Fox's Tragedy 4

Rey was shot awake in the night by a crashing bang. Following it was the chilling tingle of shattered glass. There was a thick and unpleasant smell hanging in the air. He realized to his jarring surprise it was smoke. The roaring crackle of a large fire reached his ears, under the door he could see a faint orange light and he began to feel a heat unbecoming of this hour. It whispered to him, just as the wind had before but this was different, it wasn't a far off voice rather the call of something in the church itself. "Come, my little fox," it beckoned. "So I may remind you."

With trembling legs Rey got up, a sweat already soaking his nightclothes. He pushed out the door and into the hall, letting out a cough as he got a breath full of bitter smoke. The hall was on fire, but it was a strange fire, it neither spread nor devoured and as he looked at it, it seemed to part as if welcoming him to its center most flame.

Rey wanted to turn and run out, his eyes watered and lungs burned as if it was the fire itself he was breathing. Yet no matter how much he wanted he simply couldn't, the appealing voice boasting memory was far too drawing and even the flames seemed to want him to go to the heart of the blaze. So with an unsure foot, he stepped forward and the fire parted more. Coughing as he went he made his way to the living space in which Ms. Tanaka always sat.

There was nothing there, the whole room was burning ash and glow. Where are the pastor and Tanaka? He wondered in fear. On the intact mantle was the fox carving, still untouched by the flame. Its eyes seemed to look at him with pity, Rey felt sick.

Continuing further he pulled himself up to the door to the altar and pews, the actual church. Drawing up his strength and weight he managed it open. The scene before him nearly made Rey faint. He forced himself to run inside, stopping in the center of the large room he took a proper look at the carnage. If it could burn it did, yet still the flames avoided him somehow not wanting to consume him too and as he stood they seemed to recede onto the walls leaving much of the ground smoking The pews and walls were black and orange and the heat made a shower of sweat drip from Rey's head as he continued coughing in the smoke. There was a crunch under his foot, he looked down to see broken glass. It was clear and from the windows that had lined the walls, all of which were now broken.

"Welcome my little fox," the familiar voice was first in the crackle of the fire moving around the room as it spoke until it finished behind him. Rey's eyes shot wide as he turned and met a sight that made his legs give out beneath him, leaving him to fall on his knees on the hot floor.

Perched on the altar with bloodied scythe rested over her shoulder was Grim, her terrifying mask covering her face. Behind her was the stained glass cross, glowing in the firelight it was smeared or rather written on in the dark crimson of blood. Happy Birthday it said. Below Grim was a fallen silhouette that began struggling to move, a horrific-looking pastor Gregory looked up at Rey.

"Ru-" he attempted before he was cut off by the soft thud of the butt of Grim's scythe.

"Not dead yet?" she asked before spinning the long blade down on him in a swift and instantaneous motion. He gave a twitch before collapsing back into a motionless and now lifeless lump. "Your's isn't even worth harvesting but," As she drew up the scythe Grim reached out her other arm, a white weaved out of the body into a sphere in her hand. "Look familiar?" She asked before it disappeared. The recollection was as if the singed ceiling had collapsed in on him. His old life, his original world, and the accident, then the deal. Rey tried to speak out at the horror but could make no sound. "I simply needed you to remember." For a moment he froze in suffocating emotion before being able to speak.

"Why do I have to pay with this, why do I have to pay by being like this, is your task just misery!?"

She tilted her head with a chuckle.

"Are you saying you don't like the body I shaped for you little fox?" With this, he also recalled the incident with the village boys. He tried, to or rather forced himself, to stand up. Slowed by his lack of air Rey attempted a meager left punch at the woman. Grim simply stepped out of the way and grabbed his wrist. He heard a swoosh as she dismissed her weapon. "Be careful with it now," she said in clear warning of her capability.

"Dammit… why…?" he coughed. Grim let go of him and with lithe fingers removed her mask. Her face held immaculate features and eyes like that of a storm. She looked at him with an out-of-place and unsettling care and oddly warm emotion. Not hatred nor joy it was similar to a sort of lovely recollection, however, not the mental kind. She was standing so close they nearly touched as she leaned to his ear and whispered, her cool breath brushing his neck.

"Because," she explained with a soft tone that completely contradicted her previous persona. "You are my little fox."