Silver Carousel: Volume 7

Act 5: Attacked

     Yukio wakes up to the alarm. The sound rings his ears, nearly making him fall from the chandelier.

I must have dozed off...what's going on?

     Boni is nowhere to be found. Yukio springs carefully from the decoration and lands on the table, just barely missing the centerpiece of flowers. He jumps from the table and hides underneath. A group of guards run down the hall, spears raised. He slinks away as they pass, entering his room.
     The place is ransacked, the pure-white bedding torn apart, the bed flipped, the mirror broken. It looks as if a giant dog ripped through in a frenzy.

Perhaps it was Boni and Cicero-

You know the answer.

     Yukio stops at the sudden voice, looking about. It was in his head.

     "Silver..."

     The boys' mismatched eyes turn wary as he looks around. His advanced senses feel, smell, listen, see. Something is amiss. The smell of blood and smoke and burned metal. The sound of crying and death. But nothing to be seen.
     Not yet.

     Yukio runs down the hallway, looking about to see anything- no one. He enters the ballroom- barren. There's no one to be found, yet they seem to be everywhere-

The courtyard.

     Yukio nods at the disembodied voice, running to the courtyard windows. He ducks down quickly and peeks out, his white tufts of hair peeking along with him. 

     It's chaos. There are guards everywhere, fighting these odd looking creatures. They look like deep violet and black jelly, suspended in the air with one blazing red eye and a mouth filled with sharp teeth. They shoot the guards with flaming balls of their own bodies, quickly regenerating the missing part. The Lords are battling, too, only with much larger enemies- giants, made of violet stone. They almost crush them several times, stomping and swinging their weapons. He can see Balthier in a suit of armor, riding Lancelot. Lancelot wears armor, too, on his back and head. 
     Lilia tries to decay a few of the strange jelly things, but the material of their bodies isn't organic- much rather a kind of paranormal ectoplasm. She ducks away with Marie, who probably couldn't get her strings to attach to the gelatin. Blade slices away at the creatures, destroying them- only for them to reattach, sometimes forming bigger blobs. Kazuki is nowhere to be seen, along with Cicero and Boni.

The child.

     Yukio ducks away from the window, running down the hall. Though he doesn't know it, a monster saw him. It slips through the crack of the doors and creeps slowly down the hall, searching for the boy with its giant red eye.
     Yukio runs to the lab, sliding down the staircase railing. He lands gracefully on his feet, making almost no sound. He looks up to see the door still open, but he pays no mind- he has to find the baby.

     The lab seems much larger than it had, the wires nearly tripping him each time. The hum of electricity is now ominous rather than soothing, and the near dead silence is deafening. He searches around until he finds it.
     The embryo is still in one piece, sleeping peacefully amongst the chaos. He carefully takes the container and cradles it, holding the baby close.

     "Don't worry, little one. I'm going to protect you," he whispers. He becomes alert once more, planning his escape- one that's quick, yet safe for the tiny unborn infant in his arms. He crouches and moves to the counter nearest to him. A shadow passes, and he can sense it- a feeling of terror and dread. He sets the jar down and creeps out.