Chapter V
The Ripper & The Slasher.
As time passes, boys can only grow, and like their passions will flourish, so will their demons and vices. The dreadful beasts that we always manage to find in the most cataclysmic of moments. Manis & Grimace wandered the lands for a years’ time, even in the late hours under the moonless sky.
Grimace would never let Manis sleep, when they would happen to find themselves in a safe haven for the dark hours. Grimace only instigated Manis, pushing him further amidst the glow of a camp fire, further away from reality. Picking his buttons, teasing him for losing Jaykob to the demanding claws of death, only fueling the fire that was beginning to grow wild. Grief, without a father, is a tragedy all on its own, Day-by-terrible-haunting-day that passed caused Manis’s mind to break more-and-more.
The longer time went on the longer Manis was being driven absolutely mad. Irrefutably mad. Eventually, Manis rambled to himself, having bouts of hysteria. Grimace had gotten what she so woefully desired. A corrupted soul, broken from the very depths of its existence, the core of his psyche.
Each unsuspecting traveler Grimace spotted, she would coax Manis into taking what was his, their life. Not taking no for an answer, having her feed on the travelers, not only that, but forcing Manis to watch. She taught young Manis who had hardly just reached the age of thirteen, still a boy, to craft and whittle fine iron blades. She taught a mere child, not only how to fashion an entire armory, or how to kill but how ugly the world truly is. The monster created another monster, or so it seemed.
They became the topics of rumors that spread to the likes of a small village, just west of the greenwood. Across the maze of forest, lied a town on the swamps. A town with piers, docks, and rowboats. A homely town, with bubbling bogs, loud taverns, flower shops with gorgeous tulips, the sounds of a flooding market in the town square, lowly fisherman smoking their pipes and conversing about the rumors that are circulating.
“The Ripper & The Slasher” they called them. The first terror to sweep the lands, and as drunken patrons joked and gossiped, there was talk that the slasher was merely a child and The ripper, well, it was something… not of this plane of existence...
No matter how many dwarves there were (and dwarves are a hearty-LOUD-bunch.) the room always grew silent when talk of the slasher stopped and words of the ripper had begun. Although, they all knew every night some other piss poor folk was losing his sodding life, and for what?
Alas, it didn’t matter how much they drank, or how much they talked, or even how silent they were, just like Manis’s fate, and it was already too late. It was a good thing their bellies were full of ale.
The unlit sky is a pitch-black, trees creak with a bustling wind. Branches snap, animals scurry in a fret. The breeze is continuous, ominous. A constant eerie shrill can be heard as it snaps branches, toppling over smaller trees, pulling bushes, yanking them out of the ground. It weaved through the vales and valleys, a ferocious force.
When bad things are due to happen, there’s bound to be foul weather. Call it a hunch, but evil has no limits, the best we can do is learn from others failures and mistakes of the past. Or else the future will end up as tainted as cracked glass. Evil… like energy cannot be destroyed, only vanquished, for a time being. A moment of calm, of tranquil peace…
To the east of the toppled trees stood Manis clenching his fists. Gritting his teeth muttering.
“Why?” “Why do I have to... this is wretched... it’s vile and wrong... “ Just behind Manis stood the forest, between its creaking trees illuminated Grimace’s ruby eyes. Its pincers scraped against one another. “Oh... Manis! How long will you do this silly dance! Your demons… you can’t fight them any longer... you’re sick and you need to eat!” she cackles horrendously shaking the trees.
“You know exactly how good killing the man who took Jaykob from you felt... how can you mortals… BE SO IGNORANT.”
Just across the field from Manis, stood an older gentleman. Huge scruffy beard, dirty to say the least. His hair was long and balding at the top, he had sun spots characterizing his scalp. He wore a dirty green doublet with tattered and sewn linen pants. He walked the path with a limp as he lugged a burlap sack that had too of almost been bigger than his slanting posture.
“I mean after all Manis, what have you got left to lose? Can you even name one miniscule thing in your so far, wasted sappy life?!” Manis shutters and stutters “I…. I….” Grimace shrieks and screams “WELL?! OUT WITH IT, OR I’LL DO IT MYSELF.”
Manis’s face is pouring sweat as it stains the ground he turns around, glaring at him with cocked eyebrows and a dead gaze dawning a wickedly frightening grin. He clasps he hands, and tilts his head, suddenly spit flies from his mouth and his veins throb. “NO… YOU THINK YOU COULD STEAL FROM ME GRIMACE?”
He laughs monotonous, shaking his fingers as his laugh escalates, so does his grin. He points backwards towards the limping old man in the distance. “YOU SEE THAT GRIMACE?” He only seemed to get louder. “Take a good long look, cause that man…”
His laughs break his sentence, as tears line his sockets, not the sad kind, the maddening kind. The hysterical kind. His laughs stretch his face as he pulls his bright orange hair. “THAT MAN, IS ALL MINE YOU DIRTY FIEND, FOR WITHOUT ME, MY DEAR GRIMACE, YOU WOULDN’T FEED!” Manis grabs his stomach cackling so hard he starts leaning backwards.
“OH! MANIS! This is the side of you I love… BY ALL MEANS LAD… DON’T LET ME STOP YOU!“ Creeping into the darkness of the greenwood, and in a few moments there was nothing to see but a glint of its vanishing ruby eyes accompanied by the trees waving and the foliage swaying.
Manis spins around facing the man, who’s traveled quite the distance since Grimace & Manis began arguing. Manis dusts off his clothes, a bit taller than before but not by much. He hasn’t changed his clothes since the orphanage, with his growth his pants shrunk to above his ankles, and his shirt revealed his stomach. He sprinted up to the man from afar, seemingly jolting through the grass. He slides on the dirt path, kicking-up dirt beside the old man. The old man stops and tries to walk around him as Manis stops him with his hands on his chest.
“Woah, where are you going old man?” He smiles and chuckles. “That’s a pretty heavy sack you got there and I noticed your limp awhile back, need some help? Where in the seven hells are you headed!” Manis’s hand moves to his shoulder, gripping him far too tightly. The old man’s eyes widen at Manis’s voice and he turns a deep red.
“I ... no... well I mean yes, if you would be so kind.” “I’m heading to the swamplands… there’s a meeting, there’s a cause of suspicion in the world… or so it seems…” The old man frailly hands Manis the burlap sack and slinging it over his shoulder. Smacking against his back with the sound of coins jingling, walking to the left of the man.
“Oh? Is there now? What is the suspicion of? Pray do tell sir!” “You haven’t heard? There’s two scoundrels wandering about these parts, The Ripper & The Slasher they call them, are ye living under a rock? The times are dark… not even the roads are safe anymore.” “The Ripper & The Slasher… it’s got a nice ring to it you know mate? Kind of like a stage-name, now that’s glamorous…That’s a life worth remembering, don’t you think?”
“You gullible sap…” Manis’s grin becomes devilish, his demeanor shifts, the old man jumps back. “w-wait… you’re not…The Slasher are ye?” He steps in front of the old man. “Words, Words, what are they worth if you’re not having fun and losing yourself in the absurd! You better run…” He swung the burlap sack and hits the man in the chin. He goes flying backwards thudding on the ground, groaning, his face swollen. Bleeding and twitching on the ground. In a fright, he crawls backwards as the coins’ jingle on the ground.
“P-please… NO!” Manis kicks dirt in his mouth as the old man hacks and wheezes. Blood staining the ground, tainting the dirt. Manis then reaches into his pocket pulling out a blade whittled from wood, he kneels down on the old man’s chest. He cackles in a terror, waving the blade around and smacks his lips.
“aye, you know what mate?” “w-w-what…” The old man struggles to say. “I really do love it… It truly is the greatest feeling in this world I’ve come to know…”
Manis squeezes the old man’s cheeks, “and I know, none of you will understand… so I guess I’ll just have to just make you ALL see my reality.” His grin stretches the skin back on his face.
He plunges the blade into his heart, pulling it out instantly as quickly as the man gasps. He plunges it into his neck, using both hands and slashing it all the way across his neck, tearing it open. Blood pours and sprays for a few seconds as the old man chokes and gasps for air, his eyes wide and Manis laughs, and laughs. His face speckled with blood. He lunges the blade into his stomach, pulling it out again, lunging it in again. Over and over Manis stabs him, with each plunge into the depths of his skin, Manis only stabbed and slashed faster. His bloodlust was relentless, his cackles ghastly, his wet mouth drooling and his eyes bulging. Manis turned him over and started stabbing his legs. His body was already passed lifeless, as Manis irrefutably could not cease his laughing, it only escalated. Grimace slowly approaches behind him, her legs creeping across the grass. As Manis feels her creeping shadow… his eyes widen, his face now smeared with blood.
“Oh!” Manis says cocking his head back and looking up “There you are… I was starting to get SO BORED...” He cackles profusely, arching his back backwards and throwing his hands back. Her pincers clap, “I didn’t think you had it in you Manis... I’ll admit but then again even gods are wrong sometimes…” He stands up pointing his hands toward the bloody mess that was this old man’s corpse, and bowed.
“Oh thank you my terribly great teacher! My foul lord and savior, my seeker of bountiful opportunity, my one and only GRIMACE…” Manis licks the blood around his lips, wiping his face as the dripping blood only tainted more of the now corrupted soil.
Quickly crunching his bones, and inhaling the old man’s corpse, Manis stares with an intense demeanor at the mutilated body. The boy who was once afraid, was now enticed and intrigued.
The old man’s corpse was nearly gone being swallowed and eaten whole, Manis could only stretch his cheeks with a wryly grin. Smacking his lips not averting his gaze.
“Grimace… we’re being talked about in all the villages that surround us, oh you’ve taught me well my great dark one… but this… I think this is what you talked of all those years ago when you first met me. How I’m destined for greatness if I listen to you and your magnificent darkened splendor.”
“I finally understand now Grimace… it’s not that I’m special, it’s that I met you, what plane of existence you are from I cannot say…but even to say unto ye, that you are a godly one would be an understatement, the dire fact that I have met you, with this great and terrible power you possess in that enticing ruby eye of yours. “
“Oh yes! Manis, I knew you’d come around, my young Manis, how you’ve grown in such a short-time, but oh I must ask you mortal, what are the other dreadful mortals doing talking about us Manis?” Manis smiles and clasps his hands together.
“Well my dark liege, I don’t know much but I know where to find out more, but allow me to share what little I know—Apparently to them we’re The Ripper & The Slasher, and the word is… That we are the reason that not even the roads are safe.” Manis chuckles and his grin grows.
“OH MY MANIS!! Flattering isn’t it? Having a life worth remembering?” “It is Grimace… but I confess, I hunger for more, word from the man that now resides in your stomach is that there’s a meeting in the swamplands!”
Manis unclasps his hands beckoning Grimace. “So my great and terrible liege, what say ye? Will ye lend me your strength, to take what’s rightfully mine?”
“Oh! Oh!!! Manis! Delightful! Truly! YES~ YES, a thousand fallen moons YES!” Grimace shakes its body, wiggling and jumping shaking the earth. Causing Manis to lose his balance, he falls over laughing. “My liege! I have never seen you in such high spirits.”
Grimace bends forward holding one of it’s hairy legs out, welcoming him on what could be Manis’s greatest challenge yet. Manis climbs on her legs, scurrying upwards as another leg reaches across. Picking-up Manis and dropping him on the top of her head.
As Manis looked down he realized he could see the entirety of the world from here. Towering mountains that reached passed the clouds, Miles of trees he knew as the greenwood, He could make out all the campfires from every village. In the distance he spotted a valley with deep colossal ridges, one he had never known existed in Dome-Wyrd. Rolling hills stretched to the east with patches of flowers covering the miles of beautiful hills.
Far to the east Manis could make out all of the waves that came rolling into Dome-Wyrd’s Shores and precisely where he first found himself. Although, Manis noticed he couldn’t see the orphanage anymore, there was a veil of fog beyond the sea.
He then looked all around and he found the thought dawn on him. “Does anything really exist outside of these lands?” he pondered, but most importantly to the west of where they stood, past the forest from a path he had never seen-was the swamplands.
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