"How many freakin' gatekeepers to Rooks are there?!"
Keru and Niina were sitting down, leaning against the nearby wall. They had just finished a battle with the twelfth gatekeeper to Rooks, and were extremely tired. Night was coming yet again, they could see it out a small window in the corner of the room. The two sighed, leaning their heads against each other's, closing their eyes, ready to just fall asleep right then and there. But they didn't, as the two knew that if they did that, they would be either captured, or killed in their sleep.
They didn't doze off completely, but they did fall to a state of half-asleepness. They didn't notice when a person softly padded towards them and, with a long, sharp fingernail, traced markings on their foreheads. Niina's eyes blinked open when the person finished with her forehead, though all she saw was a black blur moving into the wall.
"Keru..." Niina said, pulling away from the wall, causing the orange-headed boy to flop onto the floor, his eyes opening very slightly. "Keru! Keru! Wake up!" she said again, shaking him slightly. Keru yawned, blinked twice, then sat up, rubbing his left eye with the palm on his hand.
"What?" he asked sleepily, looking at Niina with a tired look still on his face.
"Wake up! Fully! We still have to get through the rest of how many more gatekeepers there are! There's no time for sleeping!" Niina had fully waken up now, and after a few more minutes, so had Keru, and they walked through the door of the current room, into the next one.
This room was odd. The paint was only black, black, black. Black everywhere, on the floors, on the walls, on the ceiling. There were no windows, and only a dim light emitted from an unseen place. There were marble tables along the walls, painted black, and lain askew upon it were various items, such as crosses, skulls, bones, vials filled with bubbling, multicolored liquids, and the like. Upon the floor, in the center, was a large magic circle, shaped like a star inside a circle, made with white chalk. And sitting in the circle, facing away from them, was a person, dressed in a black clock, the hood covering the hair and head of whoever wore it.
It was completely creepy, yet the two crept onwards, sneaking up to the person in the cloak. Niina hung back a little, staring downwards at the star circle, while Keru reached out a hand to pull off the cloak. THe person didn't move. So he pulled it off.
And revealed a skeleton.
Niina and Keru gave off a scream, mostly of surprise, and they heard a cackling sound coming from all over. It was like when Chameleon was in hiding and speaking to them, they couldn't see the person speaking and the voice came from all over.
"Surprised? Startled? That'll be only the beginning of the emotions you shall feel tonight. Welcome to your unlucky night."
"Come out and show yourself! This is not fair!" Niina yelled out, drawing her sword, pulling herself into a ready position, glaring about the room to try and spot the holder of the voice.
"Why bother? I can kill you nice and slowly this way, and have lots of fun... I haven't fun in a while... Your blood will be so nice, dripping upon the floor, staining the floor blacker than it is already... So nice..."
"Neeeh..." Keru said, completely freaked out by this person. He took a step back, and fell down, right into a pool of a thick, crimson liquid. He spluttered, though he wasn't drowning. The pool wasn't that deep, just about a foot and a half deep. Niina spun around when she heard the splash, and blinked at him.
"What are you looking at? I fell, woop-de-doop! Why do you keep staring?" Keru was feeling quite crabby, obviously. Niina scowled at him, then walked over. But she felt something at her foot, something that hadn't been there before, and tripped over that, like Keru did before her, landing in the pool of crimson with Keru, though she had been the unluckier one. She had landed face first.
She spat out the liquid, raising her hand to wipe it off her face, when she suddenly recognized the taste. She let out a scream, shooting to her knees.
"What?" Keru asked. He had stood up now, out of the pool, and was wringing out the folds of his shorts.
"It's blood!" Niina screamed, grabbing his arm to pull herself up. He was slightly off balanced when that happened, so they both fell back in again. Niina just screeched out some more, "It's blood! It's a pool of blood!" Until Keru clamped hand over her mouth and dragged her out of the blood pool. She was shaking, her brown eyes wide with fear and panic.
"Niina? Niiiiiinaaaa? Snap out of it! It's just blood! Okay, yeah, it's pretty creepy, having a pool of blood in a dark room that's filled with bones and skulls and crosses and such, but still!"
She just screamed again, clutching at Keru, grabbing him in a desperate hug as the voice cackled again.
"Feel the fear! Can you taste it? Can you fell it rushing through your veins like the blood you fear? The blood that you, Knight-girl, spilt?"
"What?" Keru peered around him, trying to spot the holder of the voice, to no avail. He had pulled his arms free of Niina, who was sobbing into his chest. His hands lay on his her back as he glared all around him. "What?" he said again.
"I said it! I said that the blood you are both covered in she made sure was spilled upon the floor! And I gathered it! I stored it, and now I use it! Her mind shall melt in insanity, and I shall drink in every bit of it!" The voice laughed and Keru growled. His hands gripped Niina tighter and his eyes flashed red.
"Stop it. Right. Now." he said, his muscles twitched with every syllable. The voice laughed again, but did nothing other than that. Keru roared, his eyes turning red again, his Berserker blood bubbling up, making his fingernails become claws, his canine teeth become fangs, and his muscles grow larger. He let go of Niina, who watched him with fear in her eyes as he roared and leapt for the walls, thrashing at them with the power of a Berserker, though to no avail.
"Poor little monster, can't find me." chanted the voice, cackling with evil laughter. Keru growled again, then roared, slashing at the marble table, though did nothing but scratch his fingers to make them bleed. The voice laughed and laughed, and Keru roared and slashed, trying to do as much damage to the place as he could, though it was sturdy, well-built, and seeming to be spelled for protection. But Keru didn't notice. He didn't care.
When he was in Berserker mode, his mind was filled with red rage, and nothing else. No plans came to his mind, no pain, or thoughts. Just a longing to destroy. He roared and raged, but it did no good. All he ended up with was bloody hands and a heart full of anger, a taunting voice echoing in his mind.
Niina's lips trembled as her eyebrows knitted together, in both worry and fear. This side of Keru she hadn't seen. When she had been kidnapped by the winged man earlier in their journey, Keru had turned Berserker, but she hadn't seen. She had been brainwashed at the moment, and hadn't been able to see it. And he hadn't turned after that, so this was her first time seeing him like this. And it was terrifying. Almost as much as the room and the blood. She backed away, her hands shaking dangerously, her sword clattering to the ground. Fear radiated from her.
And still Keru kept raging. Like a wild animal, he attacked the room, trying to get the mysterious person, the thirteenth gatekeeper.
When suddenly Niina screamed again. Something had appeared behind her, something purely black, shaped like a human. A hand had reached out to her shoulder, and the face went up to beside her head.
"Isn't this fun?' The black thing hissed, a thin smile barely visible on the face. "Isn't this a scream?" Niina replied by screaming again, and trying to run off.
But the grip was tight, and the voice kept hissing. "I thought you'd be harder to crack than this... Oh well, it's still fun..."
Just then, Keru came bounding up towards them, loping like a wolf and leaping at the figure, clipping Niina's cheek accidentally with a claw, making a small scratch there as he tackled the black thing to the ground. Niina stood there, frozen, as blood dribbled down her cheek.
Keru roared and slashed at the black thing, ribbons of black coming off where he cut into the black thing. It merely laughed, and snapped it's fingers. Keru was frozen then, not for too long, but frozen for the moment. The thing moved it's hand, making Keru stand up, and it pulled itself up.
"Don't even try, monster." The voice hissed, tugging at one of the ribbons. "It won't work. I'm too powerful for you. I'm your unlucky gatekeeper number thirteen." As the ribbon fell to the ground, the blackness fell of the thing like a robe, revealing something that looked like a very feminine man.
The man had long, raven black hair that fell like a waterfall down his back to his waist, with bangs that had been braided and tucked behind his slightly pointed ears. His skin was pale, an ivory color, and his eyes were pure black. There was no white, it was just like a completely black eyeball. His eyebrows were thin, almost nonexistent, and he had a very prettily shaped face.
The man was tall, and extremely thin, and was dressed in a black outfit. The top was formfitting, starting halfway up the neck, and going down to about an inch above his belly button. The shirt had no sleeves, and was purely black, though if you stared at it long enough, there seemed to be a crimson, liquid movement to it. He had pants on, though when his legs were together, it looked like he was wearing a black skirt. He had fishnet gloves that went up past his elbows, and wore black, sleek, heeled boots that went up to his knee. He wore a lot of jewelry, mostly chains and crosses and stars and other odd things, including tiny skulls.
He was creepy.
But that wasn't what Keru was focusing on. When the feminine man had revealed himself, he felt a burning pain in his forehead, and he could tell Niina felt it too, as she screamed the exact same way that he did.
The man walked up to him, his heels clicking on the floor as he came steadily closer. Keru tried to break free, roaring and growling, but was still held fast. The man gave a small, thin smile and raised a hand up to Keru's face. He traced something on Keru's forehead with the sharp nails, then drew his hand away, licking the blood that had now appeared on them.
"Mmm, thirteen. Everyone says that's unlucky, right?" Keru didn't answer. "It's true." the man said, looking at his now clean nails. "It's unlucky here. I'm number thirteen. I'm going to make your minds melt." The man gave another smile. Beautiful, yet hauntingly spooky. "And I'm going to have fun."
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Currently featuring the sci-fi story 'A.L.P.H.A', a drama swirled in with a bit of comedy, romantic entanglements, and webs upon webs of secrets.