049 – AM CURSED

Day 7

“Day 4: Today I could have told you, right on that rooftop, not to jump. That I was scared of dying. And you wouldn’t have done it. You’d have stared at that potion timer running out, and you would have been so mad. At me and even more at your own humanity. How weakness and pity with your enemy made you flinch, right when you held the keys to the kingdom. But I didn’t. And now you’re a pheasant, running for your life.”

Lucy’s little recaps were the only thing reminding me of the passage of time in this purgatory I found myself in. For a while, the most logical conclusion had been that I had failed in my attack, that I had died in the process, and this was what eternity had in stock for me. Running through tunnels that didn’t make sense, the places I saw behind me not matching the places I just left.

Demons didn’t want to follow me too deep into those tunnels. But whenever I crossed such a threshold, new ones poured in from the place I had arrived in.

Over the course of my escape I found myself in train stations, airports, subway stations, and abandoned malls. Moscow, Berlin, Delhi, Cape Town. All over the world. And everywhere I went it was only a matter of time, sometimes seconds, occasionally glorious minutes of calm, before demons came.

“Day 5: Honestly a pretty boring day. I could, of course, always just click that button for you. Accept or decline, you’d hate it either way.”

I of course tried to just escape to the outside. Tried to sneak out as a demon bat. But that didn’t trick the curse. And demons knew all kinds of magical tricks, some of which required nothing more than line of sight.

Of course, they couldn’t aim at a supersonic bird launching itself out of a subway station, aiming for the open sea. There were no demons out in the wide depths of the ocean. I tried sleeping as an orca, an apex predator of the seas.

The Blessing really didn’t like deserters. In the city the Created had been very manageable, sometimes even underpowered.

Out in the wilds? I was nearly swallowed whole, as the orca, by a leviathan. The Blessing did not fuck around in the wilds.

“Day 6: All that running must be getting pretty tiring. Maybe I could have picked Cape Buffalo right when those demons were about to corner you. That’d likely have killed both of us, but you’d absolutely have taken some down with you.”

When I found myself back in New York, and I often did, somehow feeling myself magically pulled there, I tried leaving messages.

AM CURSED. DEMONS SWARMING. NEED HELP.

The others were my only hope. I considered trying to rush to a sanctified place. Maybe my level 20 subclass, or one of the countless rewards for killing Mammon, would allow me to forgo sleep. At some point I had reached level 20. Nearly entirely from killing lesser demons that started guarding the tunnels.

Three days in, my sanity wasn’t in the best shape. I saw dots on my minimap where there were none. Or worse, stopped noticing the real ones approaching. Only that voice in my head shouting a warning and pulling me out of my stupor saved me that time.

And all this time, front and center in my UI, was the question that asked me to stop being human. The notification had become my rallying cry, my beacon. I hadn’t survived Mammon yet. Not really. Not until the curse was gone. Only then would I decide what to do with his legacy.

I had just left New York behind once more and found myself in the Moscow Metro. By now I was familiar with some of the stations. This station was incredibly deep, which meant that demons around the surface would need a moment to descend for their hunt.

I made my way to the other side of the tunnel I had entered through, so I had an escape route, and pulled a handful of the simple rations out of my inventory. Being a dire hyena right now, a good and fast runner with strong senses, I lacked the motor control to open the plastic covers. I chewed through them, spitting out the plastic when I could, swallowing it along with the rations when necessary. Indigestion was the least of my problems.

Barking startled me out of my meal. In the tunnel I had come from, the tunnel leading here from New York, three dogs, Australian Shepherds, appeared. I spit out my food and crouched, growling.

“They aren’t hostile, Eve. Look at their dots.”

I did. They were white.

They stopped halfway on the tracks. Behind them a woman appeared in the tunnel. She was tall, with long brownish-red hair. And she was wearing a lab coat. I had seen that woman before. It was a vague memory. Sometime while flying, she’d just been down in the streets. She was also covered in a golden sheen. Which I had also seen before.

“She’s here!” she shouted over her shoulder to people who were still on the other side of the earth at this point, who hadn’t appeared in this tunnel yet.

“Eve!” she shouted. She knew my name. “Come! We are here to rescue you!”

She shouted with a heavy French accent. I knew better than to trust that. But then more people came running through the tunnel. First Anthony, then Jamie, then Constance. That wasn’t an optimal party. Far too much support. Who was dealing damage? If they sent those poor dogs fighting I’d have to have some serious words with them.

Constance was weaving her hands in front of her and mumbling something I couldn’t understand. I still growled at her. Nothing running for me had been any good in those last three days.

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Anthony peeled away from the others and ran to the stairs. Red dots had appeared on my minimap. He threw a bottle at the stairs and mist filled the area. This mist occasionally flashed with purple light.

“Thirty seconds!” he shouted. Everyone was shouting.

And then Jamie was in front of me. He also glowed golden. I didn’t growl at Jamie. Unceremoniously the Oath appeared again among my buffs.

“Eve,” he said, crouching in front of me. “We are here to help you. But this will return you to your human shape. Don’t get scared, okay?”

At this point nothing could scare me anymore. Fear was pretty much my baseline. There wasn’t much room for more.

Constance appeared next to him, around her hands glyphs hovered in the air. “Hey girl,” she said. “Don’t bite now, and we’ll have you sorted out in no time.”

I looked between her and Jamie and decided not to bite. I didn’t know what glyphs tasted like and I didn’t want to learn. She put her hands on my head and I felt magic flooding into me and then out of me. Every buff on my UI vanished, and every Bonding timer on my equipment started fresh. I stumbled. I was human again. This shape was so weak, so exhausted. Jamie caught me.

But above all, the curse was also gone. The only thing that remained was that choice. Crown bonded or not, it still demanded a choice.

“Got you,” he said.

For the first time in days, I felt safe. I felt Jamie lifting me up and darkness immediately took me.