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Sophia awoke in an unfamiliar place. She strained to stand and found that she was strapped to a leather backed chair. Drapery surrounded her such that she could not see much of the room around her, save for what lay directly in front: a pair of double doors crafted from mahogany and inlaid with gold patterns. From what little she could see around the drapes, the walls were decorated with preserved animal specimens. Horns, antlers, bones, skulls she didn’t recognize, even butterflies.
Footsteps echoed from her right, emanating from beyond the curtain and her heart quickened its pace. As the sound drew closer, the beating of her heart grew louder in turn. Eventually the footsteps slowed and Simon walked out from behind the curtain. Sophia felt relieved at first; Simon was a friend, he’d help her. But . . . no, that way he was looking at her, that hungry gaze in his one good eye, made her shrink back. The last thing she remembered before waking up here came back to her . . . he had been there. Fear welled up inside her. She noticed he held a pair of scissors in hand as he stepped closer. She struggled against her bonds, the straps biting into her wrists as she fought to be free of them, recoiling as Simon’s hand fell across her cheek. She was shaking now, and shrieking for help—for anyone—but he held her head still with a firm grip and brought the shears close. Light bounced off the metallic blades and her eyes shut tight when they closed on her. Snip, the closing metal sounding loud in her ears. A moment passed, and another. She still breathed and felt no physical pain. She chanced opening her eyes and was met with a blurred world. Blinking away tears, she saw that Simon held something in his hand as her vision cleared. A lock of sky blue hair that he was holding gingerly. Her hair?
He was speaking now but Sophia couldn’t hear over the hammering of her heart. Simon locked eyes with her and grew silent. She met his gaze and forced herself not to look away, resolving to summon up every ounce of hate she felt. Let him see what she thought of him. Let him see that she wouldn’t be broken. A fool’s dream. She turned away, trembling. Shame welled in her heart. And anger at feeling shame. Simon remained silent. Then he turned and left the room and Sophia was alone once more.
• • •
As time went on, she would be visited, often many times a day. Alchemists. Sometimes one, sometimes many. Sometimes Simon would accompany them and other times not. Always, they would collect samples: blood, skin, cheek swabs, more hair. At first she tried to fight them off but always in vain. All that won her was worse pain and often bruises, though they were careful not to mark her face. Soon she learned to allow them their wants. It hurt less. She distanced herself from the experience. They weren’t happening to her, but someone else. It was in one of those instances that it happened.
Simon held her arm in a tight grip as he drew blood from her. The bends in her arms were sore from the many times needles were inserted in her but pain was a distant feeling now. It was another woman’s body being defiled; another’s blood taken. It was blue in fact so how could it be hers? Sophia didn’t see the man that held her prisoner. She saw past him, looking beyond at the door that she’d never seen open. Focusing on nothing but that. A possibility of escape. If only. At that moment, the world seemed to shift around her and the door was now several paces closer. She’d suddenly moved forward, without lifting a muscle. That snapped her out of her daze. She turned around and saw Simon standing behind her, and her own body.
She stifled a gasp at the sight of herself. Her skin was pale like a long dead corpse, seeming to melt into her dress of the same shade. The only color adorning her features were twin blue streaks staining her cheeks and stemming from her eyes, her hair which really had turned blue, and . . . a lattice structure of the same color laid overtop her lower body. Odd shapes, almost like butterflies, were strewn about it. Like some sort of fungal growth, it sprouted from her fingertips and grew unabated, stretching all the way to the floor and covering her body down to her legs. She took a closer look. No, not covering she realized. Absent-mindedly, Sophia reached down and brushed her skirt, making sure she still had legs. How could she not notice such a change? How long had she been here already?
Sophia finally took notice of the man standing over her, still collecting vial after vial of the blue blood. Without thinking, she struck out with all the force she could muster. Her fist simply passed through him; she might as well have been air. Next she tried her bonds and fared no better. She fell onto the twisted blue web, effort drained from her but not all hope just yet. This was still progress, the first step of many. There had to be a way free. She would find it. She must.
She looked up at her body and saw her own eyes staring back at her. Sophia wore a look of grim determination. She focused her intent on herself and in a moment was back in her body once more. The pain was distant no longer. The soreness in her arms. The half-healed cuts peppering her skin, improperly dressed and burning still. The overwhelming tiredness. It all came back to her at once, like an oncoming wave. She couldn’t stifle the scream even if she wanted to.
• • •
No sound cut through the dim, lamp lit streets of Krat as Sophia roamed the city. The roads were covered in a thick coat of soft, white snow yet her steps left no tracks. In truth, it was not Sophia herself walking the streets, but her spirit unbound from her body. Unconstrained by the limits of time and distance, it was no trouble for her to traverse the city streets while her body remained on the alchemist’s island, for she knew it was an island now. Sophia was dimly aware of herself still bound in her cage. She could almost see the room she was trapped in like a second field of vision in the back of her mind. Should the need arise, she could shift her focus back to her body while still leaving her spirit in the city to continue her search. Even now, she could feel the link tying her back to that far away isle. Like a ship that dropped its anchor; an apt description of her current state.
If she could only just contact someone—anyone. Find some way to communicate. Then she could be saved. But how to do that, she had not a clue, and Krat was no longer the city she remembered. The streets which she could easily recall being congested with the traffic of pedestrians and carriages were now void of any semblance of life. Now those carriages were overturned, their horses dead on the ground. Once welcoming storefronts had their doors and windows boarded shut if they were not broken into. And not only that; she wasn’t the only ghost walking these streets. The roads and walkways were littered with bodies. Mangled corpses stacked into heaps or left haphazardly strewn about. Roaming puppets waded through the corpse piles, bloodied and battered as they were, apparently aimlessly if not otherwise preoccupied with pounding discarded bodies into mulch. They wielded improvised weapons: broken telephone poles and street signs dripping blood; whatever they could get their hands on if not their bare hands themselves. Sophia was almost sure that a puppet had looked right at her once or twice. What had happened to her city?
The sound of crunching metal snapped her from her daze. She turned just in time to see something crash down before her in a spray of white powder. A puppet’s head, free from its shoulders, rolled through the snow and came to a stop just before her feet. Its body flailed about in the snow some distance away, sending sparks flying. Its spastic jerking only ceased once a great big hammer came down upon it with a sickening crunch. The puppets weren’t the only ones prowling the streets that night. Figures wearing animal masks, wielding weapons just as unorthodox, came out in force, appearing from behind buildings, atop rooftops, and from side streets and alleyways. Like an oncoming wave, they pushed the puppets back, sparing not a one. Sophia knew them for what they were. Stalkers. Bastards and Sweepers fighting together in fact. The threat must have been serious indeed to see a sight like that. In fact, the sight of the men and women fighting called up an image in Sophia’s head. Lea. Her sister would save her. She must. She need only find her. And with that thought, Sophia vanished from the street and stood before the gates of her home: the Rose Estate.
The doors to the manse stood open, allowing snow to pile on the tiled floor. Sophia entered, tracking no snow further inside. Walking through the foyer and into the main hall, she came upon a grotesque display. Roses, flower petals, and red wax candles dotted the floor, all leading towards the center where a great marble statue hung upside down from the ceiling. Its lower half was covered in more blood red flowers and its head and neck were a mess of melted wax, evoking the image of a profusely bleeding wound. But what grabbed her attention were the human arms dangling from the statue’s shoulders. Question marks were carved down the length of them, curving along the back of the hands which were open and twisted as if pained. Blood, now dry, had dripped from the gashes and pooled on the floor beneath. The hand on the right had a ring adorning one finger. Sophia forced herself to look at it. The ring had but one ornamentation, a single letter: R. Her breath hitched and she nearly jumped back. It couldn't be, could it? She shut her eyes and opened them again, hoping—wishing—that the ring would be gone at a second glance. It remained of course. She turned away and had to resist the urge to run back where she came.
Descending deeper into the estate’s halls only painted more bleak a picture. Bodies decorated every wall, every inch of the floor; the house was choked with a litany of corpses. Some were horrifically mangled, limbs contorted at gruesome angles. Others were left well enough that a fool might think them only asleep. If not for the blood. They all were covered in blood; some of them bled blue. She kept her gaze straight ahead, resolving not to look down. Afraid to look down. Afraid she might recognize their faces. Some of the bodies were so small. Sophia fought down the bile rising in her throat. She brought them here. The faces of the bodies in the corner of her vision suddenly seemed accusatory. The charity house had been her responsibility. She had to find her sister. Now more than ever. She had been here, Sophia could feel it in the air. And that was not all. A line of light cut through the house. Blue as the sky, blue as her hair. She knew if she followed it, she’d find her sister. She would find Lea and then make this right.
She came upon the master bedroom, doors already swung wide open, and stepped inside. Sophia wanted to scream. The bed was covered in blood and streaks of it ran onto the floor as if bodies had been dragged down. Her parent’s bed. Not wishing to linger in that place, she moved on. On and on. Past broken, overturned furniture. Past streaks of blood and viscera. Past more bodies. Following the trail that would lead her to Lea. She reached the entrance to the rose garden courtyard and would’ve turned had she not come so far already. Beyond the gate, a great pool of blood sat in the center with streaks of it staining the snow in many places. At the very end of the courtyard, a twisted assortment of blades and stakes were erected in an arc situated above the flowers. Whatever had happened here, Sophia almost didn’t want to know.
The blue light streamed past her, swirling to and fro, and coalesced inside the garden just above the blood pool. Sophia steeled herself and put one foot in front of the other. She stood in the center of that swirling light and felt it resonate with her spirit. Sophia suddenly became aware of not just her own life, but the lives of every poor soul who had remained here. Feeling their pain, their suffering, and their final moments. She collapsed onto the pool of blood, disturbing not a drop, lacking the strength to remain standing. Lea had been here, but no longer. Her sister was gone. At that realization, something inside her broke. She couldn’t bear to remain a moment longer and returned to her cage.
She stood again in that god-forsaken room and looked down at her bound husk of a body. And strapped to a chair, she saw herself with a face as grim as death standing before her. The spirit and the husk locked eyes. The two would become one again. The world shifted in that familiar way only to crash back into place, the force of it seemingly centered on her skull. Sophia’s spirit collapsed to the floor, clutching her head in her hands, and Sophia’s body squirmed in pain, struggling vainly against her bonds. They looked at each other, confusion marking both their faces. The two remained two. She tried again and again and again and each time the result was the same. Desperately, she retreated inside her mind, stumbling about in her subconscious, feeling for that tether that linked the two of them together, spirit to body. All she felt was pain.
• • •
In fleeting moments of wakefulness, she saw people walk in through the door in front of her. The door she never saw open. Men and women conjured out of her past. Her mother to spirit her away, her father to explain this was all some mistake. Her sister she saw most of all; always dressed in that serious getup, cape billowing like a hero out of stories. Occasionally, Romeo would be at her side, wielding that ominous scythe of his. Sometimes even Carlo would join them. She knew them for the delusions of a failing mind. They would all be dead now. And Carlo was long since gone. No one would come through that way.
Familiar footsteps echoed from behind the curtain. In short order, a man stepped into view but Sophia couldn’t discern his features. She didn’t know if it was Simon, some other alchemist, or perhaps even just a servant. She didn’t care. Sophia parted her lips to speak, cracking as if covered in crust and the effort nearly drained what little energy remained in her. When was the last time she spoke with a human being? An age perhaps. The voice that left her tongue was hoarse and unrecognizable as belonging to her. It must have been another woman’s voice.
“Kill me,” she croaked. No one answered her.