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Post by Executus Gira on Nov 11, 2019 23:53:50 GMT
Arnett pondered what the voice was telling her. Time afterwards... This thing wanted to take time off of her life in exchange for making her better here and now. If so, that wasn't small peanuts, but a big deal for most people. Every second was precious, and to have less time before the Grim Reaper came for her soul...
Well, maybe Theresa could help with that small detail, or perhaps the doctor could.
"You have a deal. Fifteen years sound about right to you? Maybe twenty?"
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Post by Stage on Nov 12, 2019 8:08:33 GMT
"Twenty," the voice stated without room for argument. Though it remained slow and quiet, there was a subtle anger behind it now. A cold, venomous hatred.
There was also, as it continued, a certain smugness to it however. A tone that indicated some victory. "We have a deal then. This will only take... a moment."
As the strange voice uttered the very word, Arnett could feel the weight of her right arm, noticed it slightly depressing the mattress she was laying on. There was no period where she felt it regrow or reform. It was simply there now when the moment before it had not been. The pain too disappeared, vanquished as if between neurons. Perhaps most strikingly, the starkest, most welcome change of all, the guardswoman could suddenly feel light drilling into her open eyes, boring into what, for hours now, have been sightless pits, alien and painful and wonderful after so long in dark.
Just as the voice had promised, she was whole again.
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Post by Executus Gira on Nov 12, 2019 18:13:48 GMT
Arnett blinked. This... This wasn't an illusion. This was... This was real.
She reached over and pinched her arm. It was... It was also real.
She began to chuckle, then laugh to herself, quietly. As much as she wanted to let loose and leap for joy, some small part of her still had enough self control to not let everyone present think she had gone off her rocker. She was whole, whole, WHOLE!
She gripped her hands together, and felt her muscles tense. "Restored, renewed, back to peak condition! That fucking bitch thought she could cripple me and leave me for dead, well that cunt thought wrong! Whoever and whatever you are, thank you."
She turned to look at where the voice had been, but as she did so, she rose to her feet...
And her feet gave out beneath her, and she crashed to the floor. She tried to stop her fall with her hands, but even they gave in. She planted face first into the dirt covered floor, and felt her nose snap. "W-What the fuck?!" She groaned. She tried to stand up, but her legs splayed to the sides, and she fell again, ass in the air. Arnett's face was now red with embarrassment despite the blinds covering her bed and the adjacent one. She felt like a newborn fawn learning to stand again. Had her brief time without usable legs ruined her so much?
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Post by Stage on Nov 13, 2019 1:17:12 GMT
"Why so surprised?" the dry voiced asked, and Arnett could finally lay eyes on its owner. Tilting her head up, she saw a small, slender human sprawled onto the bed next to hers. Dark of hair and gray of skin, the petite person had a tidy, angular face cupped lazily in a thin hand. They were dressed simply; sloppily one might say, in a plain white t-shirt and wrinkled sweatpants. Just like their voice, it was impossible to tell if they were a man, a woman, or neither. A perfect picture of androgyny.
No. No, they weren't human. They were humanoid, but not human. In place of the ovular ears of a human, they had long, seashell-shaped ears, like an animal. Short, curled horns sprouted above these, and hooves and shaggy fetlocks peaked out from the bottoms of the baggy legwear.
"I said I'd take twenty years after, didn't I?" the clammy humanoid asked. They raised a thin eyebrow, though only very slightly, as if anything more was too strenuous. "After. Meaning after our transaction. You only assumed it was from the end of your life. Which I can do. But this time... I thought I'd take from the middle. Take memories. Experiences. I made your body whole, but your mind..."
The bovine creature gave a shrug. "We never agreed to keep it intact... did we?"
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Post by Executus Gira on Nov 13, 2019 1:32:54 GMT
"You... You...."
Arnett's body shook as the dawning realization hit her. Her hands curled into fists and she glared at the bovine freak with a hatred few living had ever seen.
This piece of fuck shit had played her for a fool! She had been outsmarted, as the only death she cared about was one forged in war and blood. But this... UNACCEPTABLE!
"You autistic troglodyte goat!" She snarled. She tried to pick herself up off the ground, to stand on her own two feet and wring the freak's neck until its eyes curled into the back of its head and popped like a zit, but her body refused to obey her, and she collapsed face first back into the dirt.
"No... NO! Give it back! GIVE IT BACK, PLEASE! GIVE IT FUCKING BACK, YOU PUCKED ANUS!" She screamed. She tried again to stand, but it ended just like before. Her eyes were red with dust in them. "YOU LYING CUNTSHIT TWAT! YOU ARE DEAD IF I SEE YOU AGAIN, FUCKING DEAD! DEAD! DEAD! DEEEEAD!"
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Post by Stage on Nov 13, 2019 23:27:55 GMT
A slender hand with uncomfortably cold, thick skin laid itself on Arnett's hand.
"We both know you're no longer capable of that," the stranger told her with a hint of ice in their voice.
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Post by Executus Gira on Nov 14, 2019 0:10:09 GMT
Arnett was boiling over with rage, pure venomous rage toward the fiend. She looked up at it, and if looks could kill, then the glare that was sent into the creature's eyes would have dropped it and all in its lineage dead on the spot.
"Dead! DEAD! DEAD! YOU ARE FUCKING DEAD DO YOU HEAR ME! WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU ARE, I WILL DRAG YOUR FUCKING ENTRAILS FROM HERE TO THE HOLY KNIGHT CAPITAL! YOU AND THAT MULTI TAILED BITCH WILL PAY FOR THIS, FUCKING PAY!"
The sounds of steps reached Arnett's ears. She turned and saw the curtain open, and Est rush in, with a young man with brown hair right behind her...
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Post by Stage on Nov 14, 2019 0:15:19 GMT
"You can't kill me," the stranger stated, theoretically smugly, but in the same bored, flat tone as ever.
When Arnett shot a venomous glare back though, they were gone; only their voice was left in her ear.
"I'm a devil."
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Post by Executus Gira on Nov 14, 2019 1:53:49 GMT
"YOU LYING SERPENT! GET BACK HE-"
Pain shot through Arnett's left cheek. She fell onto her side, both of her hands clutched to her face. Blood dripped down between her fingers. Her eyes looked up at Est, who's own glare rivaled the guardswoman.
"Disturbing the peace. Excessive noise. You sounded like a rape victim, yet I see you screaming at nothing, yet, your body and eyes are present." She wiped the blood off of her fingers. Her voice never rose above its low tone, but Arnett thought she smelled smoke in the air. "You have five seconds to explain before I throw you out to the Undercity."
"I heard a voice, a voice that promised to make me whole again, to restore my body!" She snapped at Est. She tried to get to her feet, but like before she only served to collapse onto her face. Her hands grabbed Est's white dress and would have pulled it off of her had Est not knelt down to Arnett's height at that moment. "It wanted time from my life, so I agreed, AND IT FUCKING LIED TO ME AND TOOK MY ABILITY TO DO ANY-"
Another hand slapped her, this time in the other cheek, but softer as well. Though this served its purpose of silencing Arnett. "A figure, able to appear and vanish so quickly, played you for a fool. Doctor, does this sound plausible?"
The young man beside her sighed nervously. "I've heard of strange occurrences in this part of the city, of kids being kidnapped by specters and black ravens, but this... This is new to be, but not impossible. All sorts of things appear in Marlo- I mean Mival.Plus, she seems genuine."
"I AM FUCKING GENUINE YOU TIMID FUCK-"
Est's hand moved in, and Arnett was silenced. "You are still too loud, and I know the state you were brought in was genuine. I could feel the blood through those bandages. Congratulations Arnett. You got exactly what you wanted." Est's face darkened into a sly smile. "But at what cost? Next time, trust the doctor and only the doctor."
"I-I thought..." Arnett's body was shaking, and her eyes filled with tears. Her hands dug into the dirt covered floor. "I thought... it was the doctor. I really thought it was... Not some devil goat looking freak. He'll pay for this. He'll pay for this in blood. He and Tama." Arnett's head dropped to the floor, and she curled into a ball. "My body, my control, robbed..."
Est grabbed the back of Arnett's head and stood up. The Guardswoman only came up to the base of Est's neck in height. "So The Voice is why you are like this." She narrowed her eyes. "I wouldn't be surprised if this was her idea in the first place, or perhaps its unrelated. Idiots, so many idiots, no matter where I go."
She threw Arnett back onto the bed. "You'll be cared for, and perhaps we'll find a way to restore you... But anything like this happens again, and you'd have preferred to die as a carcass. Doctor Miles, the equipment please?"
"Y-yes!" The doctor turned and left the room, and as Est watched on, Arnett could only roll onto her stomach and bury her head into the hardened pillow there. So close, and yet, so much farther away...
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