Chapter Ten / Battle of the Forty-Ninth Floor - Part Two

Just as the figure emerged from the heart, the beam slowly dissipated, and the air stiffened; like trying to breathe in an enclosed space. The figure was bathed in violet ooze dripping from its body into the flesh beneath. The figure unfurled its body beneath the ooze, arms, and legs like that of a human. Its skin pale, almost transparent, yet below the rib cage no skin clung to the body until below the waistline. Its organs appeared to pulse with life beneath its skin, and its heart thumping away. It had as many fingers and toes as a human, its nails long. It had no face, eyes, nor ears, featureless in every way. Growing from its head, a ring of flesh like that of a halo sprouted just above where ears would be present. Spikes grew out from the halo, their length varying between ebbing flows as if they were alive and wailing towards the sky.

A white light emanated from the figure, then white feathered wings appeared on its back. The wings drained the light away, taking it for themselves, and it radiated with glossy feathers. From the sky, the winged creature flew down and knelt before the figure. It took up its halberd in both its hands and presented it to the figure. The figure placed a hand on the shaft of the halberd and the halberd transformed. Its bone churned and reconfigured, molding itself into a white shaft, the axe removing itself completely. Instead, the halberd changed itself into a white spear, its white tip gleaming in radiating light.

The figure took up the spear and slammed it through the winged creature’s gut, then thrust the tip through the ground. The winged creature screamed and tried to remove the spear – but it was imbedded in the ground behind it. The figure stepped closer to the creature until they were mere inches from each other, the winged creature still screaming with a snapping maw. A mouth formed on the figure’s face, omnivorous teeth shaping beneath its lips, and took hold of the winged creature’s snapping jaw. It ripped the jaw from the creature’s face, consuming it, and began eating the rest of the winged creature’s face.

Blood spurt from the gaping hole beneath the winged creature’s eye as it was slowly devoured. The figure ripped the winged creature’s arms and legs from its body and ripped open its chest – a beating heart revealing itself beneath. The figure acted as if confused but continued to consume the flesh.

Arn watched but felt something pull him forward. He was unsure, but he felt if this continued then something terrible would happen. Arn stepped forward, then ran towards the figure.

Noticing Arn, the figure, blood dripping from its mouth, looked away from its meal. With an unheard shout - everything became white.

 

Ezbalath looked out over the river ditch with Gelicarus beside him, the two only observing from beyond.

“What is that thing?” Ezbalath asked.

The two watched as the white feathered figure devoured the winged creature.

“I’m not sure…” Gelicarus said, his words lingering as he watched his Lord rush across the field towards the creature.

The figure looked away from its meal, and towards his Lord. Gelicarus had only a moment.

“Ezbalath! Down!” Gelicarus shouted and forced himself upon Ezbalath.

The two landed on the flesh beneath with a wet thud.

“Don’t open your eyes.” Gelicarus said close enough to feel Ezbalath’s breaths.

A rumble, the moving of bodies, and then a white bright enough to illuminate their closed eyes.

 

Everything was white. Arn could see nothing beyond it. A sizzling sound trapped itself in the deafening white, nothing heard beyond it.

Am I dead? Arn wondered. He felt an unconscious sigh of relief. Ah, then it’s over.

He felt a tug, and his legs moving beneath him. His limbs were heavy, slacking beneath him. How long have I been walking? He wondered.

Arn walked the white with no end in sight. Why can’t I stop? My legs just keep going.

Arn’s body kept walking, and he felt a sensation in his right hand – the hilt of his sword. He gripped the hilt tightly and pulled it out in front of him. Completely black against the white, the blade shimmered in moving shadows that swirled and twisted. In the swirling black, a figure stood in the distance clad in white and draped in coiling white tentacles that spread into the dark.

Is that where I’m going?

A mockery. Arn’s own voice hissed in reply.

The strength in Arn’s right arm diminished, and the blade sunk again to his side. A burning sensation crawled from Arn’s right hand and began spreading to the rest of his body. The pain was intense, and Arn wanted to see the source of the pain, but his eyes couldn’t move from where he had seen the white figure.

It mocks everything. Arn’s voice hissed. It will take everything.

It will take everything. Arn’s voice raged inside his mind and repeated.

Rage filled his lungs. It was overwhelming. Arn had never experienced this kind of rage before yet felt he had. It was a distant thing, like a memory that somehow felt alien to his own thoughts. He wondered where the rage had come from, but eventually it subsided and smoldered. Arn knew then he could never remove it and knew it was never alien to begin with. It’s a terrible thing to deceive oneself, Arn thought.

Arn felt a chill permeate through his mind.

If you want everything - then take it. Arn answered.

The pain spread from his fingertips to his toes, his eyes burning away in the light.

Feast. Arn said together.

 

Ezbalath felt a shiver run over his body. He rubbed his hands together, the air becoming frigid. The white that had illuminated even the inside of his eyes, had disappeared, and Ezbalath opened his eyes. Darkness was all that Ezbalath could see, the white completely swallowed by it. Then in an instant, everything returned to its gruesome normality. Light fell through cracks from the nearly unseen ceiling above, illuminating the flesh fields.

Ezbalath looked at Gelicarus, who didn’t stir from his position. In front of them a row of skeletons had been incinerated, ash piles made of their bones moved along the field of flesh in the slight breeze that gathered; a few flakes resting upon Ezbalath’s head. Ezbalath began to stand, but his legs stumbled beneath him. They felt numb to his touch, and suddenly Ezbalath felt as if something was off. Everything was. Nothing felt the same, his fingers pricked his skin, his eyes felt like they could drop out of his skull if he didn’t look up.

“Gelicarus, something is wrong! Something is very wrong!” Ezbalath panicked.

A hand grabbed Ezbalath’s arm and pulled him down to the ground.

“Don’t move, and don’t open your eyes.” Gelicarus whispered. “The battle happening in front of us is not over and neither one of us can withstand it until it is. Stay close to me.”

They huddled together, and a rattling of bones drew close to them. The sound halted with several thuds, that Ezbalath opened his eyes only momentarily to see as the Dark Skeletons, who knelt with shields in front of them.

“Don’t open your eyes.” Gelicarus harshly whispered. “Don’t open them until I say so.”

 

Arn chased a shadow in the deep white, black and wrapped in moving darkness. Its shape was familiar to him, as if looking at himself. Behind him another shadow chased after Arn. The trio moved towards the figure draped in white, its tendrilled visage waiting on a plateau just above them.

The front shadow hurried a distance away, its steps always faster than Arn, and it dodged to the right while catching something in its left hand. Then the shadow stabbed the ground with the caught thing, and quickly kicked it. The shadow retrieved the thing he stabbed into the ground, and crushed something in his hand, then quickly ran towards the figure in the distance.

Arn followed and felt air rushing towards him, he dodged to the right, and something pierced the white. He caught the thing, a white shaft barely seen in the white, and pierced the ground with it. Then Arn moved his hand to the end of the spear and kicked at its center. The shaft snapped in two. Arn released the end of the spear and reached down to the front half – there he retrieved the tip. The tip radiated an immense heat, enough to feel as if it would sear away the flesh on his hand. Arn squeezed tightly on the radiating metal with his left hand, and to his surprise, within moments it cracked and broke in his grasp. Shadows coiled around the broken metal, and the white scenery disappeared. The flesh fields returned to Arn’s vision, but the shadows didn’t disappear. Arn wasted no time and followed the shadow. The shadow behind Arn performed just as he did.

Arn’s mind raced to understand what was happening. He felt in control of his actions, however, also felt an irrelevancy in that control. His body moved, swept away in a current of instinct. He could feel the air radiating with an unknown change, perplexing and unreasonable – as if his mind thought the air he breathed should be unbreathable, yet his body breathed still. The radiating change emanated from the figure watching in the distance.

Arn watched the shadow in front of him, and turned his attention to the figure, the distance closing, however, just as he did – the figure disappeared. It reappeared beside him, running along with him, and with the spear he thought he had just destroyed in its hands. Raising his heavy sword arm, Arn struck at the figure, and the figure returned the blow. The shockwave was unusually slow, vibrating the air in a circle around them, the ground pulsating with tremors in a localized area. Then suddenly, the shockwave soundlessly spread itself out into the horizon where it upheaved chunks of land and threw them into the air, dirt and mud raining onto the ground below.

Feeling a subtle change, not in the land, or the air, but in himself – Arn exchanged blows with the figure in an amalgamized plethora of change that warped the scenery. Mountains sprung out as violent jagged spikes that pierced into the sky above, tremors and spiraling funnels of wind wreaked havoc. Yet, every change was short lived as the next violent event replaced the next. This power terrified Arn.

As the two fought, Arn remembered some things of his past life. The opening of a jar, the starting of an engine, turning on switches for lighting in a building, the weight of a rifle resting in his hands. These things are normal – were normal. Now, he had no idea what the point of those things were. He wanted to stop this battle, huddle on the ground, and crawl to where things were normal. Like insects, these things are one unknowing step away from annihilation. Perhaps it was Arn himself, or the world. It terrified him, intoxicated him to unknowable heights of cognition. Overpowered by only one simple emotion: hate.

The exchanges between Arn and the figure halted only a moment, for Arn to realize that the figure’s change waned slightly in the gusting wind between them. He had the edge. Arn could see the shadow in front of him, but instead of it charting a course ahead – it stopped altogether. It waited slightly closer to the figure in front of him, and Arn approached. As he did – the waning change in the figure erupted into a radiating light that fixated itself into the tip of the spear. The light absorbed all other light sources, its wings, and the light above into a single point. A smile crossed the lips of the figure’s featureless face.

Arn approached the shadow and the two became one. Arn felt the shadow that had been following him also reach this point, as two became three and then one. A singular point in time - the place he needed to be. The figure disappeared, reappearing in front of Arn in the time span of half a second. It struck at him, specifically towards his sword arm. Unconsciously, Arn released the grip on his sword. The figure realized its mistake too late, and Arn latched onto the spear with both hands. With only inches between them, the figure released a horrifically charged unheard shout, and white engulfed them both.

Just as suddenly as the white engulfed them – a darkness pressed against it until both Arn, and the figure were but surrounded by the black. As if stuffed into a capsule, the two struggled over the spear. Arn could feel the heat radiating from the white tip of the spear and smell the putrid stench of the figure’s now disposed gestated ooze. The figure smiled, its teeth pure if not for the bits of flesh. The staff pulsed, the heat intensifying in the black sphere that pressed against them. Yet, the white could not budge beyond the perimeter, and with each struggling surge – the black pushed harder.

The spear tip acted as a stand in light between Arn and the figure, and as the white was slowly pushed back into the tip of the spear – the light dimmed. The gutted, coy, snarling, ugly, arrogant smile that the figure had been wearing – began to frown. In the darkness, Arn was almost completely unseen, tethered only to the scene by the spear in his grasp.

It’s him. The figure realized. Arn watched as fear gripped the featureless face of the figure – watched as it took hold of the blood-stained smirk. Darkness gripped the tip of the spear and buried the light.

In the darkness, Arn could only think of one thing: Impact.

Out of the darkness, orange light unfettered itself, then yellows, and whites. Energy collided together, as two forces made themselves into one – smashing into a terrible fire. The reaction was instant, and the black was pulverized with surging pure energy. The blast engulfed miles, eviscerating land and flesh in an explosion threatening to expand further – then tethered and localized. The explosion lasted but a mere moment, and the resulting plume of smoke made the surviving fields of flesh – fields of ash.

 

Ezbalath was not sure whether he had fallen asleep, or passed out, but when he awoke – he was buried in ash. He scraped the material from his body, digging it away, and looked at the area. Nothing of the hell scape of blood and flesh remained, replaced by a giant plume of smoke that covered the sky and blanketed the ground. A greater light peaked through the smoke but was still restricted from touching the land below.

In front of Ezbalath, the Dark Skeletons had knelt with shields, now buried themselves. They didn’t budge, perhaps unable to from the stress. Ezbalath looked to the area beside him and began to frantically dig away at the ash. Instead of finding Gelicarus, however, he found nothing. He returned to the fields in front of him, and the smoke cleared somewhat. They had been moved further away from where they once were – the area surrounding the river completely engulfed by a crater stretching miles wide and deep. Ezbalath could only laugh.

 

Gelicarus walked the perimeter of the crater, desperately searching the area. He found nothing along the right side, nothing but mud and ash. Walking to the far side, however, Gelicarus saw through the smoke something on the ground. He quickly walked towards the shadow on the ground, and the shadow formed into a mangled torso. Its bone wings, and exposed ribs pulsed with life – a heart beating still beneath the chest. Its lower half was missing, the result of the explosion, but Gelicarus watched as small segments of bone and tissue began to reform.

The eye of the winged creature fixated itself on Gelicarus, but he noted it appeared to be through him – blank. As he grew closer, it didn’t stir, nor did the eye move. Yet, its flesh moved with life. This piqued his interest greatly, but Gelicarus moved on – his search not yet over.

Only a few yards from the winged creature’s body, Gelicarus spotted something on the ground. A gleaming object that pierced through the clouds of brown and black smoke. Gelicarus approached and knelt. He wiped off the ashes from the mask – his Lord’s mask. Panic took hold of Gelicarus’s chest as his eyes darted in every direction. His eyes rested upon a smooth pathway in the ash leading away from the mask. He stood and followed the path.

In the smoke, only a stone toss away from where he found the mask, Gelicarus came upon a bloody scene. What remained of the radiating figure, was that of an inert torso, like the winged creature, yet it pulsed only of death. A black being slumped over the body, blood seeping and mixing with the ash ground. Red blood slipped and returned to the uncovered rib cage from the being’s face.

Gelicarus stepped closer, and the being stirred, but didn’t move. It continued to feast.

“Don’t look at me, Gel.” The being meekly asked. “Don’t look at me.”