Hard to think in the flat space pressed between dimensions.
Hard to be.
Grey light assaulted Zoe’s mind like the dreary dawn after rain. Scintillating blue, pink, and yellow, lurked beneath her skin — if the flesh was something she could have in a place like this — if a place was something that could exist in the cracks of reality — if reality was something that —
Every time through the portal was different.
The thing she called her ‘mind’ was trying its best to understand, to know, to remember but so much more slipped through her fingers like sand into a hungry abyss —
From everything, to nothing, to something —
Cold air.
A vibrant sky of molten gold.
The portal spat her out onto a pile of snow. Face down she inhaled shuddering breaths. Vapor rose from her scarred lips. The snow soothed her aching body. With her enhanced Vitality, she almost found it comfortable. Left to her own devices, she might have fallen asleep, but when was she ever left to her own devices?
A hand touched her shoulder.
“Zoe?” Bella asked.
“Five more minutes?”
“Hilarious.”
Zoe pushed herself up off the ground. Curious how she didn’t feel the cold in her chains. Usually, it was fingers and toes that went numb first, but numbness was a constant reality for her unless she focused on touch. Was it something she missed?
ding!
Of course not! I am so much better than anything called Touch.
You’re right, Zoe grinned.
She looked around.
“So, we’re back here?”
They sat outside the gas station. The building looked the same as it did when they left. Snow piled up on the roof and against the walls. Cars buried. The whole place felt eerie. A desolate reminder of things lost after the apocalypse squeezed the world in its fist.
Zoe stood.
“Let’s get what provisions we can and head toward the town.”
The others nodded, her serious mood infecting their joy after escaping Hell. Whether it was exhaustion or the empathic link of [Our Hearts Toll as One], she couldn’t say.
###
As Zoe filled a scavenged backpack with jerky and individually packaged brownies, the cold voice of the system whispered through her mind.
[Hellbreaker: your time in hell is treated as real-time and you earn commensurate rewards from death energy and meditation]
[Calculating reward backlog…]
Zoe glanced at the others, a huge smile spreading on her face.
“Did you all get the same achievement?”
“No?” Bella asked.
“Hellbreaker,” Anton said.
“Yeah!” Zoe said.
“Hell yeah I did,” he laughed before he clutched his head. “Ah!”
Zoe frowned before the same Arctic sensation rushed through her body.
[Level up! You are now level 46]
15 levels gained from her exploits. From defeating the One-Legged-Worm and the Angel called Sorrow. She almost felt a tinge of disappointment. Surely that should have been worth more, at least taking her to the threshold level of 50. Though she knew theoretically that her growth was absurd — Oriz had said as such many times — she was always struggling.
That must be the definition of an unfair world. Though she supposed that —
It hit her like a sledgehammer to the guts.
Shock radiated before she even understood what was happening.
Her hunger bloomed. It gnawed at her cells. Every pore became a mouth sucking at the world. She fell to her knees. The cold poured into her body. It would never end.
The abyssal emptiness demanded satiation.
“Everyone…”
Her friends looked at her, caught unaware in their celebration.
“Boss?” Anton asked.
“Everyone get out!”
She couldn’t control this. Couldn’t even begin to try.
[Please select an element to incorporate:]
* [Metal: might +2, willpower +2]
* [Blood: vitality +4]
* [Stone: dexterity -2, might +2, willpower +4]
Blood: the traces of the One-Eyed Crow’s followers and her friends. Stone: the concrete of the building. Neither would fit her body path, but she didn’t know what would happen if she tried to incorporate them. She couldn’t risk it.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Her friends backed away toward the exit.
Zoe struggled to control the hunger. She fell forward, her forehead slammed against the tiled floor hard enough to crack it.
“Run!”
They hurried outside. Oriz was the last to leave, and as the alien woman exited the building, Zoe relaxed her control. The moment she let it slip, her hunger escaped.
She lost control of herself.
Metal.
No, she begged, the imbalance! Find something else, please!
Her chains lashed out and shredded the building, exposing the steel girder bones. Even as she looked, the structure peeled and shredded into hissing tendrils. Snakes of steel swam through the air as her body sucked through the jumpsuit.
They wove into her Skein: this metal felt dull and dutiful, obedient and enduring, and she leaned into the feeling in an attempt to escape the frigid pain wracking her body.
Black filth vomited from her mouth as the Metal filled her. Chains kept whipping. They grabbed at a girder above and wrenched. The roof collapsed. A swirling sky of neon yellow glowed. The metal groaned, and the invisible tendrils of sound flowed toward her. They struck her body and resonated and she ground her teeth as black filth flowed between them. Rebellious, protestation, the screams of something that should stay silent. Mouths formed in her flesh. The face of hounds poking out through her jumpsuit.
Gunk flowed from her body as essence filled her.
She flopped about, chains thrashing limbs, like an octopus lost on land. Her face rested beside a pool of frozen blood from one of the men she killed so long ago. Her reflection stared back at her — a face lost in pain — and a composed part of her mind reached for that haunted visage in the frozen blood.
The reflection peeled away from the pool as tendrils of Mirror flowed into her eyes.
She screamed. So cold. So empty. She didn’t know if it would ever stop, ever be enough, and then — she lay in silence.
Pain.
Her body lay twisted and panting in the center of the shattered gas station. It looked as though a bomb went off. The entire roof was gone. Concrete and drywall lay in chunks around her, burying the shelves. Someone shook her. She blinked.
Bella stood over her.
Arms came down. Warm fingers wiped away the sludge on her skin. Hugged her. Held her close. She was disgusting. Dirty. Zoe tried to push away, but Bella held her tighter. Zoe felt the Might coursing through her muscles. She could break free if she wanted. She could kill Bella. Stop anyone from holding her against her will.
She didn’t need to take this.
No chains could hold her.
But she leaned into the warm embrace. Wept. tears cutting through the filth matted on her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Zoe said. “I couldn’t control it and…”
“Shhh,” Bella said.
She rubbed her back and rocked her slightly as snow drifted down through the hole in the roof.
###
They left the shattered gas station behind them and started down the same road they first took. This time they ran. All of them had gained levels from their time in Hell.
Bella sat at 35
Anton at 26
Skidmark at 27
Even Oriz had brought herself to 57, though she said it felt different gaining from experience rather than from kill energy.
But none had gained as much as Zoe.
She was almost at the cut-off point of level 50 where her body and her path forward would change. Oriz hadn’t elaborated on the topic, saying it would make sense when it came.
The five of them powered through the thick snow as they diverged from the road and into the forest.
STATUS
Name: Zoe Chambers
Level: 46
Body: The Bell At The Center Of The World (Rank 4, Progress 6/10), Flesh of the Rabid Hound
ATTRIBUTES
Might: 120 (+33)
Vitality: 40
Dexterity: 54 (+5)
Willpower: 119 (+33)
Insight: 48 (+13)
Skein: 381 (+83)
Chains: 20, 1
Free Points: 15
Titles: Intrepid, Lodestone, Quest Breaker, Glutton, True Believer, The Magnifying Glass, Mayor of Unnamed Town, Hellbreaker
Techniques: Our Hearts Toll As One, Empress In Time, Mind’s Eye Incision, Ruddy Chain
The power she felt was incredible. Leveling up this significantly felt closer to when she first made gains after the plane crash. The change in her abilities was staggering. She felt as though each step could shatter the earth. The trees she passed seemed so much frailer than before. What would it be like to go through the Mirrorbell dungeon now? She couldn’t imagine that something like the Puppeteer of Bones would be challenging anymore.
Even the final boss would be something she could face with confidence.
Her body path nagged at her as well.
[The Bell At The Center Of The World]
[Rank 4 upgrades]
* [Resonant Tear: strike resonant frequencies to destabilize and collapse points in space and time]
* [The Heart Sings: spread your emotions through the vibrations you create]
* [Note of Clarity: enter the Bell at the Center of the World without effort or cooldown]
Every one of these upgrades was a massive improvement in power. There weren’t many more upgrades to go since her body path had 6 ranks. She could tell that her previous choices influenced her current options, as well as the way she had wielded her body path up till now.
After her experiences maintaining the portals Bella created, she could see the possibilities for option one. But her interactions with her friends had also shown how potent the ability to manipulate and control emotion could be. Even the final choice, while not offering any new abilities, would drastically improve her ability to use her body path.
She leaned toward option one, but, as before, she was determined not to rush into the choice. They would reach the town soon, and that would influence her decision. Though she wouldn’t let something so immediate force her hand. She had to think of the future.
There was one problem though as they ran through the snow. Anyton’s eyes whizzed past surveilling the area, but even he didn’t have an answer: How much time had passed while they were in Hell?
If time was one to one then it could have been weeks and they would have lost all chances of saving the town.
They still had the quest to expand the safe zone, but that quest had no time limit. Would it still exist if they were too late?
It might explain why they saw no mantises as they raced through the forest: they were all in the town feasting upon the corpses of civilians. Did they deserve such a fate after sacrificing innocents to prolong their lives?
No.
Some of the town members were innocents being sacrificed after all and…
It was her town, damn it, and even her status confirmed it as such.
But if the mantis couldn’t interact with the polyp that might not mean anything. It could all be a trap to lure them in.
She couldn’t know.
Of course, the last time Bella and Oriz went to Hell, though they had been inside for months, they said that no time had passed when they returned. If that was the case, then they still had three days before the mantis would attack.
She wasn’t sure if she should believe the words of the Ambassador. Though they had felt true at the time.
Her mind went round in circles, but they would have to wait until they reached the town. They would either have time, or it would be too late, it was as simple as that.
She tried to tell herself it was as simple as that, though the lives of hundreds hung on the line.
No. She could only focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Her time in Hell had reforged her. She was stronger now. Whatever came her way, she could face it with confidence. Once the town was secured, she would turn her sights toward the Mountains and the other dungeons spread throughout the New Earth.
Her hunger approved of the thought: there was always new power to gain.
Of course, there was another problem…
Rue.
He had formed a new system and she knew Earth lay at the center of his power. But where were the signs of this? What form would this take, if any?
Another question she couldn’t possibly answer, and so she bent her mind to running. She moved ahead of the others. Running uphill like a vanguard clearing snow and trees from their paths like a furious bulldozer. Anton’s eyes managed to keep up ahead of her.
“Wait!” he called out.
Zoe skidded to a stop and kicked up a wave of snow. She huffed, body steaming. The trees had thinned at the crest of the hill. The slope on the other side was a cliff.
“What is it?” Zoe asked.
“Mantis up ahead. It looks like a war party.”