When, one day, the world just suddenly ends, Em stumbles into the nothing, an empty void that lies beneath the surface of reality, the sole occupants of which are malevolent shadow beings called glowdarks.
Only a select number of individuals possess...
I spot Melody making a run for it. My first thought is to chase after her, but then I see her Q-blip lying by an exposed root. She must've dropped it in all the confusion. Rex's demonic rampage clears a path for me. I make a beeline for the Q-blip, taking out a couple of strixes along the way.
Big mistake. As soon as I grab the Q-blip, the strixes come at me from all sides. Every inch of me cries out in pain simultaneously. I can't even scream—I choke on a mouthful of feathers. My chakram disintegrates and my arms go limp. I feel my body crushed beneath the weight of the strixes as they continue to pile on top of me.
Then everything gets wet. Warm and wet. I taste blood. Rex pulls me out from underneath the pile of massacred strixes. He's barely recognizable; his green scales are enflamed. Like he's made out of lava. The woods are swimming with strixes—before I can even breathe, we're swarmed again.
He hoists me up onto his back, my skin sizzling against his searing scales, and carries me away from the battlefield, zooming through the trees so fast that my vision's a distorted haze of white and red. I close my eyes to avoid the dizziness and bite my tongue to distract myself from the pain. And then we're falling. I bump my head on the ground and scrape the side of my arm.
Blood trickles down my forehead, and I'm not sure if it's my own or somebody else's. I sit up and get a bearing of my surroundings. Trees. Not bone trees, but good old wooden giants, bare and weathered. A glossy residue clings to the chiselled bark like moss. I wince at my reflection; I can barely recognize me beneath all the scrapes and bruises.
I catch something else in the reflection—a face, melting into a puddle of screams. I look away before my mind can make sense of the vision.
My phorophyx vibrates. There must be a rip nearby. I fish it out of my pocket and lay it flat on my palm. I let it pull me towards the rip. I lose myself in the movement, directing the flow of my aura into the compass.
"Here," I say, stopping right in front of the only nearby tree not covered in reflective gloss. The words roll off my tongue, but my ears barely register them; as long as I'm linked up with the phorophyx, I'm drawn to the rip. "We should mark this spot for later."
"Not to alarm you, pet," says Rex, "But frying pan, fire, and all that."
I snap out of my trance. Is it just me, or are there more trees than there were a minute ago?
No. Not trees. Mounds of dirt rising up from the ground all around us. Sprouting limbs. Growing faces. Dirt hardens into flesh. The figures stalk towards us, their arms outstretched like zombies.
Rex approaches one cautiously. He waits until it gets within arms' reach and then sends his fist through its head; the flesh crumbles away into dirt. "Take that, you ponce!" he says, licking his lips. The dirt mannequin starts to ripple; a gaping maw with serrated fangs takes shape where its neck used to be and bites a chunk out of Rex's arm—there's a loud crack as the fangs shatter his scales.
He curses and staggers back. The mud-beings draw closer, ever so slowly. They're multiplying. There are so many of them that some get wedged in the spaces between the trees, unable to proceed any further. Some of them grow mouths all over their bodies and devour others. They're everywhere.
"Nowhere to run," I utter, feeling a chill.
"Not nowhere." With his good arm, Rex dislodges his jaw. He rams his fist down his throat and regurgitates a saliva covered trinket. It lands in the dirt at my feet. Selina's gauntlet.
As I put on the sticky gauntlet, something nauseating bubbles in the pit of my stomach. The demon saliva squishing against my fingers is harmless compared to the realization that's dawning on me.
This is how it happens. I flex my fingers in the gauntlet. Drag my hand through the air, searching. I feel my fingernails settle into the edge of the rip.
The mud-beings are practically on top of us now. In a moment, they'll devour us.
I close my eyes, and I can see Em's face. I can feel him kissing me.
I open my eyes, and the mud-beings grab us. My fingers cling to the invisible rip—the crack in the fabric of my universe.
We don't have a choice now.
I grab Rex and pull us through the rip.
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Author's Note:
Things have certainly taken a turn for the worse. Something's seriously wrong with Topher. Em and Comma have been separated again. But will she manage to find her way back this time?
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