The skeleton crouched over Cassy like a fleshless hen. Blood soaked the parched grass as Cassy gasped for air. A pile of ancient weapons lay on the ground, spilled from Cassy’s arms, and the skeleton reached for a spiked club with contemptuous ease. It raised the rusted weapon high.
Zoe sprinted.
She could imagine the club falling. A pendulous arc ticking down time. Ringing in the end of Cassy’s life. A life deemed her responsibility by the quest in the back of her mind.
She devoured the distance. Bare feet crushing dry grass to dust.
[Skein 30/58]
By her calculation, her Skein recovery was equal to her Vitality score every hour. 30 felt like a lot, but she knew how fast it burned. She couldn’t risk spending it all. Zero Skein would have her passing out again.
But she could spend some.
And so she grasped the thread of power within.
[Skein 25/58]
Desperation brought control. Her Skein surged. Muscles strained with power. Her toes gripped dirt, sending up chunks with each stride. She shot forward.
Faster than a human had any right to be.
But not fast enough.
The club came down and struck Cassy in the back of the head. Bone cracked. Blood oozed. Somewhere, Joel screamed. The skeleton, grinning, raised the club again.
Zoe leaped through the air. Her stitches tore open as she crashed into the skeleton. Rolled across the ground. The mirrored skeleton Flailed in her arms. Baleful fire flashed in her face as it clacked its jaw. Percussion without meaning as she straddled it. The club swung into her side. Crude spikes dug into the flesh below her reopened wound.
Too furious to even wince.
[Skein 20/58]
Above her head, two fists formed a hammer glinting like steel. She snarled and brought them down like a meteor.
###
Anton sat on the tall headstone and tapped his heel against the mirrored surface as Zoe pounded the skeleton into mirrored splinters. Once it stopped moving, she started tending to Cassy.
That was good. He liked Cassy. She was young, but not as stupid as he had been at her age.
Hell, as he had been yesterday. Not that he was smart now. He gazed at the back of his hand. Scars and wrinkles and some freckles and hairs. So much going on, and it was just a tiny piece of skin.
Another skeleton strode toward Zoe like a broken puppet. The black woman rose, her fists ready as blood spoiled her pinstripe shirt. Hideous shirt. Anton smiled up at the sky.
The others hadn’t noticed the curve beyond the blue, like looking up at a great reflection. Almost invisible through the fog of distance. He remembered being out in the California desert, digging graves at dawn, staring out at the mountains. That’s how blue they looked.
If his Insight grew higher, maybe he could see himself sitting in that mirror ball graveyard in the sky.
He couldn’t believe how much he could see now.
When prompted to pick an element he only picked Sky because of the sky-high club.
He chuckled. It was still funny, sure, but the selection made his mind explode. Not that he was smarter. High school math still lay dumped in the back of his mind like something that fell behind a fridge…
Would he ever see his fridge again?
A six-pack of IPA sat on the middle shelf. Tall cans, a little treat. His reward for a job well done after Australia. What happened to those cans when the world broke apart?
He sighed, but couldn’t stay sad.
Insight unfolded the world like a flower. He understood what people meant by smelling the roses. Everything was gorgeous. Dripping with anticipation.
Zoe ducked the swing of a sickle. Her knee crushed ribs. She grabbed the reflective skull like a bowling ball and ripped it free. Snap of vertebrae like a chrome socket falling on concrete. The skeleton fell to the ground, and Zoe panted over to the bleeding-out college kid as Joel rushed over.
Damn, Zoe sure was a fighter.
How was Anton supposed to kill her? Well, same as anyone. From behind. In the dark. Or something like that. Bummer to follow someone across the world just to kill them. He didn’t know why Zoe and her boyfriend were running, but he wasn’t paid to know.
They paid him to put bodies in shallow graves.
Depressing thought, but he was glad he didn’t have to do that anymore. Sure, she owed his boss money. Hell, he owed his boss money.
But who knew if his boss was even alive?
Anton whistled and hopped down, marveling at how he floated and tiptoed through the gravestones. He dodged the strike of a skeleton and kept walking. Bella and Joel stood guard above Cassy while Zoe tore hideous bandages. He left them to their foolishness.
They were fighting the wrong thing.
Couldn’t they feel it?
Strings hummed beneath the dusty soil. Linked the graves. Each step he took, each twitch of the skeletons, all of it plucking at the invisible web. He held out a hand, feeling the way the wind blew across the hairs on the back.
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Was life… was it sacred? Should he give up his life of violence? Tears welled in his eyes. Maybe he was just really happy?
He didn’t have to give up anything, really, but he liked the way he felt. Insight was good, and he determined to gain more of it. He wanted to open the flower of the world. But to do that he needed to level up.
To level up, he needed to kill monsters. Feel that cool rush like sucking down the inhaler he stole from his friend in high school. Whatever happened to that kid? Wimping Larry? Limping Harry?
Whatever.
Wind bristled the hairs on the back of his hand. They moved in time with the pulsing strings. He jumped over the spearpoint of a mirrored skeleton and landed on a grave. The skeleton turned and slashed, but Anton leaped away.
Ignore the distractions. Follow the strings. Find the puppeteer. Then he could level up.
###
Bella stood guard. Rust-pitted machete in one hand and a heat-warped wooden shield in the other. A skeleton dragged a long thin sword, carving a perfect furrow in the dirt, as it stalked toward her. Runes down the blade’s length that hurt her brain to observe. Horned helmet fused to its shiny skull by a century’s rust. Green flares for eyes. A grin of shiny chrome reflected her distorted figure.
As though the marching death already devoured her.
Foolish excitement filled her. How could she stand here with weapons and fight monsters? This was too much like the online games her brother played. He was Cassy’s age, and her vision dipped to see the blood oozing from the girl’s wound as Zoe crouched and wrapped a pinstriped rag around the wound.
Was Cassy going to die?
Was her brother already dead? She knew he would have jumped at the chance to play a real-life game. He had to be in the tutorial. Had to be. But what about her parents? What about — ?
She shook her head.
How could Zoe be so calm? She hadn’t even hesitated to charge the skeletons. Bella followed without hesitation, but couldn’t hide that she hadn’t taken the first step.
The skeleton neared. Marching. Grinning.
Bella never experienced death outside a hospital. Never experienced blood outside a slip of a kitchen knife or a bad time of the month. Even on a mining site, even setting explosives underground, actual injuries were few.
People didn’t get clubbed to death by spiked maces in a dungeon that looked like a rural church.
It didn’t happen.
The skeleton swung its sword underhand. Contemptuous. Fast. Her Insight let her see it coming. She pulled her shield into the way. The blow rang through her arm and knocked her to the side. Her strength let her keep her feet.
She could run.
Out the corner of her eye, she saw Anton walking about. What was he even doing? Doing nothing to help.
She could be like him.
But that meant leaving Zoe. leaving Joel, who stood behind her, a blunt axe in his hands, facing his own adversary.
She couldn’t leave. The momentary cowardice burned out like a moth in a grease fire.
She gave up running away when she entered the dungeon.
She stepped back to her place as the skeleton raised its blade. She had the same Title as the others. She felt stronger, faster, more aware.
Who cared if she didn’t take the first step?
The skeleton’s blade met her shield. Runed iron bit through wood. Found flesh. Blood flowed.
She gritted her teeth against the pain and swung the machete as hard as she could. It cracked against the skull. The skeleton staggered back. Green flames sputtered from its eye sockets. Flared from the fractures as the jaw unhinged in a silent roar.
It pulled the sword from her wound, and she cried out. Blood slicked the hand clasping the shield handle. She let it fall and swung again. Both hands gripped the machete handle. Rusted blade met runed. Sparks flew as the skeleton deflected her attack and she stumbled forward. Clawed fingers reached for her eyes.
She ducked back. The blade should be heavy. She stepped in and swung again. Striking a shoulder and chipping bone. Mirrored flecks filled the air. She swung again, and something stirred in her chest.
A chord wrapped around her muscles.
[Skein 30/36]
Her blade crashed through the skeleton’s helmet. Bisected the shining skull. The bones dropped into a pile. Green fire died.
Bella stood, panting, as blood ran hot down her fingers. In the distance, more skeletons climbed from their crucifixes. Empty crosses stood like beacons of danger. Mirrored bones flashed like walking sunshine.
Bella picked up her shield, and stepped forward.
###
Zoe rechecked Cassy’s vitals. Stable, but unresponsive. Blood soaked her bandages. Zoe needed to tear off more, but that could wait. She placed her hands beside the wound. Focused on her Skein. It squirmed in her chest like a python, she felt it directionless, wanting to flow into her attributes. She directed it toward Cassy, the skin in her palms tingled, burned, but nothing happened.
She sighed, and sat back. Defeated. Her Skein could not pass beyond her own flesh.
How long had she ignored the clashing of metal and mirrored bone? Bella stood a dozen paces away clubbing at a legless skeleton with the twisted remnants of her machete. Joel leaned against a nearby grave His shirt dark with sweat as he heaved up his guts. An axe handle in a white knuckle grip.
Collapsed skeletons littered the surrounding grass. Zoe wondered at the lack of cold death energy. Did she feel none because she needed to select an element?
Skeletons moved in the distance. A line of them pursued Anton. What was he doing?
“Joel,” she stood. “Come here.”
He scrambled over.
“Is she alright? Cassy?”
Zoe stopped him from shaking the young woman crumpled on the ground.
“She’s not bleeding out. But she’s not conscious. We need to keep her safe.”
“What if we get her to a hospital? To doctors?”
“I’m a doctor, Joel. And we can’t know what hospitals will look like once we get out of here. Listen to me, Joel. That’s our first step: getting out of here. Do you understand?”
Joel looked up at her with dull eyes. A thin slice on his forehead framed his face with trickling blood.
He nodded. His earlier rebellion seemed beaten out.
“I…” he cleared his throat. “I understand you. But she’ll be alright?”
Zoe didn’t want to lie, but this was no time for uncertainty.
“She has us to protect her. We’ll get through this together,” she looked him in the eye. “She’ll be fine.”
He nodded, too busy cradling Cassy’s hand to respond. Zoe couldn’t be sure if he believed her, but she walked away.
A stirring in a nearby pile of bones caught her attention. The mirrorlike substance wasn’t just a coating. Even the shattered segments were reflective. She touched a rib. Room temperature and smooth.
A finger reached out of the mirror world and pressed against her own.
The bone twitched under her touch.
She jerked her hand away. The bone rocked. Slight movements that could have been the wind, if the bones weren’t too heavy. They jostled, and twitched, faster until they rolled across the ground. Inching toward each other.
Zoe’s eyes widened with horror.
The skeletons were reforming.