Before she could register Yeshua’s words, a hand smashed into her face. Jenny couldn’t tell if it was a ghoul or another Yeshua or a Death, but fingernails scratched her lips, scraped her teeth, and she reacted. Her hatchet swung, and the hand was separated from whomever it belonged to.

She stumbled back, yanking the hand out of her mouth, unable to tell if it was bleeding in all this terrible rain.

+64 Energy

It was red all the way through and felt like plastic. It was a Ghoul’s. She hadn’t hurt one of the deaths, but her momentary relief was cut short. Another ghoul rammed her side, clawing at her scales. Two more ghouls grabbed her shoulders and tried to pull her down, but she turned her heel, grounding herself firmly, swearing loudly as she tried to shake them off. Her joints ached from their grips, but she wrapped an arm around one’s head, its jaws snapping against the armor that protected her armpit, and she struck another in the eyes with her hatchet.

But more hands grabbed onto her legs and her waist. Blood rain splattered over everything, and the ghouls’ whimpering and moaning were making it too hard to think. With a cry of rage, she used Ignite again.

Fire burst out of her shoulders almost like two wings unfurling. The ghouls cowered, the sudden brightness shocking their systems. Every single drop of blood around them glistened tantalizingly, hissing as they struck Jenny’s burning body and evaporated.

The ghouls recovered almost immediately, swiping at her face, but the split second was all she needed. She swept around quickly. Slashing through each ghoul before sidestepping their collapsing bodies. They fell to the ground screaming and clutching their wounds, and Jenny twisted her arm, snapping the head off the ghoul she had in a headlock.

As she moved away from them, she expanded her helmet, stretching the metal forward to shield the front of her face, leaving only a slit for her to see through. This limited her visibility, but it was better than having her mouth ripped open. Her lip bled from where it’d been scratched, and she licked at her own blood. It tasted sweeter than the blood rain.

The Yeshua’s shouted around her, and a thunderous burst of wind blew past, knocking away the rain and an entire group of ghouls and deaths alike. Jenny managed to stay on her feet, but she could tell this blow was weaker than his earlier attacks. He was worried about hurting the deaths; they couldn’t fight like this.

“You must hurry!” shouted the Yeshua in unison. Two of him wrestled with ghouls. Another Yeshua was twitching on the ground, crying out in agony as ghouls snapped off his limbs and one chewed a hole through his side. And still another Yeshua was helping one of the deaths up.

She didn’t know who to help. The deaths were in the same situation, being eaten alive. Teeth gnashed. The ghouls moaned and whimpered and ate, and the deaths screamed and cried out helplessly. Jenny kicked ghouls in the ribs. She slammed her hatchet down on their heads like she was splitting firewood. She elbowed and punched and roared flame, but it didn’t matter. For every ghoul she disabled, two or three more took their place.

What had Yeshua said? This was the world responding to change?

Jenny started this. This was her fault. She’d set Yeshua free. She’d awakened the first death. And now all of these poor people... a ghoul tore the head off one of the younger deaths, swallowing it whole. Jenny screamed, using Instant Acceleration to burst through the crowd. She punched the ghoul so hard, the scales covering her knuckles cracked, and it spat out the head. It rolled across the ground, spraying blood as the ghoul collapsed.

She grabbed the death’s headless body, shaking. This one was just a kid. A little boy. But even as she held the body, a warm light seeped out of the gruesome neck and solidified into a new head. A new face with clear skin and pretty hair and big brown eyes. The boy blinked at her for a moment, then the rain splattered his face, and Jenny couldn’t tell if the kid was crying or not. She wasn’t sure if she was crying or not.

Two more ghouls leaped toward them, and Jenny thrust the boy away as hard as she could. Another ghoul struck her in the face with its arm, its hand rattling her helmet. More grabbed her, and they piled on top, wriggling, teeth scraping against her scales, palms striking her helmet and her back over and over.

She twisted carefully to avoid dislocating her shoulder or her leg, then swiped to the side, burying her hatchet in one ghoul’s hip. Another leaped right onto her head, knocking her forward and down, her face smashing into a bloody puddle.

With a muffled scream, she tried to crawl out of the wriggling pile. She couldn’t help but swallow blood. Blood ran down her face and dripped from her helmet. She slammed her hatchet into the ground, trying to will herself to get out. Trying to focus on Ignite again, but that was when it came to her.

Back in the high school, that eye shaped pool of darkness, like a wound in the cafeteria floor. That was the opening that allowed the angels to come through, and she and everyone else had only been able to get back because of... because of Susan’s light.

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The healing! The light had healed the opening between worlds, and that was what Jenny had done later. When she’d wanted to leave. She’d reopened it with light. But for her to use Valescent Light like that... there needed to be a wound in the first place. A tear between worlds.

Her heart pounding, aware of all the horror around her, Jenny stopped struggling. She tried to relax. A foot struck her helmet and smashed her face into the puddle again. Teeth and fists and screaming pummeled her as blood rained down on everything. She touched her fingers to the ground. Concentrate.

Both hands, even as fingers curled around her forearms, even as the ghouls tried to pry off her helmet. She touched the ground the same way she’d done with the pillars, and she realized that Yeshua had also been showing her how to do exactly this. It had to be beyond her body. Something outside of her. Severed Spirit.

Immediately, the ground responded. She felt it open. Felt something shift. And a horrible feeling coiled around her stomach and squeezed tight.

Then it kicked. Like a baby kicking inside of her. It spurted out of her bellybutton. Her exoskeleton.

A scream tore through her throat, gurgling in the blood she’d swallowed. The armor on her back cracked and split. Her six tentacles burst out of her flesh and -

You are overjoyed. You are reborn. You are alive again. The blood! It’s raining delicious, precious blood. You can feast all you want. You don’t have to stop. These creatures can feel pain and you can harvest every last drop of Energy.

Look how powerful you can be. Look how powerful you are.

You don’t have to be alone anymore.

Your tentacles whirl about, soaking in the rain, slapping the ghouls into dust with a single blow. They are nothing creatures. Empty. Hollow. Your tentacles crush them. Curl around them and fling them into the air like dolls.

They’re not on top of you anymore.

You can get up.

You can feast.

Yeshua has already offered his flesh. The Deaths don’t die either. They grow back. You can eat all you want. How delicious will they be? Your mouth is already watering. Your stomach is already grumbling. All you have to do is -

With a violent shudder, Jenny snapped out of it, breathing hard. Everything was dulled. Everything had slowed down. She was lying in the puddle of blood as it bubbled and churned, but the bubbles burst in slow motion, and the rain was gentle. The ghouls moved in slowly, running toward her. People were screaming. Shouting. But their voices were faint and far away. Her vision felt faded like she’d just woken up.

She was lying on the ground, but her arms, stretched out above her head, were covered in red. It was her exoskeleton, covering her belly and her sides, coming up to her jaw. It was growing over her armor, but it hadn’t grown completely. It hadn’t covered her completely. And her tentacles.

She could feel the precise location of every drop of rain falling from the sky, soaking into the ground, dripping down the bodies around her. Her tentacles ingested as much blood as they could, but she forced her attention away, down to her chest, her body. To her hands and fingers. To where she was touching the ground.

It was almost like instinct. Or like sticking her hand out the window on a freezing day just to feel the biting chill of the wind while the rest of her was safe and warm inside. Focus. Breathe. Swallow.

I want to leave this place.

I want to take the deaths away from here.

I want to save them.

She pictured Susan again. It wasn’t like last time when she’d thought of Susan and lost focus while trying to sever the death from the pillar. This time it was memory. This time it was longing, as though Susan was her guiding force. As though the hurt of what Jenny had done could push her forward.

Open me up!

Cut me open!

Get it the fuck out of me!

A silent scream blossomed inside Jenny. Rising, slowly and slowly, as everything around her shifted into motion again. Her tentacles swirled. The ghouls grabbed and tore at the deaths. Yeshua struck blow after blow. All the while the blood rained down on everyone and everything.

She kept her mind on Susan’s smile. When Susan had still been alive, standing on the darkness in the cafeteria, her arms out stretched to welcome Jenny. She’d run toward Susan. She’d ran right into her arms, the hunger uncontrollable, the need beyond any urgency she’d ever had before. Jenny felt Susan’s throat between her teeth. The squish. The crunch. The burst of flavor, the warmth she’d always wanted.

She saw Susan’s corpse. Her lifeless eyes. And the hurt. The heart wrenching, rib shattering hurt that made her want to bury her fingers in her bellybutton and claw herself completely open so that all that pain, all that self-hatred and disgust and hurt could burst out of her and break free, shoot from her fingertips into the fabric of the world itself. And everything ripped open beneath her.

It felt like she’d punctured something. Darkness gushed out from the ground, swallowing the bubbling liquid and the rain; it was the same horrid darkness she’d found on the cafeteria floor where the angels had surfaced from. The many Yeshua yelled something. The ghouls screeched in unison like a thousand fingernails scraping her ears, and the darkness tugged on Jenny. It tugged on her exoskeleton, drawing out more of her monstrous side.

You must give in to yourself.

You must break free.

You must-

Jenny knew what to do next. How to make it work. She kept her mind on Susan. Kept her focus on how she felt. Hurt. Regret. Love.

Want. Need. Hope.

I’m going to find you.

Golden light surged from her hands. Colors, all the colors of the rainbow, flowed into the light like ink bleeding into a page, and warmth radiated from her hand. All the darkness shimmered away, turning golden and colorful, illuminating the world just as the deaths had done before as they’d woken each other up, just as Susan had done when she and Jenny had left their survival challenge.

Jenny stared into the blinding light, tears streaming from her eyes as she sank like a stone. A sea of golden light welcomed her. Streams of color, swirls of glistening reds and threads of vibrant greens curled around her limbs like tentacles or underwater plants, tangling her, pulling her further into the depths, and Jenny relaxed all her muscles. She let go. She surrendered to the light and felt all the others, the many Yeshua, the deaths, and the ghouls, sinking in with her.

Where am I going?