“Is this really going to work?” Elsa asked while holding the skull in her hands
After a few more days it had managed to convince Elsa and in turn Matthias to make a deal. The three of them had signed a deal that involved the two children gaining the talent while it would be allowed to use the two of them as conduits for a ritual. It would not be allowed to get them killed by transferring more power than their mortal bodies could withstand, absorb them as a part of the ritual and so on. It was frightening how well the both of them seemed able to read its mind and every plan it could formulate.
“Yes of course it will you simply have to make the symbols like I told you around the caravan and then I’ll take care of the rest as promised.”
Matthias scribbled strange signs and letters from a language he could not even begin to comprehend everywhere around the caravan. The other caravan members looked at the pair, wondering why they were walking around with a skull and doing doodles all around the camp. They were just kids after all and well everyone was already busy and had no real time to spend bothering with two orphans playing around.
“Elsa are you really sure we should trust it? I mean what if it won’t do what it said?”
“Matty you don’t need to worry we already signed the magical contract, and besides even if we didn’t want to do it, if we don’t do this the contract will get us killed.”
“WHAAAT! You never told me that.”
“No, I didn’t cause I knew you’d freak out if you knew, like you are right now”
“You, you, you…why would you do this to me…” Tears started to form in Matthias eyes as he realized that even the seemingly nice Elsa had used him against his will.
“Don’t look like such a sore loser Matty, when I am doing you such a big favour. With this the both of us won’t be powerless orphans anymore, instead we would be able to take hold of our own destinies, and make something of ourselves.”
“Uhh, I don’t know Elsa, all of this seems fishy to me.”
“Less talk more scribbling!”
Soon it would be free, perhaps it was time to start to think of a name…Hank? Hmm no that rimed with spank, and what kind of monster could ever be called hank-spank, uhh just thinking about it made it shiver. What about…hmm wait the kid just finished the last symbol. Happiness overcame it and if it had been in a body it would literally be jumping with joy right now.
“Skully we finished the doodling” Elsa announced.
“I told you before this is not doodling, but very important and precise magic that requires exact measurements and a vast amount of energy to work. Even the smalled mishap could result in everything in close proximity turning into dust!” It proclaimed.
“Soo...what do we do now?” Matthias cut in by also placing his hand on the skull.
“What you got to do now is to get to the middle of the caravan then both of you place your hand on the skull and then all you gotta do is lift me up and I’ll take care of the rest.”
Walking to the middle of the caravan some of the other kids would shout out at the pair as they walked, wondering what kind of game they were playing. Instead of responding they simply quickened theirs steps which only made the kids more curious of what they were doing.
The two of them had gotten a strange tag added to them since they started playing with that skull and the grownups didn’t want their own children around the two orphans any longer. Making their way to the middle of the camp, they stopped and holding the skull with one arm each they lifted it as high as possible.
“Good, good, good now all I need you to do is stay still while I gather the energy for the ritual” It informed the pair and symbols started to light up all around the camp while the skull started to vibrate while signs was appearing and disappearing around it.
“Hmm now that I think about it, what is this so called energy your suppose to gather?” Matthias asked while looking at the strange sight happening around him.
“Well of course it’s the offerings for this ritual, how else did you think this was gonna pan out?” It stated as a matter of fact.
“Wait offerings…what do you mean by the offerings? Isn…Isn’t that wha…what you do in the temple to bless the harvest? By killing an animal and offer it to the gods!?” Elsa started her questioning with a low voice as if she was not asking it but herself, but as it dawned upon her what it meant she started screaming the last part instead.
“Exactly, every living being within the ritual except for the two of you are the living offerings, or rather the energy to get this started.” It thought this was obvious.
“But you promised not to kill anyone! It was part of the magical contract that you wouldn’t kill anyone!!!” Matthias screamed, the two children’s screaming had made all the onlookers who up till now had simply been watching the lightshow with no fear, feel a chill crawl up their back and a panic started to fill their hearts.
“No, the deal was I wouldn’t kill you “two” it never said anything about not killing anyone else.” As this obvious fact dawned upon the pair, screaming from all around filled their ears. Looking around they could see that blood ran from the seven orifices of the faces of everyone nearby and their skin started to crack as blood was seemingly being forced out of their bodies.
“The deals of! The deals of! Stop this! Stop this right now!” Matthias screamed from the top of his lungs as he tried to remove his hand from the skull, but it was stuck, he just couldn’t let go no matter how much he wanted to.
“Kid, everything has a price. If the two of you didn’t want the talent, I might not have needed to do this. But what the two of you want needs a great deal of energy.” The symbols around the skull seemed to be appearing and disappearing quicker and quicker, while the screaming in turn was becoming louder and more frantic.
“Elsa tell it to stop right now before it’s too late!” Matthias was having a hard time making himself being heard amongst the screams and tried to convince Elsa to break the deal.
“Matty it’s too late we can’t stop the ritual now. Even if we could it would surely get the two of us killed when everyone recovered, do you want to die!? Well I don’t! Besides what have they ever done to us!? Using us pretty much as slaves, barely giving us enough food to survive, spitting when I walk by or cursing me behind my back, saying that it’s my fault my mom died after childbirth!” Elsa screamed back at Matthias while showcasing the ugly side of herself that she had hid from everyone.
All Matthias could do was to stare at her in disbelief, was this really the same sweet, innocent and clever Elsa he knew? It was all too late now, the screaming had already stopped and looking around he could see that all the people were now lying on the ground motionless. While blood still seeped out of their skin, making it look like their whole bodies were being covered with red paint.
A sign shaped like a half moon with runes across it’s crescent formed in front of them and after its appearance blood from all around started flowing towards it, the bodies on the ground started to shrivel up and within a few seconds no more blood flew towards the sign. Instead a blue mist that made the hair stand on ends flew out of the mouth from a shrivelled corpse on the ground, a crying voice was almost audible from the mist as it passed them by. Was he imagining it? More and more blueish mist came as if being summoned filled with different voices crying out, some of the voices sounded awfully familiar…
“Ahh it’s been a while since I last did magic like this, seems I have almost forgotten how it’s done. Well just so the both of you are aware. This might hurt a bit.” As the last few words filled their ears, it felt like something had gripped their bodies. The feeling was similar to how mud would feel if a hand gripped it and started to squeeze, press and shape it. A burning pain spread across every vein inside of them, burning hotter than any flame they knew. They wanted to scream, but they were completely paralyzed only experiencing a pain that threatened to tear their very souls apart.
The only thing on Elsa and Matthias mind right now, was that they wished they had never made this deal in the first place, and that death would come for them faster. Then the pain stopped and like puppets having their strings cut, their bodies fell to the ground while still clutching the skull and darkness quickly consumed their consciousness.
