Crumbling castles, rotting skin, where do they go when the light goes dim? (Part 1)

 And I'm back!

A little worse for wear, well no, actually that's a lie, a lot worse for wear is more accurate, to be precisely accurate I'd have to go into the minute detail of this body's health and that would require me to write up an entire essay to try and cover everything that is wrong with said health and I have to jot down what had transpired first.

So to keep it short, I'm fucked, I'm feeling fucked and the said fucking isn't getting any better. But have no fear dear reader! For I of course already have a plan to unfuck the fucking, so we'll pull through it, like we always do.

Aaaand I missed Christmas AND New Year, bummer, oh well I hope you all enjoyed your fear-filled, lonely and paranoia-fueled celebrations! I sure as hell didn't.

So, after my previous kerfuffle with Corpsy I was able to stumble upon a derelict part of some kind of tower, obviously it wasn't much of a tower anymore, the structure of the moss covered bricks clearly implied that it once was though. There was a broken apart opening within said structure, inside of which was covered in various pieces of graffiti which clearly indicated that other people at some point in time also managed to find this abandoned structure that was just sitting deep within the forest.

There I was, back at said structure, staring directly through said opening, the wind blowing from one end and out the other, this was the first giveaway that this was no regular abandoned structure that homeless bums were using as refuge, when the air blew in my direction from the opening the air felt sick, the smell of rotting flesh was way too pronounced for an area that was covered in foliage, I was about to enter the domain of a creature that has grew in power significantly over the last few years, possibly more so than our Tall and Slender Friend, it definitely made itself more relevant in comparison.

The Plague Doctor.

I never had a run in with neither itself nor its servants, The Oathbreakers. I wasn't exactly looking to piss off more of the Creepy Crawlies, I already have enough heat on me as is what with the Dying Man's Undead Agent trying to assassinate me at every opportunity he gets, The Blind Man's Jamaican Messenger keeping tabs on me and the most recent Good Ol' Jack passing over a debt from my past self onto me, it's been getting a bit crowded so I wasn't planning to linger within the Crumbling Castle for too long, a simple snatch and run operation is all it was meant to be, problem was, I wasn't sure what exactly I was snatching and as I would come to find out, wouldn't know where to run exactly as well.

Despite that, me and my darling, we were always driven by our resolve and the information that I needed was within the walls of the Crumbling Castle, so I stepped through the opening and as I got closer to the middle of the round structure the wind picked up the pace and blew against my face with such speed, it's as if I was going through the streets of Moscow in the middle of winter, so cold and powerful that it forced me to squint my eye due to the force the wind was smashing against my face, my vision literally became blurry.

And with every step forward the surroundings began to change, the smell began to outright reek of rotting flesh, the sound of my footsteps changed from those of feet stepping on ground to feet stepping on stone, a sound that also echoed which instantly implied that I was no longer in the forest. Finally the wind seized and I could adjust my vision to my new surroundings, a long, cold, dark hallway that was surrounded by stone walls, resembling that of a castle's interior.

The stench was the first thing that hit me, it hit me like a freight train, the rotten smell of puss filled mucus stretched out throughout the entire hallway. Countless moans and groans of pain could be heard echoing throughout the hallway among other strange noises which did not at all resemble anything even close to a human. And as I took my first step, my boot seemed to sink into the ground with a squishing noise revealing to me that while the walls seemed to be stone, the ground was soft and seemed to have a slight fleshy color to it when I shined my phone over it.

As I dredged through the squishy hallways the feeling of nausea began to creep up, I was getting light headed, the further I traversed the more sore my throat began to feel and somewhere deep inside a desire to vomit began to build up. Luckily I had my darling with me, Fortissimo quickly started to work around within our body making sure that previously mentioned symptoms were taken care of. Feeling her flow through my veins and eliminate the intrusive sickness was quite the relief.

It felt like hours that I had spent walking through that endless and wretched hallway, the uneven terrain was slowly taking it's toll as I could feel painful blisters begin to form on various areas of my feet. My ear drums were beginning to hurt from the constant, all encompassing thumping sound that was radiating through the entire hallway, resembling the sound of a heart beat. If it weren't for my darling cleansing our body, I would have collapsed in the middle of that hallway and would have probably been consumed by the swampy ground.

And yet somehow, despite all of those painful sensations I managed to pick up on it, a feint echo of chatter in the distance. There wasn't anywhere to hide, the hallway was fairly straightforward with no deviations in sight, my only means of masking my presence was me turning off the flashlight of my phone and standing completely still, so that the darkness of the hallway and it's various unending sounds could hide my intrusion. At first I couldn't understand what the various voices were saying, or even where the hell they were coming from, but by paying closer attention and concentrating I could discern what these voices were saying, they seemed to be reciting a variety of injuries, at least that's what it sounded like at first, but as I listened it quickly dawned on me that what was being recited were the various causes of death, a recital of a death certificate. Who it belonged to? Unknown. Why could I hear it despite the fact that there was nothing near me, no rooms, no people, just an endless dark hallway? Unknown.

What became very clear to me during my listening session however, was the fact that the swampy ground was consuming me. I only noticed once it got me up to my knees, a pointless struggle began on my end as I desperately tried to claw my way out and stab the fleshy ground that was now consuming me to no avail. I still remember breathing the awful smell once I was effectively underneath the fleshy ground, the taste in my mouth was that of rotten teeth, a taste I'm familiar with from my past life. But something wasn't right here, I wasn't suffocating, sure I could smell and taste all these disgusting things, but that was the key factor, I COULD SMELL. The darkness that I was surrounded by was not pressuring my body, wherever I was, I wasn't restrained so the first thing I did was reach for my phone and turn on the built-in flashlight, revealing to me a completely new local, a study/torture chamber of sorts.

The medieval aesthetic persisted even in this room, but as the wet drips of something oily that would come crashing down on my head would reveal to me, the ceiling seemed to consist of the same fleshy colored substance that I ended up falling through, which even seemed to extend to some parts of the stone walls. To my relief, this new room's ground seemed to consist of the same material as it's walls; stone, no falling through that.

Looking around I was instantly greeted with a wooden table that had leather straps attached to it, which would be used to restrain an individual's hands and feet. It had a bunch of wooden winches attached to it as well, revealing that the table had a far more sinister purpose then that of simple restraint, which was confirmed by the various dried blood stains covering the entire contraption. A wooden shelf above it that had jars sitting on top of said shelf, filled with unknown to me liquids which also seemed to house various organs of all kinds, some didn't even seem to resemble that of a humans. And probably the scariest sight of all to any supposed recipient of any "medical treatment" in this room, a wall that had a plethora of various tools hanging off of it: parting blades, lifters, pincers, shears, cauteries, bloodletting devices, amputation knives, an artificial leech and a tonsil guillotine.

No doubt a playground for all the wannabe surgeons that the great plague inducing one has in his employ, there was one problem with said playground, there was no exit. No doorway out of this rotting room, absolutely nothing and yet despite that the echo of voices persisted, once again echoing all around me. The report of deaths and injuries of unknown to me people persisted, all of which were being uttered by different voices, some in English; some in other languages, all of which were mixed in with the painful moans, groans and yells. It's as if whatever experience a person went through in this place was permanently echoing all around it and that constant thumping noise that resembled a heartbeat, all around you non-stop just thumping away.

The only way that helped me get distracted from the cacophony of noise and the rotten smell was the fact that all of a sudden my darling began urging me to go in a specific direction. Out of that cacophony she managed to catch something... familiar to her and whatever it was seemed to fire up a passion within her that can only be rivaled by the passion for our mutual goal. Despite the unfamiliar reaction I listened to her, there was no good reason not to, she has never failed me before and besides, following her instinct was a move in some kind of direction at that point. The problem was that the pursuit of said direction required me to willingly walk into the fleshy mold that was covering the entirety of one of the walls, much too similar to the one I fell through earlier.

Upon approaching it I could notice the details I hadn't before, this fleshy mold seemed to pulsate along with the thumping noise that I could still hear, it looked like it was an organism of some sort which didn't increase my desire to dive head first into it again. But Fortissimo urged me on and so I did, repeating the nasty process all over again, but this time with some kind of awareness of how this disgusting place seemed to operate, crawling through the pulsating mold, enduring it's disgusting smell and claustrophobic pressure, eventually ending up on the stone floor of a different room covered in some kind of oily substance, disgusting doesn't even begin to describe the experience.

Getting my bearings I didn't even have to look around the room to see what was so intriguing that it peaked my darling's curiosity so much. Right in front of me, up against the opposite wall was a chained up figure, malnourished to a point that I could count every rib of its ribcage, it's hands chained to the wall, it's body covered in various burn marks and stitches, it's head completely enclosed in some kind of square, metal contraption with the only source of air being three holes on the front of said contraption. Right underneath the spot where the contraption locked up on it's neck was a very huge amount of stitch work done, going around the entirety of the neck as if it was the only thing that was keeping the head attached to the rest of the body. In between it's ribs various glass tubes were sticking out filled with all sorts of unknown liquids.

The figure was mumbling random nothings to itself, clearly indicating that whoever this used to be, is far since gone. Still I could not understand my darlings fascination with this broken figure, it is this lack of understanding that led me to get closer to the figure and as I did, I could discern it's frantic mumbles: "100... Human... Farewells... End... Cured... Alone..." None of it made sense at first, just seemingly random words, until a name was dropped "Sergei..." And all of a sudden things began to click in their place.

Pop quiz, does anyone have any idea what happened to my past self's body after Sergei killed my past self off? Because up until this point, I had no idea either, but as it turns out it was snatched up by The Plague Doctor for some unknown reason and it was now sitting in front of me, mumbling some kind of unknown gibberish to itself, clearly after it was thoroughly fucked with. Instantly this explained my darling's fascination with this husk, after all her and my past self did share a strong bond between each other, this wasn't mere fascination, this was compassion. But another revelation began to creep up in the back of my head, this was what Jack wanted to be retrieved, my past self offered his servitude to Jack but never completed his end of the bargain because he got killed off by Sergei, I guess Jack never managed to let go of that. All of these revelations were coming at me from all sorts of directions whilst I was trying to process the fact that I was currently staring not only at my past self, but also at essentially my originator for it was thanks to his bond with my darling that I came into existence, the original Kelevra.

My presence didn't seem to mean anything to him, he continued to mumble away, on occasion his voice becoming more frantic and panicked. As I stared at him I could feel Fortissimo's pity practically radiating throughout our body, this was after all the man that showed her the beauty of our goal, granting her autonomy from our Tall and Faceless Friend, every part of her wanted to end his current, cursed existence, to free him of the suffering inflicted upon him by The Plagued One. Within that lied the inner conflict between us, we couldn't kill him because we needed to give him to Jack so he would get off our backs, but I'd be lying if I said that I was completely detached from the situation. My feelings were the complete opposite of my darling's towards this lowly, weak husk, was it because said husk himself implanted within me disgust towards weakness, or was it because it was my natural reaction to seeing someone who once was so pompous and ruthless, reduced to nothing more then a wet spot in this plagued hellhole, his mind long since shattered? That I can't answer, nor do I really want to, what's the point? The feeling was there whether it was mine or not didn't matter, what did matter was getting this wreck of a human to Jack an idea to which Fortissimo greatly objected, maintaining her position on just killing him off then and there.

An internal argument began, mercy or sacrifice, which one would it be? We've argued long and hard, but the point that seemed to allow her to come to terms with the possibility of giving away my past self to Jack, is that if the roles were reversed, this husk would not hesitate with such a decision if it would push him closer to his cause, eradication of existence, this was proven a plethora of times with the countless betrayals of those he referred to as friends. Both of us fell into silence, the only source of sound being my past self continuously mumbling delusional nothings to himself. Catching me off guard, a sharp appendage burst out of my jacket's shoulder and began to quickly come down onto the mumbling husk, for a split second I thought my darling had decided to take things into her own hands and grant the mercy kill, but luckily for us she seemed to listen to reason and the sharp appendage ended up severing the rusty chains that were holding the mumbling husk captive. She wasn't happy about it, nor was I to be completely honest, while I felt no sympathy towards my past self, I definitely wasn't enjoying playing the role of Jack's errand boy, a fact my darling made sure to constantly remind me of, that the old me would never even entertain the idea of serving anybody.

Petty squabbles aside, I grabbed the malnourished husk by his frail arm and began making my way towards the fleshy mold that I came through originally. The only problem being is that the before mentioned fleshy mold was reduced to nothing more than a dry black spot on the wall, effectively cutting off the exit that I was planning to use, if that wasn't enough the room began to fill up with some kind of gas. It was subtle at first, a slight tingle in the throat, a few nerve spasms, general stuffiness, luckily for me Fortissimo was quick to pick up on the fact that all of those reactions were due to the air changing around us. She immediately morphed a mask of sorts around my nose and mouth, which allowed her to filter out the polluted air, a trick she masterfully learned from our past run-in with Starboy and his own brand of laughing gas. My malnourished counterpart didn't seem effected at all, probably because he has been down here for God knows how long, what did have quite an effect on him was the whispered, hissing voice that seemed to speak with such weird inflections that I can barely qualify it as a speaking pattern.

"He thinks it's all his for the taking, doesn't he...?"

And that's how we ended up meeting the guard dog of the Crumbling Castle, Outbreak. Or as some of might know it by it's original handle, Nightscream.

But I will have to tell you about that at a later point in time, truth be told I'm not feeling too hot and the malnourished, mumbling husk started mumbling even louder, so I'm going to have to calm him down and catch some resting time before our meeting with Jack.