Evil

My worries grew more and more faint the further we walked through the tunnel. Anytime the slightest bit of fear tried to slip itself into my soul, the warmth I felt in my palms would wash all of it away. I let my thought just come and go. Even when they were at the most darkest, trying to remind me of my anxiety, clawing their way back into my head, desperately reminding me of how horrible I am, they would all just end up being turned into something else. Something positive and uplifting.

I circled my thumb a few times on the side of her index finger, letting her know that I was still alive and ok. She responded by slightly readjusting her grip. I felt a warmth grow inside my chest, however it felt different. This warmth was packed into my chest so much that it felt tight, but it wasn't uncomfortable or painful. It just made me feel…cloudy.

Even the pressure from the ludicrous amount of magic just went in and out of me. I felt comfortable, safe, warm. Powerful even. I knew that I couldn't keep it forever, but I never wanted to let this hand go. Was that selfish of me though? The thought of never wanting to let go of her hand because it made me feel comfortable?

No. It's not me being selfish. It's me being a coward. I don't wanna keep myself away from her just because I hate myself, or because I'm afraid of myself. If she ever offers me her hand again, I'll take it. With zero hesitation, I'll take it. No matter the situation, no matter the reason, no matter the mood. If she ever offer me her hand, I'll will always take it.

When we get back, I'll tell her everything I know about myself. All the good, the bad, the weird. Even the useless. As long as she wants to hear it, I'll continue to say everything.

"I promise."

I said that in a voice lower than a whisper. While I was promising her, I was also promising myself.

Suddenly, the Wanderer stopped. There was a faint blue light where the end of the tunnel was, along with a pathway to the left. The Wanderer urged us to continue walking, but at a more slower pace.

I noticed Xylvia's ears twitch a little.

"I'm hearing footsteps," she said. "A lot of them. Sounds like an entire city is down there."

"You can hear that," I asked, pretty impressed. "I can't hear anything over here. Do you know how far they are from here?"

"I'd say about 80 stretches (120 meters) slightly to our left. The only reason I can hear them is because they seem to be amplifying their steps with magic. I've no idea why, but they seem to be stomping on the ground as well…"

She paused for a moment, listening closely to whatever it was she was hearing.

"I think I'm hearing around ten stomps every three clicks (three seconds)."

When we emerged through the lit up doorway, there were no torches to be seen. Instead, there were glowing characters that looked to be carved about three centimeters into the ground inside a circle that had two sides on both sides at 90 degree angles. The one on the left side was turned left 90 degrees, and the right one was turned right 90 degrees. There was also a straight line that was driven down the middle. I couldn't make out any of the characters, but Xylvia quickly got down onto her knees and began translating.

However…

"I…can't read any of this…" Xylvia muttered, shivering aggressively.

"Is it not in Universion or Felinian?" I asked.

"That's not it. These characters aren't in any language that's accessible to us regular civilians. You can tell based on the way it's used. I thought that there was just light magic that was infused with the text, but it's actually these characters that have magic instead. And text can't hold magic, it's based on the strength of one's soul."

"Then what could this be? Some new kind of magic that you guys never heard of?"

"It's possible…"

Xylvia was beyond terrified. Her hands shook vigorously and she was doing her best not to choke on her own breath.

"If that's the case, then don't you think that Gleam would make sure that this can never happen," I asked. "I mean, she is the goddess of this world right?"

"Yes, she is the goddess of this world, but she isn't the goddess of the entire universe. Just because this isn't magic in our world, doesn't mean that it can't be from another world. However…"

She pointed at one of the character inscribed in the circle. If you were to look from the entryway we just came from, it would be at the top part of the circle. It was a circle with a star drawn in it, two points of the star were pointed at the top of the small circle.

"I've seen this one before," she said. "I don't remember where, but it feels familiar."

"Xylvia, I-"

Before I could tell her anything else, the doorway that led into here closed on us with a wall of stone. I ran back and felt around the wall for a little bit, but I found nothing that indicated how to open it back up. However, the Wanderer walked up to it and morphed his hands into the same weird tendrils that Wanderer used to restrict Xylvia and Zig. The Wanderer was able to open it with little effort, then they let it close back. I guess this was their way of saying not to worry.

"If we can get back out, then I guess it's fine," Xylvia said. "I forgot to mention it earlier, but I owe you an apolo-"

*SHOOF!*

In a swift move, the Wanderer grabbed both Xylvia and I and had us hide behind a wall in the corner. The room was built where two sides of the wall had a small section that went inward a little, then came out with a small doorway that led to where Xylvia was hearing those stomps. The same doorway where a couple of hooded people walked through with lanterns.

The Wanderer set up a barrier with their tendrils that I guess blended in with the wall. The barrier was transparent, so we could see what these people looked like. Their hooded robes that they wore were pitch black with red edges and interior. The same symbol that Xylvia pointed out in the circle was inscribed on the tops of their robes near where their forehead would be. The symbol looks bloody.

Their faces were completely shrouded in the darkness of the hoodie. They also carried wooden staffs that had the same symbol carved all over it, glowing the same bloody red as the symbol inscribed on their hoodies. Their robes went down all the way to their feet, and they appeared to where boots underneath the cloth.

After looking around for a few moments, they returned back through the doorway. Their staffs clinking to the ground with every step they took.

Once they were out of earshot, Xylvia spoke up.

"It's the staffs," she said. "That's what I was hearing. They're hitting their staffs onto the ground. That might be where the magic is spewing out from."

"Xylvia, I know what those symbols are." I said to her.

"You do? What do they mean?"

"I'm not a very religious person, but that symbol could mean two things. Where I come from, it represents the five elements of life. However, in Christianity beliefs, the original shape of it was used to represent the five wounds of Christ. However, the meaning behind it became corrupt and was altered by satanists. The star was turned upside down and a circle was drawn around it. Nowadays, Christians use the cross as their symbolism instead of the pentagram."

"Wait, are you saying that these people came from your world?"

"I don't think so. If that was the case, I think Gleam would've let us know about that. I think these guys are involved in something else."

The Wanderer retracted their tendrils back and motioned for us to continue following.

"Why are you leading us to them?" Xylvia asked.

The Wanderer didn't respond. The Wanderer just kept walking forward, so we just kept following.

"I was thinking that this magic felt unfamiliar, but I never thought it would be something that you heard of." Xylvia said.

The tunnel was barely lit up by the bloody red pentagram symbols that were carved onto the sides of the stone tunnels. Another small doorway came into view, the sound that Xylvia was hearing earlier very audible to me.

"They're through there," Xylvia said. "This magic is starting to feel disgusting. I wish I was wearing sleeves."

"What should we do when we head through that doorway though," I asked her. "These people look like they have ill intentions, so I don't think a confrontation is a good idea."

"I don't know what this Wanderer things wants to do, but I agree. We should just hide and see what's going on inside."

The stomping noise suddenly stopped.

"We mustn't let these creatures roam our world any longer!"

A booming voice suddenly echoed through the tunnels. It was the scratchy voice of a middle-aged man who sounded like they had smoked their entire life. Xylvia and I froze up, but the Wanderer kept walking.

"For thousands of years, these vile beings have roamed out world with no purpose! Why are they given such long lives, while we are left to die with the Corrupted?! It is blatantly obvious my followers! This so called goddess cares only about her higher beings! She cares not about the civilians of Icarus! Not even her most devoted followers get a single ounce of her blessing! So I say, we take matter into our OWN hands! I have given you the knowledge that I found from these old scripts and notes! For us to be saved, sacrifices MUST BE MAAAADE!!!"

The crowd that we saw from the doorway roared with cheers. Some were joyful, but most of them sounded angry. But what made me choke on my own breath was what the man was pointing at, who had wore colors on his robe in reverse.

There were nearly hundreds of cages all filled with people. Those very people being from the City of Color. I spotted quite a few familiar faces. The guy who gave me a Hex to pay for hit drink. And the woman that covered her ears when I first talked to her. There were a other few familiar faces, enough for me to realize what was going on.

All of them were terrified and had been beaten to a bloody mess. Even children who looked younger than ten were barely hanging on.

"What…the fuck…" Xylvia muttered under her breath. "How did this happen…?"

"This sacrifice must be made now," the middle-aged man continued. "And this sacrifice must be of someone young. Someone with…fresh blood. And I'm thinking…he is the proper choice."

The man pointed at a boy who looked to be seven years old. He was a felinian and was one of the few kids who were still standing on their two feet even after they looked to have been beaten horribly.

A couple of robed people went to take the child away.

"NOOO!! GET AWAY!! THAT'S MY SON!!!" A woman who must've been the boy's mother screamed.

*SPLURT!*

"…huh…?"

A spear with a molten tip impaled her straight through her right shoulder. Everything went silent, a terrifying silence. Just the few droplets of blood were all that echoed in the room for a few moments.

*SHRIIIIIIIIII!!!*

Then, Xylvia's drawn claws scratched mercilessly across the stone wall. She was about to completely lose it. Even if the images of her first encounter with Wanderer were playing in her head, even if these people had magic that we were clueless about, even if it resulted in her own death, I could tell that the anger she was feeling was destroying those thoughts completely. She was about to go completely berserk. The only thing holding her back was her last shred of common sense.

The Wanderer suddenly started to walk into the room. No one had noticed yet. Instead, the middle-aged man walked over to the woman and grabbed the child by the hair, lifting his face up and screaming.

"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT WE CAN DO WITH THIS MAGIC," he roared with nothing but rage towards her. "THIS SACRIFICE IS ALL FOR THE GREATER GOOD! OUR LAST CHANCE IN TAKING OUT THOSE THINGS OVER THERE! AND THE ONLY WAY TO DO THAT IS TO FOLLOW LORD SATAN HIMSELF!!!"

The 'things' that he was referring to were the group of Wanderers trapped in a cage. There were about nine of them all huddled up and sitting down awaiting their fate. No form of emotion was visible on their face. Just an eerie void in their pitch black eyes.

But what the middle-aged man said was what hit me the most. He found notes about Satan? Was he learning about Satanism? And where did he get those notes? Why are they here? Did people believe in Christianity here, or is it something else. There's no doubt in my mind that the Satan he's referring to must be from the Christian religion, but just how in the world did he get those notes?

*CRUNCH!*

Right when I was about to go back into reality, the Wanderer that had walked into the room had someone in their grasp by the head. Their tendrils were out and crushing the head of a woman in robes who's screams were muffled by the Wanderer's tendrils. Her had had been turned to mush with one of her eyes popping out of its socket and her jaw completely snapped off, a pool of blood pouring down towards the other robed people.

"N-No…it…can't be." The middle-aged man stuttered, stammering backwards away from the Wanderer.

A horrifying commotion started between all the other robed people. The woman who had been stabbed grabbed the spear out of the hands of the distracted follower and snapped the long part of it off, leaving the molten tip of it inside her shoulder. She then grabbed her child and dashed away towards the corner of a room.

The Wanderer looked over at every single one of the Followers. Their gaze slowly shifting over to the other Wanderers trapped in the cage. The Wanderer launched their tendrils straight at the cage and crushed the bars open, freeing the other Wanderers.

"…fight…kill…no…mercy…"

Those four words were uttered from the Wanderer's mouth as they pointed straight at the Followers. And I'm that moment, a merciless bloodbath had started.