God, I'm tired. James thought over the sound of gunfire. So tired. He tracked a creature the size of a tarantula with his m4, as it scrabbled to get closer. His AI called it a [Psykosyte], it was fleshy and glistened as though wet. Two shots tore through its body, spilling alien guts and killing it. James tracked another, killing it, then another and another and another. So, fucking tired.

They came when they tried to sleep, they came intermittently throughout the day, using ruined buildings to sneak up on them and hiding ahead of their path to ambush them. It couldn't be an accident, James thought, something is directing them. Something smart.

A muffled scream drew his attention. Ricky was clawing at one of the things on his face, his screams turning pained and hoarse. Till they were cut short. James didn't hesitate, he drew a bead on Ricky's still body and fired. One in the head and another through the heart.

Once the psykosytes reached your brain, you became a puppet to whatever controlled the psykosytes. Death was a mercy.

James turned back to the swarm, too tired to think, too tired to grieve. It wasn't the first time he had to put a friend down, and it won't be the last. Unless they found and killed the creature directing the psykosytes soon, he too would need to be put down.

Like a machine, he tracked each monstrous spider and put them down. With his [Dexterity] enhanced beyond human limits, two shots were all he needed. Those two kicks of his M4 were his companions through the night. Kick-kick, swivel, kick-kick, swivel.

If James wasn't so tired he might have seen the ambush coming. But the moment his enhanced ears picked up on the movement above him, the psykosyte was already midair, en route to his face.

Where the belly of the spider-like monster would be was instead a circular row of teeth with a two-inch needle at its center. James flexed [Dextrous Flow], using his [Vigor] to boost his speed, reflexes, and time perception so high, the psykosytes were moving visibly slower. Swivel, kick-kick, another one dead.

While in [Dextrous Flow] he quickly assessed the battlefield, the swarm still kept coming, Ricky was running over to help him and there were more psykosytes on the buildings beside them. There were more than fifteen of the fuckers jumping off the top, trying to land on them. With superhuman speed and precision, he tore them from the air. James tuned his mind into that familiar beat of kick-kick swivel, as he killed eighteen falling psykosytes in under six seconds. He allowed himself a smile, not today you little shits. As [Dextrous Flow] ended and the single-minded focus that comes with the ability left him, he realized, Ricky is dead. Right before Ricky tackled him to the ground.

The thing that used to be Ricky was dead silent as it pinned James' arms to the floor with superhuman strength, fire raced through James' entire being. He struggled against Ricky's iron grip, flailing his forearm from the elbow and screaming at his dead friend but his corpse stared back unmoved. Fleshy tendrils wormed their way through Ricky's cranium and down his jaw, like tentacles pouring from the parasite attached to him. The whites of his eyes were blank, without the iris or pupil or a semblance of the man he once was. Then the psykosyte on its head extracted itself from Ricky's corpse and skittered down his neck, heading for James.

James's entire being was still raw from pushing itself to superhuman speed after [Dextrous Flow], but he didn't care, better he died to the strain than become a slave to these monsters. With his entire being, he screamed his intent "DEXTROUS FLOW" his entire will bent on pulling his sluggish vigor from his exhausted body. Then everything slowed down as his focus narrowed and kicked into seventh gear.

Ricky has [Iron Bones] and [Regeneration], two bullets weren't enough.

I'm not breaking this grip, the grenade in my vest would kill the others and the psykosyte is on his shoulder, ready to jump.

In the grips of [Dextrous Flow], there was no time between having the idea and execution. James bit down on the first knuckle of his middle finger, his teeth slicing through the joint and leaving the tip of his finger in his mouth. In one fluid motion, he stripped the flesh from the finger bone by pushing the fingertip with his tongue between his teeth. James' front teeth scraped the flesh from the bone and held it steady and right at the psykosyte as its six legs tensed ready to leap.

With near-perfect precision he tracked the creature as it leaped, the barb under its belly extending, reaching for his skull. Pulling as much speed and power from [Dextrous Flow] as he could. James spat his finger bone through the psykosyte.

The bloody bone tore into its insectile shell with a wet crunch, it fell backward on the floor its six legs curling in on itself. Like a puppet with its string cut, Ricky's corpse collapsed on James. His sharp senses caught the distinctive sound of someone pumping a shotgun, must be Sarah. "Wait! I'm alive, I'm alive!" he shouted, his voice raw, "I killed the bug!, See? over there, its dead." James slowly pushed Ricky's corpse aside and stood up with both shaking hands. "Still me Sarah"

As Sarah dropped her shotgun, his AI must have considered the battle over.

[Dextrous Flow advances]

[Upgrade options]

[Dextrous Flow II - Psionic Dextrous Flow - Keen Dextrous Flow]

Sarah hugged him, bringing his attention from the notifications to her arms around his back. "Be careful Sarah, I've got a-"

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

[ERROR Connec-]

The notification was there and gone so quickly that he wasn't sure he saw it.

Then Sarah kissed him with such intensity, her fingers behind his neck prickled. James was pleasantly surprised.

"I didn't know you felt that way?" He said "I'm just glad that you're still you" she replied.

"So am I"

She sat down and attended to her AI's notifications, as did he.

"AI, gimme a quick rundown of what each upgrade offers"

[Dextrous Flow II: Increases the multiplication of Dexterity to six times rather than three times. Uses more Vigor but is otherwise the same.]

[Psionic Dextrous Flow: Multiplies not just Dexterity by three but also Cognition allowing you significantly more time to think. Higher strain requiring longer cooldown in between uses. Uses Psi as well as Vigor]

[Keen Dextrous Flow: Removes the hyper-focus caused by the ability and multiplies Perception by three as well. Uses Psi as well as Vigor]

James lay on the ground wrapping his middle finger in bandages, resting, and thinking over his options. His speed and precision multiplied threefold was powerful enough, but six times? What would that even feel like?

But, on the other hand, the hyperfocus that initially drew James' favor now seemed to be a weakness. Hyperfocus was an asset in mid to long-range precision combat but up close... He was tired of being surprised, hopefully, Keen Dextrous Flow had strong upgrade options. James' picked the Perception upgrade and lay down to rest for a few breaths. The weariness setting in after the adrenaline of the fight. Reusing [Dextrous Flow] back to back like that... he could already feel the beginning of numbness and insensitivity up and down his spine.

James got up from the desolate street and tended as best he could to his band. The psykosytes had retreated with the rising sun. It was a trick, James knew, the psykosytes were unaffected by the sun. They only retreated to give them a false sense of security during the day. Easier to ambush them that way.

He rounded up his crew, he could see in all their eyes the fatigue he felt inside. He asked around for any of their Essence hauls. A pittance. The creatures gave out fractions of Essense if they gave any at all. Another sign that the creatures were merely creations of some more powerful creature.

After two hours of rest, he gathered with all nine fighters of his band and laid his shred of a plan out. They could not keep running, he explained. Whatever this was it could follow them just fine. It seemed to be able to replenish its swarm quickly, so they couldn't exhaust it. No. They needed to find and kill it. Most agreed.

He tasked three of them with the best abilities for scouting to find trails of the mystery creature. Sarah, who had the most advanced scouting abilities went in the direction the psykosytes retreated to. The other two spread out, in case the direction of the psykosyte's retreat was a misdirection.

The remaining six found a defensible position in a mall that still stood. James would have been unsettled by the hollowness of the mall, or the corpses, but each step was a battle against his fatigue. Javier stood guard while the rest collapsed into sleep.

In James' dream, he fell through an endless abyss into the arms of a giant creature. He saw it was Ricky but the tendrils had turned into true tentacles and his eyes were not pure white but the pure black of the abyss around them. Then it spoke, the sound struck like a hammer to his skull scattering his thoughts. He ran or tried to but psykosytes were emerging from the creature's arms and latching on to him, their spider legs growing into him and becoming fleshy tendrils. They grew through his legs as they stopped working through his heart and lungs and into his brain and mind, and as he was certain he was going to die he woke screaming.

In a panic he rubbed the back of his head, desperately hoping for nothing there. Nothing, he could feel no horrible monster attached to his head. He tried to calm down as a few of his band came into the mall store he was sleeping in to check on him.

It was still afternoon, he had regained a lot more of his Vigor, so James decided to test his new ability. He didn't want to go back to sleep, that nightmare felt unnatural.

He went down to the center of the mall, by an empty fountain. Some of the others who couldn't sleep had put together a bbq grill and were filling the massive mall up with the aroma of smoke and grilled meat.

When the man grilling the meat, Antoine was it? saw James, he threw him a tomahawk steak. As good a time as any to test the new ability.

James flexed [Keen Dextrous Flow] to catch the handle of the steak, but as did, the steak disappeared. Like a burning film, the mall disappeared as well. He found himself trudging forward in a crowd. James stopped, a cold terror blooming in his gut, people bumped his still form as they walked past him.

Every single one, every single person had a psykosyte on their head.

That realization was nothing compared to what he could feel on the back of his neck. The six legs, the needle through his skull, the psykosyte sat exactly where Sarah held him as they kissed.

Speechless he stood, as the river of doomed humanity flowed past him, as the ability ended and the illusion of the mall returned.

A maelstrom of sorrow brought him to his knees. Deep sobs wracked him as he held his head in his hands. Ricky, Antoine, Havier, Sarah. None of them escaped, they were shambling somewhere in this crowd, trapped in their minds.

James looked down at the steak, its aroma as real and delicious as his mind could imagine. He looked up at Antoine, who looked worried and unsure. A quiet thought began to grow. Could he just... live? Just eat the steak. Chat it up with Havier. Hold Sarah.

But it wasn't a steak, that wasn't Havier, and Sarah was somewhere in that nightmare world puppeteered by a monster.

By a monster that wouldn't even show its face in the waking world! Sorrow met fury and it boiled over, Fuck you, you alien scumbag! "You hear me?!, Fuck you!" His scream rang out over uncaring concrete, over the silent puppet army as his ability destroyed the illusion and returned him to grim reality. "Hunting us, killing us! Turning us into monsters! I refuse!"

He pulled his M4 around and turned it unto the crowd. James wiped his tears to clear his sight and with that particular speed and precision of [Keen Dextrous Flow], he tore through them. A man possessed, he held down the trigger and did not let go. The rifle roared, expelling his rage into the mass of bodies. When he finished his magazine, with expert precision he reloaded another, and another until the rifle clicked empty.

And as sudden as it came, the fury left him. James pulled out the grenade in his vest, he pulled the pin through blurry eyes. He held it up and mustered all the conviction he had "I refuse." Then all was fire and light.