Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Vector

Adam gritted his teeth, "Take one more step and you're going to find out the hard way."

She just grinned, twisting his mother's face into an expression so..... so vile it didn't even look like her anymore. Martha would never have made a face that looked like that.

Adam had seen his mother angry, and scared, and sad. On occasion he had even seen a bit of her vindictive or hateful side, which even she was not eager to admit she had.

But even during those times, he had never experienced such a sense of.... Unease and disgust as he did when that expression crossed her face.

He tightened his grip on the spear. As long as the THING wearing his mother's face kept using her body like that, than he wasn't going to have any issue stabbing her through the throat, architect forgive him.

"It won't touch you, it can't."

Adam turned to look over his shoulder while still keeping his mechanical eye on Martha, "Conn?"

"Its an illusion just like everything else..... everyone else."

Adam watched in shock and rising chills as Conn motioned to the park around them which was now full of people standing and staring at them. A red glow rose around them, coming from everywhere and nowhere, accompanied by a sort of glowing red haze. All of them had protruding tusks of bone jutting from their heads, some from their mouths, some from their eyes, some from their ears, some punctured straight through skin.

Standing just to his left, little 12 year old Maya stood, a tusk of bone choking her voice, spilling out of her mouth like a tongue, and in her arms she held..... a very frightened looking child, the only child that didn't appear affected by the evil.... Thing.

He was scared, whimpering and struggling in her arms, pudgy little hands pushing against her as he tried to climb out of her arms, but her grip was too strong.

The fear on his own face, on his toddler face, stirred something deep inside him.

Conn gripped him by the arm, "Adam Don't, he isn't real."

Adam watched himself struggle, begin to cry in his sister's arms, though the fake Maya never stopped looking at him. Adam was forced to look away, turning his back on his mother and Maya, head echoing with the sound of his own weeping as the phantom of his child's self-sobbed with fear and pain.

"What do you want!" He demanded, shouting out into the darkness.

There was no answer at first, but Conn continued to stare in the same direction, and Adam followed his lead. All around them the phantoms stepped closer, hemming them in in a small circle, staring and nothing more.

"What do you WANT!" Adam demanded again

"You are in no place to make demands!"

Adam flinched back in surprise. He had been yelling for his won comfort more than anything else, and had not expected to receive an answer. But this voice was real, he could tell it was by the way it echoed around him, somehow feeling more, corporeal than anything else had. He glanced towards Conn, and inside his head he received an answer.

"Yes."

Adam turned his head towards the voice, "Show your face."

"Still making demands, filthy maggot."

He recognized that..... whoever it was was not speaking English, though it took him a minute for his frazzled mind to determine what he was hearing.

Drev.

It was with that thought that he saw the shape appear in the darkness. She didn't just walk from the darkness, but it was as if she had stepped out of the darkness, or more aptly, the darkness had flowed and coalesced into her silhouette. She was tall, almost eleven feet in height, and she stood with all the power of a general.