Jim had had enough.

For three weeks he had scraped and scrambled to survive. He had watched friends, family, and strangers alike die in the clutches of monstrous creatures. He had compromised his values, given up on things he loved, just for the chance to live a few more seconds.

Now he was alone. Trapped in a stranger’s apartment, with no food or water, creatures scratching at the barricaded door. He was out of ideas. Out of options. Out of hope.

And then Jim saw the guitar case.

Suddenly, none of his struggles mattered quite as much as they had just a few seconds before. With shaking hands he opened the case, removed the guitar contained within, and began to strum.

And as he went through the familiar motions, his shaking fingers calmed. Though the noises of the monsters in the hallway got louder, cracks echoing through the apartment as the door gave way, Jim could only focus on the soothing strums of the instrument in his hands. And with a voice cracked from dehydration, he began to sing.

“This is the end, beautiful friend,

This is the end, my only friend, the end,

Of our elaborate plans, the end,

Of everything that stands, the end,

No safety or surprise, the end,

I’ll never look into your eyes, again…”

- Jim, Inclusion +21 days 19:01 hours

It takes less than a minute, but by the time I’m finished explaining there are only four or five guns still in action, the owners having managed to take shelter behind wooden doorways, ducking in and out of cover for the occasional potshot. For the first time, I notice other projectiles hitting the monster -- what look to be strange green orbs soaring through the air that explode into puffs of smoke on impact. It seems at least one of the soldiers has a skill they’re using, although as of yet it doesn’t appear effective.

Styx lowers herself down to the ground much more carefully than Pallas, while Melete runs to the staircase on the other side of the roof. I dash to the nearby disarmed soldier.

“Can I borrow this? Thanks,” I say, grabbing the walkie-talkie before he has a chance to respond.

Thinking back on our lack of coordination for this attack, maybe we aren’t quite as uncoordinated as we appear. After all, the military has a cursory record of all of our skills, excluding my own, of course. Hopefully, the sergeant dug through our records and knows what to expect. Because otherwise, this might take a bit too long to fully explain.

“Hey sergeant, this is Atlas,” I say into the walkie-talkie after a moment of figuring out which button to press. “Melete’s likely gonna sing soon. If any soldiers don’t have earplugs, I’d recommend clearing out. You’re in for a world of pain, otherwise.”

I release the button and wait for a response, belatedly remembering I’m supposed to say ‘over’ or something similar. But after a beat of silence, I hear the sergeant’s voice. “Understood. Everyone, earplugs in. Squad C, fall back to the second checkpoint…”

The sergeant continues talking, but I toss the walkie-talkie back to the soldier and walk to the edge of the roof, laying on my stomach so that only my head is peeking over the edge.

Pallas dances around the cyclops, shifting between the physical and incorporeal state. He holds his reclaimed axe between his hands, but he never turns off his skill with himself or the axe within five feet of the monster. It’s too dangerous with the lightning orbiting it.

His distraction is buying us the time we need to prepare. The cyclops repeatedly blasts Pallas’ incorporeal form with lightning, followed by massive, but harmless, swings of its club. It doesn’t seem to understand how Pallas is still alive, snarls of frustration sounding from its toothy maw.

But Pallas can’t keep it up forever. Through my bond, I can hear his heavy breathing and feel the sweat that drips down his face. Whether it’s from the heavy skill use or the physical exertion I can’t tell.

Just in time, Styx joins him, dashing around the swinging club. The cyclop’s snarl increases in volume upon noticing the second insect daring to buzz around it. It reaches out with its hand and blasts Styx with a flash of blue lightning.

The light extends from the monster’s hand without issue. But when it comes within a foot of Styx the light disappears into nothing, as if it was never there in the first place.

I hear the gasp from the soldier on the roof, who crawls and lays next to me, observing the battle at my side. The cyclops is just as surprised, staring down at its hand in dumbfounded bewilderment.

Styx doesn’t let the moment go to waste, and she dashes forward to slice a red line across the ankle of the monster before twirling away as the cyclops kicks out its foot in retaliation.

If the cyclops feels any pain or is in any way inconvenienced by the wound, it doesn’t show it, raising its club above its head to swing it down with huge force at the bug pestering it.

Again, the soldier next to me gasps, but I’m not worried. Amid the dust and chunks of asphalt blasted away by the massive swing, Styx dashes away. When she wants to move, she can move, fast enough that such a telegraphed attack has no chance of actually catching her.

Once again she steps forward and slashes the leg of the monster with her knife, and once again the cyclops unsuccessfully attempts to blast her with lightning, before trying with another swing of its club. This cycle continues, a dance on the edge of life and death. Any mistake by Styx will lead to her immediate demise, but she doesn’t make any mistakes. Over and over she slashes at the monster.

But it doesn’t matter. In a rare moment of separation I get a good look at the ankle Styx has been attacking. Only three red lines mar its skin, despite Styx having made contact at least a dozen times. And in the second I have a clear view, one of the three lines fades to almost nothing.

Styx must see the same thing, because all at once she steps back from the monster and fiddles with a strap around her chest. Frantically I call out to Pallas through my bond, but he’s already moving, grabbing the attention of the monster from Styx after his minute of rest.

Styx only needs cover for a few seconds, thankfully. Though Pallas successfully holds the attention of the monster, I notice he’s standing further back and using his skill much less often than he had been earlier. But quickly Styx is back to split the monster’s focus, dodging a wild swing of the cyclops’ club by a hairsbreadth.

But this time, instead of dashing forward to slash at its ankles with her knife, she raises Pallas’ previously discarded shotgun to point directly at the thing’s eye, and fires.

The cyclops flinches back as the hail of pellets fly towards its face. But its blue lightning is still there, and though it can’t catch all of the pellets from such a close range, the majority of them are redirected away from its face.

The cyclops closes its eyes and roars in pain from the few pellets that managed to make it through. It crouches, raising one massive hand over its face and with the other swings its club wildly around it, forcing Styx and Pallas to back away. After only ten seconds, though, the monster reopens its eye -- bloodshot and narrowed in a glare of anger, but otherwise no worse for wear.

Plan B, I say through my bonds to all four of my companions.

With the skill of the monster active, we just can’t hurt it enough to overpower its regeneration. Styx is the only one who can deal out consistent damage with our metal weapons, but it heals almost as fast as she can hurt it. And although she’s not showing it yet, Styx doesn’t have Pallas’ strength Number: she can’t keep this up forever.

Which is why something needs to change. We need to overwhelm its defenses and healing with a devastating barrage of attacks.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I hold out my hand, palm up, to the soldier next to me. He hands me the walkie-talkie.

“Get ready for when the lightning drops,” I say. “We’ll need everything you’ve got left.”

A question is yelled back at me over the walkie-talkie, but I ignore it, returning my focus to the events in front of me. They’ll recognize what to do when it happens.

You’re going to have to hold it’s attention, I relay the whispered message from Styx to Pallas. Fifteen seconds of contact, minimum.

Pallas nods, and steps closer to the cyclops. Like every other time it attacks, Pallas turns incorporeal at the very last moment, the surge of lightning and follow-up swing of the club passing through him to no effect. Unlike his earlier distractions, though, Pallas doesn’t step back and return to the physical.

He steps forward.

He swings his axe mightily at the inside of the cyclop’s ankle. But I’m confused. He’s holding the axe backwards, the blunt end just moments away from impacting the monster’s grey skin.

But then Pallas and his axe return to the physical, and it all makes sense. The axe is blasted away from the monster’s ankle.

Pallas roars, muscles straining and veins bulging as he struggles to control the axe in the wake of the flash of blue lightning. But not to finish the swing into the first ankle -- to direct the trajectory as the axe is blasted away.

Directly into the opposite ankle, burying deep into the muscle.

For the first time the monster roars in true pain, a keening sound that I’m sure would have me covering my ears had they not already been blocked. The cyclops drops to one knee, the wounded ankle not strong enough to support it, as it swings its club at the puny human who dared cause it such pain, the axe blasted out of the wound by the lightning to skid across the ground twenty yards away.

Pallas returns to the incorporeal to avoid the attacks, but he doesn’t move away, instead jumping back and forth as if trying to avoid the club even though each strike passes through him harmlessly. The monster swings harder and wilder, desperate to kill the insufferable gnat which somehow managed to wound it.

It doesn’t notice the other gnat sneak behind it and lay a single hand on the back of its heel.

Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Pallas taunts the monster, staying incorporeal and letting the barrage of attacks uselessly pass through him. But he can’t keep his skill active forever. Finally, he jumps back as his skill deactivates, the club clipping his side and sending him spinning away from the cyclops.

The monster’s mouth widens into a parody of a smile as it gingerly pulls itself back to its feet, carefully testing its healing ankle with part of its weight. But then it notices the human crouched behind it with an open palm pressed against its skin.

Styx’s eyes are closed in deep concentration, and I don’t want to disturb her before she’s finished...but she’s out of time.

Styx! I scream mentally through the bond, and she jerks away from the monster just as the club passes through where she had been kneeling.

The blue lightning, which up until now had continuously circled the cyclops, fades away into the dark.

She did it!

The cyclops raises its arm to blast Styx, and then stares down at its hand in befuddlement when nothing happens. Its confusion is only momentary, though, and it swings out with its club instead, which Styx nimbly dodges.

What she doesn’t dodge is the follow-up swing of the cyclop’s other open hand.

With a dull whump, it catches her in the stomach and sends her flying. She ragdolls as she bounces and then rolls along the ground, limbs extended until her trajectory finally comes to a stop against one of the surrounding buildings.

I can’t breathe.

How could that happen? She’s...Styx. She dodges everything. We need to get to her. We need to help her.

There’s no time. The cyclops is fully back on its feet, the wound in its ankle almost entirely gone, and it starts to move to where Styx is lying still.

“ATTACK!!” I yell verbally into the walkie-talkie, as well as through my bonds. Already the cyclops is almost upon her, its long legs eating up the distance in no time at all.

But then it flinches away from nothing, furrowing its brows as it tracks some invisible threat with its eye.

Sam’s illusion gives the soldiers the time they need.

The few remaining guns start to fire, distracting the monster from its original target. The cyclops snarls after its extended hand once again fails to produce any lightning, but the guns are only a weak distraction. It turns its focus back to Styx.

And then Melete starts to sing.

There are no words to her song. Just a shrill high note that pierces through the air, audible even over the gunfire and through my blocked ears. The cyclops drops its club in the sudden pain and plasters both hands to the sides of its head, attempting to block out the painful noise.

But it’s not enough to take it down. In anger, the cyclops searches for the source of the attack. It finds Melete, boldly standing next to my building, staring defiantly back at the monster.

It charges.

I scramble to my feet, dashing to the edge of the roof just in front and next to where Melete sings. Melete’s eyes widen at the charging monster and she takes a half-step back, but she never stops singing.

The monster is moving fast. From the corner of my eye, I see two groups of soldiers sprinting from inside the town, carrying what look like...are those wooden spears? But they won’t be here quick enough.

I stand on the lip of the building, leaning forward. Time for plan Z, I think to myself. It has to be timed perfectly. The cyclops is almost on top of Melete.

I jump into space, and scream, NOW! into my bond with Sam.

Without warning the monster flinches back and looks to the side, raising its hand as if to block an attack on its face. But it’s blocking an attack that would come from the height of a human. And I’m coming at an entirely different angle.

Sam timed it perfectly. The roof of the building is only a foot higher than the monster, and with its eye widened in surprise, turned in my direction, it’s impossible for me to miss.

Like a swimmer diving into a pool I jump at the monster’s eye, knife held point first in front of me. And like a diver piercing into the water, I pierce the membrane of its eye, elbow deep into the massive orb.

The cyclops releases a massive roar, loud enough to drown out even Melete’s voice. Its eyelid attempts to close, but my arms are in the way. I plant a foot on each shoulder of the cyclops and push forward, now buried to my biceps.

The outer edge of the eye is an almost-solid membrane -- without my knife, I’m not sure I would have even been able to pierce it. But past that membrane the eye is the consistency of jelly, and I attempt to claw my way deeper into the mush.

The monster swats at me, and I’m knocked from my precarious perch, only my deathgrip within the eye keeping me from falling to the ground. I focus on my Adjust: Self skill, picturing the monster I originally gained the skill from, its branches extending into a canopy above, its roots extending into tangled knots below. And then I push, forcing my body to mimic that picture.

My fingers extend and split, burrowing deeper into the eye. Tendrils grow from the edges of my fingers, barely thicker than a hair but each of them digging into the surrounding jelly, doing their best to tear deeper. But around my hands and arms I feel the jelly pulse and merge, attempting to push me out and reform into its normal state. The membrane around my arms constricts as it attempts to heal and push me out, but I snarl and push myself deeper instead, shoving so deep that even my head and shoulders cross the membrane.

The cyclops’ bellow rises into almost a scream, and it swats at me again. This time, it catches hold of my left leg despite my squirming, and pulls.

From my bond with Melete, I see the cyclops gripping my calf, almost a dozen soldiers surrounding and attacking the legs and groin of the monster with knives and spears. But the monster isn’t nearly as concerned with their attacks as it is with my own.

I feel myself being yanked back, the eye reforming in the newly vacated space. I dig deeper with my root-like fingers, but I can’t hold against the cyclops’ massive strength. I only have a split second to make the decision.

I switch the focus of my skill from my fingers to my left leg -- specifically to my knee and the joint between the bones there.

I scream as the joint separates, the monster pulling away the lower half of my leg like a cat catching the tail of a lizard. I pull myself deeper into the eye, my fingers finally coming into contact with the back of the socket.

I don’t have the leverage, space, or momentum to swing. So instead I just push, knife leading the way.

And I break through.

The constant movement of the monster stills, though I can still feel the membrane of the eye trying to heal around me. I continue to push forward. I can’t breathe, suffocating as the flesh of the cyclops tries to regrow, fighting against my efforts.

But then I feel a familiar rush as the Number on my palm reforms, and I breathe out a sigh, only to choke on the still reforming eye. Even in death, the flesh of the cyclops is mending around me, trapping me in its eye-turned-prison.

I’m jostled as I see, from Melete’s perspective, the monster collapse onto its back, the few soldiers not busy stabbing the monster running forward to pull me free.

But I don’t have the energy to fight for freedom any longer, the pain and lack of air forcing me unconscious. As my mind drifts away I drop my bonds one by one, and my last thought is a sudden, terrifying realization.

There are only three bonds for me to drop.

S: 182

D: 204

W: 403

I: 401

C: 102

?

Skills: Adjust:Self, Bond:Mental