Bab 13: Cataclysm, Pt 13

You watch as the shadow creature comes into view amidst the insectoid corpses. It moves preternaturally through the mounds of dead bugs, as though the corpses aren't even there at all. No matter what obstacle is in front of it, it's hardly affected or slowed. The corpses blacken and dissipate just as it finishes passing through them.

And it's clear that it's headed towards all of you. Or at the very least, through you.

Your mouth goes dry as you attempt to say something, but nothing except a long croaking sound comes out. The shadow creature terrifies you - its very presence seems to drain whatever courage you have within yourself.

And you're not the only one. Even the soldiers seem too stunned or cowed to act under the shadow creature's ever-growing presence.

It advances steadily towards the stadium entrance unhindered and unmolested. But it oddly stops right at the T-intersection, and dissolves the largest pile of dead insectoid bodies around it. Its vaguely humanoid form reaches out with a shadowy arm, as though it's attempting to reach out to you.

The hovering blade between you twitches as it attempts to take control of it, then yanks it away violently with powerful Telekinetic energy.

"Oh fuck that!" Kaja shouts.

She quickly reaches out in alarm, takes firm hold of the blade with her Telekinesis, and stops it from moving any further. You can see her strain visibly as she keeps the blade from falling under the shadow creature's full control. Both her hands are outstretched as she grimaces and groans, almost as though she's at her absolute maximum.

The officer quickly notices as well, and immediately orders his soldiers to open fire on the shadow creature. Though it takes a second for it to compute, the soldiers quickly bear their arms against the creature and squeeze their triggers. Countless bursts fire from their weapons and tear into the shadow creature.

To their shock, nothing happens.

Their rounds pass harmlessly through its black formless body and purple translucent armor. It dawns on you that you've seen something like this before - another group had fired at it with their guns. Though they had used pistols rather than rifles. And they too had been useless against it.

"Those won't work!" you yell out. "We've gotta get the fuck outta here!"

"We can't do that," the officer says, sternly. "This stadium's the best place for us to hole up."

"We don't exactly have a choice - we can't fight that thing!"

"And go where, exactly?! The hospital's in shambles, city hall's overrun, nearest actual base is days away. There's nowhere else to run!"

"We're not gonna defend against that thing - it's gonna kill us in ways that… that… you don't wanna know."

"The hell you mean by that?!" asked a frenzied solider.

"I don't remember the last people it killed," Kaja replies, her voice strained. "I just remember that it killed someone. Someone I talked to. Someone I stood right next to. Now I don't remember a thing about them."

"Well we can't run, no matter what!" said the officer. "We've got wounded, we've got families! We can't force them out to that heat! It'll kill them!"

"Don't worry, lemme take care of it," Kaja says.

"How?!" you exclaim. "We barely pushed it away last time!"

"Dunno, but I'll figure it out. Gotta concentrate."

You feel Kaja turn all of her thoughts towards the shadow creature. Or, more specifically at its jagged, semi-translucent blade. You peer ever so slightly at it with your Third Eye, and watch as both their Telekinetic energies flow out from each of them.

Their energies crash and break and flow and turn against the blade and against each other, as though wrestling for domination. As far as you can tell, they're just about even, at least in terms of strength. It's Kaja's stamina that you're worried about. The fight looks chaotic and devastating, even if no-one else can see or sense it.

Kaja then lets go of the blade, which unbalances the shadow creature's grip. And instead of pulling against it, she pushes it with everything she's got all in that moment.

Her trick works exceedingly well, and cuts through the shadow creature with its own blade. His shadowy form separates right at the waist - assuming that's its waist. Both halves of its wispy body flickers and writhes as though it's in pain.

Although the soldiers around you cheer at Kaja's victory, you get a sense that it's not feeling pain at all. Not in the slightest.

You peek with your Third Eye, and see that its shadowy aura has been halved. But it's still significantly overwhelming absolutely everything around it. You shut it off quickly, just as a sharp pang cuts through your temple.

"Keep going!" you shout out. "It's not dead yet!"

Kaja nods her head, then reaches out for the blade, only to find that the blade itself has been partially consumed. Just as it had sliced into the shadow creature, the creature chewed into it as well. The entire middle section of the blade has been completely gouged out, and only the two tips remain - roughly half a meter each.

But Kaja's undeterred. She takes hold of both of them, swirls them around quickly like a growing tornado, then flings one of them straight into the shadow creature's chest. It sinks in and vanishes completely on contact, but leaves a gaping wound in its wake.

The cut spreads open wider as the creature's shadowy body seems to recede into itself.

Kaja then takes the last bit of blade, then slices it right through the shadow creature's neck. Or what she perceives as its neck. Doing so consumes the blade in its entirety, but also completely severs the head from the body as well.

Though it doesn't make a sound, you feel a kind of mental energy sweep through you. Almost as though it's screaming, psychically. Perhaps it's more like screeching.

You once again peek with your Third Eye to confirm how much damage it has taken.

But are immediately taken aback by what you see. Shadows seem to be pouring out from the wounded neck, and coating everything above you. Perhaps flooding is a better term. The sight frightens you so completely that you almost miss what's actually happening.

It's rebuilding itself.

The dark shadowy core within that massive cloud is clearly pulling that cloud into itself.

When you shut your Third Eye, you can see the shadow creature actually filling back up physically. The wound on its chest closes as tendrils of dark smoke reach out and reconnect its lower body to its upper body. As well as its head back onto its neck.

You feel an overwhelming amount of fear sweep through your body, though most of it is from everyone else around you. It causes the hairs on your arms to raise up.

All manner of emotions wash out of of Kaja, powerfully. That of surprise and anger and fear and sadness. Then, a stark determination.

"Stand back," says Kaja. "I'm gonna beat it."

You feel her heart thumping madly, along with the absolute fear that's wrapped around her. She visibly steels herself, then walks out into the street.

"The fuck are you doing?!" you shout out. "Get back in here!"

"I gotta beat it," she says without turning around. "Can't let it get inside."

"How?!"

"I know what to do. And if I screw this up, well… You'd all better consider running."

Kaja then walks over towards the shadow creature, seemingly unafraid. But you can feel her heart tremble in her chest. She stops about a meter right in front of it, then grasps outward with both her hands on both sides.

You've no clue what she's doing, or what she's attempting. Some part of you knows that it's taking everything she's got to do it.

And at the same time, the shadow creature closes up its wounds faster and faster. Almost as though it's racing against Kaja, to reform before she completes her attack. You realize that you have to do something, otherwise the creature could swipe at her, and stop her.

You lash out with your Telepathy in an attempt to disturb its thoughts and emotions, and maybe do something to it. Anything. Unfortunately the moment you do so, the pain surrounding your head flares up to the point of blurring your vision.

It takes you a great deal of your own energy just to affect it.

You hang on for dear life as you push through the shadowy muck to get at its emotional center, if it even has one. The pain begins to ring in your ears as it pulses in time with your heartbeat. Of course, you persevere as best you can.

What you make of its emotions is simple yet complex. It seems completely devoid of most emotion, love or fear or sadness or anger. Instead, all it seems to have is a deep, unyielding desire. A desire for something intangible - maybe to simply keep doing what it is doing. To destroy and kill and… do whatever it had done to those people you had forgotten.

You tune that dial and attempt to read its thoughts as well. Unlike the insects, its mind is both unreadable and yet completely transparent to you. Simply, you can't make out any real, tangible thoughts coming from it. But you feel as though you're reading it accurately.

Instead, all you seem to perceive is a kind of note. There's a single tone emanating from it, as though it's humming ceaselessly. A bit like white noise cutting through Telepathic airwaves.

As you probe its mind, the pain around your head tightens further and further. It gets to a point that you topple down to your hands and knees, panting heavily and breathing hard. It's as though you're draining yourself simply to keep going.

Perhaps that's exactly what you're doing, you just don't know how you're doing it.

As you struggle against your pain, you watch as Kaja goes through her own struggle as well. Both her outstretched hands grasp something. She draws them in, as though she's pulling that something inward. And she's doing so with such intensity that you can see her arms shake violently as a result.

That's when you see it - parts of the asphalt crumble and crack under her, even as the very corners of the buildings opposite your street start to do the same. Bits of dead insects rise up slowly, along with strands of their bloody innards. Even the razor wire coils furthest from your position scratches the concrete as they're slowly pulled towards the center of the intersection.

A spherical space around Kaja seems to warp and bend, as though she's pulling it all towards her. But it flickers and flutters and wavers randomly. It occurs to you that the shadow creature is pushing outward with its own Telekinesis. All of its shadowy appendages are extended outward, pushing against whatever Kaja's doing. Slowly but steadily undoing her assault.

You try to assault the shadow creature again with your Telepathy, but it results in pain and an audible groan.

Stop! Kaja's surface thoughts tell you. You're hurting yourself! Let me take care of this!

I can handle it, you project straight towards her in response.

Of course, she isn't Telepathic, and doesn't receive what you try to project to her. All you can do is sense her utter worry for you, over and over, even as she fights against the shadow creature. Her split concentration is clearly taking a toll on her.

The same with you, of course. The more you read her, the more your own concentration is split. And the more your head hurts. You feel your consciousness waver, as though your mental and physical energies are nearing their limit.

You need to act before the both of you break.

And so you do the only thing you know how to do - inject the shadow creature with your own emotion. Seeing as it's devoid of them, you instinctively pour everything you've ever felt into it. Every bit of sadness and longing and loneliness and also togetherness and fulfillment and happiness.

Like Kaja's memories of you, many of yours are about her.

It's her existence that makes you feel… well, everything. Overbearing or supportive. Smothering or loving. Demanding or protective. She's all those things and more, to you. All those emotions based on old memories fall down around you, like rain.

You feel your heart shatter when you realize that you've been pushing her away all this time, when you should have been pulling her closer. You should have been braver with your emotions, and not given in to your fears and insecurities.

There's nothing you can do about that now. Well, except give them to the shadow creature, wholesale. You take all of those contradictory truths about you, about Kaja, about your feelings, and throw it into the depths.

It stops frozen for a moment as your assault completely shatters its sense of being, as it's filled with all manner of raw, chaotic emotions. You sense it attempting to process exactly what you've given it, to make sense of it, to parse it, but it can't.

It's helpless against you.

A sense of victory sweeps over you, even as the pain in your head almost completely engulfs you. Your vision darkens as you draw your Telepathy back. At the same time, your physical body slumps forward on the ground, face first.

If you're eating dirt, you can barely taste it. The soldiers around you shout and scream, but it's all muffled to you, distant. One of them picks you up - an act you can barely feel.

Your mind and body are completely numb - that's how much you've wiped yourself out. That's how much you poured yourself into that bottomless darkness. All that's left of you is a seeming sliver.

Then you feel yourself getting dragged away, which you desperately fight against. But all you can do is weakly and limply wave your hand forward in protest. There might be a whimper, too. Not that you hear it.

All of the soldiers frantically retreat backward into the stadium with you in tow. Because back at the T-intersection, Kaja is furiously pulling everything all around her. Large chunks of asphalt are torn out of the ground beneath her and the shadow creature, and sucked towards a fine point right in between the two.

Same with the building corners at the end of the T-intersection, along with every car and vehicle and light post and trash can and insect corpse. Even the large Hesco barriers are drawn in, as though they're filled with foam rather than sand. Everything is sucked in towards that point, where it seems to be crushed into oblivion.

You reach out one last time with your Telepathy, to try to tell Kaja to stop, to run away instead. But it doesn't matter what you say - she can't read you. Instead, another sharp pain pierces you as her own emotions about you engulf your mind.

Then, just as your body gives up the fight, and as your mind flattens from complete exhaustion, you watch as Kaja pulls herself inward one final time. Absolutely everything around her in a perfect sphere completely collapses into that same fine point, herself and that shadow creature included.

There's a flash of light as matter condenses into itself, into that tiny point, as though a star is forming in front of you. The light is so blinding that you can't see anything else, if only for a moment.

When you can't take any more, darkness takes you.

~~~

Hope you're enjoying the story! Please check out my other work - linktr.ee/ceritusorbis

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Bab 14: Awakening, Pt 1

You wake with a start, your forehead drenched with sweat and your breaths hot and heavy. You sit up on your bed and wipe your brow, then rub your eyes with the palms of your hands. There's a dull ache wrapped around your brow and temples, threatening to spread everywhere if you don't stop it.

Three years, you think to yourself. The same dream for three years. Guess it's more of a nightmare... Or a torture.

You swing your legs over the edge of your bed, stand up on shaky legs, and gradually steady yourself as you take a few steps out of your room.

Your apartment - or rather the apartment you've been staying at - is a bit of a mess. Not that it matters. Nothing seems to matter much these days, all that's happening is that you move from day to day in a veritable fog.

You trundle over to the kitchen area of your small apartment and rummage through your mostly empty shelves almost mindlessly.

After a half minute of searching, you snag a can of food, open it, and empty it out into a mostly-clean bowl. It's kind of a soupy mix of baked beans, pork sausage, bacon, and mushrooms. Honestly, it looks little more than cat food to you.

Not that it truly matters. Food is food at this point.

You sit yourself down at a nook in the corner and chow down spoonfuls of your lukewarm breakfast. At the same time, you stare pensively out the window at the crumbling city all around you. Of course, the purple crystals are still everywhere. They're still growing, and still toppling buildings. But simply not as fast as that first day they arrived.

The sky is a rich red, though the dark orange sun is behind some fluffy white clouds and just barely peeking through. But otherwise your old blue sky is long gone, along with your bright yellow sun. The horizon is hazy, as though from some kind of fog.

But truthfully, that's because of the intense, ever-increasing heat.

If it isn't for the occasional downpour, every other survivor would have long cooked in their own skin. Not that you or anyone you know is happy about it, regardless. It's still hell on earth.

The plants are certainly thankful. Vines and ivy and all manner of other wild plantlife have since broken through the concrete and asphalt and spread everywhere. Some are climbing their way upwards on many buildings, weaving their roots into the brick and mortar or concrete and steel or glass and crystal.

Of course, it's just the beginning of their eventual takeover, and you like to imagine that in a dozen years or so there'll be equal amounts of plant and city here.

At the streets below, a pair of metal-hooved, four-legged animals nibble on the long grasses sticking out from the larger cracks. They're having their own breakfast, potentially one more satisfying than your own. Possibly more nutritious, too.

You gulp down another spoonful, mindless of what it actually is you're eating. In truth, it all tastes the same to you. Bland, demi-gelatinous chunks swimming in a thick broth. Some chunks seem meatier than others, others more pasty or starchy. But there's little else to differentiate them.

Not that you hate it. You just don't care.

"Three years," you groan, unable to let go of your past. Your memories of them seem stuck to your psyche, unwavering and undiminishing and unrelenting.

And most of all, accurate.

You've always been aware of how malleable your memory is, how all your memories are. They tend to shift and change over time, as your mind adds or subtracts various small details. The change is subtle, though you've become much more aware of it. Especially now that you have a greater command of your own thoughts.

These dreams, these nightmares - they're absolutely accurate to the second. They don't change, and they don't shift. They're as clear to you as the time they had actually happened, and they seem to you more a curse than a boon.

No other memories persist quite like those have, and their existence eats away at you, wears at your desire to keep going. But you keep going anyway, for reasons you're unsure of.

You feel a fuzzy thing bump your hand - the one holding your spoon. And when you glance down, you watch as your cat, Noir, bunt you with her head.

"Good morning," you tell her.

It's afternoon, she projects in response.

You glance back out the window in an attempt to see if she's right. But you can't tell. You've never really been able to tell.

"How do you know?" you ask.

Smells like afternoon, she replies. It's the way the air tastes, too.

"You'll have to teach me that trick."

Humans are incapable, sorry. Noses are too dull. Are you, uh, done with that?

You shrug, then push your bowl over to Noir, encouraging her to eat the rest. You've certainly had more than enough.

Noir dives in without hesitation and chomps down on the larger chunks with glee. She makes little smacking and chomping sounds, which fills you with a small sense of joy.

You give her a few pets as she munches down, before standing back up to get ready for the rest of the day. There is quite a lot to do, after all. Though you're not exactly keen for any of it to happen.

You get into your cleanest possible clothes - some loose-fitting cargo pants and a light long-sleeved shirt. Then you sling your trusty messenger bag over your shoulder, strap your pistol on, slip your knife into its sheath and affix it to your belt, then slip on a thin backpack.

You walk around the apartment for a bit as you pick up various things and stick them into your bags and pockets - a couple cans of food, some snack bars, a box of ammunition, an IFAK, and so on.

You also pick up your canteen, which is filled with your homebrewed electrolyte drink, in what you consider is the perfect mix. Ever since your trip to the stadium, it has become your favorite. Well, maybe favorite is a strong word - you carry plenty of it constantly. Not so much because of the flavor, but because of how much it keeps you alive. It's practically a necessity.

You also grab a small container filled with your electrolyte mix so you can create a bit more of it while out there, doing your thing. It's nothing too crazy, just citrus powder, ginger powder, baking powder, salt, and sugar. All you need to do is add water.

There's more than enough for a month's worth, and you stow it away in your messenger bag.

You then sling a hooded cloth poncho over top of everything, though you keep the hood down. At least for now. Afterwards, you check over everything you've got to make sure you haven't missed anything.

By the time you're done, Noir has finished her meal and watches you intently from atop the breakfast nook.

Today's the day, huh? she projects.

"Today's the day," you echo.

Are you ready for it?

"Not really, no. But I gotta go do it. At least, I think I do."

You're really sick of those nightmares, huh?

"Yeah, I've had enough. More than enough. And it's about time I do something about them."

And you really think it'll work? I mean, you meeting Kaja's parents and talking to them. If they're even still alive.

"Dunno. Maybe if I go to them, tell 'em what's happened to their daughter. Maybe apologize for everything that happened… Maybe the nightmares'll ease up."

And if they're dead?

You don't have an answer. Not that Noir waits for you to answer, regardless.

Also, they're way across the country, you know.

"I do."

And for a bunch of maybes.

"Yep."

We might die along the way.

"We? I'm the one that's going. You stay here. There's people here that'll take care of you."

Alright, sure. But who'll take care of you?

"Probably about time I do more of that for myself."

Noir hops down from the table, pads over to you, leaps up, then climbs up your body via your clothing. Her sharp claws dig into you through the relatively thin cloth and stab your skin. You wince from the pain, but otherwise let her do what she needs to do.

She gets all the way up to your shoulders, then settles into the open hood behind your head, which is propped up on top of your backpack.

Well I'm coming along anyway, she projects.

You take one last look around at the apartment in search of anything else you need, grab your wide-brimmed conical straw hat, then shut the door behind you.

The heat hits you the moment you step out into the street. Waves of it waft upward from the pavement, enough to cause your eyes to dry out quickly. And this isn't even the worst of it - the sun is still behind the clouds.

If it were out, your hat would already be on your head rather than slung on your back. Neither of you would probably survive direct sunlight for long - its heat has become far too intense this past year.

You walk quickly across the road, which startles a nearby fauna that's grazing. It hops around the corner and out of view just as you reach the other side. You swing open a nondescript door, duck inside, and step through to the busy makeshift market further in.

There, dozens of your neighbors shop at the rickety stalls set up between the various counters. On the counters are various goods - mostly food and drink, as well as basic supplies and other necessities. Soap and clothes and tools, for example.

You note that everyone here is mimicking some semblance of their old lives, or trying to anyway. They're buying and selling and greeting and chatting, almost as though the apocalypse is merely a temporary annoyance.

It occurs to you that's probably how they're coping with it all in the first place.

"Hey, there you are," someone says to you. "Wow, you're looking all extra kitted out!"

"Yeah, prepping for a journey," you reply. "Could take a while."

"Damn. Well, make sure to check out what I've got today. Could be maybe something you'll need."

"Sure. Later though. Is Dad around?"

"Yeah, upstairs with the rest of the Watch, doing their thing as usual."

You thank him before going down one of the hallways behind the small market floor and up the stairs to the second floor. There's another market here with half as many booths and patrons, but everything revolves around weapons, ammunition, medicine, and survival tools.

Across from it are a handful of offices and some kind of open meeting room.

A number of people shuffle out of that same meeting room, then head to their private offices nearby. Among them is your father, as gruff as ever. His gut has long since vanished, and his hair has only become even more silvery.

He walks up with a smile after spotting you, but his expression changes somewhat when he notices the outfit you're wearing. That smile slowly turns flat, almost a frown. But he does his best to restore it anyway.

"Today's the day, huh?" he says.

You nod in response, unable to say anything.

"Well, I guess it's about time anyway," he continues. He exhales at length through his nose, as though he's relieving some bottled up pressure from deep within. "I know I can't stop you, and I don't aim to try to. But if you want, I can come along, help out where I can."

You shake your head this time around.

"No," you tell him. "You oughta stay here with everyone else. They need you. To help keep everyone together. Or at least, safer than not."

"There's plenty joined up with the Watch," he retorts. "I'm not the only one keeping an eye out."

"And besides," you continue, ignoring his plea. "You're too old. No offense. Don't think you'd do well out there."

"None taken. You're definitely right on that mark, I guess. Just… look, just 'cause you're younger means you'll last the trip either. It's a long way out there. Might take you what, a year to make the trip? And who knows what you'll come across along the way…"

It's your turn to purse your lips. You always hate getting lectured by your Dad. Or by anyone. But you suck it up anyway. Because he's right, and this could be the last time he gets to lecture you. So you give him the luxury.

"I'll come back once I'm done," you say.

"Don't," he replies. "Not that we don't want you. You're always welcome to stay with us. Just that we're planning on moving everything outta here. The city's just about dry of supplies, good ones anyway. Plus there's just too many of those damned Bone Crags out there. We keep losing scouts and scavengers to 'em…

"Anyway, we're gonna be headed north, to the Colt's Neck region. Gonna try to merge with the survivors our traders met out there. Maybe start a ranch or a farm or something."

"Alright then. When I'm done, I'll come back and try to find you all up there," you say. "Could take a couple years though."

"You best do that. Oh! Before you go, I've got some stuff for you."

Your Dad beckons you towards his office, so you follow him dutifully. In there, he produces a cloth bag from out of a metal filing cabinet. He then puts the bag on his desk and pulls out everything inside it, arranging them neatly on top of his paperwork.

"Take whatever you want," he tells you. "Been scrounging up whatever supplies for some time now. At least, ever since you started talking about going on this journey a year or so ago."

And there's a myriad of things - a couple of solar-powered batteries, a tool kit, a couple boxes of pistol ammunition, a length of rope, a collapsible baton, a rechargeable radio, and so on. Your eyes go wide on seeing them all - they could certainly be useful.

"I dunno if I can take any of these," you say. "There's a lotta people who could use this more than I can…"

"Don't worry about us," he tells you. "We've got plenty enough. You're the one who won't have much. So take whatever you want. Or take it all."

You nod as you pick up a solar charger, the radio, and the baton and stow them into your messenger bag. These would definitely be useful. The rest - you're just not very sure about. But you pick up the tool kit and ammunition anyway and put them into your backpack.

If anything, you might be able to barter them for something more useful later.

As you tighten your straps and get ready to head out, one of the Watch's deputies runs into your Dad's office. His face is beet red and he's panting heavily, as though he's been running all day.

"Sarge!" he cries out. "Roving band of Crazed spotted! They're headed in our direction!"

"How many?"

"Two dozen. Maybe more."

Your Dad immediately hops to attention, his eyes wide as saucers.

"Grab the longarms and round up the Watch," he yells. "We can't let 'em into the neighborhood proper!"

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