You had a good run, Nick. But now it’s time to give the people something different.
I watched in awe, hand on the gun of one of my followers, making sure to drink in every last detail.
Bullet entry and exit wound observed, severe blood loss. My Shape made sure I knew exactly what was going on.
Nick stood up. He was visibly thinner than a moment ago, skin missing in places, eyes unfocused. He had healed Chiara, giving her his flesh through reverse assimilation. I had gone against the advising of my Shape to allow it. He had hastened his own death by doing so.
He looked around, lost, swaying like a frail tree in the wind.
Confusion, blue lips, shallow breathing: symptoms of hemorrhagic shock. Irrecoverable brain trauma. Total organ failure imminent.
A part of me felt disappointment. This was it? This was the end of the wonderful surprise Nick had been? All good things had to come to an end, I supposed. And I would make sure that this end was the start of something new.
I dropped my hand from the gun and gave the order, “Fire.”
Gunfire drowned out any other sound. Nick’s body jerked as he was hit by ten, twenty, thirty bullets, each carving out a piece of his body as they thudded into him. The flashes from gun muzzles cast stop motion shadows on the mansion walls.
I raised my hand and the gunfire ceased. Nick fell, mutilated beyond recognition. He hit the ground with an audible squelch, landing face down in a pool of his own blood.
Time of death, 3:48 pm. Begin phase two of the plan.
I brushed aside my Shape’s voice for a moment. At least let me enjoy the drama.
Beth, the forcibly aged girl that had been tracking Nick’s heartbeat, let out a child-like laugh and clapped her hands.
I breathed in the metallic scent of blood, held it for a moment, and then let my Shape spill out into my audience. Any living thing within fifty feet felt my influence, numbing emotion, lulling every person around me into such a state of apathy that I could probably get them to shoot themselves in the head one by one.
My power worked against even the strongest survival instincts, yet Nell deserved greater caution. She had bypassed my power before. I was reminded each time the spot at the back of my eye socket ached. Nell was much further away this time, around 600 kilometres, but I had already calculated that the range of her Witch influence was larger. Much larger.
Chiara stirred where she was lying on the ground. Nick’s final act of philanthropy.
I counted the seconds until Nell would make her presence known. I was surprised she hadn’t acted already- No. She’s already here.
She was in disbelief. Processing the reality. Denying it. Processing it again. Her disbelief had even seeped into my mind. I chuckled. I don’t quite believe it either.
Then, like a scream ringing out inside of my mind, Nell’s anguish burst forth like a flood. My heart wrenched and I had to steady myself. My followers all reacted as well, stiffening and holding their heads.
It’s okay. Within expected parameters. Even through the apathy field, Nell’s power is immense, a small amount of resonance is expected. Minor Shaping will result.
I was the most at risk, having been Shaped by Nell before. I had gotten Maria to fix my eye but bits of root had remained in my skull where they had become too entrenched to remove with Maria’s skill. Luckily, Maria’s expertise was in grafting, so I had been given a new eye to replace the one that Nell had uprooted.
Chiara’s eyes fluttered open, her brow creased in distress. She was outside of my range and was experiencing the full brunt of Nell’s resonance.
He can’t be dead.
A flower sprouted on Nick’s back. It unfurled blood-red petals, long, pointed, and spotted with splotches of orange.
One of Nick’s fingers twitched.
“No way,” Maria breathed.
Injuries were fatal. No regeneration present. Another’s Shaping is the cause of movement.
My Shape was composed of a dense liquid that submerged my brain, allowing neurons to fire at an accelerated rate, boosting my cognition beyond the realm of human speed. This was possible because of the second part of my Shape: an apathy field around me that put emotion, instinct, and traditional human pattern recognition to sleep in favour of pure logical computing. Despite knowing this and observing what was in front of my very eyes, I couldn’t help but still believe that what I was seeing was a resurrection.
Nick’s hand spasmed and then clenched into a fist. Vines began to sprout from his body, wrapping his limbs and filling the bullet holes.
Chiara sat up, watching in shock.
“Chiara,” I called out lightly. “If you want to live and not be a hindrance, come this way.”
She turned to me.
Confusion. Mismatched pupil dilation. She likely experienced brain damage due to oxygen deprivation from her now healed internal wounds. Potential mental derealization present.
Nell’s scream that had been singing through my head suddenly became audible as Nick let out a chilling cry. A ragged exhale, tone going up and down as if Nick wasn’t in control of his own voice, which of course he wasn’t. In an alarming burst of motion, Nick shoved himself to standing, hands still stuck out in front of himself as he teetered, roots and plant matter pulled at his muscles from the outside and from within to make him stay upright.
I didn’t like the look of the flowers that were forming. They looked like eyes.
“Remain calm,” I told the group. “Nell is puppeteering.”
Nick’s braindead corpse won’t provide her any sensation, so she’s flailing in the dark. She wasn’t capable of making sense organs out of plants, right? That would make this more difficult.
I kept a firm hold on the group of my masked followers. We wouldn’t do anything that would give away our location or our allegiance.
Barely a minute had passed. We had to hold out. There was a chance that Nell could begin attacking indiscriminately. But even if that were to occur, my Shape would prevent the worst of it.
A key feature of Shaping other people against their will was resonance. Witches conveyed emotions telepathically across empty space and any targets of their Shaping would feel a portion of that. It couldn’t be resisted, not effectively, without the protection of another Witch. The problem was that Maria would become a target the moment Nell felt her act. So the only present solution was to not feel anything at all.
Nick fell silent and began to shuffle forward like a zombie, no brain of his own to control balance and coordination. It was entirely an act of puppeteering. Nell was pumping his heart for him, trying to patch the holes in his body. It was all fruitless. Try as Nell might, she couldn’t bring him back, unless she had the power to restore brain function and I knew that wasn’t her specialty, far from it. And the longer Nick was dead, the harder it would be to maintain his body, as he would become harder and harder to Shape.
“Let her through,” I said quietly as Nick lurched closer.
My followers parted, giving Nick’s body a wide berth. Blood leaked from the holes the plants had filled in. The flowers that were patterned like eyes “blinked” at us. No one dared to speak as it passed.
The corpse continued to walk until he hit a wall, dragging his feet against it. After a moment, Nick went still. Then he screamed again, air squeezed from his lungs by internal vines.
A wave of emotion crashed into me. Pain flashed through my head, shooting flashes of light past my eyes. The roots in my skull were moving. Nell’s resonant waves were stronger than what any Beacon could produce. My grin stretched from ear to ear. This was going perfectly.
Flowers sprouted from the skin of some of my followers. Pink, green, and red petals bloomed violently, spraying blood as they emerged. Still, they were small and shriveled things. Nell was unable to gain a proper hold over anyone in my range.
One masked follower who must have been too close to the edge had collapsed. He writhed as his arm began to bend the wrong way, forced to do so by the roots invading his arm.
“Cut it off or leave him!” I commanded.
Someone bumped into me from behind. I turned to see Chiara pulling at flowers that had grown all over her shoulders.
Many of my followers were ripping out the growths and throwing them to the floor where they wriggled wetly like worms. Some of the growths that had taken a firmer hold began to produce thorns or spew spores that were no doubt toxic to inhale.
The most afflicted people among us were expelled from the group, exiled from the circle of safety, left to bear the full brunt of the retribution for Nick’s death, they became colourful gardens of agony.
It was impressive how creative Nell was, even in her anguish. Every plant was different, each intent varied in its method of inflicting pain.
There was a breach of the outer wall in the aquarium room. While all plants were removed from the premises, Nell will likely bring in new plant life from that access point. My Shape warned me of the danger of staying still.
Suddenly, Nick’s body whipped around.
“Nick?” Chiara asked, eyes wet and unfocused.
The corpse lumbered towards us.
“Time to move!” I shouted. “Head through the eastern door.”
I directed us deeper into the mansion, away from the aquarium room.
The group moved slowly due to the attacks from Nell.
Biomatter under Nell’s control is converging together into larger accumulations. Patterns align with Lacuna formation.
I saw what my Shape had noticed: the discarded bits of plant matter and flesh on the floor merging to form larger clumps.
We made it through to the next room as Nick seized a follower who was lagging behind, throwing her behind him before continuing after us.
The follower screamed as her body was consumed by thorns and stringy fibres.
How is Nell following us so easily? My Shape hadn’t noticed any real sense organs among the fakes. We should be difficult to perceive let alone pursue with such accuracy.
Unless the absence of a reaction is easy to spot. My eyes slid over to Maria, whose wheelchair had sprouted arms from some hidden compartment and was moving her quickly along the floor.
The only one of us who is entirely immune to Nell’s Shaping and thus, invisible to her sixth sense. But among such a large group, it’s like the only shadow in a bright room.
I stuck out my foot and caught a spoke of the wheel, stopping Maria. She looked up at me indignantly and I reached around her to slice the carotid on the other side of her neck.
A look of shock passed over her face, despite the apathy she was feeling.
“Looks like you’re not going to see the results of our work.”
Shock turned to rage and four more limbs burst out of the wheelchair, brandishing chisels and hammers.
I quickly kicked her chair, sending it rolling towards Nick.
He fell upon her as she gurgled, “Chaaaaaaaaase!”
I watched in fascination as Nick tore her to pieces. When he was finished, he pushed himself off of the dying Witch, his hands stained with gore. I saw straight through the bullet hole in his head.
Nick’s unseeing eyes stared back at us.
We weren’t out of the woods yet. We’re just getting started.
“Come on, Nell. Let’s play. Time’s ticking. The hunt is on.”