Liam
Wednesday, May 11th, 2022 (50 days after the Shutdown)
Seconds became minutes as he felt his lifeblood draining out. Flesh wounds were becoming a daily occurrence and were typically nothing to bat an eye about. However, in those idyllic situations, Liam had a chance to patch his wound, stop the blood flow, and administer basic treatment.
But the puncture wounds from the tree roots were draining him, further aggregated by a non-stop marathon through the Laurelwood Forest for the past three and a half hours.
He would be dead soon.
Liam closed his eyes, a bitter smile tugging at his bleeding lips. The rest of the crystal sphere he’d found was lying in the center of another crater, this one significantly larger. Pale white flames danced around the edge of the clearing, warding away all the monsters but Liam had a feeling that they weren’t directly responsible for the marked absence of the shadows monsters.
Serene and as pale as the moonlight shining down on him, the orb beckoned him to come closer, caressing his mind like a lover. Feeling no ill intentions, Liam crawled closer, his stomach scrapping scorched earth and burnt branches. Getting closer, the crystal shard he’d picked up from the first crater quivered violently, moving toward the sphere.
Noticing the behavior, he didn’t hesitate to join the two pieces.
A clear ringing echoed from the completed crystal, sending shockwaves across the crater. Tree limbs cracked – the nearest of which was a good 40 feet away – and branches, rocks, and leaves were swept away by the energy released from the fusion of the two pieces.
In the depths of the forest, monsters resting in the shadows of trees after the disappearance of the mortal were jolted out of their stupor by the powerful gust that hurled them away, driving them back to the city from whence they came.
Even after realizing the translucent sphere worked as some kind of totem against the Medusas – the name of the amorphous monsters that had haunted him for the past week – Liam was still surprised at the disappearance of their wails. The ringing persisted in the clearing.
In response, his body began to react as something within him resonated.
After having overextended its abilities during their escape from the Plaza, Liam’s eldritch companion had sealed itself within his soul to recuperate, cutting off any connection to the physical world. Well... the details of the “soul-sealing” part remained a mystery to Liam. Despite the crash course the creature had given him, he still had numerous unanswered questions. But to simplify it, there was some connection between the demon and cradle that existed in the metaphysical realm, and that cradle wanted the sphere.
Shivering as cool a gust swept through the clearing, his muscles shuddered as he lifted the sphere, surprisingly heavy for its small size. Pressing his face close to it, Liam saw multiple worm-like motes of energy swimming through the orb, their movement fluctuating at every pulse the sphere sent out.
Why would you want this?
Recognizing his death was nearing as the night’s stars retreated to make way for the morning’s Sun, Liam pressed the sphere into his solar plexus, trembling as it made contact with his skin through his shredded clothes. Almost immediately, his skin shimmered and started to glow. His entire skeletal structure was revealed as the sudden energy made his skin translucent. When he could open his eyes again, the sphere had disappeared.
It was then that Liam realized how stupid he’d been. The sphere had been the only thing capable of keeping the Medusas away and now, genius that he was, he had used it in his ritual. The ringing stopped and howls returned to the forest, hundreds closing in from all sides.
Yet, before he could piece together any semblance of a plan, his spine went rigid.
Oh. Ah, shit —
The motes of energy trapped in the sphere surged through him, illuminating his body like a torch as it scrapped the insides of his nerves, forcefully expanding them to accommodate the ripples of energy tearing through them. Each heartbeat was a hammer strike against the cradle as it forcefully dissolved the sphere, rapidly absorbing energy to progress its growth.
His senses were overwhelmed by the intensity of the suffering, blurring the lines between consciousness and oblivion. Collapsing onto his back, he flailed on the ground as his body temperature rose in tandem.
There was too much for him to handle.
His heart was beating so fast, struggling to handle the power trapped inside, till the rhythm of his heart flatlined. His body wasn’t a strong enough vessel to contain it. Screaming as his nerve ends burst, shockwaves of pain traveled throughout his body. His skin began to crack and a puddle of blood soaked the earth, bubbling from the heat emanating from Liam’s body.
If he couldn’t withstand it, he’d have to contain it. But it was as hopeless as stopping a river with tissue paper. He couldn’t muster the willpower to squeeze it back into the sphere. So he came up with another plan.
If he couldn’t contain it, he would divert it and contain the river in a new reservoir. Hardpressed for an idea, only one came to mind.
Abandoning his efforts to restrain his flailing body, his body went haywire with his extremities battering the soil around him as they lost control. Getting ahold of his knife, with his last breath he stabbed it into his chest.
It seamlessly cut through his skin like it’d been waiting for it.
His teeth shattered as he clenched down till his bloody gums rubbed against one another, failing to fight back a fresh wave of pain. Crashing into the feeble attempt of a shield he’d put up, his consciousness was pulled deeper into oblivion but the anguish from the knife directed his attention.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Rushing to heal his wound, magic that had been running rampant was drawn towards the knife. With the demon’s cradle directly below, energy enveloped the length of the oblong shape, and a myriad of colors blossomed on the surface as they interacted with one another.
Unable to initiate his Sphere of Perception because of the pain, the next phase of his plan was the most difficult — containing the overflowing power of the crystal in a new construct.
As the cradle accepted the power, his body’s color changed accordingly, turning from crystalline white to darker shades of red till it settled into a stygian shroud, camouflaging him with the earth beneath his back. The energy surrounding the cradle began seeping into it, causing cracks to form on its surface.
Now.
Only two-thirds of the crystal’s power was exhausted, with magic still tearing and healing his insides in an endless cycle. But with the majority gone, it was enough for him to concentrate.
Diverting a river wasn’t difficult if you disturbed the river bank but trying to guide a torrent of archaic magic with nothing but fleeting willpower was stupidly impossible.
Soft puffs escaped his lungs, steaming in the brisk air of the early morning hours as inside his body, a battle ensued. There was no structure amidst the turmoil of the magic, with waves of energy swallowed by larger ones and whirlpools forming sporadically as equal forces clashed within his body. Trying to decipher the limitless sea of power felt like standing on the edge of a crumbling coastline, knowing that if you stayed too long, you’d be swallowed by the madness below.
Abandoning his plans of using his senses, he narrowed the scope of his perception, till he was solely focusing on a fist-sized sphere centered around the knife.
The idea was something he’d heard from his childhood friend, David, who’d brought it up years ago during one of his rants about the latest fiction. A mana heart. Mana – the term he decided to label the archaic magic from the crystal – would be condensed and serve as a battery for his supernatural abilities.
When he’d used his borrowed powers in the past, the process employed at the time was inefficient as he would absorb energy from others, and immediately dispense it. And until he used it, the energy would settle around his body and leak out under the stress of daily activities.
So he started to pull.
Using the knife as a conduit, Liam guided the mana circulating throughout his body to his chest. Gasping at the spike in pain, he pushed it to the side and continued. Tighter and tighter, he wound it until order arose from the chaos. Where the knife had plunged into him, the nuclei of his mana heart appeared. It was the size of a pin head but it was there, at the center of the growing whirlpool.
Hurrying as the whirlpool picked up pace, he started condensing the mana when he noticed the first issue. By focusing on forming a ring with this much untamed power, there was no safeguard to regulate the flow and speed of the coiling mana and it would inevitably rip him apart from within.
But a sphere could work…
Exchanging his plan, his body reacted as a ball of mana started to appear within him. With mana still flowing in every direction, thousands of collisions between different streams occurred every millisecond and their ripples of energy reverberated outwards. Though unintended, the constant collisions served another purpose. It hampered the speed of the cycles. Taking advantage of it, he channeled more mana to the center of the nuclei, compressing and condensing it.
Immersed in the process, the throes of pain receded leaving him in the gentle embrace of the morning. Not having opened his eyes since he started, he was left wondering what happened to the Medusas chasing him and the amount of time that passed outside. Those answers would come later as he could feel the process coming to completion.
His inexperience led to some of the mana leaching out but it was negligible. The majority of it was circulating the mana heart he’d formed at his solar plexus and as time went on, the remaining energy in his body would be drawn to it like a black hole.
The last part was the cradle. All this time as he worked on the mana heart, the cradle had waited in stasis, its nourishment whisked away from it and channeled into the mana heart. But it was on the precipice of evolving. The cracks had widened on its surface; an ethereal glow emanating through the gaps.
Drawing a single mana vein from the heart to the cradle beneath, his mind blanked as his body exploded in golden light.
***
Saturday, May 14th, 2022 (53 days after the Shutdown)
Nina had gone through a rollercoaster of emotions over the past few days.
After permanently moving into Sheffield Steel – their warehouse in the Industrial Complex – Liam had grown distant. Lately, that translated to him staying behind in the forest late into the night.
She had an inkling as to the ‘why’ of it all, but given the kindness he’d shown her after everything she’d been through, she didn’t pry into it. But her anxiety rose when she heard the shrieks of Medusas rushing through the Industrial Complex. They were on the hunt, and as the sound disappeared into the distance, she paled when she realized their direction was the forest.
That was three days ago.
Her anxiety had graduated to full-on dread. They’d briefly discussed that if either one disappeared, the other wouldn’t go looking for them. Having two people blindly running around was a hopeless scenario.
Bolstering the warehouse’s defenses with the metal sheets, she holed up within, surviving on their remaining food. If something was strong enough to kill Liam, they would have an easier time finishing her off.
Yet, being cooped up inside became suffocating. Her uncle had told her about a ladder from the second floor to the roof, so after hunting around for it, she pulled down the latch and climbed up to the roof.
It was the most peaceful the city had ever been. Blue skies dotted with clouds stretched above her. There were times she heard rustling below, but those rare occurrences had always been rubbish skittering across the road. Nina could almost imagine that with how quiet things had become, she was isolated in her own world, with only her thoughts to keep her company. There was the tower and the Plaza, far to the north of her. To her west and south, the Laurelwood Forest served as a proud backdrop, and to the east, the Industrial Complex continued unabated. She’d spent most of her time up here, watching, waiting for something to happen in the city.
And on the morning of the third, it happened.
Since the night she’d spent hiding as Medusas ran rampant across the Industrial Complex, there hadn’t been a single haunted wail from the city. It hadn’t taken long for the rest of the people to notice the absence based on the fires and the thundering of gunfire echoing across the city. The war to claim resources had restarted.
No one had ventured into the Industrial Complex since everyone’s priority was still food and water, but as they started to settle down, their eyes would turn to the forest and its bounty. Scavengers would cut across the Okanagan Industrial Avenue, tearing about the sanctuary she'd maintained.
So, imagine her relief when she saw a shirtless figure walking towards the warehouse, his arms and legs bruised, carrying two garbage bags and a stupid smile.
Smiling down at him despite her annoyance, Liam returned it.
“Was I late?”