Sleep with the Fishies

Part 4: Call Now to Die Instantly

     The ledger was a normal enough notebook except it hummed with power and gave off faint red smoke that smelled like blood. Puckered up from the cover were the titles of the eldritch gods it could summon. "Can't leave it blank," I muttered, reading the six options. "Fuck."

     The Monster, the Messenger, the Dreamer, the Decay, the Tide, and the Tempest. The last three were sunken in, which I guessed meant they were already summoned. Didn't really leave my options open. The Monster or the Messenger. Which did I want to fight? The Monster sounded straightforward but promised to be fucked up, while the Messenger called to some dark part of my mind. I gouged out the letters for the Dreamer and the Monster and tossed them out the window. Now the ledger would defer to the only god left: the Messenger.

     I came out with the ledger in time to see the black van pull away towards the road. It almost escaped. Trees parted like grass beside the road and a force slammed into the van. Windows smashed and the van was hurled off the cliff. What looked like shimmering steam leapt after it, and an explosion ripped through the air.

     I hesitated, wondering if the tower was safer.

     The tower shuddered around me. I threw myself at the stairs, practically falling down them as fast as I could. Wood groaned. The tower leaned dangerously as a monstrous bulk ascended.

     I slammed into a corner and nearly pitched over the edge. My stomach left where it was supposed to be, and I realized the tower was falling. Wood shattered overhead, and the ranger cabin sailed into the woods. I leapt off the flight, stumbling and rolling and tumbling down the stairs, bruises springing to life all over my body.

     A force punched me in the gut, starting a great pounding in my head that sliced my thoughts to ribbons and flung me from the tower. Horrible weightlessness. I struck the ground and lay winded, body wreathed in pain. The tower crashed around me, and I curled in fetal position in the eye of the storm.

     Keener pain in my side brought me back. I sought the source with a shaking hand. A wooden stake was plunged into the ledger and had just nicked me. It shuddered and I managed to toss the ledger away before it became a puddle of blood. I dragged myself into a sitting position against a stray beam. Wood dust burned my lungs and set my skin stinging. "Fu—" I broke off into coughing. My eyes were streaming tears, but I made out a something square growing larger as it—"FUCK!" I dove away as a beam buried itself in the ground where I'd been sitting.

     I dropped to my belly, crawling under the rubble as shards traced angry red lines across my back. My loose sleeve caught on stray debris. Where was it? Could it hear me? Smell me? I tried to think. Every dead end made my heart crack a rib. The car. Get to it.

     I popped up like a gopher, clambering onto a beam and running across them as best I could without snapping my ankles into more kindling. The sea of shattered tower ended soon, I just needed—An invisible arm flung me into the sky, then struck my back to slam me down into the mess of broken lumber.

     I lay gasping.

     Dimly, I heard an approaching siren. I twisted my aching neck in time to see a police car barrelling towards me. The tires skipped and caught on a crude wooden ramp, thrusting it airborne. The driver bailed. It crashed into the air above me and was caught there. Fire ripped through the cabin and momentarily enveloped an immense, shifting mass. I gaped at it. Bloodied hands pulled at me. "GET UP, JOANAH!"

     His face was a mess through my blurry vision, but I recognized it. "Typhon?"

     "Who else?" He pushed me into a run, stumbling and falling across the wooden sea. We dropped onto bare grass. He shoved me towards the forest. "GO!"