“You two were everything I’d hoped you would be.”
The Herald spoke through our minds, like he himself was a Beacon, pulsating with spiteful thoughts.
Chase shook his head, unbothered by the sudden arrival of this monstrous man.
“Here I was hoping you would speak all old-timey. Anyway I have so many questions I want to ask. How long did you wait?”
The Herald’s pupils clustered together to focus on Chase.
“Long enough. You weren’t my first attempt at waking her. But I was patient. I could try as many times as it took. At first I was outraged when you killed my Pianist. He was my only agent on the surface that I could control reliably. Perhaps due to his connection to my Goddess, he could be manipulated. That ended up being the first stone to start the fall. You came close enough for me to whisper in Aaron’s ear to intercept you. He had such devotion. But he sullied the Tree with his Gift. I suppose you call them Shapes, nowadays.”
I felt a chill run through me as the memories slotted into place.
“You were the one who spoke to… Nick through the Sillwood Beacon.”
Half of the pupils swirled in my direction.
“Ah yes. I gave you the knife as a token of my favour. With it you could seed more discord. More pain. Even at a young age, I could taste the deepness of Nell’s hurt. If I could just draw it out, it would become the perfect aroma to wake my God. It just had to be properly prepared. Chase had a thirst for forbidden knowledge. He sought me out, Tree after Tree, asking me the steps that would doom the world.
He looked at Chase fondly.
“For that I will spare you.”
More memories rippled out and changed things with their context. I held my head, trying to keep my thoughts straight.
“Hold on, I don’t understand.”
“It is not the place of the sacrificial lamb to understand the will of God. Your blood was spilled to rouse the flame. And now I find you still here, heretical in your continued existence.”
His finger twitched and the two red monsters at his side stirred.
“That will be corrected.”
The one with the toothy slash of a mouth launched at me with frightening speed. Its axe hand moved in a blur.
I stumbled back, raising my arms instinctively. I felt a tug and the wind of the blow blew my hair back.
Cold adrenaline dumped into my veins. Blood. Tattered flesh.
I was looking at the stump where my hand used to be. It spurted blood and the pain was like an afterthought.
I have to fight? Now?
The monster with the head made of a pillar of alabaster stone flicked out crystalline strings and I jumped backwards to avoid them.
My severed arm fell to the road with a thud.
You’re not even going to give me a second to think?
The axe-hand one reared back where it stood, alien muscles twisting up tension before it swung. The arm stretched and the blade came for my head like a guillotine. The blade grazed my cheek as I barely ducked in time.
One of the strings caught on my skin. It went taut and the pillar-headed thing reached out to pluck it. I ripped it away just as the string began to vibrate, releasing distortions like heat waves into the air.
Remember how to fight.
Old muscle memories reminded me why they were there. My stump squeezed shut, cutting off the blood vessels.
Slash-mouth swung overhead. I stepped to the side and the thick crescent blade buried itself into the road. I reached down to take its flesh, but then had to jump back as the strings whipped in close.
There was a copse of trees to the side of the road and I dashed towards them, using my newfound speed.
I reached the trees in the span of a breath and dragged my hand along the bark. I pulled, restoring my arm, the bone and muscles replacing what was lost, the nerves firing the moment they were born. I kept the cracked bark in place of my skin to serve as a shield.
The Herald still spoke in my mind, “The Witch served beautifully. My Goddess has awakened and her wrath will pour out onto the earth.”
He intoned, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.”
The skinless monsters moved as fast as Wolves. They darted through the trees, flanking me faster than I could track them. I made sure I was a moving target too.
The strings whipped around a tree in front of me in order to strike for my head. I deflected them with my toughened bark skin. The bark came off in strips where the wires gouged but failed to take hold.
A tree groaned to my left and I spotted movement. It was Slash-Mouth, its exposed muscles rippling as it uprooted a tree and then swung it at me, crashing through the branches of other trees impeding its way.
I jumped up and away into the tree tops, leaping from branch to branch, scanning for Pillar-Head.
A note pealed out like a crystal glass being shattered. In midair, I saw the tree I was headed towards begin to shake itself apart. A deep tremor shook it and cracks like lightning ran up its trunk, snapping branches, rupturing the channels of sap inside it. Then it shattered apart, spraying splinters over the dirt and snow.
The strings danced in the air like charmed snakes. I tucked and spun, hoping that the strings wouldn’t gain purchase on me. I slipped through and landed behind the cover of a tree only for a new sound to twist my head.
The axe head was scything through tree trunks like paper on its path towards my neck.
I ducked and pulled on the trunk, causing the blade to miss it and instead the limb part wrapped around the trunk, winding tighter and tighter until the blade caught.
The Herald’s black thoughts invaded my mind like a disease, “Why fight back? Your Nell is gone. You’ll wander the Earth alone forever. You may as well give up.”
That sickening feeling rose in my chest, threatening to overwhelm any rational thought.
Slash-Mouth didn’t miss the opening. He closed the distance and punched me in the gut.
It felt like a hammer-blow sinking deep to my stomach. I slid back on the hardened dirt, gasping for air.
It grinned at me as it unraveled its arm from the tree.
Enjoying this?
A string caught my arm and before I could move, it thrummed.
It was as if every atom in my body had been plucked, the vibrations travelling through me like an earthquake. I could feel my organs start to shake themselves apart. Hot and cold all at once while my ears sang with pain. Blood beaded on my hands and neck as even my skin started to unravel.
Someone embraced me from behind. The tremors seemed to ebb away at their warmth.
“Shh. Ride it out. I’ll do my best to help.”
I knew the voice.
“Neve…” I gasped through locked and trembling muscles.
“The calvary is here,” she said. “Look.”
A woman ran towards the monsters whooping a battle cry. Her hair was a streak of brilliant red across the dull earth and trees.
Three more people joined her, each with battle-ready bodies modified with organic weapons and armour. They closed in on the monsters with strategic deftness, one Wolf focusing on keeping Slash-Mouth diverted while the three others dogpiled the remaining one.
I shook uncontrollably, trying to hold myself together.
Even with the number advantage, it still wasn’t easy. One Wolf lost a leg to the axe and sprouted makeshift limbs to cover the loss. Another got caught by a wire and before Pillar-Head could pluck the string, the red-headed woman wrapped it up in a chokehold, straining against its strength. Another Wolf joined her in restraining it, struggling to pin back its arms.
The one who had been caught by the wire removed it and then Shaped a strange dense sphere in their palm. They threw it at Pillar-Head and the red-head ducked as the ball passed clean through the monster’s stone head.
It lost its strength and toppled over.
Then they nipped away at Slash-Mouth, darting in and out of danger, tearing away chunks of its fleshy limbs until it was vulnerable enough to finish off.
Everyone panted and wheezed, covered in blood.
I struggled to rise with Neve’s help.
The red-head bounded up to us. Her eyes went wide as she looked me up and down. “Holy shit, Nick. You… uh, you look different?”
A little breath escaped my lips. I knew this person. Daria. Tears formed in my eyes as I remembered her name. “How did you even know it was me?”
Daria tapped her nose. “Smelled ya. Plus, who else would be causing trouble right next to Chase?”
I looked over to where Chase was saying something to the Herald, whose skin shifted constantly like a Rubik’s cube of flesh. Then Chase backed away, hands raised in surrender. Or perhaps he was praising the Goddess.
Then the Herald turned to us. A steady stream of blackness poured from his mouth.
“You think you accomplished something? My God is still shaking off the sleep. That was the first raindrop before the Flood.”
Blobs of black liquid began to escape from the seams in his body and rise into the air.
“This is the appetizer. Just a taste of what suffering shall come when she descends.”
His body fell apart into a pile of dead rats as the amorphous blackness dripped into the sky.
“I hope you do your best to endure this. My Goddess won’t be satisfied with anything less.”
“No…” Neve whispered as she looked into the heavens.
There were thousands of shining comets blazing trails of fire down to the earth. If each one of the comets carried just one of those monsters… There was only one word to describe it.
Apocalypse.