It was nightfall. The stones clattered as I darted through the craggy, forest floor, furtively glimpsing back at the two uniformed officers, chasing me. The murky forest was opaque to every faint glimmer, clogging up my vision to lead a proper path. My scrawny shoulders heaved as I strode down the lopsided ground with heavy gasps and clomps.
“Stop there, you thief!” The voices bellowed from behind.
“You wish!” I retorted, escalating my speed.
My vague eyesight provided me with an abandoned, dilapidated, mansion nearby. I sneakily glanced over my shoulders and sprinted towards it, leaving the flabby police officers far behind.
I hunched my back with fatigue and staggered through the ramshackle, iron door, to put up for the night. “Thief? I didn't aspire to be a thief. . . Circumstances made me,” I sighed, flopping down on the grubby floor.
My prying eyes has always rewarded me with opportunities and threats. . . And certainly, lodging inside a deserted mansion gave me a whiff of opportunity. I smirked and dragged myself up to tread across the dark building, examining for some rich treasures and antiques.
The vacantness of the huge area at times gave me eerie chills but being a petty thief, the only arms I could afford were- a pair of blunt knives and a flickering torchlight. I was a criminal and my biggest successful mission was stealing a scrap car without it's steering wheel.
A sudden clangour shrugged off my reverie. I clutched my blunt knife, lit the torch and climbed up the creaky stairs to the second storey building. The floor was inexplicably cold and silent. I enfolded my arms around me and scampered, flashing light across the empty hallways. My breath stifled as a faint caterwaul brushed my ears, dropping my knife and shattering the torch light. Within moments, my opportunity was turned into a threat.
I stood in the dark, bleating. My feet shuffled and made a few blind progress, but soon was knocked down on the floor with a thud. I screeched in pain.
My vexed eyes grabbed it's attention towards a faint shimmer, shone from the far end of the hallway. I thrust myself up and quizzically dawdled forward to take a closer look at it. I held the thing in my arms and my face gleamed with joy. . . Finally, an opportunity!
“A casket!” I exclaimed with amusement. My shuddering hands opened the chest hastily and the mirth from my face quickly turned into a frown, “A dagger?” I scowled. “What am I going to do with this?”
I dumped the wooden casket faraway and flipped the dagger in my hand with pursed lips. Unbidden I realised, the darkness has prevailed back to the place with the same eerie atmosphere. I tugged the dagger inside my pants and dashed out of the mansion, hurriedly.
“Two hundred bucks. That's the best price I could offer.” The trader said, scrutinizing the dagger in his hands.
I glunched at him, furrowing my brows, “Either you increase the price or consider your throat being run through it. The choice is totally yours.”
He gasped for air. I couldn't believe I said that! Never in my life had I confronted anyone, yet I stood there, threatening a trader in an open market. The words, utterly, sounded bizzare to my ears.
“Three hundred is the last deal. Please. The metal is really cheap,” he pleaded with a trembling voice. I shrugged off my musing and accepted the deal.
“What did I just say?” I mumbled on my own, as I walked down an empty street. The temperature was dropping and the night was glooming. . . But my body was immune to the wintry weather- sweating profusely. My dry throat urged for water. I coughed a couple of times and glanced over my shoulders, looking for a bubbler to quench my thirst. I could find none. I crouched on the ground, panting and clasping my choking throat as I gasped for air! My condition was worsening. The thirst was different, it wasn't an ordinary water quenching thirst. It was a thirst for something lethal.
A police siren hit my ears and the thirst soothed away, immediately. I jolted myself up and rushed through the streets while the officers marched behind me.
What have I done? Why are these people still after me? I've just stolen a lady's purse and that's a mere theft. I thought, hurtling inside a dark alley. My escape soon ceased as I reached the far end of the passageway- a concrete wall blocked it's exit. “How long will you run?” An enraged police officer inquired, as he cornered me. The other officers joined him, shortly.
“Alright! Take the purse,” I blurted, raising up my hands.
They exchanged a perplexed look and the inspector pointed his revolver towards me, “Don't you dare try to outsmart me. . . Murderer.”
“Murderer?” I exclaimed, “But sir, I just stole a purse and the lady was absolutely hale and hearty. . . Rather she was screaming effortlessly.”
“Shut up! I've got alibis. You killed a trader,” he snarled.
I gaped my eyes and curled my lips in vexation, “What? Why would I kill him? I've sold something to him but certainly didn't kill him.”
“So you visited him?”
“I. . . Did.”
He put his revolver down and beckoned his men to inspect me thoroughly. They were inspecting me less and tickling me more. After a mini ticklish session, they finally groped inside my coat, fumbling. My grin vanished and was replaced with a shock. The police officer retrieved the dagger from my inner pockets and held it before of my eyes. It was the same dagger and. . . was bloodstained!
“Anymore defence against yourself?” The inspector scowled, proceeding towards me. He took the dagger in his hands and observed it carefully. I was unable to decipher a single thing, but all I could feel was that familiar thirst raging inside me, again.
I could feel my condition worsening once more and my body acting own it's own. I bent my head down and softly hummed an unknown song as I tottered towards him, slowly. He aimed his revolver at me, hooting, “I exactly know how to curb a drunkard.”
I wasn't drunk. . . As a matter of fact, I wasn't even myself. I snatched the dagger from his hand and slashed his neck with a thwack. Within moments, his head fell apart from his body, thudding on the ground. Blood splattered my face and I laughed hysterically, wiping the stained dagger in my coat.
I glared at the other two police officers with a bloody grin and wobbled towards them, swaying the dagger. I chuckled as both of them stumbled backwards and fled.
My thirst was finally quenched.
I splashed water, vigorously on my face, sitting under a running tap. My breath released in gasps as I thought of the heinous crime I committed a while back.
“What's wrong with me? How am I killing people?” I muttered.
I clearly remember leaving the dagger back at the crime scene but dubiously I felt an urge to fumble inside my pockets. My assumption was correct- the dagger was still in my pocket. I shrieked, slipping off my coat on the ground and budged to escape.
I cowped over the ragged floor with a yelp as my immobile body crashed. I couldn't move further. My legs stiffened like a frozen ice and a searing pain run across my body. I squealed, rolling over to one side and clasped my coat, delving inside it's pocket. My legs freed as soon as the dagger touched my hand. I panted, lying on the ground.
My body panged as I shakily made my way back to the mansion, with tattered skin. The dizzy eyes of mine, strenuously guided me through the gloomy forest and reached me safely, till the uncanny building. I gulped a dry lump down my throat, as I entered through the ramshackle, iron door, once again. Lighting a matchstick, I looked for the wooden casket in every nooks and crannies of the huge mansion. I must restore the dagger back to its original place. I thought.
The search was taking longer than I anticipated. I hissed as the tiny matchsticks, quickly ran out of flames, burning my thumb, often. My spying eyes soon caught a sight of the glimmering casket, shining faintly under a decayed table. I grabbed it hastily and shoved the dagger inside, locking it at once. Briskly keeping it on the table, I turned around to make my way out-- A loud bang produced. I paused. I was too scared to turn back.
A rustling sound made me look down on the floor-- a scroll rolled over my feet. I arched my brows and picked it up, sceptically. It was made out of papyrus-- it was ancient and blank. I carefully checked both the sides of it but nothing was written. I grimaced as a drop of blood fell on the scroll. . . followed by another. . . and then a few more. It immediately disappeared, touching the paper! My eyes gawked and my lips felt damp, with a tangy taste. My nose was bleeding, profusely.
“Why is it happening to me?” I mumbled, sniffing.
The scroll blotted on it's own with an answer, ‘A curse so fierce and gloom, brings the possessor an imminent doom.’
My heart pounded with a thud and I blurted gaping, “What?”
The scroll absorbed it's prior ink and further stained, ‘You’re cursed.’
“W..why. . . HOW?”
‘The dagger belongs to the Jarl, Villads II. A diabolical man with a lust for colossal power. The innumerable crimes he committed with this dagger has cursed this artifact, forever. It beguiles an innocent heart and smears it with sin and treachery.’
“It has lured me into killing? So. . . This is the reason I've been murdering people,” I whispered, “Involuntarily.”
‘You didn't kill anyone. It's the dagger. . .’ The scroll wrote, ‘The dagger chooses its own enemy!’
I crouched on the floor in despair, crumbling the scroll in my hands as anxiety took its toll on me, “What do I do now?”
‘To accept one's fate. . . or venture it to extirpate.’
I didn't understand a single word it wrote, neither did I nudge further queries. My reeling head rested against the dusty wall as I flipped the dagger in my hand, scowling, “How do I get rid of you?”
The scroll suddenly started imprinting, ‘Sacrifice yourself or accept your fate.’
I shrieked as a bitter sob broke through my chest, “There’s a reason why people belittle me. There's a reason why I can't keep my wife happy. There's a reason why my son is never proud of me. . . Because, I AM A COWARD! I'm a coward to vocal my problems. I'm a coward to confront my wife's unneeded fancies. I'm a coward to confess my son, that his father is a thief. I'm a coward to take someone's life. . . And. . . I'm certainly a coward to accept my fate or end my life.”
It was all silent for a moment. I could hear my raging voice echoing through the empty hallways, back at me.
The crumbled scroll, further continued, ‘The prophecy here-- is end. . . but some curses aren't that tough to bend. . .’
I snorted and walked out of the mansion.
*************
“Where were you all night?" My wife yelled as she opened the door. Her concern wasn't really where I was but that she had to interrupt her sleep to open the door. I walked past her, unanswering. She noticed my perturbed face and retorted, sardonically, “So, today was a fail-day as well, huh? Good lord, you can't even steal! What are you good at? Cooking?”
I furrowed my brows, clenched my teeth and handed her a present. Her face gleamed with joy, “Not bad! You really surprise me at times.” She opened it hastily and frowned, glaring at me, “Really? This is the best gift you could offer?”
I winced with a smile. The floor hit my head and blood gushed through my mouth. I could see her pale hands, grasping the blood dripping dagger as it stabbed through my heart. “That's the best gift I could offer you. . . My life.” My words faded as the excruciating pain soothed away, pouring eternal darkness into my eyes.
The scroll read, ‘The prophecy here-- is end. . . but some curses aren't that tough to bend. Find a soul as wicked as Jarl, who embraces the dagger like a darl. For your own life might be at stake. . . Beware, the choice should have no mistake!’
*************