Chase flicked the tip of the sword back and forth, catching what little light remained on its oily black surface. He spread his feet and raised his off hand, imitating a fencer.
“Don’t feel like talking? C’mon Nick. Remember how things used to be? We used to have discussions. I loved those little nicknames you came up with for the Aberrants. I loved how good you were at taking direction.”
I didn’t rise to the jab. Need to buy time. There’s got to be a solution to this, a way to bypass his regeneration.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “How do you Shape? Emotions are necessary to drive Shaping but you’ve had your Cast power on this whole time. It does the opposite, it strips emotion away.”
Chase shrugged. “Emotions are dust. They can swirl and catch the light, they can form shapes that we infer meaning from but in the next moment, they disperse in the wind, as meaningless as they first were. I’m just kicking up some shapes of my own.”
“Just because you’re heartless doesn’t mean that everyone else is the same.”
Chase laughed and clutched his chest. “Oh, how wounding! Well, at least you’re talking to me now. I thought you might be silent this whole time. Being sullen doesn’t suit you.”
A tired bitterness bubbled to my lips. “You had so many chances to just disappear and never enter my life again. I wish I’d never rescued you from the Aberrant in that alley. But I get it now.”
Chase cocked his head, blade lowering slightly. “Get what?”
“I’m never going to get a proper do-over. It’s not for me. Not here. But maybe somewhere else, I…” I bit my tongue, feeling the ache of admitting how close I’d gotten to a second chance at the life I wanted.
Chase’s smile faded. “Go on. Finish that thought. Tell me what you were going to say.”
I just shook my head.
“What’s this, Nil? Where’s your fire? You used to have so much passion, I know it’s still in there. I know what you’re thinking. Every time you try to do something good, I’m there to ruin it. So come on, hit me with something.”
His eyes lit up. “Oh! I know. You never got to hit me with this one.”
My legs began to shift without me Shaping them. I closed my eyes, knowing immediately what Chase was making just by the feel of it. Bones erupted from my calves, curving upwards to link with intricate structures that locked them into place. My muscles tensed, storing up tension, the antlers flexing as they bore the pressure. I didn’t try to stop his meddling. Nostalgia swam in my head.
I didn’t know how to beat Chase. But if I somehow managed it, I knew what I needed to do after he was gone. And I hated it.
I reached past Chase’s sword to grab him by the neck. He didn’t try to stop me.
Release.
Locust Legs triggered and we blew past the trees, hitting branches and trunks in the dark. I felt Chase’s neck snap.
For a brief moment the Lacuna came into view one by one; the first, broken and leaking red across the expanse of space, then a massive flower of white across the green, finally the distant, menacing splotch of an orb.
We crashed down and I rolled to a stop amidst fallen bricks and ripped garbage bags. I quickly got to my feet and scanned the alleyway because I’d lost my grip on Chase. The brick walls were caked in dust, making the alley feel strangely bright even now that the sun had fallen.The building’s corner had collapsed, blocking off one exit.
There was the blur of motion in my peripherals and I jerked away, a sharp edge raking across my scalp. I scrambled backwards to avoid the followup slash.
Blood dripped down my face, stinging my eye. I couldn’t quite process what I was seeing.
Chase was standing on the wall as if it were the floor. His head swung from his broken neck, betraying the true direction of gravity. He walked leisurely forward, slicing and stabbing.
“You aren’t thinking big enough!” he shouted.
Each glancing cut left a cold that sunk deep into my bones. His voice sounded different, his muscles and lungs operating entirely by Shaping to produce the sounds.
“Forget what you think you know about Shaping!”
I caught his wrist and tried yanking him down, only to feel like I was trying to shift something as immovable as a mountain. He grinned. “The rules that we all played by are unraveling. Gravity, mass, life, death. It’s all part of the sandbox.”
I pulled and Chase’s skin slid towards me. He let it, pulling his hand free of the skin, exposing the muscle to the open air. He darted past me.
Whirling around to pursue, I-
There was a blank white wall that my nose was nearly touching. I could smell cigarette smoke and something burning on a stove. Every imperfection in the paint was like the topography of a planet. A dull pulse pounded in my head. Someone was talking in the other room, muffled discussion that I somehow knew was about me. I couldn’t turn to look, couldn’t close my eyes. I could do nothing but stare at this wall like it meant something. I strained every muscle in my neck, trying to rip myself away from the scene.
I finally broke free from the memory, blinking away the afterimages.
Chase watched me from the open side of the alleyway, keeping his head straight with a hand. He wagged his finger.
“Hungry, are we? I suppose it’s a good plan if a bit simple and uninspired. Why are you trying to end this so quickly? You know there isn’t one.”
I leaned against the wall, staring at the unidentifiable liquids spilling out from garbage bags. “Come over here and find out if that’s true.”
There was a sickening crack as Chase’s neck bones realigned. “Let’s say you get what you want and I just poof, disappear. Think for a second about what comes after. You know that the world won’t stop hurting. If anything, now that the rules of society have crumbled, the strangest and cruelest among us will seize the power for themselves. You claim to be the good guy. You want to stop me because I’m hurting people. Hurting your friends. You have all the power anyone could ever dream of getting, and yet you don’t have the stomach to fully carry out where this path leads you. You can’t be the god that crushes evil under their heel. You don’t have the audacity to alter some core feature of humanity so that conflict no longer arises. You’re too weak. You don’t have the conviction.”
“I know that,” I whispered, too quiet.
“So stop caring so much! It’s really quite freeing. We can have all the fun we want, building and kicking down sandcastles until the tide comes to swallow us all. Nothing. Matters.”
In this moment, I wanted nothing more than to hold Nell’s hand.
Eyes stinging with tears, I faced Chase. “I wish I could. I wish I could stop caring. It would make this decision so much easier. But I can’t. So I have to just bear the hurt and keep moving.”
There was blood around Chase’s feet that began to bubble up, frothing and spreading.
I focused on Nell. All of her memories inside of me, branching out like an elder tree, touching each and every part, nourishing what I didn’t have the courage to do myself. A single momentous flood of feelings that I unified and channeled into a command.
“Let’s bring this all back to the beginning!” Chase shouted.
Walls rose from the blood, blocking out the street and sealing us in. A Shape reached out of the puddle in front of him. Hands delicately placed themselves along the ground. Ten, twenty, forty arms with engorged veins that ran fractals across its pale skin. The arms pushed down and lifted the main body out of the carmine birthing pool. The face was just a mouth, gaping and empty, with a long tongue that hung free like a carcass on a meat hook. Pieces of jawbones, looking like they came from different animals, were crammed into the interior of the fleshy pit and black compound eyes lined the monstrosity’s neck and shoulders. The jawbones clattered together, teeth never quite lining up properly. Then it moved and veins began to pop, blood leaking and squirting out with every movement.
“Come on, Nick! You’re not even Shaping!” Chase goaded me from behind his creation. “Show me what you can come up with. Refresh yourself on where this all started. You and me, running headfirst into madness!”
The creature rose to its full height. There were two uneven holes in its torso, the flesh bending painfully around the empty space to form an infinity symbol. A massive red vein slithered around its torso, gurgling and shifting muscles as it moved. The creature spread its hands out like some cursed deity of the sun or a mockery of a flower.
I began to run. No Shaping spurred me with any great speed or purpose. My legs burned as I pushed them to sprint right towards what frightened me most.
“You were right, Chase!” I shouted as the hands descended towards me to pull me apart. I could imagine what it would feel like. Those delicate hands would find every individual thread, every strand of flesh that they could pull on, making sure I felt it all.
The light in the alleyway changed. Dull red mixed with green and became a garish yellow glow. Chase frowned and looked at the sky.
“I wasn’t thinking big enough!” I said.
Nell’s Lacuna finished its journey and collided with Chase’s. All the sound was ripped out of the sky. For a moment, outer space was filled with dark Shapes of unimaginable scale.
Chase’s creation disintegrated and he staggered as if he’d been struck.
I placed my hands on his head and ate.
His brow and left eye melted away, falling into the river that flower out of him and into me.
I locked eyes with his remaining one.
Chase’s expression wasn’t one of shock or fury. It was one of disappointment. He slurred out his words through melting lips, “Oh. That thought you said out loud. I think I finally figured out what you meant. You’re planning on leaving, aren’t you?”
I couldn’t spare any words.
“What a boring answer.”
It was hideous. Gross. I hated it. But Chase would become a part of me. And then I would leave for good.
Chase’s voice rang out in my mind, just like how the Marquess had.
“Everyone who is under my influence, use any means necessary to kill yourself.”