Chapter 7: Alone

A Chapter by Mathew Nicolson

Rebecca sat on a hill looking over Manchester, alone. She had had to get away from everything, all the noise, so she could think. She read the message to herself once again, but it did no good.

It means we lose our soul. She assumed that meant her, but didn’t explain much. The man who fights knows. Well, she’d just have to ask him. As he lies on the ground dying, that is.

She cried again. She was on her own, as she’d lost Carrie running here. She was an orphan. She was cursed. Her mother’s murderer was stalking her. Right now, life couldn’t get much worse.

“Rebecca?”

So Carrie had found her.

“I thought I saw you come up here! I was worried! I thought the Knight had”

“Shut up Carrie.”

Rebecca had never said something mean like that before. “Shut up” was hardly the insult of the century, but coming from her…

“Leave me alone Carrie.”

“I…” Carrie tried to say, tears appearing in her eyes. “I understand you’re upset, but-”

“HOW CAN YOU UNDERSTAND!?” Rebecca shouted. “SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU WATCHED YOUR DAD DIE IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES, OR KNOW YOUR MOTHER DIED THE MOST PAINFUL DEATH POSSIBLE!?”

“That’s…”

“YOU DON’T HAVE A CLUE! The locket is mine, not yours. It’s my problem, not yours,” Rebecca finished.

Carrie turned around, crying slightly, and left.

Rebecca stared at the sunset, shaking in rage. It wasn’t Carrie’s fault, but she needed to be alone. All this rage would help her kill the Knight.

She’d have to face sleeping in the dark. She hated the dark, after her Dad died. Rebecca wondered whether she would have felt this angry towards the man driving the car if he’d ever been found.

GIVE UP, YOU CAN’T WIN

There was no way she could fight the Knight. He had a sword, and wasn’t afraid to kill. She had… Nothing. Well, besides an insane desire for revenge. That could be enough. That would be enough!

“Her soul?” Billy exclaimed.

“No…” Paul muttered. “Dad… he… NO!”

“Did your Dad have it before Rebecca?” Anonni asked.

“Yeah… she must have taken it from his cabinet…” Paul muttered.

“And he’s dead I assume?”

“Yes…”

“He lost his soul.”

Paul had imagined almost every possible scenario for his Dad’s death… murder, suicide, perhaps both. But not this. He now wished Sam had been murdered.

“What… I mean…” he swallowed, half unable to talk. “What happens when you lose your soul?”

“Again, we aren’t too sure,” Anonni admitted. “We have several theories, getting more unlikely each time.”

“Well? What are they?”

“One popular idea was that an Interimo would destroy your soul completely, which would possibly be the worst experience imaginable.”

Paul twitched.

“That was proved wrong however, when crude experiments revealed, as far as we know, souls cannot be destroyed.”

Paul sighed of relief.

“But the alternative could arguably be worse.”

“Just… tell me,” Paul demanded, shaking.

“We believe… Interimo steal your soul, and store it inside them, which is what gives them their power,” Anonni explained.

“What does your soul do?” Billy asked while Paul was disguising his close vomit as a cough. “Like, what’s it for?”

“Your society has a rather accurate representation of one’s soul,” Anonni answered. “It is, as you are probably aware of, one’s consciousness. A soul is who you are. It’s our soul that separates us from animals. When you get intuition, or a “bad feeling”, that’s your soul warning you. It’s also responsible for falling in love.”

Neither of them said anything else, so Anonni took that as an opportunity to continue.

“The difficult part of course is destroying them,” he said. “Each one has only one way it can be destroyed, and that’s unique to the Interimo. That’s most likely because whoever created them only wanted himself to be the destroyer. Perhaps that’s why they were scattered into different worlds, because they didn’t know how to destroy them.”

“Going back to the souls,” Anonni continued, “It depends on how long you’ve had the Interimo. Every month it’s been in your possession, you lose a year of your life. If you’ve had it for nine months, you’ll die nine years earlier than you would have otherwise.”

“Rebecca!” Billy realised. He stopped, and thought. Then eventually said, in a more calm voice, “So how are we going to destroy the locket?”

“I played a key role in the destruction of a previous Interimo,” Anonni explained. “But before we knew that, we took it to the Seltarina base and scanned it. Our technology is pretty basic, and unfortunately one of the basic multi-world laws �" five, I believe �" is that technology from one world doesn’t work another. But, we tried every possible way of destroying it, poured every chemical in existence over it, and observed whether a certain chemical or method slightly scratched it, and perfected that.”

“But what if it’s something more complicated?” Billy asked.

“That’s the problem. The other Interimo that was destroyed had to have contact with a certain flower, and could only be destroyed in a certain month, while at night. They discovered that by searching for its history, since they were still in the world it was found at the time. A diary by some woman stated that she’d worn it with the flower, and it began decaying. They looked at the time the diary was written and worked from that.”

“So we have to search its history?” Billy asked.

“Yes,” Anonni confirmed. “But it would be helpful to find it first, so we’ll need to find your sister. So enough chat, let’s do something!”

He prodded Paul who was sitting with his head in his hands with his sheath. Paul grunted, and got up.

“It would be worthwhile looking through your Dad’s history too,” Anonni said. Paul ignored him, and followed Billy out of the hut.

“But it’s nearly night…” Paul pointed out.

“Wimp…” Anonni muttered. “Well, if you’d rather go back to your Mum and her charming boyfriend’s house…”

“How do you know about-”

“I’d best get home too, Mum will be getting worried about me,” Billy added, ignoring Paul.

“…Fine,” Anonni said, annoyed. “Be here bright and early tomorrow!”

“Can I stay with you tonight?” Paul asked Billy.

“Yeah… Sure.”

Darkness had descended upon the hill. Rebecca had wandered into a nearby forest, hoping she wouldn’t notice the dark. This was just like with her Dad, but worse.

Killing the Knight wouldn’t be easy. Even if he could die like anyone else, she doubted using a knife would be an option; it would put her in too much danger… A gun perhaps? Then she’d have to actually find one…

Or maybe pushing it off from a height would work. There were no cliffs anywhere near Manchester, but there were some quite tall buildings. But then, pushing it off one would also be risky.

Rebecca sighed, and searched for somewhere hidden to sleep. Her house would be far too risky, so that was out of the question. She wouldn’t bet that the Knight spent all night sleeping, and could be looking for her at that very second. She passed a small clearing caused by a tree that had fallen and brought up all the roots with it. She had a look underneath the tree, and it was perfect for what she needed. She laid herself down underneath it, shivering. It would be a long, cold night.

A centipede crawled over her ankle, and she could feel something else creeping up around her neck. She’d have to put up with that; this was the best spot she’d find.

Carrie had returned home to her worried parents, asking her about the murder and everything she knew. She told them very little, and crept off to bed. She sat by it, thinking.

Rebecca couldn’t possibly kill the Knight, she thought. But the scary thing was she was going to try, out of revenge, even though she must have known she couldn’t.

Carrie had two options, and she knew the one she’d rather choose. She could either leave Rebecca to it, or go and help her when she’d had chance to calm down.

No… she couldn’t. It was mad. All of it, it was so mad. Why wouldn’t Rebecca just go to the police or something and let it be their problem? Admittedly this was a bit worse than they would have normally faced. And they might not believe her… Well, she could just give it to them; let them find out about it. Make it their problem. Now Eve was dead, Rebecca would stop at nothing for revenge.

“I… can’t go…” Carrie said, starting to cry again. She was so scared. If she returned, she could die; she would die.

So that was decided. She would… She’d leave Rebecca to it…

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Someone knocking on her window? At this time of night? Oh no…

She pulled across the curtain.

“Oh my God-”

The house had definitely seen better days. The door had now broken completely, and there was police tape around everywhere. Paul and Billy ducked under it and walked into the house. It was deserted.

“Mum?” Billy called out. “Mum!?”

“Maybe she’s at the police station?” Paul suggested. “The tape would be a clue…”

“Alright, I’ll look there,” Billy sighed. “I hope she is okay.”

Glass shattered into the bedroom. Carrie dived off her bed onto the floor, just missing the shards. The sword swung through the broken window, knocking more glass everywhere.

Carrie darted up from the floor and charged out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Mum! Dad!”

“Carrie? What the bloody ‘ell-” her Dad began saying.

The bedroom door was knocked off its hinges as the Knight walked through. Carrie screamed and ran out the back door. The Knight, also breaking the back door, stormed after her.

Her parents, half dressed wandered out of their room.

“Carrie…?”

Carrie kept running and running, from street to street, across roads and past pubs, trying to get to Rebecca. She hadn’t put on shoes, and her feet were enduring many cuts and bruises.

After far too many minutes, she collapsed into a bus stop and looked back. She must have outrun it, as it had disappeared. After giving her feet a minute of rest, she continued towards the outskirts of Manchester. She couldn’t go back now. Her parents should be okay; the Knight had followed her. Why had all this happened…? She didn’t have the locket!

Billy and Paul got to the police station.

“What time is it?” Paul wondered, searching around for a clock. “It must be the early morning by now!”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Billy said. “Rebecca might be in here too. But… I don’t know.” He walked inside, unknowing of the devastating news he’d find.

An owl was hooting. Rebecca sat up, and brushed off some spiders. It was still dark, and she was still alive. The locket was lying in front of her; she must have let go in her sleep. She could faintly hear it tick, but faint was all it was. She felt it, and was relieved to feel it was cold. She was safe, for the present…

She laid back down to get a bit more sleep. Just when it was light enough to see, she’d leave. Where to, she didn’t have a clue. It was as if she hoped she’d magically stumble across a solution. No, she’d wander around and think of ways to kill the Knight. Perhaps if it died, the Locket would break also. They were definitely connected in some way.

Rebecca heard a noise, and she was up again. Was that a voice she’d heard?

It repeated itself. It was definitely a voice calling out, but she couldn’t tell who it was or what it was saying. But… she had never heard the Knight speak.

“REBECCA?”

It was Carrie! Why had she come back? Rebecca was both pleased and angry. This had to be done alone! She wouldn’t let anyone else get hurt. But… company would be nice…

“Rebecca!! Where are you!?” Carrie shouted. She hopped forward using trees as support, having stepped on a piece of glass earlier. “REBECCA?”

Had something happened to her? It can’t have been the Knight; it was busy with her!

“…Rebecca?” … No answer. She’d just have to give up…

“REBECCA!!!” she screamed, mostly out of frustration.

“I’m sorry Carrie…” Rebecca whispered to herself, wiping away tears. “You are not getting involved.”

Billy had been quite a while. Paul wondered whether he aught to go looking for him. But no, police stations couldn’t be very busy at this time of night… it must be nearing two o’clock now! He’d wait, a bit longer…

Billy soon came out, slowly, and staggered towards Paul bench. He sat down, not saying a word.

“Billy?”

“Dead. Mum’s dead.” Tears rolled down his cheek.

“…Dead!?”

“You think they made a mistake?” Billy shouted flippantly.

“No…sorry…”

“The Knight…”

Billy clenched his fists.

“They told Rebecca. Now she could be anywhere,” he continued.

“I’m… sorry…” was all Paul could think to say.

“I bet you are,” Billy replied, in an unrecognisable tone. “We need Anonni…”

He got up, and wandered off. Paul reluctantly followed.