by Amanda Churi
I squeezed harder to hold back the guts trying to poke out. Nothing short of embarrassing was what that was… What many of my revived fights were. Why did I keep thinking I was invincible? In Hell, close, but Earth? Not at all… You would think I would have gotten that message by now.
I frantically inhaled, jolting my relaxing spine. No. I couldn’t zone out. That was an invitation for Death.
Mabel. I had to focus on her, the fight, something, anything. I couldn’t slip—not when I was in sight of the gates.
Mabel’s scream blared as she came tumbling across the ground so fast that she tore up dirt, landing on her back feet from me. Her flames were out, but there were still embers dancing around her, especially at her breasts where her armor was charred and stripped, showing evidence of several hits to the chest.
“Pathetic,” Typo scoffed. “So disappointing, really.” His face aligned with Seek’s crumpled figure, the busted jaw that I gave him twitching uncontrollably. “But as the saying goes: ‘better late than never.’”
At those words, he charged the angel and took off—his feet physically left the ground, his materialized body entering a phantomic state.
“S-SEEK!” Mabel cried hoarsely, but by the time the warning was out, Typo had already plucked Seek out of the snow, holding her by her shoulders and soaring into the air. She could hardly scream, blubbering without restraint as he carried her higher and higher. Her eyes were flashing in panic between their enhanced white and natural gray; she was punching Typo the best she could with limited mobility, but he did not react.
“No, no, no!” Mabel forced herself into a sitting position, trying to stand, all in vain. “SEEK! FIGHT! YOU HAVE TO FIGHT!”
I could do nothing but stare. Seek was trying, really, but Typo wasn’t registering a single blow she threw.
When they were at least ten stories high, Typo stopped his ascent, throwing his foot into Seek’s gut and swinging her like a pendulum. Illuminated blood shot from her lips; her eyes went gray for several prolonged seconds, and then, he was at it again, repeatedly beating the waning strength out of her.
“THIS IS AN ANGEL?!” he roared. He landed another devastating blow, nearly knocking her from his hold. “The might of an angel?! No wonder Heaven fell so easily!”
He gave her a little bounce in the air like a child—then ferociously closed his fist on her throat to catch her. The distinct, all-too-familiar sound of splintering bone crumpled in my ears. A pulse of dying light shot through Seek, leaving her clawing, reaping at Typo, but her arms were too short.
Typo strengthened his hold to keep her in place. He lifted his stained blade beside him, cackling at her widening eyes before slashing through Seek’s broken wings, hacking away bushels of timbers and knocking them down, releasing a rain of glowing blood. Her cries of misery were dull and rickety in her caved trachea; her eyes proceeded to roll back as she thrashed harder, trying to break free as he dismantled her very identity.
Mabel tried to stand again. She fell flat on her face, screaming, begging for Seek to fight as holy blood and marrow disguised as wood pummeled down, littering the field with the life that Seek had always given too much of.
Typo slashed through and across her back, digging out the remaining roots of her wings. Seek wasn’t even crying now, only wheezing, dangling from his clutch, limp and nearly lifeless. Typo grinned, wide and proud, his bubbling eyes making smiles of their own as he extended his arm as far as he could. “My apologies, but Uncle Type just can’t deal with you anymore!”
“VROOM VROOM MOTHER FUCKER!”
I hardly saw her, so I don’t know how Typo would have—a falka shooting through the sky, and on it, Flye, squatting and holding her mutating sword to the side. Her grip tightened, and her eyes extinguished themselves, muscles tense and teeth curved with hunger. “Surprise, beyotch!”
Then she of all people flew—threw herself off the falka and onto Typo. She drove the sword right through his armor and then heart, holding onto the hilt as she hung a hundred feet above the surface.
The brunt of his impalement knocked him back and threw his head to the sky. His bloody fist opened, and the flightless angel began her fall.
It shook me, not just mentally but physically, images of myself and Seek interchanging with one another so quickly that my feet brought me up on their own. I felt my guts shift and slide forward; my knees nearly buckled, but that… She was a falling star… Falling in a much more urgent state than I was.
I hated my body for rising. I hated myself for caring. But I couldn’t sit there… I just couldn’t…
“Eero!” Mabel screamed as I sauntered forward, losing breath. My feet were dragging. My body was going cold, and my ignited veins were dulling. No… I had to get there in time! It was only a matter of feet! I could do it! I could catch her!
No… I couldn’t. She was too fast, and I was far too slow.
A lightning bolt of green shot over my shoulder and shoved me back to my knees. I threw my head up just as the earth nearly flattened Seek, a green, unstable ring of magic catching her in place.
Stunned, I followed the flickering string to the creature it was connected to.
Pinion was seething, trudging with each heavy step, broken yet still powerful. In place of her lost arm was her all-mighty sword; the hilt was plunged through her flesh, connecting human and weapon as swimming wires of green held them together. She had regained her hold on Time, the energy in her eyes so potent and deadly that I wasn’t sure if she could see anything besides Seek.
Typo’s overwhelmed, morbid roar turned all heads. A bubble of purple energy was congregating, growing at his heart where Flye held on. She was twisting the blade deeper, and the sword was shrinking, flooding its contents into Typo’s soul. Claws of black and violet raced up his fleshy neck and face, flushing his entire skin with the ashy hue of death. He tried to grab Flye’s sword, but he could hardly move, convulsing uncontrollably with black smog pouring out of his wailing mouth.
Flye’s victorious grin conquered her face as the pull of energy around them became greater. “Check. Mate.”
Typo’s body absorbed the last of the magic. There was a pause, a stillness, and then, his body gave back everything in a lethal detonation.
The grimy sky was replaced by the celestial sphere, a star of lavender and a hole of black clashing at the zenith. Flye was there one second and gone the next, shot high and far by the outermost ring of energy. Typo flew in the opposite direction straight at us, smacking down with such force that his physical body made a crater several inches deep. Not far off, feet at most, landed something that I did not expect.
Typo’s demonic soul—or what was left of it.
“S-Seek!” Mabel still could not walk, but she crawled and crawled fast as Pinion gently lowered Seek to the ground.
“Ha… Ha… Ha…!”
Griffin sounded like the robot he was as he laughed, blood bubbling from the hole blown through his chest, allowing one to see everything from his leaking, open stomach to his trembling, punctured lungs and frantically thumping heart. “Ha, ha, haaa!”
His uncontrollable laughter made Pinion’s fluctuating figure stumble over to Griffin instead of Seek, staring him down with reflective, passive eyes. He continued to laugh in monotonic loops, wiggling his shoulders back and forth to try and unpin himself while reaching up toward Pinion. His sword tried to switch to his gun, but all the gears did were click.
The queen threw down her attached sword, impaling him through the forehead and nailing him down. “Shut… Up…”
He did not listen. His laughs only became more sporadic, the pixels that had merged with his eyes first going out a few at a time and then in clumps.
He wouldn’t survive—there was no way, and now was perhaps my only chance to live instead.
The energy in my veins resurged with urgency, and I found my feet that only took me so far as Typo’s remains before I was back down. He was a two-dimensional ghost, lacking a clear form—no han
ds, feet, even head—just a runny, busted yolk. His eyes were still there, and a site of distortion in the somewhat-center resembled a mouth, but aside from that, there was nothing to distinguish him from a giant inkblot.
I squeezed his soul at the edges. Horror rang true in his dulling eyes; he just stared right through me, breathless, limp, waiting.
Ironically enough, I found myself chuckling as my oozing gut released its wounds upon his steaming body. “You don’t just deserve death. How about we put your powers to use and turn them against the very thing you support?”
A hoarse, overwhelmed cackle was his reply, but he still did not fight—something within seemed to make him give up. Sighing, a twisting smile on his face, he closed his eyes. “So that’s how I recognized you…”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I didn’t care. “As will all.” Starved for the power necessary to heal, I threw my teeth down and tore open his face, violently inhaling his soul for my glory.
I sucked until I drank every drop, feeling the scalding poison slither down my throat. I closed my eyes, focusing and swallowing again to shove him into my stomach until the sphincters closed, trapping him in. His flavor was vile—petroleum and ash mixed with a spritz of acid—but no matter how sour and repulsive the flavor, the power I felt begin to wind through my muscles was incomparable. They pumped with blood and heat, curling my fingers and toes as my heart thundered with almighty strength, giving my fledglings a much-needed boost.
The sac of my stomach flew into my ribs and the air out of my lungs, depleting every pocket and doubling me over in the snow. I blinked and panted, my tongue blistering as my heart beat faster and faster, pumping at rates unprecedented. The rebinding fibers at my gut gained heat from rebounding so quickly that the glorious feeling I experienced seconds ago was quickly turning into a bloody nightmare of pain. Needles were stabbing my fickle organ walls, releasing waterfalls of boiling blood. My vision started to blur and spin; my arms were trembling, and I was gagging for sanity and air, swaying on my hands and knees. What… What was going on?!
My elbows shuddered, and my face hit the snow, but not even the cold chilled the relentless heat scorching me from the inside out. Hardly able to keep my eyes open, my head weakly flopped to face Mabel and Pinion. I tried to call for them, but no voice would come—just the dry crackle of my burning vocal cords.
Both saw what was happening. Pinion never came to help—she retracted her sword from Griffin’s head and hastily made toward Seek. Mabel, however, who was kneeling at Seek’s side jolted in panic, getting to her shaky legs and stumbling over to me—at least, she got about halfway until she paused, glancing back at Seek.
The angel’s body had no strength, slumped and hardly breathing as her holy aura permanently faded. But then there was me, also on the brink of death and internally being gorged on.
She didn’t know who to go to, hyperventilating with her hands at her mouth. She would take a step toward me and then back to Seek, only to return to her initial position. She shakily withdrew a glass vial from her suit. It was deadlocked in her fist, her hold so tight it risked fracturing as tears began to stream out of her eyes.
“Ma…bel…!” I hardly got the name out, reaching for her. An arc of visible pain zoomed across my eyes, and my body gave out.
My sight was coming and going like static, the sounds of battle fading as the fledglings took over my sense of hearing. They squawked like a menacing, irritating flock of hungry birds, jangling their chains and creating a rumpus of stomping feet, snapping fangs, and furious thrashes. They weren’t fighting to live, they were just… Fighting.
What’s happening?! Aponi wailed in that toddler pitch of hers.
I don’t know!
KEEP HIM RESTRAINED AT ALL COSTS! Laelia ordered.
Through a fuzzy screen, I could see the chaotic state of my mind. The mental chains and nails that I placed on the fledglings were still holding, but they were under tremendous stress. Ryze and Aponi stood guard at the patchy, pulsing fortress of neurons that caged my mounted core, and in the distance, golden eyes were awakening in the dark—ones that were larger than any of those previous as the stronger demons finally met their energy threshold.
Uh… Laelia? Aponi squeaked. W-what do we do?
Laelia grunted, occupied with her own problems. Eero’s broken soul that she always kept a hold of was fuller than I had yet seen it. He kicked and lashed out as she held him around the waist, trying to keep him from escaping. Previously dead blue eyes were beaming like beacons, the mist making up all that was left of him distorting in irrational ways. He was screaming, battling for his freedom, but the only place he reached for was my flickering, distressed core.
Just take care of them! Laelia snapped. Do whatever you can to keep them out of here!
We’ll very likely die! Ryze frantically reasoned.
You’re already dead! Besides, we exist to keep Eero alive, so do your job, idiot!
Aponi puffed out her chest, filling with unusual defiance. Well then! Maybe you should join us and let him do his job! She pointed assertively toward Eero’s soul and then my core.
Laelia did not retort as she usually did. Instead, she puckered her foggy lips, altering her gaze from the Eero in her arms to mine, which controlled the body.
Don’t you do it! I bellowed, the eyes of the Eyla shifting to my core. I will destroy you! I WILL MAKE SURE YOU ALL WIND UP IN THE VOID!
Laelia’s sinister eyes dropped a degree in hue. Alright. She yanked her arms back, releasing the tormented soul in my direction.
I roared, trying to scare Eero away, but he showed no fear, opening his scarred arms wide and running right into my soul.
He passed through and into me like water, and the moment he did so, I lost my breath—no air transpired neither in nor out, my limbs stiffening when a whole new world came into view, all while Eero’s long-forgotten voice continued to scream and cry in the back of my mind. My heart physically hurt, on the seams of bursting as frames of his own life raced through me, stunting every bodily system I was no longer in control of.
A scene quickly built up, one of a tacky town. An unknown boy on the street was suddenly shot through the chest, dying as Eero watched in secrecy, traumatized through and through—and now merged, I knew exactly who the victim was. I felt even more uneasy when I recognized Azuré’s humanoid form in the background, watching the boy fall with a hidden smile.
When his body would have hit the ground, it instead passed through, and the environment was sucked away like a cloth, turning into an empty realm of black. His falling body disintegrated into white dust before an unseen force pushed and pulled at his ethereal form, transforming it from white to black and reshaping him into a bird of prey. The only part of his original soul was shoved into the hollowed eye sockets, a vengeful, raging spirit keeping the rest of him aloft.
The pieces were falling into place. I tried to mentally step away, but it was impossible—not even my unseen eyes could close, forcing me to intake exactly what I had unknowingly done. No… I… I…!
I attempted to detach once more for fear of my wellbeing when an image began to grow in the darkness below me—an all-out battle. I could see the fires of Hell far below, lava and flames reaching higher and higher toward a poorly constructed rope bridge connecting two landmasses. It was a world I was unfamiliar with, even more so the people. Soldiers in slick black armor were fighting shadows, and bolting across the bridge were two people I most certainly recognized.
The mystical bird completed its transformation, and once it did, a righteous, enraged caw tore the steaming air apart as it dove into the scene. “Let go of my brother!”
Azuré’s cat-like eyes found him in an instant, and she slashed straight through the spirit’s body, her golden nails shredding him into strips as he wailed, turning a blinding gold before erupting into a shower of dust.
I threw my hand to my chest as Eero screamed for his fallen brother, but it did not stop there; my vision wa
s led down into the depths with the eagle’s remains.
A burst of hot air rose from the magma bubbles, guiding the broken shadow into the smallest nook of a rockface—the crevice magically closed behind it. I watched the curled shadow grow like an embryo, and although I never saw His hand, I heard the maniacal laugh that only Satan could ever create as the creature grew at His instruction. The shadow had not enough of itself left to grow on its own, but Satan helped with that, merging the beast with some of His most vengeful souls, creating one true warrior—a henchman that only ever opened his red, gluttonous eyes when the walls around him began to tremble and then collapse, two worlds falling into one. It freed the hungry, lost experiment—the demon that soared toward the surface incomplete, choosing the wrong world to flee to and hence joining the wrong side. A glitch, a typo, a—
“Tyler…”
Once I confessed what I had done, Eero’s soul willingly separated from my core and fell back into Laelia’s arms, who was waiting to catch him. His eyes were dull once more, the holes in his soul spreading even farther, but he was back at peace in his decrepit state.
Because he passed the guilt off to me.
I didn’t move, not even when my body returned to Earth, half-buried by mounting snow. I let myself stay there, my eyes peeled and jaw hanging as I stared into the plagued drifts surrounding me. My tongue was burning, a terrible bile swimming up and down my throat at the thought of my actions. I hadn’t even known the boy personally, but just standing in Eero’s shoes, sharing his pain and memories as he made a connection that was only his to make… It felt like it was my brother that I grew up alongside and lost—and not only lost, but killed—eaten.
“Eero!” Her voice was muffled, and I felt hands shaking me, but I couldn’t find neither the strength nor courage to lift any part of me. None of them knew, but that didn’t make it any better—it was the guilt driving a stake through my heart. I didn’t flinch sacrificing Korbu; I didn’t feel a thing slaughtering all who I did for thousands of years, but now my throat burned so intensely that it felt cold. His brother… My brother… Tyler…