Chloe retched up the contents of her stomach on the ground, as whatever it was that was approaching thumped up the stairs. Rosaendra held Chloe’s shoulders and shook her as the climbing shadow neared the third floor, and shook her.
“C’mon, stand up.”
As Rosaendra pulled the other woman to her feet; their pursuer climbed the last bit of stairs and crested into view. It stood on a pair of taloned feet; the small bits of metal attached to its three toes gouged the ground as it walked. Yellow feathers; peppered with white spots covered its body, and a curved beak bent down in the middle of its face. Two deep-set eyes; as pale as mist, glared at the two of them. On its broad, plumed chest was a hanging breastplate of the same dark metal that made up Chloe’s armor. It carried a dark metal pike as long as its body was tall; which was about tall enough to go up to Rosaendra’s chin.
The smell of rot followed it. Damp, red spots dotted its pale yellow feathers; one was barely hidden from view beneath its breastplate, and the other staining the feathers of its round head, near a portion of it that looked caved in.
It shambled as it approached, and something beneath its skin wriggled and shook loose a feather from its neck as it slithered down.
“Chloe, get up, get up!”
Rosaendra shook her desperately.
The shambling Birdman charged forward and brought its pike back to stab. Desperately, Rosaendra grabbed hold of Chloe and dragged her to the ground, just in time for the point of the pike to drive through where her chest had been. The tip of it scraped against the plastic armor she wore.
Rosaendra grabbed hold of her blade in a reverse grip and stabbed back just as it retracted the pike. The knife found purchase in the creature’s wrist, and she held fast to hold the birdman in place. It kicked forward with its talon, and sent her flying down the hall; the plastic armor on her back shattering like a barbed sledgehammer had been slammed into it. Her blade was wrenched from her grasp and stuck still in the creature’s wrist.
“Chloe!” Rosaendra sputtered at the shaking woman in front of the bird man. She tried to get up, but the pain radiating from her back was too intense.
The creature raised its pike in a stabbing position toward the trembling woman and stabbed down. Chloe smirked. She raised her buckler at the last second, and with a swift motion drew her sword and struck the creature at the elbow of the arm where Rosaendra’s blade was stuck. The blade bit through the flesh, carved through the joint, and liberated the arm from its body.
Instead of blood, however, a black liquid like oil oozed from its wound, and from the severed veins and nerve canals; a white worm wriggled and writhed as it was exposed to the harsh gray light bleeding through the upper layers. Once more, Chloe’s stomach churned, but she fought the urge to vomit. Rosaendra wasn’t so lucky, however, as it was her turn to wretch her stomach on the slatted wood floors.
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The pike had been separated from its arm, that’s what was important, Chloe thought. Now that it was unarmed it should be an easy fi— That thought was put to rest as its beak slammed down at her. She managed to lift her shield, but the force of the blow was enough to send her kneeling once more. The creature followed it up with a heavy kick to her chest that pinned her to the ground. It pressed its leg down over her segmented chest plate. One of the talons found an opening and began to pierce the flesh of her abdomen.
Rosaendra steeled her churning stomach and grabbed the pike out of the creature’s severed arm. With a primal yell, she charged forward and stabbed the pike through the creature’s exposed throat. It was surprisingly light, for a thing of that size; Rosaendra pushed it off of Chloe easily, and she pushed it back to the stairs; the pike piercing through its throat. The long, barbed point dug further and further with every step; until the point pushed fully through the creature’s throat, and separated its head from its neck. The white worm that permeated the birdman’s body held the creature’s head in place and kept it from falling to the floor. The head lulled from side to side with its newfound elasticity, since it was free of the constraints of the spine.
The rest of the body went slack, as the white worm pushed the head forward to slam against Rosaendra’s nose. She felt her nose snap at the force and felt the warm flow of blood pour out of her now-clogged nostrils. The pike, now free of the creature’s throat, found purchase in the creature’s shoulder at Rosaendra’s redirect, and with enough force, she managed to push the body of the Birdman down the stairs.
Shlrp.
The white worm pulled free from the creature’s body, as Rosaendra grabbed hold of it just below the severed head before the body went tumbling down the stairs.
Innumerable tendrils wrap around her wrist and began to sneak up her arm, to underneath the bandages. She slammed the worm down and stomped on it with her boots, and pulled her arm away. It wriggled and writhed; the head of the Birdman snapping at her through her clothes. It was only when she managed to wrench her arm free that she could take in the entirety of this strange creature.
Once, in an anatomy class, she saw a picture of a human’s nerves laid out on a table. That was the closest analogy she could come up with. It was like a burl of living roots, wriggling, and trying to flee through the cracks in the floor, while other tendrils crawled up her leg.
“Chloe! There’s lighter fluid in my backpack!”
Chloe pushed herself up and clutched her bleeding stomach. She slammed her foot down on the head of the dead birdman. Foul black liquid splattered up her legs as it was crushed like a too-ripe melon, and she threw open the flap of Rosaendra’s backpack. It didn’t take long to find the aluminum canister.
She tore off the red-tabbed lid and poured the liquid all over the worm’s body; it lashed out and knocked it out of her hand when it was halfway gone.
“That’s enough,” Rosaendra said as she reached into her pocket and drew a book of matches. “Get back.”
She struck one of them, and it flickered to life. At the sight of the fire, the creature released Rosaendra’s leg, and tried, once more, to flee through the slatted floors. It was too late. Rosaendra released the lit match and pulled away as the flames took to the petroleum, and a blast of heat consumed the pale parasite.