The Whitewood Funeral

It's the day of the funeral. Aquila stands majestically atop the dais of the cathedral.

Almost all the attendees are relatives. Desiree isn't here, which is both a relief and a worry. The twins are seated at the front of the nave. Though Jayden is disengaged from the proceedings, Jacklyn is transfixed.

The solemnity. The ceremony. Pottles of scented oil, tapestries on the walls. Aquila's sword glinting in the light. Aquila's blood pooling in the floor's chiselled, floral grooves. Aquila's lovely voice resonating sublimely straight to Jacklyn's ears.

You entrust to me your death, hence you entrust to me your life. Aquila's sword, set on Mason's neck, draws a drop of blood. What is the price of repose?

Loyalty, Mason answers.

How shall you pay loyalty?

With service.

You will be a slave.

I am willingly, to you.

Aquila removes the sword and streaks his own blood across Mason's cheek. Like he's joining the Thorns, Jacklyn thinks, But softer. The ritual ends shortly, and Mason returns up the stairs to both the gallery and the belfry.

Aquila delves into a patriotic speech, and then a eulogy, that ends with him commencing the interment of the dead's soul. With it in hand, he descends a stairway inset in the floor, which presumably leads off-site to the crypts.

The service dovetails into a choral interlude, then more eulogies and stories reminiscing on Jacklyn's grandfather.

Jayden nudges Jacklyn, breaking his attention away from the proceedings. She points out a faint crackling noise, which her intuition does not like at all, and urges Jacklyn to start making towards the exit with her. Before they get anywhere, the cathedral catches aflame.

Fire swallows the wooden vaulting and sweeps down the tapestries. Jayden redoubles towards the door, but Jacklyn grabs her and frantically redirects their course forward, to the same exit Aquila just used. Screams peal from behind them as people scramble against each other for the front door, and just as the twins reach the stairs, the fire bursts into a proper inferno. The oil pots have exploded.

Burning rafters creak above them. Jacklyn and Jayden race far down the stairs, down and down and down, until a great tremor shakes the underground. The stairs collapse into rubble far behind them. Probably, the cathedral's ceiling just collapsed, burying everyone inside, and fuelling the blaze even further.

Fortunately this space is deep and sturdy enough not to cave in. The fire, also, is stuck behind a wall of stone rubble far above them, and the smoke is disinclined to descend. They shouldn't linger, but they aren't in immediate danger. Jacklyn can only hope everyone got out in time.

They are in an underground tunnel. A single strip of dim neon lighting brightens the way. Being natives of Ordanz, a subterranean country that is mostly tunnels, it's a comfortable environment.

They follow the light. Though the path branches at points, they decide to stay on their course until they either find an exit or a dead end. They call for Aquila but nobody replies.

It takes several hours of walking before they reach a landmark: a shifting red fractal, spanning the width and height of the hallway, as though projected on a pane of glass, or stretched along a membranous film. To continue further, they must pass through.

Jacklyn experiments by tossing his jacket at it. It disappears as it contacts the fractal, as if swallowed. Jayden touches it with her knife – which also seems to disappear, but she announces after feeling around that she's found the jacket, and fishes it back through the fractal. She goes through. Intuitively, she senses she has just travelled an obscene distance from where she was a second ago. Behind her, a red fractal shimmers. It's a spacial distortion field, and it's dumped her miles forward along her original course. Having confirmed its safety, she retrieves Jacklyn, who crosses too.

This tunnel system may be much larger than anticipated. The path branches again here, and the main light they've been following cuts out not too far down the way. Though they're not scared of getting lost – being Ordish, they have naturally impeccable senses of space and direction, adapted to navigate tunnels like this – they may have to consider that the sheer distance to the next exit is so great that they'll exhaust themselves before they find it.

But pessimism won't help. Jacklyn searches for, and finds a breeze, though Jayden is wary it may just be leading them to a ventilation shaft. Without any other plans, they go for it regardless.

The breeze leads them down unlit, winding corridors. Liquid splashes beneath their feet and the smell of char grows stronger. But so does the wind, and the pattering sound of something neither of them can identify, but seems to be coming from above them. Natural light shines at the end of the tunnel – so despite the blackened, scorched quality to the walls around them, they ascend along this path.

They exit into a courtyard. It is raining torrentially.

Neither Jacklyn or Jayden have experienced rain before, but they know vaguely of its existence. Despite their naivety, in this downpour, even they know the first priority is shelter. The tunnel can provide that, but being that this is a courtyard, they are only a handful of meters from the safe terrestrial confines of what Jacklyn quickly judges to be a castle.

A door lays on the ground, off its hinges, overgrown with moss. Jacklyn and Jayden run through the vacant doorway to shelter, and work to get their bearings. This is indeed a castle, but one thick with dust and cobwebs. The plaster is chipped and the frescos are largely worn or defaced by purposeful vandalism. Many window panes are broken or graffitied in the same fashion. Despite the obvious lack of maintenance, and extensive defacement, the building's structural integrity still seems to be quite good. But it is plainly abandoned.

Halls and doorways are boarded up. Jacklyn and Jayden search for a secure room to take refuge in overnight, when a wave of nausea strikes them both. Jacklyn becomes so light-headed he cannot stay upright on his own, so Jayden supports him, but she flags too. Pain stabs through Jacklyn's chest, his throat, his face, his eyes, and despite the burn, he is so weak he cannot even cry out.

The two of them slump to the floor, and fall still.

It's a strange feeling.

Like being suspended underwater.

He can't see, hear, or otherwise perceive anything.

He tries to move, but nothing responds.

Haze covers his thoughts. Nothing more coherent than snippets can form, of vague confusion and fear. But fear of what, and for what purpose, he doesn't know.

It seems to go on forever. It seems not to go on at all.

Pain.

Agonizing pain.

Far more wicked than anything he has ever suffered. It encroaches, drip by drip, deeper and deeper, venom into his heart. It ravages, lash by lash, anger and hatred and malice. It corrupts, infectious, impious as his own body, filthy as his mother's hands on his skin.

He is rotting. Degrading, gruesomely, into something loathsome and evil.

It can only proceed. Only pain and suffering comes next.

But relief.

Blessed relief.

A tranquil wave washes over him, quelling every negative sensation. It soothes his pain, cures his heart, scours him clean, and eases him into a blank void of final, peaceful sleep.