₊˚.༄ Eternal Exodus
CHAPTER THREE:
( what does a wolf know about being a dog. )

There's something grotesque about Chaike's lust for morbid tactics of bloodshed. Some part of her brain preaches the unholiness of her animalistic nature, but the other part of her brain objects such a stance much louder, and it often drowns out the good in her that has been warped by the moving of time. The iron taste of blood sends her into an oblivion of euphoria, and she'd chew her own hand off if it gave her the same satisfaction, but it doesn't. The only time the red liquid tastes like cherry wine that the God's themselves would put towards their lips is when it is someone else's. The hollow empty abyss inside her stomach that hungers for the death of all those who stand in its way is only sated when it's someone else's life on the silver platter.

The blood is not her favorite part though. The true thrill of feasting upon a person was the life, the soul, the energy, whatever you want to call it. Chaike's true hunger was only satisfied when her hands gripped around the beating heart, and her teeth sunk into the flesh like a vampire drinking the blood of its victim. She was a succubus for life, and she'd whore herself out for the adrenaline of eating the raw lifeform like she was a starving man lost in the desert. No alternative would ever give her the same feeling as devouring upon the life of another human being, and she had forgotten a time period in which such a feeling didn't have its claws wrapped around her frail neck.

She can hear the slaughter happening all around her, but she does not indulge the violence. She can hear and feel the pounding of footsteps on what was once green earth, but now a mountain of bodies and blood as her comrades hunt down their next victim. Chaike pays no mind to anything as she tears away at the delicate skin from the body laying lifelessly at her feet. She takes her stained blood red hands and takes apart what she wishes to eat from the meal, like tearing the chicken from the bone, she sinks her canines into the flesh, and when the iron taste of blood finally touches her tastes buds, she knows she is alive again. She can't recall the gender, the face, or really anything about the body underneath her, - not that she ever really paid attention to those types of things, a body is just a life, she doesn't care for the other trivial factors - for its distinguishing features were mutilated to ruin by her own hands.

"Wolf," she can hear someone call from a distance, and as a few moments pass she can hear the name more clearly, "Wolf!"

She tears her attention away from the feast begrudgingly and looks up at the man who had called for her. A soldier she somewhat recognized - she knew his face but didn't care to know his name like most of the people who fought a alongside her - he had a smile resting in-between his lips, and his eyes held an excitement in them that she could only describe as sadistic. He held a spear in his right hand, and a battered shield in his left, and as she looked at the weapons she watched with hunger as the blood dripped from the tip and curves of the weapons.

"We have trampled on our enemy's yet again with your help, Wolf, may we return back home to the village to celebrate this victory," he spoke to her with such happiness that it made her want to barf up the body she had just consumed.

Home.

The word rotted on her tongue, and she could feel the slimy piece of flesh push the word around in her mouth in hopes that it would sit nicely somewhere in her vocabulary. She had forgotten what it felt like to be home, and the more she ponders on the word she recounts never really knowing what a home felt like. She finds the name she has been gifted, Wolf, to be an oxymoron now. Wolves are meant to roam wild and free in the world, and a dog is the cousin who knows what a bed and meal is like. She is a wolf, or a mutt, both are siblings in a sense, and she does not know the pleasure nor warmth that comes with home. She knows the chain that is wrapped around her neck like a collar, and she knows that it is the closest thing to a home she will ever know.

Chaike looks at the boy more clearly after a few moments, and a disgusting look contorts her bloodied face as she finally has her full attention on the soldier in front of her. She doesn't like him anymore after the word, home, and she doesn't like this reality anymore after the word has been used. "They are trying to put a new chain on you, one that will make you soft and weak. Kill the word, the idea, the fantasy of it before the disease infects all of you," she can hear her mind and heart scream at her, she gives it no more thought. She lunges at the man, her jaws clamping down on his neck, and she throws her head back ripping the flesh from the body, thus leaving the inside of his neck exposed. He falls on his back, gripping at his neck in hopes of closing the wound, but Chaike rips his arms from his body, throwing them behind her like an owner throwing a stick for their dog to play fetch with. She devours and eats what she wishes from the body until there is nothing left but gnawed at bits of skin, bones, and a sea of blood soiling the earth.

She decides she does not wish to reside in this curve anymore, and so Chaike opens the doors into the angles, where time and reality are warped beyond measure that they simply do not exist in a cognitive mind. She doesn't care much for what's on the other side, but she knows it will not be this reality of the curve that she stands in now, and so she makes her way to the door of time and doesn't look back as she steps foot into the angles.

There is a putrid smell in the air, one that leaves Chaike's nose crinkled in disgust. There's a lack of death in this curve, and it leaves Chaike in a place of unfamiliarity. She has always been the side piece to death, a mutt with a chain choking the life right from her throat. She is a servant to death, and when it lets go of its grip around the leash, she knows she is free to run wild. In this curve however she can't follow such a path, for rules have been placed upon her like a dog, and Chaike is no dog. Her hands shake in need to hold onto something chaotic, and she lust for a disturbance to be caused. There's too much order, and she longs for the mayhem that was in the angles.

Her mouth drips with saliva, and she clamps her own mouth shut in fear that if she hangs it open to long, she will wake up with someone else's blood sating her hunger. She can start to feel her own blood mixing with the water in her mouth, but it does not satisfy her the same way when her canines are clamped down on an innocent man's throat. There is too much humanity in this curve, and she remembers a time in the angles that had not yet happened when the world was bare and ashen, and no life had graced it in thousands of years. As she recalls the way such an angle looked, she feels the darkness creep back into her, and she can't help but remember the curse that is bestowed upon those who look to long at the future. The future is not set in stone; therefore, such fluidity opens the mind too widely, defiling anything it can get its hands on, and downloading to much information for the mind to process.

Looking into the future is a death wish, and Chaike has looked at the future too many times.

She wraps her hands around her ears in hopes of silencing the hollow voices screaming at her, and she feels as if she knows Hell far too well in this moment. The voice that sticks out is almost a gurgle and she can hear the painful words, "We are more alike than you'd like to admit." She has forgotten all about the woman - or at least willed herself to forget - and she can't help but recall the familiar moments of ripping a body to pieces like a rabid animal, a face she called father befalling the same fate by a cruel woman such as herself. She forgets what reality feels like, and for a moment realizes that she hasn't known a true reality in a long time. It is only when a hand grabs at the back of her shoulder does she finally come to her senses and turns quickly to the snow white haired boy.

Heaven and Hell collide in the very moment the god and the devil's eyes meet. The world halts on it's axis, and the god's themselves watch with bated breathes as the contrast beings of light and darkness stare at each other. A woman reeking of death, who can pull back the curtains of reality and time, and bring the world to it's finite end, and a boy who reeks of false promises of heroism, who can snap his fingers and give life to infinite possibilities. The starlight blue eyes are like tidal waves, crashing harshly with the endless abyss of silver eyes that have been hollowed out by the unraveling of time. Heaven and Hell meet for a mere moment before Heaven brings itself back to reality, and draws it's hand away from the darkness oozing from Hell, in fear that either one of them might now be tainted by the other.

Chaike watches with a calculated gaze as Gojo steps away to the side of her, his infinite six eyes now occupied by his surroundings. She cracks a wicked smile, but it goes unnoticed by the boy as he fiddles with his fingers, pondering on how to speak to death. "If you were anyone else, their hand would have been quickly sliced from their body," Chaike says with a bitter chuckle.

Gojo finally turns his attention to the woman, somewhat thankful she had something to say, although her comment wasn't exactly helping to calm his nerves. "What makes me different from everyone else," Gojo ask the raven haired girl.

She simply smiles at him, giving him a vague answer that doesn't exactly sate his question, "Let's just say, the angles have already shown me that outcome, and it is not favorable."

"Angles?"

"What does the great god of the Gojo clan seek in finding this old mutt," Chaike changes the subject.

"Nothing really. I usually come out here at night to get some silence, but I suppose I'm not allowed such a pleasure," Gojo comments.

Chaike gives him a smile he can't read and responds, "I can gladly leave. I'd hate to take up any space the infinite god wishes for himself." He can tell she's being sarcastic by the sly remark, but when she moves to return to her living quarters, he can't help but regret what he has said.

"No, it's fine. I don't mind," he quickly tells her, and she only nods slightly and returns back to staring out at the night sky.

They don't say anything for a while, and it makes Gojo feel uncomfortable. How is one supposed to converse with a being of death? How is one supposed to speak to a wolf when all you've ever spoken to are dogs? What does life and death have in common to converse about? Gojo has no clue, and he feels as though she can tell he doesn't know how to break the odd silence and is relishing in his awkwardness. A sadist, is what Gojo thinks of the girl, and no one likes a woman who can get pleasure from their downfall.

"Do you know of the phenomenon called, Valdaro Lovers," Chaike finally breaks the silence, and Gojo can't help but let out a breath.

"I can't say I have," He responds quickly.

"It's sorta like the whole star-crossed lover's thing, only Valdaro Lovers die for their love, not so much because of love, but I suppose they die for both causes," Chaike explains.

"Interesting, and why are you telling me this?" Gojo ask.

"It's said that the sun and moon will split their souls in half here in a few years and give life to vessels here on Earth to carry out their forbidden love affair," the raven-haired girl tells him, and Gojo can't help but note the mischief in her eyes and the wicked smile curving to reveal her canine like teeth.

"What would a mutt know about love," Gojo can't help but ask and he does not expect for the womans smile to grow even wider like a Cheshire cat.

"I suppose nothing. In truth, I don't care for the sickness of love, it's just a plague wrapped up in pretty packaging," Chaike comments, and she looks Gojo up in down like a predator would its prey, "but a girl can't help but dream, can she?"

"You're not a girl though. If anything, your more of a wolf," Gojo tells her, and he watches in fear as the hell hound breaks out in rabid laughter. A howl that echoes from every corner of the world. The earth could quake at the sheer volume of the cry, and Gojo can't help but think she has more power over the world and its fluid ideas than he does with his limitless powers of infinity.

"Now that's a hurtful comment to make," she says through her fit of laughter.

"What does a wolf know about being a dog," Gojo decides to turn the knife more, gauging to see how far he can push Death.

"And yet you defile yourself willingly by speaking to this old mutt," Chaike snaps at Gojo, but she gives him a look as if she's caught him rather than he's caught her.

Chaike gives Gojo a wicked smile that makes his skin crawl, and he watches as her tongue runs delicately over stained red lips. It's the first time he's noticed the plump skin on her face, and he can't help but stare unnerved at the cherry wine color permanently imprinted upon the skin like a tattoo. She moves to the direction of her living quarters, and Gojo can't help but watch with a bated breath. He sees a wolf, or even a monster with every calculating move she takes, and he knows as he watches her move that Chaike has shed the idea of humanity. She is not a girl - she's not even a woman. No, she resembled nothing of being a human. She is merely a wolf disguised as a dog.

( WORD COUNT ) 2633
—— unedited

finally, an update from me. what can i say, new year new me. on that note, happy new year's everyone, i hope you all had wonderful holidays. i plan to work harder on these books with 2024 here for both myself and you lovely souls. btw, if i ever say i'll update soon or quickly, please, expect the complete opposite of me until i break this stupid habit. you guys loved the slight interactions between gojo and chaike last chapter, and you guys have been thirsting over her backstory that i thought i'd give you a little taste. not much else to say except thank you, for reading, and i love you wonderful, lovely little souls.