13th Shot: Pain Split

13^th Shot: Pain Split

            As the night roared on and everyone was asleep Vincent sat wide and awake. They were nested in a back room of Shina’s home that was for the most part empty save the boxes containing the relics of Shina’s seeing day as she referred to them. The girls shared a queen sized bed and Vincent set up a mat on the floor for himself.

            Vincent listened to the soft breaths of the nymphs and

remembered his childhood with his own sibling. Vincent had many

more brothers and sisters but this one and he were born closest and

along with that they were the only siblings to pair together throughout

their youth, watching out for each other and consoling each other’s

troubled thoughts. It was quite annual for Vincent to long for his

family, sometimes as a child Vincent would roar into the sky until his

parent came and found him. It was comforting to know that whenever

he cried out they would come to see about him.

            As Vincent snapped back to reality he looked to the girls

cuddled together under the plushy white cover and chuckled. The

feeling of loneliness corrupts Vincent’s being and he rises to his feet

leaving the room.

            Vincent step into the front room to see that Shina had already

disposed of Othello after wiping his mind with her card. He will be a

lost husk of a man until someone finds him. Vincent shrugs and

proceeds to exit the home and look into the bright night’s sky. Star

lined the painting of the sky and cool breezes froze them in place.

Looking into the sky Vincent begins walking a trail from Shina’s

home; he had already replenished his gun magazines and cocked

them.

            With each step taken the grass fields holding the dead

occultist grew nearer. When Vincent had arrived he lifted the bodies

and casted them into the field of trees on the left of the path.

            After cleaning up Vincent calls out with a grand roar. For a

moment the night was field with the longing beckoning of some

unseen face as Vincent stood alone in the field. The roar did not die

down but grew stronger as the time rolled, until Vincent heard the

familiar flapping of wings from a distance. Vincent’s roar changed

from one of longing to one of elation as each roar was returned by

the flying zooanthrope.

            As the yet unknown face approaches Vincent smiles brightly

and waves his position. “…Yasmine!” Vincent called out as he was

soon met face to face with a massive black and yellow dragon. Her

face, though reptilian was beautiful, unlike the depictions in myth and

legend, her long nose was smooth, save the scales while her under

belly was hard like diamonds and white. Her top was black with long

strips of yellow going up her spine and wrapping onto the ends of her

gigantic pink slit eyes.

            “It’s been far too long Yasmine. How have you been?” Vincent

asks hugging her nose tightly as the eyes study him and close with

mild excitement.

            “What happened? Who did that to your clothes?” Yasmine

spoke, not by using her mouth but something much more magical.

She called to her favored brother through her mind. This was their

secret language that they created so that they could wonder off from

their parents without hindrances.

            Looking down he remembers that his clothes were ruined

from the fight he had been in earlier. “I must look a mess.” Vincent

laughs as he steps out of the embrace of his sister and plops down

on the floor.

            “Why have you called brother? You usually come to me. Is

everything okay? Have you gotten yourself into more trouble?”

Yasmine lays on her belly, her long limbs stretched as she made her

bed of the night.

            “It’s a long story sister.” He chuckled.

            As the two looked into the stars above them Vincent informed

his sister of what he had been through from the start to the finish. The

disobeying of Shina’s vision, the bar fight, the slave camp and the

bounty, his near death experience and the nymphs that saved him

and bound him. As the words swam in Yasmine’s mind, she began

to laugh. “Vincent you are just as troublesome as you were when we

were kids.” The siblings share a laugh under the stars and fall asleep

ending the long day that had plagued Vincent.

            When the sun arose and filled the sky with its illuminating light

Vincent found himself alone in the field looking for any trace of his

beloved sibling, and only finding the large imprint of her body in the

grass. As an eagle flaps its wings overhead looking for its breakfast

Vincent begins his trek back up the trail and arrives to Shina’s home

and hears an odd shriek. He draws his guns and dashes into the

house to be halted by Shina placing a plate of bacon, eggs, hash

browns a biscuits with syrup before his naked human formed sister

who sat at the table with the look of some hunger driven deranged

cartoon character holding a fork and knife with a look of joy and drool

on her face covered by her long bouncing red hair with its blonde

streaks running from back to front. Nyx and Nox appear from the

back room with some of Shina’s old clothes: a blue jean skirt with a

long zipper, a yellow plaid sleeveless shirt, and a pair of brown

boots.        

            “Hey Vinnie, you are finally awake!” Nyx says throwing her

hands in the air and running to hug Vincent.

            “Good morning Vincent, did you sleep well?” Nox says with a

smile as she places the clothes next to Yasmine who was too busy

stuffing her face with breakfast to speak. Each bite of the food was

followed by the loud clang of the fork to the plate.

            “How dare you keep this sweet girl out in the cold all night?

You ought to know better than to sleep out in the open. Anyone could

have come upon you and your sister and did all manners of things.”

Shina scolds Vincent.

            As Vincent sits himself at the table and looks for a good

morning from his sister he chuckles at how very animated she is.

Yasmine is the liveliest of their family and also the most caring.

            “Shina, do I get a plate as well?” Vincent asks as he pouts

and makes the most adorable face he can, and Nyx snickers when

Shina hands him an empty plate. Yasmine rises from a demolished

plate and snatches Nox’s hand as she flees to a back room. A

puzzled look strikes Vincent as Shina puts food before him.

            “Is everything ok?” Nox asks Yasmine with a slight and odd

sense of dramatic confusion.

            “You are the one who bound my brother right?” Yasmine asks

walking closer to Nox.

            “Yes, but I just wanted to heal his wounds, he took a lot of

bullets for two others that were in our cage.” Nox says backing away

slowly and dropping the clothes unknowing of the reasoning behind

separating her from everyone else.

            “It’s ok, why are you so nervous?” Yasmine says reaching out

her hands and revealing a similar three strike marking on the palm of

her hand. “I just needed to make sure that I have the right one so that

I can barrow something.”

            Nox looks puzzled as the zooanthrope approaches and pulls

her body in close to her. Yasmine, who stands almost as tall as her

brother begins to steal a kiss from Nox and a light bursts from them

both. The light shined from beneath the door and alerted the

markings on Vincent’s wrists. The horseshoe and the v shine brightly

and Vincent and Nyx race to get to the door and see Yasmine in the

embrace with Nox and the marks are broken in halves one set

remaining with Vincent and the other appearing on the wrists of

Yasmine.

            “…Yasmine? What are you doing?” Vincent leaps into action

and catches the girls before they fall to the ground.

            “I’m gonna share your burden with you, and I needed to know

the full story, and now that I have it I’m ready to go, so onward to

Schrödinger!” Yasmine blurts with excitement. Vincent flops back

and laughs. He would be lying if he said that he could do it alone, and

lying more if he said that he wasn’t happy that she had joined him,

but it was true in his heart that he dreads the depth of her decision to

his core, because she will now share the same hardship and

tribulations as he will.