[Soul Forged] Chapter 15: Changing

What the hell was that white stuff and what had it done to me?

Something about it was familiar. I flopped onto my back with a heavy sigh, slid the tripwire loop off my wrist, and stared at the hole in the kitchen ceiling as I stretched my mind back. I’d seen a similar wispy substance come out of the ghouls Colter’s team killed in the street. I’d thought it was some sort of final defense mechanism, but that was an entirely different species of parabeast, and the strange fog hadn’t affected the ardents at all. No signs of crippling pain or hallucinations.

That wasn’t really what they were, though, was it? What I’d experienced had looked like the creature’s last moments as seen through its eyes. I’d felt its hunger, its fear, and its primal rage.

I rubbed my stomach. The searing pain was fading, leaving room for the stinging punctures from the quills to make themselves heard loud and clear again. I’d attributed all my gut pain of the last forty-eight hours to the rune. Maybe I wasn’t far off… but it hadn’t killed me yet. Maybe it was doing something else. Changing me in some way.

The thrill that tingled through my body at the thought was short-lived. Whatever was happening, something was way off about it.

I dragged a hand down my face with a groan. It was all just guesswork anyway. I had no idea what was happening, not really. I was too tired to come up with good answers.

I felt like I’d barely closed my eyes, and now I had to set the trap up all over again before I could get any more sleep. The parabeast’s quills were a lot tougher and more densely packed than I’d anticipated, keeping the chandelier from effectively pinning it. I needed to add more weight or figure out a way to drop it from higher up. Maybe at an angle? 

Grumbling, I sat up and started plucking out the quills. Most had hooked in my thick jacket sleeve, but a few of the bigger spikes had stabbed into the meat of my forearms. I winced an eye shut as I pinched one between my fingers. With a steadying exhale, I yanked, grunting deep in my chest as the pain lanced up to my shoulder, but the quill came free. I tried easing the next one out, shimmying it back and forth by increments, but that only prolonged the discomfort. When the final one at last slid out, I appraised the bloodied end. Tiny, backward barbs ran along the final centimeter of the four-inch quill, and the whole thing was almost as thick as a pencil. They were made to do damage when they went in and when they came out.

My gaze shifted between the quill and the chandelier, an idea forming. I could use the quills to make the trap more deadly. The idea cheered me a little, made the task feel less daunting. If I pulled it off, I’d definitely sleep better. That koala thing had looked way too… sentient. And it had come sniffing around the second I was incapacitated.

Come to think of it, why had the quill rat been so interested in me? Or really… my shoe. When its thoughts had assaulted me, I’d recalled searching for food.

I pulled my foot into my lap and inspected the bottom of my boot. The gooey viscera of the Coleops I’d squashed was mashed into the treads. With a sigh, I set to digging it out with a quill.

That done and the remnants discarded outside the room, I undid the cord from the fridge doors to give myself slack. Then I added length back to the cut end with a new bit of cord braided from the remnants of the under armor, secured it on the piece still dangling from the beam, and retied the chandelier. Pulling the rope tighter over the beam, I lifted the chandelier to eye level.

Now, how to secure the quills?

The best adhesive I had was parabeast blood. It stuck to skin like glue, but metal? It might work at first, but once fully hardened, it would flake and probably drop the quills… unless I could turn it into some kind of paste for a better seal. And I’d have to work fast. The blood would only stay malleable so long as the corpse stayed warm.

I scoured the whole penthouse, first peering in all the cupboards, where I found a pretentious asymmetrical metal serving bowl. Then I moved to the living room, scuffing my boots through debris in search of a mixing material.

When I saw a fired-clay planter lying cracked in the middle of a pile of detritus that might once have been a table or stand of some kind, a grin split my face. Raising it in two hands, I smashed it to bits on the ground, then bashed those bits into powder with the knife handle inside the mixing bowl. I had the dry ingredient. Now for the liquid.

I flipped the quill rat over to its softer underbelly and went in with the blade. The skin was like elephant hide—tough and dense. My muscles strained, and I felt the stress in the blade through the handle. Working it like a lever, I finally managed to puncture the flesh with the jagged tip, then hack a wider gash, mixing bowl at the ready to catch the blood.

Working quickly, I mixed it together with a quill until I had a dark paste. Bringing the mixing quill to the chandelier, I rammed the coated point inside a small hole in the ironwork where a dangling crystal had once been fixed, applying pressure until I got a good seal.

I set to work on the others. The exhaustion that had weighed on me when I closed my eyes was less debilitating after my power nap, but still very much present. I felt it across my shoulders like a yoke that became heavier and heavier with every hard-won fight with a quill.

First, I used the quills that were scattered or broken in the struggle. Set at even intervals around the bottom layer of the chandelier, they covered about half of it. I appraised the quill rat corpse, getting stiffer and tougher by the minute.

Hands protected in my boneforger gloves, I sawed the quills back and forth, using my knife to dig the most stubborn ones out of the back.

By the time I got enough secured on my trap, I was flagging badly. And I was filthy. The stench of drying vomit and dead parabeast had long dulled in my nostrils but never entirely faded. The puncture wounds in my arms had crusted over with blood, and I left them to scab, having no other alternative.

The first signs of morning were spreading orange light across the windows when I hoisted the chandelier higher, then collapsed into my hidey hole with the cord once again around my wrist. Falling asleep took longer this time, ears attuned to every groan and strange thud made by the dilapidated building. My new wounds twinged whenever I tried to adjust into a more comfortable position, and my skin crawled each time the cold, rough patch of vomit on my sleeve inadvertently touched my cheek.

When I finally drifted off, I wasn’t all that surprised to suddenly wake in the white world again.

That was how I thought about it now: not a recurring nightmare, but its own world.

I sat up, sending ripples through the water, and swept a bored glance around the nothingness. My eyes swiveled back. An ovular spot just beneath the surface was shadowed, faintly gray instead of opaline.

Curious, I leaned forward and peered into the water, then shot to my feet with a yell. There was something lurking below.

I craned my neck for another look and confirmed what I’d feared: a quill rat. But it was strange—grayed out and flat like a shadow, it’s half-form wavering in the water. Its eyes were white holes staring back at me. But it didn’t move.

Nerves thrumming, I crouched beside it and poked in a finger. It sank to the first knuckle, then hit the same unseen surface keeping me aloft. The quill rat shadow rippled, but I felt no movement. 

I let out the breath I’d trapped and fell back on my butt in the water, scooting farther from the shade.

What was it?

Has to be tied to the rune. Right?

It was the only halfway plausible explanation. The first time I’d fallen asleep after swallowing the rune, I’d woken up here. Those wisps showed up whenever parabeasts died, almost like a visible last breath or… a soul leaving the body.

I shouldn’t have been able to see that, but I could after my first walk through this white world. And the wisps were in here, too. That quill rat’s soul or whatever it was had gone into my chest, and now it was here. It all had to be connected.

The rune had manifested!

A short “ha!” of amazement escaped my throat.

I had a rune aspect. Me. It had worked, despite all the odds.

The smile lifting my cheeks drooped slightly. Had it worked correctly, though?

What good was a power that put me on my ass? What was the shadowy quill rat supposed to do? The initial contact with it had nearly killed me.

Maybe I just wasn’t using it correctly. Or maybe it would never work right for a Red…

This space had to be important to its function somehow, right? But I could only access it, it seemed, in my sleep. I couldn’t do much with it when my real body was lying curled up behind a fridge. So what was the use?

Was I even getting real sleep right now?

God, I hoped so. 

But that also meant I had to stick around here until I woke up.

Sitting in the water with my knees pulled to my chest, chin resting atop them. I let my eyes unfocus and my weary mind wander, figuring I was in for a long couple of hours.

***

I woke with dead legs and a killer crick in my neck. Joints popping, I crawled out of my hiding place into the pale sunlight creeping through the kitchen and freed my wrist from the trip wire. A thousand pins and needles jabbed my legs, and I lay on the floor trying to rub life back into them, careful with my left calf. When the worst of the tingling subsided, I unwrapped the makeshift bandage on my leg, nose wrinkling in anticipation of what I’d find.

The blood-crusted cloth fell away, and I leaned forward in surprise, pulling my foot into my lap for a better look at the wound. I’d expected pus, inflamed skin, or even worse—the blackened edges of early necrosis. Instead, there was simple scabbing at the edges, especially around the stitches that were still intact, which I took as a good sign. The worst part of the wound, at the center of the two popped stitches, was still open and a little wet-looking, but the flesh was a healthy pink. It wasn’t as deep as I’d thought, thankfully, and showed no sign of infection, despite all the stillwater and vomit I’d dragged it through. I wondered if maybe the radiodurans bacteria that flourished in rifts had leaked out in the burst and wiped out a lot of the terrestrial strains. 

I carefully wiped off some dirt, then frowned at the old bandage. My pants looked disgusting. Another strip from those would infect me with something foul for sure. So, reluctant as I was to use someone else’s discarded under armor, I bound my last strip of para-fiber cloth around the wound.

Relieved, I crossed the penthouse to the nearest window and wiped crud off the glass with my jacket sleeve for a better view, forgetting the quill wounds in my forearm until they twinged.

When I’d fallen asleep, the sun was just rising. Squinting at it now, I saw it hadn’t even reached its peak. Either I’d only slept a few hours or I’d knocked out for over twenty-four. God, I hoped I hadn’t wasted that much time. Colter’s team could have snuck into the building with me for all I knew. Not that I knew much of anything anyway. It had become incredibly apparent that I had no clue what had gone on around here.

I was stranded in an abandoned city with a dwindling water supply and nothing to eat but rock-hard crackers. And worst of all, Seth’s body lay rotting in a parabeast den. I shut my eyes against the thought, shoving it away before it could take hold of my tightening throat and strangle me.

A clammy sweat broke out on my forehead, my breaths whistling through a shrunken airway. I needed to find people, get back to civilization. Get back to Hanna and Isla, the only family I had left. I hoped.

I had to get to that communications room. Today.

After a bland breakfast of water-softened hardtack, I stowed the rest of my supply in the cupboard, hoping I wouldn’t have to come back for it. I took one full bottle of water, my broken knife, and the rusted fire poker for good measure. It wouldn’t penetrate a parabeast’s raden aura—or an ardent’s for that matter—but it had better reach and could buy me precious seconds in a scuffle.

Brandishing both weapons, I stalked through the halls back to the ardent office lobby, cramped muscles loosening. The limp in my injured leg hadn’t gone away, but I could put more weight on it.

At the slanted central staircase, I stowed away my knife so I could grip the railing in a sweaty palm. Eight floors. That was it. Eight floors, and I’d be home free. Piece of cake.

One foot in front of the other. Don’t leave the stairs until you get there.

Eyes and ears peeled, I passed through the silent ballroom, paused to listen for the squeaks of quill rats or the growl of a ghoul, then continued my descent into the cafeteria. No glowing eyes, no blinking Coleops. I passed into the darkness of the medical bay stairwell, balanced on the soles of my feet, ready to run at the slightest indication that the ghouls were still hanging around.

My own harsh breaths were the only sound.

I hesitated on the landing, weighing the wisdom of popping back in there for another try at finding antiseptic and bandages.

No time, I decided. Besides, I had my doubts that anything in the medical bay was of much use anymore.

I crept down more steps, the poker out in front of me like a lance in case anything loomed up in the enclosed space between floors. Breath held, I emerged in Auxiliary Services, poker swiveling with me as I scanned every corner of the lobby. It and the hallways beyond stood empty, paint peeling in long ribbons like claw marks.

Just three more offices to get through: Human Resources, Legal, and PR. Then I’d reach the Strategic Technology offices.

The railing quivered, and a low bell-like bong echoed up from Human Resources below. Heart in my throat, I aimed the poker down. 

Screek. Screek.

I puffed out the breath I’d trapped.

Stupid quill rats.

I marched into the Human Resources lobby and stared down the little bastard sitting on the railing. His black nose twitched on the end of his long snout, but rather than raise his quills, he hopped to the floor as I strode past.

My footsteps echoed through the gloomy Legal offices. I glanced around the liminal space. A growth of thick vines climbed the skyscraper’s exterior, blocking light from the windows. Without furniture or people, the branching corridors seemed to stretch into infinity, like reflections through double mirrors.

I quickened my pace. I was halfway down the floating staircase when I heard a faint scrape and looked left to see a ghoul shambling through an adjoining hall, dragging its long claws on the floor, its frilled back to me.

My feet wanted to bolt, but my torso stayed in place, my fist refusing to budge on the railing. Frozen stiff, foot dangling over the next stair, I watched it reach the end of the hall and turn a corner.

Blowing out a trapped exhale, I scurried down on tiptoes, sinking through the floor into another darkened stairwell. I leaned on the railing, waiting for the high-pitched ringing in my ears to subside.

A slithering, like a heavy bag being pulled across the floor, carried into the enclosed space where I stood. I went perfectly still pressed against the sidewall, listening with rising dread as I identified the sounds of an animal eating—the low pops of stretched tendon right before it tore, the cracking report of a snapped bone, the slurp of a long tongue lapping blood and marrow.

I sank into a crouch, ducking my head below the lip of the Legal floor landing to peer into the PR lobby below.

Not far from the stairs, two ghouls hunched over a pale, prostrate body, their false faces peeled to either side of their heads. One, an emaciated creature missing an arm below the elbow, brought handfuls of intestine ropes to its mouth with the bloody claws of its remaining arm.

As the one-armed ghoul shifted to let its fellow feed, I saw their victim was another ghoul, its stomach eviscerated, limbs twitching, chest hitching with shallow breaths.

I looked away, stomach curdling and extremities going cold. Lying helpless like that, the dying parabeast looked too human for my liking, and God, the sounds.

I started to put my hands over my ears but thought better of it. I had to stay alert. My best bet was to wait it out, let the cannibal ghouls go back to shambling around with full bellies. Once they wandered off, I’d have a clean shot through the PR office. Then I’d just have to contend with whatever waited on the Strategic Technology floor.

Hovering there, I returned unfocused eyes to the butchery below, keeping track of the parabeasts but unwilling to see more than I needed to. But a new shape appeared down the hall, snapping me and the feasting ghouls to full attention. White eyes glowed in the grayed corpse face of the newcomer rounding the corner.

The blood-soaked pair dashed toward the stairs so fast I had no time to react before they leaped the railing and fled to the floor below.

The shambling newcomer locked on the movement and lifted onto its toes, false face sliding back to expose the large, fanged maw that made up most of its head. A black tongue stretched toward the dark blood covering the floor. The ghoul wove down the hall, inching closer with cautious, springy steps, and stood over the dying parabeast. It tipped back its head and let out an undulating screech before leaping after the cannibal pair.

I shrank into the darkest recess of the stairwell as the vibrations of the ghoul’s bounding gallop ran through the railing and it let out another hair-raising roar.

The shrieking call was answered by another… on the floor above me. 

Thud. Thud. Thud. Hurried, bouncing footfalls charged through the Legal offices lobby overhead.

I was already up and moving faster than my limp really allowed, flying down into the PR office two stairs at a time. I vaulted over the railing and dropped into a roll the second my boots hit the ground, coming to a stop beneath the floating staircase a second before another ghoul made the whole frame quake. Lying on my belly, I held my breath as it sprinted toward the growls and hisses of a clash below.

Dozens more roars echoed through the building in waves. They sounded far away, but soon the whole Strategic Technology department just under my feet would be overrun with ghouls. 

I pounded a fist on the ground, listening to my chances of getting out of here today slipping away. I’d been so close.

Now…

A wheezing breath made me slowly turn my head, dread pooling in my gut.

A tremor ran through my arms as I pushed to hands and knees, staring back into the white eyes of the dying ghoul not ten feet away. Torn open from lower ribs to hips, its exposed blue-black lungs inflated with a feeble inhale. Its pooled blood spread onyx streams across the sloping floor, one branch creeping toward my fingers.

I shot to my feet and hit my head on the underside of the steps with a muffled curse.

The ghoul’s elongated hands opened and closed, claws clicking together as it reached for me. Its false face slid back only halfway, exposing a tongue that had gone sickly gray. It gnashed its teeth at me, its growl a rasping whisper.  

The hellish screeches of ghouls battling below swelled, echoing off exposed pipe and struts until it sounded like an army. I needed to get the hell out of here.

Legs trembling, I hurried back onto the stairs, giving the dying parabeast a wide berth.

The ghoul’s body spasmed, and it opened its maw wide in a breathy squealing sound. The dark lungs pulsed once, twice, then deflated for the last time. The faint glow in the sunken white eyes went out and a new effervescent energy trickled out of its limp body like a wisp of steam.

I’m watching its soul leave.

I touched my own chest and felt my heart hammering under my palm.

The wispy soul coalesced into a bobbing cloud, and my limbs tensed to run, but the soul just hovered, not attempting to cross the space between me and the ghoul.

Do I need to get closer for it to come to me? Do I want it to?

My gut reaction said no, but another voice whispered at the edges of my mind.

Ever since the quill rat’s soul had gone through my chest, I’d felt… different. While I’d been focused on surviving the insanity, my subconscious had been collecting pieces, clicking together moments and sensations until they formed an incomplete but alluring picture.  

This could be my rune aspect. 

An impossible thought. Yet, it made the most sense.

The best way to know for sure would be to run a few more experiments… Right?

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