"Stay indoors! Refrain from leaving the premises! Do not move a single inch - for the Blightfall lingers upon anything it touches! I repeat - stay far from the Blightfall!"

Instructions to everyone else, Ash's words strongly echoed through the raging storm, overpowering my own, howling and shrieking till my lungs gave out, if it ever did. I didn't think it would.

Raspy and brittle became my every sound, my throat was seriously on the verge of giving out from the abuse my vocal cords were lashing out at it.

Meanwhile, Ash was doing all she could to keep me from screaming any longer, yet at the same time, hesitant about doing to me any more harm than I already was in.

"Master, you aren't in control, I know. You need to concentrate, focus on closing your lips, will yourself into silence - you've become a vessel, you can't let any more voices into yourself! It is vital you do as I say! Keep quiet!"

The urgency in her voice could only be compared to the terror soaring ever higher in her wide-open eyes. She stared at me, stared deeply into my unblinking, unfeeling eyes - and I in return continued to shout.

"You doomed us! You cursed us! Killed us! It hurts - IT HURTS! ESHWLYN!"

"Master - keep trying!"

Try, trying, I heard her plead, saw the worry on her face, and really tried. My jaw muscles clenching, a swelling ache surfacing from the force I was exerting upon them. It was no good, I wasn't in control anymore… I was a prisoner in my own body, like a puppet bound to the tightest strings, dancing to the whims of an unknown malevolent puppeteer.

All I had left to me were my emotions and thoughts - and every one of them shared in that one single sentiment.

"IT HURTS!"

The tears flowing incessantly from my eyes blurred most of everything in sight. People, objects, the red-rain, I could discern nothing from what I was seeing - nothing, save for the glowing emerald hues blinking back at me.

"I know, I know, Master…" muttered Ash, her composure gone, "We need you out of the Blightfall, we can't linger here for long."

She tried to raise me up, her hands gently around my shoulders. It only took a single touch, the lightest touch - and I was sent doubling over in my agony, the pain was indescribable, a seething piercing sensation surging through every fiber in my body that my screams could do no justice.

I was yelling again.

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH ME, YOU BITCH! YOU WENCH! YOU SORRY EXCUSE OF AN ELF! I LOATHE YOU! I DETEST YOU! SUFFER! SUFFER AS I DID! SUFFER AS WE ALL DID!"

Ash flinched, and immediately withdrew her arms away, her face as white as paper, startled into a dismayed silence.

It wasn't me… it wasn't me! I wanted so badly to tell her that it wasn't me that said that, but I couldn't. Words I didn't and will never say just kept funneling out of my gaping lips.

Somebody please just shut me up, please!

My tears dribbled down my face adding to a small puddle of even more tears at my side. I couldn't tell anymore if there were my own tears or someone else's… I just wanted it over, I wanted it to stop.

I was no stranger to pain. Amelia made throughout work to make sure that I wasn't.

Yet the pain then, could never ever compare to the pain now.

It was as if I was dying, over and over again, every second of every moment, a constant unrelenting loop of falling into death's jaws…

But death wouldn't bite, death wouldn't swallow. I was stuck. Stuck Stuck Stuck. And it hurts so bad… so… much.

I can't… thinking was… it just hurts! I can't think! I can't -

"Is he possessed, Ash?"

It was there that I saw it, heard it.

The light smack of a cane against the floorboards. A leg in a limp stopping close in the corner of my eye, and beyond my demented screams, came a grating, husky voice.

"What happened?" It sounded again, still very much aloof, very much as calm as it always was.

The Mob Boss entered my vision in a swirling, blurry mess. His face, obstructed, but I could feel his stare gazing back at me, and somehow I got the feeling that he was more intrigued than he was alarmed.

Then I felt a raw coarseness in the back of my throat, a bout of screaming began to echo once more, the same statement again and again.

"You shot me. You shot me. You shot me. You shot me. YOU SHOT ME!" There was a crunch, my teeth gnashing against one other, baring out to the open silent air. "Dave? You're here, Dave? Where are you, Dave? I'M GOING TO KILL YOU DAVE!"

I was a non-stop barrage of psychotic hollerings that would unnerve anyone, anybody that was in range to hear it… a shuffling sound, a tapping sound - the Mob Boss had drawn himself away from view.

"This is…" His voice, a mixture of intrigue, bemusement, and for the time ever, disconcertment. "Curious…"

"He's echoing," came Ash's voice, scraping what little composure was left to carry on. "The words he utters are not of his own volition. Blightfall is the rain of the dead, every droplet an echo that funnels through him. It's ravaging his soul… I know not why, but my Master is a Speaker for the dead. He - I've no time - He needs to steer clear away from the vicinity of the Blightfall otherwise it'll be too much for him! We need to leave!"

Every word of hers, I've heard but no chance to actually comprehend. But there was one thing I was certain of - this endless loop of death… didn't feel so endless anymore.

It was getting so… so cold.

"This Blightfall… none must be in contact with it, you say?" asked He again, his tone treading towards a tone of caution.

"Yes," affirmed Ash. "It is crucial you allow none to leave these walls until the Blighfall has ceased. If even a single drop falls… it'll be devastating."

"And what of you two?" He asked again. "You wanna leave, the only way out is through the Blightfall itself. You'll get soaked."

"The rainfall itself doesn't affect him…" Ash heaved a breath. "As for me, I care not. I failed my Master once before, I won't fail him again. If I have to carry him on my back and run the distance then so be it. I will not let him die… no matter the cost."

All I could do was hear and scream. That was all that allowed of me. But for that one moment, just for that one, as I heeded her resolve, I was allowed one more thing - muscles stiffening, bones aching - my head slowly turned from the left to the right.

And one word, a single word that truly belonged to me, slipped past my gritted teeth.

"Don't."

Though fading sight, I saw it again, the dim light of emerald eyes blinking back at me - a heavy breath warming the icy cold I felt. "Master, I told you… keep silent. Just keep silent, I beseech you."

That one word was all I had. More words came to follow, more words that weren't mine.

"Where's Lenora? Eshwlyn, where is she? Where's your sister? What did you do?! What did you do to your sister, Eshwlyn?!"

Ash fell quiet. I think she fell quiet. I don't know, I couldn't hear her, couldn't see her... anymore, if she ever spoke.

Briefly, I wondered if I've gone deaf, until the sound of someone else speaking shattered that thought.

"No need to run any distance."

The Mob Boss returned, his cane clattering inches from my ears. Above, I saw only a blurry black figure shuffling about, before I heard a jingle and clink of something heavy.

Ash returned to view again, her head tilted downwards to her palm outstretched before her.

She spoke again, confused. "This is?"

"7GBC368," He responded. "Black Porsche, two-seater, first one in the underground parking. You know how to drive?"

Ash looked up at him. "Drive?"

"Drive a car, yes." He said again. "Can't go with you. Nor can my men. I won't risk them nor me. Not with the circumstances at hand, so this is all I can do for you two. So… I'll ask... how well are you able to drive?"

For a second - nothing. Then Ash's palm folded into a fist, gripping tightly, her stare a determined one, and nodded her head.

"Well enough."