Death was so inexplicably near I could taste it: oil.
These were my last moments, and they would consist of lingering recollections of claws digging under my skin that would tear each layer part by part until there was nothing left but bones to crack. The thick grime of blackened lard would coat my tongue as I screamed my last breaths. Obscurity of the monsters would blind me into timelessness damnation.
There are better ways to die.
"Do not give up, Descartes. I can still train you. Give into the ringing!" A few curses followed as Mandell's voice raised higher and higher in anticipation at every wasted second.
Give in to the ringing or die; I couldn't decide which was worse. The screaming of the demons around me and the ringing blaring in my head careened and hacked through my brain. Death would have done well to still them both.
But to be frayed by the hooks of beasts or to be macheted by the ringing were both fates that lay in uncertainty. Yet, one path could always be revisited.
Fingers clawing at the hardened earth, I tore into the loose soil, shredding and uprooting golden patches of grass as one last hollar of pain ripped through my throat the moment I relented to the ringing. The pain terrorized like I thought it would. The final blow had been passed, and the point that tested against the wall that blocked it was pierced straight through like an arrow into my mind- an unbearable pain that should have yielded blood, but immediately a voice rang through loud and clear.
The excruciating pain in my head was gone, but it didn't give me enough time to recover. There were still the fingers that spun around my leg like thread on a spool, fighting to reel me back into their waves of teeth and hell.
The fear that freezes you, bring it out, Descartes. Imagine it freezing around your body. Freeze the shadows and the hands that bind you.
Nonsense. Mandell was mostly speaking nonsense, but I tried to imagine it in the way he said. The fear that hammered and welled within was pooled into a tight knot in the center of my chest, and I visualized, although I felt nothing, bringing it up to the surface so that I was coated in my own freezing fear.
I felt like an idiot for thinking so, but the moment I did a different scream from the ones around me shrieked sharply before it disappeared with the fierce hold on my leg.
Along with it, the victorious screams of the shadows dulled into an eerie thick silence that rested heavily on the entire clearing. Not even the wind made a sound. It was a silence too sudden.
Stand up, Descartes! You are a fool if you think you can fight from the ground. Stand!
Mandell. His voice spoke clearly in my head.
Breaths quick and sputtering, I hustled recklessly to my feet and hobbled frantically around to find that the blue orb had once again disappeared. The shadows hadn't, however. Their cauldron black forms had conquered the majority of the clearing, contorting their monstrous silhouettes so that they could reach closer and closer.
"Mandell?" I breathed out while limping about in the small opening of space I had left.
Without the physical presence of the blue orb floating besides me, I never felt more alone- vulnerable. I was trapped in the corner like some frightened animal ready for the slaughter. My heart thundered like fists at the speed of a hummingbird's wings, and my feet pointlessly shuffled around and shook like my nerves.
The way between me and my escape was so tauntingly near. There was nothing in the air around me- just complete emptiness, but it was the ground that was flat but littered in tar. If only I could find a way to fly above it.
Lesson one. Fighting begins with the mind. Attacking blindly without visualizing your battle in advance is suicide. Always take control of the situation and force your cards into your opponents hands. Only allow them to make moves you want them to take. Only give them moves you wish them to place. Wait, Descartes. Wait for them to get closer.
"Are you crazy?" I spat at his whole statement and spun around once more to take mental note of the shadows' positions. There was no time for ludicrous lessons filled with inspirational words that held no meaning.
The safe zone that separated me from them was closing at an alarming rate. "They are close enough as it is!" I exclaimed when panic welled in my throat.
You must wait. You are weak and untrained. You have once chance to take out as many of them as you can. From there, we shall see what you can do.
"What I can do?" I choked out and jumped back when a hand leapt out from the ground in efforts to grab me. "I thought you were supposed to-"
Shut up, Descartes, and listen to me. It is impossible to defeat them in their two dimensional form. You can attack and make all the craters in the ground you want, but they will do what shadows do. They will cast over the trenches and persist towards you. They are only vulnerable when they reach out from the ground and expose their bodies. That is when you attack and blow them to shards.
Bumps flared across my body once I recalled what happened when they attacked my sister and I in her room- their amputated arms and beheaded forms shaking and squirming along on the floor and walls. All the hands and heads that leaped out from the ground to attack disappeared like they had been blown off by grenades.
Had I done that?
Whatever it was I had to do again, but I swallowed hard when they closed in on me.
Taunting me by leaving a foot of free space, they began their ascent by writhing their fingers through the air like mangled tree limbs that grew into a towering wall of decaying vines. These weren't monsters that prowled and hunted to eat like animals. These were creatures of incredible intellect that killed for sport; I could feel it as I followed the hollow gaze of death- two empty sockets and a wicked grimace- in horror from the ground up.
"Now?" I asked shakily under my breath.
No. Not yet.
Nerves ate away at my skin when their fingers closed and interlaced over me like a dome, slowly choking out the sun bit by bit until a small ray of light glimmered down on my face like my last remaining hope.
"Now?" I asked a bit louder with voice wavering and breath escaping but refusing to return.
I was going to die from a heart attack if anything. The walls of my throat clamped together, blocking all the oxygen needed to flow through my body, and my mind began to blot and grow light.
Not. Yet.
Shaking in absolute fear, I felt myself pale as one shadow lowered itself down so that it met me face to face, and drew in closer until it's spread of putrid, decomposing coal black exterior was near enough for me to notice the small wrinkled discrepancies in it's skin. I held my breath when it snarled and snorted quick like chortles of maniacal laughter.
Now. I prayed that word over and over again when I felt it's musk breath dampen the bridge of my nose and fill my nostrils with the whiff of a rotting corpse.
With the monster this close, fear rebounded rapidly inside my chest, across my body, and down to my twitching fingers.
Now!
Mandell bellowed the final word, and relief poured through me when his voice began to command me step by step.
Do what you did before. Depict the fear turning and churning in your gut, but steer it so that it travels across the veins in your body, sparking between the gaps of your neurons, towards your hands. Feel it gather in the dips of your palms- accumulating into a mass a sphere of light.
Daring to close my eyes, I imagined my fear jumping through the synapses of my nerves, sparking like bolts of lightening, and willed all the energy to gravitate to the center of my palms. Unlike before, I could actually feel the changes happening in my body as I imagined them: a direct line, an effervescent tether, was strung from the bottom of my gut, across my body, to the tips of my fingers. And as I pulled more and more of that energy, my fingertips began to freeze and tingle like I had dipped them in cool water.
Now fire! Mandell cried vigorously, Imagine unleashing the light from your hands, freeing an explosion of ice and wind.
Reopening my eyes, I found the small dips and crevices of their putrid, oily midnight forms glisten and flicker with a fiery blue light. The cone of darkness they basked me in was now aglow with this unnatural light, and it took me a while to realize that it came from my own two hands.
Elated, I let out a shaky sigh of relief while turning my hands to take a good look at what I was able to conjure. It was exactly how it looked like when I was about to punch Julian on the field that day, but this time I wasn't afraid to see it. Matter of fact, I welcomed it with an appeased grin that quickly narrowed into a dark smirk as I stared back at the shadow in front of me. It quickly sensed the looming threat and hissed while it slowly backed away from the light.
But it wouldn't be able to run. None of them could.
Clenching my fists and extending my arms out, I unleashed the floodgates of power that exuded from a wild amalgam of fear and confidence- lightly smirking at the feel of the bitter cold nipping at my fingers.
Three.
Two.
One.
In a sudden explosion of blue flames, I watched a ball of light with levitating shrapnel of ice expand like a dome around my figure but detonate in a devastating blast that rushed out and destroyed everything in my path. It erupted through the clearing in a cloud of blue mist, and it mercilessly tore through the shadows that stood above the ground- the shards of ice reducing them to black chunks that swirled up into the current of the draft and flowed out into the forest.
Even the trees around me bent under the wind the persisted past them- their branches shaking and shuddering the crows that flew off them in a frenzy.
When the tidal wave had passed and effectively removed the shadows that rose from the ground, I stumbled back and tried to process what just happened.
Holy. Hell.
That was amazing.
I did that.
I, Matthew Rin Descartes, did this. The clap of the explosion still reverberated in my ears, echoing through my brain in thunderous resonations. However, Mandell managed to clearly cut through the chaos and pull me back on track.
The fight is not over yet, Descartes. The remaining few will attack faster and fiercer to avenge their dead. Always be on guard.
Shaking my head to rid the daze that clung to my head, I nodded and refocused my eyes on the few remaining shadows on the floor. "I'm ready."
Similar process, Mandell stated rather calmly despite the circumstance, you must draw from the fear again. This time, imagine arrow heads of ice hovering over each finger.
Picturing small spears of ice with closed eyes, I opened them to find they looked exactly how I modeled them in my head, sharp, long, and so thin at the edges they glistened. My jaw dropped wide open while I brought my hands close up to my face and watched them jounce impatiently while they remained loyal and obedient to call my call.
This was absolutely amazing, and I only wished I could have the time to study and marvel over the sheer enchantment of the ice that appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
They were ready to go and to fly out into wherever I wanted them to in the clearing, and it took everything to hold them back.
Narrowing my eyes in on the icicles that floated and danced above my fingertips, my eyebrows furrowed in concentration as I willed them to grow larger and larger. Determination flashed and glared confidently through my eyes as I followed the growth with steel hard concentration. There were ten splinters of ice- reaching points and widths of a spear head, and there were seven shadows left.
From the corner of my eye, I saw them advance, slither, and jump across the golden field.
Closer and closer.
However, I secured my eyes on my creations, and I willed them to grow by pulling harder and harder at the thread of power that stemmed deep within. The bond was strong before, but the more power I used the more the tether wavered and weakened.
Almost there.
Teeth clenched and eyes strained, I huffed and burned the anxiety to fuel the layers of ice that crackled around the spearheads to transform into daggers, and as they grew larger so did the shadows when they slowly elevated their bodies off the ground.
Mandell's curses and reprimands were merely echoes in my ears when I remained lost in focus. He wanted me to fire, but somehow I knew what I was doing. I knew where the shadows were.
Three were in a small scattering on the right, two approached head on, and one on the left appearing from the woods, which left one somewhere behind me.
Somehow, I got this.
Do you want to die, boy?
No, I didn't, and I wasn't going to die
The moment the line of power underneath my skin sputtered and shook as the last of its strength had been exhausted, I snapped my head up and glared at each of my targets. And almost like second nature, I extended my hand, palm upwards, and flicked each finger towards each of my targets.
Five daggers shot through the air, their aim true when ice lodged deep into the heart of one beast; two shards grazing the necks of two monsters, causing them to grasp their wounds and stumble to their knees as dark red, almost black, liquid guzzled out from their fingers; one going straight through the stomach; and the final cracked through the skull of another shadow. Swirling around on my heel to catch one that leaped in the air to jump me, the impact of the ice to the center of its throat jolted it back.
It's body thudded heavily against the floor- dead, and not wasting much time I turned completely around to face the last one.
One shot of ice screeched blindly into the open sky when the shadow behind tackled me to the floor. It wriggled and screamed in my face, giving me the perfect view of its endless throat of darkness and rows of polished, jagged, ebony teeth, but I screamed back and dug my fist under its stomach, firing the remaining two ice daggers into its stomach.
After each hit, its back jolted and convulsed upwards, and after the shadow uttered one last scream the corpse flopped over me- a puddle of warm, viscous substance seeping into my jacket and shirt.
The last shadow was dead.
No. No.
Breathing heavy, I leaped onto my feet and stared terrified at the dead bodies around me. I knew they were monsters that almost killed my sister and me on multiple occasions, but their human-like figures were what scared me. The way they died seemed so human like, and it disturbed me.
My face paled as I panted and watched their bodies mysteriously fade into the ground and disappear.
Pictures of their blood gushing out from their bodies and the way they squirmed in an unwillingness to die taunted chills to terrorize my body.
Descartes, by the hands and grace of the Othor, why did you ignore my instructions?
Mandell lambasted me harshly, but the daze of death that had flashed past my eyes and my willingness to take life haunted me. I know I was left with no choice, but it felt so wrong to see their cries and squirms before they drew their last breath- a breath I took away.
Descartes, do you hear me?
"Yeah," I responded meekly after swallowing hard and scanning my eyes across the clearing to make sure there was no more, "but they're gone. I was able to do it on my own."
That may be true, but you are a fool for acting out of line. You could have been killed.
"I could have." Lowering myself down to the ground, I hissed at the searing pain that shot up my leg. Though the blood from the shadows on my shirt may have disappeared alongside their bodies, my blood still soaked through the rips at the bottom of my jeans. Thankfully, the cuts weren't deep, but they hurt like hell.
Then why did you chose to not listen to me? Mandell persisted angrily, berating me like he was my father.
Did he really want to ask questions while he could clearly see that my leg was torn up? Scowling, I answered, "I don't know. I just knew what I was doing somehow."
Mandell scoffed. You hardly qualify as a beginner, Descartes. Next time, you must listen to me and do as I say.
Biting my bottom lip while clenching the base of my kneecap to block out the pain in some fruitless way, I rolled my eyes. "Sure, yeah. But honestly, I think I have it."
The thickness of your skull utterly upsets me. He sighed bitterly. Newborns can perform what you-
Suddenly, his voice stopped mid-sentence. There was only silence, and now that things started to calm down I began to realize how crazy this all was: ice shooting out from my fingers, a voice guiding me through my mind, and a massacre of shadows that was all on my hands. My eyes widened when I realized that this wasn't my first kill. Back in Autumn's room, I blasted the head off one.
I did that.
My fingers grew cold at the thought of what I did and what I took away, but Mandell's sudden absence was able to draw me away from the dark train of thought.
"Mandell?" I questioned, alarm lacing my tone. It was odd calling out to him, knowing that I was physically alone in the field.
Descartes, get to your feet, now. Not all the shadows are gone.
The worry and distress chipping at his tone coursed quickly through my mind, and I jumped up to my feet, eyeing the trees. There was nothing there, but were there more coming? Again, he was silent, and I was left alone with my own thoughts, which seemed to flash every possible scenario my mind could conjure.
"Mandell!" This time, my voice was raised higher in anticipation. If there were more around me, I had to know where and when to expect them.
Shapes kept shifting between the trees, but it was hard to decipher whether there were actual figures lurking in the forest or if it was the figment of my paranoia coming back to haunt me.
You have to get home. I just got word that a few of the shadows found their way to your house. Your sister and her friend are in danger.
A/N: There ya' go ;)
Thanks so much for all the votes and comments, you guys legit make my day <3 I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Another cliffhanger, I suppose?
It's a bit unedited, and the majority was written in the ungodly hours of the morning, talking about 4 AM.
<3 You guys rock. Imma go sleep <3