--XXXV--

New pen. WE GOOD, M8S!! Oh no so ungrammatical oh no.

Was I writing about something specific?

--

MONDAY

8:16 AM

V4

I was in the air flying toward Windcreek mines. My phone rang, and of course, it was Connor Meadows.

"Do you have anything for me?" I said.

"Sam is going to join you," Connor said.

She was injured and yet still wanted to be there- a trait that she and I shared in the best of times, and in the worst of times.

I nodded, though Connor couldn't see it.

"Okay," I said.

I heard him exhale raspily. Probably more smoke.

"And I'll be there," he said. "You'll need another undetectable."

Still in the air, with sparkling blue-and-green skies around me, I smiled some sort of smile. Like, an "oh wow really?" and also a "well yeah why not" kind of smile.

You know, WHY NOT 'cuz I mean he MOST CERTAINLY has the fists for it

As you can see.

Or not see.

Pun half-intended.

"Should I hang up?" I said.

I was descending fast into my landing, colors of tall buildings lapsing by fast on both my sides, then turning into swift flashes of dark green intermixed with brown- the trees of the woods here. Some unmutated. Some... unlike the unmutated. Some way too large. Maybe because of their closeness and exposure to pure Vystir, or maybe also a result of experiment Overwood and the war- like in V8.

Quickly, and with my right hand, I grabbed onto the long branch of an overly mutated scots pine, intending to swing upwards, northeast, and onto the large wooden platform that borders the mine's least popular entrance- one Kaylee and I discovered on accident in one of our adventures years ago.

One microsecond after my trajectory changed I knew I was headed for trouble.

I'd calculated the extra weight of the biting water that soaked all my clothes- but not how the snow would affect my grasp on the branch. I lost my grip on the branch just a fraction of a second too early, now I had no idea where I'd land. I knew immediately I'd end up passing the platform where Kaylee was armed and waiting for me by about a mile, at least.

I kept my eyes peeled, stayed alert, now needing to anticipate unfamiliar landing spaces I wasn't familiar with. I twisted, spinning with my arms kicked out to slow my rotation, waving to Kaylee as I passed her, standing there on the elevated podium outside the entrance where I had initially expected to land.

"Hiiiiiiii!" I yelled, maybe two seconds before my weight of maybe about 102 pounds finally pulled down toward the ground, but not before slamming into several overlarge trees that basically turned me into a molecule in appearance- a molecule slamming from one tree to the next, bouncing in a zigzag pattern until I landed somewhere near an old, abandoned hydraulic shovel, with a few abandoned mining drill rigs around it, and some more trees. I still landed on my feet.

Well, I landed on my feet and then rolled into the hydraulic shovel.

I don't think I was injured- at least not too badly- apart from the heavily bleeding nose. I crawled, and then sat with my back leaning on the side of the hydraulic shovel. I pinched my nose shut and then ended up just having to swallow the blood, which somehow decided to just drip down and make its way to my esophagus instead.

"Yay," I whispered to no one. "I love trees."

And I really did, for the most part. I still do. I loved them until a moment later, when dark shapes emerged from the surrounding trees.

Okay get out of here please like now, I thought to myself.

Out out out out out out out

But I stumbled, fumbling as I realized that a giant splinter had embedded itself into the inside of my left leg. It was a piece of bark from a mutated tree, half-covered in skin and half-covered in fresh blood. It was disgusting. Hideous. I debated pulling it out with my bare hands, but I wasn't sure if that would only make it worse. I marveled at how black and how red it was at the same time.

Maybe the blood that decorated my leg was somehow actually from my nose.

Yeah, that totally makes sense.

And I still didn't know where Caleb was. Or Malcolm, for that matter.

ORBIPLOSIONS

I reached through to Kaylee telepathically. And I knew that she sensed my tone and aura immediately; the kind of energy you get immediately upon connection with a fellow telepath, as long as their guards weren't on and you were close to them.

"Kayles." My telepathic voice was still a very mellow and very calm sound.

Very, very slowly, I limped over toward one of the mining drill rigs. I wiped my hands on what Caleb once told me is called the drill boom, a rusty old thing on the front of the rig. It was broken and low, closer to the ground than it normally would be. I smeared my blood on it.

"You're okay, aren't you?" she said.

I stared at my own blood. Just like I did, just like I did thousands of times, most of those times during the three-month experiment they called Nightingale.

Once during a suicide attempt after.

"Nope," I said.

"Can you defend yourself?" said Kaylee.

My ignite was either unreliable or just extremely inefficient if I was badly hurt, or disoriented. It was a 50/50 in a case like this- my ability to inflict the intense burning sensation of pain upon contact.

"I..." I said. I swallowed some more blood. "I don't know if I can ignite right now."

"Just turn it on anyway," she replied. "I'm coming to you, I'll find you."

Wings, the feathers black on some, and then a very dark shade of purple on others. Big wings.

The Talon.

I thought they weren't supposed to be anywhere except Vicinity Eight?

"Kayles," I said, a new degree of alarm spreading like plasma mixing into the already red effluence and aura, the energy I put into the telepathic binding. "Don't." I took a moment to accept what was around me. "Talon."

I looked around, before speaking through the connection again. Some of them were larger than others. None of them under six foot five. People- well, partly people, I supposed- who were larger than regular humans, with sharp mouths, un-metaphorically sharp mouths that almost looked a lot more like...

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Okay," I said. "They don't have mouths. They have beaks."

"What?" said Kaylee. "But they're-"

"Not supposed to be anywhere but V8," I replied.

She spoke slowly. "So..."

One of the Talon approached me slowly, like a zombie, a zombie executioner; an enormous red axe was held lifted in his large, insanely muscular arm. His eyes were the exact same color of my blood. Others followed, from almost all sides.

Almost like that one time in Nightingale.

Maybe there were even more coming from behind the drill rig...

"We've been lied to again, Kayles." I closed my eyes for a moment. And then, I thought a fleeting thought out loud to where Kaylee could hear it: "We're not the only test subjects that left the place we were supposed to be confined to." I stood on one leg, though thankfully adrenaline was now course through me, starting to make the pain just slightly tolerable. I was still dizzy.

I coughed, again, this time with blood exiting my system through both my mouth as well my nostrils. I coughed again, then cleared my throat. I looked up at the sky. Light blue and light green, like peppermint bubblegum candy.

"Charlie November Alpha," I said, "on the ignite situation. Arrowvine, don't come here."

"You're not stopping me," she said.

"I'm stopping you," I replied.

"You wouldn't leave me behind," Kaylee said. "Even if I told you to."

I tried to see if the trees were an escape option. No, there were several more that I could see- and possibly even more, but concealed- up in the mutated sugar pines and the sequoias. Even if I was fast enough.

I was going to have to fight, and probably die.

"...don't come here." I repeated myself. "You know those monsters back in the, um." I couldn't say it; I didn't say it.

"The N-word?"

"Um," I said. "Yeah."

"Nightingale," she said.

One of the Talon swooped above my head, almost decapitating me in the process. I just barely made it below the fortified drill feed of the machine behind me. It chopped that off, instead.

"They're almost like some of the monsters from that experiment!" I said, flexing my fingers, reminding myself I was still in control of them. "Only... a little bit different. Maybe." Without meaning to, I began to cry. "I don't know. I don't know anymore. I don't know anything. I don't want to remember anything."

"Chris," she said, firmly, "just stay calm. I'll be there whatever you say. Remember what you said to me in Nightingale?"

...what I said to her in Nightingale?

One of the creatures, a different one from the axe-holder and the flying head-chopper, stabbed at me with some kind of almost medieval-looking pitchfork. Only this one was on fire and blazing hot; the entire weapon was glowing, searing orange. I sidestepped, parrying and pushing it away with my right elbow. Sparks flew into my face and eyes as I stepped backward, managing whatever distance I could from these monsters, grunting from the effort it took to move my leg normally and now the burn on my elbow.

What I said to her, in Nightingale? That was a three-month long experiment; she certainly wouldn't be getting any points for specificity. I knew she was reading my mind.

"Kayles," I said. "Which night?"

"Fifty-three," she replied.

"I..." I was remembering other things that happened that night. That day of the experiment. It wasn't the nicest night of my life and it isn't one I like to remember very much. Kaylee should know that...

Kaylee's telepathic voice surged, powerful and blunt like a tidal wave of anger visible only to two telepaths in that moment, into both our minds- something she chose to do; perhaps she was trying to drown out my vivid memories of the nightmare that was Nightingale, or maybe her own, or both. "If we die we die together."

I ran toward one of the Talon, no longer planning to attempt communication or negotiation. Right knee up, left leg behind, a twisting spin toward my left, and my right heel and fist both connected with the face of the creature- and the axe fell.

It took me about two seconds to then realize- there was no was I could possibly lift it. It was probably twice my weight or maybe even triple.

I knew that pretty soon that Talon man or Talon creature or whatever it was would be back up and simply wield the weapon again. And he was bigger than me of course, yet also bigger than all of the other Talon...

Just like that one time in Nightingale.

Or every other time.

I looked up, and saw the extension of one of the rigs was directly above me.

Did I want to kill one of them? No. Did I want to at least stay alive until Kaylee got here? Probably.

With my relatively un-hurt leg I swung four hard kicks- using backward gainers- into the rusty extension, then landing one one knee and rolling sideways.

I had only the time to get up as the drill boom and drill rod broke apart, the drill hammer falling precisely where I calculated it would- on the axe handle. I flinched as the handle snapped- it didn't sound like a piece of wood breaking. At least not regular wood. It sounded almost like the snapping of a tree, magnified by ten.

The Talon man whose weapon I destroyed let out an electrifyingly loud cry- some kind of crow noise but combined with that opera my class had to watch in third grade (which, by the way, nobody liked except for the teacher), and also combined with an audible, palpable, amount of agony.

"Did a tree fall?" said Kaylee.

Is that what it sounded like?

"Answer: no." The Talon man got up, flew over to his axe, and got a grip on the blunt side of the axe head. He was still crying out, either unwilling to pull it free from under the broken drill hammer... or unable to. His wings were flapping like crazy, almost like he was throwing some kind of crow tantrum. "Question: Where are you?" And physically, to the Talon man, I said, "I'm so sorry about your axe!"

"I... don't know. I just followed the general direction you flew in," Kaylee replied.

I didn't eat anything for a week except for the three pieces of French toast. That stupid spray from the canister or whatever was still making me cough.

I threw a roundoff and then a layout with a full, landing stuck on the shoulders of the second-tallest Talon creature and then double-flipped backward to get away from the biggest threat. I wondered what I did to it...

I effectively landed both my feet on one of the monsters eye sockets and rebounded off of it. From the way it cried out after- and the little "sparking" sensation I felt in my heels- I'd guess my ignite was on. At least for the moment.

But as soon as I landed, another Talon- I guessed a woman Talon, by the looks of it- grabbed me by both my arms. I kicked wildly- with both my injured and uninjured legs- willing my ability to inflict the burning sensation to work, but it wouldn't. She grabbed arms from behind me, and like all the other Talon, there was no chance someone my size was going to outmuscle her.

Then that other Talon- seemingly a male, the one that held the blazing pitchfork- was swinging his weapon like a lunatic, burning and stabbing the horde in front of him, anything in his way.

To get to me.

"Kaylee," I said. "Just don't come here. I... don't have a chance of surviving."

I tugged one more time, hard; my arms didn't come loose.

I'd been tied to chairs or torture devices or to dead bodies, or even to Kaylee- but these were arms I had, seemingly, no way of breaking out of.

"We survived three months of torture, Chris," she replied. "This is nothing. Stay calm, and just stay alive! I'll find you very soon!"

"No, I-"

I closed my eyes- waiting, anticipating, expecting the crazed Talon man to shove the tines of his blazing pitchfork straight through me.

"Chris?"

I remember thinking maybe, maybe I'd see Skittles or Crayon again, or maybe even Marie, too. Maybe I'd meet a family that was for me; I wasn't going to survive this, and I could give up the fight. Maybe I could finally have some sort of cute fox-like animal pet, like the one on that little trinket Sam Shilberg wore on her wrist.

I think somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered, for a moment, if the murdered child I hadn't met might be with them- would I ask for answers? Would it matter?

Did I believe I'd see my parents again- my real ones?

In that split fraction of a moment I felt maybe somehow I knew them; I'd just lost them so early. I wasn't one to be dependent- never was, but an unusual sliver of helplessness and a longing for nurture or love had cut through me.

I remember my eyes were closed, the wooden shard in my left leg, thinking that maybe it was no different from the experiment, afterward; perhaps, it was enough that I helped Kaylee survive through that ordeal and all that followed.

Perhaps, it was easier to deal with. I was already out of Nightingale- me and Kaylee both.

I remember thinking: Hey. I was going to kill myself, anyway... wasn't I? Maybe, Caleb can catch the instigator of the murders.

The only sad thought I can remember was that there were possibly still rings, abuse rings, exploitative hellions and firebrands- evil scum with no principles, no morals- that I still hadn't stopped.

Part of me waited- waited for the pain- both physical and emotional, to ebb; to stop and to go away.

"Danny! What's going on?"

I remembering saying a prayer, the way I always did.

--

I felt something, and I wasn't sure if it was the sensation of burning metal through my body.

The Talon woman's arms loosened on mine and, more muscle memory than anything else, I elbowed her hard in the solar plexus- with my left arm now- and spun into a left arc kick to disarm the creature in front of me. As it were, I didn't need to disarm him, even as my heel smashed hard into his temple- because when I turned to look... the pitchfork was on the ground; embedded into the Talon woman's face.

I communicated telepathically with Kaylee Ann Davenport once more.

The crazed Talon who initially held the pitchfork looked at me- his eye color was some type of red mixed with purple and some brown- and then flew away. He didn't retaliate, after I attacked him out of defense.

I felt the spark in my heel. I'd ignited him.

"Kaylee, your sense of direction right now is maybe kind of crap," I said, "but I love you, and if no one gets here soon... I will die. Find Caleb and Malcolm-" I dodged fangs and claws from a Talon man that used no visible weapons, but he was fast. If he would be the one that would end up killing me, I hoped he would make it fast, too. Physically, I spoke the words "I'm not here to fight you!" which none of the horde seemed to really understand, or care about.

"We'll find them together," Kaylee said. She spoke her next words very slowly. "Marblefox, you're still alive. And that is no surprise to anyone, at all." She gripped me telepathically with the sound of her words, like she was there and shaking my shoulders. "Radio silence. I know where you are; we both need to focus. Find a sharp object. Survive. Arrowvine out."

Find a sharp object.

Survive.

I'd done this before.

Find a sharp object. Survive. I looked around, hoping for something, anything. But I found nothing- there was nothing. And I couldn't pick up that pitchfork, or the axe. And then, my eyes drifted to my leg, the left one. The one where a giant splinter from a mutated tree had embedded itself.

Not again...