Nightmare
My heart hammers in my chest like it's going to explode and a cold sweat rolls down my face and chin. Something wet, warm and sticky dribbles down the back of my neck into my shirt.
Very, very slowly, I turn around.
Kino's lying on the ground twenty feet away from where he was standing. Something the size of a human is crouched over him on four huge, rippling legs, it's back to us. A tail flicks back and forth. Some kind of… lizard?
There's a wet, dull, crunching, slurping sound. Blood pools around them. Kino's corpse is jerking around as it mauls him.
"What…" Artee stutters. "…is that?"
Tavin grips my shoulder and pulls me backwards. I hardly notice it. I'm till staring at Kino's who's face is turned towards me, eyes wide and glassy and mouth wide open, spewing blood. He's looking at me.
God, he's lookin' at me.
"Back away," Tavin whispers. "Very slowly."
But it's too late. It straightens up from Kino, and turns its head properly towards up.
I get a good look at it head-on, and my chest tightens even more.
"W-w-w-why?" Nyx trembled, backing up even further. "That thing… it sho-it shouldn't exist."
"So you know it too," Tavin says, stepping in front of me, weapons drawn.
The 'thing' is huge. It's as long as a car, but built low to the ground like a lizard. All muscle, packed tight in hundreds of fibres lacing its body - like someone's peeled off its skin and forgot to put it back. It's body's long and heavy, shoulders rolling as it moves, claws digging into stone like nothing.
It looks like its coiled and loaded, as though it could cross the tunnel in a blink.
It has no eyes. Just a wide, gaping, split mouth lined with hooked teeth made for tearing things apart. Blood strings hang between its gums, dripping to the cave floor.
I don't care. That thing killed Kino. Seconds after we finally got him to open up, this fucking mutt killed him.
Before I know it, the fear in my chest gets replaced with coiling, red-hot anger, and my fists clench. I glare at the stupid creature in front of me. I'm gonna-
"BACK OFF!!" Tavin yells suddenly. "NOW!!"
What the heck am I doing!?
I think, and I turn tail and run after my friends. What the hell was I thinking? I was about to charge that monster with my bare hands after losing my cool. That's not like me.
Focus, and find a way to kill this thing.
Yeah, there's one problem though.
"What is that thing!?" I demand, as we scoot over boulders and duck down under a huge crag of rock jutting out of the landscape. "It's not chasing us, but…?!?!?!"
"You're the know-it-all," Artee points out.
"Yeah, but I sure as hell have never seen whatever the fuck that was in Biology!"
"Velocimanductor Exarnatus," Nyx shivers. "It's also an apex predator, nicknamed the 'Death Flash'."
"Corny," Elemental mutters, peeking out from behind the rock. "Where is it?"
"It's eating Kino," Tavin observes.
"Nyx, carry on," I say, trying to ignore Tavin.
"It's known for incredible burst speed as an ambush predator," she explains. "Or, it was known for doing that. It went extinct a hundred years ago."
Silence.
"When I get outta here, Imma beat the shit out of whoever wrote that," Artee growls, and I concur.
"Shouldn't we be running?" Nyx finishes. "We can get out of here before it finishes… before… before it comes after us."
"That won't do," Tavin says. "That thing has intelligence. It killed Kino first, the weakest member of the group to lower our numbers. It'll become much more than just a thorn in our sides if we let it live."
"Oh no," I mutter, realizing what he's saying.
I do not want to do this. I'm almost having second thoughts about my fantasied bravado.
"We need to hunt and kill it now," Tavin tells us. "It's too fast to outfight head-on. But. It's definitely built for tunnels and closed areas, not open ground. It's terrible at sustained movement, and it commits fully when it attacks."
"Damn, you clocked all that in such a short time?" I ask.
"Thinking fast saves lives," he tells me. "Now get ready."
"For?"
"You're bait," he tells me to the face. "Get moving."
Uhm.
Huh?
"The rest of you, listen to me…"
Man, fuck it.
I vault over the big rock we're hiding behind, slide down it, and glare at the monster.
"OVER HERE, OLD MAN!" I yell, thinking up random shit on the spot.
The thing stops munchin' on Kino and turns to me.
"Grrrrffshshsheeefhshfehs," it snarls.
Maybe I shouldn't have done this. But. It is too late to stop now.
I throw one of the knives in my belt at it, and watch it lodge into the thick, writhing muscle on its back. It glares at me with non-existent eyes, and then lunges.
By 'lunge' I mean fires towards me like a goddamn cannon ball. I barely have time to shift sideways when its claws rake open my side and pain courses through my body. The Death Flash crashes into the rock behind me and leaves a dent.
Shivering, it turns towards me again, and I scramble to my feet. I'm bleeding. Who cares, I'm alive. I start running.
Ever played tag? Well, not to toot my own horn, but I was the King of Tag back in the day.
And I thank the Gods that I was cuz that's kinda what's saving my ass right now. I hurtle over the terrain, Pale-viper-strengthened muscles carrying the shit out of me, and I run.
The thing is behind me the whole time, snarling, screeching, lumbering over the rocks, and occasionally letting fly with its charge attack. It never gets a direct hit - thankfully - but it catches me off guard once with these two little grabby hands on its underbelly that came out of absolutely nowhere, and they split open my shoulder.
Evolution is scary, huh. But y'know what's scarier?
GETTING ABANDONED BY YOUR FUCKING FRIENDS YOU TRUSTED YOUR LIFE WITH TO SAVE YOU!!!!!
"WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?" I yell as I duck under another wild jump.
"Get the high ground!" Artee's faraway voice calls from somewhere.
"FUCK YOU!!" I yell into the distance, but scramble for a large rock that slants upwards.
The monster keeps coming for me.
"You fuckin' mutt," I snarl. "I'll kill you."
It probably didn't look very convincing coming from a guy scrambling up a rock away from the monster like some kind of demented lizard. Even less so when it pounces up the rock and its jaws clamp around my calf like a vice.
"UWAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEH!!!!" I scream.
IT HURTS!!! IT HURTS SO MUCH!!!! I can feel its teeth scraping against the bone of my leg. It's biting through.
This gives me flashbacks of the pain I felt when I shoved viper venom down my pie hole. It's like a lock has closed around my leg, pressure that keeps increasing, as searing pain burns my senses. My whole body goes numb and I can't find the strength in my fingers to keep pulling myself up. It's trying to wrench me down.
My vision goes white, I can't breathe, and I can feel my leg stretching in the wrong direction, skin screaming, muscles pulling like a wet rope. I don't even realize I'm yelling with all my might, but I do realize that this tiny fleeting voice in my head makes it through all the chaos and starts hollering at me to-
"CLIMB!!!"
I scrabble at the loose rock, fingers slipping. Behind me, the monster tries to haul itself up, but it's not built for climbing up flat slopes - and it too starts to slip, jaws still locked like a vice around my leg.
"SOMEONE GET THIS THING OFF ME!!" I yell, blacking in and out of consciousness. "YOU PRICKSSSSS!!"
Then Elemental is there, slicing it along the jaw muscles in one clean stroke. Its teeth are still lodged firmly in my leg.
"Sword, hit it!!" he tells me, still hacking away at its face. "Do something to make it let go!"
I think of Kino.
"I'll make sure to play my part from here on."
That's enough to make the pain and fear give way to rage again, and I whip out another knife from my belt, driving it deep into the creature's snout. Giving up completely on climbing, I slide on my back down the rock, bracing my other foot against its face - or where its face should be, stabbing at it until its dark blood starts to spray over my face and hands.
Screeching in pain, the thing lets go of my leg, blood gushing from its face and jaw, and I slide down the rock in a heap.
"Nice bait," Artee tells me, ducking past. "Getting half-eaten wasn't part of the plan but nice job hanging in there."
"Fuck… you…"
"Its legs, GO FOR THE LEGS!!" Tavin yells. "Punish the recovery and don't let it get away!!"
Nyx slashes it across the rear tendon, Artee drives a spear into its hind leg muscles, and Elemental weaves under it, dancing back and forth. He hacks at the two little grabby things on its underbelly, cutting one off.
Its messy, disgusting and difficult. My team hacks and slashes and punches and kicks, and blood sprays across the ground, but the monster doesn't seem to die. It keeps flailing with its mangled jaws, legs, and claws, catching Elemental across the cheek - inches away from raking open his face. It slams Artee with its shoulder, hitting him like a truck, and he skids backwards next to me.
"Busted a rib," he mutters, clutching his chest.
"FUCKIN' KILL IT!!!" I yell at them.
Tavin's the one who finishes it off, with one clean, brutal downward arc of his hatchet, splitting its face open in a shower of black blood. We stand (or lie) around the corpse, panting heavily.
"What was that about people being the biggest threat?" Tavin asks, wiping blood off his face.
Nyx looks down at her hands, which are shaking.
"Too close," she mumbles.
"Got the hint, buster," I say, still kinda pissed that they let me get mauled. "Now do something about this leg please."
***
Artee puts me on a rock and gets to his doctor business. My leg's shaking and bleeding like it's not sure it belongs to me anymore, and I would have liked for Tavin to be the one wrapping it up but he insisted it be Artee.
"Don't look," he says, wincing.
"I'm looking," I reply. "It's my leg."
"That's why you shouldn't."
He starts tearing fabric.
"It hurts," he adds.
"You? You're hurting?"
"My rib cracked. Also I'm looking at your leg."
Fair.
He wraps it tight, way tighter than I want, after pouring water on it. The pressure hurts almost as much as the bite, but the pouring blood mostly stops and the pain decreases a little.
"I'll give you a shot as well."
"Of what?"
"Chronalite," he explains. "It'll ease the pain."
He must've got it from some depot.
"It's our second to last one," he says. "Once we run out we'll be in trouble."
"At least my leg's not gone," I mumble. "That's a win."
Tavin crouches near the corpse, already cutting into it. He doesn't look back when he speaks.
"Muscle fibres," he explains even though we didn't ask. "In the rear legs - the thick ones. Don't cook them and don't wait either."
Nyx frowns.
"You want us to eat that thing."
"You get stronger," he tells us. "Guess what, it reinforces your muscle fibres, especially for short bursts. The Velocimanductor was a shitfest but the rewards are… worth it."
He glances at Kino's mauled form in the shadows.
"The Facility isn't built completely just to kill us," he mumbles, observing some freshly cut fibres. "It's made to force us to get stronger… so we can survive. It's trying to pick the strong out of the weak and temper us into something new."
"So what's the downside of the drumsticks?" I ask.
"It's tastes shit," he shrugs.
How reassuring.
Elemental's watching the open cavern, scanning the rocks in the far distance. "We're exposed," he says. "And it's too quiet. The smell of blood is getting stronger."
"Then we won't stay," Tavin replies.
He holds up a couple strips of dark-coloured muscle.
"Eat. Now."
"Eugh," Nyx mutters, pushing it away. "You first."
"Already have," he says. "In the past."
Artee and I each take one. It feels kinda disgusting between my fingers.
"You first?" I offer.
"Fine, I ain't scared."
He drops it into his mouth instantly.
We watch his face go pink, then purple, then green, then blue. He collapses, retches, and starts spasming at my feet like he's being electrocuted.
"Oh," I say. "Maybe not."
"You'll regret it in the future," Tavin looks at me. "Go on."
"Elemental?" I say weakly.
"On a count of three," he nods, which was not what I meant, but…
…I want to get stronger. I almost got chomped up trying to kill this thing… and maybe I should make it at least worth something.
Elemental counts, and then we both swallow.
It is fucking disgusting. It's chewy, stringy, and tastes like iron and rot. My stomach flips immediately, and my taste buds are yelling "WHY?!?!" at me. I'm gonna be sick.
Heat floods my arms and legs, and I feel like my muscles are twisting, rebuilding, overlapping themselves, like they're being rewired into something new.
Eventually, it passes. Eventually.
"Blergh," Artee groans, lying on his back. "I feel weird."
He's right. As I gulp down water, trying to wash the shitty aftertaste out of my mouth, I can't help but notice my arms and legs feel slightly heavier. Like they're… coiled? I suddenly feel like I could jump ten metres.
"How's your leg?" Tavin asks me.
"Huh?"
I suddenly realize that I'm standing up on two feet.
"Oh. Uh- yeah, good thanks…?"
It's holding, albeit still wobbly. I probably won't be able to fight on it.
"Nyx, you should try," Elemental offers, stretching his leg.
"No," she refuses adamantly. "Nothing can compel me to eat that after that show you boys put o-"
She's cut off by Artee leaping fifteen feet into the air in a whoosh of air. He slams back down right next to me, leaving a small crack in the ground.
"This is SICK!!" he exclaims, examining his arms. "Tavin, you really know your stuff."
"That being said, we should get moving," Tavin nods, wiping his blade. "We need to move higher to more open ground so this doesn't happen again…"
"And the smell of blood is gonna start attracting all kinds of things soon," Elemental adds. "Let's…
That's when I hear it. A light, scratching sound. Like something… or somethings… swarming over rock.
"Tavin," Nyx says, head snapping up.
"Yeah," he says too calmly.
"We just fought to the death against a literally Killer Dog," Artee muttered. "What the hell is happening?"
"It's a swarm," I say, squinting into the rocks and murk beyond. "Nyx, you recognize them, right?"
"How could I not…?" she mutters, pressing closer to us, all five of us going back-to-back.
I recognize the things that are swarming towards us right now - they're pests you would normally call the Flamethrower Squads for, Velociraptor Mortivagus - otherwise called Cave Skats - and usually they're not threats. Except we do not have a communicator to pick up and ring the Flamethrower Squads with.
The scuttling, scratching noise is closing in, sounding like there are hundreds coming at us from all directions.
"What the hell…?" Elemental mutters.
"Don't," Tavin assures him, listening to the sounds. "There's definitely not hundreds. "Only a couple packs of five or maybe six."
"Is that meant to make me feel better?" I ask, left leg still wobbly.
"No," he said. "It's to calm you down just enough so you don't lose your shit and die."
As he says that, shapes peel out of the darkness, low, fast and small - about the size of a large rat.
Cave Skats skitter over the rocks, claws ticking and scraping, head jerking left and right. Their bodies are too thin and bony, spines jutting out along their backs like knifes, and hollow eyes catch the little light we have in pairs. Huge, needle-like teeth stick out past their jaws, glistening.
They spread instantly, circling us, but one of them lunge directly for Nyx like a bolt of lightning. Thinking fast, I backhand it out of the air, muscles in my shoulder and back straining as its bones bend against my knuckles. It ragdoll into the shadows.
Tavin watches the masses, which have stop writhing so much, and now eye us warily.
"They hesitate when they lose one," he murmurs. "Sword, centre. Nyx, don't chase them. Artee-"
"I know, bleeding equals bad."
"Correct."
I draw my dual blades and we get into formation.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Two rush at once, one low, one wide. Another circles behind us, claws scrabbling for a gap. I swing too hard at one, my bad leg buckling, and I almost eat stone. Some slams into my side, the same side that's been raked open. Pain flares sharply, but I pivot, flick my arm up and cut it clean in half.
Artee shoots past and impales one behind me, lifting it off the ground with his spear and driving it into the rocks. Elemental kicks one so hard it goes flying off into the dark trailing blood. Were they always that fast and strong?
Tavin's working his way around us, hacking and slicing them out of the air in a blur of arms.
"Don't pursue!!" Tavin shouts as Nyx starts to move.
She pulls back reluctantly, teeth clenched. Another Skat darts in, teeth snapping at my shins, and by instinct I lash out with my foot.
Unexpectedly, my leg explodes forwards, and slams into the rat, sending it arcing away into the distance. The impact jolts all the way up my spine.
"Uh," I say, goggling. "That's new."
"It worked like a charm," Artee grins at me.
"But it tasted like faeces," Elemental adds.
"Can't you ever NOT ruin the vibe?"
"Focus!" Tavin barks, stomping one trying to scamper away into paste.
The remaining Skats, numbers thinned, hesitate even more this time. One backs off, hissing, claws scraping nervously, and I bound forward with three powerful strides, slashing it up with my two shortswords.
"They're wussing out," Nyx says.
"Good, make it worse," Tavin orders.
He crushes one writhing in his hand to make a point, and the blue-black blood sprays across his arm.
"Jesus," I say. "That was kinda unnecessary."
But we push forward together, yelling and hallooing like cavemen to scare them off, and then the Skats are retreating, disappearing into cracks and gaps between the rocks, their scratching fading into the dark.
Silence drops hard. I'm breathing like I've run across the North Continent. My leg's shuddering, little jabs of pain itching through the forcefully repaired muscle, but otherwise I'm actually not that… tired.
I open and close my fist, then flex my leg - the same one that kicked on of those oversized rats into space.
I've gotten stronger. And it's thanks to…
I glance at Tavin, who's barely broken a sweat.
The gas cave, the Floodmen, the ancient mutt and now these rats. That's four times he's come in clutch.
Artee leans on his knees, panting, silver hair falling in his eyes.
"So, anyone else miss when the worst thing in their life was homework?"
"Are you kidding, Mister Medical Student?" Nyx snaps. "You ever get the feeling of constant failure in EVERY. SINGLE. PRACTICAL. WE. DO?"
"You failed?" I ask.
"Oh please," Artee bites right back at Nyx. "Try takin' one of our exams. Even our holidays were just revision disguised as rest."
While the two stupids keep bickering, I head over to Tavin, who's scanning the darkness for a moment longer.
"What're you looking for?"
"Trying to see if I can spot any of the others," he tells me. "It's futile though."
Neo, I think.
"Tavin," I say.
I approached him meaning to have a heart-to-heart, but suddenly my mind goes blank. I'm terrible at this.
"Why?" I blurt.
"Why what?"
"Just… why go to all this trouble… to cater us around? If you left us behind, you could easily survive by yourself without us dead weight and-"
"Don't," he says. "That's a good way… to drive yourself crazy."
He touches the silver ring on his finger again. I wonder what it means, what stories are behind it, what its seen on the frontline against the UFOs.
I open my mouth to ask him more, but he stops me.
"I know what you want to say," he tells me. "Why do I care for you all so much, acting like a leader and all that in this place?"
"…yes."
"Have I really done that much for you?"
Yes, yes he has. In this place, where I could be killed by an extinct dog at any moment like Kino, whenever I see Tavin I think,
Everything's gonna be alright, because Tavin's here.
I want to be like that. I want people to look at me, and breathe sighs of relief. I wanted to, I wanted to be that kind of person to Nari, my sister, someone who didn't depend on others but others depended on instead. But I think my vision of 'independent' is a bit different from the reality that's been shown to me. Being able to make decisions that carry the weight of several people's lives, being able to analyse threats in an instead…
"Tavin," I say. "Just… I don't know where I'd be without you. It's a bit embarrassing to say… but I want to be like you."
He looks away, hiding his face. Elemental, sat on a nearby rock, watches us from under his hair, listening. There's a long silence.
"…someone said that to me once long ago," he says finally. "It's bringing up bad memories. We'll talk about it later, right now we need to move."
Neo
"For goddamn fuck's sake," Neo muttered, looking at the blood on his hand. "Those rats were so annoying."
He was standing surrounded by slashed up Cave Skats, their blue-black blood dripping down his face and arms, mixing with red.
"But you," he turned to the other person with him. "are even more annoying."
"Look who's talking, short stack," Chris scoffed. "If I weren't here you would've LONG been fish food. Or maybe you already are."
"Don't call me that."
"What? Fish food?"
"Short stack."
Chris wiggled his fingers. "Short. Stack. Also you swing those knives like you're tryna swat a fly with a plank."
Neo stared at him for a long second. At his feet, one of the cave skat corpses twitched. He flicked one of his knives and pinned it to the ground.
"You talk a lot for someone who hides behind a mask," he says. "I wonder what you're like if I take it off?"
He looked down his blade at Chris.
The latter scowled briefly but recovered instantly, placing a hand to his chest, fake wounded.
"Hide? Mate, I'm right here."
"You feel like a voice in my head I can't shut up."
"Aw," Chris grinned. "We're bonding.
"We are not."
Just my rotten luck to end up with this piece of shit. I still want to cut him up. But…
As he turned to walk, boots splashing through the gore, he looked back at Chris who was following him.
In that short time, he must've killed three times as many Skats as me.
"So what now, short stack?" Chris was saying. "Do we just wander around or do we sit and wait for your boyfriend to come save you?"
Neo's steps hitched half a beat, and Chris's grin widened.
"Oooh, bullseye."
Then he stopped so abruptly Chris almost broke his nose against his back. Turning slowly, he said, "Are you done?"
But before Chris could give another hare-brained reply they were interrupted by a wet skittering noise. Too many legs, and too close.
Both of them looked down the passage in front of them.
More Cave Skats poured out of the cracks in the walls like the cave was vomiting rats.
"Fantastic," Neo's jaw clenched. "Your voice was so annoying even the cave hates you."
"Hate you too," Chris flashed him a grin. "Last one to get through 'em is a loser!"
Sword, Ellie, wherever you are, know that I'm right here. Safe, I don't know on that part. There's a nagging voice in the back of my skull that tells me we won't be seeing each other for a while. In that time, I want to get stronger, so that I can actually be more of '008' instead of a reliability.
Just one thing. Please, don't die without me even there.