25th PAWW’s story

Fun fact: This story’s word count is the number of the Devil.

They wanted her dead. Tanya was sure of it as she quickly walked through the market. She needed to buy something, so she’d stepped into a public place knowing of the danger, otherwise she never would have ventured outside. She could feel the glares, hear the whispers on her way.

How can she walk around after everything that happened?

The last brainwashed worshiper of a false prophet.

She walked faster, bag tightly clutched against her chest, and tried not to meet anyone’s stares. It would only fuel their anger. It was of note that her hair was a bright pink, easily distinguishable among the dark, plain colors of the neighborhood. A ripped poster promoting The Order of the Eternal Stand rolled in front of her, dirty and battered.

It was once a proud cult, its commandments followed by so many they were overstepping anything else, the faith so strong it blinded the law. In a time of despair, a prophet had risen with the promises everyone wanted to hear, but those times were over. When a revolution threatened the Master’s life, Tanya was the only one left to step in between the Damned ones and him, and she escorted him somewhere safe. Alas, it was already too late. Whatever disease the Master caught was quickly spreading, disabling his organs one by one and rendering him a living corpse. Tanya would buy him medicine to ease the pain, but nothing could save him when everyone wanted his head on a spike.

She hurried to their safe place, glad nothing happened once the door was closed behind her. She took the stairs two at a time and reached the bedroom, where the Master waited. He was awake, blinked glazed eyes at her when she entered the room.

“How are you feeling?” She walked to him, quickly opening the medicine to give it to him with some water. She helped him to raise himself against the headboard, and he took the pills down, greedily drinking the water.

“What a question,” he grumbled after, frowning at her. Ever since the fall of the Order of the Eternal Stand, he’d been in this bad mood, not hesitating to make Tanya know of how displeased he was of the situation. She still loved him however and understood how anxious he must felt, especially in his health decaying so fast. He was barely able to lift his left arm anymore, let alone get out of bed. The Master sighed and stared outside, or what he could distinguish through the dirt covering the window. He grunted and moved his hand away when Tanya meant to hold it.

“What is it?” Tanya asked, slightly hurt.

“Everything’s over, Tanya,  I’m finished. Why won’t you go away while you still can?”

“Because I still love you. Not the prophet, but the man.” He shied away from her hand again, and she bit her lip in distress. “Why are you rejecting me?”

“There’s nothing left for you to love, Tanya.” He turned to her, eyes furious. “Don’t you understand? It was all a scam, I wanted to make money out of fools like you. Only it took a greater expanse than what I anticipated.” He chuckled, which came weird with the loss of his facial muscles’ functionality. “I suppose there’s more fools than I anticipated.”

“My life has been dedicated to you, Master, how could you ask me to turn my back on you, now of all times?” During those dire events, he wanted her to leave him? “Perhaps I am a fool, but I am a fool in love.”

The Master looked at her with pity in his eyes, his good hand coming to stroke her cheek. “Oh poor Tanya. They’ll kill you as they killed me, don’t be absurd. Run while you still can.”

She shook her head. “I won’t. My dedication to you is stronger than the lies they’ve been spurting about our Order. The Damned ones shan’t reach the Eternal Stand, while we will.”

I know I could have gone more in depth about the Order’s whereabouts and the reason it first became so big before things exploded in a revolution, but I wanted to revolve the narration around the two characters featured in the picture, and you can make up everything else pretty easily with the number of destructive cults we know about.

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