Leitner - My Ending for the FTW #46 Prompt

in #fiction5 years ago

This was a fun post to write, the prompt for week #46 of Finish the Story.

I thoroughly enjoyed everyone's take on it! Here's how I originally intended on ending it.

Leitner

by @dirge

Benjamin Leitner, son of General Reinold Leitner, grandson of Count Dietrich Leitner, stepped from the stagecoach and lit his pipe. The night was cold, the sky a vast black emptiness. The moon, if it had shown itself at all that night, was gone, and nothing but the light cast by Benjamin’s lantern offered solace from the creeping dark.
He’d reached the graveyard, home of his family tomb and its historic dynasty. It was a forbidden place, the site of his late mother’s suicide, where Leitners were entombed stretching back centuries. He hated this place, more than anywhere else on earth. But he’d come, alone as ordered to. He’d come, as he had no other option but to do so. And he’d brought the gold.

The letter was written in her typical style. Loquacious, expounding on the nature of their relationship, apologizing for her affairs, thanking him for standing by her throughout it, remaining at her side despite all the controversy of the town. Despite even her own parents telling him to abandon her as a lost cause.

She’d not only dragged herself down into the mud. But him as well. Benjamin the financier, of Wolfstone and Kauffman, now the cuckold of all of Austria. But worst of all, she’d tarnished the name of Leitner.

And when the accusation came, of witchcraft and devilry, of black magic and the most bestial of sacrilege, of whoring in the night endowed with opiates unto madness. Well, it was no wonder when Kauffman wanted out.

And still he stood by her.

Should he have been surprised when the letter came, demanding the last of his finances or else she’d accuse him in the papers of having masterminded it all? Of being an original scholar of the black arts?
That would render the Leitner name into devilry.

No. He couldn’t allow that.

Benjamin finished his pipe, the tobacco was charred and ashen. He cast the ash into the wind then slipped the cherry wood pipe into his coat pocket, beside the letter crested with her seal.

Melinda. Oh, you wench.

I’ll be in the crypts, waiting.

He suspected she wasn’t alone. Benjamin suspected the whole carnal tribe to be down there, waiting for with her.

Well, so much the better. Let them all wait for his arrival. Let them all see the truth, the forbidden history denied to the world. Stretching back into the foundation of the soil. Let them know who it was that the Leitner’s may be.

He stepped across the grass, peering at the graves of his forbears till he reached the central crypt. The iron gate was ajar and the darkness seemingly impenetrable. They were down there, waiting for him.

“Melinda,” Benjamin said to himself. “It could have been different. So different. But you threatened my name. For that, I cannot forgive you.”

He entered the crypts.

“Time to meet the family,” he thought to himself, almost with a laugh.

Ending

Benjamin lifted the lantern, casting light against the shadows of the crypt. He descended, his leather boots gripping against the moss covering the stone steps.

Already, he heard their voices. Repeating words in broken Latin, mispronouncing Demotic warlock poetry, Sumerian incantations. Theirs was a cult of fools, more inclined to morphine than knowledge. The irony of it all was lost on them, of course. They sought to escape the power of flesh, the curse of being human. And their strategy?

Rituals of sex and poppy.

Benjamin reached the last step down when he heard Melinda’s laughter. It echoed through the crypt, sonorous. The light of their candles reached the stairs, and Benjamin waited, gazing at their shadows dancing along the stone wall in front of him. He swallowed, breathed deep, cleared his mind then turned the corner, heading for their cult.

“Benjamin,” Melinda said as he entered. “I knew you’d come.” She word a deep crimson dress. Even in the attire of the cult, she remained resplendent. Her flesh beneath, lithe and womanly. She stood as a queen, among cohorts of dirt. The others leapt to their feet, daggers drawn. One even brandished a revolver.

“Drop the gold,” one of them mouthed. His eyes, even in the dark, were unnaturally dilated. Benjamin simply dropped the sack of gold and continued walking. The cultists leapt at the bag, digging through its contents with glee. Melinda smiled, holding a lantern up to her face, to her beautiful red curls.

“I’m sure you knew you would not be leaving this place alive,” she said.

Benjamin wandered off to his destination, ignoring her.

“Wait. Where are you going? I said, you’re not leaving here alive.”

She laughed. Benjamin wandered, the cultists hunting behind him at their leisure.

Benjamin Leitner passed beyond the crypt of his father General Reinold Leitner, resting beside his dead mother. He passed beyond the crypt his grandfather, Count Dietrich Leitner. And on till he reached the end of his line. As he stepped, he heard it. The subterranean river. The crypt opened up into a cave and the stone gave way to open rock and dirt.

He turned, dropping his lantern on the stone floor. The cult stood in front of him, blocking off the tunnel.

“Melinda,” he said. “This doesn’t have to end with your blood.”

“My blood?” she asked. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

It was the gesture, Benjamin later thought. The careless wiggle of her hand, indicating to her henchmen that they should stab him in the gut. That’s what hurt more than any blade piercing his flesh.

The first cultist stabbed him well enough, and when the man pulled the dagger back, he dropped it in terror.

Benjamin’s blood glowed in the darkness of the crypt. The color of the soul pools, that infernal river, rich with life, needing sacrifice to continue its primeval essence. That river of life, irrigating Benjamin’s line for centuries as they slept, taking turns at engaging in the world.

The stone tombs opened, the grating echoing down the tunnel. The Leitner’s of seven centuries appeared. These cultists would do, to feed the river.

Benjamin gripped Melinda’s wrist. “Time to take a swim.”

END

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They sought to escape the power of flesh, the curse of being human. And their strategy?
Rituals of sex and poppy.

Here you earned my full attention. There's a good allegory of contemporary times.

Benjamin wandered off to his destination, ignoring her.

This is the point where I imagine there will be a cultists' carnage (writing this in real time, I still don't know the end).

“Melinda,” he said. “This doesn’t have to end with your blood.”

How come, no carnage? Mmh now I need to see that blood painting the cave's walls. I'm still confident about the bloodbath.

The first cultist stabbed him well enough.

Ok. Carnage granted. He's a supernatural being.

Benjamin gripped Melinda’s wrist. “Time to take a swim.”

My thirst has been quenched at last! But but.. here's the Dirgelian touch. He will sacrifice and drag his perverse beloved with him in the river. Nice, a dark-romantic ending which transports the reader in a perfect gothic Stokerian atmosphere. This is indeed the ending.

tried to contain it all within the usual word limit

I didn't feel forced passages

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This post has been manually selected, curated and upvoted by CI mod staff team. Supporting all posts that are in high quality and don’t get enough recognition.



This post was submitted for curation by: @theironfelix
This post was voted: 100%

Hi dirge,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

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@curie, you remain the heart beat of this platform

Ditto.

It has been a fun and lovely journey so far. And now you finally finished the story. You really did great with your final part.
I really enjoyed the flow of the story to the end. Great work done.
But what is the next project you are embarking on now that the story is over.
All the same. Lovely write up and keep it up

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Melinda is very wicked. Love makes you do crazy things, but to love someone till death...I'm not sure that's for me

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Well to keep fair... Hey wait you are the prompt writer, so I can blabber on about your prompt and what not :D - but I shall not to keep fair with my other comments on these set of stories~

La forma (The form): Well let's start with the fact that yah made the story and it got @curie upvoted, so congratulations on that!~ Also thanks for saying all our stories/endings were nice to read, it was nice to read them all as well. Now I do just wonder how each of us inspired yah a bit or made yah consider some revising of the ending yah had in mind even when yah got that post ready. Moving on from that side derailing, I like the biblical allegory picture at the beginning of the post; giving us a flavor of what to generally expect. Of course, having the post structured like a FTS entry really is a nice touch for those in it and a surface-level exposure of FTS story structures to those not in the know. Also, the international version of that is FIN because we support our fins and the club of finny-fin things!~

La filosofía (The philosophy): Some will just laugh me off for thinking stories are clearly biased thanks to the author. Well I just laugh them up as I am still floating in space wondering what the Heck I am doing. Regardless of who's the better chuckler, I do like to follow up a comment I left for, methinks, @agmoore's post. Finally a cishet writer that doesn't resort immediately for the male character to brutally shank a female character to death. Especially in a setting like this were dozens are killed a pop a dime (Victorian era tropes with Macabre poems and husbands constantly killing or in the process of killing their wives). Though someone will scream "the end, the end, she dies at the end!" I like think they just took a lil' swim in the pond with all the fishies floating about c: - Of course, no matter how immortal your blood is, Leitner practically was walking towards it knowing full well he was going to die anyways. Plus the legacy was already shattered, might as well become anti-Dracula (oh hi Alucard) and start feeding into the infernal machines of Capita- let's save that talk for another time with how at least the ending's ending relates to and references "Caliban and the Witch" by Sivlia Federici with how the remaining vestiges of any cultural tingles of Matriarchy were smashed with Witch hunts which aided Capitalism greatly in Europe at least.

So keep on writing and happy steeming!~

it was inspired by this kind of character
https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Abaddon

What's with everybody I ever talk to in love with or inspired by DotA2! It really must be a good or interesting game.

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