Damian stared at the old man, a knot of confusion and unease tightening in his stomach. The man's eyes, filled with a silent, agonizing pain, seemed to pierce right through him. He was a complete stranger, yet this girl had just called him "Father." And her telling Damian to go see him, could only mean one thing, that the paralytic man is Damian's new father.
The man's fingers began to slightly move, his muscles straining as he tried to raise a hand toward Damian. His mouth slowly opened, inaudible sounds were all he made.
'This is fucking sad to watch,' Damian taught, as he didn't know how to respond to any of the man's movements.
'Omni is still not responding,' Damian pondered further.
"I need your help over here," she called out to Damian, as she stirred the boiling pot steadily.
Damian slowly walked toward her, the rhythmic clanging of the spoon against the pot a steady sound that filled the kitchen. The air was thick with the scent of something earthy and strange, a smell he couldn't quite place. As he reached the hearth, she looked up at him, her face laced with concentration.
"I need you to stir this," she said, her voice commanding. "I'm running low on herbs for the last batch and need to get some more from the garden. Keep it moving, don't let it settle."
Damian's eyes flickered to the pot. "Me?" he asked, the words coming out before he could stop them. He didn't want to touch whatever was in that pot.
Her gaze hardened. "Yes you, now hurry up before this goes bad." She placed the wooden spoon into his hand, the handle warm from the heat of the pot. Without another word, she turned and hurried out the back door, her footsteps crunching on the gravel path.
Left alone with the simmering pot, Damian sighed and began to stir. He was a long way from the life he had known just hours ago, and every moment seemed to pull him deeper into a world he didn't understand.
The liquid in the pot was a pure, viscous red, like diluted blood. It was mildly thick, and a faint, metallic odor rose from it, an aroma that was unsettlingly familiar. He tried to tell himself it was just a strange herb, a concoction with an unusual color, but a creeping sense of dread started to bubble up inside him.
'Hope this isn't fucking blood,' Damian thought, as he kept stirring the pot steadily.
He stirred the concoction, round and round, watching the dark swirls of the liquid as he tried to push his growing unease to the back of his mind. He just kept stirring, the hypnotic motion a distraction from the uncomfortable questions that were beginning to form in his mind.
'I'm not fucking eating some blood soup,' Damian thought. 'I need to get out of here quick.'
'Omni. Omni,' Damian called out, but still no response from the system.
A few minutes later, the girl returned, her arms filled with fresh herbs. She strode past Damian and placed the bundle on the stone counter next to the hearth. The herbs were placed in a large clay bowl, their green leaves a stark contrast to the ominous red liquid in the pot. She glanced at Damian, who was still stirring the pot with a slow, deliberate motion.
"You're doing it wrong," she snapped. She shoved him aside, her shoulder bumping against his. "You can't even stir a pot properly. Look at that; it's practically separating. What are you, helpless?"
Damian stumbled back, surprised by her sudden aggression. He watched as she took over, her movements fluid and practiced as she stirred the liquid more vigorously. She gave the pot a few final, powerful stirs before she poured the contents into the clay pot of herbs. The red liquid sizzled as it hit the leaves, turning the vibrant green a dark, muddy brown. She then plunged her hands into the bowl, mashing the concoction together with her fingers. It was a strange, almost primal motion, and Damian couldn't help but stare as she worked.
'She's really good,' he thought.
"It's blood," she began. "A traveling alchemist told me about the effect two-headed snake blood has on paralysis."
'Is she? Is she talking to me?' Damian thought. 'So this isn't some kind of food in this world, but a medical remedy. That makes a lot of sense.'
'I should say something,' he continued. 'I should ask her if Father will get better.'
"Is he going to get any better?" Damian asked, trying to sound as genuine as he could.
"He should," she said. "People say the alchemist was the one who treated the chief's daughter's strange illness, and that his knowledge spanned years of alchemical cultivation."
"It will be great to see father move again," she continued. "After all these years, some many words he couldn't say, so many things he wanted to tell us."
When she was done, she carried the bowl over to the old man. She set the bowl down and, without a word, began to untie his shirt. She peeled the fabric back, revealing his thin, frail chest, the skin pale and stretched tight over his ribs. She took a handful of the muddy herbal paste and began to rub it all over him, her touch gentle.
As she worked, a single tear escaped her eye and traced a path down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, but another followed, and then another. The sight of her father, so still and helpless, was too much. The tears came faster, a silent show of grief that she could no longer hold back. She sobbed, a sound that was more of a choked gasp than a cry, as she continued to rub the herbs onto his skin.
"You have to get better, please, you have to," she whispered. "I don't know what else to do."
She couldn't hold it any longer, as she threw her arms around her father, pressing her face into his chest and letting out a wail of pure, unadulterated pain. Her body shook with the force of her sobs, and she clung to him as if he were the only solid thing left in her world.
Damian watched, rooted to the spot he stood, a knot of helplessness tightening in his chest. He didn't know what to do, what to say. He had never seen someone so broken, so utterly consumed by grief.
' This is too much to watch,' he thought, as he took a step back, trying to give her all the space she needed, but then...
"What in the hell?!" Damian shouted.
Her head snapped up. She looked at him, her eyes red and swollen, and then her gaze shifted, slowly turned to see what had frightened him.
Suddenly, the old man's eyes, once a hollow brown, were now emanating black flames. They flickered in the room, casting an eerie glow on the man's face.
Then, the man's skin began to peel away. Thin strips of flesh curled and lifted from his body, his frail form now a sickening show of torn skin and raw muscle. The peeled skin didn't fall to the floor; instead, it quickly burned into ashes, dissolving in a wisp of smoke as it detached from his body.
Her cry turned into a bloodcurdling scream as she realized what was happening. Her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror. The man's body began to writhe, the black flames from his eyes spreading across his skin.
He stood up, his body now engulfed in black flames, his movements jerky and unnatural. He was no longer the frail paralytic man Damian had met, but a living, breathing pyre, his form outlined in the flickering darkness of the fire.