Chapter Forty-Five: Gonna Need a Bigger Boat
Rain was too far gone. Aside from the Hexer attack, his body was beyond Hanna's capabilities. Nothing could be done with this amount of damage. It was a race between Rain dying from his injuries or the Hexer mutation took hold and changing him into one and cause an uproar in the city.
"Get it together, Hanna!" Siem roars at her.
"There's nothing I can do! All I can do right now is keep him breathing. I can't close the wounds, not with that shit pumping in his system! I can't give him blood because his blood is too incompatible with our sources and I damn well not risking Mist with a transfusion."
"So are you telling me we are just going to watch him die!?" He roars.
"Then you come up with something!" She snarls back while trying to get the ventilator mask on while Rain writhes under her. She didn't have any more options. He was on the verge of losing the ability to breathe. She just might have to kill him, herself.
She could feel her panic rising, like bile in her stomach. She has been in this situation before, but not like this. Most of the time they would end a soldier's life before they were brought into her care. But this time...this time...she had hoped to stop it...reverse it...She could feel her vision clouding over-
"It's ok, let go."
She froze when she heard that voice. Staring at Rain's body from the side, out of place like a drop of water in a barren wasteland, is Kae. But not exactly Kae. He peered up at her for a second, his eyes were inked black and glowing sharp yellow. The tattoo black ink bled from his eyes in intricate and, she had to admit, beautiful patterns down his face and neck, disappearing down under the jacket. His exposed hands were both sharp black claws. This was normally when he was out of control. But he was staring up, calmly and in control. Something about him was...eerily beautiful as he stood there...normally one would put it as he was frighteningly eidolic but he seemed to have calmed her with just his presence alone. That was more unnerving.
Kae's hand lifts to Rain.
"Are you mad?" She asks astonished, snapping back to reality.
A small smile slips on his face. "A little, maybe."
"Stop, Kae!" X skids to a halt at the entrance to the room. He was breathing hard as he looks on, his eyes widen as he sees Kae's eyes go blank.
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I feel myself floating down slowly like a petal caught in the air. But there's nothing but darkness around me. I could...feel something though. It wanted to repel me but I still glided through it like a fish through water, which almost made me smile. Ain't gonna get rid of me that easily, ya punk.
Now the issue is that I have no idea what to expect. His mind might be something like dancing unicorns chasing after me because he hates my guts and who wouldn't want to see their enemy impaled by a horse that farts rainbows?
I never really thought about what would happen if I did die in here...best not to think about it.
My feet hit something wet and grainy. Like sand. Looking down, I noticed where I my feet pressured into it, the sand would light up with small blue orbs, similar to Lady's fur. Bioluminescence. How cool.
Did I just say that something about McGrouchy-Grouch was 'cool'?
Looking around, the glowing sand was scattered across in front of me and it felt like I was stepping on stars. I knew I was on a beach but I felt and heard nothing. No waves crashing into the shoreline or water smacking into my legs. It was a standstill of just tiny little stars and wet sand beneath my feet. But no water.
Find water.
Oh it's you. Gonna be any more helpful?
Silence.
I mentally sigh, what was I expecting? I began walking in any general direction, seeing as I literally have nothing to go on right now.
How far do I have to walk?
I smell rain.
My feet slow as I take in the faint smell. It's...nostalgic. Such an old scent. I frown, now thinking about it. Even though Bolin had rain...the smell wasn't...real. Like it was something that someone painted a likeness of it but couldn't capture the 'life'. Only an intimidation of it.
So this was 'rain' from his old memories.
I look up in the direction I would assume would be the sky, there was no indication of any rain. Just a night sky painted with blues, purples and whites of the Milky Way, unpolluted. But no clouds.
Soft thunder rolled in the background and I took that as a clue to follow. I needed to find the storm.
I needed to 'find water' right?
It's as good a guess as any...
Walking towards it on the endless sandy stars, I felt like I was getting nowhere fast. Was I in one of those irritating dreams where no matter what you do, you don't move, like you're on a treadmill.
More thunder sounds out in the distance, making me feel like I'm wasting time.
I begin to hurry, impatience winning this mental war I'm having. I think I'd rather the stinking unicorns at this rate.
The thunder suddenly became louder, making me jump and under my feet the lights stated to turn into a light, almost turquoise blue as the sound reverberated through my chest and the sand underneath me.
Finally, some God damn progress in the Grinch's mind.
Another rumble of thunder made me almost move into a run, made a task by the sand moving under my feet. This is going to kill my calves. But I don't waste time, even though I'm still not a hundred percent sure what the fuck I'm doing.
How am I even going to help him?
The last two times I've done this, I literally obliterated Queens, along with the host. I almost trip with Zoe's face and her autumn forest trying to surface in my mind.
Not now.
What was I going to do? How am I supposed to-
The floor gives way suddenly and I crash, submerged under bitterly cold water.
But I enjoyed the sensation of it cooling and consuming me. I didn't fight it as I sink further down into the depths of the water, almost in a trance. I realise I was floating amongst the little lights that were now bright aquamarine. They lighted up the darkness I was floating down in. It was calm and quiet and I knew I had to sink down further.
I swim down into the depth, wondering what's on the other side until I spot...treetops slowly rising to meet me. Dafaq?
I see that they were huge pine trees from a bird's eye view and I was floating down towards the drowned forest. As I swim down to find the ground I couldn't help looking back up through the tiny lights, they looked like an imitated starry sky, shining almost white to electric blue.
I assume that the lighter in colour they were getting, the closer I was getting to find him.
Just as I found the solid forest floor underneath me, the lights stopped a meter above this upside down ground.
I turn and began swimming through the trees, deeper into the upside down forest and never fully out of the lights.
As I go further into the dark creepy forest, I could hear sounds of some sort of fight and with each clash of metal, it echoed the sounds of thunder passed me and into the dreamscape. I could...feel the two fighting...both were desperate to win. Both were frustrated at the other's defiance.
Trust grouchy to piss off even a Hexer while being pissed at it at the same time.
I round a tree and find myself in suspended limbo of complete and voided darkness. But in the center was some sort of light, moving while two figures dance about like I was watching some sort of shadow puppet theatre.
My body moves so that I was facing the correct way above the ground, my feet just dangling above the floor, unable to touch the surface as I look dead ahead and raise my hands to the front of me and clap.
The sound rings out and with it, it chased the darkness, revealing a stone floor and Rain; fighting something grotesque. It was a Hexer. That much I was certain. It had the insect like limbs and the crystallised ribcage. Its head was lined with three red eyes on either side of a long mouth with rows and rows of black teeth, sort of like a mutated crocodile missing a neck. But it looked malformed and gooey with sword like spikes jutting out from its shoulders and elbows. A top of each hand had black blades jutting out and it was using it as swords again Rain who was wielding a machete of his own. As he spins to block an onslaught I got a look at his back, something thick and black was attached and I saw that it was the Hexer's tail. It was acting like an umbilicals cord.
"Don't just stand there, fucking do something!" Rain cries out in white-hot anger towards me as he was pinned under the Hexer before rolling out of its grasp and pulling up the blade which groaned under the pressure. "Fucking help already."
Well aren't you rude, asshole.
I'll help alright. My feet suddenly touch the ground as I come towards the pair. The Hexer completely ignores me to the point I felt like it was completely adverting its gaze while Rain turns away for a second to flick the Hexer's next attack away from him while stepping closer towards me.
He turns back to yell at me again, "Stop staring and-"
I choke him off as I sink my claws right through his chest cavity. He lets out a sound of surprise as I watch him unapologetically as he sinks to his knees, his eyes wide at my sudden betrayal.