“Dirofil’s description of the Murkhound as a Komondor is valuable, but it begs the question: Where can the Komondorok’s natural habitat be found? Do they spawn in clusters? lenses? A whole layer? How far do dogs need to be from this hypothetical place before they begin to mutate? That is, assuming they abominate when displaced away from their peers by natural processes of the sea or Thinker action. Furthermore, this begs the following question: What sort of process disrupted the original structure of the sea, creating the first titanic dogs whose very movement engenders more abominations? Aberration needs a first mover, be it part of Cynothalassa’s nature, or some Splinter’s fault…”

—One of Doratev’s many recordings

Among the screams of panic coming through the Corgite of the walls, flowing up and down the corridors like rivers of despair, and assailing Dirofil’s mind, he advanced in the dark, tail and cape dragging on the lattice of the floor. His lungs let out a howl every few steps, another sound clone that the Murkhound would collide with if it decided to attack from behind.

His psyche bellowed a question in the saturated mind links. Where? Everybody seemed to answer at once each time, and the Murkhound seemed to be everywhere. The only victim reported so far had been Filbaros. Morbilliv remained suspiciously silent during the whole ordeal. Either he refused to communicate, which made no sense to Dirofil, or the crisis had found him meditating. Or maybe he had grown tired of the chitchat of the crew and decided to detune himself from the usual communication channels.

Morbilliv, brother, can you hear me? He asked in all channels simultaneously, sending out an unusually powerful wave of thought energy that rippled from his core and silenced the unseen world around him for an instant.

I can, Dirofil. Keep your mind down, the Reaper is close by and I am trying to accrue some thoughtenergy in the meantime. What’s the whole ruckus about? Why have the Psycholocators suddenly left their posts?

Ah, that explained it. Morbilliv had answered through the psycholocators channel, that was eerily silent for the moment. Probably trying to shed off as little energy as he could to avoid the ship being detected by the Reaper.

Ignoring the emergency channels to grieve in solitude, how reckless of you. Quick rundown: Filbaros thinks no more, a Murkhound is making the rounds in the ship and likely stalking its next victim. It could be you. It could be me. It could be Kirval. Actually, I hope it is Kirval.

Kirval answered through the same channel. And I hope it is you!

It could be anywhere. We need to gather everyone in the refining room. Fetch Doratev and take him there.

The Doctor chimed in without announcing himself. I can fetch myself, thankyouverymuch.

In the distance, behind the opaque walls, the hearts of the sea beat relentlessly. Dirofil couldn’t hear them, drowned by the screams, and this was even more distressing than a potential ambush from the Murkhound. The suffering, the panic was deafening, some intangible danger on its own right. Dirofil felt as if the whole universe had become flammable, as if the tiniest spark of conflict could make reality itself explode on his face.

Another set of steps tried to match his. Glancing backwards simply by rotating his eyes over their axis to see through his own head, Dirofil confirmed the suspicions of the follower being none other than Doratev, unpreoccupied but silent.

“Do you believe yourself immortal to saunter around like that, with the arms on the pockets of your coat?”

“We are all immortal, Dirofil,” he stated with an amused tone. “If there’s no afterlife, if the world ends along one’s sentience, what’s the difference between living through a tide or living through them all? Only those that die before one does are effectively mortal for the individual. Those that outlast ourselves—”

“Shut up.” Dirofil blurted out, interrupting him. “It’s no moment to entertain your solipsist sophistry.”

“Sophistry? These are my earnest beliefs!” Doratev protested, finally taking his arms off his pockets.

“Well then, friend, allow me to declare your beliefs a healthy mixture of rodent, chiropteran, and bovine manure. Why don’t you use that valuable energy to worry about the ongoing crisis?”

Dirofil accelerated his pacing down the darkened corridor. He didn’t know where he was supposed to be going, but Doratev had mightily annoyed him already. The nerves he didn’t have needed no more reasons to be put on edge.

“There’s no crisis as long as we behave rationally. A Murkhound wont attack a close-knit group of Splinters, as they reveal their position when attacking someone.”

“The one outside seemed quite insistent on murdering me despite my ironclad defense. I doubt the thing can behave even in a slightly reasonable way.”

A particularly poignant set of cries grew closer, and a Splinter of Babesi surged like a scared river from one of the staircases, rushed past the Original only to be stopped by the thunder grip of Doratev’s hand.

“We are going to die! all of us! Let me go! Let me go Doratev!” She wiggled in vain as the doctor held her like he had held the tail.

“The laboratory is probably safe for now. Let her go, Doratev.”

The Doctor didn’t comply. “She is safer with us. Curl around my neck, Grifala.”

The Splinter of Babesi nodded and immediately helped herself over Doratev’s shoulders, a single curl of brat forming a strangling scarf around a breathless neck.

Dirofil couldn’t resist the urge anymore. He needed to know where their stalker was. Uncertainty gnawed at his core. Trembling with doubt he raised his right hand in front of his face, aligning the eye of the Reaper with his own. But the rightful owner of the eye was close, and it would find the Corship if he acted carelessly. Yet a glimpse. He needed just a glimpse. A still picture of the ship, of wherever the thing was.

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A glimpse!

The eye opened, and the Reaper saw inside the ship, and Dirofil saw the ship from both his position and afar. All the eyes of the Reaper were over it, and he hadn’t yet spotted the Murkhound. Where? Where? The countless silhouettes of Chihuahuas and a sort of interference, the illusion of an encompassing but weak soul that crawled inside the walls, tainted the picture. If the latter was an action of the Reaper or a result of the ensuing panic, he didn’t know. He gave up, closing the eye.

Deafened. Blinded. Malignant doubt metastasized. The universe ablaze, and the unwelcomed follower being casual about it. And worst of all, he had let himself become a knowing vessel for paranoia. This was how it rendered you thoughtless. While you still had a mind, while you imagined monsters in every dark corner despite most of them being empty. “I need to kill it. Then I need to jump off. Yes… find me with Babesi.”

The Fourth Imagined accelerated, opened the eye once more, and this time, saw his prey on the lower deck. He raced for it, flying down the sphere stairs, Doratev barely able to keep up with the possessed Original.

Dirofil rushed past groups of still and wide-eyed Splinters. They weren’t withstanding stones, but tensed springs, ready to break down at any moment, jumping all around. His soul flowed into his cape as he left the lumps of dim lights that were lives behind, making it wave, erecting the Chihuahua teeth.

He crushed some stray Chihuahuas with his feet as the shine of his warmongering soul bounced off the polished surface of the Snake Jaws. The legsteerers were gone, but from a corner of the room the Murkhound stalked. Eye of doom always watchful, the Thinker propelled off the ground with all five extremities and let his cape shoot on its own towards the unsuspecting beast’s face.

They had told him to hurt the Murkhound. To deal some damage and let the Splinters of Lyssav handle the rest.

But he wouldn’t leave them anything to handle.

The critter, with his reflexes dulled by a life of hiding where none could find him, realized too late that the approaching mass of teeth was heading for him, and that a little lazy sidestep wouldn’t save him from Dirofil’s attack. The cape wrapped around the snout, the teeth dug into the flesh, and the thinker’s elbow met the thrashing dog’s nose, hammering the enamel nails deeper and deeper.

Like a bloodlusty tick the cape refused to budge despite the dog’s insistent pawing. Dirofil smashed his, once more unique and composite, left arm on the sides and top of the head, repeatedly. The eye of the Reaper closed, but he knew the damage was done, that he would need to finish this dog off quickly. And then, he would need to jump off the ship, back down the Collie layer, with his cursed eye open to draw the attention of the vile hunter.

As he pushed with one hand on each side of the invisible dog’s head, as he compressed and the bones began to crack and their owner to whimper. Dirofil prayed. Not to a god like a devout believer of the Houndmaster would have in a gone city of the world before the world. Not to a ruthless force of nature, deified or not. Not to himself, like Lyssav would if she ever decided to pray. Dirofil prayed to the skull, and asked it to crumble. To the brains, and petitioned for them to turn to mush. To his victim, and asked it to die at once, so he could be on his way.

A little more strength. A few more cracking sounds. A destroyed braincase, bleeding off into the cape, tainting it with grey and white matter, an impressionist painting of variegated but unseen gore.

Without wasting time Dirofil latched the cape back around his neck and cursed in a low voice. He had no time to lift the cadaver and take it with him. He was already running for the cargo bay, sending hurried messages through the mind links.

Killed hound, have plan for dealing with Reaper, will travel.

What do you mean? The voice of Morbilliv resounded inside his core. The Chihuahaus are getting handled and the Psycholocators returning to their duties.

When the psycholocators panicked and Morbilliv began to drop a whole dictionary of slurs onto his brother’s mind, Dirofil had already reached the cargo bay’s ramp door, and soon enough channeled his soul on the opening mechanism. Eyes of blue met him as the ramp descended, the Reaper inspecting the ship from afar, as if it were a curiosity for the giant hybrid of ghost and snake that hung from the Bernese net, dark placoid scales hugging the mountain dogs tightly. The tentacles were gone, and the eyes had arranged to line the inside of a mouth that remained always open, and led to a throbbing gullet darker than the total absence of light.

We cannot action the legs! Dirofil, are you sabotaging the ship? Are you mad?

Morbilliv frantically suggested, and Dirofil ignored the rushed accusations of his brother. And opened the eye of the reaper, making the monster stare into itself. All of the mouthpieces focused on the one on Dirofil’s hand.

No, I genuinely have no idea about that. Goodbye, brother, I’ll go visit Babs.

And as the jaws of death loomed closer and closer, Dirofil ran down the ramp and let gravity take hold of a stray foot, right hand raised, stealing the full attention of the Reaper just as the Corship’s lights glared, prey of intrinsic chaos.

His body plummeted carelessly, and his hand looked up, and the gaze of the Reaper followed. The snake to swallow all snakes shoot straight for him, letting the ship drown in its confusion and panic.

One of Dirofil’s eyes looked down, and the other tracked the incoming doom. He was going to bounce off the branches of dogs if he wasn’t careful. And nothing spelt careful like using exploding clones to reposition himself as the unstoppable creature tore through the net to reach him. The falling dogs, detached from their place in the sea as the Reaper advanced, rained about him, wiggling their furry legs as they tried to get some footing in the air. To Dirofil, they looked like they tried to swim through inexistent, polluted waters. The blue of the eyes. The brown, black, and white of the raining dogs. The light of his core. And a nibbling thought as the monster seemed to draw nearer: Had he inadvertently committed suicide? A sort of heroic sacrifice to undo the pestilence he had brought upon the Corship?

No. He could still fall faster. And leave behind sound clones for the thing to devour, in hopes that the explosions, that illuminated his back briefly and sent forth horrible dissonances, would slow the Reaper down.

With a little bit of elaborate contortionism Dirofil took his head to the lowest point, wrapped every inch of his torso, arms and legs into his cape, and melded his extremities to his body as he allowed gravity and friction to shape him more and more like a drop. The teeth folded against his body as he used little instant explosions to negotiate the Bernese branches that seemed to rush towards him with colliding intent.

Soon he came out the last dog ring, onto a limpid but equally dark atmosphere besprinkled by floating Collies. He didn’t need to look up to know that the Reaper followed.

But he did anyway, sending a single eye all through his body, making it sprout on his toe, and so he beheld it.

The Reaper freed himself from the Bernese layer, blooming. The viperiform body dispersed into the known mass of tendrils and tentacles, bit by bit, branching outwards as it emerged from the net. To see the Reaper shapeshifting would have made some say that they were wrong, that life had a meaning. That eyesight was a gift of some benevolent deity. Death danced deftly, overlooked creation and spiraled down, knowing of its own perfection, flaunting it for every unworthy eye to admire.

Dirofil collieded, cussing as he bounced off the floating dog. The density of dogs was increasing, and before long he would reach the bottom half of the layer, where it would be nearly impossible to freefall.

He closed the eye of the Reaper and dimmed the light of his core. It was time to land, and time to hide, for the unfurled bauplan was slower than the snake one, and the fall had grown the distance between them enough to buy him some valuable seconds.