Number Five

The first gasp of air after dying is the hardest. It feels like sandpaper has entered the tiefling's lungs and scraped out the necrosis left by death. He was not dead long, but the pain lingers on. It extends beyond his body to his emotions that run deep in his young, emotionally volatile body. Red eyes come to focus in his stone cell where only stray lights from above pierce the darkness in like divine punishment. They highlight a wall that has eighty-three tally marks on it. The tiefling forces himself up onto his knees as they shake against his weight. It is the small rituals that keep him going on in a room with nothing but dirt and stone to keep him company. He crawls to the stone wall and presses his head against it. The tiefling is a child, perhaps ten, and he is no hero. He etches another tally mark into the wall with the side of his horn to mark one more unsuccessful week ending in his demise. His ritual complete, he collapses back into the darkness of sleep. The next week will be as arduous as the last and he needs his strength to break this cycle or be broken himself.
The rest is short lived as a bucket of water is thrown on his face. A short woman with dark hair and tiefling horns stands sternly over him. Her dress is a deep red color. "Get up," she says in a cold voice filled with hellfire of impatience.
"Give me a break, mom, I just died," groans the youth. The second groan comes from her sharply kicking the tieflling child in the gut. "Urk."
"Being on the ground only gives me the advantage. Now. Get. Up," the dark haired woman says sharply. She winds up another kick. Ozy prepares for it by putting his arms out. "And its Miss Sanguine," Miss Sanguine says, following with a stronger stomp to her son's face that sends him rolling back. "If I ever catch you calling me anything else in public I will kill you myself."
"Bitch," Number Five says, rubbing his face and rolling onto his knees. This infuriates the woman. "What did you say?" she shoots, throwing the bucket at him.
The bucket hits Number five in the chest as he stands up, making his uneasy steps recoil back until he hits the stone wall. "I called you a bitch, you fat cow. What? 'Dont speak that way to your mother'? Can't have it both ways you stupid, child selling whore."
There is a crack in Miss Sanguine's stern armor where she smirks instead of responds in anger. "Mister Whyte has an announcement and you are required to clean up and join us for dinner," she informs like a hand maiden. Dutiful. Poised. Composing herself the woman leaves the prison cell.
"You can't make me take a bath and I hope I reek so bad you assholes can't enjoy your dinner," Number Five shouts back, shaking a fist at the fleeing woman. She replies, "Oh, we know you won't cooperate, so we assigned assistance." Replacing the short, feisty woman is a tall Goliath of a man who is more muscles than anything else. He cracks his knuckles on the way down.
"Fuck. Me," Number Five sighs.
Dinner at the Whyte mansion is a pretentious affair. For a boy who eats scraps with his hands, the number of silverware options is stupid. He holds one fork in one hand and another fork in another hand. Fork on fork battle. Clang clang.
"Stop that," shoots Miss Sanguine from across the table.
"Stop what," asks the child. Clang clang clang.
The woman walks over to the side of the boisterous young tiefling, takes a fork, and stabs it through his hand in a painful fashion. Before he can scream she cups Number Five's mouth. The sounds are muffled as the house's owner, Jacob, cuts up his chicken and greens. "Do not get blood on the table cloth," he instructs Miss Sanguine.
Number Five goes for a knife on the table with his spare hand, but ends up with another fork in that hand. Muffled screaming continues. "Your duties in neutralizing hostile dinner guests is acceptable, Miss Sanguine, but in your current condition you will need to leave the security to the security staff." In other words, all the men at the estate with armor and weapons.
"Of course, my Lord, I only assumed that a weaker, finer touch would refrain from blood," she says, showing that the hand was not tabbed fully through to the other side.
"Very thoughtful of you, Miss Sanguine. Sit," Jacob's tone is commanding and gaze a steely state of non-compromise. Quietly the woman returns to her seat and leaves both the restraining and, now, feeding of young Number Five to others.
Clearing his throat, Jacob looks at the restless child. The older human with graying hairs regards Number Five with the appraisal of a prize horse in the making if only the tiefling can meet the high expectations set for him. "Miss Sanguine is with child," he says directly. Number Five nearly chokes on his half chewed food.
Cough. Hack. Hack. Swallow. "W-What?" red eyes shoot a glare to his mother and Jacob. "You are fucking with me. When? How?" Then he shivers, "Oh. Oh god. No, I don't want to know."
"Miss Sanguine is very skilled in..." Jacob begins before the child begins shouting, "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! NO! NOOOOOO! NO!"
When the screaming subsides, ironically more than the two forks in his two hands, the Lord of the manor clears his throat again. "You will pick up the pace, Number Five," the graying man says to the child across the table, "results from your last exercise have shown a steady decrease in your ranking."
Number Five is force fed some leafy food, making his response muffled, "You mean the one where I died?"
"You die at the end of all of them, Number Five, which is precisely my point. Revivification is costly. I am reaching the point where you are being assessed as a loss. A negative asset. Do you understand what that means," Jacob says as if he was talking about cargo on a ship and not a person. Miss Sanguine understands this and it slows the way she is cutting and chewing her food.
"It means I die and you let me stay dead, you sick fu--urk," Number Five starts before the attendant stuffs more food in his mouth. The clamber of silverware against a plate is signaled by Miss Sanguine. "Perhaps you should let him die," she says coldly, "he is a lost cause."
Number Five has never had a caring relationship with his mother, but even that blow stings. He looks at her like he has disappointed someone important. She doesn't even look him back in the eye as if discussing sending him off to boarding school. Jacob shakes his head, "I have an infernal buyer that is willing to take a subpar product. It is an opportunity to break even and start new. Now is not the time to get antsy over sunk costs. Not all investments are meant to pay off."
"Avernus is better than this place," Number Five says coldly, "at least the Devils don't pretend they are good people. Unlike everyone here." No one here is without their sins. Jacob may be an unethical merchant, but he is supported by Miss Sanguine. He is supported by an entire corp of soldiers that could stop him if they wanted. Greed and coercion keep them bound neatly to the villain who neatly eats his food and smiles through deal after deal. He profits off of the backs of others. To Five it is not that it is unjust, but rather that everyone else is too weak to challenge him. Its the cowardice that bothers him. The inaction.
The days at the estate are always the same. Number Five wakes up. He is escorted to one of many training courses. Martial combat is the only one he excelled in. Stealth, academics, and mechanical pursuits are all lost on him. Instructors constantly remind him of how clumsy and stupid he is. When he gets to fight, however, he lets it all out. Yet he still has the body of a developing young man and there are many things that force itself cannot solve. Not that he doesn't try. At the end of the courses he is put to the test in an examination.
On examination day, Number Five is taken to a cliff side by armed guards. He remembers his first failed examination. The child was pushed off of the cliff and died on impact. It was the first reminder that following what people tell you to do isn't always in your best interest. It was also a reminder that his world has sick people that are okay with throwing a child off a cliff and then saying it is 'okay' because he is an infernal borne tiefling.
Number Five stands at the edge of the cliff side. His short black hair catches the breeze of brimstone on the wind. The plane is thin here. He had to learn that in planar studies. It causes the reddish skinned tiefling to take a deep breath in as the guards bark for him to keep moving. There is no ground for him to move back to. "Listen to me you bastards," shouts the kid who is armed with nothing but his clothes he wears and a lot of attitude, "after today I am going to be sold to actual devils in hell. You are okay with that?" At one point he tried being persuasive in his examinations. Unfortunately he has a personality that is like sandpaper and it always ended poorly. "Well," one of the armed guards says as he lowers his spear a little. Another guard says, "that's where filthy tieflings belong. You all live to die and go to the land of eternal battle." Like some infernal vikings.
"Thought so," Number Five says, using the moment to kick up dirt and rush the guards. Today is not the day that 'talking through it' is going to work. It at least bought him a distraction to play dirty. A sword cuts his side on the way through, the first wound of the examination as he rushes to a boulder to hunker down behind. "Shit," he says as adrenaline rushes through his system. "What is the sigil. What is it," he thinks. The more he gets into a battle, the less his brain works good. It works bad now. Bad brain. A crossbow bolt crosses over his head as he takes his own blood and runs a sigil on the rock. Moment of truth. His fist slams the sigil. Half of his deaths involve inappropriately using the sigil to go to an anchor in Avernus.
Today this is not how he dies. The transportation is as rough as traveling by canon fire. Number Five's body is left skittering across a landscape of black and red. "Alright," he coughs, getting to his feet. Red eyes scan the surroundings. More than ten deaths happened when he made it to Avernus and something unfriendly was on the other side. Today he catches a break and the worst of it is some lemures. The creatures are clay-like and crawl towards him like scavengers looking for a hopeful meal.
"Good," Five says, taking a glassy black rock and throwing it at one of them, "I need some coke for the flames." The youth yeets rocks until he has a good half dozen corpses to work with. Staying in Avernus long is a bad idea. Every minute he wastes makes the trip back harder or impossible. It is like holding your air under water. Moments matter. The next sigil is made with the bodies. There is a growl heard in the distance as he finishes.
Hellhounds are coming. He will get one, maybe two, chances to get this sigil off. Taking some of his blood, Number Five evokes the runes. The bodies rise off of the ground for a moment and then fall again. Crimson eyes are seen on a nearby ridge. He is too late. "Fuck," he shouts, grabbing one of the corpses as a shield as fire erupts down onto the sigil as the hound scorches the earth with his unearthy flame breath. Catching his break he looks at what is left. There isn't enough to go back now.
The hellhound charges down the hill, growling and snapping for a fresh meal. "Alright. If I'm going to live in Avernus for the rest of my life, might as well start off with a pet," Five says, cracking off an arm from one of the lemures and using the bone as a club. The hound leaps, getting smacked in the face with the bludgeon. It causes the beast to recoil. A fierce snap lunges. This is something Five is good at. His footwork is fast. The retaliation is swift and strong. In combat he feels whole. There is no world of hate. There is just the purity of combat. A dance of life and death. The final blow comes down on the hound's head, cracking it.
"Looks like I haven't failed yet," Five says, catching his breath. More hounds will come for sure. Tired, the youth drags the corpse to the burnt sigil. One more time. He takes fresh blood from the fight and tries again. With the snaps of black and red, he is flung through the expanses of the planes and ejected back to Arhor'ha.
A wet cough is given as Five looks at his surroundings. Ok, the other anchor still worked. Now to get to goal.
"You look pretty roughed up," says a man sitting by a campfire. The tiefling and the campfire man are in the woods. Five knows this one. He hates this one. This is a Candle. They are the guys that look for infernal threats. They watch and protect. To be more accurate, they watch and protect 'some' people. People like Five, a tiefling, do not count. One time he tried to escape Jacob by trusting the Candle and working with him to get free. In the end he was just escorted back to the estate. You can't trust anyone.
"I tripped," Five says, making his way towards a lake in the distance. Avernus is a rough place to survive for minutes. Arhor'ha wilderness is dangerous, especially if you are bleeding, and the trek will take hours.
The campfire Candle stands up, saying, "Hey hey, whoa there. You are just a kid. You need to rest. Where are your parents?" The man feigns concern so well it sounds sincere. Maybe it really was. Five will never know. He runs as fast as he can. Reckless.
Getting through the wilderness did not come without its challenges, but there are more natural resources to use. By the time he gets to the lake he has a heavy wooden club and some food in him. It was embarrassing that once he died to eating the wrong food. After that he took classes on plant life more seriously.
Five thinks back to his navigation courses. From here he needs to follow the lake to the hillside. From the hillside enter a large cavern near a large door, and go along the side. The path to that point is uneventful, but the sun is quickly setting. Running out of time is also a failure condition. He rushes the rest of the way as he heads through stone corridors. There are traps here and no time to move around them. His arm catches more than one bolts of arrows, but the fatal swinging blade misses him. One he can survive, the other he can't.
Finally he climbs a long stone staircase that goes in a circle. Five is bleeding all over the place. "Made it," he says as he rounds the corner. Miss Sanguine is there along with Jacob. They stand over a large circular altar where deals are conducted.
"You did," Jacob says, watching as Five continues his trek to meet them where they stand. The two do not make any motions to help him up, even as blood stains the stone floors. One uneasy step at a time gets him there. He is tired and weakened, but he did it. "The buyer will be most impressed and this will give me a better stance of negotiation. You may not be a break-even investment, Number Five."
Number Five makes it to the two of them with a look on his face of approximately 'What?'.
A dagger is handed over to Miss Sanguine, "If you'd be so kind, Miss Sanguine." She takes the ceremonial dagger in her hand. The blade is flaked in obsidian. The blade that will end Five's life forever and press him into an eternity of war in Avernus. It is what tieflings all know waits for them. It is what she is prepared for and what her son is prepared for.
"Go to hell, Jacob," she snaps, twisting sharply and stabbing the blade into Jacob's shoulder. It is his good arm. His sword arm. Leaving only more primal options to defend himself as the dagger digs into flesh and bone. The two share a distance close enough to be nose to nose.
The eyes of a angry mother have the power to freeze hell over and burn it to primordial ashes and Jacob has sown that reckoning. He had made an error. He thought her will was broken. He was wrong. Jacob locks steely eyes with the red rage as he races through his options. Well played. He cannot harm her while she is with such an important child. As the man's side begin to slide to Number Five, he begins to play the other leverage he has over her. Once more, he finds himself outplayed.
"Run Ozymandius!" the woman says through grit teeth to her son's birthname, "You are strong enough, now. Strong enough to survive on your own! Find your..." It is all a mother can do but prepare her son for the harsh realities of the world. All of those moments of tough love. Jacob can not hurt you when you are strong and she made sure that he was forged in hellfire. While he was in his own personal hell, so was she, and together they have defeated this monster at his own game. In that moment she is proud. She is proud that she knows he will make it out there. She is proud he is a survivor. The pride is fleeting.
The pride is snapped along with the sound of Ozymandius' horn cracking under the strain of his hand and breaking off. All of those days carving numbers into a stone wall have left Ozy's horn sharp. Sharp enough to stab Jacob. It is the single bullet in the chamber with Jacob's name on it. Ozy had no way of knowing that sinking the shiv into Jacob's side was a mistake for he was filled with bravado and hope. He fell prey to naive sentiment that his mother thought she had filtered out of him. "We leave here together," he says, standing side by side with his family. The noble act is met with the confusing look of terror on his mother's face. Then her expression softens. Of course. If she was so willing to endure this pain, then why wouldn't he be? Its so painfully obvious that her son would do this.
The rebuke from the assault mounts in Jacob's body. It swells like a raging winter storm within his arms as his eyes turn milky white. She does not surrender to fate, she defies it to the last moment. The woman grabs her son and hold her close as the room erupts into a blast of snow and ice. The flash freeze gives the entire room a white-blue hue. Time itself bows to the freeze. It captures the moment when a mother of infernal heritage gives everything to save her children. Even angels take notice as her face maintains that soften expression even as her body turns to the white marble of deep freeze.
"Miss Sanguine," Ozy says, as he recovers from the cold blast. No response. "Mom?" Nothing. A soft expression on a statue is all that replies, frozen in place. "Mom," he shouts out as the blood from his broken horn runs into his eyes and mixes with the wetness of a tear drawn face. He isn't in denial. The world is cruel. The world is painful. The world is full of hatred and misery. "I'll kill you," the child yells in a guttural voice as if Asmodeus himself was crawling out of his throat. "I'll fucking KILL YOU," he yells out in a blind rage before everything goes dark once more.
Darkness. A void. No pain or sorrow. An oasis of peace. Nothingness.
Shattered.
It is the sound of crying baby that draws Ozymandius back to the land of the living. At first he thought this is the miracle of death and rebirth. Maybe this time around he will be a human boy in Crystallis. He will attend school and make friends. Fall in love and start a family. Have a profession he is proud of. Die old. The dream dies as he opens his eyes and finds the throbbing pain in his head where he broke his horn off.
"Good morning sleepyhead," says a woman with long blonde hair as a smile that could thaw glaciers. It is the required level of warmth for Ozy's emotionally raw soul. The tiefling is no longer in a cell of stone and dirt. He sleeps in a bed. The room is made of warm wood an sunlight that floods through an open window. Birds chirp outside. He hates it. These vain things. They spit in his face. The baby screams again and it draws Ozy's sedated gaze. "Would you like to see your new sister?" the woman asks, holding a bundle of cloth.
How long was he out for? His eyes squint. What game is Jacob playing? The eyes soften. Maybe he is dead and this is his personal hell. The blonde woman sits at his bedside and tenderly strokes his black hair. "She is a miracle," the blonde explains, "the beauty of a mother's love for her children. Try to be nice to her, she is your mother's last wish, after all. Isn't that right Hope?" The baby coos.
"I'll," Ozy drawls as he catches sight of the tiefling. Fair skin and white hair. Fragile like a doll. "I'll never call her that."
The blonde sways the newborn in her arms, "But that is her name. Its fitting, don't you think. Your mother's last Hope."
"Hope dies," Ozy says in a jaded tone of voice, "or is that the whole point, you cruel fucks."
The blonde woman plants a finger on Ozy's lips, "Language! This is an impressionable young lady. Do not be so uncouth." Ozy opens his mouth to bite the blonde's finger but she snatches it away. "Then how about something more enduring. Like, the moon? Yes, that is pretty. As enduring as the moon. As powerful as hope."
"Whatever," Ozy says as he looks out the window. "When I burn this place to the ground the moon can fucking watch me do it." The blonde squints her eyes at the young man. He can't be considered a child now. She stands and says before she leaves, "Do well to remember what your mother taught you, Ozymandius."
The door to his room closes as Ozy looks out the window as a lifeless husk. "I remember. Find your place in this world. I am Ozymandius, I will be King among Kings to a land of ash and fire." Unfortunately his mother never said to 'Find your place in the world', but his mind created it that way. What she meant to say was to 'Find your sister' so they can be a family again.