The pressure was real.
The pressure was alive.
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
It was sudden.
It was shocking.
"...h..."
Riven's breath sagged.
One moment, his eyes faltered over the tall figure standing in the middle of the trees.
The next moment?
He was covered.
Submerged.
The blood had wrapped its hold.
He was trapped in a cocoon...
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
The sounds of gushing liquid filled his senses.
It flooded all around, running across his skin, across his clothes, across his hair.
It burned cold, like a frost made of fire strutting all around.
"....h."
He couldn't breathe.
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
He tried to scream, but the sound never left his throat.
The blood filled it first.
"..h....s....-"
It gushed through to his stomach.
It seeped through his ears, into his lungs...
Everywhere.
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
His hands thrashed, clawing at the air.
His legs kicked, scrambling.
SPLOSH! SPLOSH!
The sounds rioted through, plaguing his ears.
His heads shook viciously, trying to shake its hold.
His vision was swarmed by the very colour surrounding his person. Through its hazed lens he could faintly make out the faint ripple of movement; his own reflection, writhing in the blood.
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
It was to no avail.
Every inhale pulled more of it in.
Every exhale came out heavier.
Was he still holding Mael's Fang?
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
The pressure didn't yield.
Cold. Metallic.
Heavy and wrong.
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
"..h.....e...."
His chest burned.
His ribs screamed for air that wouldn't arrive.
'I'm gonna die!'
This scene...
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
The blood wasn't just drowning.
It was studying him as the cocoon held him firm, alive, trembling.
Was it necessary?
"....h.....e.....l...."
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
A muffled voice bled through the liquid walls.
"...en...now?"
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
"...hear it now?"
He couldn't tell if that was Drenn?
Or the blood itself?
The words rippled through, distant and warped.
His mouth charted and sagged to scream.
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
No sound emerged.
The shell wouldn't allow him.
The flood gushing through gaps and crevices hadn't allowed him.
It was then...
Thak!
A sharp pain burst behind his ears.
Against the overload that surrounded him, it seemed insignificant.
But with that pain...everything went quiet.
No hum.
No voice.
No sounds of the liquid corroding him.
His eardrums had burst, taking away his hearing.
Was it a blessing?
Thump!
Only the feel of his heart pulsed through.
Still, the burns crawled deeper.
Still, the taste of iron filling his mouth and skin, fell sharper.
Blood trickled from his ears, the warmth lost in the cocoon surrounding him.
"...f..."
The sting came next.
Sharp, unimaginable pain...
The blood had crawled through the cracks of his eyes, seeping beneath his lids, burning cold against its back.
Thump--
"a.....h....."
There was no way to express what he was experiencing.
How could he express it, if his breath was stolen?
If he couldn't scream?
If he couldn't thrash his limbs?
Inside:
He couldn't see.
Couldn't hear.
Couldn't breathe.
Thump!
Every pore screamed as the crimson threaded through his veins like worms.
The red was becoming him.
Outside:
Drenn's hand hovered in the air, fingers tracing towards the cocoon; crimson threads coiled from its tips as his white mask resonated like an anomaly in this visage of death.
"O' Lord of Blood...."
The cocoon throbbed once.
His voice came low, melodic...almost worshipful.
His head lowered as he sunk into a hum that felt older than language...
"One more vessel returns to your flow."
Beneath his tattered red garments, a medallion at his throat, etched with a chalice began to glow. Not bright, but deep...as if it too were bleeding.
Each syllable he uttered pulsed with.
The forest responded in tandem; the roots quivered, the wind whistled...
Shhrrhhh....shhrrhhh...
"Let him drown....as all things should."
Sllrch! Sllrch! Slllrch!
The cocoon's surface rippled once more, as its hue darkened.
Inside:
Riven's body convulsed.
There was no sound.
No air, no light, only the slow crushing of blood against bone.
How much longer would it go on?
Thum.
His thrashing had slowed.
His kicking had subsided.
It seemed inevitable at this point.
Thum.
He couldn't open his mouth anymore...it seemed taped shut against the flow running across his face.
The pain kept him awake...kept him feeling.
But he didn't want to feel anymore...
Thu---
Somewhere deep, past the suffocation, past the body, a ripple shook.
A voice that wasn't a voice.
A memory that wasn't remembered.
"Train well, silent boy. And don't die too quickly, Riven."
It wasn't heard.
It was felt, the only sense he could muster.
It didn't come from outside.
It came from within.
Maybe it resided in the part of him yet to be drowned...
Thum.
He saw her shadow again.
He saw Maelis back, sitting on that wooden floor.
Her lips moving in silence.
Maybe it was true, that at the end...the things that you lived for flash.
But did he truly have anything?
Thum-
"...Don't die too quickly...."
The words repeated through his very soul.
His eyes had fell shut, body slowly getting numb to the rush that plagued its essence.
What did those words even mean?
Every second stretched into forever.
Every heartbeat was a timer.
Thum-
The echo of words faded, only the weight remained.
He could no longer tell where his body ended and where the blood began.
He didn't even try to fight it anymore.
His body sagged inside the cocoon as it seeped through his skin and crawled behind his eyes.
His legs buckled.
He dropped to his knees.
Not in prayer. Not in defiance.
Just gravity. It was simply claiming what was left.
Thum.
Thum.
Thum.
Thum.
The feel of his heart slowed, faint and dripping...
Outside:
Splosh!
Drenn watched as the offering fell to his knees.
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
There was no taunt, there were no mocking words, only a faint glint passed through those slits worn across his mask.
"Be proud, fledgling."
Only the forest answered.
Shhrrhhh....shhrrhhh...
It whispered through the trees.
A sound like distant laughter.
The trees knew.
Drenn knew.
Even the insects roaming, that were skittering away from the scene...
Sllrch! Sllrch! Sllrch!
They all knew.
Death was in the air.
The cocoon pulsed faintly; slow and deliberate. It was ridding itself of the life that resided within.
Inside:
The numbness had took hold.
Was he still standing up? Or was he kneeling on the floor?
Th.
His own heartbeat, his engine, felt distant now.
Was it still his? Or did it belong to the cocoon?
The only piece of gratification Riven could draw to at the end....was the fact he'd lost the sense of feeling.
He couldn't feel anything anymore.
Th.
The cold was gone.
The wrap around his body weighed at him, but the pain had subsided.
Was it mercy? Or was it erasure?
To think, he hadn't even managed to land a hit on his opponent.
To think, he hadn't even gotten close to his opponent.
...All that remained was the slow, quiet truth blending in his skull.
That maybe this was easier.
T.
The blood pulsed faintly, and then:
Nothing.
He'd finally stopped...
He'd finally stopped running.