Chronicles of Eden - Act VI (35 page)

“Before being exiled I trained to be the best I could, I wanted to do my race proud and be a shining example of what we could become. After being exiled I lost everything. My strength faded, my hope faded, and my family… I lost that too.”

“I want to help, I do,” Sasha said nodding quickly. “Please let me help, I can. I know I can.”

Rishla scoffed at her then walked into the home towards Carla while Sasha slowly got to her feet and looked around at the sight of nothing but a scorched valley in front of their cave, the young reptile girl struggling to hold onto any hope for survival while feeling her stomach groaning in pain.

“We’re going to die,” Carla whined with her head hung low.

“This is not how I’m going to die, I refuse to let it end this way,” Rishla cursed with clenched fists.

“What are we going to do then? Rishla, even if we find something to eat out there I don’t think I have the energy in me to kill it. I can barely lift my sword now. We can’t even try to leave this land, not that we would have anywhere we can go.”

Rishla hissed and slowly drew one of her swords out, eyes set in a cold glare while Carla watched her nervously as she held in her whimper.

“We’re not dying here, sister. We’re going to survive. We’re going to live, because we are strong.”

Sasha rubbed her eyes as she tried to peer outside through the haze and sunlight, her throat parched and her body feeling exhausted.

“I need to find something, anything, for my sisters. Even a small morsel to give them strength. I can do this. I can… do this. I know I can.”

A sword pierced through above her hip from behind with a slick crunch, pain flooding her body as a hoarse gasp escaped her mouth. Her eyes were wide as she felt blood dripping down the side of her body where a blade had struck through her. Slowly she looked down to see the familiar curved sword that had plunged through her flesh then back to see Rishla holding her shoulder in one hand and her bloody weapon in the other.

“And you will,
sister
,” Rishla promised before yanking her sword back out. Sasha jerked in place as she stared at her sister with disbelief and horror, her body losing what little strength it had before she fell back with a thump onto the ground. Her world started to spin and blur, her eyes focusing in and out before seeing her two sisters standing over her.

“Rish… la…” Sasha whimpered as tears started to form in her eyes.

“Crying? How pathetic,” Rishla scorned as she and Carla knelt down beside her. “You really are the lowest of the low, Sasha. But I suppose I should offer my thanks for the meal you will be providing us.”

“No… you can’t eat… me…” Sasha pleaded as she tried to lift her hand.

“We’re hungry, Sasha,” Carla pouted. “And there isn’t anything else for miles around here. Even if there was we’re too weak to hunt it. You’re all that’s left for us to eat now.”

“As much of a mistake as you are, Sasha,” Rishla solemnly said. “It does pain me to have to resort to this. Having to eat my own sister to survive, it’s going to be hard to deal with that for the rest of my life. But we
are
going to live, Carla and I of course. We’re not dying here, not like this.”

“We’ll make it quick, Sasha,” Carla assured her. “And we’ll be sure to eat every last part of you to get our strength back; you won’t have died in vain.”

“No… please, don’t,” Sasha coughed as blood began to drip from her mouth.

“What did I say about being weak and apologizing?” Rishla scorned with a slap to Sasha’s face. “You should be grateful you’re actually serving a purpose and helping us like this. You should be honored to give your worthless life for your sisters.”

“Chew her throat out so she’ll be quiet,” Carla said while lifting Sasha’s leg up to her mouth. “I don’t want to hear her screaming the whole time while I’m eating her.”

Sasha whimpered as Rishla lifted her up into her arms and brushed her hair aside, the elder sister taking a moment to trace her fingers along Sasha’s chest to her neck before pushing her head to the side.

“Rishla, don’t,” Sasha breathed out.

“Just be quiet, it’ll be over soon.”

Sasha felt her heart break and her mind go numb, the world around her fading to black as her sisters prepared to eat her alive. She felt conflicted emotions and thoughts swarming in her head, both to be strong and help her sisters however she could and also scared and wishing she didn’t have to be a sacrifice to do so.

“They were going to eat you?” Scay said in surprise.

“Your own sisters?” Tabitha asked with wonder.

“I was the only thing they could eat, the only thing they could use to survive,” Sasha spoke with sorrow. “My own sisters… turned against me to live. I had truly lost everything at that moment, nothing was left for me to live for. Until…”

Sasha trembled as she felt Rishla breathing on her neck while baring her teeth to bite down with. The young girl shakily glanced to see Carla preparing to sink her teeth into her thigh with a hungry eye, then to Rishla who was even smiling as she held her sister close to eat, and then over towards the sunlight outside where she realized she would never again walk in again.

Rishla and Carla held their sister close and readied to feast on her then froze as all the girls heard footsteps outside in the sand. They turned their eyes to seeing a shadowy figure walking through the light and haze by the cave. As the figure got in front of the opening it stopped and turned its head towards them, the girls remaining still while in the shade with Sasha sniveling in her sisters’ arms.

“Is that…” Carla quietly said.

“I think that’s a man,” Rishla softly replied, seeing the human figure with what appeared to be a sword sheathed at his side.

Sasha trembled while seeing the human outside, her body feeling weaker as her blood covered the ground below her.

“What do we do?” Carla asked her elder sister.

“He’s got a sword, he’s a fighter,” Rishla warned. “We’re not ready to take him, either as food or a mate. Let him go, we’ll feast on our weaker sister and get our strength back, then we shall find him again.”

The two sisters nodded and turned to the human with glares while Sasha’s tail twitched slightly below her.

“Leave, human,” Rishla hissed at him. “We are in no mood to deal with you trespassing in our home right now.”

“Run while you can,” Carla taunted with a wink at him.

The human remained silent and still for a while then started to walk away, not seeming to care or be afraid of the monsters. Sasha wearily watched as he walked off then as her sisters turned to her with hungry smiles and vicious eyes.

“I was going to die. I was truly alone. I had nothing else to live for, nothing else to lose. So I did the one thing that no reptile girl would ever do in their life.”

“What was that?” Tabitha asked.

“I begged for help.”

“Help me!” Sasha cried out, with her sisters showing surprise as the young girl shut her eyes and screamed as loud as she could. “Please, whoever you are, help me!”

“What are you doing?” Carla asked with disbelief.

“You’re actually
begging
for help?” Rishla said with a laugh. “Sasha, you should be ashamed of yourself. Honestly, if you’re going to die then do so with honor, not-”

“Please come back!” Sasha screamed. “Please help me, please!”

Carla and Rishla looked to each other with amused smiles as they started laughing then down to Sasha as the young reptile girl cried out for help.

“I begged for help, though I knew inside that nobody, especially a human, would come to save me. I was desperate, so desperate that I sacrificed my pride to call out to a complete stranger for help. I just wanted to live, to do something great with my life rather than give it up to those who would betray me like they had.”

“So what happened?” Scay eagerly asked.

Sasha screamed for help, trying to kick and wrestle free from her sisters which she wasn’t able to do in the slightest. Her body felt drained of strength, her heart broken and cold, her thoughts filled with fright and sorrow, and her ears hearing only the laughter of her sisters and the echo of her own shameful pleas that rung within the cave.

“Shut her up, would you?” Carla said as she lifted Sasha’s leg up to her mouth again.

“Such a pathetic little runt,” Rishla sneered before she pulled Sasha’s head back to expose her neck, baring her teeth while her mouth started salivating in anticipation. Sasha screamed again as loud as she could, earning only a chuckle from Rishla before she leaned closer to chew the girl’s throat out.

Carla got a hair away from biting into Sasha’s leg before a sword slashed across her shoulder and hacked her arm off, the reptile girl screaming and dropping to the ground in pain. Rishla and Sasha quickly looked to seeing Carla shrieking with a bloodied stump for a shoulder before a sword struck down and slashed her skull in two with a loud crunch, blood splattering onto the ground as the fallen monster’s expression remained frozen in shock. Slowly Rishla and Sasha looked up to see a human male standing above them, sword held in hand, and cold blue eyes going from the monster he just killed over to Rishla.

“He came back for me.”

“Wait, what are you doing?” Rishla said while trembling.

“He saved me.”

“This doesn’t concern you,” Rishla hissed with gritted teeth. “Get out before I-”

“And he sent my sisters to hell.”

Sasha watched with awe as the swordsman struck his blade through Rishla’s head, the slick crunch echoing out in the cave before all fell silent. The young reptile girl shakily breathed in and out, eyes wearily focusing on the human that stood over her with a sword which glowed softly in the darkened cavern.

“Daemon did that?” Tabitha asked.

“My master did that.”

Daemon yanked his sword back, with Rishla dropping dead onto the ground holding Sasha in her arms. The young girl looked to her with shock then up to the swordsman who held his bloodied weapon while watching her with a piercing gaze.

“Th… thank you,” Sasha quietly squeaked out.

The swordsman merely stared at her in silence, blood dripping from his weapon while Sasha felt her body freeze as her eyes were locked onto his. Slowly her breathing started to slow down and her vision blurred, her head gently falling back as her strength faded. Daemon watched as the young reptile girl’s eyes started to close while she lay with her dead sister on the bloodied ground, her eyes wearily looking to him though they appeared not to be in focus.

“I was dying in my fallen sister’s arms. Everything was growing cold. And yet even then all I could think about was who was that human.”

Daemon slowly knelt down and pulled Sasha away from Rishla’s arms, holding her in his own while her head rested against him. Her eyes struggled to make out his face, only his blue eyes being clear to her now while his expression was difficult to see. However she did see well enough to notice him then holding his blade across the wound in her side. The sword gave off a soft glow as he held his other hand over it and her injury, a warm light etching through the air in a circular ring with tiny glyphs lining the edges appearing over his hand while Sasha started to lose consciousness.

“Who… are you?” Sasha breathed out as her eyes closed. “What… are you… doing?”

***

Sasha quickly opened her eyes, a startled gasp coming from her mouth before she sat up and looked around to seeing she was sitting on the floor of her cave next to her dead sisters. After a moment to regain her senses she looked down to her side and saw that her wound had mostly healed, having a bloodied scab over the puncture on both sides of her body now.

“You should be fine by tomorrow,” Daemon said, with Sasha jumping with a squeak and turning to see the swordsman leaning against the wall near the entrance. He was gazing out into the arid valley as the day was turning to dusk. “I’m not an expert with healing wounds with magic. However yours was small enough that I could do so. You’re fortunate.”

Sasha stared at him with unblinking eyes, falling speechless as she saw him then standing upright and walking out of the cave. Before he left he stopped and turned his head back to her, the reptile girl seeing his face and blue eyes perfectly which burned into her mind. After a moment of silence he then headed on his way, leaving behind the stunned reptile girl who slowly held out her hand towards him. She looked to her wound then to her dead sisters, who had shocked expressions frozen on their faces, then back towards the valley outside and saw that the swordsman was gone.

“He saved my life. He stopped my sisters from eating me, healed my body, stayed by my side until I woke up again, and then left as quickly as he came. It was almost out of a dream, a human that was not only strong and noble but he came to save me of all those in Eden.”

“But how come you’re with him now if he left?” Scay asked.

“Because I refused to leave his side. I had been shown what a real man, a real knight was, and I was not going to let him go. I had my reason to live, and so I did everything I could to keep it.”

Sasha quickly looked around her home, eyes focusing with determination as she suddenly felt she had a great purpose to live for now.

“First I needed to get my strength back, and fortunately for me my sisters were so kind as to help me with that.”

The young reptile girl savagely pounced on Rishla’s body and mauled her stomach and chest, hastily eating all that she could from the monster that was once her sister. Blood splattered onto the ground as Sasha growled and chewed apart the reptile girl’s flesh, showing no fondness or remorse for her fallen kin as she feasted upon her body. She hungrily devoured Rishla then quickly scrambled over to Carla and started tearing into her corpse as well, ripping off strips and chunks of meat and shoving them into her mouth in a hurry.

“So you ate your sisters after they were about to eat you,” Tabitha summed up.

“I did, and I do not regret doing so to this day. After all they gave me the strength I needed to follow after him.”