Landing on the floor with a thud, Kallias grunted. They sat up, rubbing their knees and looking around the empty living room. As usual, it was quiet. But the normal desert scene outside the window had been replaced by an inferno that raged just outside, somehow narrowly avoiding burning down the flat. The heat radiated inside just a bit, but it was just enough to be bearable.
"Caoimhe, get your ass in here before I fucking murder you," Kallias said aloud to the room, tapping their one hand on the table loudly.
For moment, nothing happened; it was as if Kallias had not said anything at all. But then a small pop sounded directly behind them, and Kallias jumped a bit in their seat before snapping around to look at the the source of the noise. "It took you long enough."
"What are you doing here? What's wrong?" Caoimhe asked, pulling themselves across the floor to sit beside Kallias.
"I should ask you the same thing, since I didn't expect that your body would be out here setting government buildings and shit on fire. It's pretty fucked up that... you know who... is making your body do this..." Kallias sighed, pulling Caoimhe in for a hug. "And those creepy monsters from the astral plane look like they're actually alive and they're fucking eating people. I've seen enough dead bodies to be scarred for the rest of my life..."
Kallias felt Caoimhe's body grow tense under their arm, and they pulled away, looking into Caoimhe's eye. Their sibling frowned, not making eye contact with them. Raising an eyebrow, Kallias hummed. "It's that bad, huh... I can't imagine not having control over my own body anymore."
"No, it's not that," Caoimhe muttered, looking down at their hands and blinking back the metallic red they saw in them. "You've got it all wrong... Thronakkhar has released me from my mind prison and I'm actually... back in control of my body."
"What?" Kallias said in disbelief, their eyes searching Caoimhe's face. "Don't fuck with me."
"I'm not... I made a bargain asking it to free me in exchange for me becoming a believer. I'm... with the Tribe of Thronakkh now."
Frozen, Kallias could only stare at Caoimhe with their eyebrows knit together. For almost a full minute, Kallias simply sat there, and Caoimhe's eye widened as Kallias began to shake as the adrenaline began to course through their veins.
"I can't believe you've done this!" Kallias shrieked, flipping the table next to them so that it went careening into the opposite wall, just narrowly missing Caoimhe. The table banged back against the floor as Kallias launched themselves at their sibling, grabbing them by the neck and pushing them down to the floor so that their legs were pressing down into Caoimhe's windpipe.
Caoimhe did not struggle, simply allowing Kallias to take out their rage on them as Kallias banged their fist repeatedly against Caoimhe's bony chest.
"You complete fucking idiot... We're all gonna die because of you, you fucking bastard..." Kallias shouted, repeating "We're all gonna die... We're all gonna die..." over and over again.
After a few minutes, Kallias's punches slowed until they could not continue, so they let their hand fall to their sides as they dropped their head and sighed. At that moment, Kallias let out a loud cry as they burst into tears, not even bothering to hide their face or wipe their tears. They cried openly, shuddering with each new set of sobs.
Underneath Kallias's twisted legs, Caoimhe slowly shifted, sliding out from their sibling's grasp. Caoimhe sat next to Kallias and patted their back before rubbing it in small circles in an attempt to soothe them. Instead, Kallias cried harder, recoiling at the touch.
"G-get the fuck away from me..." Kallias said weakly as they wiped their tears and hiccuped. They wiped their nose with the back of their hand. "You sold us all out... and for what? Your own freedom? And now we're all gonna die because of your fucking selfishness? Are you fucking serious? Go fuck yourself, I don't have a twin anymore."
With tears in their eyes, Caoimhe looked away. They knew when it was simply banter between siblings, and then they knew when it has escalated beyond just a fight. Not only had Caoimhe paid with their life, they paid the price of the love shared between them and Kallias. "You can't just disown me... we're blood, aren't we? I thought you would understand... I couldn't do anything in there, and now I'm free. Isn't that what you were trying to do, to help me?"
"No, Caoimhe, that's not how it works. We may have shared a womb, but we clearly don't share anything else. I warned you about going searching for Thronakkhar, and what did you do? You got yourself fucked up and now you're trying to make me feel sorry for you being a dumbass. And you might have freed yourself from your mind prison, but you aren't free. You still have to do Thronakkhar's bidding, and all of that," Kallias shouted, gesturing around animatedly, "is because of you. I can't believe you played yourself like that. But I guess I can believe it because you're a complete dumbass, in the end. And no amount of reading books can fix that, nor can it fix your fucked up, selfish set of morals apparently. You're even more of a coward than Vanya."
Lip quivering, Caoimhe could not stop their tears from flowing down their face. They reached out to hug Kallias once again, but Kallias simply pushed them away coldly. "We'll all be reincarnated... Thronakkhar promised..."
Sighing, Kallias slapped Caoimhe across the face, and Caoimhe instantly stopped sobbing. "I can't believe you think Thronakkhar is telling the truth. You actually trust this thing, that kept you hostage?"
Nodding meekly, Caoimhe wondered where the rational part of their brain had gone in all of this. Kallias gritted their teeth and rubbed the bridge of their nose with their thumb and forefinger. "Thronakkhar is such a dick..."
As soon as the words left Kallias's lips, the lights in the flat began flickering quickly until the point where several of the lights burst, sending pieces of glass flying in all directions. Caoimhe looked up, jumping at the noise. Narrowing their eyes, Kallias announced, "I guess this just means we're going to have to kill god."
Suddenly, the flames from outside the flat increased in size and intensity tenfold, seeping into the living room and raising the temperature to intolerable levels. Caoimhe smacked Kallias on the arm and then gestured at their surroundings. "Why did you have to do that?!"
"I'm done being scared of this bird twat. Someone's got to do it," Kallias yelled over the roaring sound of the flames as they were both engulfed, and everything went black.
-----
When Kallias opened their eyes and came to, they simply did not speak for a moment. They looked straight ahead solemnly while allowing Rain to embrace them; the feeling of Rain's arms around their body made Kallias more acutely aware of their surroundings.
"We have some good news, but we have more bad news," Kallias began, their face unreadable. "Good news: Caoimhe is no longer trapped in their mind prison by Thronakkhar. But the bad news is that not only are they helping Thronakkhar, they bargained with it and got their freedom in exchange for their devotion. Oh, yeah, and the entirety of central London has been consumed by hellfire, and those actual monsters I saw on the astral plane are apparently real now and they seem to have a taste for human flesh."
Fane stared at Kallias and then at Rain, swallowing loudly. She backed up against one of the walls of the corridor and sank to the floor, crumpling up in the fetal position with her head against her knees. "I don't believe that... Caoimhe wouldn't betray us like that..."
"Well, that's just reality for you. They can and they did," Kallias responded, their voice cracking.
"Is that what they told you? There has to be a good reason for it," Rain said, rubbing his chin in thought. "We know Caoimhe isn't always the most rational person, but they don't do things for entirely stupid or selfish reasons, you know this better than anyone. There's always logic behind it."
"Unfortunately in this case it's stupid and bad logic. They asked Thronakkhar to free them and they became one of its devotees, knowing that it intended to bring on the end of the world," Kallias explained, shaking their hair out a bit. "I know being coerced by a supernatural being is scary, but selling out everyone just because you believe it'll keep its word about resurrecting your loved ones is just ridiculous and selfish."
Fane pondered this, wiping a stray tear from her eye. "Well I don't know about you, but we can't just abandon them. And I know you like to act like you're okay with just pretending that things are fine, and that Caoimhe is no longer important to you, but I know I still love them, and I want to find a solution that's beneficial to all of us."
"What, pray tell, do you think we can do when there are literal demons taking over the city, hm?" Kallias retorted.
"Well, didn't we come here to chat to Vanya about what she knows? Maybe she can offer some insight," Rain interjected, pointing to the door of the infirmary. "I mean, she's right there."
Shrugging, Kallias wheeled over to the infirmary with Fane and Rain in tow, and they arranged themselves around Vanya's bed.
"We hope you're all right," Fane said to Vanya, patting her shoulder gently.
"I don't mean to interrogate you, but we want to know all you know about the Tribe of the Thronakkh and about Thronakkhar," Kallias said bluntly, crossing their arms over their body.
All of the members of the group eyed Vanya, and she avoided all of their gazes. Sighing, she recounted what she knew.
"But I think the reason you're skeptics," Vanya said, pointing at all of them in turn, "is because you don't have the piece of Thronakkhar in you, the way Caoimhe and I do. So for us, devotion is inevitable."
"That doesn't make sense, though. Why did I see it in my dreams, then, if I don't have a piece of it?" Kallias asked, raising an eyebrow.
"The water of the womb is very powerful and it can mix some of these things together. Just being close to Caoimhe for those 9 months rubbed some of it off on you, it seems," Vanya responded. "And it explains why your mom would know about Caoimhe and be able to warn you, too."
"How did you know that?" Kallias said in disbelief. "I literally only spoke about that with Caoimhe in the astral plane..."
"Because we're all technically parts of the same body, we can hear each others' thoughts, and I've heard Caoimhe's from time to time. But it doesn't happen very frequently. Especially in here, these things are a bit cut off," Vanya explained. "We don't have a lot of time before Thronakkhar gets so powerful that it destroys this place, though. It was stupid of me to think I could just hide in here forever. I'm starting to hear some of what my siblings are saying again..."
"London is the last stronghold, after all. And it looks like it's falling..." Fane muttered. "So I'm guessing you have no idea what we can do stop things from going even more wrong?"
"Really the only thing it looks like we can do now is to just watch the world end..." Rain said solemnly. "I don't care for this shit at all."
"If you're asking to prevent the end of the world, Fane, you're delusional. This is not really something humans are capable of doing," Shuang noted. "Besides, we might as well have fun in our last hours instead of trying to stop the inevitable."
The group sat there in silence, contemplating Shuang's words.
"I hope Caoimhe was right about us being reincarnated," Fane said, trying to sound lighthearted but failing miserably.
"You guys are such defeatists," Kallias scolded.
"Really? What do you propose we do then, love?" Rain asked them, trying to keep his face calm even though he had begun to sweat profusely and his hands were shaking slightly. "Suggestions would be more helpful than just blanket critical statements, you know."
Just as Kallias opened their mouth to respond, a loud bang sounded not far off in the distance. A second bang echoed even closer, and the ground shook beneath them as they all looked at each other. There was a pause, and then a moment later, the deafening bang came from above their heads as the roof of the infirmary peeled away, with pieces of rubble dropping down around them with many clunk clunk clunks as they hit the tiles.
Kallias shielded their head with their arms as the wind and smoke blew inside, and they coughed loudly. The sun outside had set already, but the lights illuminated the area. Faintly, Kallias could see figures floating above them, and they hear piercing roars approaching the facility. A symphony of roars filled the air directly above the group as the creatures began to slam into the walls of the facility and break them down one by one. The creatures that served as bulldozers looked like the first creature Kallias had seen – they were humanoid and entirely black, with teeth where their faces should have been. When they stopped battering the walls, they shoveled the rubble into their mouths and seemed to gobble up the rocks and pieces of concrete with ease.
"Holy fuck..." Rain said, quickly grabbing his cloak and throwing it over himself as his body moved on its own. He then stood from his seat and grabbed Kallias's wheelchair, and began wheeling it down the corridor quickly. "We have to get the fuck out of here. Let's all stick together."
The group hurried along together, quickly cloaking themselves just in case, trying to find the quickest route to exist the facility. The main entrance was blocked by fallen rubble, and so they had to find a detour through one of the side doors. As they approached the exit, one of the walls collapsed inward, narrowly missing Kallias as it instead hit Rain, and the pieces of concrete piled up on top of Rain, burying him deep beneath hundreds of pounds of the building that was meant to serve as a safe house. This all happened so quickly that Kallias had not even seen it happen and had to take a moment to process. And Rain did not even have the chance to scream, his voice being cut off by the falling materials instantaneously.
"Hey, why did we stop moving...?" Kallias asked, looking behind themselves only to see that Rain was no longer pushing them. "Rain? Where are you?"
Shuang, Vanya, and Fane simply stared at the feet sticking out from beneath the pile of rubble, and Kallias followed their eyes with their own, before their face fell and they started gripping at the wheel of their chair so tightly, they thought they would bruise their fingers.
"No..." Kallias muttered, feeling their body begin to shake and their face reddening. Their vision started getting cut off peripherally and they acquired the sensation of looking through a telescope as they found it hard to breathe, and their soul felt like it was leaving their body. "No, no, no, no. Baby... No..."
"We need to get out of here," Fane said sternly, looking up as another creature made its way closer to them. She started pushing Kallias's wheelchair, and Vanya and and Shuang ran after her, picking up the pace. They ran through the side door and out into the gardens, running as far away from the destruction as possible. Throughout the trek, Kallias was muttering to themselves and tugging at their messy red hair, their eyes wide as tears flowed profusely. When they were all finally in the clear, Kallias collapsed, throwing themselves out of their chair and wailing loudly as Fane rubbed their back gently.
"They killed him... Give him back..." Kallias shouted through tears as Vanya and Shuang sat next to them, rubbing their shoulders in an attempt to give some comfort, but Kallias was inconsolable. The three women looked at each other with a concerned look, and then Vanya stared off into the distance at the creatures who were destroying the facility.
"It looks like our force field is gone for good," Vanya noted with a frown.
"Hey, we just lost one of our own. Show some respect," Fane snapped at Vanya, who immediately apologized and turned sheepish.
"I know we want to grieve Rain, but we need to keep going. There's no way we can stay here without avoiding detection or getting hurt," said Shuang, trying to usher the others along the paths with her. "I didn't know him that well, but I think he would have wanted us to keep going and stay alive."
"True... we can't sit around crying. Sorry Kallias, it's time to go," Fane said gently, helping Kallias back into their wheelchair. The tears continued to flow down Kallias's cheeks, and the expression painted on their face was one of pure despair and hopelessness, and they were at a point where they questioned what else they were alive for.
"Everyone around me just... dies or leaves..." Kallias murmured as Fane pushed them along the path. Once Kallias took to the path, Fane let them proceed on their own.
After some time, they had finally made it out of the vicinity of the facility and they had managed to avoid the creatures that had taken a liking to destroying the building. Now they were completely exposed, having lost the one safe place they had. From the path, all they could do was watch as beasts of all sizes, shapes, and colors descended on the ruins, feasting on whatever they could get their limbs on. There was one creature that resembled a harpy with eyes running down its body in a line, and on its face where its eyes should have been, there was instead a snake poking out of each socket. Its leathery wings flapped as it screamed and held itself in the air. When it opened its slimey green mouth, it inhaled the pieces of rock and cement around it like a vacuum cleaner with no bottom. Another beast resembled a giant jackal with spikes instead of fur, and its muzzle was huge and distorted, its face twisting as it battered the walls before it. It could easily take down a bear in a fight. Luckily, the beasts seemed to be focused on their work and they did not follow the group as they departed the scene.
As they walked toward the town, they saw more creatures working on devouring the homes in the area. The air was filled with the stench of rot mixed with cement and brick and earth, and the sound of loud chewing and violent crunches. Despite the chaos, the beasts seemed very systematic, methodical in their approach, not moving on to other buildings until they finished what they had started. From the houses, terrified, screaming townspeople poured out into the roads, fleeing from the carnage and trying their best to avoid falling debris.
Just then, an orchestra of beeps and whirring rung out from Kallias's and the rest of the group's pockets, and they each quickly drew their hologram devices. The screens illuminated with red letters that read "This is an emergency evacuation. Please leave your dwelling and make your way to your nearest bunker."
The people fleeing their homes nearby pulled their hologram devices from their pockets as they ran, glancing behind themselves at the creatures before deciding to completely ignore directions. Vanya opened the map on her hologram device to find the nearest bunker, and sure enough, it had been knocked in and was in the process of being devoured by a beast that resembled a hunched over gnome with massive tusks and pointed, three-toed feet with yellow nails and thick saliva that seemed to have a mind of its own, while also defying gravity.
"Well that's out of the question, then," Vanya said with a deep sigh.
Bewildered, Kallias could not hold back their tears again, feeling the stress getting to them and wearing away at them like a pickaxe on stone. Each passing moment simply increased their blood pressure and their pulse little by little, and yet all they could do was visualize Rain's face and think about how they would never see him again. They buried their face in their hands. "We're all gonna die..."
"Hey, listen to me..." Fane said softly, holding Kallias's face in her hands and exhaling. "You were the one telling us not to be defeatists, and now it's your turn to take your own advice. We will get out of here."
"Truthfully, I said that when the stakes were much lower," Kallias sniffled quietly. "And I don't know if you've noticed, but we're literally surrounded by a bunch of monsters who would happily eat us for dinner, Rain is fucking... dead... a-and... my sibling has gone to the fucking... dark side."
Kallias hiccuped, their stuttering getting worse as they spoke. Their tears flowed freely as they recounted this, and Fane's face fell. "I really don't want to believe you on that last bit..."
"Well, that's the truth, all right? That's just reality! Don't be delusional, okay? Caoimhe is dead to us, and there's no point pretending otherwise," Kallias almost shouted at her, but they stopped when Fane simply showed no visible reaction on her face.
"You're speaking from a place of pain, and I understand that. But unless I hear it from them, I still have faith that they aren't lost to us," Fane replied, unmoved.
"Fine. Have fun being delusional," Kallias said sharply, before wiping the corners of their eyes and rolling down the path ahead of them, leaving the rest of them behind.
In that moment, a scream rang out. Vanya had been lifted from the ground and flailed about in the air, held up high by a creature the size of a cow with the wingspan the length of a train car. It was black, with a long, oblong head with no eyes and a giant, extended mouth that contained only sharp teeth and no beak. The shining talons on its turkey-like feet dug into Vanya's flesh, causing her to cry out. Somehow, the creature remained suspended in mid-air without the need to flap its wings very frequently. Shuang cried out to Vanya, trying to leap and grab her by the leg and managing to hold on for dear life. She had no choice but to grip onto Vanya as the massive beast cawed a few times before circling twice and then zooming off into the night as quickly as it had appeared.
Fane could only watch with her mouth agape. She picked up a stone from the cracked ground instinctively and launched it at the bird creature as it departed, but it paid her no mind. While Kallias and Fane were so preoccupied with the departing beast, they did not hear the flying snake approaching them at full speed.
Performing a corkscrew dance across the heavens, the snake, which more resembled a dragon with sludge dripping from its body up close, crawled across the sky on its belly. It had no wings but did have very small, stubby, dexterous feet with surprising grip strength. When it wrapped its feet around Kallias's body, the slime seemed to burn into their skin, the sickening smell of sulfur wafting through the air and into Kallias's nose, making them gag. Kallias struggled, trying to shimmy their body away from the beast, but to no avail. All they could do was hold onto their wheelchair tightly as the creature scooped them up and continued twirling through the air, its slime leaving a trail of smoky sulfuric droplets.
Looking back, Kallias could only stare weakly at Fane, as they were ferried across the skies at inhuman speeds.