Chapter 107 - Once an enemy, always an enemy (2)

The world in front of him changed. Everything became foggy as his consciousness was pulled apart from his body that was still dangling like a ragdoll on the ogres shoulders. Arnold quickly scanned the area around him.

'Just broken buildings and abandoned roads. Looks like I'll have to move further ahead...' Arnold's conscience ran past them like a ghost.

It was one of the benefits of upgrading the [Foresight] ability. Not only the duration of the skill has increased by six times, its initial value, now could also choose a place or a person that he knew to view the future happenings related to the person or the place. However there was a downside of this additional effect. The particular place or the person in question, had to be within a hundred kilometers radius of him at the moment of activation of the skill. Regardless of it, if he still forced himself and used the skill on someone or someplace that wasn't within the above said range, his ability wouldn't work and he'd experience a head splitting pain that would last for four to six hours, and no healing ability would be able to stop the pain. This was the reason he always used the foresight ability when his mind was calm and relaxed, so that his mind doesn't wander off to somewhere else and ended up causing him pain.

Arnold kept moving forward in the direction the ogres were headed to. But no matter how fast he went, all he could see were old, abandoned, and rundown buildings that were on the verge of collapsing, and few broken cars that were buried deep under the patches of vegetation. It felt strange that this particular area had trees and vegetation unlike the other parts of the 'wasteland' he had been to.

The network of roads that led to the centre of city was now indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape. Fallen trees blocked some of the paths while others continue to grow, their branches no longer prevented from growing into broken houses.

Some doorways seemed in relative decent condition while others were completely destroyed and were indistinguishable from other collapsed walls and piles of rubble. Many roofs had collapsed and in some cases had taken the entire building with it. Other buildings looked in crappy shape and were filled with dirt.

Once, it had been a growing town on the rise to a better future but now, it was just an eerie shell of its former self. An eerie silence had taken over and was only interrupted by the cracking of wood in the wind and the occasional monster cries who had made their home under one of the many collapsed roofs. Arnold came across the train station that too had collapsed and the tracks were covered in shrubs and fallen branches. Nobody was waiting for the next train anymore, no longer eagerly going to the next destination or waiting for those coming home.

Despite the many small mutated mammals like rats and squirrels, that inhabit this town it was still a very unsettling sight to behold. Nature had taken its toll on the vast majority of town. But even though many buildings had found a new purpose there was just no way this town's former self could ever be restored. Even if the monsters were gone for good.

As he moved forward something caught his eyes... a dozen of men wearing hazmat suits, similar to the one he was wearing, were standing in front of a building. Not only that, inside the hazmat suit they were wearing the military uniforms that was exactly the same as Amanda's and the others, but something was wrong... their eyes were lifeless. Like the eyes of someone who had lost everything in his life and was waiting for death to knock on his doors, and take them away from this hell.

'Are these the soldiers who had disappeared while searching for the church?'

They were carrying swords and guns and were stationed outside a particular building as if they were tasked with guarding it. Arnold knew he had found exactly what he had been looking for.

From the outside Arnold could tell that the building that were guarding was in a better condition than any other buildings he had seen since leaving the base, but still few of the people were busy in restoring and repairing whatever they could. The two storey building was built with tan stones and had walnut wood decorations, Arnold didn't knew why they were decorating the image if they were actually trying to hide themselves. Large, octagon windowless frames added to the overall 'beauty' of the building in an asymmetric way. He could see a few more guards stationed near the windows as well.

Next to the building was some sort of garage, and about ten to fifteen vehicles were parked inside it. Most of them were military vehicles while a few of them had been salvaged and repaired to function once again. The mechanic wasn't able to do a great job but the vehicles were all in working condition.

The building itself was shaped like a T. The two extensions extend into a garden path reaching until the end of that side of the building and was surrounded by an electric fence.

The roof was actually pretty high like a chapel should have been and was covered with grey wood shingles. One small chimney poked out the center of the roof. Several long, thin windows let in plenty of light to the rooms below the roof and acted as guard outposts.

'This has to be their base of operations! I have to hurry and get inside. Time is of the essence!' Arnold exclaimed and pushed inside the building, 'But there are too many guards stationed here... Once I get here *physically*, I'll have to play my cards defensively till I'm able to get close to the priestess and put an end to everything.'

It was true, he had to hurry because the duration of his ability could end anytime now. He hurriedly went inside. The interior of the building was better than the exterior, Arnold actually felt like he was inside a posh hotel of some sorts, fully equipped with candles and a massive chandelier that hung down from the ceiling. Innumerable people were leisurely walking around the building, all of them wearing the same type of clothing as the men who came to capture him. Unlike the people stationed on the outside, these people looked lively. That wasn't all, Arnold could feel a weird aura surrounded nearly all of them.

Arnold moved on as he wanted to locate the priestess as soon as possible, but he was clueless about her location and he didn't had the time to leisurely move around and check each and every room inside the building. All he could do for now was to follow the trail of guards as he knew they had to protect the priestess, as she was the most important figure for them. So without wasting his precious time anymore he started floating down the path that was guarded the heaviest.

The fact that no one, not even the other 'members' were allowed to go through the, further strengthened Arnold's decision. He kept floating along the corridor that was completely empty apart from the guards that were stationed there.

'I feel like the Canterville¹ ghost right now...' Arnold mumbled as he got deeper and deeper inside the building.

After following the corridor for a few seconds, it abruptly came to an end in front of a gigantic door. Arnold thought he had finally located the priestess and phased through the door and into the room... but instead a sickening scenario waited for him inside.

On one side of the room, dozens of men and women had tied up to the beds that were inside the room, there mouths had been forcefully opened through metal hooks, as if they were in middle of some kind dental treatment. They were furiously trying to free themselves from the chains that were holding them down.

While people on the other side of the room were tied up as well but they weren't struggling to free themselves... they were just lying on their bed, their eyes just like the ones Arnold saw at the entrance on the building. As he got closer to one of them he saw a redish black liquid coming out of the mouth of one of the quiet people.

'Is this... blood?'

Arnold looked around the room and noticed something he had missed initially... limp and decapitated bodies of various types of monsters were being held upside down at one corner of the room, their blood was being collected into a vessel. A few people were busy collecting the blood from the vessel and were forcefully feeding it to the ones who were trying their best to resist but it was all in vain as they were forced to gulp it down.

Arnold noticed that the moment the blood touched their lips they immediately went silent just like the others. Arnold was sickened by this and looked away... only to see the a woman dressed in black clothing enter the room. He couldn't see her face as it was covered with a black hood.

The people inside seemed to know exactly who the woman was as they immediately went on their knees and simultaneously praised the one dressed in black, "Long live the Priestess!"

The woman slowly pulled her hood back and smiled at the ones kneeling before her. At this moment Arnold felt his conscience returning back to his body as the duration of his skill had ran out, but it didn't mattered anymore, he had already seen the face of the 'Priestess'.

'So, we meet again... Alice.' Arnold thought as his conscience returned back to his 'unconscious' body.

****

Author's note: Canterville ghost is a short story that was written by : Oscar Wilde and was published in 1887 for the first time. So far it has had about 4 movie adaptions so far (I think). I had to study it as a part of my academics back in 2016-2017 but man it was a great story, so if anyone of you like comical stories, I think you'll definitely like it as well!