behind her back. Then her attacker's legs encircled her waist, completely immobilizing her.
“Careful with my baby, you little bitch,” she heard Tiara hiss against her ear, sending chilling tickles as her windpipe was completely blocked, impeding the flow of oxygen.
“Ugh! Ah…! T-T…Tia…!”
“Don't fight it. Let it happen. It will be worse for you if you resist.”
Desperation and adrenaline erupted in the girl's body, as she correctly sensed the danger she was in. She struggled to free herself, twisting as much as she could and straining with her arms.
But Tiara held her in a martial arts lock and Tristessa's strength drained at a quick pace. Her head and lungs scread for air, and, unable to et the demand, she began to lose consciousness.
“Do you know what they teach us in military service, girl? To distrust mysterious benefactors like you. They usually turn out to be con-artists, or worse, spies...” Tiara told her, as cold as expected of her. “We'll talk again. Now, sleep.”
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