They kept us here.

They kept us until the madness set in.

The madness sets in and we are set free… or so we think.

We claw at our shackles, we shake the bars and we scream defiance.

It didn’t work-

It made it worse.

So much worse.

They had found you, dragged you from your home and set your bones in chains.

All because you bore the mark of SoliSis, ‘tis a mark that cannot be broken nor can be forged. SoliSis finds its Keepers, the ones chosen by Harken Sky before the atoms shiver into cells of life.

The city, Kalif, had ordered your ‘complete and fair distancing’ one dawn, which is how you found yourself on the outskirts of The Outcasts.

A ramshackled village, but a honest and just place where you found purpose in your living phase.

Now, you cower under the hard hand of Daemons Guard.

Sequestered away in a lime mortar cell, you curl into the biting chill. Afraid to let the iron clad door out of your sight, you begin to feel the dilerium of exhaustion sneak under your gritty eyelids.

Growling lowly, you curse yourself for your unshakable mark.

There is nothing in your cell, the mattress shrivelled from resting in a space too small. Only irregular patterns of breath dance with the chill of the apparent night, or so you assume. No windows offer the time of day, nor is there the cuckoo clock’s croak.

Your eyelids stumble, browbeaten and deranged; the jerking jangle of fortified key clashing with the derelict lock sounds clear as Death’s Tolling Bell. Snapping drunkenly upright you desperately try to shake yourself awake.

SoliSis will not help you, its power unknown.

Serpentine fingers shoot towards your ghostly-blue skin, sending an army of crawling bugs deep into your soul. You don’t want to be touched… again.

Yet, here you are- defenceless.

“Move, SoliSis branded. Quan wants you to fix blizzard box.”

Gruff, with notes of tenderness, is the voice that hauls you out into the whistling corridor. Wincing at the flints that try their luck to drink the unshod blood, you meekly sprauchle after the towering shadow.

Somehow you are compelled to move without harsh yanks on the bitter, iron bracelets. A new magick perhaps, left only in the Daemons Guard’s fibres.

Only if you knew the truth.

Even that won’t save you… not this time.

Forced through wrought doors, you blink softly as the Daemons Guard’s control loosens. Owlishly, you drink in the midnight velvet, which hangs from twisted bars, and the ceiling telling of Mythes and Legendes.

“Quan be here soon.”

Silence.

Silence descends upon the very soul of the impishly bored.

Quan did not arrive, nor did the ‘blizzard box’.

Yet, Mythos blinks from high above… unnoticed.

Unable to resist temptation of unbidden freedom, your toe draws a lazy circle in the fine film of dust. Giggling, you do it again… and again… and ag-

“Death compels the weak, life deters the strong!”

There is no mouth from which the words are marched.

Desperately, you reach with SoliSis to find the one who owns the tongue of the spoken.

Emptiness rings back, a tinitus buzz.

Why?

Simple, when we know the truth: It is the chamber itself who holds the tongue.

You know nothing.

We know everything.

A lone tear sluggishly pulls itself from your left lacrimal gland, except it fails to roll.

It oozes.

Pushing itself free, it shudders at the sudden drop in temperature… the tear smells off.

You fail to find the tang of salt, instead there is a peculiar wiff of bitter iron.

Tears don’t- shouldn’t- contain iron.

Frantically, you scan the lofty walls and stout ceiling.

Nothing.

“The SoliSis branded weeps, but not of mortal’s tears! Strife has summoned immortal’s blood… so it begins!”

Whirling around you claw at your chest, an animalistic draw of nails.

With unnecessary splendour, four colossal sheets announce their arrival with a storm like wail.

Gone are the scoured bricks, and tactful beads of art.

You are surrounded by Arctolian stillness, something you would have found comforting in archaean times.

Folding into your aching soul, you lap tentatively at the droplet of blood that has reached your lip. A queer mixture of sweet and sour, rolling your own life force around your mouth you note the creamy texture.

Desire flickers to life, you want more.

More

More

More

More

More!

Blizzard’s static hisses… roars through the emptying numbness of the looping catacombs of your mind.

Hurling yourself at the frenzied abandon, you howl with soul fire as your cells begin to dissolve.

Bleeding into all and nothing.

Sweet SoliSis, that legendary brand… becomes naught but mortal’s curse.