Act 3, Chapter 106: When the nightmares start after waking up

Day in the story: 1st February (Sunday), past 5:00 a.m.—approximately 11 hours and 21 minutes remain until the record time is lost

Elle Erikson

“Is there something on your mind, human?” Liora asked, slowing his usual breakneck pace and adjusting his sprint through the air to keep close to my head.

I had just jumped over another Nazi soldier’s body that had been cut clean in half seconds earlier by Kito’s valiant charge. He slashed through them almost without slowing, the mantis-like blades protruding from his elbows instead of his forearms making short work of any opposition Piotr’s bat did not splatter against the buildings.

My lóng’s demeanor was not one of belittling, as his usual use of human often implied, but carried a faint hint of concern instead. His eyes were wide open.

“There were things better left unsaid that didn’t remain so when the team was resting, and now Liana’s holding a rather big Sword of Damocles above my head.” He glanced upward, then back at my face, just as another thunderous crash rolled through the street, preceded by Milo’s concrete-cracking landing and a roar. Every swing he made was so powerful that fragments of buildings were torn away along with the soldiers manning the machine guns inside them.

We were pushing through trenches dug into the city streets, past sandbags and literal crevices carved into concrete and asphalt. The tower could not have been more than the last two hundred meters away, yet despite the abundance of defensive positions, they were little more than a speed bump to the two-man freight train charging at the front. Bastien helped by weakening enemy defenses wherever he could, while I provided eyes all around, scanning for threats of greater magnitude.

“I see no sword. This is an expression of some kind. She can use what you said against you?” His scales shifted colors several times as he spoke—bright green flowing into teal, then blue, the wave traveling the length of his body as though displaying the motion of his thoughts.

“Exactly.”

I grabbed several explosive cards from my pouch, brought them up in front of me, leapt over a long ditch, and threw them toward the fortification on our left. Behind a bunker-like wall, two machine guns were pinning us down, forcing Kito into a defensive stance to shield the team from the barrage.

The cards glistened as they reflected both the muzzle flashes and the shadowlight that granted them their metallic sheen. Rainbow-like strands of silk connected them to me as they flew. Only when they were nearly at their target did those strands finally snap, while the Authority of being sharp, metallic, and ticking bombs remained.

We heard shouts in German the instant the cards struck the men inside the bunker. A heartbeat later, the fortification erupted. Rubble blasted high into the air alongside shattered rifles and broken bodies.

Deep within myself, I could finally understand how war might desensitize people to violence and death, while at the same time magnifying one’s revulsion toward both and toward oneself for doing what had to be done.

It felt as though people had never been meant to fight on this scale. Conflict belonged to smaller groups, to individual duels, not to an ever-consuming tide of blood spilled in the name of ideals twisted by those powerful enough to hold them on leashes and speak them into existence.

“It’s unusual for you to be sad because of other people.”

He ducked under one of the larger chunks of concrete flying his way, then passed straight through the next by shifting in and out of shadowlight with such fluidity that it looked as though he simply blinked out of existence for a heartbeat. I found myself wondering whether that power of his could somehow be replicated through art.

“That’s true. And I’m not sad anymore. Just concerned whether they’ll keep me around after we’re done here. At least I think that’s what’s happening. Liana is smart enough not to compromise the integrity of her team because of my actions in the middle of our mission, but once it’s over... that’s a different story.”

“I see. Is it because you kept the secret for too long before telling the truth?” An unusual question coming from him. I immediately drifted with parts of my minds toward the potential secret he could be keeping from me.

“No, Lio. It’s not that. It’s my abuse. I cheated.” I paused, forced to dodge aside as a jet of flame split our advancing team in two. Liora, Patricia, and I were left on one side with Kito at the front, while the others ended up beyond the wall of fire. Then the flamethrower mounted atop the last bunker in our path came slithering out of the ground. “I cheated my way into this team,” I finished my whisper, staring at the thing.

It stopped breathing fire and instead raised its mechanical incinerator on a long, tongue-like appendage, lifting it high above us like the neck of a giraffe. Beneath it, the rest of its body pulled itself free from the earth—two enormous hands fused together at the wrists to form a ten-limbed arachnid that walked on fingertips instead of feet.

The thumbs pointed toward us. Instead of fingernails, each bore two human torsos growing from the flesh, every one of them gripping a flamethrower of its own. The instant the creature fully emerged, they unleashed their weapons, raising a blazing wall between us and the monster.

“Elle!” Kito shouted as the torrent of fire engulfed him.

His chitinous armor held, but unlike bullets, fire lingered. He would soon be forced to abandon his transformation.

Piotr charged the creature, Liora ending our conversation as he launched himself like a missile at the beast. This one would take the whole team to bring down.

I grabbed another handful of cards, sprang onto the shattered remains of a nearby house, and from that vantage point began hurling them one after another at the monster below.

My explosions struck first.

The battlefield rocked beneath successive blasts, each shockwave rolling through us as smoke, rubble, and expanding fireballs swallowed the creature from sight. The barrage forced it to stop targeting Kito, giving him just enough time to dismiss his transformation for a heartbeat, shedding the burning chitin and leaving only embers clinging to his skin.

Patricia reached him almost instantly, throwing a heavy cloth over his arms to smother the flames before applying some kind of gel to the burns.

At the same time, Milo descended with an overhead smash powerful enough to send another shockwave tearing through the battlefield. Flames and smoke around the monster bent inward, drawn into the implosion his strike created before erupting forward toward the bridge leading to the Eiffel Tower.

Liora used the same moment to dart around the creature's towering flamethrower, forcing it to keep firing harmlessly into the sky. He circled it so relentlessly that the long tongue-made neck twisted upon itself, eventually having to reverse direction before the muscles tore apart.

Even then, it became obvious my initial barrage had accomplished almost nothing.

The monstrosity remained almost completely intact, merely knocked closer to the ground by the force of Piotr's swings. Worse still, the flames from my explosions had settled across its flesh and hardened, coating its finger-like legs and wrist carapace in a black, carbonized shell.

The chapter is available on the NovelPhoenix site where the author publishes it; this page took the text without consent.

Piotr kept hammering away, but the charred, human-like soldiers growing from the creature's thumbs turned their flamethrowers on him. The massive hands intercepted his baseball bat with their fingers, staggering even Milo's relentless assaults.

Eventually, Piotr was forced to leap back as the streams of fire stretched farther than before, reaching out like tongues eager to consume him.

Liana's bees swarmed out from her as she moved to a safer position beside Bastien. The tiny creatures glowed in the night like fireflies as they accepted her Authority. Kito retreated to stand between them while extending his aura to grasp the future offered by his soulmark. His anima allowed him to sense the possible evolutions of living insects and force those changes upon them instantly. Choosing quickly, he transformed one of the bees, covering it in a completely black, glossy carapace devoid of its usual hairs.

Piotr's retreat ended with him planting his bat into the ground in front of us as we all converged on his position. The shield erupting from its base protected us from another torrent of flames. Fire spread harmlessly across the invisible dome while he remained kneeling, gripping the bat with both hands. White shadowlight threaded with crimson currents flowed toward the shimmering barrier, resembling the wings of some cosmic, light-born angel or the famed winged hussars from his country's history.

The bees escaped the shelter of the shield and converged upon the beast, which frantically tried to catch every last one of them in its flames. At the same time, Kito's body became covered in the same black chitin he had forced onto the transformed bee.

“Wish me luck.” He flashed us a grin before charging the monster once more.

At the same moment, Bastien was engulfed by a burst of shadowlight that exploded from him like a camera flash. When it faded, it clung to his skin, leaving faint afterimages dancing in our vision as he worked frantically on whatever edit he was making through his device.

His features twisted with strain. His nose wrinkled, his brows knitted together, and sweat poured down his forehead as his body was dragged lower and lower by the ever-increasing weight he battled with his Authority.

When Kito reached the front of the beast and closed with the two soldiers fused into its thumbs to deliver his punch, three things happened at once.

First, Liora dove into the creature while intangible. Through the eye he had granted me, I watched him search for vital organs in a cavity large enough for him to become physical again.

Second, another torrent of fire engulfed Kito. From our perspective, he became nothing more than a towering silhouette of absolute black—a negative image of an enormous African warrior standing against the oranges, reds, and yellows of the inferno. He strode through the flames, seized the half-soldiers firing upon him, shattered their arms, and forced them to drop their flamethrowers through sheer strength alone.

Third, half the creature vanished. One half of its hand-shaped body simply ceased to exist, along with the tongue-like appendage supporting the mounted flamethrower. It was there one instant and gone the next.

Liora somehow remained unharmed despite having been halfway between the two halves. Whether it was because of his intangibility or because he had never been the target, I couldn't tell. The destruction left half of the creature's beating heart fully exposed. He became tangible again and ripped it free with his claws.

What remained collapsed lifelessly onto the ground. Not even a twitch followed. At the same moment, Bastien's mounted camera spat out a Polaroid photograph.

He dropped to the ground as well, Liana rushing forward to catch him before he hit the pavement. He breathed heavily, still holding the photograph between trembling fingers.

“Got him. Half of him, that is. Was enough though.” Tien waved the fresh print in front of himself before finally looking at it.

“I was wondering when you were finally going to make yourself useful,” Milo said, letting the shield dissolve as he turned toward us. “Caught in the photo?”

“Yes,” he replied, taking one last glance at the photograph before tearing it cleanly in half. Both pieces drifted slowly to the ground.

“You can simply destroy the thing afterward?” I asked, surprised. From what I'd heard about his power, I'd assumed he had to keep every photograph containing a captured creature, lest the prisoner escape if the paper holding it was destroyed.

“And again, yes,” he said. “If I didn't, they would fight against my Authority for freedom. This way, they simply die.”

“I can't see this thing living with only half a body,” Patricia said, her eyes fixed on the single enormous hand that remained. Kito gave it a kick for good measure before beginning to shove it toward a nearby ditch.

“Seems those were actually two separate beings joined together somehow. I wasn't able to capture only part of something before,” Tien replied.

I noticed his voice was noticeably less coarse with Patricia than it was with me. It definitely looked as though Liana had told him about my transgressions or perhaps it was simply my fear that everything would fall apart.

“Well done anyway, Tien.” Liana patted him on the shoulder.

Liora tore a bite from the creature's heart and chewed thoughtfully while Milo wandered over to scratch him behind the horns. “Can we go already?” His chin lifted as he studied the tower before us, something I had been doing myself.

It no longer resembled a clean lattice of steel or rather, the steel remained hidden somewhere inside. Living tissue covered every inch of it, pulsing with fleshy, writhing tongues that never stopped moving. The structure had lost its pyramidal silhouette, becoming a far more conventional tower as those appendages thickened the closer they grew to their source.

At the summit rested an enormous gelatinous mass, resembling a swollen pink balloon with half-translucent skin.

My birds rode the air currents around it, allowing me to peer inside the leathery cocoon. Strange shapes drifted through the translucent flesh—long, squid-like creatures swimming through whatever fluid filled its interior. There were dozens of them.

At ground level, the only entrance resembled the mouth of an enormous cavern. The tongues lining it slowly parted to either side, opening just wide enough for us to enter and begin our ascent.

“We have a good chance. We can make it,” Kito said, brushing the dirt, blood, and viscera left by the fight from his hands.

“Let's do it,” Tien replied with a nod as Liana helped him to his feet.

Piotr struck the concrete a few times before tossing the bat into the air. It spun for several seconds before landing on his shoulder, where he caught it by the handle. “It’s about fuckin’ time! Let’s go!” His shout carried the strength and discipline of years of brutal training and an unrelenting drive to push through fear. In that regard, he and I were very much alike.

His way, however, lacked the counterbalance that came from preparation and thinking things through—something I understood all too well now. I had been a victim of the same flaw when my powers first awakened. That surge was intoxicating. It made me feel as though I could achieve anything in the world.

To some degree, it still had that effect on me. The difference was that I now understood such heights demanded meticulous planning and caution, while Piotr still preferred to smash straight through obstacles like a battering ram. Then again, his approach was supported by his power, just as mine was by the domain entrusted to me.

He was therefore of course the first to move. His steps were steady, his gait even. There was no hesitation in him, yet neither did he rush. He simply walked toward the gate of writhing tongues awaiting us. The rest of us followed.

“I have collywobbles,” Patricia said, rubbing her stomach as she walked close behind Milo.

I stayed beside Kito while Liana supported Bastien with an arm around his shoulders, whispering something to him.

“What is that?” Liora asked, flying through the air like a serpent until he reached Patricia. Then he settled onto the ground and walked beside her, once again ignoring the laws that bound the rest of us to the ground.

“Collywobbles? Um... a nervous feeling in your stomach. Like before giving a presentation.” She paused, remembering who she was talking to. “Or when you're about to walk into what looks like a vagina made of tongues at the base of some horrifying tower.”

“Vagina?” Piotr glanced back over his shoulder with a mischievous grin. “I didn't need more convincing to go in. But thanks anyway.”

“You'd better hope it doesn't give birth to something horrible while we're inside, brother,” Liana called back, never leaving Bastien's side.

Through the sp-eye-ders on my back—whose existence they still knew nothing about—I watched the two of them. During their whispered conversations, their attention drifted toward me more often than not.

I frowned, because I was fully aware of what they were doing, but I had expected Liana to be smarter than this. Turning Bastien against me and driving a wedge through the group was dangerous to the success of the entire expedition. Worse still, neither of them seemed to have considered that I could observe everything through my external eyes.

That oversight suggested they were no longer quite as far ahead of the game as they should be in place like this.

Standing before the entrance to the Eiffel Tower, I found myself wondering whether I should simply stop pretending and admit that I had orchestrated my own acceptance into this team before Liana could present the story on her own terms.

*She could also be forcing our hand, knowing you're seeing all this. She's a smart woman. You can't discount that,* Alexandra's thoughts reached me.

*I say fuck this and go for it. Take control of the drama again,* Gertrude added. It felt good to hear her voice once more.

“Guys,” I said, coming to a complete stop. “I have a confession to make.” Every head in the group turned toward me.