Sunken Trial (Chef)

Back then, she was amongst the first to fight on the frontlines as the heavenly palace was overrun. She smashed, she hacked, she had slain many demons at that time. Indeed.

She felt like many others fell as the sight of their undid, unblemished goddess flooded their views.

A myriad of thoughts snuffed in a moment. A moment of tragedy forever christened in their souls. Her soul was lost, floating forever and ever in a never-ending bed.

The last lives she had by her side were of those who were on the verge of becoming demons, the sight of their goddess's soul dissolving into nothingness too much for their eyes.

A roar exploded from the depths of her soul.

It carried words, meanings she had long forgotten, but she sheer, raw, bursting visceral emotion in it was a thing she still recognized.

I feel with a wish of salvation between my lips, as the view of the nightmare to come was etched into our beings. I do wonder what has become of the apocalypse we experienced?

She swore upon her name, for all that was sacred, for all that was right, and for the Everlasting Love granted unto Her, she would never fade in the oath she undertook for Her.

In her hasty wade, or the so slowly peaceful days, she never faltered, not once.

The sea of her passion stretched so far that it could touch one end of the palace to another.

Even as Inferno Raged, she fulfilled her duty. Unwavering, as the last one standing against the mighty flood of demons.

She and her trusty pan.

She heard it once more.

The call for duty.

The Oath she swore so long ago, unbroken, unwavering, even as all has dissolved into foam.

(scenebreak)

From the depths of the cemetery of Anfitrian, she opened her eyes. She was on a coffin, the stone of it dossilving into the water, eroding little by little, as eons have passed between then and now, whatever those words meant.

She used the sides of the coffin, as it slowly broke down into pebbles, falling into the crystaline water. Views flooded her mind. The silhouette of a confident woman, her smile so bright, so hopeful, it could lead entire armies into the depths of hell itself.

And behind that woman, she saw the form of another. More withdrawn, more demure, but not less confident. They were like light and shadow.

Those memories, the memories of them, were graven so deeply in her mind that it was the only thing she remembered with clarity, as even her own name had long since joined the waves at the sea’s bottom.

Her nails dug into the stone as she pushed herself up. Her foot touched the water. It sent chills up her spine, and a strange and new sensation burned itself in her mind, a cold shock, as if life breathed will into a dead puppet.

This new sensation made her look down. She was greeted by green, sickly skin, red eyes, sharp teeth, a fleshy, gaping void where one of her eyes should be.

Deep in her being, she knew she was now one of the dead. A fall from grace far underseerving of what happened to her, a being once so proud.

Even without her core memories, she knew she should be more than an undead.

Yet, she didn’t have the same traits as they did. Her mind was clear, even if memories were spotty and foggy at times.

She didn’t shambled around, not yet; and water didn’t burn her skin with its mere touch.

She was more than a normal undead, at least she thought so. Her lips dared to tremble, so she felt disgust at her new form, but there was no time for it, not now. With a breathless sigh, a step was made, and another.

Waves rippled under her footsteps.

A bright, crystaline cave with mirror-like walls had become her new grave. Half-flooded, but not half as beautiful as those flooded halls should be.

Her eyes darted from wall to wall as she noticed frantic scribblings on it. Those scribes reminded her of her people’s own, but it was different, an inconspicuous sign of the eons that have passed since her death and resurrection, even though it was impossible to know it.

As she walked, her feet stumbled on something. It almost made her fall, before the realization of what it was dawned in her mind.

A maid's outfit and gloves. Inconsciously, she grabbed it and held it close to her face, sniffing the fabric, feeling the lingering warmth of the cloth. Her nails dug into it. Feelings that couldn’t be explained or reasoned flourished in her chest, as her soul cried for memories no longer there.

But their sensation, the fact they had once existed, was in her being. Even as she couldn’t remember it, the person she used to be still lived in there.

Even as that undead body could no longer shed a tear.

Silently, she wore the outfit, as one single memory came to her mind:

She was a chef, and she should be proud of it. That title meant her entire everything.

Despite touching the water, the outfit was not wet, as if it refused to be dirtied in any shape or form, but it still accepted her, even as an undead.

Chef smacked her lips and walked forward, half of her world dark.

(...)

The exploration of those long, sunken halls was a quick one. She had no weapon, but as she progressed, she discovered the bodies of fallen warriors, fallen people of her Goddess, who still clung to their weapons. The chef took one sword and carried it around with her.

A glance at their bodies told her they died fighting, what? She can’t fathom, not yet, but she was sure it would find her, if it wasn’t dead already.

She continued to walk until she entered a large chamber in the cave, most of it flooded, but it a small isle in its middle, a weeping wretch on the isle stuck there, unable to ever free itself.

Chef clung to her sword harder. She knew what the wretch was: a filthy demon, but something was strange about it.

She approached the demon, but never entered its striking range, until it finally noticed her.

The wretch stopped its weeping and turned around to stare at her. The damned thing was half mutated, with a bulging sack extending from its stomach to its crotch, glowing with a ymriad of small, neon-like forms.

An obscenely distorted form, as its back was twisted by the pull and weight of an abominable, pregnant-like belly. Its skin had grown loose, lips and cheeks reaching the base of its neck, while the muscle underneath the face was exposed.

Underneath its skin, a myriad of things swam, their neon glow apparent beneath the skin and behind the demon’s eyes.

It had long lost its light, as parasites lived in it, and outside of it, eating away its eyes, but never enough to not leave something to regenerate it.

Arms extended, and hardened like pillars of bone. A haunting screech left its motuh, as the demon somehow detected her, depsite the blindness of it eyes.

Chef branded her sword against it, but the blade merely slid off its body, as if it clashed against solid steel.

Her remaining red eye went wide as she glanced at the things inside the demon’s body. They were like tadpoles, horrid tadpoles, with faint traces of her goddess’ self.

It made her soul gag. She tried to push the demon away, but the tadpoles glowed brighter, as if feeding it strength for the next meal: her.

Chef kicked it away, the blade of her sword cracking. It would not cut against that creature.

Her kick was not enough to place a good distance against it, as it lounged on her again. Claws pierced her shoulder, and bright red blood spilled from her wound.

It made her wince.

It drew its way on her. Its mouth drooled, trying to bite off her face. Her broken sword barely kept its body away, as she used her shoulder to pin its claws.

She felt the claws dig deeper, its saliva growing. Whatever had infected its demon was transmitted by the saliva.

She tried to push it away with greater strength, to not risk infection, even as an undead. The demon started to overpower her.

A bitter taste spread in her mouth. Tears fell from her eyes. Would she be killed so pathetically? Again?

A revulsion throbbed in her throat. A deep-seated grudge against what had befallen her before.

Echoes of a death undid.

Why had she feared infection? When her form was beyond the touch of sickness and disease? Like a beast possessed, she attacked.

She opened her maw and pounced on the demon, She bit what remained out of its face, her teeth far sharper than those of the demon. It winced in pain as her teeth supernaturally crushed and dismembered the tadpoles.

She felt a rush of energy through her stiff, hardened muscles and tendons. With her broken sword, she stabbed its face, again and again, as blue blood was spilled on the isle, the sword chipping more and more.

Chef kicked its stomach, making a wail of pain echo through the chamber. She found the weakness. She pushed the broken blade into the demon’s belly, sending it into retreat.

Chef tasted the divinity in the tadpoles, like monsters connected to her goddess. Her undead-vile blood boiled inside her still veins.

She refused to let it retreat and attacked its back. She jumped on it, she stabbed it until her blade broke completely.

And yet, she continued. Where her sword failed, she plunged her nails and used her teeth. She had turned into a weapon, a weapon to kill that abomination.

It tried to fight her off, it even jumped into the water, but she continued to attack. It was a poor swimmer, a seedbed for all the parasites that riddled its body.

The chef didn’t know whether it had drowned or was killed by her attacks, only that it stopped moving. The parasites tried to leave their body, to infect hers, but after the first few tried to penetrate her skin, and mysteriously died, they stopped.

She swam back to the surface. Mysteriously, an old friend of hers was there, in the middle of the aisle, falling from the ceiling.

A comically large pan.

PamPam.

Chef looked up, as a hole to the outside world was opened. The faintest glimmer of sunlight shone in the cave.

Behind her, the demon rose, its arms wide to take her into a deadly embrace.

With a swing of PamPam, its body opened and flattened like a bloody pancake.

“I can use it to climb to the hole.”

Chef was back in the game.