"It seems your friend won't be of any help, you rebel scum." The Officer taunted from the darkness.
Hendrix saw his Correctional Forces uniform out of the corner of his eye, turning just in time to see him fall into another shadow.
"He's taunting us now… Great." Hendrix thought. The boy's nerves felt like they were getting dangerously close to a boiling point. He feared that voice would come back to haunt him.
"Molly. Get somewhere safe. Stay away from the shadows." Hendrix spoke calmly in an effort to calm himself down.
"What? No. I'm not leaving you here." Molly shook her head in confusion.
"I'll be fine. Go." Hendrix stood up, helping the girl out as well.
Molly hesitated. She looked back at the boy.
"Go!" Hendrix turned towards the setting sun. The last sliver of sunlight was beginning to fade away.
Molly nodded softly, sprinting off in the opposite direction. Her heart hated her, but Hendrix was persistent.
As the girl turned the corner, Hendrix grabbed the neck of his guitar. He flipped it forwards, manifesting a pick.
The boy looked around, keeping his head on a swivel.
A skull flew towards him.
He struck a panic chord.
The black mass of soundwaves split the skull in two. The broken bones crashed against the asphalt.
Hendrix spotted a femur flying out of his peripheral view.
He turned and hit a power chord, sending the bone hurling towards a brick wall.
The bones picked up in frequency, bombarding Hendrix with a rainstorm of skeletal remains.
The pink-haired boy was barely keeping up. Every time he spotted another bone, he would have to aim the pick up of his guitar with precision.
A ribcage flew at him from behind.
He turned around at the sound of the rattling of dried bones, striking his strings towards the ribs.
The soundwaves missed.
Hendrix didn't have enough time to dodge. He braced for impact.
The ribcage shattered against Hendrix's skull. The stinging pain shot through his head, his vision blurring.
He doubled over, grunting while he attempted to catch his breath.
He heard the Officer's calm chuckle as his senses cleared up.
"I'll kill you!" Hendrix screamed at the top of his lungs. He was still holding his head, trying to keep his composure.
The Officer didn't answer. Instead, his chuckling continued to echo through the slum's streets.
Hendrix looked towards the sun. By his estimation, he only had a few minutes before the darkness took over completely.
"It was a good choice to let Molly run. I can die here alone." Hendrix reasoned with himself as he stared up at the rising moon.
He heard something zipping through the air behind him.
Hendrix turned around, striking his guitar instinctively.
The soundwaves cut the object in two.
Blood and brain matter splattered onto the front of Hendrix.
The boy looked wide-eyed, wiping away the grey matter that was dripping into his field of vision. He looked down to see a decomposing human head cut in half, ripped roughly from the rest of its body.
Hendrix's fist balled, trembling in anger.
"I'm saving the dried bones for a project of mine. You'll have to make do with these." Officer Nine chuckled.
The head was small. It was… It was a child.
Hendrix could barely keep himself together. He gritted his teeth so hard that he swore he could feel one crack.
"This monster… I'll kill them… I'll kill them all…" Hendrix thought.
He heard another object flying from behind him. He felt he had no choice but to dodge.
He ducked under the object. It flew over him. It was a human leg, the shoe still attached.
The shoe was the part that made Hendrix's heart heavy. Someone was enveloped in darkness, never expecting that day to be their last. Never able to say goodbye to their family. Never able to learn about the truth of this world.
Another body part flew at the boy, then another, then another. Hendrix dodged, barely missing the rotting flesh being thrown at him.
Blood splattered into the air, sometimes staining Hendrix's clothes.
The boy gagged, bile rising in his throat.
The street was covered in blood. The shadows had now grown exponentially, so the body parts fell back into the darkness more often than not.
Hendrix tried to keep his vision focused on the concrete, relying on his other senses so he wouldn't throw up from the sight of the dismembered bodies. This only made him realize his situation quicker.
He saw the last of the orange tint of the afternoon sun fade into black. His heart dropped with the last of the daylight.
"Yes!" Officer Nine shouted from the void. As soon as the sun faded out completely, the ground began to rumble.
"You've held your own this far. I thank you for pushing me this far. I'll be able to test my latest ability." Officer Nine spoke as the rumbling grew stronger.
Hendrix looked at the ground below him. His shoes sank into the ground, just an inch. It felt like he had stepped into a shallow puddle of darkness.
"This whole place is his domain now. What's next?" Hendrix asked himself. He didn't want to find out.
Slowly, he saw a giant mass rise from the asphalt at the end of the street. The more Hendrix stared, the taller it became.
As the boy's eyes got adjusted to the darkness of night, the mass became clearer. His heart dropped as he made out the details.
The silhouette looked like a serpent. A head with a large jaw made up the front of the mass, while a long slender body made up the rest. But the devil was in the details.
Hendrix stared at the head. The top of the skull was made up of, well, skulls. Human skulls. They were fused together like a skeletal Frankenstein.
The jaw was made up of several human jaws fused together to make something close to a snake's unfused lower jaw.
The body of the mass was made of human spines, fused together to wave in a crude imitation of a mythical serpent.
The bones were connected with some kind of black goo. It resembled what Nine's shadows would turn into when he used them as portals into his domain.
"What the hell is this guy…" Hendrix thought. Stepping forward felt impossible. He could sense how much Spirit the skeletal serpent was holding. It felt as though the Spirit alone was pushing him backwards, making him feel like his chest was going to cave in.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Officer Nine asked from the shadows.
At this point, Hendrix's halloween mask was cracked and worn. It was only plastic, but it was the only thing keeping him from turning into a fugitive. He fixed it, taking a deep breath in as he assumed a combative stance.
The serpent reared up and lunged.
Hendrix shot all six of his strings out. The steel ropes wrapped around the head of the monster, pinning its jaw closed.
The mass of bones kept charging. It collided with the pink-haired boy, carrying him into the air on its snout.
Hendrix reacted on instinct.
"It's trying to drop me." Hendrix reasoned. He grabbed part of the snake's spine with his strings, pulling himself off of the front of the creature.
Hendrix receded his strings into a barrier as he fell towards the ground.
The boy's eyes grew wide as he saw the ground he was headed towards. Officer Nine emerged from his landing spot, his arms outreached towards him.
Hendrix grabbed the spine of the snake once again, swinging towards the other side of the street.
He zipped through the air, eventually landing on a roof nearby. The boy tried to calm down so that he could come up with a plan.
"He said that his domain sucked Spirit out of his victims, which means he must be taking it. That means I can't outlast him in a battle of stamina, he has way too much for that… What can I do…?" Hendrix hit a dead end with every plan he thought up.
The situation felt hopeless. Death felt more and more real.
The snake charged at the roof Hendrix stood on.
Hendrix used the snake's spine to zip towards another roof, having to repeat the cycle when the monster charged at him again. The boy continued to evade the serpent in a game of cat and mouse.
"Come on, boy. You'll run out of Spirit eventually. Why not just give up now?" Officer Nine appeared in the middle of the street, not far from the bottom of the serpent.
The Officer was right. Hendrix couldn't evade the snake forever.
He swung one more time, this time swinging upwards. Hendrix flew up into the air, grabbing his guitar as he did.
The boy struck a power chord, the soundwaves rushing towards the skull of the monster.
Boom.
A deep rumble echoed through the air as the soundwave crashed into the skull of the serpent. As the dust settled, Hendrix's eyes widened at the damage. There was none.
"Even my guitar attacks didn't work?! How much Spirit does this guy have?!" Hendrix asked himself.
The boy was now midair, helpless to gravity.
The snake charged him, opening its jaw. Hendrix grit his teeth as he prepared to die.
"I guess this is it. I hope my friends can move on without me. I hope they can achieve our dream one day…" Hendrix thought. He closed his eyes, the rumbling and rattling of the snake's bones the only thing that his senses could capture.
The pink-haired boy felt a rush of wind. He looked down, seeing the ground right below him.
"What…?" Hendrix looked up to see a masked Bloom looking down at him, accompanied by a masked Vida.
"Hendrix, are you alright?" Vida asked. In the distance, Hendrix could see the jaws of the snake closing in on where he was.
"How did you guys find me?" Hendrix's eyes adjusted, reeling from the whiplash.
"Molly went looking for us. She led us back to you." Bloom explained.