Gabriel
The first demon charged, black eyes gleaming like tar pits, swinging his claws like scythes, unnaturally flexible. I felt his intent before his foot hit the ground. His claws arced through the air toward me fast. Cipher showed it to me, his predatory joy spiking just before the swing.
Tearing out the needle, I dashed aside. The blade missed my shoulder by a hair, feeling the gust of wind his swing generated pass over my head. My footing was shaky, but I backpedaled, keeping my distance. I regained my balance once again. I couldn't afford a direct hit. The demon eyed me down.
Then—
ROAR.
He came fast. Brutal. With terrifying speed, the yellow-eyed demon rammed with terrifying speed. I couldn't feel him until the last second. I turned, eyes wide. But it was too late.
The yellow-eyed demon's shoulder slammed into me like a battering ram, lifting me clean off the ground, knocking the wind out of me. I crashed into a glass railing with a deafening shatter and plummeted to the floor below, shards slicing into my arms and side,
If it wasn't for my Overdrive, my insides would have been crushed instantly. Gasping hard, my vision blurred, but I had to keep moving.
I rolled with Overdrive, staggering me up, because Cipher warned me again. "Fire."
BLAM! A shotgun was fired at me, but I barely dodged it.
The shell missed, barely, but the next one didn't
BLAM! Again, the gun fired, and pain exploded through my left shoulder as a stray bullet tore my flesh. "Tch!" I staggered. But other than that, I was fine. I needed to move. I took off running through the mall, imbuing Overdrive into my legs. One of the demons took off after me.
I turned and sprinted into the corridor of the shops, Cipher showing me the echoes of their thoughts like a sonar pulse. Chase after it, Flank, Corner it.
They were communicating in demonic words, but I understood every intent. The leader stayed behind, calmly reloading, while the others scattered to cut me off,
I glanced over my shoulder and saw the formation.
Shotgun. Sickle and claws. The bull has nothing. Does he not need a weapon?
I skidded into a wrecked souvenir shop, glass crunching under my feet. One of the black-eyed ones rounded the corner, fast. Too fast.
But I knew he tried to go for my waist, but I threw the pouch of salt into his face.
He screamed as if I'd thrown acid. The grains sizzled against his skin, smoke rising from the contact. He clawed at his face, blinded.
The Cipher fed me his panic, which made me grin a little.
I lunged. Overdrive surged through my legs and the metal rod. I stabbed the long metal bar into his throat with all the momentum I had. The screech that followed turned into black ash within seconds.
Three left.
Another shell exploded into the wall past me. I dove right, but I still ended up with three bullet holes in my arm. I screamed. My left arm is useless now. Landing on my wounded shoulder. The pain was white-hot, but I couldn't stop.
The second black-eyed demon came at me hard, claws spinning. I ducked under one swing, then another, but his foot swept under me- Thud. My back hit the floor.
I rolled fast and shoved upward, scrambling toward another store window. This time, a clothing outlet. As I crashed inside, the demon followed, snarling with every step. I weaved through shelves of jackets and mannequins, using Overdrive to propel myself faster than he expected.
I slammed into a shelf and sent it flying towards him.
He didn't see it coming,
The rack flew into him like a battering ram, sending him flying back out of the store.
But then the shelf redirected back at me?
I jumped over the shelf to see the yellow-eyed one, not running. Just moving.
The floor cracked as he stomped in and leaped toward me. His form eclipsed the ceiling lights. I threw myself aside. Barely escaping the downward smash. He landed like a meteor. Boom
Dust and rubble flew. I coughed, vision shaking.
Enough.
I shot forward, Overdrive in my legs, and kicked the yellow-eyed demon in the ribs.
Nothing. He didn't even flinch.
He grabbed me, arms like steel, and lifted me off the floor. Then threw me through the display window and into the concrete column outside. Still with Overdrive protecting me, I felt something crack in my back. Blood in my mouth.
Still… I stood.
He charged at me, I tore my jacket off and threw it at his face, ducked to his side, and jabbed a metal bar into him with Overdrive. Direct hit to his ribs. It sank in deep, but he smiled. He kept moving, faster. Dragging the embedded bar with him, and dragging me, clinging to the weapon, half pinned.
Why is he getting faster? What are you? Some law of the universe? Am I not strong enough!?
I let go of the bar so I wouldn't get dragged through another wall.
I rolled away and gasped. Emphatic Cipher warned me of the brute's thought patterns. They were linear, obsessive. His mind didn't understand "Stop." It only understood forward. An idea made flesh, the very concept of unstoppable.
He's not just strong. He's inevitably
That's when the leader entered the fray.
He aimed and fired again, but I sprang with Overdrive just in time. But still, he was getting more accurate.
He shot again. I had to forcefully stop myself just so I wouldn't get hit; I strained my ankle doing so. Accelerate. Enhance. Fortify. Sustain. I still can't stop.
Imbuing my legs with Overdrive once more, I dashed toward the ruby-eyed leader once more. I saw myself looking down his two barrels. I dodged his gun; he attempted to buttstroke, but with Overdrive, I disarmed him.
He grinned even more. Emphatic Cipher warned me just before he moved. Satisfaction. Cipher Buzzed "Jaw." He caught me off guard; I couldn't react in time. His fist crashed into my jaw. My vision went black for a second. I stumbled, dashed, then ducked the next, barely.
Bolting around, we began to trade blows. His fists were tinged with demon energy. Glowing ruby red, the color of said demonic energy. His movements kept getting faster, they were practiced, leaving trails and after images. Surgical. But mine were wild, reactive, driven by the instinct and Foreseen glimpses into his intent.
Claws came at my throat from behind, ducked. A sound of a different gun, a pistol,
Six shots evaded.
Another brute charge vaulted over a broken bench.
My arm bled. My shoulder was barely usable. My legs ached. But I kept dodging. Not because I was a genius, but because my Cipher let me know when and where they were going to attack.
My nose started to drip blood, not because of injury, but because I was too low on spirit energy.
Already!?
Still, I dashed back at the leader, dodging the rest of his bullets. I confronted him and tore the gun from him once again.
I charged up my Overdrive one more time, but this time through my entire body. The ruby-eyed demon punched me in the temple. But I stood unfazed. Finally, I slammed my fist into his sternum.
He jerked a little but then paused, eyeing me with wide ones. Then he grabbed me.
Something opened behind me, a portal.
Crazy gusts of wind exited the opening as he charged us both in.
The world shifted.
The temperature dropped. The light dimmed. Something ancient and horrifying warped around me.
Throwing me far back, I crashed into a bookshelf as books continued to fall.
I was in a soul crucible.
The other two demons came through before the portal closed automatically.
The two charged at me again,
But then…
The ruby-eyed demon raised his hand. The two, without even looking at him first, knew to pause.
Once more, the ruby-eyed demon began to speak. He spoke in English, as if he meant for me to hear it. "He's elusive. We lack time. Just go for his familiars."
My blood froze. I drew the pistol I grabbed from him a minute ago, pointed, and BANG! BANG! BANG! Click. Click. Empty.
None of them even reacted to getting shot.
The leader turned around and summoned his shotgun once more, swiping the barrel across the air. He created another tear in the void, and as they entered, I bolted after them with Overdrive one last time.
"NO!" I shouted.
But then the unstoppable force demon obstructed my path. A single punch to the dome filled my throat with blood as I went flying backwards, knocking against the stair railing.
"Dog." The bastard growled as he left
"COME BACK HERE!!! FIGHT ME DAMN YOU!!"
The Crucible shook with my screams. I pounded walls, blood trickling from my nose, hands, and mouth. My spirit battered, body broken.
"LET ME OUT!" I thought of Vivienne, Iris, Elias, surely they wouldn't find them… right? My head—no, my entire body ached; I was already going insane. Sweating, tousling my hair, as I curled up on the ground.
Time blurred. An hour crawled by before the dark castle dissolved. I fell back onto the mall's dusty floor, gasping.
"Iris…" I said. I couldn't rest now. The adrenaline wore off, and just now is when I realized how much pain I was in. "Get up…" I told myself. "Move…"
I stood up to collapse against the shattered wall, my lungs barely working. Ribs caving inward every time I drew a breath. I felt like I'd been run through a furnace and kicked out the other side.
My back was ruined. Something cracked with every motion. My left ankle screamed each time it even touched the ground. I couldn't feel three of my fingers, and my arm, damn, my arm felt like it was hanging on my threads. And still…
I moved.
I stumbled out of the mall, or what was left of it. The battle was over. For now. The demons were gone, back to wherever they crawled out of.
I forced myself forward, dragging my body along the white sidewalks. The city looked like the end of time. Buildings gutted. Roads cracked open like glass. sky lit with emergency lights.
Sirens and lights blared everywhere.
I passed a fire hydrant spewing an arc of water, painting the air with mist that clung to my skin and hair like frostbite. The snow was quiet, cold, indifferent to everything dying beneath it.
I slipped once. My ankle gave out, and I hit the pavement hard. The cold stabbed through my side like a dagger.
I screamed in the silence. Not from pain. Not just that.
I was terrified.
I didn't know if they were alive. I didn't know what I'd come back to. All I knew was I wasn't there when I should've been
I pressed my shoulder against the wreckage of a collapsed storefront and pushed myself upright. My vision swam. Everything was doubled.
Just keep moving.
The city ended, and the forest waited.
That's where they said they'd be.
The trees rose like tombstones. My hand latched onto the first trunk. I groaned, pulling myself forward.
Then another.
And another.
Every step was agony. My foot barely functioned, my ankle throbbing with every heartbeat. I used the trees like crutches. If they hadn't been there, I would've stayed face-down in the snow.
My breath hit the air in ragged, frosted clouds. The could was deeper here. Not just temperature, silence. The kind that swallowed the whole world. No birds. No bugs. No wind. If you ignored the sirens, it felt so peaceful.
I moved between two trees and-
My foot snagged
Pain tore through my already-shattered ankle. I collapsed, slamming shoulder-first into the ground.
I looked down.
A body.
For a second, I couldn't breathe.
Vivi? Iris? Elias? No… Please no.
I scrambled back, Blood pounding in my ears. But then my eyes focused.
It wasn't them
It was someone else. Someone Familiar.
"Mister Wilder…" I stared. My history teacher. The same man I just saw again for the first time in years. The same man who used to wake me up in class with speakers and dumb pranks
His face was slack. Dead. Eyes soulless. Blood coated his neck. His body twisted wrong. His arms… clawed at, ripped apart.
And from the signs, he was a demon, or was turned into one. And then they toyed with him.
Why? Why him?
Why anyone?
I shut my eyes. Tears didn't come. Not yet. Just a hollowness… spreading.
I needed to find them. I needed to.
I wiped my bloodstained sleeve across my face and activated Soul Sight.
My pupils burned red.
The pain hit immediately, burning through my skin like lightning. My spirit energy was depleted. My vision turned jagged. My eyes started bleeding. But through the haze, I saw it.
A soul, Flickering. Injured.
Ahead.
I started crawling. I couldn't walk anymore. My legs wouldn't let me. So I used my elbows, even the torn one. My palms dragged across the snow and bark. Blood left streaks in the white powder.
The glow grew closer. Then, blonde hair.
Elias…
I saw him through the trees, limp on a stretcher, a paramedic shouting something about his lungs being destroyed. His chest barely moved.
"Elias…" I whispered, too low for anyone to hear
But he was alive.
Thank god… he was alive.
I tried to call him, but my voice cracked. My ribs burned. And then…
Something else caught my eye.
A train of frozen blood in the snow.
My breath shook. My entire body screamed to stop. To collapse and fade away.
But I followed it.
I pulled myself again, snow biting at my skin, soaking into my shredded clothes. Every movement felt like dragging my soul through razors. My eyes ached. My tears turned to blood.
And then I saw it. A mound in the snow. No. Two.
Dusting of white settled over them like a quiet death shroud.
"Vivi…?"
I pulled myself forward, heart in my throat.
Please. Please no. Please breathe.
I reached the edge.
My body stopped.
There she was.
Vivienne. My wife.
Her long, now painted red, hair was matted with ice and blood. One of her legs was gone, severed at the thigh. Her arm too. Her other arm was wrapped, wrapped around Iris.
Iris.
My daughter.
So small. So still.
Vivienne died protecting her. Even in the end… she tried.
I reached out. My fingers trembled as they brushed against Iris's cheek.
Cold.
So cold.
"No… no no no no no…" My breath came in gasps. "I'm here. I'm here now… Please…"
I pulled their bodies closer, cradling them into my chest, ignoring the pain ripping through my spine and ankle. My hands gripped tighter than they should've, like if I just held on hard enough, maybe their hearts would beat again.
"Daddy's here… It's okay. I'm sorry I was late, I'm so sorry…"
Vivienne's face stared upward, blood trickling from her forehead. But her expression, soft.
Like she'd died at peace.
I wasn't at peace.
I screamed. A sound that didn't even feel human. Just raw pain and tears, flooding out of me in a broken howl
Then I heard footsteps. Someone is crunching through the snow.
A paramedic. His voice was quiet.
"They'll burn soon… All of the casualties burned."
I didn't respond
He placed a hand on my shoulder, "Hey… I know it's hard, but they wouldn't want you to—"
"DON'T!" I roared, swinging my blood-soaked arm and shoving his hand off my shoulder. "Don't tell me what they would or wouldn't want." I coughed up blood.
I turned back to them. My girls. My world.
"I love you… I love you so much."
I buried my face into Iris's frozen hair, arms locking around them both.
My eyes bled freely now. My spirit gone. My heart gone with them.
I held them tighter.
And everything went dark.