Episode 9

It didn't matter if I had misunderstood something or if I didn't understand how dangerous Plague really was.

As long as she was on my side, she could be as dangerous as she wanted, it was nothing but an advantage. And, in any case, there was no meaning in fighting this woman.

I had nothing to prove, and nothing I wanted. In other words...

“Better run!” I shouted.

To give my new friend an order, nothing more. What I meant was that I had no intention of turning around and looking to see if she was obeying me, just getting the hell out of there.

Into the woods.

I was hoping to lose that woman among the trees and vegetation. At least, obviously, it would be easier than on open ground. I knew a lot of things about escaping the law. Although usually by car, I could apply some of my, uh, street smarts here.

I was almost there.

Into the woods, that is.

I'd told myself I wouldn't glance back. But then there was a sound like a plane taking off. An overwhelming sound. I couldn't help it. I turned my head in time to see that woman take off. The ground beneath her feet was full of cracks.

She could fly and was incredibly strong. Great.

I also saw that Plague had heeded me. I was afraid she would be uncontrollable, but so far she was behaving like a well-trained pet. That's something.

In any case, I was still running for my life.

Well. For my soul.

I heard a noise almost as loud as the previous one, but this time I was able to resist and not look. Maybe I should have, because a second later I saw it anyway.

When I ducked to dodge an attack.

What went over my head wasn't a sword, a spear, or even the bullet from a gun out of nowhere in this vaguely medieval world. It wasn't anything remotely normal.

It was a fucking tree.

That woman had used her insane strength to rip a tree out of the ground, like a human hurricane, and now she was using it as some kind of mace against me.

Fuck!

Okay, I could be a ghost. I literally couldn't be any deader than this. But I still had no desire for it to hit me. Because it hurt! The skin and flesh might be gone, but the pain wasn't.

That completely insane skank pulled the tree back, to wield it with all her might. I knew I couldn't dodge it. Even if I tried, she was too fast, she would adjust the trajectory in a second. The first dodge had been more luck than anything else.

But I did dodge it.

In a way. The tree reached me, but it passed through my body without doing anything. I had managed to make myself untouchable like any proper ghost, thus avoiding the attack.

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“I'm cool!”

Unfortunately, that didn't work on the tree alone. In other words, my fingers stopped being able to touch the bags and they fell to the ground. Good thing they didn't open, scattering that little treasure everywhere. Because then I wouldn't have had time to go picking it up. Not with that woman going for my ass.

“I'm still cool,” I said to no one in particular as I picked them up.

“You're a fucking monster. Not even human. How dare you ally yourself with that creature?”

I rolled my eyes.

Okay, I didn't have the context, and she probably wasn't wrong to feel that way. I didn't find a tentacled monster going from body to body, using them as if they were puppets, too pleasant myself. But she sounded too fanatical.

“Hey, I didn't exactly choose her. She was literally the first ally that fell into my lap. And I have priorities. I'm running out of time.”

Even as I said it, I wondered why I was wasting my time. A cold part of me told me that this woman was never going to come to her senses. She would rather kill me if she could than lend me a hand. Even though I looked like a ten-year-old boy, at best.

A ten-year-old who had smoked a lot or something, because my voice was still that of a man in his early thirties. But well.

“Oh? So if I were to offer to help you, you'd stop betraying humanity by allying yourself with that thing?”

Her offer didn't mean I was wrong about her. The truth was that she wasn't trying too hard to convince me. Pretty words were coming out of her mouth, but she kept trying to squash me like a bug with a tree trunk. The world's largest and most impractical windshield wiper.

“Can you smell souls?”

“What?”

“Yes, I'm looking for my soul. If you don't have similar skills, tough luck. I guess I'll stick with the tentacle monster.”

Again, priorities.

“You're literally a ghost. All soul. How does that work?”

“Yeah, I... I've been wondering that myself, actually.”

The woman finally hit something with the tree trunk, but it was just another tree. The blow was hard enough to shatter it completely.

I imagined what that could have done to my head.

My... Ectoplasm? Bending and shattering like that.

Hey, wait a minute. How the hell had she managed to avoid hitting another tree thus far with such broad, swift blows? Jesus Christ. Nothing made sense in this place.

“Bitch. Crazy bitch.”

Had she lost her weapon? No such thing. There were plenty of trees in the forest. All she had to do was grab another one.

With the strength the crazy bitch possessed, I'd say her fists were weapons enough, but hey. I couldn't expect her to behave like a halfway normal person. She was just crazy.

Crazy or not, she finally managed to deliver a good hit. For a few eternal seconds I was able to understand what a baseball felt like.

It was not what I would call a pleasant experience.

Neither was rolling down, swallowing dust and more shit. Until finally stopping.

“I'm going to kill her one of these days. Even if it's not today, I'll kill her. It hurts like hell.”

I was angry, but I hadn't forgotten that my priority was to escape. I already had what I wanted, some money. Defeating this woman, if we were capable in the first place, would get me nothing.

Plague came to my side, helping me to my feet. She was the most loyal tentacled monster I'd ever seen. Well, not exactly. My sister was into some weird stuff.

That woman came flying in with another tree in her hands.

But she was easily stopped. Not by me, of course. Plague stopped the attack, wrapping dozens of tentacles around the trunk. She stopped it in mid-air like it was no big deal.

As soon as she squeezed, it exploded into a thousand pieces. I was very, very grateful that she was on my side, and that woman the opposite. Now she looked even more frightened. I couldn't blame her.

We'd had a struggle over the sword, and though Plague was able to snatch it from me, it had cost her. Was she stronger now, since she was inhabiting a human body, or something? Maybe.

That woman backed away. She backed up, each step more unsteady than the last. I'd feel a little sorry for her except that she was my enemy and wanted to fuck me over.

“Why are you helping this guy?” Her legs weren't the only thing shaking now. Her voice was shaking too. “Aren't you supposed to want to eat us all?”

“Yes, I want to eat his soul.”

“Did you hear that?” Now there was a little disbelief mixed in with her fear. Not a lot, but a little.

“I knew that already.”

“You're crazy.” The woman took a couple more steps back, shaking her head. “But I guess I wouldn't be any better off if I'd died at nine and came back as a ghost.”

“No, no, that... I was a thirty-four-year-old man.”

Why were we talking? I felt like this world was driving me crazy, and I'd been a violent criminal for years. Okay. This wasn't the worst thing I'd ever done by a long shot, but it was still weird.

“That explains the voice. Well at least one thing makes sense.”

Episode 9: FIN