Last Born Of The Desdemona

Chapter 250: Chapter 250: I...am not fine.

Chapter 250 – I...am not okay.

For the first time since a date Cassius could no longer recall, he spent a full day with his childhood friends.

There was no talk of gods, no talk of the rankings or how Natalia and Keisha would break into the top 10, not even talk of Cassius’s Palatine status.

For the whole day, the four of them acted like the 18-year-olds they were; young people who had known each other since they were 5 or 6, and who had found themselves together once more.

So they talked, joked, and reminisced about the old days in a melancholic way.

Thus, after finishing their meal at the cafeteria — Cassius praising the Queen for sparing him any nonsensical run-ins with people begging to be slapped — they went to the Outer Ring to sign up for the clubs each of them wanted to join.

The first was Klaus, who, to everyone’s surprise, chose the Music Club. It was a choice none of them expected, but Klaus acted as though it were the only natural one for him.

He’d discovered his taste for music since the Royal Event, where he’d played DJ for Cassius’s dance with Isolde.

Since then, Klaus had been interested in music.

Next came Natalia, who initially didn’t want to join any club at all. But thanks to persistent pressure from her friends, she reluctantly agreed to attend one.

She chose the Painting Club, thinking it was the most interesting of the options.

Then came Keisha, who squealed out the club she wanted to join before it was even fully her turn.

It was the Dancing Club.

She explained, and Cassius found himself surprised once more, that she’d always wanted to dance, ever since she was young.

Her love of dance came from a day, back when her mother was still alive, when she’d gone to an amphitheater and watched a performance.

Seraphim Hood had been among the dancers, and Keisha had been utterly entranced.

Cassius didn’t know what to say.

He’d only known that his aunt used to dance, from just yesterday, and never imagined Keisha would know that too.

The world, he thought, was truly full of surprises.

Then it was his turn to choose a club.

The Last Born didn’t hesitate. He chose the Research Club, planning to have his master teach him the Path of the Architect.

After signing up, they wandered the Outer Ring, taking the time to properly breathe before plunging back into the Academy’s darker problems.

By the time they were done, satisfied and content, night had already fallen.

It was a strange night. A heavy night.

A starless night, its darkness hooding over Sky City like nothing before it.

The four childhood friends parted ways, each heading to their own room.

Cassius did the same, quickening his steps, knowing he had a guest to properly welcome.

However, during all of this, in another corner of that strange night, in a room where light struggled to survive, cries went unheard.

...

"...I’ve done nothing!" Coco shrieked in mind-blowing pain, as Naomi snapped the whip against her half-naked body.

She lay on the floor, curled up like a ball, crying, sobbing, wailing, and then begging her master for mercy. For a bit of humanity.

But Naomi wasn’t hearing any of it. Her mind seemed to have fled her entirely, lost in a sea of rage, but also in an ocean of fear even more powerful than the rage itself.

Her eyes dilated, and her lips shook as she raised the steel whip and struck Coco again with all her strength.

Again and again.

"All because of you!" She bellowed, spit flying from her mouth, striking relentlessly, not pausing for even a second, "It’s all because of you, Coco! It’s you! Why do you want so badly to make my life hell? Why!!"

Tears began to fall down her face, soaking her chin. Yet her hands moved faster, crueler.

A blur of agony.

"You know my situation with Copycat! You know I’ve lost all his favor because of the Zakaria! And you know, you fucking know, that I’ll become a slave if I don’t find a solution." She sobbed, then stopped for a moment, nearly buckling, "A SLAVE!!"

Then she gathered herself, and her hand moved faster, striking Coco’s face, tearing away half her skin.

The young maid opened her mouth to scream, only to take another blow straight to her mouth.

The pain knocked the breath from her lungs, her mind going dizzy, blanking out for a moment.

"Because of that," Naomi continued in the same seething, fearful tone, "I’ve been trying to gather powerful men around me for protection. And what did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO, COCO!"

’...nothing.’ Coco thought through the pain, and yet, "I-I’m sorry...I’m sorry..." she croaked, seeking forgiveness for things she didn’t even know she’d done.

But Naomi wasn’t satisfied.

She was never satisfied.

"You made Sky come after me, antagonizing me, because of you, a simple fucking maid! A maid!" She approached the kneeling, crying Coco, "And as if that weren’t enough, when I wanted Angel on my side, he antagonized me too, because of you. What did you say about me? What did you say to make him act that way toward me? Speak, Coco! SPEAK!"

Naomi’s mismatched eyes shook with fury as she gripped Coco’s head mercilessly, forcing the wounded girl to look at her master’s face.

Coco’s face, meanwhile, was an absolute mess. She looked nothing like the cheerful, smiling girl she wanted to be known as.

The skin of her face had been torn open by the steel whip, and her right eye had been completely blinded by a burst vein near the socket.

Her mouth was split like a crack in dry stone, blood cascading down, soaking her chin.

Her nose was broken, but this time in a way that hurt more than ever before.

Or was it really the nose?

She couldn’t quite tell.

Everything was a blur now, her one remaining eye half-closed, and whatever she could still see was tinted crimson, as if the world itself were bleeding.

And maybe it was.

Coco tried to summon the energy, the strength that had always somehow been there whenever she was beaten.

She tried to call it forward, to channel it through her body. But oh...Vorn’s Breath...she couldn’t.

Her mind teetered on the edge of collapse, and her will was slipping away.

And her body, after enduring so many beatings over the year with so little time to recover, finally decided it could go no further.

It abandoned her.

Or maybe she was the one who abandoned it.

She couldn’t quite tell.

She looked at her master, at the monster in human flesh standing before her, and noticed her slowly losing patience, gearing up to strike again.

But she was wrong.

Naomi closed her bloodied fist around the little hair left on Coco’s head and pulled it up gently, almost lovingly.

She fixed her blue-and-black eyes on Coco’s bleeding face and whispered, her voice shaking:

"I can’t be a slave." She trembled, "Coco, I can’t be a slave. I regret it. I regret cheating on Copycat. I regret destroying Ethan’s eyes. I regret it all...but I can’t be a slave."

She began to weep, sobbing harder.

"But you ruined everything. You, Coco! YOU!! WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ANGEL!"

’I said noth—!’

Coco’s thought was cut off as Naomi yanked her head and slammed it hard into the ground, her skull cracking audibly.

Coco spasmed. She opened her mouth to wail and found she had no voice left.

Nothing but a clipped gasp escaped her.

She lay there on the ground, body twitching as her blood drained out of her.

The pain was atrocious, but Coco didn’t give up. She reached again for the strength inside her, seeking once more to survive.

Like always. To survive.

Only one more day. That was all she wanted. Then she’d try to survive another, then another.

She would never give up.

So, again, Coco tried. And tried. And tried.

And failed.

She couldn’t grasp the strength inside her, realizing only too late that her strength was leaving her completely.

Her body slowly began to still.

Her heartbeat slowed, the sound fading into oblivion, and her mind began to sink into an endless darkness.

Then the realization struck her like a sledgehammer, and Coco tried again, this time more desperately.

Yet nothing changed.

She began to cry louder, but this time not from pain, from pure, unfettered fear.

The fear of dying without living the life she’d wanted.

The fear of dying without keeping her promise to her mother, who had died in childbirth.

She tried to claw at Naomi, attempting to make her show mercy, to give her a Healing Potion.

But Naomi just sat there, looking at her with empty, blank, teary eyes. She was looking at Coco as if the maid had committed the greatest sin known to mankind.

And maybe she had.

The sin of wishing for more than she deserved.

Coco could no longer breathe.

She gasped, mouth wide, but her lungs refused to do their job. She couldn’t really blame them, they were damaged far beyond repair.

And because of that, the air slowly thinned from her body, dragging her mind to the very edge of darkness.

’No...no...no...’ she begged, clinging desperately to the last bit of consciousness she had left.

But it was no use.

Nothing she could do would help. Nothing at all.

She was going to die.

At that instant, as if it were the only right answer, memories of Angel surfaced in her mind.

She remembered the times he’d asked if she was okay, the time...he’d asked if she wanted help.

Every one of those times, she had lied.

’I...am not fine.’

She sobbed internally.

Coco slowly began to go limp.

’Help...me...Angel...anyone...anyone...help me...help me. I...don’t want to...’

Her heartbeat stopped.

’I...don’t want to...’

Coco’s body went completely limp.

’...die.’

Darkness.

The rough, dying breath that had echoed through the chamber stopped. So did the twitching of Coco’s body.

Silence filled the room, the kind that could choke the breath out of most people.

Naomi stood there, watching the dead body the way a hunter watches the corpse of his prey.

Her eyes were blank. And they stayed just as blank when she muttered under her breath,

"She is dead."

—End of Chapter 250—