Mania and the Executioner (30 page)

“AUGH!”
I scream as blood pours out of my stomach.

“Oh it didn’t hurt that bad you big
bab— FUCK COLE! TELL ME BEFORE YOU DO THIS SHIT!” Tia screams as she notices the blood flowing down the counter. She kicks it into god-speed and pulls the rest of the 39 spines from my ass and legs in less than ten seconds. Tia pushes me down onto my back and grabs a giant wad of gauze to block some of the bleeding.

“Sara! We need you to hurry the hell up!” Tia shouts as I scream, “FUCK!
WHY DO MAGICAL INJURIES HURT SO MUCH!?”

“I’m going as fast as I can Tia! And they hurt worse becau
se you don’t have the endorphins to help block some of the pain Cole!” Sara shouts.

After what feels like a small eternity, Sara shouts, “Done!” and I restart Cheza’s healing in rapid fashion while inducing further trauma to my guts. My vision fades as I feel her stomac
h heal fully, allowing me to stop the transfer and turn my healing back on.

“Cole!” Cheza shouts as I hear her jump off of the table. “Oh, Cole…”

…

[May 29th]

I wake up in my bed in only my boxers. My clock tells me that it is 12:03am and I hear sounds in the living room. I slip on some shorts and walk out there to find that the sounds are the title screen of the fourth Harry Potter movie playing repeatedly. Natasha, Cheza, and Lila are all asleep on the couch.

I pick up Na
tasha and carry her to her room. I don’t know what the protocol is for taking off a girl-friend-who-is-not-your-girlfriend’s pants is so I just close my eyes and pretend it’s Cheza. This way if Cheza somehow sees this, I can say I didn’t look and pretended it was her; in other words, the truth. I peel down Natasha jeans, tuck her into bed (sorry Natasha but you are just going to have to sleep in your bra because I am not going there), and head back into the living room.

I scoop Cheza up,
carry her to her room, and strip her of her shorts, shirt, and bra, before throwing a pajama top on her and tucking her into bed. Now, what do I do about Lila? I’m hardly in any shape to port to Tir na nOg and back. I guess she can sleep in the master bedroom; I think that will be okay and hopefully Aine won’t freak out too much. I pick Lila up and take her to Uncle Eric’s room. I tuck her into the bed, being careful of her wings as I place her on her back. I leave the door open as I exit the room and walk back to my room, leaving my door wide open; this way, if Lila wakes up in the middle of the night and walks down the hallway, she will be able to see me. I use the bathroom and brush my teeth quickly before taking off the shorts that I put on earlier, climbing into bed, and turning onto my right side to fall asleep.

…

Several hours later, I feel a naked body press itself against my back.

“Cheza,
this will have to wait for tomorrow. I’m still really low on blood from before so I’m going back to bed.” I say quietly as I reach back and pat her hip. I feel her jump at my touch and then I hear the sound of wings fluttering off the side of my bed as tears drip across my back.

“Lila? What’s wrong!?” I ask quietly but urgently as I sit up. She
kneels up and throws her arms around me.

“I want to stop feeling like this…I want to forget what he felt like…Please Cole…Please help me forget.” She sobs quietl
y as she moves to sit on my lap; I stop her before she can even raise her leg up high enough.

“I’m sorry Lila…I can’t do that.” I say softly as I hug her.

“Why…? Why can’t you Cole?” Lila continues to sob.

What the fuck
am I supposed to do? Is there even anything I can do to help her forget all of this?

(Take your switchblade and slice into her neck)

“SHUT THE FUCK UP AIRI! NOW ISN’T THE TIME FOR STUPID JOKES!”

(And then slice into your own. I’ll take over from there)

“…will this help her forget?”

(Trust me)

I pick up my switchblade and flash a small incision into her neck and mine so fast that pain doesn’t even register. I feel my blood slip from my neck and go into Lila’s bloodstream.

“Cole
…? What are you—” Lila asks as her eyelids start to close.

“Shhh, everything is going to be alright. I’m going
to fix this.” I say as her eyes close while mine grow heavy. I lie down on my back with Lila on my left side.

“What’s…next?”
I ask as I feel my consciousness slipping.

(We are going to obliterate her reality)

****

Chapter
26: Does this look as bad as it looks?

I’m floating in
some dark space; in front of me, a large frame that is approximately the size of a movie theater screen is about twenty feet away. Identical frames popup and expand to the left and right horizons. On each frame is a still image. When I focus on the image in front of me, it starts moving; it’s reminiscent of some scene selections for movies where if you highlight the frozen image, it shows you a little clip from that section.

The current frame I’m in front of
shows a kidnapping…these are Lila’s memories. I move to the right, assuming that the time flow of frames is from left to right, and I stop at a frame that is two down. This frame is of her naked in the dark so I move on to a lighted frame I notice that is five down on my right.

I see a tall man with silver hair that looks almost spikey because of the cowlicks that branch out all over the place. I watch as he moves towards Lila; she tries to fight back
, but he just laughs as she watches the scratches heal instantaneously and realizes that her efforts are futile. His eyes light up in insane joy when she stops her efforts and starts sobbing. Those steel-blue eyes stay in that state of insanity as he violates her.

“How do I stop it Airi? How do I obliterate her reality?”

(It is quite simple. Use what is around your waist)

I look down
, and around my waist is some kind of strange silver belt that has a buckle with three horizontal lines on it.

“What is it?”

(Wrap your right hand around it, just to the left of the buckle)

I do as she says and the buckle releases as the belt uncoils and springs out. I see now that I am holding a sword (I think) with a blade that is roughly 2” wide, 1/8” thick and 6’ long, ending in t
hree staggered points that remind me of a trident. I look at the pommel that also ends with three staggered points, and I realize that the pommel and tip interlock for the buckle. I notice that there are 24 notches along the blade as I swing the sword a few times, finding that it doesn’t wobble at all.

(Now swing it at the frame)

I listen again thinking that this must be some sort of magic wand instead of a sword because the frame is approximately twenty feet away. The sword divides at each of the 24 notches into three inch segments. The segments telescopes out twice, tripling the overall length of the blade and the segments start moving independently of each other so that the sword acts like a rigid, bladed, whip. I notice these 3” long by 1/4” wide bladed teeth that swing out of each segment with the momentum of my swing. The sword hits the frame and the tiny blades rip through it as I swing down. The sword retracts back to the hilt like a measuring tape, until it’s back to its original 6’ blade. I swing over and over as the blade shoots out again and again, tearing the frame to bits.

“This is an interesting sword. It’s kind of like a mixture of the Urumi Indian whip-sword, a chainsaw, and a tape measure…Anyway, am I correct in assuming that I can just hack up the other similar frames and they will be erased from Lila’s memory with no ill effects?”

(That is correct)

“Well…I’m going to miss you Lila, but it’s best if you just forget all about me and this whole shitty kidnapping.”

(That will not work)

“What?
Why not?”

(Deletion of memories from when Lila was in the basement will be successful because her sense of time is distorted so those memories can be easily deleted without gaps. The only other memory that may be altered is the one of her frantic state this morning, but only the section of the memory where she mentions Fenrir. The rest of it her mi
nd will just naturally fill in)

I get to work finding any frame with Fenrir in it and I use the sword to shred it. I go to th
e memory from this morning and alter it by removing the section where she describes Fenrir to me. There is no memory of what she was doing before she said my name or of her dream so I don’t have to worry about that part, thankfully. I go and delete the events leading up to when I sliced into her neck so that the last thing she remembers is falling asleep on the couch. After I’m sure that I’m done with anything related to Fenrir, I go back through and delete any memory that might feel scarring like the one of her getting her clothes stripped from her or of her getting beaten.

“Alright…that should be it. We just have to make sure to heal her bruises before she awakens”

(Don’t worry, this will work and Lila will be none the wiser)

****

I wake up to a blade at my throat, behind which stands Cheza with an expressionless face and glazed over eyes.

(Since Jason is not here, I will say it for him: ‘I think she is going for the yandere character!’)

Ah, Japan: giving adjectives to qualities that the majority of the world would just call ‘being a psychotic bitch,’ since…a while.

Now, I may be slow, but I still learn my lessons eventually so the last thing I am going to say
is ‘Cheza, this isn’t what it looks like’…actually, the last thing I am going to say is ‘Cheza, this is exactly what it looks like,’ so the previous statement is actually the second to last thing I’ll say.

“Cheza, everything is not as it seems.” I say while trying to sound calm, as tho
ugh I wasn’t just found with a naked thirteen year old girl in my bed.

(*Sigh*
Do you really think that rephrasing it will work?)

“Well at least I’m not naked too. Small miracles, right?”

(You are covered from the waist down so that fact is not evident)

“…well fuck.”

Cheza responds by digging the knife into my throat.

“At least…give me…a chance…to explain!” I choke out.

“See! I knew you should have felt a little threatened by her!” Natasha says from my doorway that I currently can’t see, but zombie Cheza can. When she looks, I move to disarm her, only to discover that something is in my right hand. I lift it out from under the covers.

“NO FREAKIN’ WAY! IT’S THE OBLITERATOR!” I shout while naming the awesome weapon that I used to eradicat
e Lila’s rape-related memories.

“I FUCKING LOVE YOU AIRI!” I scream towards the ceiling.

(What a coincidence, I love me too)

“Cole?” Lila asks sleepily
, propping herself up with one arm while rubbing her eye with the other; you know, just being adorable…naked and adorable…

Shit! I still need to get her dressed and back into
Eric’s room…especially dressed!

“Shhhh, just go back to sleep.”
I tell her as I grab the arm that is propping her up and command my blood to put Lila back to sleep; perhaps in slightly too rapid a fashion because she hits my bed like a sack of potatoes.

“Oh Cole, you didn’t…” I hear Tia say from my doorway, knowing full well that she is talking about my blood being inside Lila and not…well, what Cheza thinks was inside her.

“Cheza, please remove the knife from Cole’s throat and allow him to explain before you slit his throat and/or castrate him.” I hear Sara say. Cheza lets up and allows me to sit so I explain the situation:

“So then L
ila starts to get onto my lap—”

‘Explaining in too much detail,’ I realize as zombie Cheza takes that as a confession and tackles me to the bed with the blade at my throat.

“But I…stopped her.” I choke out. Cheza lets up again.

“I found myself wondering if there was anything I could even do about Lila. Airi told me to slit her neck and then mine and to trust her. So I flashed the blade through both ou
r necks and I put Lila to sleep. Airi put me to sleep while saying that we were going to obliterate her reality. Then I found myself looking at all these giant, theater-screen sized frames with Lila’s memories in them. I went through all of the recent ones searching for Fenrir and any other traumatic events; I used this to rip through the frames and in turn, delete her memories.” I say while holding up the Obliterator.

“Did it work?” Natasha asks.

“I hope so, but the chance of it falling apart increases if she gets a huge shock that doesn’t correlate with her edited memories, like waking up in my bed naked for instance.” I reply.

“Well her clothes are right there; let’s
quickly get her dressed.” Sara says while she points to my floor. She walks over and picks the clothes up while Cheza and Natasha move to help dress Lila.

“Cole, what did you mean by ‘rip the frames?’ That’s a sword right?” Tia asks.