--Eira POV--
With the bear cub I found cooing in the middle of the forest I follow a line attached to the cub’s neck. While sprinting, I suck blood from a bag that was tied around the bear cub, and for some reason it feels like the first thing I’ve eaten in a long time. Ahead of me a bright door sits and the sound of something loud echoes in bursts of three.
“Try the scythe or something, Aponi! It’s the best thing we have now!” a voice shouts.
The door’s light becomes blinding as I run through without hesitation to escape the forest that feels wrong. Suddenly, I’m standing in a cavern where some strangely familiar people are having a chaotic battle combined with a shouting match. I stare at the scene before me, sucking the last of the blood from the bag.
‘This seems different. Less discombobulated and more normal, but what’s happening? Should I maybe do something?’
Contemplating my next action, I hand the blood bag to the cooing bear cub to keep it quiet.
A girl with long blond hair looks back at a woman behind her, “Just try doing whatever Eira does.”
‘Eira?’ my head starts to pound as memories begin flowing back. ‘What!? How long have I been wandering around aimlessly! Aponi and Eden are in a bad spot!’ Still groggy and unsure of what’s happening, I sprint toward the group of… ‘What are those things? Forget it! I just need to kill them now. Figure things out later.’ I glance between Eden and Aponi, ‘Eden just cut the hand off the kid and looks fine, but Aponi not so much.’
Darting around the kid, followed by Eden, I grab onto the hair of the thing that looks like an eyeless Callista and slam her to the ground.
‘Using that appearance is essentially blasphemy.’ Raising my foot, I bring it down upon the open-mouthed impostor. To my surprise, her head explodes into a gray substance, like a watermelon being smashed by an oversize mallet. ‘That isn’t normal.
[$*@&*(....]
‘Huh? Is Ego not functioning? I used it on the worms, though, but that does explain why Ego didn’t snap me out of whatever was happening… Forget it; I can remember most things now. I need to salvage this situation before it devolves any further… Ugh! This is my fault.’ Looking around, I attempt to access the situation better, ‘A copy of Robert as a child, a young-looking Jimmy, a younger-looking Kardama, and then finally this Callista in an earthly guise.’
I sigh in confusion and stare at Aponi, “Can I have my scythe back, please?”
““Eira!”” Eden and Aponi shout in tandem.
“Mhm…” I rub the back of my head, “I’m sorry for letting us get caught up in something so, uh, whatever this is… I thought we’d be able to get to Sam relatively quickly. I didn’t expect something so weird to be going on.”
Aponi is about to say something, but her eyes go wide instead, “Eira! Look down!”
“Eh!?”
Bending my head downward, I can see the flesh of Callista bubbling and clumping together. Raising my leg, I kick the impostor’s body, sending it sliding across the room, leaving a smear of gray fluid behind.
Watching as the fluid collects at the neck of Callista, I frown, “Do you know what these things weaknesses are?” I ask.
“Something to do with their eyes, we think!” Eden shouts.
I look at Eden with confusion, “Uh, what are you talking about!? They don’t seem to have eyes!”
Eden points at the child Robert who seems to be reattaching his hand, “It’s buried in their palms!”
“Eira.” Looking at Aponi, she tosses me the scythe and picks up where Eden left off, “We don’t know for sure if it’s a weakness, but they’re overly protective of them!”
I nod and place the bear cub on the ground and grip the scythe tightly, “Little bear, I need my hands, so just try and stay in the middle.” Then I turn toward the Aponi and Eden, “And thanks for the information… and getting me out of there.” My face turns a little hot, and I look away, “A-anyway, let’s try to take care of this quickly. ”
Callista begins to slowly stand with the upper half of her head missing, “F-f-false ido—”
Recognizing the dangers of leaving this particular impostor alive for too long, I arc the scythe sending a blood slice toward its raised hands. The impostor lowers its arms and places it behind itself, but the slice still runs through its torso. Its torso slowly separates and slides from its body splatting to the ground, but even so, the body parts continue to twitch and crawl back together.
Glancing behind me, I see Eden run her saber through the child Robert's face. He seemingly allows the saber to pierce him, and grabs for Eden’s left wrist, “M-M-Mr. Bear!” he yells.
Eden releases the saber, dodging child Robert’s clutches before jerking the saber from his face with her right hand. Looking at Aponi, I can see her struggling with two bear cubs while dodging the impostors. She tries to grab the tomahawk on her waist, but it's underneath the bear cubs that are hanging onto her tightly. The cubs crawl around on her like a house cat as she winces in pain, and I can see something in her snap, “Alright, dammit! I can’t keep doing this!” She tosses one of the cubs to the ground, ripping her shirt. The cub whines bitterly before quickly running to its brother in the middle.
‘Fighting these fakes is so weird! We should mix things up based on capabilities and who each impostor is most likely to attack.’
“Aponi, keep the last bear and fight the kid; he’ll keep attacking you if you have the bear. Eden, take young Kardama; he’ll be more inclined to attack you since you’re an angel... maybe.” I shrug and swing at Jimmy, who rolls to the side, “I’ll take the woman and young Jimmy.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Eden nods, “Payback for the tutorial then.”
Aponi gazes at Eden, “Angel? I thought the Tar Demon was just calling her that to be intimidating?”
“Save it!”
The impostors charge, and Eden and Aponi immediately swap foes.
Suddenly, I’m caught off guard when I notice a pair of claws swinging at me. I move my head in an effort to dodge, but the claws scrape at my cheek, leaving long scratches.
“You!” I raise my hand and grab its wrist. Twisting the palm to face it upward, I notice a closed fold of skin, and I decide to abandon using the scythe temporarily. I raise the scythe upward and release it, allowing it to lean against me, and then extend my claws.
“I-I-Impostor! False G—”
I bring my claw down into the palm and dig into it. The impostor begins to struggle violently and even bites my arm with her artificial fangs.
“Biting a vampire without permission! How insulting! How dare you!” I yell.
Feeling a fleshy orb in the palm, I tear it from its socket, revealing a bloodshot eye. The eye looks around in a panic causing me to make a devilish smile. With a laugh, I squeeze it, and it explodes with a disgusting pop. The impostor screeches an ear-piercing shriek causing her pathetic fangs to release my arm, so I kick her away. She continues to shriek as half of her body turns to sludge.
“Just one more eye,” I shout.
Suddenly someone crashes into my back tackling me to the ground.
“I-iI-insubordination!” A rain of fists starts punching me in the back of the head causing my consciousness to dim. I hear a loud squawk and Jimmy stops, “G-get off-f-f.”
With Jimmy no longer punching me, I flip over in time to see him send one of the bear cubs skidding across the concrete. Finally coming to a stop, it whimpers pitifully on its side.
“Eyeless naval wannabe!” I stab my claws into Jimmy’s neck and tear out what I can find. Again I jam my hand into its throat but this time I establish a firm grip so I can have some control over its movements.
Jimmy raises his fist and tries to punch me once again, but I move my head, and his fist slams into the concrete with a crack. With my hand still embedded in his throat, I roll and slam him to the ground, reversing our positions and putting him below me. With my free hand, I thrust my claws into one of his palms popping the eye within. Jerking my claws from its neck, I prepare to attack its other eye, but abruptly something viscous and gummy hits me, sending me onto my back.
Barely keeping my wits, I look up to see the half-melted Callista and a half-melted Jimmy doing something strange. Callista grabs onto Jimmy’s other hand and rips it from his body allowing it to melt into her own. Jimmy’s body deforms into a gooey mess, and it flows into Callista’s blending together. Glancing to my right, I see my scythe still laying where I was tackled to the ground. Grabbing the scythe, I jump to my feet and send a blood slice toward the pair, but to my surprise, the gooey mass of flesh absorbs the blow leaving only a shallow cut.
Seeing my own situation becoming worse, I decide to check the other two’s status, “Aponi, Eden, this is getting complicated; how are you two doing?”
“I got one eye,” Aponi answers.
“Yeah, same here,” Eden follows up.
I look back to see both child Robert and Kardama are both half-melted, “Just make sure—” before I finish my sentence, both begin to run in the direction of the merging Callista and Jimmy. “Wait, stop them!”
Aponi swings at Robert splitting the head into two, but it doesn’t stop him at all. Meanwhile, Eden aims for Kardama’s arm, but it spins its body to allow the saber to slice into its torso instead.
I step forward to stop at least one of them, “I’ll stop—”
“Eira watch out!” Aponi shouts.
Hearing her, I leap back just in time to avoid a gelatinous fist crashing into the concrete. The two impostors reach the blob and jump into the mass, doubling its size. I send two more blood slices, but the blob just absorbs the hits. The blob bubbles and blends together.
“Uh… this looks less than optimal.” Taking a few steps back, I pass over a few loose pieces of paper. “Eh? The manilla envelope?”
Eden looks at Aponi awkwardly, and then turns toward me, “Yeah, we grabbed it along with your scythe.”
“...Maybe there’s something in it? Please, be something in it.”
I pick up the paper and begin skimming through it as quickly as possible.
Dr. Francious Falenoz
Lead Researcher of Project “God’s Doppelgänger”
Day 1: Today marks the first day of a project that we hope will help the Society to carve out a place after the End becomes the Beginning. Ten years ago, the God Between gave the Aged Palm a gift, how fitting we start research today! The gift, put simply, was a weapon, but no ordinary weapon, this one was alive, a living weapon that was supposedly forged from pieces of God's own body. The God Between told us we could use the weapon how we see fit, and that is where this project comes in. The ultimate aim of the project is simple, the capability to clone God.
Day 175: The project is not going well, the DNA that makes up the weapon is nearly incomprehensible, Hell it doesn’t even seem like the DNA is a double helix. We’ve given up on trying to analyze the DNA, and instead, we are going to experiment via other means. The patient arrives next week, and the goal is to graft pieces of the weapon to their body. Apparently we’ll be working with The Consortium, so they’ll be providing us with patients and also sending some of their own researchers. Anyway, I believe they’ll be sending us a young boy who was a bit of a trouble maker that liked going around banging on doors in a vain attempt to interrupt Consortium harvesting efforts.
‘The Consortium again? Those were the people that were harvesting that fluid from Robert when he was a child.’
Day 189: The grafting resulted in near-instant insanity. However! It also resulted in a huge strength increase in the patient. The boy, who couldn’t be more than six, tore himself from his restraints and began shredding the researchers apart. We had to flood the room with Sarin gas before someone could go in. When we tried to recover the body it was nowhere to be found to our great astonishment. Ah, and note to self, talk to the Worm Boy project team about keeping their damn worms in their section of the facility.
I look up to see the blob still bubbling, and take a few steps back continuing to skim, ‘The next six paragraphs is just him complaining about all the worms he’s found. Come on! Write something useful!’
Day 398: We’ve made absolutely no progress. Every graft has resulted in the exact same thing. Immediate insanity and the second visual is lost they disappear. We had constant surveillance on one patient for three months straight once, but when an intern spilled their coffee, all individuals tasked with observation blinked. When they opened their eyes, the patient was gone. The other projects in the facility have all had much better progress than us. Need to stop worrying about obstructive things like ‘morals’ and increase the number of tests.
Day 787: Researchers have reported seeing things in their dreams and in the corners of their vision! I’m nearly positive this isn’t a side effect of any of the other ongoing projects in the facility. Personally, I think we found the lost patients! It makes perfect sense that the patients would retreat to the Place in Between if they could!
‘This is all really interesting, but this isn’t helping my current situation!’ I skim the documents looking for something more pertinent to our situation.
Day 1421: We’ve found that the beings are drawn to areas under the influence of Mind Magic. This explains why they haven’t left the facility as the entire facility is under sound and memory wards. I’m proposing a plan to set up an area with the most powerful Mind Magic wards we can manage. Luckily the Two Palm Society’s expertise is Mind Magic, although it’ll take a long time to gather the required supplies to cast the wards.
‘That’s also interesting, and explains a lot, but I need to know specifically about the big gray blob!’ I glance up again finding the situation unchanged and look back at the paper. ‘Anything! Anything more recent!’
“Eira! Look!” Eden yells, and I look up to see the gray blob shambling toward me.