AJ stayed with me as I recovered from my momentary connection to the Goddess. We took some semblance of shelter from the snow under the statue of a bear with a fish in its mouth. The lights that illuminated the statue at night caught each snowflake as it drifted down. It almost felt like ashes.
The cycles were different now. At first it had just been Nell’s waves. Then, as the Herald began his assault on Earth, I started to feel hot emotions warm my skin. The pulses alternated, almost tempering each other. I noticed that whenever Nell’s Lacuna pulsed, the spawn of the red Lacuna faltered. It was slight, but useful nevertheless.
But now she had gone silent. Only the waves of anger continued to pour down and I was left with a deep aching desire to go to her. To feel nothing, no presence, no pressure on my thoughts, it felt like I’d been born with her by my side and now I was learning to breathe without air.
AJ had forced me to take a rest. He sat curled up in a ball next to me, watching something on his phone. He caught me looking at him and shuffled closer, holding out his phone so I could watch too.
It was footage from all over the world, skipping from cctv, handheld phones, drones, and satellites; all cataloguing the events as they unfolded. Red bodies plummeted to Earth, attacking major population centers. In Mumbai there was a giant black nest supported between skyscrapers. A sinister beak could just be seen peaking over the top. A drone shot from Lima showed a massive string that pierced through thousands of people, weaving through the city like a worm, thrumming as it sought to complete its collection. A ticker at the bottom said the estimated numbers of casualties for each location.
“Is the world gonna end?” AJ asked in a whisper. “I feel like I just started to figure out some things and then this happens…”
I patted his head and spoke hesitantly, knowing my voice wouldn’t sound like he was used to.
“Me too.”
AJ turned off his phone. “Do you want to talk about what happened to Nell?”
I looked up miserably at the shrinking green planetoid. “You knew it was her?”
“Yeah, we all did when we felt the first pulse. Neve feared the worst until she found you.”
I bit my lip to stop myself from crying. “I fucked up. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I think this might be all my fault.”
AJ didn’t have anything to say to that. He just took my hand and held it tight.
After a while he broke the silence.
“You changed.”
“Yeah.”
“Does it feel different?”
I laughed. “Yeah, it sure does.”
“Name and pronouns?”
I stared at him. He looked back seriously.
“Nil. They, them… I guess.”
He looked away. “Okay.”
I twisted my tattered shirt in my hands.
AJ pointed at his hood. “Are you cold? My mom is always cold. I’d give you my hoodie but I don’t think it’d fit you.”
“I just want you to know,” I blurted out. “I’m not the same guy you remember. I’m trying to hold on to what I can but if I say strange things or if I don’t remember something that you thought I should if I truly cared, just-”
AJ shook his head. “You’re good. It’s Nil now. It used to be Nick, but he’s not here anymore, right? I shouldn’t expect him to come back. That stings. But I’m good at rolling with the punches and I get the feeling that not as much changed as you think. Not the important stuff. Important stuff like you’re my friend and you always will be.”
Sitting under the statue, feeling the snow melt off my skin, I was a little less lonely than I was a second before.
AJ’s phone buzzed. He checked it and then snuck a glance at me. “They found the Archivist’s nest. They’re calling everyone together for a group strike. Do you want me to tell them you can’t make it?”
“No, I’ll go,” I said, pushing on AJ’s head to stand up. He laughed and shook me off before showing me the map on his phone.
“Thanks, AJ. Stay safe.”
Then I took off, running through the dark streets. These emotions I felt now that she was gone, they felt more alien, more overwhelming than ever, even though they were solely my own.
I hadn’t answered AJ, but his intuition was right, the world was ending. The scale of these attacks, if they kept coming and the ones who could fight back only became fewer, there would be a point where it was over. Humanity would go extinct. But I didn’t feel fear about that. It felt too outside the scale of what I could care about. I just wanted to see Nell.
The bio-luminescent reds contrasted with the fluorescent blues of the streetlights wherever the lamps illuminated spots the sky didn’t reach. I’d done this before, in a different city, one I couldn’t remember the name of. It was the city where my parents lived. My parents whose faces and names hadn’t come back to me.
It will fall into place. Just wait a little longer, I reassured myself. It’ll come back.
I found the group of Shapers gathered around the outside of a night club. Deep bass shook the doors and moving lights from inside played along the foggy glass.
Daria spotted me and waved.
“B… uh, fuck me! I was just in there yesterday,” a Wolf with long hair said to me. “The drugs I was on, I wouldn’t have known if a spawn was dancing right next to me. Still can’t quite believe that this isn’t all just a bad trip, but I feel way too fucking sober.”
“Dancing?” I repeated absently.
“Yeah. You don’t dance? Shame, I would have taken you out for a spin on the dance floor. Maybe there’s still time?”
He turned to face me, flashing a cheap smile.
“My name is Alek.”
“Hi Alek,” I said, not meeting his eyes. Something about him made me nervous. Was it the comment about dancing?
“Nick!”
Daria pushed her way over to me. She glanced at Alek who seemed to already know of her by the way he edged away.
“You know this guy?”
“No, we just met. Can you not call me that?”
“Oh!” Daria said, looking uncomfortable. “Sorry, you did mention that before.”
“Just hurts a bit,” I said weakly. “A twinge in my heart, right here.” I tapped the right side of my chest.
“It’s my bad. And I know this isn’t an excuse and kind of TMI but… you smell the same? Anyway things got so crazy, I want to hear the whole story once we take care of this.”
Daria turned to the group and raised her voice, “Hey listen up! Our Witches say that there are still living humans down there. So no going apeshit, we have to take our time, suss out the bad guys! Alright, that’s about as strategic as I get, so let’s go.”
Someone opened the front entrance of the night club and the beat immediately kicked up in volume. I followed Daria in, descending into a room awash in coloured beams of light strafing across the dance floor. The music throbbed with electronic synths and a drilling bass beat topped with airy vocals.
There was no one at the DJ booth, but the music kept pumping out of the speakers. The dance floor was packed with clubbers all dancing in a frantic sweaty mass like they didn’t even know the world was ending outside. I had an urge to join them. To just move my body to the rhythm and forget that I was even a person.
Cones of harsh red light suddenly shone out from the crowd, waving in the air, clashing with the club lighting. I couldn’t see the source, but every time the red light passed over a dancer, they went rigid and trembling until it moved on.
There were also people standing at the edges of the room. They didn’t talk or mingle, they just stood there, some with drinks in their hands, staring at nothing.
I approached the bar where a bartender stood with a drink ready on the counter in front of him. He stared straight ahead, blood dripping from his nose into the drink, swirling into the mixture. I crept by, giving him a wide berth.
As I moved closer to the stage, I saw that the dancers all had a reddish tint over their eyes, like red lenses. A silhouette appeared onstage and I ducked low as an intense beam of red light swept over the crowd. Where the light filtered through to me, behind the waving limbs and bodies, it stung and made my skin crawl.
The light moved on and I risked a peek.
There was a spawn on the stage. It had shriveled skin and its face looked like it was made of white porcelain, with throbbing veins of red spread across it. There was a huge piece missing from the head that let me see the hollow interior. Nested in that hollow was a throbbing orb with an unearthly glow. A brighter point within the orb swiveled, light fixating on a specific dancer. The dancer was drawn to the stage like they were being hypnotized while the rest of the clubbers continued on like this was normal.
The chosen victim stopped in front of the spawn and the light from her eyes connected with the light of the orb. Then she unravelled, skin spilling off in a single spiralling strip like a cartoon where a thread unwinds an entire shirt in seconds.
There was a blur of motion from the other side of the dance floor and a web of white gossamer was flung on top of the deconstructing person, trapping them inside a white cocoon.
The Archivist retreated off the stage and the dancers’ eyes all blazed to life at once, heads twisting around unnaturally to spotlight Shapers around the room. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the prickling lights.
There was a horrible splitting sound behind me. When I looked, I saw the bartender had become a mess of gore across the bar and a slender spawn rounded the side, dripping in the blood of its ex-host.
I tried to move and found that the lights were slowing me down, like I was moving through water.
Daria shoved me out of the spotlights and took on the scything arms of the spawn.
“Small fry,” she grunted. “Go after the Archivist!”
I dashed past the stage and saw the Archivist running away. It turned, sweeping the area with a flare of red light. I dove behind a couch. The light washed over my surroundings and I stayed hidden as my insides squirmed. Then the light faded and when I opened my eyes, the Archivist had left.
The bathroom door still swung back and forth on its hinges.
I paused for a moment, preparing a Shape as I watched my allies fight the hidden spawn within the crowd. Then I slipped inside the bathroom.
The lights were dim and flickering. Pieces of broken mirror cracked beneath my shoes. There was a long counter with sinks to my left. Further in was a row of stalls. I paused as I heard something strange from within. Like something was pumping water in fits and starts.
I opened the first stall and had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from screaming. There was a set of lungs inside, supported by a thin crystalline frame above the toilet seat. The lungs moved, filling with air. I could see the veins beneath the pink tissue as they inflated and then deflated, crumpling like balloons.
My feet carried me to the next stall and I pushed it open. A heart sat in a frame, thin tissues stretched around it. It beat in sets of two. Each contraction made it shudder like the heart was in pain. I held a hand to my chest, feeling uncomfortably like my own heart was beating in sync with the exposed one.
The next stall, a glistening stomach emptied bile into an intestine that led nowhere, spilling a putrid mess onto the toilet seat and floor. The acidic stench was overwhelming.
I reached the final stall. The door was already ajar. Inside, a slimy gray lump, covered in wrinkles, just laying on the toilet seat like it had been irreverently tossed there.
Something moved and I spun around. Red lights bounced off the broken mirror pieces and the wet tile walls, transfixing me from all angles. My muscles locked and my skin began to crawl, visibly rippling without my bidding.
“Hmm,” a rough voice spoke. “You are quite unusual.”
My flesh began to unravel as the Archivist stepped into view.
“In body and mind, you are chimeric.”
I didn’t see a point in holding on to my Shape now. I let the skin go. It fell to the floor in bandage-like strips.
And I was on the Archivist in an instant, before it could refocus, plunging my hands into the red orb. My fingers closed around it and I ripped it out. It had a jelly-like consistency. The Archivist made no noise of pain as I crushed the core and the red light sputtered out.
It stared at me in the dark with its cracked porcelain face.
“You created a second skin,” it remarked without emotion. “What a gapeseed… No, that isn’t the right word. Remarkable is a more modern choice.”
Its voice seemed to emerge from its chest, deep and sonorous, like there was an instrument inside of its chest cavity.
“You’re so fucked up,” I said, still shaking from what I’d seen in those stalls.
“My purpose is to understand. Language, biology, history. To find out all there is to know about humanity and what makes them tick, what makes them dance… what makes them suffer. We were made in man’s image, you know. Our bodies are fleeting constructs. Our minds are patchwork, a burst of sentience rather than slow process over the course of a millenia. Human but very much not.”
It tilted its expressionless head.
“You see my purpose as evil.”
“Yes.”
“But evil is a human quality. Birds cannot be evil, nor dogs or cats. By calling me evil, you liken me to humanity. What a compliment. To be so carefully crafted that I can take on the qualities of the species I am tasked with understanding, it should make me happy. However, this damnable song that made me still courses through my atoms. All I want is to make you suffer.
I raised a clenched fist and the porcelain face cracked on its own, as if in anticipation.
Its voice grew quieter, “No need for that. Our time to play is nearly up. My connection to my mother is being interfered with. The other one is coming.”
My heart went cold. “Nell?”
More cracks formed in the mask. “You share a connection to that one. I imagine that it will hurt all the more then.”
“What will?”
“The spawn of a Lacuna are worker ants. They gather the knowledge, the resources with which to craft a new world. She won’t be any different. We are all here to take. And once her strength ebbs, a fresh wave of my kin will spill down. An endless cycle without reprieve, each day a new hell. Until my Goddess recovers from her long sleep and comes down herself to finish it. Who knows when that will be? A day? A week? A year? How long a punishment do you think is fitting before oblivion?”
“You believe that we deserve this?”
“You do,” the Archivist said, a crack shooting up its face, dividing it in two. “That much I am certain.”
Before I knew it, my hand had crashed through its face, scattering pieces across the bathroom tiles as it chuckled deeply, as if I had just proven its point.
The body shriveled and turned to dust and I felt the ever-present pressure that was like a second gravity lift. The anger faded and in its place, a somber sadness settled in like a cold wetness in the air.
Numbly, I stepped out of the bathroom. The music had stopped and the dancers were coming to. They screamed and wept, seeing the carnage for the first time. Daria approached and said something, but it sounded distant and muted.
Drawn to the outside, I exited the club.
In the middle of the street, the road had cracked open. A patch of flowers had grown there, of a kind I had seen in only one place. Petals that curled into each other in the shape of a spiral, all white with streaks of pink that grew thinner the further down the petal they went. Other smaller flowers grew beneath the canopy the spiral flowers provided, although they drooped as if laden with water, like it was raining.
My eyes were drawn upwards to where Nell’s Lacuna sat nestled in the dark sky. Shapes were spinning gently down through the air. A fuzzy memory stirred, one where I lay on my back, watching the helicopter seeds fall from the maple trees near my childhood home.
While the first Lacuna’s spawn had fallen like meteors, Nell’s spawn spun like ballerinas, descending to earth at a slow pace.
I watched one fall onto the flower patch, its dress of petals flaring out. Narrow legs tapered into points barely disturbed the flowers. Its body was made of many brown leaves folded together, the edges where one leaf ended and another slipped underneath created a pattern on its ‘skin’. The leaves all differed slightly in shade, some closer to green or gray.
Where the head should be, a giant closed flower head sat, the underside of the petals a pale blue.
Then the head turned and pointed at me before unfurling. Petals slid from the center to the outer edge and then back along the head. The movement was unending, as if the bloom was a continuous, mesmerizing kaleidoscope.
As the thing spoke, the colours shifted, pulses of yellows and reds that traveled from interior to outer edge. The voice was the sound of dry trodden leaves and wood crackling on a fire.
“Oh,” it said, disappointment clear in its voice. “It’s you.”