My boots crunched through the upper crust of icy snow, sinking me deep into heavy powder. Every step I took through the treeline was draining, as I had to lift my boot and the snow that clung to it with every step.
The snow was strange. More prone to rising on the wind, often completely suspended in the air, not falling at all. Each particle looked more like tiny feathers than crystalline ice. I would have very much loved to delve into researching the snow for a few days, putting every particle under a microscope so that I could excise every secret from its structure, but this phenomena was insignificant, a symptom of a symptom of the truly earth-shattering event currently underway.
My scars itched and ached in pulses. I tried scratching them over the heavy clothing I wore and was rewarded with a piercing sting as one of the “snowflakes” got under my sleeve. My eyes watered from the pain, soaking into the lining of my goggles where the moisture froze against my skin. Blinking away the bleariness, I caught a glimpse of the shape of the mountainside, a dark shadow looming against the white like a shadow on a TV screen full of static.
I trudged onwards, cursing the weight of my pack and the overwhelming feeling of impotency. Never in my life had such obstacles been a consideration for me. Deficits could be addressed with resource expenditure. Obstacles could be removed with strategy and influence. Pain could be shouldered by… others. But now I alone had to shoulder all of it.
Quit complaining, Quinn, I thought to myself. At least you’re the one who’s still alive.
A thunderous sound echoed down from the mountain, like the flapping of a seraphim. I was thrown off my feet by powerful gale. More stinging particles found the skin at my lower back and I screamed as the pain drove my fatigue into a far corner.
As I lay on my back, I saw it. A gargantuan moth that clung to the side of the mountain. The difference in scale made it look like a moth resting on the wall of a toy house. Black patterns shifted on its wings, moving inkblots that stared at me as the moth shivered and shed a fresh wave of white hairs, clouding out its form.
As I reached backwards to push myself up, my gloved hands found something solid underneath me. Looking back, I saw a body, face down in the snow. I could tell they had been dead for some time, not by any physical tell, I’d barely glanced at them, but by their lack of presence to my sixth sense. Weak as it was, I could still tell when I was next to something living.
My scars continued to bother me as I trod down the final stretch to my cabin that sat hidden in a cluster of trees. I still wasn’t acclimated to this level of exertion. The blood pumping in my ears felt foreign, loud and erratic.
What? Trying to tell me something?
I froze, then dashed to the door of the cabin, throwing it open.
“Don’t touch it!” I shouted.
There was a person leaning over the table in the middle of the room. They straightened and looked over at me. They were quite tall, aided by Shaped legs that looked like that of a large feline predator. Their face was androgynous, with long lashes and a mouth drawn into a thin line.
They took their hand off the table that a glass case rested on. Inside the case was a severed arm, fingers partially open as if grasping for a hand to shake.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked, grasping for an ounce of the confidence I had so readily on hand in the past.
“Yes,” they replied softly.
“Then you’re quite brave, knowing that I could render you into your constituent parts in an instant.”
They said nothing and turned away to look around the room.
My skin itched and I shut the door, muting the howl of the wind.
The kitchen would be my objective. Knives and bludgeoning weapons that could fend off an attack. I couldn’t think of a reason anyone would come here if not to kill me. However, at the moment, the stranger seemed calm. Without my sixth sense working at its usual efficacy, I couldn’t be sure they weren’t hiding deadly Shapes under their coat. I had no illusions at my odds of surviving against a battle-competent Shaper, but I would try regardless.
“Just so you know,” I said, “I have no say in what is unfolding. If you’ve come to ask me to fix this, I’m afraid you came for nothing. You can see I am living simply now. I fight for survival just like everyone else.”
The person ignored me and walked to the back of the cabin, where a bookshelf held more cobwebs and dust than books. They pulled out their phone and looked at the screen for a moment.
I inched towards the kitchen and the knife block. The person began searching the bookshelf and I quietly pulled a knife from the block and held it down behind my leg.
There was a click as they found the hidden switch. Screens flipped out from compartments in the bookshelf and a computer keyboard emerged from inside the coffee table. The screens all flickered on, showing data computations, readings from satellites, and live footage of the red and green Lacunae.
The intruder gave me a knowing look.
“The Wire Witch said as much. You wouldn’t give up the chance to observe your work. Even if it meant using Organ assets that could be tracked by him.”
“Guilty as charged,” I said flatly. “I am a scientist. You may as well ask me not to breathe.”
“You’ve asked that of me a few times,” they said. Violence flickered in their eyes.
I stiffened, almost brandishing the knife then and there, but then the stranger turned away.
“So what have you observed?” they asked coldly.
A flare of irritation came from deep under my skin. “Stop taunting me with your nebulous intentions. What do you want?”
They paused and then answered, “Tell me where the Hermit is.”
I exhaled in amusement. “You were about to touch him when I came inside.”
They looked at the severed hand inside the glass case. It moved slightly, the twitch of a sleeping person.
“He’s alive?” they asked, surprised.
I eyed the wrinkled arm, cut off below the elbow. “Reduced to a fraction of himself. An effort in compacting and compartmentalizing tissue into a restricted volume. Maria’s powers complement my own. I can inhibit and slow bodily functions while Maria cuts and binds. Maria was happy to oblige, she never liked him.”
“Why?”
I scoffed at the question, but found myself at a loss to an answer.
“He and I became opposed on the subject of what to do with the Crawling Skin,” I said finally. “We will see if he was right to give the Lacunae free reign to decide humanity’s future.”
That was a lie. This was hardly the first time my mentor and I had disagreements on the direction of our research. Clashing ideas and theories was how science progressed. I welcomed it. The true reason was one I wasn’t willing to admit openly.
I had simply lost myself to rage and he was a close and easy target.
“Well, I need his Shape.”
I laughed without mirth. “Looking to die? There are easier ways.”
“I need to get to the surface of the Lacuna. This was the only way I could think of outside of a rocket ship and I don’t know how to get one or how I would fly it.”
My eyes narrowed. “You aren’t making sense. What makes you think you would survive? And why? There wouldn’t be a way back. You would perish.”
They breathed out through their nose while looking at what remained of the Hermit. “You’re the last person I ever thought I would have to explain myself to.”
They obviously knew me but I didn’t recognize them. That wasn’t that notable, I didn’t recognize more people that I had interacted with in the past. That kind of knowledge wasn’t important to gleaning results from my research.
“Who are you?” I asked.
They turned to look at me and their facial features seemed to slide, as if they were unsteadily supported on the face.
“I am Nell’s Wolf.”
“Impossible,” I shook my head. “His death was the trigger for all this. Chase must have succeeded.”
“I have no reason to convince you.”
“Besides, even if he had lived, he would have been swept up into the convergence. You’re talking about the one person who resonates with Nell the strongest.”
“She believes I am dead. She’s not entirely wrong, the connection was broken so she can’t hear me anymore. But I need to show her that all is not lost.”
I stared at the intruder, mind racing with ways to verify what they claimed.
“I have questions,” I said simply.
“I died and then a part of me came back. I could ask the same thing of you, I thought you had died when Chase slit your throat and you were thrown from the tree.”
The pain in my body flared at those words. I clutched my leg, trying to halt the tremors.
“No one caught me,” I said hoarsely. “I was dying. Lying there, bleeding out, my bones broken and useless. I remember thinking that I had not expected to be done in by simple gravity, but it felt fitting somehow. But then Damascus found me.
I placed a hand on my neck, feeling the pulse. “He couldn’t heal my body and my heart was failing. So he cut himself and bled into me. Damascus’ Shape allows him to precisely manipulate his blood, and we discovered through experimentation that he could blend his blood with a material to gain control over it. So he bled himself into me, mixing his blood with mine so that he could circulate my blood for me. He sat there for days, just pushing my blood, his blood, through my heart and brain. A local found us eventually. As I was carried away, I looked back and saw that Damascus was still sitting there.
My skin felt cold as I saw the scene in my mind’s eye. “He was already dead.”
“Loyal to the end.”
My hand dropped from my neck. “More like foolish.”
“If you can’t understand it, at least appreciate that my conviction is similar to Damascus’. I need to go to Nell. And for that, I need the Hermit.”
My fingers tightened around my hidden knife. “I don’t find that answer acceptable.”
“Some things aren’t meant to be understood.”
My hand shook and I raised the knife, slamming it into the countertop.
“No! I refuse to move a step from this spot until I understand the root of this. Damascus still moves in my veins. He interferes with my Shaping. It took me weeks just to Shape the Hermit with my inconsistent control. Why would he sacrifice himself only to now get in my way? Why would Nell hold herself back despite everything I did to her?”
Their expression darkened at my words. “Now you need to explain yourself. Pick your words carefully.”
I gestured uselessly until I saw the screens. I pointed to one that depicted a patch of alien flowers that a flower-headed spawn was descending towards.
“The flowers sprout before the spawn arrive. It’s an advance warning, like she’s giving us time to prepare. Also, our sample size is too small, but the number of spawn seems quite small in comparison to the other active Lacuna.”
“You’re saying she-”
“She’s fighting against her Witch instincts. And furthermore…”
I moved around the counter and crouched to pull out a few sheets of paper from a cupboard and spread them out on the table, pushing the Hermit’s glass case to one side. I jabbed at a few hastily scribbled calculations.
“Look what I observed. Resonated biomass is mostly plants. At first I believed that she had doomed the planet. Think about what it would mean to lose that much carbon absorption, think about the irreparable impact on ecosystems. She would ruin us far more permanently than any direct attack on humanity, and yet-”
I whirled back to the screens, typing frantically on the keyboard to pull up some files.
“She’s growing new plants, even sea life, which was about 50% of the resonated biomass that she uprooted, is being replaced. Even if humanity were to die now, nature would persevere thanks to her efforts.”
The stranger’s eyes were shining.
“That’s just how she is,” they said simply.
I ground my teeth.
“How much did you change her? I didn’t raise her to save humanity. I was intentional with everything I did. I was cruel, yes, I was emotionless, but it was for a reason. Nell was our most promising candidate with her perpetually growing range and her lack of empathy. I fostered that ruthlessness. It would mean if she did grow powerful enough to fight an existing Lacuna, she wouldn’t be bogged down by the suffering of the lives sacrificed to that cause. It was meant to free her to not care about what happened to us, so that she could build something different in the aftermath.”
They shrugged. “If you truly think that she was better off how she was before, then nothing I say will convince you. She only thrived once she was free to make her own decisions. If you’re so logical, you would see that she never would have become so strong with your methods.”
“I… I needed to control the outcome. It could be squandered if not properly controlled by someone with expertise in Shaping research.”
“Look where that got you,” they retorted, approaching the table and picking up the Hermit’s case. I couldn’t meet their gaze. “Still chasing answers. You won’t find any by hiding away, watching behind cameras as the world burns.”
I listened to their footsteps heading for the door.
“Wait!” I called out.
They stopped.
“The Lacuna’s physical position in space is incongruent with what we see visually. Visual hallucination is a constant symptom of the Lacuna, it’s why they were invisible to us for so long before. You can’t simply position yourself under one and hope to hit the right spot, you need to know the exact coordinates based off of the data that I have on the Hermit’s power.”
“I’ll try my best.”
“No. I know where Nell’s Lacuna is centered. I’ll take you,” I said as I began to pack together the things I would need for the trip.
“What?” they asked, perplexed. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
“At some point in our conversation, I started to believe you would survive and make it to the Lacuna’s surface. It would be foolish to pass up such an incredibly rare research opportunity.”
They grinned. “Liar.”
“Listen, despite every data point indicating a certain outcome, Nell defied my expectations. It’s clear my methods are outdated, just like the old fields of research. It’s time to throw them out and try something fresh. Maybe that’s how I’ll find my answers.”
—
A humanoid monster stalked towards me, naked and muscular. Their torso was split, like a lumberjack had driven an axe down to their navel. The two halves of the spawn were held together by sinuous strands of roots and rising up from that stitching was a nasty looking flower, dirty and shriveled like an uprooted weed that refused to die.
Nil was fighting more spawn on the other end of the clearing, being the distraction, buying me time to determine the exact coordinates. But this one wasn’t distracted.
I dropped my laptop and struggled to pull out my gun from its holster, panic setting in and making me forget the most basic steps.
The spawn kicked me and I flew like a doll, slamming into a sturdy tree trunk. Stars danced across my vision. Warm blood dripped down my head and stung my eye, like Damascus was biting me, forcing me to pay attention.
“What do you want?!” I screamed, ripping the gun free and squeezing the trigger. Three bullets blew straight through the middle of the tangle of roots, two more hitting the halves to no effect before the spawn closed the distance and pinned me to the tree with a gnarled arm.
I felt the bark at my back tremble and split. The tree was being Shaped by this thing.
A gaping mouth appeared in the trunk, full of sharp wooden teeth. It bit down on my arm with a crunch.
Blood sprayed and I screamed, trying to pry the mouth open with my free hand, cutting my fingers on the teeth.
The spawn reached over and touched another tree, this time to pull something from it. An axe, whorled and spiky, somehow razor sharp. They raised it above their head.
My head ached. My bones protested in pain. Yet my blood itched like it had something to say.
The axe came down and I shut my eyes, flinging my hand up instinctually. A fruitless instinct, my rational mind knew.
Clang.
The sounds of metal shrieking together.
I opened my eyes and saw my blood curling through the air.
“Damascus,” I whispered.
The blood had a slight metallic silver sheen to it, remnants of what he had once wielded around his body. It halted the blade, wrapping around the axe head and seeking past it. The spawn reached forward with their other hand and the blood struck like a snake, slicing off their fingers.
The tree released my arm, teeth sucking free of the bloody mess. I stumbled forward, flinging out my other hand. The blood sprayed into the air, forming a scythe that cut down the spawn, severing the roots that bound them together. Both halves fell apart, fighting each other’s attempt to control the body.
The blood halted mid-air and returned to me, itching as it slid under my skin, the shiny metal tinge fading away. I hugged my bloody arms to my chest.
“What do you want?” I sobbed. “In all our time together you never wanted anything. Why now, when you’re already gone?”
“Quinn!” Nil shouted. “Is it ready?”
I wiped my tears aside and scrambled to pick up my laptop, typing the last few data points with bloodied fingers. I read the outcome, then slung my pack to the ground and removed the Hermit from it, carefully taking off the case and placing him on the ground.
“Ready!” I shouted back.
Nil was at my side in an instant, displaying blinding speed.
“They keep coming. I don’t know how you’re going to get out of this.”
“It’s fine. I’ll figure it out. Good luck.”
Nil stared at me one more time, eyes full of their own pain. I didn’t need to trouble them anymore.
Then they reached out and touched the Hermit’s finger, blinking out of existence.
I turned to face the approaching wave of spawn.
“Suddenly, I’m excited again. For what’s to come next. I hadn’t realized it was gone: that excitement of not knowing just what I could unveil.”
Damascus’ blood churned in my veins. It was an unpleasant sensation, but I welcomed it.