Meera walked, sandwiched between the guards. They were staying very close together after one of the doors had opened and something had popped out and tried to grab one of them. She was holding a small torch in one hand and had her other on the soldier in front of her.

Another mass of tentacles came out of the glowing red door ahead of them. This one was bigger than the last, just as that one had been bigger than the one before it. It seemed that Eva’s array was escalating matters as they approached.

Meera wasn’t sure it was right to ascribe motivations to it. Perhaps she was personifying the subject. She shook her head. That didn’t matter right now. She wasn’t here to study the thing. She was here to destroy it.

Whitfield, the soldier on the front left, shot three rounds into it.

“Get some!” He shouted.

The rounds were large, larger than normal consumer grade guns, or so she was told. Though she didn’t know guns very well she understood the physics of the situation well. The mass of the round multiplied by its speed was a measure of its force.

That force was transmitted, partially, into the oncoming anomaly. Thus it was not surprising to her to see it tumble backwards when it was hit. Each round striking it was like a hammer blow from an invisible adversary.

The first arrested its forward momentum. With the next, it rocked backwards. The third of three sent it slamming back into the wall pinwheeling the way it had come. These anomalies looked spherical at first blush, but they clearly had a right side up and an upside down.

This one was now upside down, it writhed weakly on the floor trying to right itself.

They did not rush forward, they maintained their measured pace. The soldier on the front right, Cortes, was equipped with the large plasma torch. White hot fire, hotter than the sun, ripped into the anomaly. It transitioned into its liquid state, then proceeded towards a gaseous one.

Instead of drifting upwards, as it had in the past, it formed two narrow plumes. One shot towards Cortes, it was rebuffed by his suit.

“Doc, we sure this stuff can’t make it through the suits?” he asked.

“Reasonably sure, but you’ll have to tell me.” She said,

The men laughed. She had not meant it as a joke. She supposed it was mildly funny, in a way. They were always up for a laugh.

She watched the other plume as it drifted down the hallway. It headed towards the elevator and the main stairs, the opposite way they had come. It faded as it went. Meera was unsure if it was dissipating or becoming invisible.

It was clearly headed towards some.. Goal? Destination? She was much less clear on the physics that governed this situation. Perhaps the phenomena would remain after Grant was destroyed, and she could study it. Time would tell.

The lead soldiers reached the door. They turned to face it. The next two soldiers proceeded past them and covered the hall beyond. This had been planned, they had been speaking to one another all along. In between the bravado laden battle cries and the off color humor they were abuzz with tactical chatter.

Meera had been aware of the talk flowing between them, but she was distracted. The weight of the situation was like the very Earth resting on her shoulders. She felt like she had been holding her breath since the first observed anomaly had appeared and upended reality as they knew it.

She had watched in horror as the occurrence rate had increased. She had been able to draw the conclusions from the data herself that the anomalies were occurring at an exponentially increasing rate. It was not just that there were more of them either, but the magnitudes were growing as well.

Now the tipping point was here. It wasn’t somewhere far away either. It was right here right in her lap. It was her responsibility to protect humanity from it. So many had been thrust into positions of authority. Why did it have to be her dealing with this?

The soldiers proceeded down the hall. They were perfectly in their element. Though the anomalies were different from their usual fare, to say the least, they made easy targets. None exhibited much thought in their actions. They behaved like beasts. An easy problem for a soldier to handle.

The soldiers didn’t face the same dilemmas she did. They were instrumental in executing her decisions, but she had to be the judge. She had to break her young protege’s heart, because of a cruel twist of fate.

So be it. At least the responsibility had fallen to someone strong. She would brook no chances, tolerate no risks. Not with the stakes this high. The soldiers, her men as she had come to think of them, would burn this building to ashes while all of them were inside if they had to. If she so commanded it, it would be done.

Meera prayed to all the Gods that ever were it would not come to that, but she was ready if it did.

She reached the open doorway, she stepped in behind Cortes and Whitfield. The two behind her stayed back. Two covered each direction down the hall now. Two in the room, with her. Seemed sound to her. Not her realm, but she had every confidence in their decisions.

The three of them advanced forward towards the array. It hung in the air, not uncommon with the anomalies. It pulsed with red light in time with everything else. Meera suspected it was the cause of that pulse, but couldn’t be sure.

The walls, ceiling, and floor had all been changed. They were now more like flesh than construction materials. They breathed in and out. She watched it all for a moment, just observing.

Anomalies were beautiful. Terrifyingly so, but very beautiful. They were like lightning, or a shark. Such destruction and violence but also something grand about them. There was something awesome in witnessing that power.

“Torch it.” She said,

Cortes had been awaiting her words and moved without hesitation. At least he tried to. A tentacle erupted from the wall, blood fountaining out along with it. It was as if the wall had been a serene pond of blood before and had not been disturbed by something reaching up from beneath.

The sucker lined tentacle ripped the torch from the man. Then it swung it back, whipping it around. It cracked into the mask of the suit. Meera heard it break. Whitfield was already firing at the base of it, where it extended from the wall.

Meera thought he really should have known better than that, fighting was his job, not hers, and she had expected what came next.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Another tentacle shot out from the opposite wall, grabbing his gun. He received the same treatment, and more. As the one tentacle cracked him in the face with his own gun another shot up from the floor. It cinched around his waist.

It pulled the hulking man to the floor. She heard his spine crack as it kept constricting him once he was down. Instincts overriding every thought she could have, she was already turning on her heels running the other way.

The four remaining soldiers began pouring into the room, their faces were grim. Just as she was compelled to run away, they were compelled to move forward towards their brothers in arms.

They said nothing as they passed each other. The soldiers' weapons sang. Meera heard bullets and fire ring out, but it only lasted for a moment. The screams lasted for seconds longer, but that was all.

The door to the room slammed shut behind her. She turned to look at it out of shock. Flesh grew around the edges, sealing the room up.

Her mind fogged over. Shock was stealing over her, numbing her to what she had just seen. She still needed to act, but what could she do now?

A glowing blue green window appeared in her mind. She could see it so clearly there in her thoughts. She stood in the red pulsing light of the hall and read it.

(6) Untempered have been sacrificed to the Temple Core.

Flesh consumed.

Essences consumed.

Sacrifice accepted.

First Temple of the Harbinger is awakening.

Prepare thyself fallow and untempered thing

Meera heard a sound coming from down the hallway. She looked up and saw another one of the tentacle masses coming towards her. It pulled itself forward moving in spurts, its tentacles suctioning onto the walls. It didn’t move as fast as the others had.

Perhaps it knew she was not a threat, easy prey. She clutched the torch in her hand. She didn’t light it, not yet. It felt very much like bringing a knife to a sword fight. Maybe she could avoid an altercation.

Meera took two steps backwards. She didn’t turn and run like she wanted to so very badly. She just kept taking slow steps backwards. The tentacle monster just barely outpaced her. It was eating up the distance between them.

She had six more paces before it was within grasping distance. She raised the torch up slowly and stood her ground. She ignited it as the creature pulled itself to what she assumed was striking distance.

The flame whirred and sputtered. She waved it in front of her, hoping she was warding off the creature. Her hopes were dashed in a moment as multiple tentacles struck out to grab her. She swung the torch at one of them, it neatly severed off and fell to the floor.

Three others grasped onto her though. One had been aimed for each limb. The one she had got was going for the arm holding the torch. She was pulled off her feet falling straight down onto her upper back. The wind was knocked out of her.

She was yanked along the floor; she almost dropped the torch as her arm trailed behind her. She brought it down into the center of the creature’s mass. It screeched in pain as she scored a deep black gouge down the middle of it.

Several tentacles whipped at her from the opposite side. They struck her in the head hard enough to send her head into the wall.

She heard her faceplate crack. She was already gripped by panic, but doom sank into her now. She would be exposed to this, this would be the end of her. She began to breathe faster, nearly hyperventilating, even though that was the worst thing she could be doing.

The torch was ripped from her hand. The creature lifted itself up above her. On the bottom of it a terrible maw opened up. It was a ring of teeth, they were set in loose membranous flesh arranged in concentric circles. They were hooked and jagged and pointed inwards.

The sphincter of a mouth flexed open and closed as it hovered above her. It seemed to be shuddering in anticipation. She struggled against it, in vain though, it was much stronger than she.

“You will perish in the light of the Lord, Devil Spawn!” A woman’s voice shouted.

The creature shifted as if to look at where the voice was coming from, though it had no eyes Meera could see. Before it could rotate very far it was split down the center. A blinding blue bolt of light severed it, finishing the job Meera had started with her torch. Meera shut her eyes and turned her head away.

This was less to avoid the light and more to avoid the shower of gore that came splashing down on her a moment later. It didn’t help much though. Thich thick red slime from the monsters inside coated her now compromised helmet. Meera felt a bit of it drip through the crack, it landed on the bridge of her nose, she felt it drip down onto her cheek.

She wiped at it, frantically trying to get it off her cracked face mask before any more could enter her suit. It was too late though, she knew that. As her face mask became clear she saw a woman standing in the hallway.

Her eyes were glowing blue saucers. As Meera took her in she leaned against the hallway wall, breathing heavily. Her face was drawn and tight, like she had been dried out under a desert sun. The look of righteous anger melted off her face and was replaced by a look of pure exhaustion.

A pair of hands gripped her from behind. She screamed as she looked behind her. She saw a man with eyes growing out of his eyes. They looked like grapes on a red sinuous vine.

As he bent over her a couple of them fell off, bouncing off of Meera’s helmet and landing on the floor. More grew back to replace them.

“Whoops, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” he said, a broad smile spread across his face. “Hey let’s get this nasty old thing off of you.”

Before she could stop him he gripped the sides of her helmet and yanked it off.

“There isn’t that better.” He said, all ten eyes staring at her.

Meera was about to scream and yell, but she held back. It was over, for her, but perhaps if she could get these people on her side, she could still contain whatever was happening in this building. She could still bring this all to a satisfactory end.

Ashes and cinder.

The anomaly on the floor began to liquefy. The slime still coating her suit began to coalesce and flow towards the larger mass on the floor. The small drop on her face plopped off, falling to the ground.

It writhed as a black mass, green and purple tips emerging amongst the roiling. The plumes of vapor that formed snaked off. One to the woman and one down where the others had gone. She assumed it must be towards Grant or Eva, towards the source of all this madness.

“Thank you, yes, that is better.” Meera said, forcing a smile on her face.

“Yeah! Let God's light in, that's what we say. Isn’t that right Hannah?” The man asked.

As he said the woman’s name it clicked with Meera who they were. The eyes were so commanding she hadn’t even recognized her own subjects.

“Yeah!” Hannah said. “Gosh that light attack really took it out of me. I used all the flesh of the beyond I got from that trial just to get back to normal.”

“Sure was powerful though, wasn't it? The spirit really moved through you, very inspiring.” Isaac said.

Hannah beamed at him.

“I think we ought to keep moving.” Meera said.

The two had been staring at each other like little puppy dogs. If it weren’t for the state of their eyes it might have been cute. They were obviously smitten with each other.

She had been afraid her suggestion might be taken wrong and they would vacillate back towards some of the madness she had seen them exhibit earlier; they had been quite enraged when the police had arrested them.

However the opposite was true. At her words their faces lit up.

“Oh, jeez, yeah, we better get to the Harbinger!” Hannah said.

“Oh Gosh, yeah, they probably need our help to resurrect Jacob.” Isaac said, nodding along at what Hannah said.

As the man nodded, the eyes dangling down his face bounced ever so slightly. Meera wondered if that was disorienting.

“Yeah! Resurrection woo!” Hannah said.

She held up her hand for Meera to high five. Meera gave the woman a high five with her gloved hand.

“Alright!” Isaac said, reaching out for a high five as well.

Meera slapped his hand, letting out a crisp snap in the quiet hallway. She bent down and picked up her torch off the ground. The two started walking ahead of her, going towards where the other plume had gone. She wondered if they knew or were just guessing.

She followed along behind them, casting weary glances behind her.