"Opacus Crucio" by Amy ´Insom´ Downum

                                            Opacus Crucio

   Time, they say, is a wheel in constant motion. When you look skyward, you see the evidence of celestial passage. Sunrises, brilliant though they may be, fade always into the passionate glory of sunfall, and then into the black death of night. Joyous spring bursts into the full bloom of summer, then decays into fall, and dies in winter’s harsh, tyrannical rule. All things start out as life, some brittle, others bold. But all must slip away.

   Lying as I did, I could not see the steady glide of time. Though dawn and dusk above me blossomed and died, I could not count them, so I had no inkling as to how long I lay. Years, perhaps. Or mere minutes. Such sluggish minutes, and so boring, for I had only the suffocating damp and deafening silence for company and distraction.

   Memories plagued me. Memories of my life, or lack thereof. I had once been alive, and it was that brief, innocent time that haunted me most. How my destiny had changed, from the young poet I sought to be before my pilgrimage to the mountain village of Mortanegra, to the wasted twist of sinew and insane consciousness I was at present. How it had happened I was free to brood over: my own mistakes were many, by far the largest my sojourn in Mortanegra, the candle I let burn too low, the tear I had let fall…

   Ah, but that was past. Yet a past I would give anything to change. Had I not fallen into the Opacus Crucio, the Shadow of Torment, I would not be here this eve. For after an eternity of weightless nothing, I hit ground and shattered into oblivion before awareness returned and I was whole once more. I had looked then, to find myself in the possession of my own people, carted away to a vast reservoir of souls, bred and harvested for the town’s chief celebration: le Carnival de Morta.

   It was here I lay, stiff and numb upon the filth ridden stone floor of the chamber in which time did not exist. Long ago I had grown accustomed to the muted wails and cries from cells flanking mine. I envied them, those who had only vague and naïve understanding of what was to befall them when summer’s glory faded to Fall equinox. I alone knew what was to ensue, that which would end my captivity in this blank stone hollow in a violent surge of blood and malevolent cheering.

   As I waited my doom, I became aware of a sound. A small sound, it was like the drag of harsh scales against the mossy stone floor. I turned my eyes upon it, staring vacantly into the abyss of darkness beyond. Lights appeared, and their brilliance dazzled me. I sat erect in wonder.

   Two figures, both swathed in thick cloaks of crocodilian skin that scraped the floor, hunched laboriously towards me. I watched them as fear effervesced in my breast whilst they removed a frail young woman from her stall abreast mine and enclosed her wrists in iron rings laden with spikes. An elderly man was next, then a timid child no older than five winters. Then came the grate of rusted iron upon iron. Flickering candle light burned my eyes, made me squint and blink. I stood still like a frightened doe, still as mountain stone, as an instinct beaten down inside of me from my fall to mortality reared its head like a serpent poised to strike.

   I backed away, groping the far wall for any means of defense. Nothing but solid, smooth stone met my searching fingertips. “List!” I croaked. It had been many a year when my voice had not been abused by screaming. The two figures seemed not to harken me. I fumbled forward in my attempt to sway them. “Please, spare me, I pray of thee.” They fastened stiff, gnarled fingers as cold as rime about my wrists. I flung backwards, resisting and begging. “I am your kith and kin!” I cried. “The Carnival is not meant for my blood, surely you realize this!”

   The broader hooded one spoke in a hoarse growl like the churn of gravel beneath a wooden wheel. “No mortal is our kin.”

   Realization stung me like the many steel tipped fingers of a flail. I was indeed a mortal, though it was not by my own doing. I had drank of the Goblinsup at last Carnival, which by means of trickery or deceit had found me dozing upon the couch of the very manor in which I sought asylum in during every Carnival previous. But I had found myself awakening in the past, in which I was no longer an immortal specter, but a mortal being of flesh and blood as I had been before. Since my fall, I had not changed.

   My howls of wrongdoing went silently upon the ears of my guards. My wrists too were captured in links of chain, as were my ankles. In a grave procession of he Damned, I followed the pair of shuffling feet in front of me up a flight of warped stone stairs and into a corridor as wide as a church steeple was tall. The line halted, and then, one by one, we were shoved beyond the door into a blaze of festering sun light. The elderly man in front of me cringed and trembled, shielding his pallid eyes with one knobby hand. I bowed my head and followed where I was bidden.

   Half formed ideas flashed wildly before my mind’s eye. Escape! my brain screamed. But how…? the piteous wail inside my skull countered. As you did before, by means of sacrifice. I shuddered as my skin tautened across the three circular scars wrought upon my flesh by sacrificial spikes. That was a route I was not willing to take.

   Presently the shadows lengthened, cast from towering and gnarled birch and sycamores. The sun was throttled by night and drowned in the depths of indigo sky. Our march to death did not slacken.

   My stage coach of thought had not traveled as far as had I upon my own two feet. The cloistered hall of birch and sycamore above thickened to a landscape of oak and thorn brush that I recognized. The terrain sloped steeply downward. My hopes plummeted just as fast. I could not escape. I was to suffer and die as a victim of my own people’s foul celebration. What I had once scorned would be my own undoing.

   My feet set upon cobbled stone lit only by waning moonlight from above. My ears throbbed with a tumult of jeers and thrumming cries for blood. All around me they came, disgorging from rotten and decaying households, from the sewers and graveyards and tombs, from stagnant swamps and Hell gateways just outside my vision.

   Festoons of thorns adorned the hanging street lamps. Fire blossomed in the sky above, manifesting its self in the forms of dragons and skulls, anything to appease the crowd swaying in the town square. We turned a bend in the street and came upon this crowd of specters. Skeletons halted their conga line to pelt us with sharp slivers of bone and bits of decaying flesh. An undead woman nearest me groped with talon fingernails and gouged deep wounds in my shoulder.

   I tripped, stumbled, and struggled for balance that my hobbled ankles would not yield. Ahead, I beheld with dismay our ultimate fate. Three contraptions loomed down upon us from the stage constructed of bone and wood. Panic welled in my heart, forcing my breathing to swift, shallow pants. Then I spotted the goblins, those who weaved their way through the throng, dispensing bottles of sup. Hope sprung eternal, but futile as my line was forced through the screaming crowd and towards the stage.

   Once again I begged, and once again I was ignored. My wrists were unshackled and tied tight to a length of wood above my head. My ankles, too, followed in this fashion. My body was stripped bare of what meager clothes I wore, and I writhed in the moonlight nude for all to see. Again panic boiled my blood as a line of gaunt, ghoulish and hooded things proceeded to face me on the stage. Clutched in each hand was a long shaft of wood tipped with not one head as in conventional spears, but a row of five barbed heads. On the foremost tip I saw, glinting in the dim light of moon and torch, neurotoxin.
   A horn bellowed in my ear. The first thing stepped forward and my blinded by a thick strip of flesh. The horn bayed again. The thing let fly its spear, and in a trice agony devoured my thigh like the teeth of ravenous werewolves. I felt the warm stream of blood trickle down my leg.

   Another spear pierced me, and another, both striking my stomach. Blood pooled in the back of my throat. Pain stripped the life from my consciousness. The fourth spear was thrown, but no pain heralded the dull thud of its mark. I glanced down, eyes glazed, and saw that the lance had struck between my feet, slicing cleanly through the ropes that bound them. Again, hope invaded my veins.

   I writhed once more, kicking my legs wildly to deflect further attacks. The crowd hooted with vicious laughter at my attempts to flee. Seven frantic heartbeats later, Fate tweaked my chance and luck for the better. An errant spear glanced astray from its intended destination and cut my wrist bonds. I fell to the stage and landed hard on my knees.

   With the sudden rush of unexpected clarity I was granted, I saw my salvation. The Goblinsup. It was that intoxicating drink that had addled me so, causing destiny to twist as horribly as it had.

   From deep within I called upon the same strength and agility that had served me well in the past. I flew towards the line of spear hurlers and slipped between their fumbling grasp. The crowd roared approval of the new game I had presented.

   I caught sight of a goblin I vowed I would not loose. Already the toxin was taking effect. I stumbled into the throbbing mass of stinking bodies, retching. My lungs felt tight, my muscles out of my control. I would not allow myself to loose…not now.

   Frantically I swung out to grasp the goblin by the elbow, and was rewarded with a painful clench of pointed teeth on my hand. Hissing, I scrabbled for one of his bottles of sup, and felt my bleeding fingers close tight on one skinny neck. Then it was gone. A tormented howl tore loose from my throat as I watched the goblin dance off into the surge of bodies.

   Despair clutched iron fingers around my throat. I was bumped and jostled, flung in a wheeling circle through the spectators joying in the brutality of the Carnival de Morta. Another glimpse of a goblin I caught. And I dove upon him, snarling and tearing at him like a wolf. He sank his teeth into my shoulder, but through my haze of pain one thought remained true: get the bottle. I succeeded, and fair sobbed with relief to feel the smooth glass of the bottle’s torso beneath my palm and fingers.

   I spun and bolted, staggering, through the crowd. Dancers tripped me, shoved me, knocked my course awry. But I cared little. I bashed the bottle’s head against the cobble stones beneath me, and, kneeling, tipped it to my lips. Cool, bitter liquor flowed into my mouth, and then was expelled in a burst of air as the waving arms of a mutilated corpse threw me to my stomach.

   The bottle shattered at my knees; Goblinsup coursed away into the cracks of the square, seeping into the cobblestones like wine into bread. Wailing, I pressed my lips to the stone and slurped hysterically, trying to save my only hope from extinction. To no avail.

   The crowd pressed me back and to my feet, urging me none too gently back towards the stage. I cried out in alarm, then in elation as another goblin appeared. I lunged, and knocked his cargo from his arms. Bottles rolled through the forest of legs and feet, glimmering in the ashen light. I scrambled on hands and knees in pursuit, clawing at any who stood in my way. At last I caught hold of two more bottles. One was smashed by the same goblin I had pilfered them from, the other I clutched to my breast as I careened desperately to relative safety. Standing beneath a light post carved to resemble Father Time, I drank without the arrest of the dancers.

   All at once I felt my senses dull beyond the sensation of the toxin. Ice spread to my fingers and toes, numbing me to pain. My eyes slipped closed in triumph as reality blurred into surrealism, and I was lost in time once more…

   I awoke yet again in the ancient estate upon the hill. Lying dazed upon my back, I became aware of a soft ticking above me. I shifted, and my eyes lay to rest upon a grandfather clock of ornate design. The hour showed one before the hour of midnight.

   Memories invaded my thoughts. I had been here before when the house was in this grand a state. Then I had awoken in this very room…but at what time? I fought to recall. But before my thought had a chance to solidify into reason, a great booming chime rang from the grandfather clock. My eyes jerked to the gleaming brass hands. The hour read midnight. There came three more chimes before my brain ground back into action.

   I had until the twelfth stroke to depart this house. Another chime, the fourth, rang in my ears. I fled the room in a flurry of frenzied footfalls. Down the hall and to the left I sprinted, and flung myself to the top of the stairs just as the fifth chime fluted. I could hear a woman’s high, false laughter.

   Then a sight caught me, hit me like a javelin in the chest. Fear absconded with my breath. A figure crouched in the slanted shadows of the balcony railing. I stared in absolute shock into my own eyes. In my haste I had forgotten…I was here, not in one form, but in two: past and present, and to my past self I was the future form. My brain reeled.

   The sixth note fell. Half my time had gone, and yet still I stood. My past self stared back, mouth agape, then with a strangled cry, leapt upon me shrieking, “Demon!”

   I staggered and collapsed under a barrage of fists, flinging my own wildly in self defense. Our momentum shifted and we tumbled down the stairs, landing sharply entangled just as the seventh chime struck. That hollow note pulled me back to my senses.

   Fool! I besieged myself. Leave yourself behind and run! Obeying my inner command, I flung my past self from my back and bolted. I made it four paces before realization hit. I could not leave my self behind! By doing so I would unravel the thread of my very life, undo everything I had just gone through only to go through it once more in the past future! To undo it permanently, I had to get both of my selves out of this house before the stroke of twelve.

   Sweat began to bead on my brow. Fate, I thought bitterly as I turned to face my self, thank you kindly for the simple things in life. I pleaded hastily with myself to follow, to quit this house with me. But I was rank with fear and suspicion, and did not listen to myself.

   Recklessly, I lunged forward and wrapped my fingers around my wrist, hauling backwards with all my might. “Now!” I panted as the eighth note faded into the ninth. The door to safety was not but a few paces away. If only I would cooperate. But I would not, such was my curse.

   The twelfth stroke came in a shudder of cold and emptiness. I felt the blood drain from my face and my grip slacken. I let go of myself, desperation filling me like darkness in a void. It was too late…

   Though I had been through it before, I was not prepared for a second encounter with He of the Shadows. Rank, oily shadows slipped beneath the door and windows, slithering in announced by only the dying of all light within. Candles flickered and vanished, stars were blotted out. The sound of the celebration below in the village muted.

   A howling wind brewed, whipping my vision beyond recognition. I tried frantically to spot myself amidst the whirl of colours and shapes. My eyes came upon a human form cowering at the foot of the stairs.

   Acting only on primal instinct, I dove, and wrapped the other tight against me. I had learned long ago to trust my instincts, and to this day I do not regret one decision made in their influence.

   As soon as my skin came into contact with the skin of my past self, we began to dissolve. We could no longer see, hear, or feel. The blinding spin of death and destruction around us was gone. I felt only serenity as I knew at last my perseverance had been rewarded. We spun into nothingness…

   I landed with force enough to knock the breath from my lungs. Gasping, I stood on shaking legs. Pure, unadulterated relief inundated my veins as I sent a spinning glance around the room. My room. I flew to the window and threw open the glass, thrusting my head into a world I had come to know through my undead residency.

   Mortanegra sprawled before me, sinister and unforgiving, and inviting. I was aware only dimly of the ache in my head as I stumbled hurriedly to the cracked and spotted mirror to confirm my place in time. I was undead, just as rotted and foul as I was before my flight through past and present.

   Presently the toll of a deep, resounding bell echoed hauntingly through Mortanegra. I scrambled from my quarters and into the streets, joining with exuberance the flocks of undead filing into the town square. And I was content just to be a spectator in a sport I had no interest in playing ever again.