Chapter 3: 3. Righteousness

Eventually, Desmond ran out of tears to cry. 

He didn’t think that it was because he had gotten all of his sadness out. On the contrary, he was pretty sure he’d only stopped crying because he hadn’t drank anything in days. It felt like his body had just run out of liquids and didn’t have anything left in it to fuel his tears. 

So, once his eyes had gone dry and he realized just how sticky the inside of his mouth felt, he eventually clambered to his feet, his body movements languid and decidedly less energetic than before. The kitchen in his family’s home was one of the parts of the house that had been turned to rubble completely, and there was no trace of anything food-related left over from the destruction. 

Luckily, he was able to find his Father’s watering can behind the remnants of their house. His garden had been trampled over, his prized purple and pink hydrangeas being ground into a pile of organic mush. Laying on its side next to them, with a few new dents that Desmond didn’t recognize, was the pale blue watering can with its brown leather sash. He picked it up and was pleased to hear the sloshing sound of water inside. Thankfully, its protective lid hadn’t been knocked off, so the water stayed contained inside. Desmond flicked the lid off and was immediately met with an odorous, stale smell.

It made sense, though. His father tended to use the leftover water at the end of each day to use for his garden the day after. He was of the belief that water was still water, at the end of the day, and still gave life regardless of what was in it. Of course, he made sure to clean the leftover water as much as possible before using it for his garden, but he was still adamant about making good use of whatever was left. 

Desmond was so thirsty, though, that he upturned the can and poured the stale water directly into his mouth, seemingly uncaring about the smell or where it had come from. He swallowed three big gulps of water before stopping to breathe, water dribbling down the front of his chin and shirt. 

He moved to wipe his face with his arm, only for his stomach to loudly grumble in protest afterward. 

“Right...” Desmond muttered to himself softly, putting a hand over his aching stomach. “...I should find something to eat.”

The boy very quickly looped the sash over his shoulder, taking the watering can with him, before wrapping back around the front of his former home and finding himself in the middle of the east main street. Looking up and down the well-walked, paved path, Desmond thought about how weird it was that this street and the others didn’t have a name. Everyone just called them “the main streets”, so he guessed they didn’t really need names. 

After some careful deliberation, Desmond decided to head up the street, further into Calcheth. He reasoned that the farms closer to the edge of the city had probably gotten trampled first and that maybe the homes and cafes near the center of the city had managed to stay relatively unharmed.

He knew that this was just optimistic thinking, though, even bridging on completely delusional. He could very easily see how much worse the destruction got further into town, with more and more of the houses having been turned into piles of rubble.

‘But...’ He reasoned to himself, carefully sticking to the edges of the streets with his trusty knife in hand as he finished aloud; “But maybe I can find someone else while I’m at it.”

 

►⚉◄

 

The further into town that he got, the less and less hope Desmond was able to conjure up. Dried blood littered almost every surface; both mortal and demon alike. The road, previously gray bricks with tufts of emerald green grass sticking up between the cracks, was practically dyed shades of red and purple. Where the red and purple liquids had met, they’d mixed and combined into a dark, murky liquid that hadn’t completely dried up, even now.

Desmond found this out the hard way after accidentally stepping into a rather large puddle of the gunk. It was viscous, as thick as syrup, yet it had the texture of mud. It stuck to his shoe where he stepped in it and it took all his strength to pry his leg free, though not without the gunk pulling off chunks of leather from the bottoms of his boot. 

“Eugh. That’s gross.” His complaints fell on deaf ears as he simply had to readjust his boot and keep it moving. He made extra sure, though, to avoid any more puddles of the thick black goo. 

The clouds above continued to roll over the town, even darker than they were when Desmond had first exited his hole. The smell of petrichor only grew stronger, and Desmond came to the conclusion that if he was gonna find anything to eat, he’d prefer to do it before the rain came down. 

He was crossing under the remains of a large stone archway—Calcheth had four of them, leading from each cardinal main street into the town center—when a familiar noise echoed out across the streets, halting Desmond in his tracks. Over the course of the last five days, though he still didn’t know just how long it’d actually been, that sound had haunted him from the back of his head constantly; making sure he would never forget it. 

It was the scream of a demon. 

Immediately, Desmond broke out into a cold sweat as he desperately retreated back under the archway, almost slipping on the slick pavement before he managed to stuff himself behind the remnants of the once beautiful columns. His chest heaved and his small hands tightened around his only lifeline—the small knife he’d recently grown to depend on. A familiar feeling of panic arose in him as he tried, and failed, to calm himself down. 

As his heart continued to hammer away at his ribcage like a hummingbird in a cage, he heard the chilling scream of the demon once more. This time, though, he realized that it sounded...differently than he remembered. His panic slowly subsided as the demon screamed out again, its voice echoing throughout the empty town in an almost whimpering tone. It almost sounded like...like it was crying.

You are reading story The Mann, The Myth, The Legend at novel35.com

Desmond cautiously poked his head around the archway, his eyes raking over the destroyed town center in search of the crying demon. 

Even though he didn’t get out much due to his health issues, Desmond always loved the Calcheth town center. The four cardinal main streets each led into the center, which was a large circular walking area, paved over in red and brown bricks, with a tall, expensive metal fountain in the middle and small shops and cafes lining the area surrounding it. The fountain was made out of an opaque, silvery metal, fashioned into the form of a tall, needle-like structure with numerous shorter needles surrounding it, each one standing straight up and spurting shining, shimmering water from the tips that arced gracefully before plummeting back down into the fountain’s main pool, a wide round basin with intricate, flowery designs etched into its rim. 

Surrounding the fountain was a small green belt, with emerald green grass, small, neatly trimmed bushes, and tiny bunches of flowers that Desmond's father had a hand in picking out for the center. His mother would often bring him here on the weekends, when he had taken his medicine and was able to spend an extended amount of time outside, and they would simply sit and watch the fountain together.

At least, that’s what it used to look like. Now, it could barely even be called a shell of its former self. 

The previously paved roads had been ruined; bricks uprooted, broken in half, or even completely pulverized into a fine powder, all covered in a sickeningly thick layer of dried red mortal and purple demon blood. The greenery around the fountain couldn’t even be called that anymore. Gone were the flowers that added a splash of color to the town center, and gone was the beautiful emerald grass. Now, it was simply a ruined, desiccated mound of dirt that had no life left in it to speak of. 

Much like the rest of the buildings in town that he’d seen, the cafes and shops around the center were absolutely ravaged. More than half of them were no longer standing; only existing now as piles of rubble, glass, and piles of dust. The few that were still standing were barely even doing that, with the majority of their structure having been toppled over and whatever remained only kept standing by sheer dumb luck. 

The fountain had been completely destroyed. The tall, needle-like nozzles either cut in half, bent out of shape, or removed from the structure completely. The basin was warped, as if something extremely hot had melted it out of shape and then it was left to cool on its lonesome. An entire side of the basin was completely caved in, and all the water from inside was nowhere to be seen.

It was there, laying in the busted cavity of the fountain, that Desmond finally saw the crying demon. 

It was lying on its side, its head concealed by the basin of the fountain. From what Desmond could see, it had a vaguely beast-like form; similar to that of a bull. It had powerful looking legs, though they kicked weakly at the pavement, and bright red fur that was splotched and splattered with spots of both mortal and demon blood alike.

It truly showed its demonic nature, though, with the rest of its body. It had a long, flail-like tail that split into three at the end, each one with a large, bulbous protrusion at the end. Desmond thought they looked a lot like bones, but wasn’t stupid enough to get close and inspect them. Each one rhythmically smacked the ground one after the other, cracking the pavement under it and tossing up dust and debris into the air.

Its upper body confused the young boy. It’s bull-like form continued upward until it got to the shoulders where, instead of having a conventionally bovine front half, it’s shoulders bulged out, strong and muscular, and lead into very human-like arms, rippling with muscle and with large hands, each with six giant, clawed fingers at the ends. 

It was easily almost double Desmond’s size. But for a creature so large and powerful, he wondered why it was even still here—and why it had been crying out in the first place. Then he squinted, looking closer.

Both of the demon’s arms were broken, bent in irregular ways and shattered at the joints. Similarly, its legs seemed to have been squished by something heavy, and a gash went down its back from the neck, all the way to the base of its tail. 

Desmond tried to use ⦓Eye For Detail on it⦔, but for some reason, it didn’t activate. 

‘Maybe it's too high-level?’ He reasoned, stepping out from behind the archway and edging closer towards the fountain. ‘Or...maybe I’m too far away?’

As afraid as he was, Desmond cautiously approached the fountain, the knife in one hand. As he got closer, he kept trying to use his personal skill, but it failed to activate time and time again until he was standing right next to the fountain, a mere two meters away from the demon. 

Immediately, he saw that same purple energy light up across its prone form. Instead of converging on its weakest area, like it did with the planks, the energy spread across the demon’s entire body, stopping at each wound it currently had and spilling information into his mind about them, down to the most minute detail. It was, frankly, a little overwhelming. 

---