My heart settles into my throat, rather comfortable in its new home. I watch as black blood drips from the fathom’s chin, a look of ecstatic apprehension on its vaguely human-esque face.

“What’s the phrase, frogs got your tongue?” it says, childishly.

My frozen thoughts kick into overdrive, desperately clawing for a way out. I raise my wrist to my mouth, pretending I’ve got someone to contact. “Stealth compromised, begin the assault.” I say, praying for a miracle.

Its face remains completely still, though its eyes betray a tinge of irritation, the odd contrast making its expression look intentional and fake. “I’ll humor you. Fode’ens, sweep the area.” It says without glancing away from me for even a moment.

The ground rumbles ominously before exploding in a shower of dirt, the worm fathom that took Silo bursting from the ground. Its chitinous plating scrapes against the ground horribly, the sound hurting my teeth. I don’t dare look away from the threat in front of me, but from my peripherals, I see a whole slew of sharp limbs crawl out of its gaping maw and stab into the ground.

Not expecting the entirety of the vicinity to quake, I let out a brief cry as trees topple everywhere around us. The ground itself morphs, rumbling as it flattens into an even earthy landscape instead of the leaf-covered hills it was just moments ago. I’m forced to put my trembling arms beneath me as the raised ground behind me falls away.

“It seems these reinforcements of yours left you to rot. That is, if they ever existed to begin with.” It snarks, reaching his hand out towards my face. I watch in horror as worm-like bulges under its skin writhe, patches of its skin flaking off around them. I urge my body to move—to recoil—but it remains stock still, petrified with terror.

Its disgusting hand does a bizarre approximation of a caress against my face; the motion forceful and jerky, like someone acting in a role they know nothing about. I feel the wriggling against my cheek, and my body forces itself to gag—the first motion I’ve managed in minutes.

Free of my temporary paralysis, I tear my face away from him and scoot backwards, trying as hard as I can to gather my shattered ability back together. “They’ll be here soon, and with New R’lyeh’s support this time.” I stare into his multi-pupilled eyes, attempting to keep my voice from quaking. “And the only part of this I’m upset about is that I won’t be here to see them tear you to shreds.”

The mention of New R’lyeh triggers a twitch in its expression, though it’s something closer to irritation than fear. “That’s impressive and all, but what gives you the impression I’ll be letting you die?” it says, its neck crackling and popping as it extends towards me. “A Vanguard's corpse is valuable, but it’s of paltry worth compared to your delicious ego.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, my acidic saliva burning its lining. I’m running out of time and don’t have nearly enough chthonic energy to make it forget me, at least not with its full focus. I wrack my brain for anything, even a retort to keep it distracted for a moment more, but my mind sits empty.

What would Silo do?

Something stupid.

I rear my head back, inhaling air through my nose before screaming louder than I’ve ever screamed before directly in its face. The noise doesn’t affect it, but the strange action gives it a half-second pause that I race to make the best of.

My headache turns to migraine the same way it does every time I attempt to force the mental aspects of my powers, but I push through it. I blink and time freezes, the world around me dark save for the minds of other sentients, their consciousness and thoughts a series of stars connected to each other like constellations.

The fathom in front of me shines the brightest, its stars pulsing as I follow the hundreds of threads connecting it to other minds—specifically the one connected to mine. Its glowing cyan color mesmerizes me, sucking me in until I dispel its effects on me with a blast of focus.

I grasp the link with my mind, my chthonic energy insulating me from the madness I’d face if I tried to handle it without. The pain spreads from my frontal lobe, steadily crawling along the rest of my brain as I try something I’m not sure is possible.

I crack my consciousness, chipping a piece of myself away in a way that is painful, but a sort of pain that’s hard to register or feel. Prying the piece away but maintaining it as a part of myself proves difficult, like juggling eyes that you can still see out of. I jam the fragment of myself on the end of the mental link between the fathom's mind and my own, praying to literally any higher power that this works.

I slip back into reality, my migraine easing as I scramble out of the way. Judging by my organs being intact, my stealth is reactivated, though I look back at the fathom anyways to see if the rest of my plan worked. His face is still fixed in a rictus of amusement as he leans over the empty space I just was.

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“Your kind really needs to work on this ‘freezing up’ thing you always do. As far as instinctive reactions go, it's arguably the worst.” It says, talking to thin air.

Its eyes narrow after my clone remains silent for another moment, but by that time I’ve sprinted away, channeling my chthonic ability to the max. I make it about halfway to the treeline by the time it figures it out, passing its hand in and out of my clone goofily. If my heart wasn’t hammering in my chest, I might have smiled at the action, but instead I drop to the ground and spread out my limbs—still as the dead.

I watch as it smashes the ground in front of it, shattered stone and other debris raining over the area. “I WILL NOT SUFFER A THIRD LARCENY. FODE’ENS! CRUMBLE TH—” Its voice cuts off, and my thrice ruptured eardrums are glad for it. My Chthonic energy plummets, fighting to keep this creature from remembering I exist now that my clone has dissipated.

“What was it? What has been stolen from me? Why can’t I remember?!” It roars, its memories of me slipping from its mind. The air around it warps, its own power channeling inside it.

I know I want no part of whatever tantrum it's about to have, but moving farther away simply isn’t an option right now. The creaking feeling of my powers being strained hurts my teeth. Having to contest the higher-ranked fathom in a battle of wills is extraordinarily difficult, and moving whatsoever would botch the whole process. Its body visibly bloats, the energy it’s channeling causing a distinct reaction inside its body.

My sight becomes clouded, and I feel my nose start to run—telltale signs of an ill-timed vision. Fog takes over all sight in my right eye, absolutely wrecking my depth perception as I attempt to split my attention even further for this involuntary glimpse into the future.

I see a person, their features indistinct and hidden by the fog surrounding—nevermind, that’s just me, and judging by the spikes of bone impaled through the future me’s torso, I need to move. Blinking the remaining fog out of my eyes, I start to lift myself off the ground. Cracks snake throughout my stealth, slivers of me once again revealed to the world as I crab-walk to the only spot that looked safe in my vision.

Not even a moment later, I feel its energy peak, and I whip my head around to watch its flesh rupture and contort—shooting out spines and chunks of hissing flesh in all directions. I grit my teeth and close my eyes, though I still let out an audible gasp when I feel the caustic pain of something sinking into my right knuckles.

The rest of my body escaped the blast, though, admittedly, based on the astronomical levels of pain my hand is experiencing, I would have blacked out if I got hit more than just the once. I look back at the fathom with a grimace, doing what repairs on my power that I can before it notices.

Several limbs have been revealed where its old torso used to be, the gorey blast stripping it of the artificial flesh that hid its gaunt and stony form beneath. It drags a pair of hands down its still human-esque face, exasperation taking over from the previous rage.

“Some insect has infected my mind, it seems. Fode’ens, return the vessel without me; I must ask the great master to purge this taint from my consciousness before it burrows any deeper.” It says to the other fathom, massive fleshy appendages growing from behind its shoulders. Tattered, bat-like patagia spread between the human sized fingers, linking them together to finish its gargoyle look with wings.

A single flap of its huge new limbs sends it hurtling into the sky, its flight bouncy like a bird having trouble carrying its own weight. I almost laugh as it bobs into the distance, but the growing pain in my hand and unrelenting mental exhaustion prevent me.

“Hooray survival! Naomi did good. Hand dangerous though, must come off!” Str’xuirer blurts from beside me, scaring me badly enough I put pressure on my injured hand.

“Damn it, Strix!” I curse, about to chastise her when I see the state of my hand. A flat half-circle of bone is embedded in my knuckles, and it’s somehow not the worst of my injuries. Rotting flesh surrounds the embedded bone, and I can visibly watch as it spreads further by the second. I seize up, fear that just left me coming back in full force.

“Hoort, yes? Must remove.” My contractor hoots, urgency in her clipped speech.

I turn to look at her without thinking, but she appears somewhere else in my peripherals at the action. “Remove? Like, my hand?” I whisper, my breath hitching.

“Hoorry! Yes! Get worse if not cut!” She says, miming a chopping motion from the corner of my eye.

“I can reattach it later, right? Or heal myself a new one?” I ask, fully hyperventilating at this point. I can’t fully see her expression, but I feel her impatience and a bit of irritation through our link. I force my breaths to slow, deeply inhaling once before sticking my arm towards Str’xuirer, not giving myself the chance to overthink it.

Green light shines through my closed eyelids, eldritch power sharpening into an edge as she slices through the middle of my hand above my thumb. I don’t even feel the pain, her cut so fine that my brain still feels the old wound even though it’s no longer attached.

I try to work through my lightheadedness, fumbling with my remaining fingers for the coagulating gel in one of my pouches. I nearly drop it, my grip strength waning alongside my consciousness as I tear the cap off with my teeth and pour the goop over my bizarre half-stump. I giggle a little in my loopy state of blood loss, my involuntary thumbs-up being admittedly kind of funny in an ironic way.

My amusement is cut short as the rumbling of the worm-fathom shakes the earth ahead of me, and I gingerly wobble into a standing position. I can’t say a lot of critical thinking is going on in my overtaxed and anemic brain right now, but as I stumble towards its remaining chitinous links that haven’t slid underground, I’m confident in one thing.

Riding on its back sounds a lot easier than following it on foot.