A tear rolled down Petra’s cheek. She just wanted the grotesque creature to stop torturing her husband.
“Enough!” she screamed once more.
Torches set in iron fixtures made shadows dance eerily on the rough hewn walls.
The hunched over thing stopped running its curved claw across Zenon’s chest. Zenon lost consciousness again. In the last half hour, he could barely even scream anymore. Being unconscious at least gave him respite from the pain.
Each time Zenon went limp, the thing would put its head against his chest. After confirming Zenon still had a heartbeat, it would just squat beside him and stare at Petra. It was as if the strange creature were simply waiting for something.
It was the size of a child, its rib cage protruded–-every single rib could be seen. Its stomach bulged outwards, more a sign of severe malnutrition than a product of overeating. It was like a starving street dog begging for scraps. But never once did it attempt to lick its bloodied claws; never once did it take a bite of her husband.
“Why are you doing this?” Petra asked through sobs.
It said nothing. It just stared at her with swollen, bulging eyes… the black orbs distant and vacant… endless voids absorbing even the limited torchlight.
“Let my husband go – ” she began. She noticed it cocked its head and licked its lips hungrily when she said the word husband.
Every time the thing cut or pierced Zenon’s flesh, it would just pivot its head, eager not to miss any word that Petra shouted. It listened intently to ever word Petra spoke. But what? What did it want from them, Petra thought.
“I’m sorry,” Petra said desperately. “I’m sorry for disturbing your home. Is that what you want? An apology? We’ll leave and never return then! I promise!”
The crypt had been sealed for almost a hundred years. Petra and her husband had taken months to put a team together to dig out the site. The first workers who finally uncovered the entrance set off into the crypt with torches to explore further. The next day they had no idea who they were. Some faint memories existed, but it was obvious that something had traumatized the workers enough that they had no desire to return to the dig site. When asked why… they simply had no words to explain it.
Petra and Zenon, feeling responsible, set off to seal the crypt and close down the site. The creature captured Petra first and then bound her to a marble column. Zenon came looking for her and was likewise caught. His torture began soon after.
The thing crept towards Petra like a hairless monkey; its skin so thin the muscles could be seen extending and contracting with each movement. It never took its black orbs off her mouth as it approached. It stopped a foot away, and Petra was certain it was her turn to be tortured.
“Please stop! My husband… my husband is bleeding to death.”
Its head inched forward at the word husband again. She could feel its hot breath as it wheezed and then sniffed her lips; it was a deep and long inhale. She started to feel faint. “I love him, please let Zenon go…”.
Zenon-–it wanted to hear Zenon’s name! The thing leapt away from her–it was an eager leap–a strand of saliva dripped from its mouth to the cold stone floor. It rushed Zenon and straddled his extended legs. It raised a bony hand to Zenon’s forehead, the thumb and index finger dug into the skin, just enough to pierce it.
“Please!” Petra screamed.
The thing slowly pulled its hand away from Zenon’s forehead, a shimmering thread between its fingers. A long tongue licked dry lips hungrily. The thread came free. The thing looked at Petra once more and snapped Zenon’s binding ropes. It scrambled away with its prize and settled against a wall in the back of the crypt. Petra watched as it slipped the shimmering thread into its mouth and started to suck it slowly.
Zenon’s eyes opened. He seemed drowsy and took a moment to acknowledge the pain he was in, and most importantly, the fact that he was no longer bound.
Panic overtook Zenon causing him to jolt to his feet. He was disoriented. He was cut and bleeding and knew he had been bound earlier, but was no longer aware of the name-eater that tortured him.
Zenon started to head for the exit but then stopped and turned to free Petra. “We have to get out of here, miss!”
“I was so worried,” Petra said as she hugged her husband. “I love you so much, Zenon.”
Zenon pulled her away. “Who’s Zenon?”
Petra recalled the previous workers who had lost their memories, their names, their identity… now she understood why. There was an alien creature in these ancient crypts that devoured names. Fearing to lose her own identity she glanced back into the crypt for the creature but it was no longer there. She cared not for how it vanished, she only cared that her and Zenon were now free.
The newly estranged couple started to climb the worn out stone stairs when the torches went out, leaving the crypt consumed by darkness once more.
“Crypt of the Nameless” by Nuno Teixeira © 2011, XEI
Licensed under the Creative Commons License By-NC-SA
You can share and distribute this story, but can NOT make profit off it, and MUST share it freely as well with the same CC-License indicated above.
You MUST include the proper Attribution with the shared story:
“Written by Nuno Teixeira, © 2011, XEI, http://www.nunoxei.com”
Flash Fiction Commentary for “Bartering Immortality”
Each of the flash fiction releases for the “Figments” series are inspired by a creature entry found in the OGL product, “Minions: Rebirth” by Bastion Press. I’ve just recently come to realize that the entirety of the book’s contents are deemed “open game content”. I can’t encourage OGL gamers enough to pick up this book, the digital “Minions: Rebirth” is available at DriveThruRPG.
The flash fiction connected to this blog post (“Bartering Immortality“) is released under the Creative Commons License (By-NC-SA) and is published as a different post to keep the licenses separate (for legal reasons).
Commentary
The “owliksir” used in the flash fiction, “Bartering Immortality“, comes from the creature entry for the “amberjuron” on page 3 of “Minions: Rebirth” by Bastion Press. I very nearly skipped this entry for days, deeming it not relevant to Hellmouth. Re-reading it again, I challenged myself to MAKE it relevant.
Before the concept of the plot came to mind–concerning the Philosopher’s Stone–I started to research the owl. I wasn’t a fan of the name “amberjuron”; it just didn’t feel right to me. I wanted to work in some sort of word play, or dig up some sort of etymological reference, something that’s come before that could add an additional layer to the creature’s concept.
This led me to the horned owl and its genus term, “bubo”. I was convinced I’d get some derivitive name off that… but alas “bubo” comes from the Greek base “groin” and “the swelling of nymph nodes”. Although, the connection to “bubonic plague” was intriguing, I resolved in letting this naming direction slide.
This did lead me to start reading about other “bubo” genus owls–this led me to the barn owl. The barn owl felt like a perfect fit to me as it reflected the idea of for an owl-cat arcane-collector wonderfully. I imagined the creatures as hermits, and this got me my story location: A barn. Imagining where an owl-cat thing like this could make its home, I imagined Cavallon. If there’s anywhere in the Breachspace setting with some relatively “quiet abandoned countrysides”, it’d be the England-inspired country equivelent.
From there, somehow, I was led to looking up alchemy, which in turn led me to the Philosopher’s Stone. That gave me the object being traded for. While researching the Philosopher’s Stone, it’s historical relevance, the alchemists involved in its lore, I discovered that the 8th-century Persian alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan theorized that any metal could become another metal, a process called ”al-iksir” in Arabic. Not only did the Western term “elixir” come from al-iksir, but I all-of-a-sudden had the word-play I need. Thus, the “owliskir” came into being.
Quick References:
Horned Owl
Bubo
Philosopher’s Stone