The Case of Cassierhola
Cassie. Cassiopeia Rhola. Cassierhola.
Cassie.
The wind rushed behind her ears as she ran through the rooftops, somersaulting, and pirouetting over gaps in the buildings.
She stopped near the edge and looked straight down, her bright eyes narrowing on one thing, and one thing only. With a quiet sigh, Cassie hurled herself forward, free-falling for a second before correcting her position.
A snapshot in time.
Wind on her back.
The rush. The thrill.
She felt alive.
Landing on the balls of her feet on the pavement, the curious lynx person surveyed her surroundings - her supernatural eyes giving her an advantage even in dim light - and immediately saw her prize.
At least for the moment, that is.
"Ha! I, Pirate Captain Cassie, proclaim that booty is mine!", she airily bellowed, much to the surprise of the store owner.
Gaining his composure, the vendor asked, "Ma'am, are you ready to pay this time?".
Cassie frowned and gave a wry smile. "Look mister, I'm really sorry for the last time-"
The man gave her an exasperated look through his half-rimmed glasses.
"- Fine, I'm sorry for the first and second time this hap-"
The store owner just held a hand and stopped her from elaborating. "I'm just telling you, this world has rules. If you want something, you gotta pay for it. C'mon, hurry up, as you can see I'm already closed for the day."
He held a hand to guide Cassie's gaze, to which she saw a "Closed" sign on the establishment's doorway. "Oh c'mon, you told me you'd wait! Give me the pastry, I have the coins!"
Before Cassie could protest further, the man held out a small brown paper bag. Her furry ears instantly perked at the smell wafting from it, drool threatening to form at the corner of her mouth. The man saw this and muttered under his breath, to which Cassie's sensitive ears still heard, "Yeah, those cat ears are for real."
"Of course, they are real!" Cassie said as she snatched the paper bag and immediately took out one of the pastries. "Crow sand!"
"Croissant, and look, I'm not saying I thoroughly believe you, but you should totally do something to cover those ears, y'know.", the owner said.
None of these were heeded of course because Cassie was already gagging on the "crow sand" as she was hungrily devouring them. She flicked the coin in the owner's direction and expected it to hit him directly in the forehead, but much to her, and apparently his, surprise the man caught it mid-air. Cassie shrugged and started sprinting away, bread in her mouth.
"Hey! This isn't even enough for one bread-!" She heard the man call after her. She stuck a tongue at him and sprinted faster into the night. When she was across the street, she stopped and looked back at the man.
"What's your name, human?"
"Wha-?"
"Name."
"Oh, Esca. It's Esca."
She gave a nod and gave a salute to the human named Esca, before scaling effortlessly the sides of a building, wall-jumping between the narrow gaps of the two buildings all the way to the top of another. Cassie started freerunning again on top of the buildings.
Aimless.
Free.
She stopped near another edge, bread still in her mouth, and looked at the bright city skyline, letting the cool breeze hit her face, her ash-blonde hair billowing behind.
This world seems nice.
A new beginning for me!
It was subtle at first, but it was apparent to Cassie that there was a shift.
A ripple.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she instinctively let out a guttural sound, spitting out the small piece of bread in her mouth. She looked around, carefully scanning her immediate area. There was no one.
And then she felt it, like a weight slowly being placed on her back.
Cassie looked up to the night sky and her eyes widened, reflecting the oversized moon hanging over the horizon. She ceased her guttural cries and choked. Even in her homeworld, the moon was not this big, and certainly never threatening, at least to her.
The moon looked odd, like a blot of molten silver on a black canvas. Just the sight churned her stomach. The eerie feeling as she gazed upon it never left.
It felt like the moon was gazing back at her.
When she was young, Cassie was thought not to make eye contact with a beast unless one wishes to challenge said beast. This was the thought that was racing through her mind as she continued to stare into the anomaly. She cannot avert her gaze. Cassie wanted to, but all the muscles in her body were protesting against it.
Something tells Cassie that if she dared to look away, much less blink, the result would be ugly. Before she could even contemplate the idea of running away to hide from the moon's gaze, it happened.
It was like the moon was a glass container and someone poured red liquid onto it - dark, repulsing, and all sorts of wrong. It reminded Cassie of blood.
A blood moon, she thought.
The sky followed suit, the clouds turning into shades of red as they were bathed with the cursed light. That's when Cassie's survival instincts kicked in and panic properly spread across her existence. Before she could step back and run, a voice - not coming from anyone or anywhere - inside her mind spoke.
"You dared to look at my visage."
Cassie dropped low and took out both her weapons, a cutlass on the right, and her trusty flintlock pistol on the other. One shot, yes, but it was all she ever needed. "Show yourself!"
She heard it before she saw it, a whirring sound cutting through the air. Cassie managed to roll to her side and immediately saw a spear or a staff embedded on the rooftop floor from where she stood a split second ago. Whoever swung that thing was strong. Ridiculously strong. She was not even able to see the tip of the weapon with how far it buried itself into the concrete.
Cassie backed away as quickly as she could, leaping backward in a haphazard zigzag path. She was not even a meter away when another whirring sound came honing on her head, forcing her to pivot her body mid-air to avoid the weapon. She may have been successful at evading the blow but it messed up her landing, causing her to fall bodily on the floor.
Before she could do anything, the assailant was already towering over her, and for the first time, she managed to get a good look. The first thing she noticed was the ice-cold eyes, devoid of any discernable emotion, then the long, flowing hair, flailing wildly along the wind.
It was a woman, slightly small in stature, yes, but there was something unnerving in the way she looked at her. The woman was not looking at her, she was looking down at her.
"Get up," Cassie heard in her head, the woman's mouth not moving an inch.
She swung her cutlass at the woman as she stood up, nicking the fabric of her assailant's flowing dress. It was a killing blow, right at the midsection, if it had connected. Cassie has never fought a person as fast and strong as this one, that much was certain, and she was nowhere near the frailty and weakness of humans that inhabited this world.
Cassie let out a battle cry and sprinted after the woman, her godly form swaying left and right in the distance. She swung the cutlass in a diagonal arc - a feint, which she followed up with a spinning kick to the face, momentarily feeling the satisfying thud of hitting her mark. She was about to spin around the flintlock on her hand to hit the same mark but was met with a blinding blow of the spear-staff weapon to her jaw.
Her vision blurred. In an instant, Cassie was out like a light. She dropped both of her weapons to the ground as her knees buckled under the weight of her half-conscious self.
"You should be dead already... Oh, what is this? You are not from this world," the voice said. "No matter, I shall break you the same."
CRACK!
The next thing Cassie knew, she was flying across the night sky, all the air in her lungs gone before she was sent hurtling back to the ground onto the rooftop of the next building. All the limbs in her body twisted at impossible angles, blood pooling on the ground beneath her. She coughed out more blood, trying her best to breathe with her damaged lungs, probably punctured by her broken ribs.
"Get up."
A red light filled her vision, and she felt all the pain disappear as she was mended back to full health in a span of a few seconds. Cassie wasted no time to quickly stand up and frantically land blow after blow at her assailant. Every swing, every jab, and every strike were met by blocks and parries until she saw an opening, a gap in the woman's defenses and she landed her mark again, directly planting her balled fist on her neck, momentarily disarming the woman.
This was it, Cassie thought, the chance she was waiting for. She pulled out the twin pistol of the one she dropped earlier and place it at her opponent's head.
One loud bang.
A corona of bloody spray behind the frame of the woman encircled her, another snapshot in time that Cassie will never forget.
She did it. She won. She nearly died or was dead already, but it did not matter. She won.
"You are an impressive combatant, mortal. Simply fascinating," Cassie heard as her heart sank. She looked at the body on the ground and saw it disintegrate, like ash being blown by the wind.
Then she saw the woman in her peripheral vision, bathed in the same red glow, sitting calmly on the edge of the rooftop.
"What do you want from me, witch?!" Cassie yelled.
"Witch? That was your second affront to me this night, mortal. Witch? No, I am not your pissant hag only capable of party tricks," the woman stood up and calmly strutted towards Cassie. "I am Mayari, the Moon Goddess, and you shall bow to me before this night ends."
CRACK!
Cassie's jaw was completely separated from the rest of her head, landing meatily on the floor a few meters away from her. Before she could react, the goddess grabbed her by her hand and bodily tore her right arm like a twig. The pain was surreal. Cassie could not even properly scream.
Before she could die, the goddess bathed her again in the red light, healing all her injuries like it was nothing. By the ninth cycle of fighting, immeasurable pain, and cursed healing, Cassie did not fight back anymore.
She ran. Or tried to.
The goddess was relentless, hunting her down like a dog, each time mutilating her like some plaything whenever she loses the fight.
"Please, I beg you! No mo-", the goddess punched a hole in her stomach.
Again.
Alive. Dead. Or near death.
Fighting. She was fighting.
She was not.
Her vision was blurry, no her eye was missing.
Eye? What eye...?
A hole opened in her stomach and she frantically tried to keep her innards inside. Then her arms were popped from their socket joints.
Then she blacks out. Then she was conscious.
Death.
Stillness.
"You are most fascinating. You keep on fighting every single time," Cassie heard, the woman's lips unmoving. Why? Why?! Why are they not moving?!
Cassie momentarily gained consciousness and she saw the goddess holding some kind of ball of pure energy; a molting red mass of destruction pulling everything near to it, even her from where she stood a few feet away from it. Then it was flung in her direction.
She tried to dive roll out of the way but it proved useless. The thing pulled her in its own gravity, arcing her back into the impossible spherical shape of the ball, totally breaking her spine, followed suit by her whole body.
Hopelessness. This random act of violence of this severity was unprecedented, at least for Cassie. There was no meaning to this. She became a plaything to this goddess.
When she gained consciousness again, all she felt was dread.
Fear.
Fear that she was alive again.
"You shall serve me, mortal. I conquered you so that you may conquer for me," the voice said, as the goddess placed her staff-spear on Cassie's chest.
She felt tendrils claw at the back of her mind, already worn from the fight and brutality she experienced. It was beckoning her. It was calling for her. It needed her.
Purpose.
Yes, purpose.
It wants her to lead.
Lead the conquest.
The world will be subjugated. Brought down to its knees.
And it shall be done by my own hands.
At that instant, Cassie was no more, at least not the same Cassie that should have won this fight.
"I am ready to serve, my Goddess." Cassie stood up and fell on one knee, daring not to even lay eyes upon her deity. A manic smile plastered on her face.
"I require capable individuals such as yourself, mortal," her Goddess said, her tone still indifferent. Mayari held out a hand which Cassie wordlessly reached, placing her palm on her Goddess.
Images. Snapshots.
A different moment in time.
Same world.
A smell.
A familiar smell.
A voice.
A face. A multitude of faces. One person. Long, teal hair. Glasses.
An egg. Red. Huge. Cracked. Nearly hatched.
A woman of stature. Sunglasses. A leader in her own right. A boss.
An everyday man. Red left eye. The scent of coffee. Glasses.
"Hunt them down. Conquer them for me. Give your Goddess glory."
Cassie stood up, the same manic grin still plastered on her bloodied face.
"It shall be done, my Goddess."
The countdown to the end of the world begins.
9...
