by Jason Letts
Knoll and the carafe shard were gone and getting farther away every minute, and she couldn’t work out any way it hadn’t been her fault. They had barely survived Arent’s attack, which Aoi was lucky to have survived. Unless they did something quickly, there was no telling what terrible things would occur above them, but they were trapped down here in the most bizarre place any of them had ever been. Taking a deep breath and releasing a long, quivering sigh, she knew she had to find a way to make progress to fight through the despair.
“Let’s go this way, OK? Staying here isn’t going to do us any good, and there’s got to be a way out somewhere,” she said.
Lost for any other sensible ideas, the group started to drift away from the rock wall sealing off one side of the chamber. Pressing forward, their steps sounded like they were walking through sticky mud. The heartbeat drove them on like a drum, and on the way they identified capillaries and veins in the walls. Bare bones peaked through in places. Rising up on each side of them, they must’ve been part of the pelvis. Other organs blocked their passage, and they maneuvered around or over them.
“What power could do this?” Vern asked, astonished.
“It’s got to be a strong one, whatever it is,” Mary answered.
It was beautiful in its way. Even though everything was damp and slick, these living structures looked like moving statues, constantly completing their individual tasks so the whole could go on functioning. Though Will was supremely grossed out, Roselyn couldn’t stop herself from touching everything. She tried to take Will’s hand and put it against the sidewall, where blood surged through the veins at that very moment, but he covered his mouth and started to wretch. She laughed at him, and her laughter made things a little better for Will.
But Mira mostly kept her head down and at one point put her hands over her ears. Finally, she crossed her arms and continued to stalk through this murky abyss. It startled her when Chucky put his arm around her, but she calmed down at once.
“He had his hands on it before you could do a thing to stop him. It’s not too late. It can’t be,” he said.
“Do you really believe that?” she asked him in a low voice.
“Of course I do, Mira. You won’t let a little setback like losing everything stop you from getting what you want. This is when you’re at your best.”
Mira felt like she wanted to kiss him for that bit of support, but the bodily juices covering her made her think twice about it. Besides, Aoi spoke up just a second later.
“I think we’ve reached the end. It stops here,” she said.
Everyone lined up against the impediment, a huge jumble of twisting tubes that stretched to all sides of the chamber. Parts of it twitched and convulsed, and the light seemed to grow even fainter. Vern started looked around for other ways to proceed, but Mira walked right up to it and worked her hand into one of the crevasses. Soon her entire arm had sunk into it.
“This is the small intestine. Trust me, this is the right way,” she said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. So, so gross,” Will moaned.
Mira lifted her leg and slid it between another pair of tubes. She stepped inside, and soon little more than her head poked out.
“Come on!” she urged them.
The others started following her into the slimy mess with varying degrees of hesitation. Will kept his eyes closed and let Roselyn pull him through. Aoi didn’t seem particularly comfortable either. The disgusted grimace on her face couldn’t have been worse if she were wading through horse droppings. Soon they were all trapped within the massive expanse of intestinal tubing, which continued to twitch and shimmy with whatever was squirming inside. They swam through it, sliding over and under sections as thick as they were. It was impossible to tell how far in they were or how far they had to go. All light was gone, and breathing became even more difficult. Will threw up, the awful sounds reverberating around them.
“Mira?” a voice called.
Mira looked around, trying to find the source, and then she squeezed through the next layer of tubing only to discover empty space on the other side. It felt like she’d been swimming in slop, and she wasn’t sure if the voice had been that of the worries in her imagination.
“Mira?” the voice called again, and the second time around Mira knew exactly who it was. Squinting, she started looking around in the shadows for any signs. The colon, stomach, and liver occupied space in the cave ahead. Vern and the others started to emerge from the dense maze.
Something along the pink flesh coating the walls caught Mira’s attention. The thin red blood vessels were bending, curling themselves into circles, and starting to form a shape. The face that appeared looked a lot like Mira’s but wasn’t.
“Oh, there you are!” Mira said, as her friends gathered around.
“We’d just woked up, and those guys were gone. Is everything alright? Our parents are worried to death,” Clara said.
Mira put her hand to her face and patted her slime-covered hair away from her eyes. She took a deep breath, casting a quick glance at her friends.
“We’re OK, but everything is not alright. They found us and took the shard and the baby. They beat us. Somehow they beat us, and we failed,” she sulked.
“Hey, they only got away because Arent showed up and we had to fight him off,” Will said.
“He was here?” Clara asked, her veiny eyebrows lifting in surprise.
“He was, but now he’s out there somewhere,” Vern said. “He made a big mistake when he tried to hurt Aoi.”
“You mean he tried to kill her, but it didn’t work? I ain’t believing it,” Clara scoffed, her form accommodating a shake of the head.
“She’s still here, isn’t she?” Mira said.
It was hard to tell from the fluids drenching them, but Aoi might have been blushing. She kept herself still and quiet, behaving unusually shy. The sound of the heartbeat, louder here than on the other side of the small intestine, sounded a few times.
“And where’s here anyways? What place is you at?” Clara asked.
“You mean you don’t already know? Then how did you find us?” Vern asked.
“I don’t know nothing where nobody is. I think about what I want to see and then that’s where I am,” Clara answered.
“When Aoi fought Arent, there was an explosion from all the energy. We were trapped in this strange cave that’s just like a body. We’ve been wandering around here for a while now, but it’s still not making any sense. What is it all for?” Mira said, raising her arm and gesturing to the organs and body parts filling the underground cavern around them. Confused, Clara made a face.
“So what are we supposed to do now? We just stuck in the woods,” she asked.
“We must recover the shard from Neeko, who’s constantly getting farther away from us. You could help us look for them,” Mira suggested.
“Neeko’s power turned it into a bright light,” Will snarled. “Course that won’t help you find him now that it’s day time. Still, they’re probably continuing toward the northwest.”
“Alright then. Finding them ain’t gonna be hard at all, but getting to ’em might be. We’ll do our best,” Clara said.
“Be careful…and tell Mom and Dad I love them,” Mira squeaked before the veins in the glowing pink wall shifted back into their normal place. The heartbeat caught their attention again, forcing them to remember where they were and how they couldn’t get out. Turning to a new set of strange looking organs that should only belong right in their middles brought a renewed trepidation and astonishment. They took a few steps out, trying to find the best way to pass these humongous organic structures. Mary sidled up next to Mira.
“There’re two people up ahead. I noticed them as soon as we came through…the tubes,” Mary said, and Mira stopped to turn to her. Her eyes widened.
“Really? What do you know?” she asked.
Mary closed her eyes for a second, holding her hand in the air as if she were waiting for a butterfly
to land.
“They’re very strong, someone so bright and alive it’s kind of astonishing. This place must be their work, but I can’t tell which one because they’re so close. They’re practically indistinguishable to me.”
Mira studied Mary’s face, trying to learn as much from her as possible. Putting her hand to her cheek, she contemplated what might happen if they had another confrontation. But there didn’t seem to be any way to get out of the cave, and there was nowhere left to go but toward them. What happens when you stumble upon those who do not wish to be found?
“Let’s hope whatever life they instill in this place remains perfectly intact in us,” Mira sighed, turning to the darkness ahead. The lower reaches of the rib cage stretched over the ceiling ahead.
After passing by the colon, the group found a narrow passage tilting to the right. It led between the stomach and the liver. On the left, the liver was dark red and much harder and thicker than the pinkish wall of the stomach on the right. Creeping through, the stomach seemed to breathe, gaining size momentarily at an odd angle before deflating a little. It was hard to keep one’s balance, leaning so far to the right, and the squishy, slick floor didn’t help. The stomach continued to grow as they passed through, pinching them against the liver.
“It’s OK, we’re almost there,” Mary strained from the front, her hands pushing back the inflating stomach. “Let’s hurry and get through this!”
But the walls continued to grow, pressing flush against the liver ahead and behind. Aoi could push away the mass in front of her, but the flexible exterior molded around her arms. The rest of them could hardly keep it away, and the unyielding liver did nothing to help them.
“We’re going to be crushed in here!” Vern shouted.
Heaving and huffing, they fought in vain to keep back the expanding organ. Roselyn looked over at Will, the stomach obstructing her vision more each second. He gritted his teeth but had his head pressed flat to the side. She turned to try to get closer to him, and when she twisted her hand her fingernail nicked the wall. It caused a cut, and soon she was running her nail through the space in front of her, slicing through. She quickly showed the motion to Will.
“Cut through with your fingernail!” he screamed, starting to dig his own small fingernail into the soft wall suffocating him. Another voice in the distance shouted back at him. It was Mira, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Don’t! The stomach acid will eat us alive!”
But the pressure from the walls gave him no other choice. He started digging in as Roselyn slipped inside, liquid spilling out through the hole she’d made. He’d only been able to get through a few inches when a slice ran down the wall on its own. Weird juices seeped out, as did a hand, grabbing him and pulling him through. Will gasped as he sunk into the stomach, which contained liquid that was waist-deep. All down the wall, the others were cutting through the wall and squirming inside. Wading through the sopping, greasy, contents, Roselyn and Will helped pull their friends in.
“No!” Mira shouted as they cut through to her from the inside. Against her will, they pulled her in, holding her so she didn’t fall face-first in the liquid. She braced herself for the painful, burning sensation of gastric acid devouring her skin, and everyone watched her for a moment as she opened her eyes and looked down around her. Even though her lower half was submerged, she carefully dipped her finger in to test it.
“It’s not real,” she sighed. “There’s no hydrochloric acid or potassium chloride. Why, it’s just soupy water. And why were the walls so thin?”
She flicked her hand through and made a small splash. The relief made her lose her balance for a second and list to the side. For the first time, they breathed easily and took stock of their new surroundings. The fluid continued to spill through the holes, which started to heal, a few rocks waded in the water, and the glowing walls arced above them. As a whole, the stomach took up as much space as a house. On both ends, the walls narrowed into tubes leading up and down the body.
“I guess we can keep going then,” Will suggested, still uncomfortable, and the others agreed. Together they moved to the nearest end where a slope led to the esophagus over their heads, which looked wide enough to crawl through. Behind them, the stomach continued to shift in size and send ripples through the water.
Because Chucky would have the hardest time climbing a slippery slope, Vern and Aoi lifted him on their shoulders and pushed him through. The others followed, and together they crawled into the pitch-black tube.
“They aren’t that far away,” Mary warned over the quickening heartbeat.
“Maybe we can throw ourselves up through the mouth and they’ll be none the wiser,” Will posed.
“Something’s wrong,” Chucky cried from the front. “I don’t think it goes on much farther.”
“It has to! The esophagus leads to the oral cavity,” Mira said, urging him on.
Under all the weight, the tubing started to sag in the middle, causing Roselyn to slide back into Will, who in turn was pressed by Vern behind him. The groaning started and intensified as Chucky slid back to add himself to the glut. The tubing ripped open beneath them, and they spilled out and fell for a few yards. Jumbled together, they crashed onto the floor.
The beating of the heart pounded from just a short distance away, but when they looked up to see it, they were astonished to see two hairless men sitting before them. The massive heart throbbed behind them, but the home of these two inhabitants was far more bizarre than that.
Every part of the body from the chest up was crammed and mashed into this space. The brain jutted through the fleshy mass not far from the vocal chords. An eyeball spun in place, hair and teeth were everywhere, and lungs hung over their heads.
The sight was ghastly and horrific, causing them to gape openly. Will put his hand to his mouth in an attempt to restrain more vomiting. Despite the unnatural conglomeration of body parts haphazardly strewn together, the two identical-looking men appeared perfectly calm. Seated as close together as they possible could, they held hands and stared blankly at the jumble of bodies that had collapsed onto their floor. Frightened yet embarrassed, the group slowly got to their feet.
Everyone froze when the pair opened their mouths to speak. The two of them shared the words seamlessly between them, their voices even sounding the same. Together, they looked down upon the six strangers and Mira, who stood in the middle.
“We’ve been waiting for you to come for such a very long time,” they said.
“You’ve been waiting for me?” Mira asked, hesitantly.
“Not you,” they answered, and only then did she start to question who they were speaking to. Mira looked back behind herself and found Aoi standing in her shadow. She stepped out from behind and locked eyes with them.
“We searched the world for you, but you must’ve been hiding in the web. And finally we could wait no longer and we had to leave you to time. You belong with us, and that’s why we knew we would find you if we only stopped looking.”
“What…what are you talking about?” Aoi asked, staring up at them and the shifting mass of human matter behind. But before they could speak, Vern’s voice echoed through the chamber.
“I know you,” he gasped. “I’ve seen you before.”
The two men nodded in a rhythm.
“You two were on that cart, and there was a,” and as Vern spoke, a palm-sized land octopus crawled around from behind their back and dove into the squishy ground. “You two are Specials!”
From their enigmatic words and the conclusion Vern sounded so sure of, Mira drew the only possible conclusion, but it was too unbelievable to put into words.
“Are you saying Aoi…?”
“When the first being tore apart his omnipotence, the largest pieces broke away first. These are the powers too dangerous to exist in the world at large. The power to accelerate the force of evolution, to control all motion and velocity, to govern the physics of collisions, to ration the speed of the
human mind, to redistribute powers as if the very web itself, to create and manipulate the elements of matter, to instill life in that which does not have it, and to make it disintegrate, whither, and fall away from what does.
“These are the eight we hid from the flow of time and the course of history to prevent such catastrophes. But in truth we were always meant to be nine. We remained in stasis until we were unleashed to fan the flames of war, and now many of those powers have returned to the web to be reborn and implanted in new monsters around the globe. They are lost from us, yet we have cause to rejoice. The one we could never find has appeared before us. You were free to live and die a thousand times, and it was all so you could meet us here at this very moment.”
Aoi trembled, her hands on her mouth and nose. The two men gazed down on her like they were opening their eyes for the first time. No one else had any idea what to say, and it was hard to know who was in a more agitated emotional state, the pair who had found the most vital missing piece to the life’s work of ages or the small girl with black hair curving around her face who learned she was one of them.
“No, it can’t be. I’m not that powerful.” Aoi’s words were merely a whisper, hidden beneath the sound of a racing heart, but somehow they were heard all the same.
“But you are. It is in you even if you never knew it yourself. Perhaps all those who came before you had lived their lives without the knowledge of what had been given to them too. We can be thankful for that, but you can no longer be ignorant of your power. These are fragile times when the world can sew up and come together or unravel and fall apart. To say everything that comes after depends on what is to come has never been more true than it is now.”
“What is it then?” Vern asked, fearfully by Aoi’s side. “Why her?”
The two men stared out into open space as if witnessing something breathtaking and majestic. Everyone waited, dying to know why the friend they had known for so long was so vitally important.
“There are three powers that work the properties of energy, and to have them all together at the same time produces a volatility that could rip the world apart. On the surface, you have just met the generator, and he took what was already a destructive power and used it to scorch one half of the planet and cast the other in darkness. His evil is bottomless, and he shares his rage even as it eats him from the inside.”