Chapter11-The Sin of Blood(Game of The Heart)

Chapter 11: The Sin of Blood

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My heart stopped.
Men were shouting.
Bullets were fired.
And now, it was dead silent.
Hot tears burned a path down my cheeks like acid. Akin said he could handle it. He said we'd be okay! He promised he'd come back! But why is it so quiet now? Why hasn't he come for me?
I whimpered. That gun fired so many times, so consecutively I couldn't keep count. Akin… Akin must be plugged full of bullets, lying there on the ground and bleeding his life away as his murderer kicked his body around. I choked up. That couldn't be, right? Akin wasn't dead…
He promised he could do it. He promised.
I had to look. I just had to make sure.
My hands trembling, I latched onto the tree bark and pulled my body forward, just enough to peer my head around at the battlefield. I could only see one person, the build of a man lying limp on the forest ground. I drew a shaky breath. That wasn't Akin. That wasn't Akin. It wasn't him!
I just had to keep telling myself that.
I progressed cautiously and poked my head around the corner entirely, perplexed by the scene. There was… just that one body lying there. No attacker, no survivor.
I growled low and deep. Where the hell did that murderer go? I'd kill him if it's the last thing I did!

So, I mustered up the courage to stand, clinging to the tree bark on my way up. And then, I clandestinely set foot on the battleground, immediately cringing at the faint dust of gunpowder drifting to my nose. It was fresh, smoky and mixing with the odor of foul blood. Slowly, I approached the fallen corpse. It…

"He…"

My lips parted slightly with shock. Akin… survived. He lived! I wanted to scream for joy, to run off and find him and smother him with my happiness, but at the same time…
I was mortified.

There was a dead body at my feet. A real, dead body. Our assailant was stabbed in the forehead with a sharpened knife, his features rendered indistinguishable through the plethora of thick blood pouring out in thick streams and coating the violently ripped flesh across his mangled face. I nearly vomited on his corpse. The sight was just gruesome. There he was, bleeding the entirety of his life away at my feet. All because of me…

I cried. I just started to cry. I cried for this man I didn't know. I cried for the fear that nearly consumed me just a few moments ago. I cried for the fear that was overwhelming me even now. This was all too much… All of it was too much! I didn't even know where Akin had gone, and I was too scared to go out and find him.

I was a coward.

All I could do was stand there and cry, wail as hard as I could to drive the fear out of my body. But nothing helped. I just waited, taking shaky breaths through the breaks in my barrage of tears, and hoped. I prayed for Akin to come back and save me.

I was a coward.

I looked down at the attacker's corpse again and swallowed the clump of bile rapidly traveling up my throat. Akin had killed this man to protect us, but I was about to collapse just staring at that knife. I was despicable. I was weak. All I could do was turning my body away from his and hide—hide like the damn coward I was! And then, after fully turning back, I saw him. Akin had stumbled onto the scene from God knows where, grinning as cheekily as ever.

"Hey, I checked the rest of the place out and I didn't see anyone. We're safe now!"
I didn't care about what he was saying. I was already running up to him, throwing my arms around his neck and burying my face in his chest. Staggering slightly, Akin wrapped his arms around my waist and stared down at me in confusion.

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" I screamed into his shirt, "What's wrong?" My eyes brimmed with hot tears.

"What…"

"You left me here alone, you bastard! Do you know how much you scared me? I thought you died!" My tears flooded his shirt while my fists pounded against his shoulders.

"But… I couldn't tell you to come out yet. What if that guy had more people in hiding? They could've surrounded us."

"I don't care! Do you even get what kind of hell you put me through back there? Do you understand at all?"

"Alice, calm down," he said gently, grabbing my wrists and pulling my arms down straight with his. "It's okay. I'm here now. Remember? I promised I'd come back for you. You had nothing to worry about."

"But…" My chest tightened. "I was still scared…"

"Come on, don't be a baby," he told me, smiling as he stroked my ragged gold tresses.

"You're teasing me now?" I asked through sniffles. My tears were beginning to subside.

"Yes, because you're so darn cute."
He reached up and pinched my cheeks, wiggling them around and around until I patted his cheeks back. Laughing, he lowered his hands.

"Stop your flirting," I demanded a bit more coherently.

"You're feeling better now?"
I blew out a soft sigh. "Not really…"

"Sorry, Alice, but prepare to feel worse. We've got to grab that heart."
I gulped. "W-What?"

"The heart. That's what we came for, isn't it?"

"But… He's dead! We have to still… r-remove it?"
Alice…" he began, sighing.”Yeah. That's what this whole job is."

"But it's wrong. You're murdering people. You're… taking away their only life. It's just wrong. Why hasn't anybody stopped the Queen from doing this?"
My eyes flared with anger; he was choking down a laugh. He was laughing at me, when I was being dead serious.

"What?" I hissed.

"Alice, this world's very different from yours."

"Like how?"
He threw his hand back and tousled his sullied locks. "Well, here, a heart and a life… They don't mean very much."
I was too exasperated to keep yelling, so I kept my voice low. "But… Why not?"

"That's just how it is. You'll see. By the end of today, you'll understand."
Akin advanced towards the victim and I had no choice but to follow. Even from the first step, my body felt weak. My arms were limp, my knees were buckling, and my feet were ready to crumble under the pressure of my own weight. It wasn't a good sign, but I pushed through anyway and stood at Akins’s side.

"Grab the sack Cane gave you this morning. We're going to put the heart in there."
I obediently produced the burlap bag from the waistband of my leggings and held it at arm's length in front of me.

"Relax, Alice. Just hold it naturally for now. This may take a bit anyway."
I nodded and pulled it close to my chest, prompting a chuckle from Akin.

"You're so funny."

"J-Just hurry."
Feeling the blood rush from my head, I swayed slightly from side to side and struggled to stay standing still. Akin, in the meantime, placed his boot over the bloodied face and gripped the handle of the knife. A horrible squishing sound floated to my ears as the knife emerged from his skull, coated in thick, sticky blood.


I wanted to vomit all over again.

However, Akin continued like nothing was wrong. He just plunged that knife right into his victim's chest cavity and carved. He gutted the man like a fish.
I felt sick.
He acted like he'd grown up doing this all his life. He shoved his hand into the slopping mess of pooled blood and organs and tore out a fresh heart that was still limply connected to the body by its slimy veins and arteries. And then, he deftly sliced them all off and presented me the bloody, stagnant heart.
It… It didn't beat. It was my fault that heart wasn't beating right now.

"Scan this with your necklace."

"S-Scan?"
I looked down at the gold chain I'd thrown on in the morning and inspected the locket for some kind of "scanner," but there was none.

"What're you talking about?"

"Just press the bottom to the heart," he instructed vaguely.
So, I lifted the pendant, touched the bottom to the slippery film over the heart, and looked back up at him a bit confused.

"What's supposed to happen?"

"Here, do you see some letters and numbers on there somewhere? In black?"

"Numbers and letters?" I asked again, head still reeling.

"Yeah."
After a few moments of searching, I spotted the black print in question—code R3ST1NP. I carefully pressed the bottom of the lock to the code in the corner and pulled back when I heard the small beep.

"W-What was that?"

"Look at the number now."

I bit my lip. It read one. I had… one heart. I still had to do this ninety-nine more times before I was free…
I deserved to die.

"Here, open up that sack," Akin said, clutching the heart in a single, bloodied hand.
I stared up at that heart. A person's life was literally in Akins’s hands right now. God, this couldn't possibly be real…
Shaking my head, I loosened the drawstrings for Akin to deposit the heart. I was about to split apart at the seams. My body was still feeble, trembling and ready to fall back at any second. My head ached and my chest hurt… I just wanted to leave.
He dropped the heart into the burlap sack, and just as it hit the bottom, my eyes rolled into the back of my head and the world came up to meet me. Faintly, I heard Akin shouting out my name.

"Alice? Alice!"
But it was too late. The world slipped into darkness.
****************************"Alice…"

Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, somewhere behind all the darkness, I could hear a rough voice calling out for me.

"Alice…" it whispered again. I didn't know who it belonged to or why it was speaking to me, but I simply listened in and waited.

"This is my fault…"

Suddenly, there was another deep voice—presumably male—thrown into the mix. "Just stop blaming yourself. She'll be fine. She's a tough girl."

"No, she's not! You should've seen the way she looked at me… The way she cried… You don't understand!"
I stirred slightly, but no one seemed to notice, because the conversation went on as normal.

"Just stop, okay? She'll wake up soon. She was probably just exhausted," the second voice said, likely to assure the owner of the first voice.

"But that girl sleeps almost nonstop. There's no way she was tired." Now, a new voice… A bit husky and powerful.

"Would you shut up and stop giving her a hard time? She's right there and unconscious!" a bright, bubbly voice squealed.
I squeezed my eyes a bit tighter, disturbed by the loud voices beginning to reverberate through my head.

"Please stop fighting and look at Alice…" a gentle, silky voice whispered timidly.

"A-Ah! Alice! Wake up!" the rough voice shouted.

"Now, why are you telling her to do that?" The husky voice spat out bitterly at the owner of the rough voice.

"What are you whining about?" the bubbly voice complained.

"She's not going to suddenly get up just because you're yelling at her to."

"Well, I have to try something!" the man with the rough voice screeched, seeming ready to fall apart.

"It's not going to work though."
I groaned. That husky voiced person was a jerk.

"Come on, please wake up…" the rough voice whispered desperately. And then, my eyelids fluttered open and through the watery image, I could make out five people huddled at my bedside. I lifted my fists to my eyes, rubbed them, and slowly sat up to see everyone with their unique smiles plastered on their faces.

"You're awake!" Eri squealed directly at my left.

"Hey…" I muttered weakly.

"You're… Are you okay?" From the right, Akin rested his hand on my forehead and brushed a few locks of hair aside. To answer his question, I nodded and smiled up at him reassuringly.

"I'm glad you're feeling alright, Alice…" Leo mumbled, his lips curled into a small smile—the first one I'd seen from him since I got here.

"You guys were all… waiting here for me to wake up?" I questioned incredulously.

"Yeah”. We were worried, kiddo." Vulpe reached across Akin to pat my head.

"Speak for yourself," Cane grumbled, provoking Eri's violent wrath. She slugged him over the back of the head and huffed into his face.

"We were all worried."

"Ah, do you need anything?" Leo offered generously, starting for the door in case I asked for something.

"No, no! You don't need to. I'm fine, really." I managed to smile through the headache knocking at the back of my head, but a small part of my face twitched for a split second.

"What's wrong?" Akin asked, stroking my hair and entangling his fingers through the fine streaks.

"Nothing”. Relax, you guys! I wasn't comatose or anything." Just as I was saying it, the thought occurred to me as an actual possibility. "Wait, how long was I out?"

"Forever," Akin whimpered softly. He was like a little baby, answering questions as he truly felt and bearing all his feelings for everyone to see. I smiled. Somehow, though we were only out there for a short while, I felt a lot closer to Akin. He saved my life; he saw me break down and fall apart in fear, but he didn't judge me. No, he sat there and blamed himself for everything. He really was a good partner—my partner. Though I was skeptical of him at first because of all the silly teasing, I guess he has become someone I could trust. I had to give him credit for what he did for me back there; it was impressive.


He whimpered again and stroked my hair, breaking into my thoughts.
Vulpe rolled his eyes at Akins’s immaturity and informed me rationally, "Just for a couple hours. Don't worry."

"Okay, good. You guys… haven't been waiting here the whole time, have you?"
Everyone turned away, twiddling their thumbs, tapping their feet on the carpet, whistling odd tunes… They've been here the whole time, watching me. I was so touched they cared that I didn't even bother worrying about how creepy that would be otherwise.
"Thanks. I'm really grateful you all stayed, but…" I felt my headache settling into my skull like a visitor who's overstayed his welcome. "I'm still tired. If you guys don't mind, I'd like to get some more sleep…"

"Y-Yeah, of course! Don't worry; we have a day off tomorrow, so sleep all you want!" Akin exclaimed, quickly rounding up everyone and ushering them out.

"But I want to talk more!" Eri wailed as Akin shoved her out the door. I giggled gently, shutting my eyes, and nuzzled my face deeper into my pillow.

"Um…"
Lifting my left eyelid, I stared up at the last person standing in the threshold and suppressed my gasp. Why was he still here? He wasn't worried at all about me like everyone else was. I scoffed softly. Maybe he was going to curse me for waking up, or scold me for collapsing in the first place.
That jerk.


He coughed into his hand almost nervously. "G-Glad to see you're up," Cane muttered, his cheeks red like roses.
My eyes widened. "W-Wait, what did you just say?" I started to sit up from my bed, but he waved me back down, exited the room, and shut the door behind him before I could say another word.
Did I… hear that right?
He was glad I was awake? Was he lying or screwing with me or something?
No… He wouldn't have said that to mess with me; he wasn't like Akin. And that flush on his face… That was real. You couldn't fake blushing. Had he finally started to acknowledge me? I caught myself smiling for a brief moment, but I quickly wiped it away and nestled back into the covers to forget about it.

"It's no big deal," I mumbled obstinately, and I was too tired to continue worrying about it. With very little protest from the rest of my body, my eyes fluttered shut and I drifted off to a deep, dreamless sleep.
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Night came. The sun escaped from sight, hiding behind the horizon and darkening the world to nothing but an encroaching shadow, eagerly swallowing the light that had once emanated from the town. The glimmering stars that were wholly drowned out by the incessant sunlight of daytime finally shone through the night and peppered the sky with bursts of white light. The howl of the night's breezes swept across the land and disturbed the silence.
It was about midnight when I stirred from my slumber and climbed out of the bed to peek through those curtains at the beauty of the night.

I watched in awe at the crescent moon, arched and shining brilliantly like all the stars in the universe coated its exterior. And then, I looked out on the town below, enveloped with shrouds of heaping darkness, not even a flicker of a lamp light in sight. It looked so mysterious, as though it were hoarding the secrets of the world within itself. I wanted to go out there and see the night in its full glory. So, I wriggled into a gray hoodie, readjusted the waistband of my sky blue pajama shorts, and headed out my door. Luckily, the hallway lights were still active—they were probably crepuscular in case anyone needed to find their way across this maze of a house—and guided me down a familiar staircase. After a bit of scrambling, I made my way out the front doors.

There was a wide walkway ahead of me, lined with the same cobblestones I'd seen in the town earlier that day. To the sides were a row of towering pillars and a small field of bright green grass, freshly painted with cool morning dew. I stepped out onto the chilling pavement—barefoot, like an —and forged on towards the staircase a short ways ahead. It was there that I saw a boy, standing at the edge of the first step and staring out at the world beneath him. He looked like he had it all, just rising above the town and looking down on it like a little ruler. But there was something about him that I couldn't quite place—he wasn't just lonely. No, there was something almost… missing from him. I approached quietly, curiously.
It was then that a pair of floppy white bunny ears perked up and the boy swiveled back at me.
How did he hear me? I was tiptoeing barefoot across the cobblestone. I didn't even hear myself; how could he?

"A-Alice? What are you doing out here?" Leo stuttered nervously, pushing his thinly framed black glasses higher on the bridge of his nose.

"I was just going to look out at the stars…" I whispered and hoped I didn't frighten him.
He stared up at the blanket of stars for a brief moment, his sweet honey eyes glossed over with water. However, he quickly, almost instinctively, blinked it away and returned his stare to me before I could say anything.

"Well… Let's watch them together then," he said, smiling warmly as he invited me with a small hand gesture to sit beside him on the concrete stairs.
Even through that sweet smile, there was something about him that worried me.
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