Snippet #1980552

The end of the world was an interesting thing. Blood red sky. Demons replacing and tainting the once beautiful agriculture of the current suburban hellhole. Death and destruction everywhere, people begging for their lives to soulless creatures who wanted nothing but to rip their limbs of and toss them down the street like perverted streamers. These were the things Charmeine had grown to live with everyday, but they were not the things that bothered her the most. Any human (was she really human anymore?) could learn to adapt. It's what her species did, even in these dire times. No, the thing that bothered Charmeine was the heat. The damned, sticky, tropical-like heat.

The air was thick and heavy, hard enough to breathe while just walking, and almost impossible to try to run in. Charmeine assumed this to be another tactic of the hell-spawn invasion. The air disoriented the humans, probably laced with something, and made them make crucial, often lethal mistakes. Charmeine though, even before her "transformation", proved less susceptible to the moisture-laden air. Years of maintaining a physical peak in various sports made her much more equipped to with this "weather", but it did nothing for the results of said air. All the exercise in the world couldn't save her from the sticky sweat that constantly covered her body, and wreaked havok on the uncontrollably long locks that she had once taken so much pride in. It was this predicament, in hot miko robes that she couldn't figure out how to take off, didn't want to really take off, days of sweat and grime and blood caked under the layers that remained inexplicably clean. She feared that her condition was starting to draw the hell-spawn to her more and more, and that just wouldn't do.

"I can't take this anymore! All the fighting in the world won't do me any good if I stink so bad the whole universe wants to kill me... I need a bath. I need hot water, and scented shower gel, and Mom's favorite brand of loofa, and Dad's silly stories, and...and..." Charmeine suddenly cut off, as tears began to fill her eyes. "I just want a bath. Is that so much to ask for?" Just as she thought she'd have to stop moving and find somewhere to call herself down, she felt a tingling on her back. She knew from the positioning that it was her katana Colopatiron, and instinctively unsheathed it, fearing danger. What she received, however, was not danger, but a humming. A low, but high, and long, and short all at once kind of hum. It rattled around in her head, and told her things in whispers and shouts, saying "Left. Left. Go left."

So she ran.

She ran from a deserted street, lined with everything that Charmeine just didn't want to think about, and into a completely dead forest. Tree after tree, moaning and melting, and reaching for her. Already having Colo in her right hand, she drew Ezekiel with her left, slicing with precision at the possessed trees. Red goo slid lazily from each tree limb she cut off, dripping to the ground and causing vicious, blood-red vines to sprout, all shooting for her flesh. Panic started to seize her as she only saw tree after tree, vine after vine, and no end in sight to the forest. This wasn't how she fought, she was practical and logical, she couldn't be losing to trees!

Just as panic led to frustration, she heard the now unmistakable roar of Ezekiel, as she gave a powerful downward slash with an accompanying roar of her own. The black miasma that, in her frustration, wouldn't come, surged forward like a tsunami, encasing the entire forest in a thick, black fog. The screams of the demon trees grew louder, then gradually faded to a gurgle, and soon all that was left were blackened trees half-standing on the equally blackened grass. "That...that was new..."

Charmeine took a second to fully take in her surroundings, sticking her katanas into the officially dead ground and leaning on them heavily. "That was really new." She gripped the handles of her "trusted companions", and again heard the low-high, long-short sounds of Colopatiron.

Go left. It is there. It must be destroyed. Salvation is there. Go left. Left.

A heavy sigh racked through Charmeine, as she lifted her head. A wispy, white line was indeed pointing to the left. She glanced down at her right fist, tightly grasping Colo. "What's over there that you need me to see, hm? Better be good, taking me through this forest, getting forest-demon gunk all in my hair..." Colo pulsed heavily then, as if urging her to trust him - trust It, who saved her, who believed in her - and follow the ivory line floating through the air. "This is important, huh?" The Ivory katana pulsed again, agreeing with her.

Charmeine released another sigh, this time lighter. "Alrighty, then. If you say so, Colo. And I take it you don't outright agree, as always, Zeke?" The other blade "said" nothing, preferring to simply twist a coal-black line around the ivory line, point her in the same direction.

"Well, it's settled. Left it is. Onwards and upwards, my friends. Onwards and upwards."

The katanas were yanked smoothly from the now rapidly decaying ground, and she trudged through the goopy remains. Whatever lay ahead to the left seemed to be important to her two swords, who almost never agreed. She trusted their instincts, instincts that were important in this day and age. Whatever higher power sent their powers to her entrusted her with the ability and skill to do what the world needed, and she promised herself, Colopatiron, Ezekiel, and It that she would not fail.