EPISODE 0 ENDS.
Youngbeard awoke, groaning, joints creaking as he tried to stretch. He heard a clinking noise as his limbs expanded a bit of length moved and he felt a jarring snap through his elbows, knees, and shoulders. The rattling of metal could be heard as he tried to shift his arm’s position further. As he would have assumed, he was trapped in place. With blood returning to his extremities, he finally felt the oppressive weight of the shackles that bound him to whatever he was on. It was cold, and hard, so he could assume that it was rock.
A quick tilt of his head, which had not been chained to the surface, down a bit so he could examine the table. A gleam of metal, given the radiance, and its crumpled appearance, it had to be some aluminum alloy. Strange… that was exceedingly rare in the Empire, given the rarity of deposits of any sort of raw aluminum. Youngbeard, with difficulty, jerked his head from the table to an angle so that he could look out upon the room.
Eye blistering, microline was. Its ludicrous blue glare burned his eyes, forcing him to laugh in discomfort and shift uneasily away. Sealing his eyes shut, he turned from the burning radiance to try and get a grasp of the rest of the room. He felt his muscles tearing under the strain, he had been through a lot already. The pain only made him laugh, wincing all the while. He had gone quite a long ways.
His view was better on the other side, where the eyesore of a vein had ended and gave way to the cool allure of granite that Youngbeard was used to. The room was large, compared to the tunnels he had made his way through. The room was large enough for a few humans or a handful of dwarves to crowd together comfortably, the ceiling stood at a fair height above him. Furthermore, unlike the stone of the tunnels, which had been roughly chiseled and cracked with obvious wear, the walls in here were smooth, well polished, which probably explained why the microline had hurt his eyes so much. His beady eyes swiveled over the walls, until he saw a little feature that stood out, against the opposite wall.
It was a small set of pictographs, carved crudely into the wall. The workmanship was shoddy, the engravings were too thick and had a block appearance. Furthermore, the figures were crude, though they took rough human shapes. As he scrutinized the engravings, he noted that a little carving appeared multiple times over, seemingly every other picture had this figure between them. Straining his eyes, he made out the symbol, lightly etched into the granite walls.
It was an alien symbol, curvy and neat compared to the rest of the pictograms, almost humanlike in its detail and penmanship. No where had Youngbeard seen this, he slightly cocked his head to the side to get a close examination. It was the symbol, and an arrow of sorts, pointing to the right of the humanish symbol. And it repeated. So it was this pointing picture, an unrelated figure, the pointing one again, another unrelated figure…
Yawning with boredom, Youngbeard idly stared for a minute or so of silence. He yawned again, then began muttering to himself under his breath, asking himself where his companions were, though he knew too well that their moldering remains probably lay just outside this room. His monologue was interrupted by a cough. Youngbeard thrashed about, trying to see where the noise had originated. Tilting his head backwards, over the table’s edge, he saw.
Despite the gaping wound in his chest, through which a rib was clearly exposed, grimly glowering white through his flesh, Labs seemed to be perfectly well of. His hands were locked together, and had been idly placed in his lap. He had a look on his face akin to that of a collector eyeing a particularly rare piece that he did not particularly want, pleased, yet slightly detached as well. Labs looked content… oddly content. They locked eyes, Youngbeard searched for a sign of life in Lab’s eyes, just as Fil had done only so long ago. They were as black and cold as the night. Youngbeard flashed a smile, Labs grimaced and gestured.
“They died well.” He talked with a freakish monotone, one that would send the gravest chills down even the most trained of military men. Youngbeard was unmoved, he slightly shifted and then smiled at Labs.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Labs, in turn, surveyed Youngbeard, his expression quickly flashing one of intense disgust, before immediately returning into that of detached contentment. The two glared at each other for a minute or so, tension building up as both seemed intent on not speaking. Youngbeard then coughed, and Labs nodded.
“You’re companions are all in the barrels now.” Youngbeard had forgotten the meaning of the barrels, though a vague image of some dwarf vomiting onto the floor flashed in his mind. “Jack died quickly and with little pain, and Labs fared even better, he was unconscious while he died.”
“So you died but you’re talking to me?” Youngbeard laughed a wild feral laugh that echoed through the room, creating a strange reverberation that clamped down on Youngbeards ears, sealing them off from outside noise. He continued to laugh, seemingly unable to control himself, while Labs blankly stared at him. After a few minutes, as Youngbeard petered out, Labs slowly arose to his feet and began slowly moving to Youngbeards aluminum table.
“The child who got away still irritates me though…” Labs grimaced as if he was being asked to remember a wound that had hurt him for so long. His eyes locked onto Youngbeards, drilling into them and leaving them blank, expressionless. Youngbeard himself was silent. Labs laughed, a more controlled, tempered laugh, this, but still somehow undwarven…
“I still wonder why you struck the child those many times.” Suddenly, realization came flooding into Youngbeard. The only people who had been visible in that tunnel when Youngbeard was hitting the child down, for reasons he himself had forgotten, had been himself, the child, and the dead leader and Khain. Shock spread through Youngbeard as he recounted this, as he looked into the blank face of Labs and suddenly realized the meaning of the engravings on the walls.
A fraction of a second too late, he knew the truth. A fraction of a second too late, his sanity returned to him. Youngbeard began to utter an oath. Labs smiled, an impossibly wide smile, as his eyes seemingly burned with that emptiness that had consumed them.
Play ET:
Ending(Yes I know that is not the actual ending, but I don’t like Higurashi ET’s that much.)
Preview:
What you know, is the unwavering, smothering illusion.
What you seek, is the ignorance of the blissful dream.
What you’ll get, is that unbreakable, inescapable nightmare.
When Dwarves Cry: Perpetual-Motion Chapter; Episode 1- Bliss.
Can you believe in this?
And so ends THE FIRST EPISODE.
Read the preview, and feel free to comment.
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Topic: When the Carp Cry : Definition of the Perpetual Witch (Read 25689 times)