In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  “Like… I said…!” she strained aloud, her biceps pounding with paint pouring into her burning green eyes. “Time… Is my bitch!”

  Her wings folded and slammed against one another to form a pinnacle. Condensed at the tips of the wings, delicately and defiantly balancing atop, the prosthetic sun was launched back with a piercing whine, traveling the exact same course of its descent. The takeoff was so overwhelming that all surrounding air within our direct vicinity was sucked in and used to aid in the launch, bringing even me to my knees as I watched the comet hurl toward the initial assailant.

  It rammed into the airship with a deafening boom, giving this gray and murky world a true sense of daylight.

  The sight racked my brain: the purity and ferocity of the white blast intermingled with the fiery ship, a cascading, burning waterfall of machinery and flesh hurling toward the blazing, cursed earth and streaking the sky. I could only stare as the comets plummeted and snapped trees around us, other hunks plowing into the bare distant land, forming bleeding, heated craters.

  The memory resurfacing this time did not pull me under like the first, but it did plenty—especially when a man in black armor smashed down to his death mere feet from me, engulfed in fire yet hanging onto life for seconds more.

  Melting, flaming, dying, he screamed… Broken and fractured he was—clearly a goner—but he reached out, begging me to pull him to safety in a choking fit of blood.

  But all I saw was me in his place—thrown out of Heaven and baring a branded fire, crying to fly back on hellish purple wings of metal that could never break through His clouds ever again.

  I watched the man die, traumatized, but it didn’t bother neither Korbu nor my eldest fledglings.

  Because they didn’t remember all that I did.

  The message that the angel sent had the attackers on the run, taking their minimal losses and heading back to wherever they stationed themselves. Those alive among us watched with quivering anxiety as the battle came to its end, leaving only flames, smoke, and an astounding body count behind.

  The angel recuperated from the shock, bringing her weaponized wings down at her sides and looking about to absorb the casualties. A dull blue gem plugging a hole in her forehead had hardly an aura, defeated by the reality around her, and those former, destructive green eyes fell to a dark teal that had trouble holding back the ocean behind them. Her face remained dense and unmoved, however, and without addressing those around her, she approached the withered holy child beside me.

  “Are you alright?” she asked simply.

  They nodded, convulsing with gratitude. “Yes… Thank you, Pinion.”

  A stiff nod was the only reply. Her blessed body surprisingly turned to me next.

  I didn’t know how I was supposed to react. Her eyes darkened the moment we met, distaste across every corner. I could only surmise that she knew the Eero before me because I would have recognized a beauty like her in an instant.

  I chuckled, standing and drawing an arm across my chiseled chest with flattery. “Pinion, is it? What a delightfully odd name. I’m—”

  A fist ran into my face, and once I realized it came from her, she bashed me again—this time in the throat—and left me gagging on the ground.

  “An asshole,” she finished. “I told you that you couldn’t do it.”

  “Do—what?!” I choked out, growling with such anger that the saliva was blasting through my fangs. “Kick your ass, you stupid bitch?!”

  Her face remained unmoved. “Oh, like you have so many times before? I’m beginning to lose count of how many times you’ve kneeled at my feet. You’re lucky that I haven’t killed you—even though it would be for the better.” She turned her back and left me on my humiliated knees.

  My list of enemies had grown so long that it no longer fit upon a scroll. All around me, there were nothing but imbeciles—fuckheads that made it their life mission to either undermine me or piss me off. Geez, despite the vast differences, every angel, human, and demon found a common hatred in me, but I didn’t mind. Even if there was no one in my kingdom besides myself, I would be happy. I didn’t need others; I never did and never would.

  Pinion gave no concern for the fallen, finding a small mound of dead and flatly climbing to the top to overlook the gathering survivors. Blade in each hand, she scanned those around her, patiently waiting as her cold eyes sucked them in. Frankly pissed, I kept to the ground and refused to rise in her presence. Korbu stood by me in my decision, passive as usual, but Sage and Mabel joined the crowd that they always followed, disappearing into the mesmerizing mass of pathetic.

  When all was done, Pinion had perhaps two hundred left at her disposal. Dress flapping in the steaming wind and golden crown bronzed with blood, she shed a twisted, broken smile over her warriors, but also a voice so strong that one could not sense an ounce of plague on her mind.

  “I’m going to make this brief,” she began, “because all of you can clearly see that no matter how I manipulate him, Time is not on our side. I applaud each and every one of you for making it this far, but you must prepare for the inevitable… Gannon’s sanity has slipped to the umpth degree; he will not stop until he has committed total genocide against Glitches and Players—aka, us.”

  She repositioned herself so that her back was to me and she faced the direction that the ships had fled. The air compressed around her formidable figure, darkening and drenching her in the dusk that she truly belonged to. “If you have injuries that need immediate attention, go find either Seek or Peace; if not, suck it up. We’re sitting targets, and I guarantee that it won’t be long until the next attack.

  “Assassins: gather the dead; strip and butcher them. Medics: tend to the wounded. All others: find survivors. Get anything you can find and assemble back here as quickly as possible. We have to strike or be stricken.”

  Sixteen

  Faceless

  It burned and ached like no other… His heart fluttered with a warped fear, his veins pounding and bleeding, but his eyes would open for nothing—he didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know what happened.

  In stuffed ears, there were eerie pumps—chambers of filtered, compressed air forcefully maintaining life. Low groans, high beeps, sharp squeals, and soft currency scraped against one another as did a dry violin’s bow, lightly overlaid with hollow, cold footsteps that echoed around his skeleton. A sticky, warm presence pushed on his skin and kept him down; he felt it slide inside of him through his nose and slither into his lungs, setting his innards ablaze with reeking chemicals, but his frail air sacs could not get rid of whatever was ingested and slowly killing him.

  Just try to stay calm… Griffin groggily thought. Stay calm… Stay strong. They didn’t kill Justus. They won’t kill you. Why else would—?

  “Hey! Who said you could stop?!”

  “Ey, I have to think! Give me a moment!”

  Justus! Griffin’s heart rate picked up. His first instinct was to throw open his fleshy curtains and see him—capture a sense of knowing.

  But the other voice fought against that urge, reacting in Griffin’s bubbling veins and pushing up against his numbed skin. A racking headache detonated in the depths of his skull, the sensation fiercely spreading through his lobes and then bones.

  It was too much; his body gave in, throwing his neck forward as he hacked out of sickening fatigue, but nothing would leave his stomach—opening his mouth just made it worse, each breath in granting the poison another entry point.

  He was choking; his lungs literally could not expand further, teeming at the brim with fluids, but no matter how much he coughed, how wide his mouth stretched, it couldn’t leave. There was nowhere for it to go; it was all around him.

  The innocent child that had been bled out of him at such a young age reappeared, and in Griffin’s misery, his cold yet burning skin cried for attention and comfort as his body retreated into a fettle position. …Mommy…! Daddy…! K-Kevin… Help me…

  “H-help…”

 
Weight claimed him; he never even realized it left until he plunged several feet down onto his kneecaps, the violent fracturing of bone giving him no alternative but to open his eyes. A glob of green goo launched out of his mouth when he screamed, splattering across the cylindrical wall of glass that caged him. An extensive silver drain covered the floor that his broken legs kneeled on, hissing and bubbling as the last remnants of poison were cast away, but the deadly liquid still oozed out of his mouth, nostrils, ears—anywhere that it could exit, all while a large dosage sloshed in his stomach and continued to branch out, keeping him ablaze.

  Even though he had sight, it was so blurred and obstructed by torment that his brain had trouble piecing together the scene. But there was a frosted container that held him captive… And definitely a fluid inside his body meant to kill even the strongest. A pipe identical to the drain below was fastened onto the ceiling of his living hell, a few stray drops smacking down onto his plastered hair.

  And he was naked—exposed at every inch to the blurry faces of observers beyond. A thin coat of neon-green slime was his only covering, but its lingering presence continued to intoxicate his pores and twist his brain, along with the wisps of black-purple mist exiting his skin and circling his body.

  The spectators were silent, moving about in a fuzzy sea. The swirling, contorting images yanked down on Griffin’s full gut, and he vomited out the ingested slosh, splattering it against the glass. It killed him to feel it race up and out his throat, but not as much as keeping it in.

  Sweating, confused, desperate, he threw his fist into his stomach and uppercut himself beneath the ribs in an effort to relieve his gut, but his throws were weak and sluggish, merely freeing morsels with each strike. Come on, come on! Get out of me…!

  “Ey, ease up,” Justus suggested, unseen but definitely near. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  That’s what you want, Griffin silently ridiculed. He did not voice the quip, relentlessly continuing the assault.

  “Hm… He is fighting far differently than the others…”

  Griffin’s knuckles lodged themselves into his collapsed stomach and remained there, his ears ringing to the tune of Typo’s deathly sly voice.

  “I wonder if it is truly something in that de Vaux gene…” Death in his shadowed form blended into existence beyond the glazed barrier; two eyes of blood shined straight through and turned Griffin inside out. “Sleep tends to be the natural reaction with affliction—and harm to others but never self. Interesting… Quite interesting, indeed.” Typo tilted his head, trying to catch a better glimpse. “Clear the smog.”

  A choir of heavy hisses bowed to his undeniable command, Typo’s piercing eyes pushing the frost aside and forcing it to crawl to the outer rims of the holding tank.

  Maybe it was the delusions taking hold, the nightmares Griffin then realized were being forged with him, but Typo’s usually intimidating form did not bring fear, just ire in its purest form. Unmatchable it was to even Griffin’s deep self-hatred. The demon barred from him deepened the misery of living in this alternate future; Typo’s initial hunt became Griffin’s ultimate end.

  And the true end for Laelia.

  Griffin’s sorrow came out as a single black tear. Stupid… Stupid…! Why was I so afraid to tell you the truth…? Why didn’t I fight for you harder? I didn’t need your dumb love. I just needed you to be there…

  “Beautiful,” Typo applauded. “Your aura is so enticingly hateful. You reek negative energy like a smokestack.”

  Griffin’s neck cringed; the strings keeping his head aloft felt like they were pulling apart. Turning his lip to a gory pulp, grinding his teeth to a powder, Griffin stared through his hollow reflection and Typo’s gaseous chest, finding the emptiest man of them all.

  From Justus’ elbows to his wrists, his skin was clasped in metal to keep him from self-harm. His hands were not bound in electric cuffs, but his neck was shackled and bolted to the ground via chain. He had just enough slack to work from any corner of the complex laboratory table lying before him. Piles of wires, chips, and screws buried the surface. Graspable, white holograms of elaborate contraptions circulated his head like a menu, his placid eyes reflecting Griffin’s wrinkled face when the soldier glanced at what lay on the table—the subject of Justus’ work.

  Griffin’s detached mechanical arm.

  The one thing that gave Griffin worth… Just lying there and leaving him even more naked than when he first came out. The limp bronze fingers forced open Griffin’s mouth even from the distance, demanding answers. “Why, Justus…? Why would you betray us?”

  “Why would you betray me?” Justus coldly reiterated. “Why did you ignore everything that I tried to do for you? Do you know how much time and effort I put into fixing you? And you just go back and break all my hard work—”

  “So, you did just want to make me your tool,” Griffin shot back. “Just like Embry.”

  A flash of light was resurrected in those dead eyes of his. “She wasn’t a tool; she was my—”

  “Bullshit! Her life literally depended on you, and you betrayed her when you didn’t need her anymore! I wonder why! Why—?!”

  Typo threw up his simmering red hand. Griffin’s accusations abruptly shifted to soul-ripping screams when the smog about him thickened.

  “Such outward anger ruins the sensation,” Typo snarled, coolly watching Griffin topple onto his side and beg for mercy. “Can you not?”

  Griffin’s lip had already been drained, so instead, he bit down on his tongue. What, this was about Typo now? Oh, he must have been in so much pain watching Griffin! Boo-hoo!

  “The last de Vaux…” Typo continued dryly, declaring Griffin’s suffering to be sufficient with a falling palm. Griffin gasped, relieved, but the aftermath of the attack left him lying there, staring down the henchman from the corners of his bulging eyes. “How amusing. I would have never expected that we would find someone so precious. And to think, Lord Gannon originally prompted for yours and Laelia’s disposal because he didn’t think you were anything special. What a tragic mistake that would have been.”

  Typo turned to Justus, who had not moved. Griffin took the opportunity to get a strong read on his current situation.

  He was not the only victim; there were perhaps a dozen more captives in identical chambers, each suspended in the same, mucus-like fluids that Griffin had graciously caught a break from.

  But they were not like him in terms of their status. Their skin was gray and the definition of lifeless, eyes closed so tightly that they had caked over—and unlike Griffin’s pod that was swarming with scientists on the ground floor and being guarded by Haxors above, there was no one keeping watch over them. Only one man walked to and fro, recording small observations before moving on.

  “Magic is invaluable,” Typo continued. “Sadly, Satan declared magic all but dead after Calla’s betrayal. The essential gene no longer randomly appeared, and Desmond wiped out any supernatural that he came across on his many expeditions over the rift to bring back more potential loyalists—people who would die out in the cold if they did not submit.” He put his fluctuating chest to Griffin’s container, smirking. “You aren’t the same; you don’t have the supernatural gene, but your DNA is so similar… And you’re already proving to have far more stamina than the others. Maybe you’ll be in luck.”

  Many factors contributed to Griffin’s labored breathing, but that statement surely didn’t help. “What are you talking about?”

  “You always thought you were useless,” Justus spoke up instead, straight-faced as usual. “You could never compare to your brother because of how amazing he was; you were the awkward, unfitting wheel of every group you ever joined, besides mine. But, of course, you’re so stupid that you threw that opportunity away.” He looked down and grabbed the detached arm tight, huffing through his nostrils. “Ey, you want to be so special? Fine. I’ll make you.”

  For a very good reason, that did not relax Griffin. “Justus…?”

&nb
sp; “So, this is it?”

  Justus’ head shot down. His hands flew into action, snatching a handful of wires and getting to work on Griffin’s mod as a tall, well-respected man made his way toward them.

  Griffin had never seen him, and even with an incapacitated mind, it was blatantly obvious who he was. His confidence was overwhelming in regards to his mutated appearance; never had a neck been held so high and shoulders so straight, and with his scars, his discoloration, Griffin would have expected anyone else to arrive with a bag over their head.

  He strutted right past Justus’ work table and approached Griffin. The swarm of minions swam back with heads down to give their leader ample space. “Nice to finally meet you, Griffin de Vaux,” he began, slightly dipping his torso. “Lord Gannon.”

  That was the opposite introduction Griffin expected. This place was run by a dictator? And was that really appropriate? To be so polite toward his bare, poisoned prisoner? This had to be a sick game. Still, given the position that Griffin was in, what could he do but shallowly accept the introduction with the microscopic tilt of the head?

  “A quiet one, I see,” Gannon noted. “Desmond described Kevin as being the same way: always wanted to keep to himself.”

  “What are you talking about?” Griffin shrilly said. “Why do you keep comparing me to my brother? I’m not him.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that.” Gannon looked at one of the scientists off to the side, who was suited up in a white, militaristic suit adorned with vials and medical equipment as opposed to medals. “Begin preparations. I see no reason to not try.”

  “YES, SIR!” With a salute, he was off.

  Despair followed Griffin as his head turned to watch the scientist bolt away with several of his minions on his heels. Griffin’s life had never made sense, but it had been so out of whack over the past year that he couldn’t even remember what his normal used to be like.

  “Thank you for your contribution to the cause,” Gannon said appreciatively. The odd sense of respect reclaimed the boy’s attention. “I promise, you will never feel unwanted again. In my world, there will be no emotion to make you hurt like so—all who are logical can live with ample purpose.”