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It took until morning to get back to the village. As I crept in, painfully aware of how monstrous and naked I was at the moment, I couldn't help but feel unsettled, like something was off. I made my way through the buildings, slipping from alley to alley, ducking under porches and scurrying behind boxes. It was only when I got to the bakery when I realized something was very wrong. There was no sweet, uplifting scent of bread hanging in the air. I looked behind me, and for the first time noticed how drab and quiet the town was. I crawled into my and Mill's space and put on some spare clothes, borrowing Mill's cloak to hide the rat on my shoulder and the pink and black patterned skin on my face, and slid back out quickly.
With the cloak covering my head, I ran around to the front of the bakery and stepped inside. Usually me and Mill weren't allowed in, as it would "scare off those with money" but even as I prepared for the usual tongue lashing, everything stayed quiet. The bread on the counter and in the baskets was rat-eaten and covered in a grey fuzz, and looked inedible. I made my way to the back, and saw the kitchen, tools and baking supplies still out, the great stone oven cold as ice, and the flour spilled all over the floor. There was no sign of the bakers.
I left, my heart pounding, and my mouth dry. I had no great love for the bakers, but they provided warmth and a roof for us even if it was the least they could do, and it felt unthinkable for them to be gone. I walked from building to building, all of them open, all of them in shambles. There were rats in most of them, and cobwebs everywhere. I wasn't sure how I didn't notice the state of disrepair when I was sneaking through, but I took it to be because I had been worried about myself instead.
I didn't find any sign of people in the town, at least not until I started making my way to the outskirts. I smelled something awful as I got away from town center, and there was some kind of droning noise coming from in front of me. As I got close to the church, I recognized the smell as the one from my cell the past year, that of rotting flesh. I stood in front of the door, afraid of what I may see, but afraid of not knowing even more. The rat burrowed in my clothes, hiding from the now deafening sound, and I absently pet him through my top. I reached out, and slowly swung the doors open.
Inside was a pile of bodies twice as tall as I was, and a horde of massive, thumb sized flies that burst out, smacking into my body with thudding noises and spiraling out of the church into the sky. I had heard that great flies were attracted to bodies, but I had never seen them in such numbers before. They billowed out of the slimy, decomposing pile in a seemingly never-ending gush, and I choked and gagged at their stench. The pile itself was writhing, maggots or grubs, some too big to even hold in one's hand were sliding in and out of holes and openings on the corpses.
I coughed again and stepped inside, looking at the pile. I thought I recognized the bakers, and a few other people I did odd jobs for, but they were too decomposed to be sure. Stepping around the mound and swatting off the flies that seemed to be trying to choke out my air and sight, I saw the alter, and on it, a body with familiar robes. I stepped over to it, and saw the pendant around her neck, and knew I was looking at Sister Galla. I slid the chain from around her neck, and unclasped her pendant, replacing it with Mill's and hung it around my own neck. Mill's chain had melted in the furnace, and Sister Galla wasn't going to need hers anymore. I left her holy symbol on what was left of her chest, and dashed outside.
The town was desolate. There was nothing left, not that I could have lived here in my condition anyway. I still needed to get the rest of my body back though, so I decided to set up a base here, some place to bunker down if I needed to, and someplace to bring the prince if I was successful in getting him in my grasp
~
I went to the front of the town to the guard shack, and saw why the town was so untouched by robbers or explorers. A large sign out front read "WARNING: PLAGUE TOWN" in blood red, with a skull on it. I scoffed, even if it were plague and not he prince slaughtering a town to protect his secret, I doubted it could hurt me. I armed myself with a helmet, a short sword that was still far too large for me, and some leather armor to drape over my clothes. I played with the idea of getting a dagger and letting the rat use it, but I didn't have that much control over him, and other than "stay close to the person commanding you" it didn't seem like I could 'tell' him anything.
By this time, night was falling, and I had a choice to make. Would I stay here and get stronger and try and take the prince later? Or should I go tonight? In the end, I decided tonight would be the best option, even if they had discovered my escape, they would never expect me to come back to the castle so soon. I ran for the castle through the woods as fast as I could, feeling the burn in my lungs and legs swell and fade as the worms healed me. I felt like I could run at top speed forever, and never get tired.
Once I got to the castle, I climbed in through a wall slit, one that would have been much too small for an adult, and made my way up the spiral stairs to the top floor. My body felt amazing, like I could twist in any direction without pain, like I was stronger than I knew, and like I could think more quickly that I ever could before. The hunt was on. The man with the beaked mask was outside an ornate door, pacing back and forth along the hallway muttering to himself, and I crouched in the shadows on the stairs, out of sight for several minutes watching his pattern. Once I had figured it out, I dashed out of the shadows as he turned away, and into the prince's room, letting the door close behind me softly before he turned back around again.
I looked around, the room was ornate, and full of useless shiny bits and trinkets, trophies that only meant something to those dumb enough to collect them. In the center, on a massive bed, lay the prince. His chest rose and fell softly, his face peaceful and calm. I jumped onto the bed and thrust the sword at his neck, drawing blood and pressing it in, ready to slice if he cried out. He frowned in his sleep and exhaled stiffly. I withdrew the sword, and his neck sealed back up slowly. I thought about it, the man in the mask must have used too much sleeping draught in the assumption it would wear off faster after the surgery. That made my job much, much easier.
I strapped the prince to the wheeled surgery table that was still in his room, and pushed him over to his balcony. It was late, and there was no guard stationed here, so I made a ramp from his privacy curtain and pushed him over the edge, table and all. There was a muffled crash when he hit, and I stayed still, but there was no movement to be heard, so I climbed up, cupped the rat to my chest for safety, and jumped down. As I planned, I landed directly on the prince. It still hurt, I think some of my bones were broken, but he cushioned my fall enough for me to be on my feet and pushing him away down the hill to the woods in moments.
~
Wheeling a full grown man through the woods is an almost impossible thing to do, and it was afternoon before I rolled him to a stop in the bakery's back room, sweaty, out of breath, and covered with mud and leaves. I stabbed him again, and upon hearing only a small moan, I decided it was safe to go clean up before I started. I washed in the creek and thought of Mill, and thought of if I could really do to the prince what he had done to me. Then I thought of Mill again, and knew I could. I got dressed in my damp clothes, and fished the rat out of the small pool he was in, and went back, my resolve firmed.
Resolve firmed or not though, the prince still wasn't awake, nor would he wake up when I started stabbing him. I wanted him to feel the pain, and if I was being honest, I wanted him to feel at least some of what I felt, so I did plan on torturing him for a while before I pulled his mass out. I waited for hours, collecting tools from the shops around town, laying them out, playing with the rat and trying to teach him tricks, and still the prince slept. Eventually, as the last two nights of no sleep caught up to me, I felt myself slipping off into slumber on the bread board.
~
I woke up with a jolt, the prince's screams filling the air and I felt a smile on my face. I sat up and looked over at him, straining against the straps and I waved at him as his eyes landed on me. He screams again and thrashed on the table, pulling hard at his restraints.
"Heyyyy, don't be scared, I won't do anything too bad, I just want to show you what it's like, then I need my parts back, ok?" I crooned, sliding the sword under his shirt and slicing it open
"Get back you fucking monster! I am your fucking prince, I cannot be-"
I stabbed him in the throat, his words fading away with a wet gurgle. He thrashed again, his eyes rolling back in his head for a moment before his throat filled enough to breathe. It looked like he was healing much, much slower than I was, was that due to time? The drugs? or simply because he didn't have as much of the mass as I did? I didn't know and the more I thought about it, I didn't care.
I tortured him slowly, doing things he did to me, trying new things, finding out how his new abilities worked. His eye had grown back after all, but it was grey and pink, like mine, instead of the piercing blue it used to be. To check, I cut out his other eye, and sure enough, one of mine grew back in its place. I could feel him, like I could with the rat, but unlike with the rat, I couldn't command him, not even slightly. It did seem like I could impose fear onto him, or numb him if I wanted. Although, I can't ever imagine wanting to numb him.
The more I worked on him, the more I realized that when 'he' healed, he wasn't actually healing, I was. Cutting off his rough, long man hands resulted in thin, small hands growing back, cutting away his scalp resulted in long dark grey hairs sprouting to replace his short white ones, and cutting away his lips replaced his sneering lips with my thin ones. Out of curiosity, I tested to see if he could regrow body parts I didn't have that he did. He couldn't, and my laughter and his screams filled the night as I taunted him mercilessly.
Eventually, I got tired of the game, and I left to go nap and bathe in the creek to wash his blood and juices off of my clothes. When I awoke, feeling clean and refreshed hours later, I felt a pang of wrongness. After a moment of thinking, I realized that he was no longer where I left him. I reached out, trying to sense his location, and found him miles away, traveling fast. I rushed to the bakery, and found that he had managed to do what I never could, and rip one of his hands off in the shackle. Once he did that, loosing his other bonds would have been a breeze, and he must have met someone on the road willing to give him a ride away to someplace I couldn't reach.
I cleaned up as best I could, eating the body parts I had removed from him and feeling the worms inside squirm into place as I claimed them, and then I burned the town to the ground. I basked in the blaze, and breathed in the smoke, holding Mill's holy symbol in front of me as I prayed to any god that would listen to help me reach the prince and get what was mine back into my body. I knew I was still cast out by the gods, but I hoped beyond all hopes that the prince was too, and that the gods hated him more than they did me.