The world went fast by him, or perhaps he went too fast for the world. For Dion jumped and pushed and was dragged around. And his body was in constant movement, to dodge or block or following a trajectory from his being struck. So it was, him bouncing around each panel, each large floor tile, dragging with him debris and destruction in streaks across the room. He was like a bulldozer. A small, black ball, taking with him a bit of the wall or the floor or the slot machines. The coins littered the floor.

His body rolled around, he had just been struck. The metal clanked, stuck to his clothes and falling to the floor. He rose. The blood was all across his face and between blurred vision and blood covered eyes, he did not see well ahead of him. Though, it was hard to miss the creature, who by now was a behemoth across his whole horizontal vision. He (the demon) was half the room. Not figuratively, there is no symbolism here. He was quite literally, half the room. A blob, forming to the square shape, stomping over slot machines and glass and wood.

Light was behind Dion, outlining him. Light from the moon and the stars and the city like a mural of bright yellow dots and streaks. The glass had been shattered behind him long ago and now his whole body was exposed to the air, to the cold air.

His head labored left and right. He looked around him, though could not see much. His body was operating on pure sensation, pure instinct. Contrasted with this were mental images forming on the floor or in his front vision, images of his own death. Imaginations of being punctured by the demon, apparitions or destiny perhaps.

He was starting to accept his death.

He opened his mouth to shout, he felt a tooth fall and hang by its root. One of his eyes was swollen. His regenerative powers did not operate on it. No, it took care of his ribs and his arms and his hemorrhaged skull.

Each breath he felt his broken rib cage press against his skin like an internal knife.

He wasn't even sure how he moved, only that he did. He certainly did not know why he still held his gun, that by now had only one bullet left.

The demon approached like a moving wall. Dion hung back, walking towards the edge of the room where the breeze wafted a nearby curtain. He remembered, strangely, perhaps because the parking lot was outside, Aenea saying something or another about it. The thought quickly faded.

All thoughts focused on the demon.

All he felt was the slow moving of time and his bodies labored movements. Each movement dragged an afterimage, it was like his perception only worked in micro-chasms of time.

How many times have I missed? He looked down. Blood streamed down from one eye. I always miss the mark, isn't that the truth? I don't think there's been a single time that my aim's been true, that I could say with confidence that what I hit was what I meant. That what I meant was true to me. The air stung his cheeks, whose wide cuts appeared like a crescent moon. I am a living hypocrite. A hothead that can't shoot when I need to, that can't miss when I need to. That can't do anything but misfire. Always. Misfire.

His head rose. His cheeks shook, they were swollen black and blue.

Behind him a draft blew, it raised his coat tails and stung against the cuts all across his body.

The demon attacked.

He dodged. Left. Right. Like dance. The creature shot out limbs every so often, in sporadic and irresponsible anger. He couldn't even hear the air split. His eardrums were popped already from the creature's shout.

He just dodged. Ducked. Rolled around and kept his side of the room as well as he could. But looking towards the creature, which by now had become a tumor growth, a cancerous blob and mass of flesh. A parasitic body, wandering, absorbing. He saw this thing approach. He saw the veins and the black skin and the slimy, hungry arms and the almost childish curiosity of its dissecting limbs approach.

I'll jump. He looked between the edge of the high-rise and the demon. I'll jump and I won't give the son of a bitch the satisfaction of eating me. I can at least do that much, I can at least stop myself from being eaten.

But as his feet went to the edge, he stopped. As he looked down and the streets looked up at him, he froze. He felt it, vertigo, like a wind pushing him back. A feeling that of course, pulled him closer towards the creature.

He tried to jump again, this time with a head start. It was even worse.

Another misfire. His lips trembled. He could feel a tear in his eye. Why can't I do anything right? Why am I disobeying myself? It's like I got two legs both going opposite directions. That I know better but can't act it. That even trying to be right hurts, and failing hurts too.

He bit down on his tongue. One half of his left foot stuck out by the window frame, the glass crackled beneath the other. The wind blew his hair, he had no mask. His face, bruises and cuts an all were exposed to the harshity.

He looked behind him. He saw the many limbs, like tree branches, skinny and dreadful.

"Did you forget what our jobs are?"

He heard the voice. It was hoarse, pained. And it went through the intercoms, through the walls almost.

"Jump, go ahead. You can do it, you can live if you want to."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Again. Familiar. His heart begun to beat, he clenched his hand.

"If you want to die though, stick around."

He didn't. He jumped. Close to the wall, so he could stab his hand through the metal girders and window frames, so he could pull and drag his body through the side of the casino, falling, falling falling. He felt his arm cut and sliced.

He felt the blood and muscle and bone torn and streaked across the wall. Until, at last, it came to a stop, and himself, to a pained sigh.

His arm was cut up from the clawing he had made to get there, which he was sure, was a four-floor drop. His feet slipped against the darkened glass he stood against. He stuck his hand deeper into the wall and looked up.

The limbs were fast approaching, four black ones, traveling down towards him like snakes.

It wasn't enough. He groaned. His gun was still out, pointed towards the limbs. He'd kill one of them, at least. Then fall. That'd be slightly more dignified, he was sure.

And just before he pulled the trigger, the floor above erupted. The twenty-first floor exploded.

The fire blew out the side of the windows like exhaust.

Smoke followed.

As did water sprinklers.

All of it rained down on him. And him, staring at the explosion and, after a while, when the wreckage cleared, staring out into the wide expanse.

♣

It was through the complex web of tunnels and floors that she had managed to reach the first floor, every so often looking behind her and every so often enduring the quick jabs of a knife coming in and out of walls. It was as if she was being chased by a shark, some subterranean predator, with its bladed fin going through the floors and walls and with its eyes hell-bent on killing her.

She could not stop and was beginning to slow, her feet were bleeding. The cold air stung and had made her, for brief periods, stop her momentum and grip her swollen cuts. This had nearly killed her twice.

She did not know why she was not dead yet. She wasn't thinking for most of the chase, only equated stopping to death and after a while was reduced to whimpering run. Fear ran her, coaxed her feet to go down the steps. Her athletic body (thank god she was) allowed her to persevere but even that failed after a while. For her muscles were strained, her breath bated, her sweat runs dry. It was then that she began to feel the heat of her body finally approach, it was then that her eyes stopped and looked down. The knife was coming from the floor. From below, she was on the second floor. It ran up from the floor, aiming to slice her vertically in half.

She moved her leg up and tripped to the side. She felt the cut on her thigh and she screamed, holding it. Screaming. Swearing.

She composed herself to stand and by now dragged her legs to the stairs. Then seeing the figure waiting for her there, turned. She looked back briefly, only to yelp.

The figure was gone.

And she stood center. There were no cars. Only pools of residual oil and black stains. There was nothing, save for the low droplets of leaking water from the sides of the walls. And it made her think. She looked around. Her eyes easing. Droplets. The sound, echoing through the building. The miniature sounds, louder and more pronounced in the complex.

Sound.

What sound does it make?

What sound? She hadn't thought of it. Running and slapping the floor and tripping had stopped her from thinking of things all together.

What sound?

The knife approached. Her arm bled to warn her (she accepted it as a warning long ago). It came like a scythe for her neck. She ducked. The figure retreated back into the concrete roof.

What sound was that? It sounded like ripping.

And more blades came, her arm bleeding more often.

It sounds like paper, ripping.

Her eyes opened wide as she ran through the floor, dodging as best she could. She felt a cut on her shoulder. A cut on her arms.

She reached a fire extinguisher, one she picked up and hoisted over her shoulder.

She heard ripping. She turned and threw her fire extinguisher. It phased through the figure. Of course, (it was metal!).

But she noticed too, at that instant, as the blade approached her, that it too phased through her.

So it was, in this crazy fray, that she began to think about it clearly.

It could do neither both at the same time. Phasing and attacking, material and ephemeral. It was only a constant shift between one or the other, and she supposed, its whole body had to abide by that law. So it could neither have an arm both material, and a leg, ephemeral.

And she noticed, quickly. As she approached a puddle of oil, that it too went around the puddle. She stood at the center of the oil, it dripped into her feet-wounds but her face was tight and focused. No pain could distract her. Not again.

She noticed the figure, a shadow in the asphalt and concrete, swimming through. It was not approaching her in the puddle, not approaching liquid at all.

So it's limited?

The thoughts gave her courage, like nothing else would. Her breath focused. Her eyes looked around to the stairs and to the sloping level downwards.

It came to her like fire, something to fuel the empty feeling in her body.

Courage.

She sprinted for the falling hill, out into the streets. Her footprints left puddles of oil and blood, ones the figure avoided.

She was heading for a fountain outside the parking lot and noticed the figure only had one means of travel, the asphalt floor.

She touched the grass. The figure approached, materialized rather, behind her and onto the grass. It too was running now.

So that was it.

Concrete. Metal. Asphalt. Stone. That was all it was. Travel through those fabrics, nothing more.

Travel that could only be held one way and one way only.

So she ran towards the fountain, avoiding the black spots of asphalt and avoiding boulders.

She went through the hedges, went through fields of grass as she approached the fountain (which unfortunately for her, was center of a large stretch of concrete).

But she traveled anyway, because by now she had a lead, even with her injured leg.

Her vision was fading though, and the figure was still audible behind her.

She went towards the fountain and stood center.

The cloaked figure approached her, seemingly unworried. For she was sitting center of the fountain, center of the water where she sat on her ass, breathing heavily. She didn't even have the energy to scream. Tiredness had rendered her immobile. She had a hand over her chest, and another holding her above the water. Her chest went up and down with deep breaths. Her eyes were shaky.

The figure approached, knife drawn, water trickled down its body. But it had no need to phase. It was high above Aenea, looking down at her.

It raised its blade.

And a large pop was heard.

The figure tried to phase, sunk almost an inch. But it was blocked. It could not go through water, could not even move. Its wispy body returned to solid-state.

And the bullet ran straight through its neck, nearly taking its head clean off.

The figure stopped. Paused. It held its neck for a moment, in shock almost, for the running blood that came down. And then it looked at Aenea, its strained eyes set upon hers.

She pitied it, for a moment, this creature. Aenea pitied it, as it fell down, letting out a female wimper.

It (the fiend chasing her, leaving her breathless) was a girl.

And she (the figure), fell on her knees and after a moment, fell onto the pool. Which to her, seemed like a font of blood, and which to Dion, looking from above the side of the casino, appeared to be the den of sharks. Bloody and carnivorous.