[Soul Forged] Chapter 11: Disconnected

Water sprayed everywhere as I took off for the opposite shore, struggling to wade through the waist deep basin. The rippling trail of bubbles followed,  gaining fast. As it looped around to my left, I caught sight of a slimy black back crest breaching the surface for just a second. 

It was going to cut me off.  

I carved a diagonal through the pond, but the creature darted into my path again, a pair of yellow feelers poking out of the water, then a slimy black head shaped like a flattened football. Narrow almond eyes with burning red pupils appeared, then a line of needle-thin teeth in a stretched mouth. It reared up a slug-like body and hissed at me. The bulbous nodes along its mantle glowed yellow, casting lamplight beneath the surface that revealed its full four-foot-long form.

I zagged in the opposite direction, calf straining, but the beast’s body swayed to follow. It pulled back its head, then struck like a viper, teeth snagging my pants as I tried to jerk my leg back, one fang scraping against my parafiber long-johns and sending a dull sting shooting up my thigh. It thrashed and shook like a pitbull, yanking my leg from under me. 

I hit the water with a splash, swallowing a mouthful of foul liquid as my head submerged, limbs flailing in the mud, trying to find purchase to resurface. My pants tore just as I pulled in my first breath, and I kicked out my freed leg, connecting with squishy muscle like dense silicone. I got halfway up, slipped on the slick mud, and went down again, submerged to the shoulders. The slug’s upper half rose from the water in a spray of filthy water, looming over me before I could get up. It reared back again, ready to lunge, and I threw up an arm to guard my face.

A shadow zipped overhead and silver talons stabbed the slug through its gelatinous flesh. The bird-like parabeast flapped four bedraggled gray and black wings that ruffled my hair, and its long, bent scarlet beak snapped several times with a noise like a gunshot. As I stood there, momentarily frozen and staring, another shadow crossed over me, then another. 

Too slow, I twisted my neck to gape upward at the flock of pelican-sized parabeasts circling overhead just as several tucked their larger set of wings to dive. Long, bald rat tails with bulbous growths on the ends flapped behind them, marking them as some subspecies of harpy.

Using the smaller set of wings to pull up short just before it hit the surface, one harpy shot past me, wriggling the growth on its tail through the water, spraying droplets across my face. Another dove straight for me, and I dodged right, nearly crashing into the body of another slug that was being yanked out of the water, its teeth clamped around the tail lure like a fish on a hook. The harpy whipped its tail toward its talons and captured its prey as it rose back into the clouds. 

Splashes erupted from all sides. I ran, water dragging on my legs, lungs burning as I stumbled and sloshed through the javelin-sharp beaks plunging down all around me. A wing battered my head, blinding me with feathers. I swatted out with my arm, and a talon cut through my jacket and scraped my tricep. My foot slipped, and I went under again. A beak plunged into the murk, just missing me, and I dragged myself along the bottom, eyes burning.

My lungs were on fire in seconds, as I’d had no chance to hold a breath, and I had to push off the bottom and resurface, having made it only a short distance from the hunting creatures. Desperation propelled me onward as I half ran, half swam for the opposite shore. Once there, I had to clamber on hands and knees up to solid ground.

As I stood, an intense jab in my stomach like a hot poker to the intestines created a black vignette around my vision, and I staggered in a near faint, hip slamming into a car. Taking shallow breaths, I trailed a hand over the yellow flowers growing on the hood as I tried to keep moving forward. The heat spread into my fingertips, leaving a prickling numbness I usually associated with the cold, and my stomach cramped so violently I thought I might ruin my pants.

I hunched over, arms cradling my middle, and stumbled onward, very aware of the shadows overhead. I staggered toward another building and barely made it through the empty doorway before I toppled onto the floor. I laid curled in a fetal position, stomach seizing, a tremor wracking my spine, cramps pummeling my torso like a dozen fists. 

Please don’t let me die in my own shit. 

The minutes stretched as the agony passed slowly. Finally, the heat cooled and my abdominal muscles relaxed. I raised my head and peered around what might once have been a small office lobby. Now, it was full of compost and flies, and most of the interior walls had collapsed.

On shaking limbs, I got up and looked outside. A few hook-beaked parabeasts were ripping into their catches beside the pond, which was still once again. I turned the other way but couldn’t see Lightbridge Towers beyond a skyscraper that was half ivy. I did see the sun, though, hanging low in the west, ready to dip below the horizon.

With quiet footsteps, I continued down the street and around the skyscraper. The crater appeared again, and I stayed as close as I dared, trying to cut the quickest path. From here, it looked like Tower Two, the most tilted of the pair, was bumping right up against the lip of the crater.

I hoped it wasn’t an illusion. I reached for my goggles, wanting to confirm. If I could climb onto the roof and avoid needing to find a way down into the enormous hole, that would save me a lot of—

I buckled over with a grunt, bile pooling in the back of my mouth as the hot poker in my gut stabbed me again. Gritting my teeth, I walked through the agony, but a feverish shiver plagued every step. Breathing like I was in labor, I trekked on past high rises that looked more like beanstalks out of a nightmarish Grimm Brothers tale. It wasn’t until I recognized the A-line shape of a familiar ardent nightclub that I realized I was in the night market. Or where it should have been. No trace of the stalls, just green lumps that were maybe dumpsters and mailboxes. No dinging carts, just the desolate whistle of wind through empty eaves. 

Hugging my aching stomach to stave off a shudder, I walked through the deepening shadows of the city as the sunset gave way to dusk. I didn’t know how much longer I could go on. My legs felt jellied. Bruises were spreading over my skin, making everything tender. My heartbeat thrummed in the left side of my swollen face.  

When I next caught sight of the towers, they looked almost as far as they’d been half an hour ago. What should have been an hour’s walk had already taken me three times that, probably.

Exhaustion wrapped heavy chains around my shuffling limbs, and I groaned with every sporadic cramp of my abdomen. I had to lie down, or I was going to fall on my face. God, I was thirsty. Did any of the plumbing around here work?

I poked my head inside the three nearest buildings until I found one that looked like a restaurant layout. My eyes skated past booths, empty tables, and fallen chairs toward a swinging door I hoped led to a kitchen. Sure enough, in a back room that smelled like damp and mold, I found an array of appliances. In the dark, they looked corroded. I found a sink and turned the handle with difficulty. Nothing came out of the faucet. A frustrated snarl scraped through my parched lips. 

I moved to the refrigerator, but the door didn’t want to budge. I used the last of my strength to throw my whole body weight into my final tug and nearly fell over when the fridge creaked open. The inside was a horror of thick, fuzzy mold, top to bottom. I slammed the door, wanting to kick something, but too tired to muster the strength.

It made no sense. There should have been something to eat and drink in here. The place didn’t look pillaged, just overrun with rift vegetation like everything else in the city. Was the rift mold faster-growing because of the raden?

Unable to summon the brain power to think it through, I limped back into the main seating area, found the cleanest corner, and lay down. The second I’d curled my arm under my head like a pillow, I thought about the missing door and how I should probably fortify it, but I couldn’t get up.

My body wouldn’t obey.

Another seizing pain wracked my torso, and a small cry slipped through my clenched teeth, echoing in the silent restaurant. The rune I’d swallowed was going to kill me before any parabeast could.

Small comforts, I thought, and a delirious chuckle escaped my lips.

The sound was the last thing I heard as my lids shut and the world went black.

Then white.

What?

I blinked against a pristine, shining light.

I lifted my head, and droplets of liquid dripped off my jaw and hair, splashing into an endless expanse of pearly water beneath me that reflected a white sky above. I could see no discernible bottom beneath the wavering ripples, but I somehow lay on an unseen surface in maybe an inch of lustrous liquid. Pulse quickening, I raised a hand that was ghostly transparent. Turning it slowly, I watched the water trickle down my wrist, heard it splash, but I couldn’t feel it. No cool bite on my skin, though my whole left side lay in it. No heavy dampness dragging on my clothes… Or rather, no clothes at all. 

I sat up in a space of pure light, staring down at myself. My body was a blank canvas, a vague silhouette with little definition. I could see straight through it into the nothingness that stretched before me. The only movement was the gentle swish of the water around me, the only form my wavering reflection in it.

My translucent fingers gripped the solid surface beneath me as I swiveled my gaze around the nothingness, sucking in panicked breaths.

Shit.

I really had died in my sleep.

I pushed to my feet, shoes splashing in the shallow water. I waved my hands around experimentally, watching the light shine through them, revealing shadowed veins within. My edges were blurred, and I could see the ripples in the prismatic ocean through my feet. I touched my stomach, my chin, my leg, and couldn’t feel any of my injuries. A small mercy. 

White light and shimmering water stretched into forever. Was this all there was to death? No sights, no sensation, not a single other soul? This couldn’t be it. There had to be more to it.

I turned a slow circle, and from the corner of my eye, noticed a moving silhouette. My stomach flipped. Seth?

I spun, his name forming on my lips, then scoffed at myself when I saw it was just my own hazy reflection. My heel kicked the water, dashing my image apart into blurring ripples.

Whether this was the afterlife or just a hallucination of my fading mind, I couldn’t just stand around. I was probably lying in a coma on the restaurant floor, slowly dying from whatever the rune had done to my stomach.

Only one way to find out.

With a steadying breath, I set a course straight ahead, hoping to find an end to this seemingly boundless space. There had to be something else to it. A way out. A way into something or somewhere else at least. If there wasn’t…

Rather than let it sink in, I ran from it, trudging forward, getting nowhere. No sound but my breathing and the swish of the water underfoot as I jogged. No sights but my wavering reflection.

Minutes passed, then what seemed like hours. Maybe days, for all I knew.

For as long as I ran, my legs never tired. Despite the escalating anxiety closing my throat, my lungs never struggled to expand. Fatigue didn’t exist here. Nothing did, except an unfeeling shade of myself.

Not much different from my life, though, was it? Just a shade compared to the people around me—fellow boneforgers, the ardents, my own brother. I slowed, staring at my faded reflection. A sham of Seth. The same black hair, but mine flopped into my eyes, unruly all over. The same two moles under our left eyes, but I lacked the pale scars that ran through his brow and cheek. All the marks of a hero, of strength and capability, were absent in my visage. I had none of his power in the set of my shoulders. None of his confidence in my slouched posture.

Now I didn’t have him either.

All the things he’d never do, all the things I’d never know… they tore an aching hole behind my ribs. He’d have made it to Lightbridge in my shoes. He’d have found a way to fix everything.

My vision wavered, eyes stinging.

Ugh. It was no wonder he’d always treated me like a pathetic, helpless kid. I’d been hiding behind a rock when they killed him.

That’s where he wanted me to be. The thought grated against my skull, my inner voice harsher than I expected. He was always tossing me out of the way. He taught me to run.

I wiped angrily at a brimming tear before it fell.

Maybe if he’d ingrained bravery into me instead of cowardice, I could’ve helped him. Done something.

Fury and anguish warring in my chest, I gripped my hair in both hands and pulled hard, but there was no external pain to help blot out some of the internal. I tightened my fists until I felt a dull sensation of pressure on my scalp as my tugging shifted the skin. 

This was purgatory. Or maybe hell.

I’d go insane if I didn’t find a way out of here.

I almost turned another direction, then thought better of it. I’d already come so far. If there was nothing ahead, there was nothing any other way. Nothing at all…

A scream built in me, pressure that threatened to rip me apart from the inside. My mouth gaped wide, wider, impossibly so, like I was going to be ripped in half. The choked, desperate, heartbroken noise crashed from my lungs, up my windpipe, and—

My eyes flew open. I shot upright on the restaurant floor, drenched in cold sweat, blinking against a ray of pale light coming through a crack in the grimy window.

I brought a hand to my forehead, breathing deeply. What a weird, shitty dream. Vivid, too. I could still feel the water lapping at my socks. My free palm rubbed over my stomach. No tenderness. The cramps had also stopped. For now.

My mouth felt stuffed with cotton, though. I needed to find some water fast.

I pushed to my feet, rolling stiff muscles. My right foot was asleep, pinned at an odd angle all night, and crusted blood around my left calf wound pulled and tore. But I couldn’t complain. Pain meant I was alive… however briefly. 

I hobbled out the door, looking both ways first for any sign of those birds or any other parabeasts. It was a chilly morning, the sun only appearing in brief peeks through brewing rainclouds. I started walking, grateful for the scenery—dreary and treacherous as it was—after my nightmare. I still moved with caution, hurrying from one crude hiding place to the next as fast as my pronounced limp would allow. The idea was to always have someplace I could dash inside of at the slightest sign of trouble.

The time-consuming strategy proved worthwhile as I passed by the grassy fields that had sprung up inside the remnants of the enormous parking garage that serviced Lightbridge Towers and several other skyscrapers. The top floor had caved in entirely, and a good chunk of the whole structure had tumbled into the crater. But within the ground floor, several somethings scampered.

I ducked into the hollowed-out lobby of a skyscraper that had turned into a mushroom farm and spied out of the many windows at the little family of creatures hopping around inside the garage.

It was a mammalia class, fairly uncommon. A lagomorph-type variation. It had no discernible eyes in a stout head covered with a dense layer of cream-toned fur, just a mouth like a bear trap and long ears that came to harsh points. Along its body, the fur had the hardened texture of bone, cut through with rough patches of pinkish skin that rose in bumpy, fleshy spikes down its spine.

I crouched beneath the windowsill until my shins started to go numb and the sun went dark behind a charcoal wall of swirling clouds. The creatures were eating something I couldn’t see in the high grass and seemed in no hurry to move along, not even when thunder growled in the sky. Around the side of the garage, I could partially see Tower Two. Its roof did, in fact, bump right up against the edge of the crater. Finally, some good luck.

My stomach pains hadn’t returned either. If I could get around the garage without drawing the attention of the lagomorphs, I might just make it out of this hell alive after all. Exploring the lobby a little, I found a side entrance that spit me out at an angle where I could only see the tips of the lagomorph’s ears around the low wall and the remnants of the ticket machine.

Slow and steady, I crossed the street, which was nothing more than asphalt dust scattered in the grass, then cut around the garage, putting the parabeasts totally out of sight. Only a short stretch of rocky earth stood between me and the Tower Two roof. Parts of its silvery exterior still gleamed when it caught the sun just right, but clods of dirt had sprouted vegetation across much of it, and the lip of the roof had a thick coating of the yellow moss I’d seen so many times in rift caverns.

The Skybridge was gone entirely. From here, a few nubs of piping sticking out of the gaping hole in Tower One were the only visible remnants.

Still, the familiar silhouettes of the buildings, even with Tower Two tipped over as it was, unwound a few of the knots in my body.

The first drops of cold rain splashed on my cheeks and the back of my neck as I reached the edge of the crater. The earth looked cracked and crumbly. I tested the weight of one foot on it, and a few pebbles bounced over the lip of the roof, but the ground held. Nervous about how long that would last, I did a quick skip and a jump onto the roof, making my calf protest.

The elevator was nearby, but with no way to know for sure if the building’s power system was in good shape, I wasn’t keen on testing my luck in a finicky metal box. The little hutch that housed the door to the stairwell was, of course, on the opposite side. The roof’s slant wasn’t terribly pronounced, but I still walked with hands held out to balance and catch myself if I fell.

In the few seconds I’d stood plotting my route, the rain had gone from a drizzle to a downpour that was sloughing off soil and moss, making a slippery mess beneath my boots. I took a break to tip back my head and capture a few blissful gulps of cool water. Finally, I reached the door and ducked inside the dark stairwell. The rumbling thunder faded as I headed down, shaking excess water from my hair and jacket, a smile creeping onto my face.

I’d made it.

The worst was behind me.

The stairs posed a challenge due to the building’s lean. I slid, jumped, and carefully scrambled down one set of stairs at a time, each jolt echoing painfully up my wounded leg. The steps ended at another door. I pushed it open and stepped inside the Skybridge lobby.

A gust of wind hit me, almost wrenching the knob out of my hand. Leaves and rain blew into the lobby from the hole where the Skybridge should have been. The floor was covered in a layer of rotten leaves, scattered with bits of drywall and torn-up gold-quartz tile. Sprouts and weeds sprang up through the cracks. The furniture lay in shambles, piled up in one corner, where the slant of the building had directed all the broken table legs and buckling chairs. A smell of rot wafted around on the relentless wind.

I pulled my jacket tighter against the chill, my brief elation replaced by a prickling of the hairs along my arms and neck. This close to the rift, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the destruction, but I hadn’t expected it to look so… forlorn. I’d never liked this room, had never cared for its noise and bustle or anything it represented. But this shell of it, all the brightness and polish stripped away, put a pit in my stomach. It felt like walking into an empty funeral parlor, after the people had gone, but the grief and the scent of embalmment still lingered in the air.

I tried a light switch, but nothing happened. Not even a peep from the raden pipes in the walls. I crunched my way through the underbrush that was once a polished floor and gripped the railing of the central stairwell. As I descended through the floor, the wind died out, leaving only the sound of my echoing footfalls.

The ardent offices one level down were in equally rough shape, thanks to the many busted floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the elements. The walls crawled with mold, probably thanks to the huge brown water stain that had split open in the middle, collapsing part of the ceiling. I could see slivers of marble from the floor above through the jagged bits of exposed metalwork. The two aluminum secretary desks that weren’t crushed by the collapse were covered in brown spots like some sort of pox. One had torn free of its bolts and crashed into the wall, but the other looked mostly unharmed, the IP phone still sitting atop it.

I made a beeline for it, just in case, though the state of the place didn’t give me much hope.

Plucking the receiver out of its cradle, I swiped a layer of grime off the touch screen monitor, then started tapping it and the buttons. It didn’t light up. I put the phone to my ear. No dial tone.

I slammed the phone back into its bed with a snarled “Damn it!” The plastic cracked, adding to a resounding echo that made me flinch, gaze flitting around for fear I’d drawn unwanted attention.

I took a breath.  

It was fine. I could still—

An undulating, guttural screech froze my blood.

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