NOVEL NEXT Chapter 36: You need me and I need you.
Hanna followed herself for a few moments, but she couldn’t help but express her confusion on multiple occasions, they were walking in an endless white void with no change in scenery in sight, why did they need to walk to be able to talk? And some other more minor questions like: 'why were there two of her and why was her body littered with holes and why did she not feel anything.'
That last question related to both her inability to feel physical pain despite there being holes in her body and her inability to feel any emotions, but any other questions that lingered on her mind, like why she was here in the first place, or where she was to begin with, were never uttered as the other Hanna simply turned around and glared at her silently for a few moments.
Hanna might not be able to feel any fear right now, but the message was clear so she decided to shut up for now and simply follow, her other self clearly knew what was going on so better do as she says she reasons with herself.
After another 5 or so minutes of seemingly aimless walking, her other self abruptly turns around, which almost causes the two of them to collide, but Hanna was able to course correct the last second before anything happened. Her other self meanwhile was shocking her fist violently at the air, before opening her fist and two cups of tea suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Hanna was confused for a mere few moments before the smell of the tea hit her nose, which caused her to remember a lot of old sensations she hadn’t been able to feel, ever since her transformation into a horrible monster who didn’t need conventional sustenance to survive, as a result she plopped down onto the ground immediately and taking a hold of the cup, faintly recognising the heat against her hand, but the fact remained that she couldn’t feel pain right now so she didn’t care and neither did she care when the burning hot liquid made its way down her throat.
The taste was something she couldn’t remember tasting before, it was sweet with a clear sour aftertaste similar to less sweetened then normal lemonade, although she didn’t taste any citrus or similar fruit, over all a tea she didn’t particularly enjoy but wouldn’t say no to if offered again.
Her counterpart had also settled down onto the ground at that point, but when she took a sip of the tea, her face scrunched up in obvious disgust and she quickly put the cup of tea down again, Hanna looked on in surprise as the counterpart actually swallowed the sip she had taken, instead of spitting it back out again, it took literal minutes before she actually did swallow but she did.
"I honestly can not understand your obsession with this crap, I mean, yes I‘m a horrible abomination of a monster that shouldn’t exist in the first place and that feeds on negative emotions, but still, it’s not like I don‘t have tastebuds at all and I really do not get why you like this stuff."
"To be honest, I don’t really like this one either, probably not the worst I‘ve ever had but not really good by any means, what kind of blend is this anyway?"
“Well… just some random fruits and similar stuff I took from the waking world before you fell completely unconscious, that wasn’t easy and to say I‘m disappointed that you don’t enjoy my very hard earned gift to you is not really making me feel all that better over all the stuff I had to do to get this. Do you even know, how hard it is to try and gather fruits when you have to constantly stay hidden, otherwise the literal gods will descend upon you and erase you completely from existence?"
Hanna blinked once, then twice, the twice again and she continued blinking but no matter how much she blinked, the giant smug grin on her others face did not disappear, this doppelgänger of hers just explained how she would be erased from existence by the gods themselves if they found her and now she sits here, drinking tea with her and grinning like a idiot, as if it was just another Tuesday?
Hanna wanted to feel annoyed, shocked confused and maybe even a bit angry at this carefree doppelgänger idiot of hers and she tried, oh she tried, but alas, she simply couldn’t she felt absolutely nothing. She had questions however, questions that she wanted to be answered. Luckily, her doppelgänger seemed to realise her desire.
"It will take a long while to explain everything you know… And honestly? I don’t know how long I can keep you here… I will go over the necessary stuff and afterwards you can ask as many questions as you like, but when I say you stop you will stop, understood?"
Her once play full like tone shifted to a more serious one and she looked at Hanna expectedly, clearly it was time for serious business to start. Hanna disliked the terms set before her, she always was a rather free spirited person, going things about as she wanted to, it often got her in trouble with her professors back when she was still a simple student, but even then, Hanna knew when she was faced with an ultimatum and she knew when to shut up and just accept what was demanded of her, so she kept her mouth shut and simply nodded.
Her doppelgänger released a sigh of release before closing her eyes.
"It all starts with the way you arrived at the other world, or as the locals know it, Pendoras…"
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Luisa was feeling an mixture of emotions, they ranged from boredom, annoyance, anger and tired, for over 4 days was she already sitting inside of this damp and dark cell, with only her clothes to keep her warm during the cold autumn nights. Normally she preferred the dark, bright places always made her feel way to warm all over and they reduced her magic effectiveness over all, there was just one problem with this particular dark place and that were the magic binding shackles that kept her chained to the wall behind her, preventing her from using her magic in the first place.
Another two reasons for her less then amused mood, were the fact she was completely alone, despite technically having a cell mate, and the guard responsible for her cell was an elf and from what she had gathered, he was the only elf in the service of this place, as if they knew of her hatred for elfs and decided to torture this way.
To say Luisa was concerned for Hanna was maybe a bit much, but she couldn’t help but wonder just what the hell is going on right now, for 4 days straight, ever since being beaten and captured by that one knight in shining armor, Hanna did not move. She had assumed she was dead at first, but then one night she was awoken by Hanna absolutely screaming her lungs out, until suddenly stopping and remaining motionless on the ground, she could only shrug when the very confused guard asked what the hell happened. So to summarise, she was in a dark damp cell completely alone and it started to way in on her mood.
The other reason for her declining mood was the guard assigned to her cell, an elven man who had a habit of praying to his gods in a small room near Luisa’s cell and of course he just had to be a follower of that damned church that was located in her home village. In other words, he swore allegiance to the church responsible for her suffering in her youth.
In other words, he was also from that very same village.
In other words, he was most likely one of the people torturing her as a small child.
In other words, he was most likely one of the people who dragged the one man, who had treated her like an actual living being, away to be burned at the stake.
If the man recognised Luisa, he didn’t show it, but he probably didn’t, he may have been from the same place as her, but that doesn’t mean he was actually around at the time for all she knew he could have been already in the service to whatever place this was, therefore never meeting Luisa before this and even if he was actually there to torment her during her childhood, she doubted he would recognise her, because he didn’t care enough to remember. If one comes across a bag filled with waste you don’t proceed to perfectly ingrain every detail of it into your memory after all.
One thing she appreciated about this scenario however, was that he kept his mouth shut, whenever any other guard was taking his place they made sure to remind Luisa of how much of a scumbag or waste of air she and Hanna were, it reminded her of her childhood in a way and because of her childhood she knew that biting back in any way was a pointless endeavour that would only result in the situation becoming worse.
Perhaps this was the worst kind of torture she had to endure during her time here, she was back in her old shoes, unable to do anything and just take the abuse, Luisa blamed Hanna for a lot of things and detested her for more, but she couldn’t help herself and appreciate the one thing Hanna had done for her, through her she had tasted a freedom she hadn’t known since the moment of her birth, even back when she lived together with that old elf she had felt constrained in a way, even back then she wanted to take her revenge on the others, or at least talk back, but he had forbidden her from doing so.
"They will come around to it eventually, how can anyone look at you and not give you a chance? I know it will take time, but it will happen eventually." That’s what he had said…
And look where it had gotten him. Burned at the stake while his old friends and family shouted at him in rage and disgust and spit on his remains for days after, she had seen it all from the little box they had kept her in before she would have been sent to the capital for her own execution at the great church there, such cowards were they that they didn’t want to kill her in their own church, afraid to stain it with her black remains.
When she gets out of his cell alive, she will burn that cursed village to the ground and then she will go and find their oh so precious temple, where that damned oracle was located and tear her throat out of her body, even if the legends were true and she couldn‘t be harmed by any mortals hand, she would find a fucking way or die trying.
She felt her magic burn with a fiery passion inside of her, only to weakly butt heads with the magic absorbing metal that her chains were made out of, stopping anything from happening, it didn’t stop her from imagining however and she quickly was lost inside of her own head, thinking of the many ways she would finally take that sweet sweet revenge on her birthplace.
"Burn it all… Flay them and strangle their elders… Destroy their… church… And rip out…"
That day, most guards swore they heard noises coming from deep within the basement of the manor, where all the high priority prisoners where kept, though none dared to venture into the accursed place to see what the noise might be, even the assigned guard decided that, for once, yes, he was sick.
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Hanna had listened to everything her doppelgänger said twice now and yet she was still only barley capable of wrapping her mind around it. The gods of the world had summoned heroes to intervene in a continent scale war and left afterwards. Upstarts taking their places and proclaiming themselves as gods despite being far weaker then the actual gods before them, they had tried to replicate the summoning magic the older gods had used to summon the heroes, but they failed and now multiple scrolls containing these flawed summoning spells were scattered around the world, one of which was responsible for summoning her.
But since the scroll contained a flawed spell she had not been summoned completely, some part of her was not sent through with her and that…
"…was my soul, as I was summoned to this world I lost my soul?"
Her doppelgänger heaved a heavy sigh of exasperation.
"Look, no matter how often you are going to ask it won’t change, you don’t posses a soul right now, it’s the reason you look like this and don’t feel any emotions by the way, and I am the reason the very world itself hasn’t disintegrated you already, or sent you into the unending void, or what ever else torturous method it would see fit to use to get rid of you."
More nonsensical things sprouted from her doppelgänger and under normal circumstances she might have stopped having this conversation a long time ago, but Hanna had to begrudgingly admit that sadly, these nonsensical thing were indeed happening and she needed to take them seriously, no matter how impossible they may seem.
"Explain. I want to know everything." She demanded instead of questioning anything further, it had proven to be a useless endeavour with her doppelgänger already, so might as well save her the breath.
"As I have told you before, I shouldn’t really exist and neither should you for that matter, the race of the 'Dark Margenko', a truly dull name and absolutely uninspired if you ask me by the way, we’re created by accident inside of a laboratory of an once most budding wizardly scholar. In his pursuit of knowledge he got it into his head that he would be able to creat and therefore control, life itself and with it creation itself, he spent decades trying to convince others of his cause while simultaneously trying his hardest to make his dreams come true, needless to say he absolutely failed the first part and he was basically exiled in every single kingdom, dukedom and principality imaginable, he started to isolate him self and he grew insane over the years, but that second part, he partially succeeded in it, he created us, The Dark Margenko."
"He archived this through the combination of a monsters and humanoid body with the soul of a demon a voila the Dark Margenko now roamed the world, he had achieved his dream and had wrung away ownership of, the one thing that most believed to be the sole property of the gods, from their hands, he now held 'Creation' in his hands."
"Let me guess, the gods disapproved of this?" Hanna interrupted already guessing there this particular story was headed, it wasn’t that surprising honestly, how many stories exist of this very kind in her old life, and how often had such read similar plots in the fantasy novels she so dearly loved?
Her doppelgänger chuckled loudly.
“Disapproving is putting a bit lightly there, they set up an entire manhunt for the man and offered anyone who slew him a stay in their celestial halls, essentially becoming something of a demigod, they even wrote a binding celestial contract to give a guarantee their offer for it was genuine, after all setting up an entire manhunt of a single man and then forcing every single living thing in the entire world to participate and then promising ascension to practical god-hood seemed extremely excessive to most people. But with that contract in play, everyone knew they were genuine and now all the bets were off, but honestly, they shouldn’t have bothered. And I‘m quite sure it is the one thing they regret doing the most to this very day."
"And the reason for that is?"
While Hanna wasn’t able to feel angry, she was getting a bit impatient, she had been listening for god knows how long and she really wanted her doppelgänger to get to the point already, after all she had promised she would help her, and while the information was helpful in a way, it wasn’t what Hanna was expecting and she started to doubt that her doppelgänger had any useful information that would be able to help her in her current circumstances.
"Let me answer that question with one of my own, do you remember what happened to the first human you came across when you had turned into a Dark Margenko? And what do you think happened with that information in mind?"
It wasn’t hard to remember her first encounter after arriving in this world, after all barley 10 seconds had passed before her first encounter occurred and she remembers it so detailed, she remembers every facial expression the man had made, every movement of his body and every word or shriek he had spoken or made, it was almost scary how vivid her memories were from this encounter it must have been months since then and yet she remembers everything about it, including what had happened at the end of it, the poor man was bleeding so much.
So what, the Dark Margenko that the mad scholar created attacked him? But how was that anything important? And why would the gods regret making that contract… that promised something akin to god-hood… to the person… that killed…
The gears in her head finally connected the dots her doppelgänger had laid out before her and her eyes widened a bit, even in her emotionless state she couldn’t not feel surprised as the implications finally set in, one of those Dark Margenko‘s…
"Judging by your larger then normal eyes and the fact you stopped rubbing you chin I guess you finally figured it out? Ahhhh I remember the gods faces when they were obligated to turn me into what I am today, they looked so angry and full of disbelief! That self proclaimed god of life looked so sad and he kept on crying through the whole ordeal, it was absolutely glorious!!"
A heavy sigh left the doppelgänger‘s lips and she closed her eyes, obviously reminiscing about her past, probably savouring the memory of all the despair and pain of the gods, it was something Hanna had done multiple times herself, thinking back to her victims and their pain and horror, it used to fill her with a form of fullness, like she was proud of her work, in her current emotionless state however it did nothing and it almost made her cringe, not that she felt remorse or anything similar, but without the feeling of gratification she usually receives it seemed silly.
This emotionless state was truly an eye opening experience, her doppelgänger had alluded that without her, this would have been how she would be in the world, what exactly that meant she hadn’t explained, but her doppelgänger had said that she was the reason for how Hanna reacted and felt, that she somehow influenced how she thought and felt about things.
Hanna had wanted to feel enraged when she first learned of this fact, ever since she came to this world it had been clear to Hanna that someone or something was affecting her mentally, you don’t just lose your entire moral compass and turn into a raging sadist that put John Wayne Gacy to shame, without some sort of magical meddling. Hanna felt violated but as much as she wanted to be angry because of it, she couldn’t and she couldn’t even get frustrated with herself for not becoming angry like she knew she should, quite the vicious cycle she noticed.
Almost like she read her mind her doppelgänger suddenly spoke up.
"From the way you were looking at me earlier when I first mentioned it to you, I assume you want more details, so I will provide. Yes I did influence you and your feelings and thoughts to better suit… my taste, basically you thought and felt the same things I would if I were in the same situations and the reason for it all is simple: I had to. Like I explained earlier, while technically among their ranks, it doesn’t mean they accepted me or anything, the moment the ceremony was done and I officially joined their ranks they tried to murder me. I have been running away from them for multiple decades by now and you were just… a Perfect way to escape. It also happened to save you from endless torment or something similar so I see this as a clear win-win."
Hanna released a hum in response, her doppelgänger had mentioned that she would have been eradicated by the world itself because she didn’t posses a soul, it seems her unexpected parasite was enough of a soul replacement to placate the world and nor completely eradicate her.
Although something didn’t quite make sense, that was lie, a lot of things were nonsensical and completely ludicrous and Hanna still had about a thousand different questions in her mind, but most of those questions were in a category where the answer most definitely simply boiled down to 'magic, deal with it.' So asking them was not her priority, rather it were two questions regarding her parasite saviour, god doppelgänger thing.
"Why didn’t the gods simply get rid of me? If they are clearly capable of killing something similar to what they themselves were, why didn’t they just kill me and why did you only appear now and not earlier when…" Before Hanna could finish voicing her lingering questions a loud banging came from… somewhere, considering they were in an completely white space that seemingly only stretched endlessly into nothing, but there was very clearly a banging coming from somewhere. Looking at her godly doppelgänger she was greeted by something between an annoyed scowl and an apologetic smile.
"Sorry but I think it’s time for US to stop our conversation there, we will most definitely talk again though, now if you excuse me I‘m going back into my hiding place for now so those idiots don’t even get the chance to see my beautiful self."
A sudden, searing pain invaded Hanna‘s head at that exact moment, she fell to her knees as she grabbed her forehead in withering agony and the edges of her vision started to turn black. She wanted to scream in pain, but found herself unable to do so, and she simply continued to wither in silent agony as her vision got ever more blurry and dark.
"Just a heads up, somethings will be different when you wake up, there is no need to feel panic I will explain when we meet again, till then~"
And then everything turned dark.
