Trapped within the throes of a nightmare, Nick found himself submerged. Bound beneath the surface of water as black as ink. The liquid was deathly cold. He struggled to break free, desperate to reach the surface before he drowned. But his limbs were constrained. Held tight by a mass of elastic tentacles, their rubbery surfaces radiating a sickly warmth that grew as his body began to freeze.
The chill was so deep that it numbed his bones, and he found himself growing weaker by the heartbeat. A few more moments, and he would lose the will to resist. Give in and let the onyx depths consume him.
Nick looked up when he saw a flash, where vast pillars of light were forming along the surface—columns of terrifying, merciless radiance that offered him no comfort. Rather, it seemed that the shrouds were heralds of annihilation, a living lightshow celebrating his imminent demise.
As he fought to break free from the tentacles’ grasp, struggles growing weaker by the heartbeat, the light from above cast a patchwork radiance along the muddy bottom. To his abject horror, he realized that other people were trapped here as well. People who Nick recognized.
He took in the rotting faces of Angie and his parents, bound beside the three ratmen he had killed in the dungeon. Of countless millions who had lost their lives when the System integrated the Earth.
Somewhere in the depths of his subconscious, a voice was screaming at him. Wailing that dream or not, he was fighting for his life. That if he didn’t wake up soon, this horror show would be the last thing that he ever saw. With that understanding, Nick began to thrash. No longer trying to escape the rubbery appendages but battling to wake himself up.
Despite his mounting alarm, his struggles were futile, and he soon found himself fighting to breathe. A sensation coming from his actual body, beyond the boundaries of dream. His thoughts were growing increasingly distant, and the lens of his cognition was blurred. He had time for one last, frantic effort, and then his body went limp.
The part of Nick’s subconscious that was aware enough to be scared realized that he could no longer feel the beating of his heart. Just as his lungs drew their final breath, an inhuman voice resounded across his soul, penetrating the shroud of the nightmare.
System Message: Negative statuses acquired.
You have been sedated. Source: Leech venom.
Your consciousness has been diminished. This status will dissipate naturally in approximately 30 minutes.
You have been weakened. Source: blood loss (moderate).
All physical attributes have been reduced. This status will dissipate naturally in approximately 24 hours.
Somehow, the meaning of these words penetrated the fugue that held Nick below the threshold of consciousness. Rallying the dregs of his reserves for one final, desperate push. Leech venom… blood loss. I’m being attacked in my sleep!
Something deep inside his body resonated with his alarm, emitting a weak pulse of energy that allowed his heart to beat for a few final seconds. Combined with the certainty that he was about to die, it was enough to send a tsunami of adrenaline surging into his bloodstream, waking him instantly.
Nick opened his eyes and drew in a great gasping breath. He flailed about with weak, rubbery limbs before the world snapped into focus. His gaze landed on a leech the size of a housecat, its gooey body sitting two feet in front of his eyes. The repulsive creature was perched on his chest. It had eaten through the cloth of his shirt and was latched onto his stomach, feeding from the spot where his ribcage came together. Its slimy skin reeked of the sewers. Ruddy flesh stained crimson with a fresh infusion of blood. My blood, he realized in horror. The foul beast had drained so much of his vitae that its form was fat and bloated, like a water balloon filled to bursting.
The leech’s pulsing mass was searing hot against the deathly chill of his pale flesh. Nick found himself horrified, repulsed, and terrified to a degree that not even the lurk’s ambush had evoked within him. Being attacked while he was helpless and asleep, sedated and drained of his life’s essence, brought a half-formed memory to the surface of his mind. It harmonized with his buried anger at the fate of the human race. The lives that had been lost due to Taltos and the System. It filled him with a fury that reverberated across the depths of his soul.
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Thoroughly enraged, he locked his gaze upon the leech, ready to throttle the creature on the spot. However, though his arms flopped about like a pair of dying fish, his fingers did not so much as twitch. The uncoordinated motion was enough to let the leech know that its prey had awakened. It detached its face from his flesh, sluggishly sliding off his chest and rolling onto the concrete with a wet smack. Filled with incandescent fury, there was no way that Nick was going to let the creature escape. He just had to get his body to cooperate with him first.
Tilting his head, he caught sight of two other leeches sliding across the space between his boots, unaffected by the realization that had frightened off their satiated brethren. Knowing that if they bit him, the additional venom would knock him out and seal his fate, he poured every drop of his will, every fiber of his being, into rising from the floor.
Nick willed his arms to move over and over again, certain that only seconds remained before it was too late. Spurred on by fear and adrenaline, his heart continued pumping blood back into his extremities, gradually restoring feeling to his numbed limbs. Meanwhile, the pair of leeches wormed their way beneath his bathrobe, traveling along the inside of his legs and seeking the warmth of the arteries running between his thighs. Just as the leaches began tearing their way past the denim, preparing to sink their faces into his flesh, his fingers twitched.
He screamed as feeling flowed back into his arms. Rivers of fire ran rampant throughout his extremities as his blood began to circulate once more, restoring life to his muscles and nerves. His heartbeat was wild and thin—an erratic jangle caused by his fear and lowered blood pressure.
Screaming in white fury, Nick rose to his feet and peeled both parasites free from his legs in a single motion, hurtling them against the wall as hard as he could in his weakened condition. However, their bodies were dense and muscular, and the impact did not appear to injure them.
He wasn’t done with them yet, by any means. But before he dealt with the beasts beside him, he had another score to settle first. He looked around before spotting the fat leach sliming its way along the concrete. In another five seconds at most, the creature would plunge into the water filling the flooded room, escaping unscathed with his stolen life force inside it.
Angrier than he had ever been before, Nick staggered after his nemesis, ignoring the molten knives that were driven into his extremities with every lurching step. Just as the leech arrived at the water’s edge, he pounced, repeating the maneuver he had used to break the komo’s back. He brought his feet together, landing on top of the leech with the full weight of his body behind it.
He expected the living blood bag to burst like a water balloon, fluid geysering up in a spectacular plume of gore. But that was not what happened. Although a spew of blood did splatter out from a tear in the leech’s side, the creature was tougher than Nick had anticipated, even if it was effectively defenseless against his attacks. The unexpected resistance made him stumble, and he nearly fell headfirst into the waters of the flooded chamber.
After regaining his balance, he unleashed a furious barrage of kicks upon the leech, driving it back into the room where he had been sleeping. With a savage gleam in his eye, Nick unsheathed his dagger, raised it high above his head in a two-handed grip, then drove it down with the full weight of his body behind it. The blade reluctantly parted the leech’s dense, muscular exterior before sliding down into the organs below.
This time, a true goresplosion ensued, crimson splattering against the walls and ceiling before raining down onto the floor below. Bathing him in the blood of his enemy. Well, technically, it was mostly his blood, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.
A violent thrill of satisfaction crackled along his spine, but he did not stop to revel in it. Although he had been roused to fury by his suppressed memories, he was already regaining control over his emotions. Acting out of anger wasn’t Nick’s style, and doing so would inevitably lead to his demise sooner or later.
But furious or calm, his job wasn’t finished yet. He darted back into the room to cut off the retreat of the two remaining leeches, who seemed to understand that their hunt had gone horribly wrong and were seeking out any avenue of escape.
Nick was hesitant to engage the beasts in melee at first. He was still weak and drugged, and the sewer-dwellers might be able to counterattack in ways that were not immediately obvious. But after probing the creatures’ defenses with his dagger while preparing to leap out of the way, he was confident enough to close in for the kill.
By this point, he had determined that while the leeches could sense his presence, even dodge his strikes with limited effect, they were sluggish and cumbersome on land. It was clearly not their preferred environment, and they were effectively helpless against someone who was alert enough to avoid their clumsy attempts to bite him.
While Nick was unable to land a critical hit with the creatures’ guards raised, he was able to rack up a weeping collection of cuts across their slimy gray skin. Their blood was a viscous gray sludge that stank even worse than the rivers of sewage they called home. Eventually, he was able to bleed both leeches to death. The ironic reversal would have amused him if he wasn’t half-dead and traumatized to boot.