Cheating the Game

X stood by his window and looked out to the horizon. The sky was the color of gray steel and the clouds were gathering again for another bout of rain. It always rained here. Sometimes less, often more. He was cold and all he sensed from the island was disturbance. A mixing of forces and powers that were not meant to be. Odds were not in his favor, the darkness was rising. He needed to balance the odds, even if it meant cheating. 

So, X cheated, and created a monster.

-----

On the shore of sea where X was imprisoned in the black tower, the Hazers were celebrating the ceremony of choosing their new queen. A woman, with magic mirrors on her eyes and a stone in her hand. A woman who went by the name of Cin. A woman who was scared and sacred. And slowly getting high on the smoke of all the herbs that the natives were burning. They were also going to burn the big and scary thing they'd caught. They were going to burn it to honor their new queen. The thing was grinning though, for some strange reason. 

Cin walked up the thing, also known as the butcher in some other world. 

"I'm going to beat you," she said, "I will find the boy and take him back to the land of living."

"Haze is a strange place, m'dear," the butcher growled at her. 

"So far it is in my favor. You're going to burn and I will let these people do it, because I know you'll wake up from your sleep wherever you are."

"I might wake up brain damaged or deranged."

"That, is totally your problem. M'dear."

She walked away and left the hazers to take care of the butcher. They threw him careless on a pile of dry wood and sat around gathering kindling for the fire. The butcher worked the bonds on his arms. They felt loose earlier but suddenly he felt like his wrists had grown bigger. The hazers set fire to the kindling and stuffed it into the makeshift pyre they had created for the butcher. Dark smoke erupted from the kindling and small fires started to inside the pile of wood. Butcher's clothes started to smoke and his hair caught fire. The Hazers watched him with bored, spaced out looks on their faces. Only Cin laughed at him because she had beaten him at last. 

Inside the fire, the butcher found the cold little core of his soul, where he had put the pillow on his wife's face and burned the whole lot of people in a nightclub. He remembered that fire was his friend, his favorite and these people had given him something that made him feel alive once again in this godless land. The flames licked his skin like hungry lovers and burned through his bonds. His clothes were on fire, so was his hair, so was his skin, but in his mind, he was cool. He got up from his make shift pyre, grabbed the nearest spaced out hazer and ripped him into two chunks. He carnaged through the island like a force of nature, killing the natives with his bare hands till the blood of their bodies soaked through his hair and skin and doused the fire, leaving him a stinging, burnt scar of a man. He was still looking for the girl, Cin, wherever the fuck she was hiding. 

He found her deep inside one of the huts with the other women, who had formed a protective ring around her. They were willing to die for her. So he killed them all. 

Finally, the butcher faced Cin. He was going to take his time on her. His hands itched to tear her throat out as she cowered back into the corner of the hut. He grabbed her arm and started to drag her out. 

Outside, a loud noise fell upon the village like a hammer of an angry god. The ground under the butcher's feet shook with the vibrations. It felt like an earthquake. Then the sound blasted the air again, like machine parts grinding against each other and iron demons getting crucified in an industrial hell. 

Silence stretched on like a dying relationship.

And then, the bass dropped. 

This was X cheating the system by taking part in the game where he was the prize. 

---

Chapter 15. The pawn becomes the player. 

Next, Bass Monster VS The Butcher

Big and Scary

Haze stank.

It was an all permeating stink that reached into the very pores of a person's skin and made all the hope sweat through. Cin was still hopeful. She had found a small muddy river and now had her head dunked into the water. She drank the water that might make her sick later, but for now it tasted like manna from heaven. She was still clutching the stone for some reason and so engrossed with drinking the water that she didn't realize the crowd of Hazers that had gathered behind her. 

One of the little Hazers walked up right behind her and put a piece of cloth over her shoulders. She shrieked again and almost hit the creature with the stone in her hand. It shrank away from her. She saw the crowd and realized that they were not there to harm her. All of them had a benign peace and calmness in their eyes. Their faces were big and round and...cute. Some of them moved towards her, they took her hands and urged her to follow them. Their small shuffling gait made them easy to follow and Cin followed. It is a tribe of women, Cin thought.

The butcher was dragged through rough foliage and branches struck his face. Every strike from a leaf only made him calmer and saner. He was one focused motherfucker. He was going to kill all these things whoever they were. And for now, this was the only delicious thought in his head. He twisted his arms and tested the bonds that tied his hands. He could break these bonds. He knew it. The ropes were tied by an amateur and their whole tribe was going to pay for that little mistake. The men dragged the "thing" they had caught to their village where the women would have prepared for the feast. They were going to butcher the new thing they had caught because it rode a beast of iron and its skin was all black. 

Cin was led to a small encampment where children of the Hazers played by hiding between the grass huts. Everything was so green and plants grew anywhere there was soil. The strange stench was even stronger here and Cin was beginning to suspect the source of the stink. She looked closely at one of the little people. This one's eyes were huge and little red veins were standing out in the whites of her eye. She realized what the smell was. All these females were high.  They talked to her in their high pitched ululating voice and she could do nothing but stare at them. A sudden noise caught her attention and she looked in the direction where the noise was coming from. 

The men of the tribe were coming back and they had caught something big and scary. 

------------

Hat tip to @tweettabulous for suggesting the word Hazers! She is awesome, you should follow her on twitter :)

This is chapter 14

Natives of The Haze

Cin stumbled through the green, stifling flora. The air grew oppressing and hotter as she waded into the jungle looking for fresh water. The leaves of trees were shaped strangely and the branches were of different dark colors. She put her hand against a tree and wiped her forehead. She needed to find water fast. There was a small hill up ahead and she walked towards it. From the top of the hill, she saw that the forest spread out evenly all around her, but it was thin in some places to the south. As Cin made her way towards the probable water source, the figure with the stone slowly walked up behind Cin and gently tapped her shoulder with the stone. 

Cin shrieked and fell from the small hill. She tumbled head over heels and crashed to rest at the bottom of the hill. The sharp stone rolled down with her. Scared and bewildered, Cin gathered herself up and grabbed the stone to fling at her mysterious attacker who was nowhere to be seen. She heard running water nearby and made her way towards it, all the while keeping the stone held tight in her hand. The natives gathered to watch the girl who had picked up their god stone without burning up into flames. She was the chosen one of the stone god and they will give her to the stone god once he awoke in the darkness. The whispered in voices to each other of the gifts that the stone god would bestow upon them once he got his bride. 

The butcher rode the bike hard. Miles crunched under the wheels of his bike and wind whipped his hair like a cloak behind him. The last time he had felt happiness like this was when he had choked his wife to death on her own pillow. He rode faster, till tears streamed from his eyes and world around him blurred in a uniform gray. He could feel the sea wind in the air and the breeze carried a hint of salt. He knew he'd reach there soon. The butcher was lost in the thoughts of delicious murder of X and he failed to the grass rope that was tied across the road. By the time he saw that rope, it was too late. He was whisked up from his bike and the momentum of his speed rolled him to quite some distance before he came to a stop in a sorry heap.

"Fuckery." he muttered to himself.

Then bodies fell upon him. Holding him tight as nimble fingers tied his hands with rope and someone put a cloth over his eyes. Things, he thought, things he would kill soon. As they dragged him away, there was a mad smile playing on the butcher's lips.

-----

Let's call this dreamworld like space HAZE. And these are the strange people here. 

Chapter 13.

How Things Change

The bottle of  vodka was empty and her kitten was gone. Cin was in the pits. She opened another bottle of vodka and poured it in a shot glass. Her glasses were lost and all she saw was a blurry view of the world around her. The vodka did its work, her brain turned cartwheels in her head and soon, the room was spinning too fast for her to hold on. She fell to the floor in a vodka infused sleep and dreamed. She was going to find that bass and the stupid boy who was sending her the sos messages. 

The butcher woke up in the dreamworld and he was lying on his back in a desert. There was no way he was going to reach the sea from here. He got up and started walking. Something shone at a distance. A distant flash of chrome which left rainbows in its wake. He hazarded a guess and started to walk in the direction of the strange flash of light. It could be a mirage, but it could be anything in this place. The sand shifted and moved under his feet like a living animal but he pressed on. The sun glared down at him like a single eye of a furious god. He pressed on. He saw the shining object clearly now and a smile appeared on his face. It was a gleaming Harley Davidson on the road. Just looking at the bike stung his eyes and made them water. It was a marvelous sight as it stood on the road. A road which stretched from the desert to the sea. He knew it'd lead him to the sea. He got on the bike and kicked it to life. It roared like an angry animal. He liked it. He liked it a lot already. He was going to the beach.

Cin woke up on a beach. An eagle (a seagull?) flew overhead as she opened her eyes. There was the loud sound of surf somewhere and it added to the raging sound of hangover in her head. The other side of the beach was full of green plants of some kind she didn't know the names of. She rolled over and tried to get up. Cool sand squished in her fingers and stuck to her clothes. She wanted to drink some water but she knew that the sea water was not meant for drinking. She got up finally and stumbled away from the beach, into the foliage, looking for a water source. The sea called to her but it was not the water she needed. A pair of eyes watched her from the jungle. The thing watching her held a sharp stone in its hand and warily followed Cin. 

In the black tower, the pressure dropped. There was a noticeable change in the air quality. Things were changing. Fast. X got up from his bed and went to his window. He could feel her somewhere far to the east, she had managed to reach here. He also felt another black presence far in the west, and it was heading towards him. Fast. Things were changing. He hoped they'd change for good. Little did he know that he was going to be wrong. So wrong. 

----------------

I missed two days! Shame on me! But here is Chapter 12. Our characters reach a strange dreamlike place. Will they meet up? What happens now? We'll know soon!

The Day The Eagle Landed

The eagle circled the black tower. In the nameless, timeless, godless place there were few things that lived the eagle had found its way here through dreams of dead children and broken hopes of lovers left forever alone. The eagle zeroed in on the window in the tower and glided on stale sea air towards it. X felt the presence before he even saw the bird. He went to the window and extended his arm for the eagle. The talons dug in sharp on his arm, but the bird was gentle. There was a small vial attached to the eagle's leg. X took the vial, the bird looked at him, and said "good luck, kid." 

Then, with a small poof, it was gone. The eagle disappeared and X was left with the vial in his hand. There was a small drop of blood in the vial. It floated in the glass chamber without touching its walls, immune to gravity. X crushed the vial in his hand, the glass broke and pierced his palm. His blood mixed with the drop of blood and it shocked his system like a bold of electricity. He fell to the floor as convulsions raked his body, his spine arched and his eyes rolled back in his skull. He could not draw enough air in his lungs to scream and all the came out of his mouth was a guttural sound, exclaiming his pain. Then, the pain stopped. There was a dull throb behind his eyes and he was able to breathe again. He looked at his palm. There was a pyramid tattooed in the skin of his palm. He moved his hand the three dimensional image of the pyramid tattoo also moved. 

A voice, sweet like sin, spoke in his head, "Open the pyramid, set me free."

Strangely, X knew the voice. He needed to get out of here. Even if he had to move mountains and level cities, he'd do it. And fuck the help if she didn't make it to the tower soon. He had the bass and he was going to do some damage with it. 

The butcher was getting ready to do some damage on his own. The old man had given him a motley collection of drugs and soon he was going to sleep the little sleep. The drugs were going to slow down his soul and send him into a sleep where he'd be free to explore the dreamlands and find the black tower. 

And when he found the black tower, he was going to kill X. 

Slowly.

-------------

For no particular reason, this is Chapter 11 and the Second Movement of this story arc.