Fragments of gold

These are fragments of a story I'm writing. Drafts, incomplete spur of the moment writtens I decided to pen just out of passion and impatience.

Naamah crept downstairs, shrouded in a veil of darkness that would've snuffed out her eyesight if it weren't for the fire beetles lighting the way.

Morbid screams drowned in gurgles of blood coloured her experience down there in regret. She'd wished she'd never had to take this route, but it was the only way.

The painful thuds and the clinging of metal made her momentarily freeze in fright.

What was he doing to him?

One of the small illuminated beetles whirred past her, briefly washing her face in a honey-gold light. She was getting closer to the heavy solid gold door at the bottom of the stone stairs.

But that only meant her horror would corrupt her brain like fungus as his shrieking rang louder in her ears.

Her heart clotted and ached just hearing him. Her tears streamed down her face, glistening in the golden light.

Her partner…did this to people like him every night without fail. It was like a religious sacrament.

You must understand: usually, Namaah was in the upper quarters, insulated from the carnage and macabreness of whatever her partner did to his prisoners…it was all too much for her.

Too horrendous to think about even while she was tucked in her lavish blankets. Her heart bled for all his hostages.

But this time…it was her fault.

She banged on the golden door…

“Stop. Don't continue without me,” she heard him say, “Heh…can you tell me why I knew it was you?”

She froze. Her blood flared up and paralyzed her behind the golden door.

“Perhaps I'm too attuned to the rhythm of your footsteps…or maybe…your fragile panting? Haha!”

The door suddenly swung open. Burst, rather. It was like he was trying to tear it off its hinges. Or maybe he wasn't trying at all?

Listen, it was a solid gold door. Pure gold at that.

Her tremoring gaze fell upwards onto his horned smirk. All the courage it took to go down the stairs to his dungeon had sapped away the second she saw him in the flesh.

“Please…spare him. Please�"”

“Oh…my dear, please don't tell me you came all the way down into this purgatory to tell me about mercy…” he scoffed, leaving Namaah at the door, “Beatrice. I bet his left leg will do it,”

“Sure.”

“Jouer, stop! Beatrice�"” Naamah cried.

The man ripped into a disgusting scream that tore Namaah's ears and psyche into shreds. But nothing could've prepared her for what she saw.

Strapped to a lustrous golden operation table a dark-skinned man seeped in blood from head to toe, white-eyed with scarlet oozing down his black and red face.

His left leg had been shattered. Splintered. Bones in pieces, stuck to strings of bloody muscle, torn tendrils of tissue soaked in blood that dripped onto the gold floor.

“Haha! I told you, Beatrice! You owe me six diamond Lees�"look!”

You see, next to the operating table was a little wooden desk with a small fish tank. Swimming in the tank was a gorgeous iridescent fish called a popfish.

“Namaah! Let me tell you: Beatrice and I bet on what it would take to wake the popfish�"you know what those are, right?” Jouer's voice burst like a firework.

“Hmph. Why do you put so much faith in her? You know she's not the adventurer type, popfish are rare; only esteemed researchers such as myself and obsessive collectors like you, King Jouer, know what they are. She's nothing of the sort…just look at her, squeaking on the floor like a mouse, crying like a little�"”

“Enough, Beatrice. You know she's fragile, don't speak about her like that, not in front of me. Ever again…” Jouer ordered over the man's horrible screams and whimpers.

Beatrice folded her arms and nodded in half-hearted compliance, staring disgustedly at the weak woman dressed in a purple dress whimpering on the floor.

“Why are you even here, Namaah?”