It abandoned the husk. The entity pounced onto the steps with a thud. Its body grossly convulsed and its claws dug into the wood of the steps as it dashed up them upon its many hands. It was quick even without a lower half.
His heart sunk into the pits of the Earth. Instinct twisted him around and spurred him to bolt.
Yet, the entity slithered across the right wall in a series of reaching lunges quicker than he could flee and pinned him against the staircase by his shoulders.
He struck his chin on the step’s edge, spiraling into a flashing daze. It shrieked a horrid sound kindred to death itself, then twisted him round.
He screamed, winced, and squeezed his eyes shut before its horrid visage. However, his eyes were compelled wide open as his body relaxed against his will. He peered into its abyss, gazing down a tunnel of infinite mouths and infinite, churning teeth. At its end awaited the harrowing unfathomability of finality itself—beautiful nothingness; horrific end.
Choking as if a baleful hand gripped his throat, a stream of aurora-like energy was drawn from his gaped mouth, inhaled into the entity’s maw. His color gradually cast into grayscale. His broad eyes glazed solid white. His form began fading away into undulating, ashen smoke. He was crumbling away to dust. Memory after memory, years of his adult and teenage life flashed before his eyes in reverse chronological order. The film reel was being unwound, slipping through the crevices of his fingers like clutches of sand, stolen, lost, erased—devoured into the entity’s abyss.
What flavor of terrible person was he in a past life to experience death twice? He was tired of fighting—of suffering. Why couldn’t he just have peace? If the entity was to be the one to escort him to his end, he wasn’t going to make a fuss. It wasn’t as if any of that life flashing before his eyes was worth preserving.
Then he caught a glance of Jordan’s smiling face amidst the flashing memories. His hands clenched on instinct before it. The reel delayed its unraveling, even if only for a moment.
It was that Friday he defied his mother to go hangout at Jordan’s house after school. They were in his bedroom, sat side by side on the floor at the foot of his bed. It was his first time going over to someone else’s house, so he wasn’t all too confident or certain about how it worked. It was a little awkward. More than a little. If the silence could talk, it would’ve been making a fool of him for being so socially inept. Having his parents isolate him and tell him other kids were unworthy of him all his life would do that—not that he ever agreed with them. But Jordan had brought up the fact he’d seen Caleb doodling an anime character in class once. That he liked anime too. That helped him find his way from the forest of his self-doubt.
After that, it was smooth sailing from there. Not even a drawn gun could get them to stop talking. They idly chatted about their favorite anime and why it was ‘Reincarnated as a Slime.’ All the while, the two passed the P5 controller back and forth as they ran solos on Fortnite. His legs were crossed and his knee had touched Jordan’s leg by accident. They looked at each other, laughing amidst their sheepish, repressed smiles. It felt like time froze at the moment their gazes met. He didn’t think he’d ever been that close to another human before. Close enough to scrutinize the lines of their features—to chart their flaws and perfections. That curly dark hair, those light brown eyes, and those dimples were a marvel to Caleb. Wonders unlike he’d ever seen basking amidst the golden hour of sunset sneaking through the bedroom window.
Amid the silence, Jordan touched their pinkies. That eventually escalated to him grasping Caleb’s hand, asking him with downcast eyes, “Is this alright…?”
Caleb never wanted to let it go. Jordan’s hand was so warm and soft. The way he could feel the rhythm of his heart through his fingers fascinated him. He nodded, then answered quietly, cheeks tinged a faint shade of pale red: “Y-Yeah. It’s okay. I like it… Holding your hand. It’s… nice.”
Jordan’s smile broadened, albeit his efforts to play it cool not being too expressive. A simple, “Cool,” sufficed.
They schooched together a little closer until their shoulders touched. That way was how they remained until Caleb had to go home with unfulfilled promises to hangout again.
Tears trickled from Caleb’s whitened eyes where he was pressed beneath the entity. He’d lied… Even if every other moment was worthless, that moment was one worth preserving. It was the first instance in his life he felt like his connection with another human was real and treasured by them as much as it was treasured by him. It was proof, beyond all of the misery, loneliness, and suffering, life was worth living.
After that day, his mother may have driven Jordan away.
His father may have lambasted him, slapped him around, and called him every variation of gay.
But, within his heart, he never stopped cherishing that day.
He never relinquished his memory of the first connection he ever pocketed in his mind to stay.
The entity couldn’t have it.
Resolve bubbling up inside him, he wouldn’t let it. Over his dead body.
It could have every memory of his parents. Every moment of his adolescent and adult life. It couldn’t have that day. It wouldn’t.
Hands squeezing into unrelenting fists, something within him clicked into place. A dam shattered, and the unbridled, primal urge to survive—to shelter that memory—burst out. The energy siphoning from him stalled, then reversed as he rediscovered his bearing and claimed a great, gasping inhale. His irises recaptured their vitality as his color washed back into him. All of his devoured memories dipped into finality repainted themselves as the reel wound itself back to shape. And the stolen traces of his soul for the entity to feed upon were drawn back to his internal flame, at which it restoked into a howling, ardent, prismatic blaze like a waltz danced between wind and flame.
[System prerequisite met! You’ve acquired a new skill: Ethereal Surge!]
[Ethereal Surge Lvl 1] - (Spirit) - (Active): Amplify and suffuse the energies of your soul into your body and fortify it with the vigor of your will. While active, Vit, Str, Con, Dex, Agi, Per, Int, Cha, and Arc are each increased by up to 10% of your Spirit attribute depending on your strength of will while channeling. Additionally, all attacks are infused with minor spiritual damage.
[System prerequisite met! You’ve acquired a new skill: Rebellion!]
[Rebellion Lvl 1] - (Spirit) - (Active): Permeate the energies of your soul through your spiritual pathways, identifying any negative status ailments inflicting you at the moment. Ailments of a spiritual nature may be placed into contest and possibly dispelled depending on your strength of will while channeling.
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The entity hissed, chittered, and roared. One of its many hands slammed onto his throat with a vice’s grip. It drew its chittering maw closer, void within expanding, and siphoned harder. Caleb choked. The favor shifted back toward it. But he dug deeper—deep as he could go—and resisted with every dreg of his will. It was a game of tug of war over the essence that made him, him—his soul.
Back and forth that spark leapt unendingly in whipping strides. Tangible, rippling distortions cascaded across reality from between them amidst the struggle. They pulsed through his body like point-blank ordnance detonation shockwaves. The walls of the house cracked into spreading, glowing fissures like lightning bolts frozen into eternity. Gaping chunks broke off, revealing the scenes of countless memories beyond them—most of them memories he didn’t care to reminisce over. Before long, the scene they inhabited burst into countless chiming pieces.
The ground beneath them shattered. They plummeted and spiraled through a fractured ocean of starlit, humming glass shards. Each of the innumerable represented a unique moment in his life.
An energy dyed in hues of shifting blue-green surged and wreathed him as they descended through the strange realm. He struggled in its clutch, soon ripping his hands from the entity’s holds. He shook his legs free before kicking it away. It went one direction and he went the other. A flash of light washed his world to white from behind. The next thing he knew, he crashed backfirst atop his house’s dining room table. He was toddler-sized all of a sudden, encircled by a horde of kindergarteners wearing face paint and party hats. A banner reading “Happy Sixth Birthday Caleb” hung overhead above the archway leading into the family room. Leaning up from where he fell, the birthday cake, splattered into a mess of frosted, sweet viscera painting the table, softened his fall. The other kids and the parents were broad-eyed and shocked to silence.
That accursed day. He snorted in exasperation. His parents spent the entire party rolling him around like a parade float, not-so-inconspicuously boasting about how much more accomplished he was to the other kids’ parents. Everyone in his class loathed him after that day because their parents detested his parents.
He waved in apology as he crawled to his feet, his adorable face wincing. “Sorry ‘bout that. I’ll let you guys, uh, get back to it—”
The entity crashed through the walls of the memory in a hail of chiming, iridescent shards. It snatched him by the throat and pinned him back down from where he arose.
He, thinking fast, yanked up the nearby knife on the table. That blue-green aura emerged in a tempestuous howl of energy. He sunk the blade’s point into the side of its head.
It bellowed a horrid sound. Its grip was unletting amid its writhing. He couldn’t wrestle himself free from its clutch. Amidst his flailing, it cocked its arm wide and pitched him through the dining room window like a major league baseball. The glass fractured and exploded into an ocean of spacey chimes against his backside. Except he didn’t surface into the backyard of his house as all logic should’ve declared.
The dimensions of space inverted. He surfaced onto a commercial airplane, matured to late adolescence, and barreled down its aisle in an unceasing roll while onlookers passed perturbed glances from their seats. It immediately pounced through the rift after him in pursuit. He noticed, kicking himself to a stop. He lunged himself upright and sprinted in the opposite direction as it gave vehement, loud chase. It slung itself across the backs of the seats before slithering across the plane’s ceiling with frightening speed. Having adult-sized legs was underappreciated.
He arrived at the aisle’s rear. It was a deadend. He was trapped. His head whipped every which way, panicked sights scanning around the scene in search of options of escape. He looked behind him, into the aisle. The entity was imminent and chitter-screeching a blood-curdling noise. His heart jumped, then sank, rushing in its cadence. There was an emergency exit—an option. Unlikely, but an option—the only option.
He dashed for it, wrestling, shoving, and ramming against it as he fought to get it open with everything he had. The entity pounced the final stretch of distance. His life flashed before his eyes. Physics stated it should’ve been an impossible feat no matter how hard he tried, yet the door blew open mid-flight with some effort and intent. He was snatched out in an instant by the Hand of God, catapulted by the pressure just before the entity sunk its claws through his face.
Opening it seemed like a good idea at the time. The fall sounded more appealing than the thing hunting him. Nonetheless, spiraling out of control multiple ten-thousand feet above the ocean, he remembered why he’d always had a phobia of planes.
Caleb flailed his arms and screamed at the top of his lungs. He was tossed around by the strong winds, unable to orient. The sky and the ocean rotated through his vision with each passing second. It demanded all of his will to keep his heart from leaping from his throat. Its rhythm convulsed his entire body upon every beat.
“Why is this happening to me, why is this happening to me, why is this happening to me!?” Against all urges to panic, he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his everything, focusing on getting his breathing under control whilst he tumbled in his descent. “Focus… Focus… Focus… Please focus…!”
[System prerequisite met! You’ve acquired a new skill: Equanimity!]
[Equanimity Lvl 1] - (Spirit) - (Active): Concentrate the energies of your soul into your mind, inducing an immediate state of calmness. The potency of the effect is determined by your strength of will while channeling.
A pen clicked. All of his fear washed from his body. His heart rate was under control within the second. Suddenly, freefalling wasn’t so terrifying. He straightened his body, arms set against his sides, pointed his toes, and dove toward the ocean below, penetrating its surface like a torpedo. He submerged into its darkest depths only to surface into the light of the glaring sun on the other side a few moments later. Where he’d arisen: the beach at a hotel resort in Cancun, Mexico—the destination of his family trip his senior year.
Caleb surfaced onto the sand sopping wet, crawling toward safety like a walrus dragging itself across the ice. He hoped he’d managed to elude the entity for good and could finally orient. However, he thought too soon, and it leapt from the ocean, grabbing ahold of his ankle before snatching him back into the depths. A short-lived yelp was all which remained.
The entity penetrated its many claws into his torso and sides, inundating him in searing pain. He screamed. Bubbles gushed from the gaped cavern of his mouth. It drew him near to its maw and began siphoning his soul. It was even less effective the second time. His adrenaline was racing, yet his head was as clear as a summer morning. That flame within him was still ablaze in a glorious bonfire. His spiritual energy roared. He cocked his arm and decked it in the chin before it could even wet its lips with the juices of his soul. Then he gripped the knife still jutting from its dark hood, wrenching it in deeper. It shrieked in agony and knocked him away. The knife tagged along with him in his submersion.
In a seamless instant, the depths inverted like an hourglass. The currents ferried him downward, but his head surfaced from the middle of a large pond in the body of a fourteen-year-old version of himself. He knew that pond and the park it was in like the back of his hand. It was the place he always stopped on his way home from school to enjoy the peace before having to deal with his parents. That sanctuary away from his life’s hassles carried him through high school. The ducks and the squirrels became his friends when he wasn’t allowed to have any human ones.
He swam toward the bank, crawling from the water, and made his way to the nearby bench he always sojourned upon with wet, squelching steps. There, he sat. A long breath deflated his lungs, succeeded by an inhale equally as long. A moment of peace, at last—so he hoped.
Then he blinked.
The sky had become blood red.
A bright, crimson-outlined black hole loomed where the sun once shone.
The vegetation of the park withered black and shriveled.
A rancid odor like death permeated the stagnant air, gnarling his features sour beneath a grimace.
Everything was subsumed into tangible silence. So, so quiet. Not a sound.
The entity launched from the pond’s depths, bellowing, and rushed him where he sat on the bench.
He flinched behind shielding arms. The bench, ground, and all crumbled away beneath his feet. Broad-eyed, his heart sunk. He reached up toward the darkening light as he plummeted into the abyss below.
His senses were gradually submerged into the silence. All of his being converged toward a pinprick-sized hole raised at the center of his conviction—a great spiritual maelstrom flashing with color. He didn’t flee from it. He spiraled toward it, willing to go wherever it led for survival’s sake.