From the /c/WritingPrompts community on Chambers

A man wakes up in the bed of a brothel with gold skin, a heart about to explode in chests, and magic powers beyond anything he ever thought possible. The first thing he remembers is a young girl with the face of an angel and the voice of a songbird. He also remembers her (and in some cases, her clients) being killed in front of him. The second thing he remembers is that he is now invincible. He can do anything he wants. He's only constraint is that he cannot kill a person who is blameless. The man decides that the first thing he will do is find the young girl's killer.#####The first emotion to reach my mind was pain. Oh, dear Lord above, I thought, I hope I can get out of bed. For a moment I lay there, trying to remember what happened the night before. I remember going drinking for my friend’s birthday. I remember telling the men to run. After that it’s a blur. I do not remember coming to the brothel. I didn’t even remember being at a brothel. I groaned out loud. “Hello in there,” a delicate voice called out. The voice was so sweet, so elegant, so beautiful. I sat bolt upright and was surprised by how easily I moved out of the bed. Standing up, I glanced around and saw the room was in disarray. Not that this was the first time that had happened. I looked down and saw gold. “God Almighty,” the voice called out, “what the bloody hell happened to you?” I had no idea. “What happened to me?” I asked out loud. “You,” she said, “turned about half the room to gold.” I looked around to see her presumably pointing out the curtains and a few pieces of furniture that had turned to gold. “Or are you the fairy tale about the man who got gold instead of a heart?” I looked down at my chest and saw there was a gold gemstone in the place where my heart was. I put my hand up to my chest and prodded it. “Shit that hurts!” “Shut the bloody hell up!” She cried out. I looked at her in horror. “Why?” I asked. “Because now the madam is here.” I tried to get something out, but before I could shoot out a word, a hard, malicious voice cut through the room. “What the bloody hell did you do to my bloody room?” The woman, I realized, was sitting in the bed. “Look,” she said, “he has turned everything to gold.” I looked at her in horror before turning to the madam. I tried to speak, but she cut me off. “I’m charging you for this. Everything is destroyed.” “I wasn’t going to pay anyway,” I shot out. She looked at me for a moment before screaming at her guards. “Kill him.” Before I could do anything, two large men walked into the room. “Don’t,” the woman said, “I’ll pay for it.” “You will do no such thing,” I said. “It’s fine, I’ll be okay.” “I will pay for it.” “You will do no such thing.” “Let’s settle this,” the woman said. And before I could figure out what the bloody hell the woman was talking about the madam had two daggers slipped into her and she fell to the ground. I screamed in horror. “Let’s settle this,” the madam said. “What the bloody hell was that for?” I cried out. “She had a knife pointed at me,” the madam said. “I sure as shit did.” The madam looked down and saw the knives in her and screamed. “You will pay for that,” I said. And with that the madam’s guards charged at me. I thought that the fight was about to escalate. I thought a lot of men were going to die. I thought a lot of blood was going to spill. I was wrong. I was surprised to see that I didn’t die. I was even more surprised to realize that my hand was slicing through the metal of the first guard’s axe like it was butter. I took the man’s axe in one hand and his beard in the other, and slammed his head into the stone floor until his skull busted and he fell to the ground with a thud. The other guard tried to run. I took the axe and tossed it at the man. The man fell down. I walked over to him while he pleaded for his life. I slammed my hands onto the stone floor, sending dust into the air, about where the man’s head would have been before I slammed the man into the ground. “Why,” I asked, “did you not run faster?” The man in the ground looked up at me. “W-w-why did you kill me?” The man suddenly realized that he was dead. “I did not kill you,” I replied, “it was the madam that killed you.” He tried to ask another question, but he died before he could get anymore words out of his mouth. At that moment, I realized that I was invincible. Nothing could kill me. I was surprised by how easily the two men had died. I reached my hand down. “Here,” I said. The madam took my hand. “You killed my guards,” she said. I pulled her up. “I didn’t kill them,” I said. “You are the one who killed them.” “I did not,” I said. “If you didn’t,” she asked, “who did?” “I did not,” I said. “You did,” she said. I didn’t know what to say. “So what are you going to do with me?” She asked. That brought me back down to earth. I looked at the woman who was lying on the ground in a puddle of her own blood. And I remembered, her face was the face of an angel. And I remembered, her voice was the voice of a songbird. And I remembered, that she was killed. “I am going to look for the man who killed the young girl with the face of an angel and the voice of a songbird,” I said. “Who?” The madam asked. “The young girl with the face of an angel and the voice of a songbird,” I replied. The madam thought. “I don’t know who that is,” she said. The madam’s face was a mask of horror. I looked at the madam and felt a burning that was the most painful thing I’d ever felt. The madam screamed in horror as her skin blistered. Her face contorted into one of the most painful expressions I’d ever seen on a presumably dead woman. I turned to shoot out a question, but before I could the madam had burnt to death. I looked around at the dead people and the gold. I knew that I had to ask questions. “Did the girl with the face of an angel and the voice of a songbird live here?” I asked a man as I walked out of the brothel. “May she rest in peace,” the man said. I was going to ask what he meant, but before I could a woman cut me off. “Why are you asking questions about Emily?” “Why did you call her Emily?” A presumably old man cut me off. “She means the girl with the face of an angel and the voice of a songbird. “I am,” the old man said. “One of her clients. “She was such a sweet face.” “Did she have the voice of a songbird?” “She could sing like an angel.” That confirmed for me that the woman they were talking about was the woman about whom I was talking. “Yes,” I said. “Why did you call her Emily?” “When she sang,” the man said, “she sang for me. “She was the only client for whom she would sing. “She sang love songs. “She was the love of my life.” “She had the face of an angel,” I said, “and the voice of a songbird.” “She was my angel. “She had the voice of a bird. “When I first saw her, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. “She was a songbird.” “I bet you she was,” a gruff voice said. I recognized the voice as being the same man who had walked up to me and whom I had asked about the girl with the face of an angel and the voice of a songbird. “Are you the man who killed her?” I asked while staring down at the ground. “Yes,” the man said. I recognized the pain the man was evincing. I realized that he had done it because he had loved her. One of the rules about my invincibility was that I could not kill a blameless person. A man who had killed his lover was not blameless. At that moment, I felt the burning sensation again. I looked up to see the man with blisters all over his body. He screamed in pain as his blisters raged. I reached my hand down. I slammed my hand on the stone floor and the man burnt to death. I didn’t know what to do. I stood there for a while, until the man was nothing but ash. Then I walked away. I

Heart of Gold

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