Chapter 5

The town square of Elm City was sparsely populated that day. Not as many people walked about it as usual. However, there were still dozens of people inhabiting it, chatting or entering and leaving shops.

The crowd paid little attention to Aaron as he sat on the fountain's edge. It was at that moment if there was ever a time in the young man’s life when he was thinking absolutely nothing. He had nothing running through his mind. It was as though any higher functions of reasoning had been completely shut off.

This was a defense mechanism for his sanity because if Aaron continued to ponder his situation further, he would probably become anything but sane. Depressed, irrational, violent, stubborn, or even suicidal was not out of the realm of possibility at this point. He would have probably continued staring at the grey cobblestone at his feet with no emotion or stray thoughts if the pale disembodied face did not appear to him.

“I tried to warn you, but you did not listen,” she said. “All you could do was try to grasp at the remains of the life you once had. It is no longer an option to go back. Forget about them. Leave this place before things get worse.”

“How could things get worse?!” Aaron yelled. “Everything I have is gone! Everything! My friends, my family, my fiance…!”

With his fist raised, he became angry enough to start marching toward the woman. While Aaron avoided violence at all costs, he was so agitated that he was ready to start fighting. Despite the gesture, she continued to remain stone-faced.

“How can I forget about the very people who would never abandon me if their life depended on it?!” he screamed. “Now, are you going to help me...help me...help me change them back, or are you just going to say stupid things like abandoning my loved ones?!”

“You are mistaken,” she said. “They were never your loved ones, to begin with. They were only pawns put into place to see how other pawns, like yourself, would react.”

“What. Are. You. TALKING ABOUT?!” Aaron yelled at the top of his lungs.

He ran toward her with his fists raised and attempted to punch at her. However, the disembodied face withdrew back into the wall of dark water with minimum rippling. His fists collided with the liquid where her face had been. He panted in anger after he made a significant splash in the water before another voice caught his attention.

“Yes.”

He whirled around to see behind him was the red-eyed disembodied face with holes in it. His disgusting, predatory smile gave Aaron goosebumps just looking at him. He then began laughing.

“Yes,” he said, the ground shaking with the rhythm of strange music. “Your love has you now becoming angry...and that anger will help you become powerful. Passion, regret, affection, amor, romance, friendship…”

His smile grew bigger, his red eyes glistening.

“And loss.”

The word on his tongue sounded so authentically pleasurable it genuinely made Aaron’s skin crawl. He then began laughing.

“It’ll make you powerful!” he screamed. “More powerful than any coward who has never had to suffer!”

The shaking of the ground became more intense. As his laughter began to induce fear into Aaron, he forced himself out of place. He was now looking back at the natural world and those in the town square. However, he felt his hands were wet. He looked down to his hands were covered in water.

Was that real? He thought. No, it must have been the fountain water.

“Aaron.”

He looked to see a man in a black business suit walking toward him, his dress shoes hitting the cobblestone path with echoes. His jet black hair was neatly combed back, and his blue eyes were stern as Aaron could tell the man had a certain amount of authority in his expression. His expression radiated power that only a powerful attorney, CEO, or politician could muster. Him just calling the young man’s name made Aaron direct his attention away from everyone and everything else around him.

“Who are you?” he asked. “How do you know my name?”

His eyes narrowed.

“My name is Kyle Ayers,” he said. “I am a representative and one of the prominent military commanders of Fulir.”

“Fulir?” Aaron asked. “Where’s that? Never heard of it.”

“I find you’ve had a challenging day,” Kyle said. “Everyone in your friend and family circle has forgotten about you. You are in foster care since your former parents no longer recognize you as their son.”

“How do you know this?” Aaron asked. “Have...have you been following me?”

“I know because I receive reports from my subordinates concerning those of special interest,” Kyle stated. “You are currently one of those interesting individuals.”

“What?” Aaron asked. “Is it because everyone I know keeps forgetting who I am? Because that is weird!”

“No,” he said. “It has only to do with the Access Armor you have.”

Aaron was confused for a moment, trying to remember what he was talking about before placing when Elizabeth watched him transform into that plant thing yesterday.

“Yeah,” he said. “Things have been bizarre for me lately. Hey, maybe you could help me get my friends and family to...you know, remember me.”

“I'll explain later,” Kyle replied. “You will have to come with me.”

“What?” Aaron asked.

“Run.”

The ivory-faced woman stared at him with her somber gaze. Aaron stared at her with their eyes locked.

“Run before it’s too late,” she said. “Flee as fast as you can using the power of the armor granted to you.”

“But why?” Aaron asked. “He knows people forget me. What if I do what he says, go with him and see what he has to offer? It can’t be worse than-”

“No!” she yelled. “You cannot go with him! That would be forfeiting your life! He’s not interested in helping you! To him, you are nothing but a pawn!”

He stared at her, perplexed.

“What?” Aaron asked.

“Do not-!” she said.

“Do not listen to her!”

Aaron whirled around to find no one else in the dark room he was inside. When finding no one around him, he turned up to gasp in surprise. Above him was a disembodied face of a man with brass skin and purple eyes. The ceiling above him that his face had emerged from was a writhing mass of metal, almost like iron-plated tentacles. When viewing the top, Aaron screamed and fell to the ground in shock, not sure to view the silvery metal rope-like constructs or the equally metallic, dull yellow face.

“You must go with Kyle,” he said. “Trust him. He is a good man. Righteous, noble, and has proven himself a hero of the oppressed many times.”

Aaron was too scared to scream as he looked up in shock.

“Do the honorable thing and join him,” he said. “It is your people’s duty-”

“Ignore him!”

Aaron looked back at the pale-faced woman, who seemed genuinely angry as opposed to her usually emotionless face.

“He is deceiving you!” she said. “Kyle isn’t honorable! He’s ruthless and a murderer! Going with him would be to join the enemy of all that is good!”

Aaron shut his eyes as hard as possible and pushed their voices and faces out of his mind before returning to the town square. Kyle’s steely gaze made the young man feel uncomfortable as he tried to catch his breath.

“If I go with you,” Aaron said. “Will you help me return my friends and family’s memories? Can you return Elizabeth to her family?”

“I’m afraid that is not an option,” Kyle said.

A spasm spread throughout his body before a stinging pain hit him.

“Run!” the pale-faced woman yelled. “Run now!”

“Why…?” he asked. “Why not? It can’t be impossible.”

“Calm down,” Kyle said. “I assure you that is impo-.”

“It’s not impossible!” Aaron said. “It can’t be...I’ve spent my whole life with them! Every day I was with either my parents, Gale or Elizabeth! There must be a way to-!”

“Listen,” Kyle said.

His voice was barely raised, yet his command for silence was enough to hush Aaron.

“Go with him,” the brass-faced man said. “He is a good man. Upright and unable to be tempted to the forces of evil.”

“Those that you perceived as loved ones cannot be returned to you,” he said. “They are not allowed to be.”

“Not allowed to be?!” Aaron yelled. “Who...who's preventing them?! You?!”

He stayed silent. There was a pregnant pause in the air laid thick with tension. Aaron’s anger became more apparent and visible each moment, while Kyle’s face remained stoic.

“Not necessarily,” he finally said.

“It’s going to get worse!” she cried. “If you don’t flee now, you may never live to see your free will again!”

“Then who is blocking their memories?!” Aaron asked. “Tell me!”

“Everything will be explained if you merely follow me,” Kyle stated. “I’ll explain why your loved ones can never be returned to you.”

“Never be returned?!” Aaron yelled. “Including Elizabeth?! Never to be returned to her family?! That’s cruel to do to both her and her family! I’m not going with you until you assure me that my parents, friends, and Elizabeth have returned to normal!”

“Then we’ll just have to force you,” Kyle said.

Suddenly something stopped. It was almost imperceptible yet oddly visceral. Aaron could only liken it to the wind being forbidden from moving further.

He looked around to find the people around him had completely stopped moving. Many were frozen in mid-step, while some stopped speaking. Others were changing.

To his horror, he found two of the people’s skin was melting as if the outer layer of their body had liquefied. Two more were growing bigger while another person’s body was elongated. He counted five people transforming into monstrosities.

“It is all a matter of survival,” Kyle said. “We can do this the easy way where you submit to Fulir and become another soldier in our service. Or we can crush you like the insect you are.”

When the five ordinary human beings had changed, they were unrecognizable. Two had grown to more than twice as tall and muscular as they were, with black fur like a gorilla spread across their bodies. Their large muscles and big heads further contributed to their ape-like shape. Their razor-sharp teeth they bared and long claws they slashed at Aaron with were like a lion’s. One had grown another pair of arms while the other had eight arms in total.

One person had become a snake with an arrow-shaped head and fangs as long as a man’s arms. It towered in the air to be taller than most buildings that made up the town square, at least forty feet in length. Instead of scales, it had what looked like insect legs wrapped around its body. It slithered toward Aaron on its belly.

“What-?!” Aaron screamed. “Who-what are they?! What’s going on?!”

He then looked to the last two to see they were what could only be described as creatures with skeletons on the outside of their body with even more bones than a regular human. What little of their form wasn’t covered up by pure white bone was their red and gooey innards. They were also extremely tall, even taller than the gorilla creatures, as their height was possibly four times that of a grown man. Their gait at which they walked was deeply disturbing as they stumbled forward like men who were half dead but surprisingly fast. Their ruby red eyes, the size of eggs and shimmered like polished jewelry, never left Aaron after they had transformed.

“Help!” Aaron screamed as tears welled up in his eyes. “Help! Please, somebody...HELP!”

“Be sure not to kill him,” Kyle ordered. “Restrain him. We need him alive.”

“Remain calm,” the brass-faced man said. “Surrender to them, and they will allow you to live.”

“Run,” the pale-faced woman said. “Run now. You still have time before it’s too late and they take you. Or worse, they may kill you.”

“No.”

He looked down to see the man with holes in his face was at his feet again, his words causing a musical rhythm to shake the ground beneath Aaron.

“Stay and fight,” he said. “Abandon your fear. Your anger, your sorrow, and pain...let it fuel you.”

The way he said fuel did not sound right to Aaron. At that moment, he had to make a split-second decision between which voices to obey. He didn’t want to fight as there was no way he could win, and the idea of going with this guy who had freakshow friends was also unappealing. Aaron turned around to run before she yelled in his mind.

“No!” the disembodied face atop the black water said. “Activate the Absorption Armor! Physical enhancing capabilities are the only way you’ll outrun them!”

“How do I do that?!” Aaron yelled at her.

“The same way you took it off the first time you wore it,” she explained. “Just by wanting to.”

“But I hate that thing!” he said. “It’s what started this whole mess in the first place!”

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

“Then enjoy extraction surgery,” she said.

“What’s that?” Aaron asked.

“The better question is how painful does that sound?” she replied.

He winced in regret as he conjured the image of the thing he saw in the mirror yesterday. He was surprised to find no pain when the pinecone scales grew from his body. He felt a little uncomfortable as the scales wrapped around his head and covered his mouth, but he found that he could breathe fine despite it covering his mouth. The process of growing and flattening against his body lasted half a second before white wood covered his feet and hands.

Aaron felt his hair grow before presumably turning slightly green. The remainder of the second was filled with the lime green palm frond sprouting from his collarbone and wrapping itself around his neck. Despite no wind blowing, the frond flowed around him in two tails like a scarf would under duress from a mighty gust. Despite the terrors of the monsters surrounding him, wearing the armor made Aaron feel powerful and full of vigor.

“Turn around and face Kyle,” the pale-faced woman advised.

“Then surrender to him,” the brass-faced man ordered.

“Fight him and savor the pleasure of battle,” the holed man urged.

He turned to face the man in the black business suit who was transforming himself. Light blue reptilian scales had completely enveloped Kyle’s entire body. He wore a spiked helmet that hid his face with a transparent strip of material where his eyes were so he could presumably see. The sight of two dragon heads replacing his hands disturbed the young man.

“Run in that direction as fast as possible,” she said.

“What?” Aaron asked. “Why that direction?”

“Do you wish for my help, or do you want to continue to argue?” she asked.

He grunted in disapproval before running forward. Just as Kyle stood firm and attempted to swing at him with the dragon-headed wielding arm of his, Aaron jumped over him. He soared above him before landing between two pedestrians that were frozen in place. Aaron looked back to see Kyle was more than forty feet away.

“Wow,” Aaron said to the pale-faced woman. “I didn’t even try to jump that far. How...how am I so athletic?”

“It’s daytime,” she said. “The Absorption Armor is biological technology with all the attributes of a plant. Like plants, it draws its power by trapping sunlight, but the energy is implanted into your own body to increase all your physical abilities. So long as the sun is out, your strength, speed, and stamina are not only superhuman but far exceed most changelings and even other Access Armor users.”

“You almost make it sound like a good thing I had this thing in the first place,” he said.

“You need to go back!” the brass face above said. “Surrender to Fulir! If you don’t, an untold number of innocents will be crushed! Millions will-!”

“I don’t care about millions!” Aaron yelled. “Only those closest to me! Now how can I ensure not to crush anyone jumping like this?”

“Draw close and put your hand on my face,” the pale woman said. “My memories will become yours. Also, after gaining them, continue to look at the ground as often as possible. I’ll give you information that will allow you to escape.”

He walked forward to the vertical wall of still water to gently press his fingertips against the woman’s soft skin. Immediately, instructions on best operating the Access Armor filled his mind. After learning how to manage the force he could exert properly, Aaron made a wild leap. He jumped again to find his spring probably exceeded two hundred feet in distance and more than fifty in altitude. Aaron ended up landing on a shop building rather than the street. He looked back to see the monsters and Kyle, while fast, were barely on his tail.

A little relief overcame him as he continued jumping from roof to roof with perfectly impossible leaps for practically any creature on Earth. Aaron was not a fan of thrills and as the opposite of an adrenaline junkie, the feeling of leaping from place to place wasn’t exhilarating but scary. Fear overcame him as he did. However, this was mitigated as he began drawing upon the woman’s memories of how she moved when she was the wielder of the Absorption Armor.

He couldn’t fault the woman as her instructions helped him avoid landing with grace and prevented him from causing any unnecessary damage. However, as Aaron lost sight of the six trying to follow him, he found more people transforming into monsters. Now, most of the humans below were not changelings or whatever they were called but the one or two percent that was a definite threat to Aaron.

A woman and a man below him became skeleton-like creatures. They leaped forward, landing on a building with a single bound. While Aaron outran them by continuing to hop from building to building, more monsters came at him. A human-turned reptilian creature with four very muscular feet and five tails jumped directly behind him. Its claws oozed a special yellow liquid and nearly slashed at his back before Aaron could evade it. He noticed with horror that the only humans that were not frozen in place became creatures.

The monsters kept coming, forcing him to stop running straight forward and begin jumping to the right. Then, when two bird-like creatures intercepted him with a twenty-foot wingspan, one red and one blue, Aaron was forced to take a hard right.

The aerial changelings were faster than the others and able to keep up with him better simply by being airborne. The continued attempt at running and dodging was inducing a level of panic and fear into Aaron that was ebbing away at his relief of being able to evade the monsters. The entire time he was playing, keep away from the ugly beasts, he stared at the cobblestone paths and streets all over Elm City. He glared at the pale-faced woman atop the water with a panicked expression.

“What now?!” he demanded. “Why run in this direction?! Why continue to look down?!”

“Kyle must have arrived in this city through some means of transportation,” she said. “Considering he was walking to the east it is my best guess the subterranean transport is in the west.”

“How will I know where it is?” Aaron asked.

“Trust me, you’ll know,” she said. “There might very well be one in this city.”

“And if there isn’t?” he asked.

She stayed silent, her bright red lips closed. As the monsters kept increasing, so did Aaron’s anxiety. The thought of fighting so many was nerve-racking, and the idea of killing was even more disgusting. The continued jumping was making him nervous and scared. He whirled his head every way, barely avoiding the winged changelings' clutches. Then, Aaron’s eyes were attracted to something.

An unassuming alleyway darkened in the shadow of a drug store, and a carpentry store was something he took notice of. It was like a beacon in the darkness. For the life of him, Aaron couldn’t understand until he began feeling the pale-faced woman’s meld with his own. His access to her memories allowed

him to recognize the sight of underground transport. It was very subtle, but if you looked closely enough or were analytical enough out of desperation, you could see the outline of a nine-sided triangle. From the memories he had access to Aaron recognized that as a transport that could be accessed.

He jumped atop the drug store with the blue-winged changeling on his back before diving atop the many-sided shape. As soon as he pressed down on it with enough force, Aaron began falling into a tunnel. The part of the street composed of the nine-sided triangle slid away to reveal a pitch black hole in the earth.

He quickly looked up to see the piece of the street that gave way to him slide back into place. Fear began growing in him before he fell into what he could feel to be a seat. Above him closed a transparent, glass-like casing. In front of Aaron was a gray board like a car dash, but it had no wheels and was featureless. From the memories that were now his, he knew how to pilot the small transport.

He pressed his hand against the gray dashboard, and his white bark-covered hand sunk into the gray material. It felt squishy, like the head of an octopus, and he thought he had a sense of control over the vehicle that was even greater than any human-made vehicle. Aaron felt wires connect to his fingers and feed him a mental map of the places he could go using this transport.

A map of too many possible routes to take and too many to count appeared in what he could only describe as his nervous system. It didn’t feel like it was in his mind that the information was being given but the very nerves that composed his sensation of touch. Nothing could describe perfectly intimate Aaron felt with the routes and paths that he never knew existed until that exact moment. With so many options, he was at a loss for what to do.

“So where do we go?” he asked.

“Anywhere!” the woman yelled. “Just go before they catch up to you!”

He willed the transport he was held in at her, prodding to shoot straight down. From the information being fed to him through the wires wrapped around his hand Aaron knew he was descending approximately 152.5 miles per hour to under the surface of the Earth. Barrelling forward underground at a speed that would send him to jail for reckless endangerment on most U.S. highways was almost as surreal an experience for him as being chased by monsters.

“Am I safe?” Aaron asked her.

“You are selfish!” the brass-faced man above yelled. “You are preventing the strongest Access Armor from being used for its true purpose! You-!”

“For now,” the woman above the water said. “For now.”

“So,” he said. “You got a name Miss...talking head?”

“My name,” she said. “Is Helena. This place you’re in is not a mere representation of your inner being. It is a real, physical dimension conjured by the combination of your Access Armor melding with your person called the soul chamber.”

When she said her name, Aaron was overcome by mixed emotions. He felt most strongly melancholy, regret, and sorrow, mixed in with a bit of anger and happiness. It also told him that Helena was a genuinely compassionate and honest person who loved even strangers like herself. However, she was unaware of this fact and felt she was undeserving of praise or acknowledgment because of her regrets.

She’s like I want to be. Aaron said. Someone with a heart who is kind and brave enough to bear the burdens of others.

Wherever he was when he was talking to the face floating above he water, it was a realm where even people’s very names carried a specific power. Aaron soon realized through the permeation of emotions and thoughts that this place brought that Helena was not just telling him her name. She gave him her identity in a form he could understand and easily digest. Now that he was calm, instead of being in a state of denial at his surroundings or angry at what he was enduring, he learned something else.

The background that held the face of each person was not necessarily representative of their natural personality or identity but how these people perceived themselves. Helena’s perception of herself was of someone lost in a series of murky events and things she couldn’t ultimately make up her mind about. She didn’t know how to judge her life's circumstances, so it was akin to dark water as you never really knew what was in either.

He could also feel the emotions of the other two-faced. The face of the man with holes felt like he was a piece of art. He thought of himself as such a person whose very words were an intelligent composition that should be deciphered by critics, like a piece of music that an artistically inclined individual could only judge. He knew he was a person who didn’t care about higher, noble goals as he believed life was something to be enjoyed and savored like a fine meal.

The brass-faced man above saw himself as a rigorous and disciplined warrior of virtue. He believed that he was entitled to this position of authority. He deserved the respect of others because he fought for justice and on behalf of the oppressed. The writhing metal constructs represented the machines of war he had faced in countless battles, clashing together for supremacy.

It made Aaron realize that this was not merely a representation of people but a real place in and of itself. It was the physical holding chamber of the previous wielders of the Absorption Armor. The souls of the wielders who had died lived here.