I took a deep breath, then knelt to check for a pulse. I wasn’t terribly hopeful. The girl had been down here for days, and she had dozens of puncture marks all over her exposed arms and legs. I hesitated to touch her. I hate to admit it, but my germophobia was kicking in big time. I knew I had to do it, though.
I placed my fingers on her wrist. Her skin was cold and clammy.
I gasped. “I can feel a heartbeat,” I said, not believing it. It was very faint, but it was there. “Unbelievable,” I said. “She’s the one I saw in my vision. Those insects have been using her to feed on when nobody was around, but she’s alive.”
“Those things kept her down here this whole time?” asked Abby, disgusted.
There was a loud CLANG right above us. Two burning, red eyes the size of dinner plates glared at us from a hole in the ceiling. It was the shadow mantis queen.
With an otherworldly screech, the gargantuan insect crawled out of the hole and lunged off the ceiling. The four of us dove out of the way just in time to avoid getting squashed, and the bear-sized insect missed Darla by mere inches.
“Remember the plan!” I yelled, getting to my feet.
Kelly flicked her hand toward a crowbar that was on the ground. It flickered dimly purple, but barely moved. It just rolled around on the floor before losing its glow. “It won’t work. I must have used up all my power earlier!”
The giant insect made a strange, guttural chirping sound, and dozens of the mantis nymphs crawled out of every crevice in the room and quickly set their sights on Kelly. One by one, they started to lunge at her.
“Kelly!” yelled Nick as he ran to her.
The shadow mantis queen let out another screech.
“Abby, Freeze-Frame it!” I yelled.
She lifted her hands to freeze the creature, but it darted toward her and knocked her down, pinning her hands to the floor.
“You won’t get me this time, child,” the queen hissed. It started to salivate, and its drool dripped onto Abby’s arm, burning her. She cried out in pain as her skin turned bright red.
I didn’t know what to do. Our plan was falling apart. I went to Nick and Kelly, who were backed into a corner, trying to fight the insects off. Nick was throwing fire at them, aiming for their trochanters. He managed to burn four or five of them with little effort, but they just kept coming.
“Nick, you have to incinerate the mantis queen’s leg!” I said. “I’ll help Kelly. You’re the only one who can take that thing down.”
He kicked one of the insects away from Kelly before it could bite her, then shook his head at me. “I can’t. It has Abbs. What if she gets burned up, too?”
“I’ll be fine!” Abby yelled, struggling to get free. “Just do it!”
The mantis queen hissed again. “Hush, my little morsel. You’re going to waste all of that delicious energy.”
“James and I can handle these bugs,” Kelly said to him. “Go on.”
Nick considered the situation for a moment, then nodded at Kelly and turned to me. “Don’t let these bugs get the best of you.”
With seemingly little effort, Nick formed a fireball so big that he had to hold it with both hands. He hurled it at the giant mantis’s hind leg, hitting it right on target! The flame hissed and flashed as it hit the joint...before it fizzled out.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How could it not have any effect?”
I took a closer look at the queen’s leg. Unlike the nymphs’s hind legs, it didn’t appear to have the discolored pigment. The softer tissue that was supposed to be exposed was covered with its hardened exoskeleton.
Nick formed another fireball and positioned himself to throw it.
My Scan ability activated by itself. I saw the queen’s proboscis tongue begin to shoot out, aiming right for Nick.
The beast was going to skewer him. As bad as the nymphs were, the queen was much worse.
I ran to Nick and pushed him out of the way before he got stabbed. I was too slow to get out of the way, though. I screamed in pain as the monster’s sharp tongue dug into my right shoulder.
I had never felt so much pain before in my life. It felt as though I had been stabbed with a knife dipped in molten lead. Before I could even react to the pain, my body felt heavy and weak. I could hardly stand up. Nick grabbed the proboscis and tried to pull it out of my shoulder, but I grabbed his arm.
“N-no!” I managed to spit out. “Rem-em-ber the barbs on the pro-bos-cis… It tears at the flesh if…you try to…pull it out.”
“Why’d you do that?” said Nick in a harsh tone. “I coulda handled it. How do I get this thing out?” He was panicking.
“You…have to…stop the shadow mantis queen… Save Abby and…Kelly,” I said with every ounce of strength I could muster.
Nick looked around the room. “Hold on, J-Man!” He ran to a shelf and grabbed a rusty ax.
He came back and swung the ax as hard as he could, and it severed the mantis’s tongue. The creature screamed as its bloody appendage shot back into its mouth.
While it was true that the monster was no longer sapping my energy, the tip of its tongue was still in my shoulder, sticking out about a foot. The pain was too much. I could no longer stand. I went down.
Nick tried to help me up. “J-Man, you okay?”
“No need to worry about me…” I said, barely able to get the words out. “Go help Abby…”
“What about you?” he said, and even though my vision was blurring, I could see the concern on his face.
“I’ll be fine…” I said, barely able to speak. “Abby...is in the most danger.”
“Kelly, you okay?” he said, looking over at her. She was still trying to keep the insects at bay, but they were closing in on her.
She kicked one away from her foot, and slapped another one off her shoulder. “I’ll be okay...go save Abby.”
The mantis queen had turned its attention back on Abby. It glared down at her hungrily as clotted, green blood dripped from its severed tongue.
“Let me go!” Abby screamed at the beast, and it let out a predatory screech.
Nick clenched his fists, and his entire body shook with anger. “Alright. If my fire power won’t get it…”
“What are you—” was all I managed to say before Nick charged at the giant insect.
He tackled it full-force and managed to knock it down, but the queen quickly got the upper hand and pinned him to the ground. He was fighting with everything he had to get free.
Abby, who was now free from underneath the mantis, shot to her feet and threw her hands toward the monster, and it froze in place.
Nick was able to free his arms from the monster’s grasp, scoot out from under it, and get up. “Thanks, sis,” he said.
“Back at you,” she said. “I would have been a goner if you didn’t get it off of me.”
The nymphs that were attacking Kelly seemed to know something was going on, because they all let out fearful squeaks and scattered. She took a shaky breath and walked toward me.
I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. Nick ran over and helped me up. He wrapped my arm around his shoulder to give me balance.
“You alright, man?” he asked.
“I…think so,” I said, but I wasn’t alright at all.
A man’s voice echoed in the dark. “Agents of Edania.”
We looked around the room. A man walked up to us from the room’s darkest corner. He looked like a stereotypical ninja, only his garb was white instead of black. The fabric that covered his face was blue, and looked like it was made out of linen. He was covered head to toe; the only things exposed were his dark eyes, which seemed to twinkle like the night sky.
“Who are you?” asked Nick cautiously.
Before the man could answer, the shadow mantis unfroze and let out an enraged hiss.
“There’s no time to explain,” said the man. “Follow me!”
Nick helped me walk as we hobbled after the strange man. The question was, could we trust him?
&n
bsp; CHAPTER 12:
The Ark—James
We followed the strange-garbed man through the ruins of the old school. I felt like one of those foolish people in a horror movie. You know the ones. Common sense says not to follow the psycho into the woods, but they do anyway. But in our case, it was probably safer than staying back there and getting killed and eaten by a giant insect.
“Where exactly are you taking us?” Kelly asked, nervously looking around as we walked.
The man was silent.
“Hey, she asked you a question!” yelled Nick. He loosened his grip on me, and I almost fell down. He quickly grabbed me again before I toppled over. “S-sorry, J-Man.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I think my strength is returning.”
“It’s because we are nearing the Ark,” the man said. “Do you feel its pull getting stronger?”
I stood a bit straighter. “Now that you mention it, I do feel something in the air. It’s pulling us in this direction.”
“Indeed,” the man said calmly. “Why do you think we’re going this way?”
“So you can hack us to bits and leave us for the bugs,” said Abby, keeping her distance from the man.
“I assure you, I mean you no harm,” the man said as we reached a fork in the hallway.
“Who are you?” asked Nick.
The man looked to the right and left. “I am…a friend.”
Nick scoffed. “That’s helpful! How about a name?”
The man didn’t answer. He just turned to me and said, “James?”
“Y-yes?” I answered.
“Use your Scan ability to take us the rest of the way to the Ark,” he said, like it was as easy as breathing or eating or identifying white blood cells under a microscope.
“You want me to do what?” I said.
He just looked at me expectantly. “I understand you’re fatigued, but try. We’re close to the Ark, which will give your ability a boost.”
“But I don’t know how to get it to work,” I said, looking at the floor. “It always seems to activate on its own.”
“You’re a bright young man,” he said. “You’ll figure it out. Just concentrate.”
I closed my eyes and tried to focus. It was difficult. There were too many things going through my head. How far behind is the mantis queen and her mutant spawn? Who is this man? Are we going to find the Ark? How much disinfectant am I going to need after all of this is over?
“You can do it. Just focus your mind on finding the Ark,” said the man.
“I’m trying,” I said. I really was, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.
The man didn’t seem to get it. “Picture the Ark in your mind,” he continued. “Let your ability come out naturally. You don’t need to try so hard.”
I remembered the previous vision I had about the round, floating object in the room with the barbed-wire fence. When I focused on that image, my head started to hurt.
“How’s it lookin’, buddy?” asked Nick, but his voice was muffled, as if a wall were between us.
I opened my eyes, and a blinking path glowed before me and went to the left side of the fork.
“I see the path we need to take,” I said. I could barely hear my own voice.
I told Nick to let me go, and he did. I led us forward, following the glowing path. There were so many rooms and so many turns, and I really hoped that following this path would lead us in the right direction.
We entered a small room that looked vaguely familiar, where a barbed-wire fence divided it. Through the fence I could barely make out a small, rotating object that emitted a brilliant gray glow.
I snapped out of my trance and the glowing path vanished. I had definitely led us to the right place. Unfortunately, we had to get through the large padlocked gate to get to the other side.
A dreadfully familiar scraping sound came from behind us, followed by a blood-curdling screech. The shadow mantis queen was closing in.
“Any bright ideas?” Nick asked, yanking on the chains.
“Can’t you just blow it up?” asked Abby.
Nick shook his head. “I don’t think I have much juice left.”
There was another screech, much louder this time.
“I’ll handle this,” said Kelly as she walked up to the gate. She pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and used it to pick the lock. It gave a satisfying click and fell off the gate.
There was the pitter-patter of heavy but nimble legs as the shadow mantis queen turned the corner.
Kelly quickly opened the door and the five of us ran through just as the queen lunged at us. The strange man shut the gate and lifted his hands toward it. A flash of light briefly covered the gate right as the monster crashed into it. It started slashing at the fence, trying to get in.
“My fortification won’t hold for long,” the man said, watching the shadow mantis queen slash at the door.
Each time the mantis queen struck the door, it would glimmer brightly. But with each consecutive hit, the light dimmed.
We were in a tight spot, both literally and figuratively. We were stuck in a cage with no other entrances or exits other than where the mantis queen was.
The good news was that the Ark was right before our eyes, slowly rotating in the air. It gave off a gray light, and it radiated with power. The bad news was that the giant insect would most likely maim us before we could get the Ark out of there.
“What do we do now?” asked Abby, cringing every time the mantis struck the fence door. “There’s nowhere to run, and we’ve exhausted our powers.”
The man walked to the Ark and gazed at its radiant glow. “All those who have lost their humanity cannot touch the Ark if its barrier is active, no matter how small or weakened that barrier may be.”
“But this insect is not a person,” I thought aloud. I pondered about it for another moment. “Could it still be considered a Corrupted?”
The man turned around and looked at me thoughtfully. “This insect and its offspring are the results of a Corrupted’s fiendish mind. Any creation of a Corrupted has an imprint of their Dark-Segol placed upon it. So, in a way, they are an extension of the Corrupted that created them.”
With one final slash, the mantis queen broke through the barrier and the gate door was bent open at the top. The giant insect leaped into the room and landed between us and the Ark, forcing the strange man to jump for cover.
I glanced behind me. Maybe we could run for it and come back for the Ark later...but that plan wouldn’t work, the door had been bent in such a way that it would be impossible to open it from the inside一it was a crazy thought, but the mantis queen must have done that on purpose to keep us from escaping.
“Who shall I snack on first?” the creature said menacingly as it closed in on us.
I turned my attention back at the monster, then at the Ark. If flight wasn’t an option, all that was left was to fight or die. I quickly thought up a plan. “Nick, can you muster one more fireball?” I asked.
“I can try,” he said, sounding like the very idea made him tired. “But what good’s it gonna do?”
I pointed at the Ark behind the insect. All he had to do was knock the monster into the Ark. He seemed to get the plan. He nodded and tried to form a fireball.
The creature hissed. “There is no way you can destroy me, my tasty little victims! All that’s left is for you to surrender and let me feed on your delicious energy until there’s nothing left.”
“You’re gonna have to come and get us, you overgrown cockroach!” Nick yelled as he managed to form a medium-sized fireball in his hand, but the flame flickered as he held it, and his body shook with fatigue.
The creature screeched, and not ten seconds later, its terrible horde of offspring crawled in from all over the room, even the ceiling. One of the nymphs fell from the ceiling and landed on the Ark, and it melted the second it touched its glowing surface.
We were completely surrounded. My plan had to work, otherwise we’d quickly
fall prey to this horde of mutant insects.
Nick threw the fireball, but it fizzled out before it even touched the mantis queen.
The creature laughed. “I told you, there is nothing you can do. Just accept your fate.”
The nymphs started to climb onto us, and it took everything we had just to keep them from biting us.
I had to do something, but what? Think, James, think!
I looked at the Ark and quickly thought up another plan, albeit an insane one. “I’m going to try something, guys,” I said to the others.
“What’re you thinking?” asked Nick as he swatted a mantis off his shoulder.
I took a deep breath. “I have to take one for the team. We’re all in this together, right?” I took a step toward the Ark—and toward the shadow mantis queen.
“Don’t do anything stupid!” Nick yelled.
“What are you doing, James?” asked Kelly.
“Truthfully? Something foolish,” I admitted. “But it’s the only solution I have.” I took another step forward.
Was I ready to make my move? It was a strategic risk, but it was one that we couldn’t afford to ignore. It was our last chance.
After counting to three, I ran as fast as I could toward the Ark. The shadow mantis queen swung its massive pincers to catch me, but I slid past its grip.
As I grabbed the Ark, its power surged through my body as its gray light surrounded me. When the light dimmed, the mantis queen grabbed me and picked me up with no effort.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said defiantly as I struck its forearm with the Ark. But nothing happened; it didn’t even loosen its grip.
“I will drain your body dry,” the mantis hissed.
I couldn’t understand; the Ark’s barrier was still up. The beast was supposed to melt on contact with the Ark, but it hadn’t even flinched.
The creature opened its mouth wide.
It then dawned on me. The exoskeleton of the mantis queen was extremely hard, more so than the nymphs’. Maybe the Ark’s barrier couldn’t penetrate it. Perhaps if the Ark came into contact with the mantis’s internal anatomy…
I flung the Ark into the creature’s open mouth, and it swallowed it. It tightened its grip on me, and I thought my ribs were going to crack under the pressure.
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