COPYRIGHT © 2020 – Kurtis Eckstein

Finally, Ethan spoke up. “It was a black squid,” he whispered, focusing on Harper.

We all looked at him in shock – for me, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“It tried to get me, but you pushed me out of the way,” he added. “It was really, really scary. And you screamed a lot because its legs were digging into–”

“Enough!” I snapped, unable to comprehend that he had known all this time, but now recalling him asking Harper stupid questions when they reunited, like ‘Does it hurt?’

Granted, I hadn’t seen a lot of him, but had he really kept it to himself? And why wasn’t he more traumatized by the incident? Was it because he was suffering from some kind of depersonalization disorder or something? Or maybe exposure to violent videogames and movies had made him less sensitive and empathetic to the pain of others?

Or was it dissociation? A detachment from the gravity of a situation due to trauma?

It was like seeing someone drowning and thinking they would be okay because it’s no big deal to revive a drowned victim in movies, even though in real life someone who has drowned may not come back to life magically with a little bit of CPR.

If someone gets water in their lungs, there’s a decent chance they’re dead for good.

Likewise, I could imagine that having experienced hearing their mother horribly murdered and mutilated might have desensitized him to others dying in such horrific ways, especially because of his age – kids just didn’t get the seriousness of stuff like that.

It was also bothersome to hear that Harper had screamed a lot because the isopod was digging into her body, especially so when I considered that her status had said she was traumatized when I first met her, likely from being assaulted in such a terrible manner. No doubt it was like that for all humans who got attacked by the parasite, which meant the memory loss might be a blessing in disguise, considering it prevented us from recalling the horrifying and torturous experience.

I mean, the ability to regenerate obviously came only afterwards, which meant initially the creatures were digging throughout their new host’s body with their tentacles, probably almost killing them in the process while it took control of the human’s nervous system.

No matter how one looked at it, the process was actually a horrible death, assuming that the human inside never woke up like I had.

Unfortunately, that description was also enough for Harper to figure it out – that what we had been eating was the thing that was responsible for creating Night Stalkers. Surprisingly, she handled that news well, although I still kept my memory of how they were born from her.

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After everyone had been quiet for a few minutes, Savannah finally spoke up again.

“So, you do know then,” she whispered, realizing I had lied based on my reaction to her brother’s comment.

I glanced down to see her staring into space. “You’re better off the way you are,” I hedged. “And what I said is still true – I can’t make you like us.”

Besides, if I was being honest, I didn’t need another mouth to feed. We would have to start splitting everything three ways, which would probably offset the benefit of having three people fighting. It would be one thing if resources were easily obtainable, but they weren’t. I had gotten lucky with all the isopods I’d come across by chance, but it wasn’t guaranteed that my luck would continue.

And even if I did want to make her like us, I would still have to find a living isopod to essentially torture her to death. Not to mention, how was I to know whether or not the isopod was male or female? After all, while I assumed that larger ones might be female, the size might actually have nothing to do with gender, which meant Savannah could end up like…

I carefully tucked away the image of the bloated corpse with the isopods swimming around inside, before Harper had the chance to catch sight of it herself. She was being really good though, keeping her thoughts at a distance respectfully, since she knew I was trying to protect her from something.

Unexpectedly, the door flew open as Randy rushed in with a fancy looking radio.

“Mason,” he exclaimed. “We just heard the news report on Shawn’s satellite radio. Everyone in the world is talking about you right now, but I still can’t believe it. You fought a dragon?!”

So that’s what they were calling it, huh? I supposed it was either that, or else ‘dinosaur with blades on its back,’ as being the only comparisons regular people could grasp, though dragon did sound cooler.

I shrugged, glancing away.

He just seemed baffled. “T-Thank you,” he finally stammered. “For telling us to get to safety.”

I scoffed. “I didn’t need the distraction,” I retorted.

He hesitated. “Well, still. Thank you. After hearing about the destruction it caused, I know we truly would have been in some serious danger had you not killed it where it was.”

I tried not to scoff again, knowing the guy had no idea just how real that danger was, since the hospital was guaranteed to be destroyed if we didn’t complete the quest in time.

When I didn’t respond, he finally spoke again. “Err, umm…” He hesitated. “I don’t know how to ask this, but I just can’t figure it out – Mason, how did you know?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, glancing down at Savannah who was staring up at me with wide green eyes now. They probably wouldn’t believe me either way, but I supposed it couldn’t hurt to tell them. They would either think I was lying, or I wasn’t – ultimately, I didn’t care either way.

Sighing heavily, I spoke up. “The truth is, I can–”

Unexpectedly, my voice cut off as it felt like something popped in my skull, a message appearing along with the sensation.

Alert!

Temporary Ailment Detected: Stroke

Effect: Connection -13

Aliment will be dismissed in 00:01:27:526

My eyes widened in complete and total shock, as I realized what had just happened.

The system had just shut me up the moment I was about to talk about it…

Holy shit…

And if it could do that, then what else could it do to me?

To us?

Holy shit.

Holy shit!

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Note: This is the end of Book 1, which is currently available on Amazon as a paperback. I will be publishing the kindle version in a week or two, at which point I will be taking down Parts 2 through 77 from RR as I continue the story into Book 2.

Part 78 will be the beginning of Book 2.