XI
Manis’s Big Day.
The big day had finally come, the sun rose with all those souls already lost. A dead-heat combed the skies. Manis was dressed up in a fancy, quilted-doublet, It was red and undoubtedly matched his flowing red cape, outlined in a golden lace, it was velvet and silky. Although, like always, his pants were the same tattered linens he refused to change ever since, the tragic aftermath of Jaykob. His confidence shone as he walked out onto the wide-oval stage. Granted it took his subjects months, and many gruesome deaths later. The longer Manis seemed to rule the higher the body count seemed to rise. Even though the sun was hot and rising over the forest just beyond the coliseum, there was a dreadfully dead air passing through the morning light. There were torches scattered about the edges of the stage all dimly lit. The seats for the audience rested just beneath the stage and were all eagerly, not to mention surprisingly filled.
The only thought that had dawned in Manis’s mind, scanning the crowd as he paced back-and-forth on lit-up stage, was how much Jaykob had craved this dream.. Just how much he rightfully yearned for this dire moment, with that taken from him, with a lit stage, every seat filled with eager eyes, all looking for Manis, and Manis alone...
Manis's heart sank deep below, for the first time since he met Grimace. His thumping heart descended quickly into the acidic pits Manis called his stomach. He took a slow, deep breath. Pacing back-and-forth once again as his heels stomped against the wooden stage, his footsteps echoed throughout the coliseum. With the audiences eager and silent eyes, it was the only sound occupying his disheveled kingdom. He stopped and turned toward the crowd at the center of the stage. Placing one foot forward and puffing his chest out, holding his index-finger and thumb together he spoke with a golden confidence.
“Today is a special day”
Manis said with a delightful smile, his orange hair shining bright against the sun.
“A golden one aye” “You— all of you, are in for quite the show! And I personally welcome you all to my kingdom!”
Manis slowly bows, not breaking his eye-contact with the crowd. His grin becomes wryly, menacing, fiendish and violent.
“Let the show begin…” he says in a deep-voice, breaking off in a chuckle, waving his palms in the dead air.
The crowd began to mutter with their children clasped tightly, and worried. The guards standing behind the crowd, back toward the town square, suddenly bolted-shut the entrance to the coliseum. The gate slammed, clanked, and locked with a thud. Repositioning himself upright from his graciously haunting bow, Manis begins to speak, pacing back-and-forth, continuing on.
“A golden day it is, it shines as bright as the sun before us! Alas, not all things are as bright in this thing we’ve come to known called life."
Finally, Manis’s beloved makes an appearance, although, the crowd has no reaction.
Manis fails to ignore her, continuing on once again, but with a stuttering shock of confidence.
“L-l-life… W-w-we lose so many in these d-d-d-ark times, a-a-a-although it’s not about how we fall…”
His beloved throws the wine-glass she was holding, pecking Manis on the nose as it bounces and clinks on the stage. She buckles over, laughing hysterically, the veins on her neck announcing themselves with her catatonic laughter.
Manis’s word cease, his eyebrows cock. His glare burns a certain intensity that frightens everyone, especially the children. His grin flashes wide, revealing his yellow and decaying teeth, his eyes bulging, and his stutter ceasing.
“Death must be what you want.” He smacks his lips erratically. unsheathing his blade that lied behind his back. The blade reflecting against the sun, pulling from its sheath with a snick. Manis jumps off of the stage, dust shooting out from underneath his boots. Tossing the blade between his hands, playfully. His beloved still buckled over, her make-up now running from her hysterical chuckles. She forces out the words, wiping tears and smearing her make-up.
“What, what could you possibly do? you’ve ruined your big-day!” she shrieks, throwing up her hands, and still the crowd pays no mind. The crowd is seemingly lost in a state of shock. Manis grin drops to a blank-stare, an expressionless one.
“Be careful what you wish for wench…” Manis’s forehead drenching sweat, his gaze darting every-which-way and his teeth chattering. He seemed terrified but dysphoric. Raising Manis’s left hand without a second-thought he slashes her throat. Blood spray follows the slash as she gargles and chokes, grasping her drowning throat with wide, wet eyes.
Manis stomps closer and closer. Raising his shaking hand up again, grunting as he plunges the blade downward with a certain intensity. piercing her chest she gasps as Manis twists the blade, smiling and shoving it deeper, yanking the blade out as he plunges it back into the depths of her chest again. And again, and again, laughing as he continued to do so grotesquely.
Pleasurable tears lined his face, holding his other hand almost instinctively, stabbing her over and over again. By the time Manis finally stopped, coming to his senses, wiping the sweat and blood from his forehead. Arching his back and laughing, dropping the blade as it bounces on the stage. The crowd is numb with stares, completely silent and at a loss. Every mother with a child was shielding their kin’s eyes. He smirked as he scanned the crowd, looking back down in a fret, she was gone.
Manis in a fright jumped-back. Knocking his blade off of the stage as bounced back and forth in the dirt finally finding a soft-spot to land. No words were exchanged, Manis, headed toward the bolted throne-room door, stammering to himself, unsealing it, yanking it open and slamming it shut without hesitation. With a confused crowd, they all began chattering.
The guards stood like walls at the entrance, with no exits, and as tragic as the play was going to be. This was far worse, Manis’s reality was breaking as he asked himself. “What in the seven hells is real anymore.” He muttered, cackling. Manis ran his hands through his hair, pulling clumps of orange into his palms. Muttering on the other side of the bolted door. “What in the devil is the difference…” looking down at the floor as he panned his eyes forward, he stopped walking. “By the existence of the first ones” Manis stuttered, seemingly involuntary. He was shaking from head-to-toe.
As an anxious crowd soon became irate. From the ceiling to every wall surrounding Manis, he saw multiples of Grimace began to lurk on the walls. Visions of figments that made him feel nothing other than terror. Each one stood in a certain immensity, so haunting, and so large, that merely gazing upon them he could feel them all crawling up his spine, making him convulse even more as he strolled into the throne room. Ignoring the growingly irate crowd and lost in the existence of overwhelming apparitions. Copies of her swarmed every inch of the halls of the throne room. As he walked their gazes and piercing ruby eyes followed. They all sat there on the walls silently, merely watching, waiting. Their enormity had Manis paralyzed, he was stuttering nonsense as he tripped through his once familiar halls biting his lips as could barely keep his balance. The room felt wavy, Manis watched as the multiples of Grimace now slowly dissipated into thin air with an echoing wind that soon followed throughout the throne-room like a stalking gust. Perplexed and drenched in sweat Manis continued forward, cautiously and paranoid, scratching his sweaty scalp, his doublet stained with sweat. Behind the throne he heard a distant giggle, and his eyes suddenly became wider than the brightest fire to spread across the lands. he quickly sprinted toward the back of the room when he saw her. The Colossal beauty of a goddess from his dreams. Whom saved him from the haunting fire in the realm of dreams. Not just her and her magnificence, but four apparitions of her. All standing side-by-side, motionless, standing like vacant souls, empty vessels of godliness. When Manis had finally decided it was time to step forward, they all turned and looked upon his meager existence, their gaze mutated menacing and hateful. Their arms all raised and their fingers pointed toward him in a judging manner. They all spoke in unison.
“Did you ever really think you were in control my dear, delusional Manis?”
They vanished just as the words left her pristine lips. Manis gulped, turning around he ran toward his private quarters in a flash. He was jaded, hazy, and sweaty, approaching the door he slammed it open with his palm.
His beloved was in his bed, with the captain of his guard, the same one he maliciously coerced in the tavern years ago. Upon realizing his entrance she said no words, she merely smirked and stared. It was too real, and far too late, in this impeccable moment of realization with his gaze wide and shaky, the room started spinning on Manis. The captain was lost in the moment, penetrating her. He moaned and thrusted like an animal. He knew in that moment with his clenched fists, how dirty and primal we mortals are. How infallible we are when it comes to death & lust. How unless you’ve lost your head, we all suffer the same selfish needs and desires, no matter the cost. “Disgusting Animals…”
He muttered as he slammed the door-shut with such a ferocity a plank of wood attached to the door falls just behind him. Leaping toward the captain without thought, only laughter. Grabbing him by his scraggly, damp hair. He pushed his head down, slamming his face onto the floor. Without any words, any thought but the laughter occupying the dreadful room. Manis placed his boot on his throat, grabbing the bust on the night stand. Smashing his face, instantly breaking his nose and letting the blood begin to flow, Manis grinned. Smashing the bust again, and again, each time faster, and harder, just like he was enjoying his beloved.
His betrothed slowly applauded, the captain’s face was dented, teeth were scattered on the floor, he groaned, coughing up blood. Mouthing something unintelligible as his lied their twitching. Manis grabbed him forcefully by the neck. He let out a wall-bending scream that echoed throughout the halls, snapping the captain’s neck, forcing the boon to pierce through his skin as he shouted.
“You diabolical wench!” Manis talked so fast he could barely keep up with his wording. “After all the bloody time we’ve spent, after letting you in my kingdom’s walls!” “Irrefutably loving your wretched soul, regardless of the turmoil.”
“I ask you, WAS THIS YOUR PLAN?” “TO BEND AND BREAK THIS YOUNG KING?” “FOR WHAT?” “I WAS ALREADY BROKEN, ONLY DEMONS ARE AS FOUL AS THIS.”
His queen laughs, placing her soft-hands over her delicate lips, now, now Manis. He screams grabbing the captains sword. Yanking it out from the sheath, waving it around as he screams.
“IF YOU DIED ONCE, YOU CAN DIE AGAIN,” Tears line his face, cackling as he slashes her across the face, blood spurting against the wall. Manis slices open her stomach, throwing the blade to the side as she twitches there lifelessly. In a delayed reaction as the blade hits the wall, her organs spill on the floor, her body hunched over and her mouth agape, slowly dripping blood. A rumble spreads throughout the halls, and Manis turns his head back toward the door in pure terror, as he heaves there clenching the now bloody sword. He sees Grimace suddenly pushing her face in the door as much as she can with her immensity.
“Oh, my Manis, you’ve done it again my delusional king…” “Just like I trained you… just like I warned you my dear…” Manis said nothing, tears just poured down his face.
“Don’t you see Manis? You lost once you met me…” “The first moment you gave-in, your mind.” “it was all-mine.” “ you are nothing more than a vessel.” “A vessel that serves no purpose, other than to feed me, so that I.”
“THE FIRST TRUE QUEEN OF DOME-WYRD, WILL REACH HER FULL POTENTIAL, AND BE THE TERROR.” “THE TERROR THAT NOT ONLY STALKS THESE LANDS, BUT DOMINATES THE MIND OF MAN.” “THAT ARE ALL AS FOOLISH AS YOU, MY DEAR, DEAR, MANIS.”
“So trusting, ever so gullible, why is it you mortals trust your dreams more than your own minds?” “It’s funny, of all the mistakes you could of made, the only one you truly made was trusting me.” Grimace cackles through the door-frame. For the first time in his young-life, Manis breaks down.
All of the pent-up rage and pain, all that was bottled within his rotting mind. He instinctively started bubbling like a fool, for the first-time, not retaliating, not fighting. Not gruesomely murdering, feeling. He then realized, he was right, it isn’t how we fall, it’s how we pick ourselves up, but if you never pick yourself up, you’ve already lost.
Grimace opens its swirling eye, pulsing that familiar catatonic energy throughout Manis.
“Now my king, it’s time to finish what you started, to finally finish your legacy.” He stood up without contest, his face still wet from all the tears, but no more escaped. He was void of everything that was emotion. He merely said: “Yes…”
Hysterically cackling into the afternoon as he sat there motionless on his blood-stained bed, with his mind dark, his brain mushed to ash, and the world seemingly false...
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