AN: Hello one again. Just a quick heads up, the story starts earning that M rating in these next couple of chapters, you have been warned. In the mean time please enjoy (and maybe leave a review?) .
***13***
The edges of my vision were still a muddled yellow and most of my innards churned at each step I took. I ignored a whisper that I knew came from nowhere while I barricaded the last window.
It's been two weeks, scaring me out of doing this isn't going to work.
The hallucinations had been near unbearable, I must have sat in that upstairs bedroom for a week before they wore away enough to move without dry heaving.
I hammered a ripped up piece of the front porch into the window frame before giving the whole thing a solid tug. Nothing budged.
Satisfied with my work I went back to the front of the house. I huddled in my jacket against the wind, winter was in full force and thick snow covered the ground. A little bit of it melted and seeped through my boot as I walked. Just as I was about to step up to the front door I couldn't help but notice a dark figure move to my left.
The hallucinations had been dieing down, maybe three days passed since I'd seen someone who wasn't there. The skin on the back of my neck crawled. If I wasn't being hunted by quasi-supernatural creatures I might have assumed it was from the cold or my own imagination.
Before shutting the door I took a final look behind me.
Just at the tree line there were footprints in the snow, they couldn't have been that old, given that it'd been sleeting all morning.
Hey, take a look out there. We've got a prowler.
No.
What do you mean, no? If one of the dreamers are here I want to get ready.
If it's one of the dreamers it's suicide for me to go out there and you know it.
Ok your highness, calm down.
I retreated inside and locked the door behind me.
Either way, get ready for a fight. It's too late to run now.
I know.
The way things had been going I expected an angry grumble of static or some other sort of hijinks, instead the last bit of yellow haze lifted from my vision. Black clouds of swarm poured from my skin and coated the walls, adrenaline surged, it took all the effort I could muster not to break into a sprint to burn off the rush of energy.
The room felt bright and heavy. Outside the wind stirred gently, whistling through the bare branches.
Behind the house fresh snow crunched underneath the weight of a man.
Quietly I grabbed one of the pipes that I'd ripped from under the sink and had waiting on the counter.
The crunching outside stopped.
I felt nothing besides a thick silence. No feeling of being watched reached me, no fluttering of panic like at the courthouse. I turned to see each window in the room.
There was a twitch of movement, I swiveled left just in time to see a withered brown shape dart to the side. I followed the blur as it darted around the house, the swarm ready and waiting, the pipe held tight in my hand.
The thing stopped, I kept turning for just a second after it did, my first mistake.
In the second I wasn't watching it barreled through the window sending shards of glimmering glass and splintered wood in every direction. The swarm followed behind it. In a blink it was on me, faster than it had been in Chicago. I swung with all the pent anticipation of the past half month and made a hard connection to its chest.
The thing fell back into the black cloud landing in a tangle of limbs and a piercing shriek.
I felt the nanobots whip in and out of it, lashing through paper skin and dried bone.
I went forward, ready to swing again.
Before I closed any real distance my head snapped back sending me to the ground, the thick black fog filling the room parted away from the brown and rotting thing as if it were some perverted Moses parting the sea against god's will. Dried and cracking nails dug into what should have been intangible swarm.
With a howl foul enough to draw blood from my ears the thing threw the swarm to the side, propelling it by some force unseen. I slid with the walrider, lading in my own uncoordinated pile.
I scrambled, not wanting to be pinned by the things twisted body a second time.
It rushed me, leaping from floor to wall and back again, impossible to predict where it would be. I swung wildly with the pipe again, bits of swarm ripped into its back on its last leap for me.
I missed but so did it. Like a furious wave the walrider crashed after it, taking a window and most of its frame with it.
Cold winter air filled the room, bringing with it a flurry of snow. The dreamer twisted its knobby shoulders to face me but kept moving forward. Its spidery limbs brought it up the wall, I made a move for it.
If I could just get it to stop moving I would have a chance.
I sent the swarm in front of me. It tangled into the creature's legs and brought it to the floor. I came down on it, pipe in hand.
One more swing and there would be one less monster in the world.
Before the fatal blow landed something hot and at odds with the biting cold ripped into my ankle and pulled my leg from under me. I landed face first and had just enough time to see the blind dreamer come down on top of me.
Thick layers of swarm shielded me, though I still felt the things jagged claws rake into my back through the nanobots. I pulled myself across the floor and twisted my head around for some clue as to where to punch out at.
Run
Not now. Dead fingers raked at my face through the roaring swarm and frantic shrieks.
The protective fog thinned by the second, static warnings of runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun grew fainter and fainter with each repetition.
Every punch I made landed in the empty air, sharp and hot pain raked down my legs. For a second the whole world was a frantic black haze.
"No! God damn it!" with all the adrenaline I could muster from weary muscle I forced the body on top of me away. The swarm blossomed out in a forceful wave. Static raged in my ears, glass shattered, and paint flaked from the drywall.
I wasn't letting this shit happen again! Fuck this thing and everyone who had a part in its bullshit creation, or summoning, or whatever.
Without thinking about it I scooped the pipe off the ground and ran for the thing.
Black haze jutted in front of me like spears before being peeled back from the charge. It didn't matter. Nothing did. I connected with the brown thing before it got its bearings back. Without aid from the Walrider I swung, cracking bone. I swung, ripping ragged skin. I swung, bruising bloodless muscle.
The crippled and broken thing screeched. Maybe it begged for mercy maybe it cursed me, maybe something… I didn't care and swung again. I readied another strike.
Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun
The static was getting quieter now.
The bent and dented pipe didn't come down again. Something new and deeper howled at the room. The broken thing before me twitched and untangled from the ground, defiant at my rage.
Fuck this thing. Fuck the guys that made it.
That deeper howl burrowed into my mind. That unknown, hot, painful grip dug into my shoulders and pulled me from the ground. My feet lifted from the ground, the pipe clattered to the floor. I screamed out, blood seeped through my jacket.
The swarm came back, weaker and more lethargic than I'd ever seen.
I looked up, frantic with pain and -damn it- fear.
Another twisted body, one peppered with throbbing red flesh and black burns, clung to the ceiling and my shoulder with fingers that ended in charred bone.
As it dug deeper I felt struggling bits of swarm furiously knit the flesh back together.
Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun
It was barely a whisper now in the deafening room. The house must be on the verge of collapse between the missing chunks of wall and the force of the howling. My own screams joined the roil when the broken thing on the ground climbed up my legs and clung to my chest.
Don't look at it.
I'm not sure if those were my own thoughts or a memory from Chicago.
The shriveled brown thing pulled closer, its putrid breath filled my nose and lungs. I fought to flail, though every movement brought hungry claws deeper into my straining body. I looked away, there had to be an escape. Something.
Anything.
There.
Through a hole that used to be a window was the tiniest amount of movement. Something gray and moving with jerked movements.
I tried to focus on the last bit of swarm that was out there. If I had to, I'd fight these things for it. That was my only hope now.
Trying to drown out the pain and fear I reached for the swarm, it came closer, inch by inch.
As it trailed into the room something came with it.
Something gray and marred by puss green patches of wet rot. Something twisted and hungry as the other two things that already held me like a fly trapped in a spiders web.
I twisted in pain.
There was no static urging me to run now. Nothing worked to knit bone and blood back together under the dreamers grips.
The third thing pulled gray haze from under my skin, every particle protested and ripped straining sinew on its way out. I felt my throat strain under a scream but no sound I made rose above these things howls and shrieks.
The third thing crawled up my back.
I'd done it now. I should have listened.
Familiar swarms ripped through me, bringing none of the reassuring weight I'd learned to recognize as safe.
I landed heavy on the cold ground, three twisted bodies piled over me. I fought to look anywhere but at them, anywhere but the haze that meant nothing but fear and pain once again.
A shoulder popped from its socket, fire trailed through me. In a storm of pain I felt hot and thick blood drip from my eyes.
Look anywhere else.
Anywhere else.
They came closer, eyes covered in rags or leaking wounds.
Everything was them.
I closed my eyes.
Everything was them.