Fear held us within its tight grip on our bodies, leaving us paralysed in place. While I couldn’t speak for everyone else, I was failing to get my heart rate and breathing under control using conscious breathing exercises. My lower intestines cramped painfully in response to the fear stimuli leaving me with a sharp stabbing pain below my navel.
Ghilya’s eyes dilated, her nostrils flared which only exaggerated that frowning expression she wore. It was obvious to myself and Clarke that she wasn’t too keen on being this close to the creature.
“What the fuck do we do?” Thomas whispered harshly.
My brother kept a white-knuckle grip on his weapon so tight that it started to shake. There was a split-second moment when I thought he was going to crush it with his bare hands before I remembered he never got any augmentations on his limbs that would allow him such a feat.
Ghilya had poked her head out from behind their cover and scanned the entire area with a steady eye, taking active precautions to avoid looking directly at the Nuckelavee. It seemed like its mere existence; its presence was an affront to whatever values and ideologies Ghilya held dear and that looking at it was somehow a grave offence she couldn’t just shrug off.
She was just as quick to pull herself back into cover when she was done, not risking a second more with her head out than necessary.
The creature made a sound that warbled with deep tones too low for any human humans to accurately mimic. It sounded like… laughter. Granted, it was far from the joyous guffawing or wheezing exhalations that would leave one’s abdominal muscles sore. What came out of that creature’s mouth, provided it even counted as one, sounded something like a demonically possessed, baritone maniacal cackle. It was simultaneously both interesting in a morbid sense and unsettling for the more obvious reasons. Did this thing possess a sense of humour or was it simply making a sound familiar to laughing? And if it did possess a sense of humour then what was so funny? Did it think of something funny in its head and couldn’t hold back expressing its amusement at such an idea?
The sound of its hooves clopping on the gravel drew further away from us.
Ghilya quickly peeked out of cover one last time for only a second before looking at Clarke and myself.
“What’s the plan, Ghilya?” Clarke asked.
“We need to get around it. Somehow, without alerting it to our presence.” Ghilya looked around on the ground for something, she let out a small gasp of surprise just as she reached for a sizeable rock next to her foot.
“I think I have an idea.”
We all looked at her with confused glances.
She shot out from cover so quickly that none of us had time to scold or hiss at her to get back down before that thing see’s her. She threw her arm that held the rock back as far as she could before propelling it as hard as she could. And just as quickly as she got up, Ghilya crouched back down as the rock hurtled noiselessly through the air before clunking down and cracking itself against other rocks.
The impact could be both felt and heard through the ground and it seemed to be enough to draw the Nuckelavee’s attention. It stopped its sinister cackling and broke into a shrill scream that was on the verge of triggering my fight-or-flight response. I was able to block my eardrums with my hands to drown out the sound of its demonic bellowing as it galloped towards the source, the sound of its hooves getting further away until we could hear them no longer.
Ghilya carefully rose out of cover and checked the area ahead, then looked at us without lowering herself first. “It's clear.” She spoke. “Let’s go.”
Thomas was the first to rise tentatively out of cover, and after some brief assurance that it was clear, I too rose out of cover followed by Clarke who groaned loudly as his ankles cracked and popped.
I was nervous being so exposed in the wide-open mountainside with little in the way of cover and no way of knowing where that thing went. To my right, I could see a cave entrance decorated with the rotten bones of countless creatures that were unfortunate enough to fall prey to this thing. I must have missed the sight of the cave earlier, given the eye-catching spectacle that was the cave’s sole resident it was a forgivable thing to miss. On my left, there was a downward slope that led to an elevated part of the forest, which might be how that thing got here ahead of us so fast.
Ghilya took the first steps out behind cover before dashing across the opening in front of the cave entrance and up a sloping incline on the other side of the clearing. Her legs moved so fast that they were a blur of motion that hardly touched the ground. The three of us by comparison were running at full steam and could hardly match pace with Ghilya, she stood there looking down at us for a few seconds before we had caught up to her.
Just as we hit the base of the incline and started our ascent, I could hear the shrieking of the Nuckelavee from behind, the three of us were given an immediate boost of adrenaline and we stumbled over the loose rocks as our pace picked up significantly.
“Guys, we need to move now!” Ghilya exclaimed.
She sounded worried too, I looked up to her face and saw the colour drained from her olive skin. Her jaw dropped, shaking with terror and she reached for her curved daggers and readied them. I tried my hardest not to look behind me but the temptation to do so was beginning to overpower my sense of sanity and I looked over my shoulder. The deathly creature’s upper half, more accurately the ‘human’ looking part rose out from behind the edge of the flattened plateau. I couldn’t help but stare at it transfixed by its baleful red glowing eyes. It felt like a moment that it was staring intently at me, mentally marking me next for its victim.
What had to have been no longer than a second in real time had instead dilated into minutes of me staring down this abomination and losing. My optics zoomed in on its head, it grew angrier and narrowed its eyes at us, almost like it knew I was focusing on it and did not appreciate it.
It made its anger and disapproval known to us with an ear-splitting shriek that was far from its fear-inducing roars. The sound it produced went on for far too long, longer than anyone could ever unleash such a sound without running out of breath and it was so loud, so damn loud that I could feel something warm trickling through my fingers.
It continued to screech out in anger, then its voice rose in pitch and sounded like it was getting angrier. How was that possible, how was this thing still going, how big were its lungs?!
My ears rang out as they were continuously battened down by this thing. The ringing grew louder and louder until it surpassed the creature’s damn howling until it was all I could hear in my head. I was worried, scared, anxious about that thing trying to kill me, but it had felt like I was holding to some semblance of logic and reason and all I had to do to let go of my worries was to let my grip on those things go. Letting them slip through my proverbial fingers. I could feel the muscles in my face ease up from the tension from clenching and was rewarded with a warmth that spread all over my face, the ringing in my ears continued to escalate in pitch and sound but I was no longer assaulted by the vile noise of the Nucklelavee anymore. As such I removed my hands from my ears, I looked down at my hands, the poly-ceramic composites that made up my ‘skin’ were segmented into little plates with the internal motors and servos that made up my joints could be seen. My fingers which had protected my ears were covered in blood, it seeped into each joint and crevice that made up the prosthetic limb.
I looked up with a blank expression, my vision blurred with only a narrow tunnel in the centre still focused. Thomas, Clarke, and Ghilya had hunched up on the ground clutching their heads in their hands, faces clenched, fingers digging into their scalps. Ghilya’s lips were peeled back exposing her clenched teeth while Thomas and Clarke’s mouths were wide open. I could not tell if they were shouting or screaming or not. I couldn’t hear anything but that intense ringing.
Then I took off running.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I continued to run as far as my legs could take me. I ran up the hill, ignoring every stumble I took over the uneven gravelly surface, I slipped on some of the larger rocks that were the size of my hands but I ignored them and continued running. That thing was going to come after me and chew on my bones like a ravenous dog, I did not want that to happen, not to me, no way. I could see a crevasse up ahead between two large flattened platforms and wedged myself in them before curling into a ball. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to come out here, I didn’t ask for any of this!
I could feel a shadow looming over me. Was this it? Had my time come already, I won’t let you, vile beast! That spell will protect me from you, won’t it? I do not want to die.
It nudged me with its hand, it felt smaller than it looked, was it making sure I was dead? Was it so picky that it preferred live victims over dead ones? It wouldn’t matter anyway.
It continued to nudge me with its knuckles. Heh, that was funny, the knuckles of the Nucklelavee, it was funny. The ‘knuckle-lavee’. I thought it was funny at least, I chuckled heartily to myself at the joke that only I seemed to understand. Sure this thing was going to gut me like a fish but at least I’ll die laughing.
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when my face erupted in fiery pain and my skin came alive to the stinging sensation across my left cheek. The ringing in my ears cleared up as did my vision and I found myself curled up in a ball wedged between two rocks. I looked behind me and saw Thomas looking at me with an intense scowl.
“SNAP OUT OF IT MIKEY!” He shouted at me. Spittle flying from his mouth.
He raised a hand again, ready to bring it down on me hard. I tensed up and he eased his posture, instead of slapping me he placed both hands on my shoulders.
“Mikey, you there?” He asked a lot more calmly this time. “C’mon, we need to get out of here!”
Several gunshots cracked the otherwise still air. Behind my brother was Clarke and Ghilya firing their respective weapons at that creature. I realised that there was a considerable chunk of time that went unaccounted for and I must have gone delirious. The last thing I did remember was the sound that thing made and the accompanying ringing.
Thomas forcefully grabbed my arm and pulled me out. Getting closer to him I noticed the red smear running down from his ears.
As soon as he let go, he reached for his submachine gun and let loose a fury of controlled bursts at the Nuckelavee which let out pained roars.
“What the fuck happened!?” I shouted at no one in particular. “I don’t even remember how I got there!”
Ghilya let go of her arrow and it whizzed through the air. She turned to look at us and ask. “Is he back with us?”
Thomas nodded. “Yes.”
Two loud booms thundered from Clarke’s revolver. “We need to get out of here!” He shouted.
Thomas whispered something into the Enabler device attached to his weapon. It beeped then clicked in response and Thomas fired a short burst of rounds that erupted into flames in the eyes of the Nuckelavee, it was disorientated and blinded as it tried to douse the flames. Shrieking in pain and anger. A small part of my mind wondered on just what it could have been saying in the sounds it made. Most likely the guttural warbling’s that came in between long howls was its unique language describing all the colourfully creative ways it was going to kill us.
“Lets go!” Thomas shouted.
We paced up the slope keeping our front facing the beast as it galloped towards us. I contributed to trying to halt its advance by aiming at areas I thought to be it weak spots. The Nuckelavee’s big eye on its horse head zeroed in on us with maddened fury and gruesome intent. I aimed my weapon at this spot, selected the Viper mode and fired. The first few volleys missed the eye completely but on the third squeeze of the trigger, I punched the air in premature celebration as its eye erupted in a gory confetti display.
Clarke looked over to me and gave a nod of approval. “Nice shot!”
Blood spurted out from the equine head, thrusting it around in all directions like a blindfolded child trying to hit a pinata with a bat until its front left hoof collided with a sizable rock that it did not see and came crashing down hard onto the gravelly surface with a drawn out crunch as the gravel slowed down its momentum to a screeching halt. It would have tumbled over completely had the upper ‘human’ part did not support itself with its freakishly long arms.
It bought us the time necessary to run away until we came across a narrow path atop a precariously flattened wedge that led to the next plateau. Everyone else ran ahead of me while my lungs burned from the exertion. Adrenaline kept injecting me with a fresh batch of stamina that kept me going for a little while longer. It was then that I could hear the neighing and galloping of the Nuckelavee behind me getting closer, each hoof striking the ground like an angry hammer.
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Without looking behind me I pointed the gun over my head and pulled the trigger, letting off another seven rounds to hopefully hit and cause it to stumble once more. The world around me spun and whizzed past before I collided with the ground.
For a moment my head was stunned and I must have hit it hard against a rock leaving me defenceless and forced to watch the rest of my group get further away. My vision tunnelled, with my ear firmly pressed against the ground I could hear the loud thuds of hoof steps against rock drawing ever closer and closer until I thought it was right on top of me. As a result, my whole body tensed up, waiting for its legs to come down hard on me and crush my skull or rib cage like eggs.
I forced one eye open just as several gunshots sounded off in the otherwise pristine silence, shattering it into a smattering of echoes ricocheting off the geological features that surrounded us. Someone grabbed me by the collar and dragged me away from the Nuckelavee just in time before its large hands came down where I had been a second ago. Gunshots rang in my ear in between the cacophony of strained grunts and mumbled curses.
“Gods, you’re fucking heavy!” Thomas said through gritted teeth.
It was enough for me to get my wits about me once again and aim my weapon high. But there was something else that bothered me, when I aimed the SMG and glared down its sights, I could hear the subtle metallic clicking of metal and poly-ceramic components rattling against each other from the shakes in my hands. I wouldn’t be able to aim if the gun shook so I forced myself to steel my resolve and quit the shaking. Unfortunately, my efforts were in vain as my hands continued their involuntary spasms.
When I squeezed the trigger and fired off another five rounds, I wasn’t entirely certain whether it was a result of my conscious actions or the tension in my hands applying enough force to press down on the trigger.
Thomas had let go of his grip on me and covered me as I got back up on my own two feet. After turning around to get away from it and out of Thomas’s line of fire I heard him shout. “GET DOWN!”
If there truly is a pantheon of gods and goddesses looking down on us and dictating the course of our lives then I had to wonder if they got bored. Did they experience monotony and stagnation just like the rest of us measly mortals? When you are the ultimate being residing in a realm where the concept of time and space is fluidic and means nothing, what do you do in your spare time, what do you do for fun?
When one is granted demigod or even full-god status and has the ultimate power to control reality and the intricately woven fates of billions of people at any given time how does one find the time for fun?
The answer? When you have ultimate power and answer to only yourself it gives you plenty of opportunities to make your work fun and enjoyable with almost no repercussions.
The only reason why my thoughts had turned to such theological and metaphysical ponderings was to search for the most likely answer to my current problem. I had barely turned around in time to see the rock coming towards me, much less do anything about it when it struck me in the chest. In an instant my lungs deflated, my sternum burned and my heart ached when it performed its sole function.
Every implant within my body that had an injection attached to my organs simultaneously released their products into my bloodstream to keep me alive.
The answer I got from my thinking of religion and philosophical topics was that whichever god or goddess whether they be human or one from Ghilya’s culture that oversaw us and guided our paths was a colossal, sadistic asshole with a twisted and perverse sense of humour.
The rock that the Nuckelavee threw at me sent me flying off my feet. The neural coprocessor activated and for a moment it felt like I was floating on the calmest body of water I had ever experienced. Weightless, floating, suspended in the air as a single second was stretched into what had felt like an eternity resting in a tranquil state.
In the lowest corner of my vision, I saw Thomas’s face as he panicked looking at me. The shock of having the wind knocked out of me had delayed any further sensation of pain as my vision lolled toward the sky as it darkened, individual lights millions of miles away shone brightly like a proud gem glistening against the purple and orange canvas.
Just why would any deity who would show kindness, wisdom and affection towards their subjects allow such cruelty to be inflicted upon them? Why would I have to endure all this, I didn’t deserve any of this. I just wanted to go home and cry myself to sleep.
My body landed on the ground a few feet from where I stood, the rock’s momentum pulled me precariously close to the edge of the path. When clarity returned to me I slowly rolled onto my side, the ache in my chest subsided enough for me to focus on my surroundings and I was able to properly see the gaping valley and dale before me, I was mere centimetres away from a steep drop that looked to go on for a few hundred metres at least.
Had I any breath left in me I would have screamed at the shock of seeing such a precarious drop. I rolled onto my back and got up, shuffling away from the precipice as best I could without further aggravating my chest. Ghilya came over and lifted me up as best she could.
She huffed and with a strained voice said. “Gods above, you’re heavier than you look!”
“I’m aware of that!”
Thomas continued retreating away from that creature while maintaining his sight on it. The Nuckelavee was starting to look worse for wear; cuts on its legs etched into the exposed muscles bled but nowhere near as much as its tusk-adorned head where its sole eye used to be. Bullet holes peppered the abomination’s form with red hot lead.
It started to fall close to the edge and I could see that it was balancing all its weight on its right foreleg.
“Clarke! Aim for the front right leg!” I called out.
He took a moment to register what I was saying, then nodded and pointed his gun, aimed down the sight. Then fired once, twice, then a third time. The Nuckelavee whinnied fiercely as its leg dropped, the humanoid form on top shrieked and let its hands search desperately to find something to grip on before it toppled over the side.
“Mikey!” Thomas called out. In his hand, he picked up my SMG and tossed it over to me. For a second, I thought I wasn’t going to catch it and stepped forward to grab the weapon.
As I rose up after catching the weapon there was a brief displacement of air beside my right ear, followed by a wheezing sound whistling through the air until it struck the Nuckelavee right in the chest. Its human one at least. I looked behind me to track where it came from and saw Ghilya pulling another arrow out of her quiver and pulling on the string.
It took several more steps towards us but we did not step back any further. We had to make our stand here if we were to defeat this thing.
“Reloading!” Clarke shouted to no one in particular. The spent cartridges clinked against each other as he emptied the chambers.
As the weapon kicked into my shoulder I heard the metallic clicking coming from each shot before my weapon could fire no more. Only two more magazines left.
I will say that one of the benefits of this journey has been the increased pace of which my reloading and firearm skill has improved dramatically as I had removed the previous magazine and swapped it out for a new one in only three seconds.
Another arrow whizzed past my head only this time it struck the Nuckelavee straight into one of its eyes. It brought one of its hands to try and pull it out while it roared furiously.
Shit, why won’t you go down!? Just take the hint and leave us the fuck alone. Maybe if we had grenades or something then it could force it off and down the edge of the cliff. Dammnit Thomas why didn’t you let us bring- wait a second.
After everything we had gone through and the things we had done, there was no sane way I could have been thinking of the idea.
Thomas looked over his shoulder as he shouted gruffly. “We need to force it off!”
Oh fuck me sideways… This is going to fucking suck, isn’t it?
My arms hesitantly lowered my weapon and I began taking steps towards this thing. Every instinct within me screamed in protest, insisting that this was a terrible idea beyond measure. This very idea should make me a contestant for the Evolution Award. Or maybe just an uncontested winner.
After slinging the submachinegun’s belt over my shoulder I continued to walk towards it with my hands free. Every fibre of muscle twitched with pent-up energy to run the other way.
Just as I walked past Thomas I let my eyelids fall over my eyes and let myself be in as much peace as I could muster, hoping desperately for this idea to work. Thomas ceased firing just as I walked past, not because he thought I was in his line of fire but because his weapon had run out of ammo. I heard the clicking a second before and knew what that meant.
There was a brief delay, but he began shouting at me, panicking and shocked to the point it made his voice go high in pitch. “MIKEY, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?”
It made me smile just a little to hear his voice go comically high. The mental picture of his face with both his hands gripping the back of his head in shock also aided in the humour. It also brought about a sense of calm even as I drew dangerously closer to the Nuckelavee.
“GET BACK HERE YA FUCKING NUMBSKULL!” Clarke shouted. Unlike Thomas, his voice went down in pitch and this made his subtle rural accent come out thicker than usual giving him a gruff, gravelly voice that was almost the most masculine thing I had ever heard.
I could feel a calming presence rise up from the back of my mind and I did not hold back my smile. The serene, euthymic sensation came up to me like a wave, ready to wash over everything in its path and I was standing on the shore with my arms open and willing to embrace it.
In a strange turn of events, it had felt like that wave of good vibes grew exponentially. As if my willingness to embrace it had amplified it tenfold. If it were only a few feet in height before then it seemed to me that it was dozens of metres taller, ready to envelop me in its form. But for my plan to work, I needed more than it has ever given me, I needed to try and will it to create a stronger force than ever before.
My core tightened, a strange feeling gripped my stomach and I could feel something within charging up.
The strange feeling inside me grew, there was an anticipation, an expectation of something to come. It felt like an explosion was about to go off inside me but rather than avert such a thing I was eagerly awaiting its arrival. More and more I felt it grow in power, in doing so it felt like my lower intestines were cramping up and sending sharp pains throughout my lower abdominal region.
My whole body started to tense, there were growls from the Nuckelavee in front of me and the sense of tranquillity that had brought much of my sense of calm had now passed over me and was now replaced with tension and anxiety.
I thought this might have been enough, so with a thought, a single word spoken within my mind I released that energy that had been building up. The tension that had gripped my body was suddenly released and it left my body to stumble a little as every muscle and joint ached. The explosive force that emanated from me went off like a high explosive bomb with me at its epicentre. But unlike in the past where it had created a loud BANG, this time the ground trembled from the concussive force, and the displacement of air was strong enough to blow my hair away from my face and leave my ears ringing fiercely.
The Nuckelavee shrieked in surprise. My eyes opened to the sight of the creature being flung from its feet and pushed over the side of the mountain and tumbling down the gravelly surface, desperately clinging to anything it could to slow down its fall. As it disappeared, the last of its calls rang out between the valley of mountains.
Thomas, Clarke, and Ghilya approached from behind until they were in line with me and peered over the ledge. It’s a shame the ledge wasn’t stable enough for me to peer over, I would have loved to watch it tumble and fall into the shadowy abyss, counting down how long it took for it to hit the ground.
The silence that filled the void from the Nuckelavee was deafeningly thick, I could almost feel its weight bearing down on my shoulders causing my knees to wobble and buckle under intense scrutiny.
Clarke was the first to break the silence, he sounded surprised and pleasantly shocked. “H-holy shit!” he exclaimed with a shaken voice.
“I cannot believe it.” Thomas spoke with disbelief.
I started to chuckle nervously. I honestly could not believe that worked. I guess the tattoos weren’t useless bullshit after all.
Then completely out of left field, I heard Thomas shout. “YOU BASTARD!” followed swiftly by his hand coming across the back of my head so hard that it made my optical implants fritz and lose resolution for a second. My head ached with each pulse of my heart like a dull hammer banging against the sides of my temples.
“You fucking idiot!” He shouted as he slapped my head with each word. “Don’t you ever do that again! What the fuck were you thinking, don’t answer that because the answer is you weren’t! You got a fucking death wish or something, huh!?”
My hands flew to protect my head from further trauma, though a more accurate assessment would be that I was dampening the blows from reaching my brain. “Argh, stop hitting me!”
He slapped me on the back once more for good measure. I was hesitant to look him in the eye, but when I did I was not entirely prepared to see his were red and puffy from crying. Why was he crying?
Clarke took a step closer towards me and placed a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “I think what your brother is trying to say is that what you did was incredibly risky and a measure above stupid.” The senator spoke clearly and concisely as though he was trying to find the most diplomatic way he could explain this.
“And without telling us,” Thomas added. “You risked your life on a very slim chance. I mean, what if that thing didn’t work, or it killed you before that blast? These are the kinds of things you have to consider before doing dangerous stunts like this.”
I had opened my mouth to counter their argument before realising there was nothing I could say that they wouldn’t counter or overwhelm me with some kind of logic that made mine look worthless.
“There was no time and I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure if that thing would understand us.” I started with.
“That thing was a wild animal, a thing. It has no sense of loyalty or intelligence, it acts on instinct, it doesn’t think.” Thomas angrily jabbed his fingers firmly against the sides of his head as if to press home the point. “Then again maybe it would understand you since you both don’t think!”
That stung.
I had opened my mouth to chide him for that when my legs suddenly flew out from underneath me and I was thrown to the ground in an instant. Gravel pulled at my shirt and ran underneath me as I was pulled backwards to the edge of the cliff. My hands dug into the ground to very little avail in stopping me, I was able to look at my feet and see massive, rotten black fingers wrapped around my right ankle like five similar-looking pythons constricting my foot. It continued to pull me towards the edge and I tried to resist as best I could. I tried to scream out for my friend’s help only to discover that the air in my lungs was squeezed out when I landed flat on the ground.
Being dragged on the harsh gravel set my skin ablaze with white hot pain in just about every part of me. The ledge drew closer in a matter of seconds causing my heart to sink.
Fuck, gods no. Please not like this, not like this! I don’t want to fall to my death. That’s a horrible way to go. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die! Please don’t let me die like this!
Thomas, Clarke, and Ghilya came rushing towards me, weapons raised at the creature behind me. My flimsy fingers did nothing but dig trenches in the ground and I willed the Ithinite blade in my right forearm to come out before stabbing the hard surface with it. It might have been enough to slow my peril just long enough for the others to catch up and offer their hands, trying to yank me back.
But even with their combined strengths my legs fell out from underneath me. My whole body went cold and the fearful realisation settled into my mind as I realised all hope was lost. I could feel the edge creeping up my body quickly, once it was past my pelvis it had only cemented my fear and it left me in shock, paralysed by the reality of what was to come. Any air that was left in my lungs was released as softly as it could be as my lungs relaxed for the inevitable, in fact almost all of my body relaxed itself in some form or another. My bowels relieved themselves and the shock of what was coming had left me too stunned to do anything else.
Thomas and Ghilya dug their heels in just as they drew closer to the ledge, their grip on my arms not wavering in the slightest. Both of their faces were twisted and clenched with grim determination. Their skin reddened as they grunted with effort in trying to save my worthless hide.
The ground gave out beneath my chest. There was a brief microsecond moment there when it had felt like I was flying. Suspended in air as though the force of gravity didn’t apply to me. But that moment had elapsed and my heart sunk even further than I thought before as my torso began to descend.
“GAAGH!” Both Thomas and Ghilya grunted.
Almost every muscle in their face clenched and flexed causing the bands in their necks to stick out like bones all to give that last ounce of strength to pull me back.
The Nuckelavee held on to my foot with determination equally fierce to my brother and Ghilya. It’s human throat rumbled coarsely with that terrifying sound as if to say “You aren’t getting rid of me that easily!”
Clarke crept up to the edge and pointed his revolver. His thumb pulled the hammer back and it clicked as the next round was loaded up to the barrel, then squeezed the trigger with a thunderous BANG.
The Nuckelavee’s fingers eased up, then its hand slipped off my leg as it landed against a jagged surface with a loud crack. I looked down to see the creature bouncing off the cliff face and disappear into the shady abyss at the bottom of the mountain. Thomas and Ghilya pulled me up and I retracted the Ithinite blade back into my arm as I was lifted over the edge just in time for them both to collapse onto the ground from exhaustion. All I could do was stare at the twilight sky while stars pockmarked the otherwise clear sky.
For what had felt like a solid minute of the three of us wheezing loudly to catch our breath I was able to regain control of my fear-induced paralysis and focus on one of the moons hanging high above me.
Charybdis stood above me at its highest Zenith as if it were looking down at me and it made me wonder just what does its surface look like.
Ghilya got back on her feet and offered Thomas a hand to lift him up. He called out my name but didn’t respond, in truth, the shock was still something I was trying to process.
He nudged me gently with his foot and said my name again only this time with a note of concern. “Hey Michael, you alright?”
If only I knew why that released the floodgates. It was mundane and open to interpretation that I could have lied without actually lying. And yet I could do nothing as I broke down into a heap of tears and snot. A watery film covered my eyes and distorted the purple-tinged surface of Charybdis.
My whole body convulsed, and my voice croaked as tears streamed down my face. A howl of anguish escaped my mouth as I curled up into a ball while I continued crying.
Everyone crowded around me, one of them placed their hand on my shoulder but it was too late to stop the emotions from flowing out.
I tried to speak through my sobs, but any sound that came out sounded like hyperventilated wheezing followed by short hiccups. Saliva collected and pooled under my mouth alongside the tears and snot as I fought through to make comprehensible sounds come out.
“No, I’m not fucking alright! I… I juh-… I just want to go ho-oo-ome!” I said as I quavered. “Ev-… ever since this all s-started I’ve been knocked unconscious multiple times, been held ho-hostage twice!”
Another bout of sobbing overwhelmed me. I didn’t care, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Behind me two sets of feet retreated away from me, gravel crunching growing softer. Thomas’s voice came out smooth and warm.
“I know, Michael.”
“I miss mum! I miss home. I just want things to go back to the way they were. I’m not an adventurer, I’m not a hero. I didn’t ask for any of this!”
Thomas didn’t reply. He placed his hand on my side that was facing up and gently ran his hand up and down. His own silent way of comforting me as best he could.
“I… I don’t know how much of this I can take! I want things to go back to normal. I want to go back home.”
Thomas drew in a breath, and when he spoke, his voice retained its warmth and understanding but there was a note of sadness in there. Almost like he was barely hanging on himself.
“I know Michael, I know… But I need you to be strong, buddy. Okay? We can’t go home, not yet at least. Not until we have done what we have set out to do. Because that way things can go back to normal and we can find mum and do all the things we used to do. But I need you to hang in just a little longer, little bro.”
I’ve had my head cracked open multiple times. Two of those instances resulted in me losing consciousness. I have been held hostage at knifepoint. Almost devoured and eaten by two different dragons. And now this stupid Nuckelavee thing. How the fuck did adventurers in fantasy tales deal with all that? I wasn’t like them; I was an unemployed loser who couldn’t hold a job if I was indentured to it.
Eventually, I was able to voice that to him through my crying and all he did was say “it’s alright, Mikey.” As he continued to embrace me as tight as he could.
Thomas didn’t say another word, instead, he let his brotherly embrace do most of the talking as I broke down further into a howling, blubbering mess.