Fragment 8: Ego - Missing Heart

Trapped in her glass prison, Lorelai pressed against the slick, fogged-up surface. The corridor blurred past—twisting pipes, silver veined with gemstone wiring, the air thick with the hiss of steam. Heat clung to her skin, sticky and humid, the scent of oil and something metallic coating her throat.

Stuffed like a skeleton in the closet, Lore churned, her knee whacking her nose as she shuffled inside the box, her bloody knuckle staining the glass. Pain aside, it was better to focus on that instead of the stares she got. It turns out that having zero control over where and how she sat, practically flashing everyone they passed, garnered a lot of attention. Their leer-filled eyes and lick of their lips sent a shiver down her spine.

She was on a pleasure cruise on the seediest city in the realm. As foul as they were, King Blackwood's laws didn't extend this far out.

That thought stabbed her, the irk pressing her tail into the glass; To believe she relied on that cock of a ruler. Not that it mattered.

The only safety was one of your rank. Meanwhile, her status as a fallen noble meant nothing. Her family name and her father weren't around to protect her anymore. She was just a body of flesh in a den of sex-hungry beasts.

Her horns clanked against the glass, the meaty men fumbling to lift her up the ornate stairs. She huffed, then waited for Ego's response but, strangely, received none. Her inner demon always pounced on situations like these; her words would likely have been morbidly cheerful in some way—no doubt relishing the chance to screw as many strangers as she wanted.

"Shut up!" Ego growled.

Lore blinked. Her pulse stuttered, her tail flicking against the glass. She was used to Ego's voice whispering in her skull—but this? This was… different.

Ego moved, her heels clicking against metal, her shape barely shifting the air around her, like heat haze warping reality. Her hair—too dry. Her horns—too thin. She looked like a version of Lore that had aged decades in a single night.

Then she watched as the woman's jaw scrunched up, her agitated crimson eyes staring into nothingness. Her heels silently clanked against the metallic panels. Rot gnawed at her elongated form, with her once lustrous hair now dry and showing signs of silver. Her tired crimson eyes were dark; her bent horns were chipped; her pale, flaked skin—the toll of countless sleepless nights.

It was like staring into a mirror, the reflected expression and thinning lips haunting.

She was a perfect carbon clone, yet—

something oozed from her.

Something harder.

Something crueller.

Something...

wrong.

Lore shifted uncomfortably, her breath quickening. She wasn't sure if she was hallucinating from the drugs or if Ego had somehow taken form outside her head. However, like mist, the woman's body hit a sudden crowd, her presence like fog, vaguely reforming atop the box.

The Batrakin thugs seemed unaware and continued their actions. In fact, no one noticed the woman in the red dress planting herself on the crate. Instead, all eyes were narrowed at the centre of the room. She remembered this place, where the beams and columns loomed like stilts holding up the massive space.

Her tail twitched involuntarily at the sight of the corpse, sprawled on the tiles and smeared in gore. The deck was littered with fine tiles and many tables, all painted red for everyone to see. Chunks, parts, and a scaly gore smothered every surface, including the lifeless body of a Saurian sprawled in the centre—the very same one from earlier.

It was a stark contrast from the last time she came through here. Strange of them all, none of the Lords or nobles were present at what should have been the busiest hour on board. She was sure that this hall was the highlight of this voyage. Unlimited drinks, food, bodies and music were so loud that you could hear it outside the hull.

Better yet, where was the inquisitor? The giant woman who guarded the lift was gone, and the mess of gore could be related, but the real question was where the rotten nobles were. Lore leaned to watch the servers scrub a large cage, but a leg blocked her view, Ego's leg.

Her eyes darted between the scene and Ego's spectral form looming above, and she whispered, "Hey, can you move? I can't see," said Lore.

Ego was still silent, a trait Lore couldn't guess was good or bad. Lore pressed her lips; she couldn't believe she would try this.

"What's wrong?" Lore asked.

The grim woman stayed quiet for a minute, and Lore guessed she wouldn't say anything.

"I don't know why you have a body now. But could you at least listen to me?"

With a scowl, the woman pointed to the row of syringes adorning the Batrakin's belt. And looking closer, having twisted her neck to do it, she noticed the likeness. The same sort of thing that Amara injected into her.

Ego snarled, her soft face contorting beyond what Lore knew her face could do. And the more Lore stared at her copy, the more it itched her. Ego was just an imaginary friend, a child's creation that had refused to leave. But now… Lore's gaze kept sliding back to her, unnerved by how solid her twin looked. How was this even possible?

Lore tore her gaze from Ego's snarl and forced herself to listen. She shuffled forward, her breaths shallow as she strained to catch their murmurs. What were they talking about?

"Can you believe it?" a dry-scaled Saurian asked.

"Believe?" a bark-skinned Verdantis replied, "It's right before us. Or are you blind?"

Looking closer, Lore noticed it.

The body—

No. The remains.

The Theri Inquisitor lay crumpled, her muscular frame hollowed out, gutted like a discarded husk. Her crystalline skeleton—gone. Her chest, flayed open, her twin cores missing. And her heart—

Flattened. Like something had pressed it into the tiles and scraped it away.

But before Lore could think of it, a fuzzy-tailed Pathix cleared her throat.

"I, eh, thought Inquisitors were immortal?"

The Saurian and Verdantis waiters exchanged glances before.

"What is it?" asked the waitress, her and Lore's tails twitching in sync.

"You see," the Saurian started, flicking a nervous tongue over his teeth. "I heard… Inquisitors—they're connected to the Void."

The Verdantis waiter snorted. "Oh, come on, you believe that superstition?"

"It's not superstition," the Saurian insisted. "On dusty Void nights like this—"

He stopped.

Dead silent.

Lorelai leaned forward. Even her tail had stilled.

The Saurian swallowed hard, his scales paling. His voice dropped, barely above a whisper.

"They don't stay dead."

The elevator slammed into place, and the Feline woman jumped. Lore banged her head on the glass. The two waiters' laughter bubbled up like a cauldron.

"You did that on purpose!" the Pathix hissed.

The men laughed harder, their mirth echoing through the hall.

"You're so gullible,"

"Enough of this!" the Pathix snapped, her dark skin flushing red. "To hell with this! Clean up this mess yourselves!" With that, she stormed off, her fluffy feline ears flapping indignantly as she left the blood-soaked tiles behind.

The Saurian slapped the Verdantis on the back, their cackling voices rising above the din "What a Scaredy cat." he chuckled.

Then, paying no heed to the laughter, the Batrakin trotted to the humming elevator. Unbothered. Emotionless. Behind them, the Warmachine's body was nothing more than spilled parts, wiped away like a stain on the floor.

Lore's eyes lingered, shivering at the warm air.

The shutters slammed shut, sealing the mess—and whatever remained of its soul—out of sight.