V – 00002.5 – Interloper.
Beneath the thick smoke's protection lay a true and honest-to-god planet of energy.
Massive, glowing, red chains of black metal encircled the planet, whipping back and forth like striking vipers as they floated lazily above the air, their massive links covered in constantly shifting blood-red runes that flashed and dimmed when they moved or slowed.
And beneath them was a miniature ecosystem of different energies that comprised liquids, frosts, ground, and energetic shadows of trees and life, although most of the phantom life-forms seemed corrupt; slowly a blackness spread up the transparent trees with their bark turning black and green leaves that had a deep violet slowly creeping into their veins.
Everywhere I looked, I could see how death and the infernal seemed to be changing my core and corrupting what I had to assume was its natural state; blacks and purples infected the living elements of energy, and small lakes of aquatic mana were turning to bodies of blood, veins in the ground were turning a rusty bloody red, and the longer I observed my core, the more it spread. Inch by inch, the reds, blacks, purples, and teals infected the natural landscape.
Turning my focus to the energy that was pouring out of my ethereal tattoos, I focused on twisting them into different shapes, and they complied easily; the smog of death compressed, expanded, and flowed into itself seamlessly.
Eager to jump through any hoop I wished of it, but the more active control I exerted on my mana, the faster I felt it draining away from me, being eaten up by the environment as it had to fuel its own movements.
As I shifted the darkness through the air, shaping it, I began to feel the energy occasionally hitch as if it was making contact with and getting stuck to something I couldn’t see. Shifting my hand back, I maneuvered my mana to pass over the erroneous area that seemed to make my mana stick to the air.
The black mists twisted in on themselves to change direction, pouring over the trapped death mana until slowly they completed a rough outline of a person that was comprised entirely of my shifting death mana.
As I tried to pull on my mana, I could feel tangible resistance, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Flexing my will didn’t dissolve my mana back into shapeless smoke; however, instead, the figure began being dragged towards me, and as if it suddenly realized something was happening, I watched it react.
The mist for where its eyes were opened up into holes, as did the smoke over its mouth, and I felt it screaming. I heard nothing with my ears, but vibrations twisted through the mist all the way into my tattoos, and I could feel the scream in my core.
I stopped pulling on this, whatever it was, immediately and tried to shake off the extreme discomfort I felt deep inside me, as well as the odd hunger.
“What are you?” I said in almost a whisper, but I felt my words somehow twist and vibrate up my mana and ripple into the thing, making me certain it had heard me.
It went from screaming uncontrollably to completely silent before bringing its hands up in front of its eyes and screaming again. For several long minutes, it repeated this pattern before looking at me for what felt like the first time.
Then I felt one word impress itself into my core before the shade screamed again and began trying to charge me. “KILLER!” The shadow of mana rushed towards me, and I reflexively stepped back, and that’s when I felt something pushing and pulling in my core.
For as much as I could feel the will in my mana to move towards me, it couldn’t; I felt it pushing on my mana, exerting a limited control over the death energy around it, but whenever it tried to do anything that was juxtaposed to my own will, it was helpless as my greater will and control crashed into and smothered its attempts.
I spent some time experimenting with how I could manipulate this creature, which I was becoming increasingly certain was somehow an echo of someone’s death. It didn’t seem fully sentient, but the being's shape and the way it sounded reminded me a lot of Sasha, the soldier I’d killed previously.
Eventually I began to feel my core emptying and hollowing out; the pervasive coldness that was the center of my being was slowly losing the war with my body’s internal heating.
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Alright, enough. Let’s see if we can recall this stuff.
Flexing my will, I pulled hard on my mana, dragging it into my tattoos, which was fine for a few moments until I felt the shade trying to resist me and screaming incoherently into my core; with a flex of my will, I pulled harder, and then harder still until I felt and saw the shade's body rip into 6 pieces before getting dragged into my tattoos and back to my core; I watched as the black smoke was pulled back into my core and the almost nonexistent black atmosphere refilled ever so slightly.
I also saw how the dismembered shade’s body was forced back into one piece once all the energies had made it to my core. “Huh, well that’s a whole new flavor of fucking horrifying, isn’t it?”
“I think we might have literally fucked up her entire afterlife.”
“Personally, I would like to vote we pretend there are no moral or ethical boundaries being crossed here.”
“Good call,” I said, deciding I wasn’t even going to pretend I had the faculties to debate the morality of… I’m not even sure what I did entirely, which just further emphasized why I was unfit to have this debate, especially in my head.
I grabbed my bag and pulled it towards me using the soft fabric stuffed with clothing as a pillow. I closed my eyes, staring sightlessly upwards as I fell asleep. For the first time in a very long time, I slept easy, not out of pure exhaustion, but because my mind was, for a short moment in time, clear.
I awoke several hours later with a deep sense of unease filling my gut. I pulled myself up from the ground, shaking off the small shiver that was beginning to creep into my bones. I listened, shifting my head slightly, trying to sound out the source of my unease.
Finally the wind carried a soft sound to my ears; I heard the soft crunch of a stick down by the lake and launched myself into a stride immediately, intent on finding and possibly eating whoever was interloping in my home in the dead of the night.
My legs carried me through the woods as I maneuvered around trees and jumped over roots that attempted to bar me access to the lake. Despite the darkness, these days my memory was an almost perfect guide, and before long I was standing upon the shore of the lake and scanning the woods searching for my intruder.
As I stepped deeper into the wood, I heard what sounded like a shout off in the distance.
Hmm, that didn’t sound like the usual shouts of terror I’d be expecting at this time in the woods. More like a name?
I rounded on the sound and dropped into a crouch before stalking deeper into the woods. After a few minutes of walking, a new sound told me where to go, and I changed directions, following the noise of what sounded like a fight. Slapping and twigs breaking and leaves getting crushed and kicked up echoed towards me, and that’s when I saw up ahead of me was a kid with a much larger and older man beating him senseless into the ground.
If you told me the kid was twelve, I could probably buy that, but any older and I’d have said you were a liar. Stalking closer, being careful I stepped on nothing but soft dirt, I could finally hear what the older man was saying; it was practically incoherent, just a string of cusses and slurred words along with the telltale scent of alcohol.
The sight brought a lot of old and uncomfortable memories to the surface; as I stared at the kid, I felt no particular compulsion to come to his aid, yet I still wished to. Everything I hated about people, all the wrongs I’d perceived humanity to have done to me, this kid was innocent of them; in fact, worse, he was another victim.
I leapt out from the tree cover I had taken and tackled the older man off the boy. I lifted him up by his shirt before slamming him down hard into the forest floor and mounting his shoulders.
With heavy, powerful blows, I laid into the older man, every punch letting out pops and loosening his teeth. It was just after I threw another devastating left hook and knocked a handful of teeth from the man’s mouth that I heard a young voice behind me shouting at me to stop before I felt a weak, entirely futile shove at my back that barely had enough force in it to make me shrug slightly.
I stood and rounded on the boy, a tinge of rage twisting its way through my mind at being stopped from claiming another and for the lack of gratitude, which I had been somewhat expecting after saving this kid who’d wandered into my home clearly mid-flight from whoever this old man was.
As I turned and took in the boy’s face from up close, it was almost like looking at a ghost; he had curly blonde hair and a youthful face with wide eyes, and for a moment my rage faded as I saw Archie’s face.
Then the logical part of my mind and memory kicked in and started picking the boy's appearance apart, showing me that while he was similar looking, this was not Archie; this was just some kid, not someone who could forgive me for failing to uphold a decade-old promise.
At last I stopped staring and spoke: “Why are you here, and who are you?” I said, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.
The kid stared at me for a moment as if trying to figure out what I was saying before he tried to give me an answer. “I was camping with… my dad. I tried to run away, but he caught me, and I’m Reggie.”
“Right, and I assume this thing is your father.” I said before casting a malicious glance at the crumpled man behind me.
“Yeah… he is.” The kid responded, sounding disappointed or maybe even embarrassed.
I groaned softly to myself, entirely uncertain of how to handle myself in these situations. A voice in my head suggested I just eat the two of them, but even I could tell it was a hollow suggestion. I felt no inclination to harm this kid; maybe it’s because he looks like Archie, or maybe it’s because I was in his shoes once, or perhaps it’s even just that he’s a child and even my fucked-up head can’t come up with a proper reason to hate him.
“Listen, boy, I… don’t know exactly what’s going on, but if you want, I can take you back to the city tomorrow; the military is set up there, and they should be able to help you find the rest of your family or at least take care of you, because let’s be honest, if your father is chasing you through monster-filled woods only so he can kick your ass, you’re probably better off without him.”
The boy, for his part, just stayed silent as I offered him my help that was laden with insults against his father. Once I was finished speaking, he leaned to the side, trying to look at his father, who, for his part, was still laid out with blood and pieces of his teeth covering the dirt around him.
The boy nodded once, seemingly choosing to be more logical than emotional, a sentiment I understood well at his age, which showed me that the world had already made him more like me than any child should be.