by A.L. Bridges
Chapter 24: The Beginning of Madness
I instinctively know that my eyes are silver as I open them. Everything feels different: I feel Euphoric. Vibrant. Powerful. I sprint towards the cliff faster than ever, possibly even faster than Tia. I reach the slope, knowing that I still have a little ways to go so I tone it back a bit to make sure that I don’t accidentally run into a trap. I reach the top and see Cheza lying against a large rock on the ground next to a mesquite tree. I can feel her steady heartbeat, indicating that she is unconscious, and I can see her silver outline with her frosty blue central aura. The sight of her gives me strength and makes me feel somehow complete. I make eye contact with Illapa and notice that he is holding a macana, an Incan club/staff with a stone star at the top used for crushing bones.
“HA HA HA I HOPED YOU WOULD COME!” Illapa exclaims in amusement, his voice sounding like thunder itself.
“BEFORE WE GET STARTED I WOULD LIKE TO SAY SIX WORDS. EIN NYET, ZWEI NYET, DREI NYET!” Illapa booms and then waits while seeing that nothing is happening.
“WELL, WELL, WELL. ISN’T THIS INTERESTING! A SHORN ONE WITH AN IMMUNITY TO OVERRIDE COMMANDS!” Illapa says curiously, but with a twinge of uncertainty.
“LET’S SEE HOW YOU HANDLE THIS!” Illapa exclaims as I smell ozone and my skin starts to tingle. Seeing that nothing is happening, Illapa is more than a little surprised. I don’t feel any pain like with the incident on the bridge. Does my Drive state offer some sort of immunity to this type of attack?
“Are you done with the parlor tricks? Because I would like to get to the part where I kill you,” I say, noticing that my voice sounds slightly like its doubled and overlapping on itself.
I don’t wait for his reply and launch my attack. I start by firing five rounds only to find that Illapa dodges all of them. He is much faster than Tia, meaning that he is also much faster than me. I continue firing as he gets in closer. Ten rounds later, I spring towards him with a downward slash of the Sic blade while firing five more rounds. Illapa moves quickly around to my side as I pass by him. I anticipate this and point my gun behind me and fire five more times as the slide locks back. I only hit him with grazing shots, but it is enough to stagger him thanks to the wider impact of the hollow points. After quickly spinning around, I launch myself forward. I slice downward, but Illapa is able to block with his macana. My Sic blade hits the macana’s wooden staff and slices it in two.
Illapa recovers quickly and I barely have time to block both the macana’s mace-like top and wooden butt that are in each of Illapa’s hands—I think I might’ve just made things worse. I’m out of bullets and Illapa isn’t going to give me any time to reload. I block the next flurry of attacks, not having enough time to counterattack. Illapa finally gains the upper hand when he’s able to knock my pistol out of my hand. In my surprise at being disarmed, he spins and smashes the macana star into the top of my left bicep, shattering my humerus. I howl in pain as I jump back twice to put some distance between us. I really wish I would have remembered my jacket right about now.
Illapa doesn’t allow me any time to recover. He presses forward and I block the macana star in his right hand with my Sic blade only to take the stick to my face. Illapa follows up with another spin hit. I’m able to get an upward cross slash into his back, right before he bashes my chest in with the star, breaking my newly healed sternum and possibly a rib. Reinforcing my muscles does nothing against blunt force trauma of this magnitude.
“COLE!” I hear Cheza scream and look over to see that she’s awake.
As it turns out, that wasn’t such a good idea. Illapa disarms my Sic blade with the stick and follows through with another crushing blow to my ribcage, which lands me on the ground a few feet back.
(Damage report: Sternum: Broken, 2 ribs on left side: Broken, 6 ribs on right side: Broken, Right lung: Punctured.)
Ah, so that’s why I am having so much trouble breathing. My blood tries to repair the damage, but it’s unable to dislodge the rib that is sticking out of my popped lung.
“I THINK IT IS TIME TO END THIS, DON’T YOU BOY?” Illapa thunders as he stands with his hands pointing skyward. Aw man! Don’t tell me it’s a Spirit Bomb! 7
About twenty feet away Cheza screams my name again. The sky booms as a lightning bolt flies straight toward Illapa. Oh, I see. Illapa has to take the lightning into his body and then redirects it at his target. However, instead of hitting Illapa, the lightning hits the mesquite tree that is only about fifteen feet from him. The lightning bolt gets redirected, splits, and shoots out wildly towards my body, along with several other directions. Pain surges through me as the bolt hits my chest. I feel my heart almost flat-line, but it continues beating after a moment.
Something is wrong. I feel empty… hollow… doll-like.
I can no longer feel Cheza’s heartbeat.
I feel my face and eyes go blank as I rise to my feet. I know that something is broken, I know that Illapa is the one who broke it, and I know that this bastard is going to suffer for it.
“OH! SO YOU HAVE SOME FIGHT LEft in y…” Illapa says, his voice trailing off as horror inflicts itself upon his face.
Out of my peripheral vision, I see several silver tendrils are wafting out of the gashes in my arms and legs. The tendrils surge forward and spear through Illapa’s hands, shoulders, thighs and feet before they raise him up off the ground (3.8 Liters).
Blood drips down my right arm and forms a cylinder in my hand. I watch as a silver light, which I realize is my aura, extends outward from the bar in string-like wisps while blood gushes from my hand. It floats out three feet away before it connects in a curved, wasp-waist, shape that reminds me of a gladius sword (2.0 Liters). I understand now what it is now: pure silicon carbide molecules connected in a string formation. I think I just made a molecular cutter or nanocutter/ µ-cutter/ Mu-cutter. I walk over to where Illapa is still floating in the air, speared by my tendrils.
“What are you!? WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU!? AUGH!” Illapa screams as I bring the Mu-cutter effortlessly through his left arm.
The arm falls to the ground as the tendril in his hand retracts. The severed arm breaks apart into little gold flakes as the flakes start floating skyward.
“YOU FUCKING MONSTER! THEY’RE GOING TO HUNT YOU D—AUGH!” Illapa screams as I cut his pelvis in half diagonally, his right leg falling off with it. It does the same gold flaking thing as his arm.
“AHHH! YOU SON OF A BITCH! THEY’RE GOING TO KILL THAT LITTLE BITCH OF YOURS SLO—AAAAAAAAUUGHH!” Illapa screams as I stab the Mu-cutter into his torso and slowly twist it, grinding a hole through him and enjoying every decibel of his scream.
“She’s dead because of you,” I whisper to him, my voice once again sounding doubled and overlapped.
Illapa’s entire body starts to slowly disintegrate and float towards the sky, no doubt as a result of having that hole drilled into him. I quickly slice off his right arm, left leg, and finally his head as I retract the tendrils and walk over to where Cheza lies.
I can still save her. Her heart has only been stopped for a short while. If I can restart it…
(Your body no longer contains enough blood for you to execute your plan and survive)
“I don’t care. I’m not letting Cheza die,” I say aloud.
I move to her right side and hug her to my chest. I take out my knife and slice open my jugular on the left side and I make a small cut into her neck. I let some of her blood drain out, and then I hold her close to me and will my blood to go inside her. (1.7 Liters)
I send it down into her heart. (1.4 Liters, Mortality Warning)
I make my blood fill her heart. (1.2 Liters)
I will my blood to pump her heart like an internal form of CPR. (1.0 Liters)
I feel her heart start to beat again. I give one last order to my blood to seal her jugular and heal her. I watch her jugular vein close as my eyes shut.
…
“Cole? Cole!? Wake up! Cole…?”
My eyes
flutter open. I see Cheza looking down from above me, my head lying in her lap as her tears fall onto my face.
‘Cheza, it’s alright. Please don’t cry.’ I want to say, but no words will come.
I try to raise my left hand to wipe her tears away, but the most I manage is to bend it at the elbow. Cheza grabs my hand and grips it firmly with both hands.
Dammit! I want to do something for her, anything to reassure her that I’m fine with the way things played out—that I’m happy she’s alive.
(Ring. Right pocket. Now or never)
That’s right, the ring I made her. It’s in the seed pocket.
I reach an unsteady hand into the pocket and pull out the ring. I hold it up. Cheza cries more, takes the ring, and slips it onto her left ring finger.
“Yes Cole, of course I will!” Cheza exclaims while choking up.
Wait… What?
(Mazel tov)
More tears fall from her eyes as my eyes slowly close for the last time.
“Cole…? COLE!” Cheza sobs as her voice trails into nothing.
****