On the ground, stormed by the violence of the water, a thin and tall boy, crouched like a newborn while the force left his body with slight spasms, as if to give a hint of life in that poor creature tormented by the wind and the sky.
With all his energy he managed to look up in front of him, trying to focus on the two figures that moved in the light of the thunderstorm. They agitated in the thick fog of water, like shadows dancing to the rhythm of the flames of a bivouac, trying to hit each other with deeds and movements tremendously unnatural.
The rhythm of thunder faded away and the boy lost more and more strength to hold his head in front of him, suddenly a violent lightning fell on a tree isolated from the main wood, burning it down while the sound of the rain was slowly merging with the sizzle of the flames and the howling of the wind
The figures were illuminated. Endowed with new sight they resumed, with less unnatural movements but nevertheless fruit of an incredible tiredness, to strike and to agitate.
The flames quickly subsided and one of the silhouettes grazed the other's throat. It did not take long to notice the figure kneeling and instinctively pressing a hand to the strike point, trying in vain to stop the reddish river that began to expand on his chest and poured its way into his lips.
But before the other figure could approach, a bizarre purple light lit up the darkness.
A flash so massive and uniform that looked like a marble ball. The silhouette was thrown away by the lightning and as quickly as it had arrived, the cluster of light disappeared into thin air.
The figure stretched out a hand desperately but immediately brought it back to his mouth, another flash illuminated the sky while the figure vomited blood. From the eyes flowed further rivulets, which stained his cheeks.
He looked at the putrid red hand as his weak lips whispered something, and turned to the boy who had lost his strength even in his sight, letting himself go to the tender embrace of the blades of grass. A wet, yet warm and comfortable hand caressed his forehead, gently descending under his chin. With a weak push, he was able to face the boy who had fallen to the ground.
A young face brightened by a white halo was the last thing his tired eyes could see before shutting down.
The sun shone high among the thick blanket of clouds and smoke that infested Sector 0 of the Archipel, the deafening roar of engines and the furious flow of gears echoed on Boulevard III, leaving behind the violent buzz of workers and merchants.
A faint light penetrated the foggy and dirty glass of a second-floor apartment, brightening the bluish-walled room and waking its owner: a boy with wavy black hair and light brown eyes, perfectly in tone with the dark upholstery of the room. A small tag hanging from the door revealed his name: Lance Klint.
The young man stretched both arms as he looked directly out of the window above the bed, his eyes drowsy. He resigned himself to observing the classic din of his way, but his attention was soon returned to the dream he had just had. That same scene dreamed from time to time for now 9 years, but lately the dreams were intensifying and left him shaken and restless upon waking up.
He pressed his palm against his temple and frowned, his head was tremendously heavy while his thoughts did nothing but wander uneven in his head, he could not remember the faces of the figures in the night nor the face illuminated with white, he could only remember that he was a charming boy but he couldn't really identify in his memory even one characteristic of him.
The only thing he could clearly remember were the screams of his younger sister, taken away with him, but Klint really struggled to reconstruct the circumstances. The doctors were talking about "Dissociative Amnesia," and they were now labeling the dreams as a desperate attempt by the brain to rebuild the missing pieces, probably in a distorted way to prevent Lance from realizing that his parents had abandoned him, Or so he had heard from the doctors years before.
The boy turned his chest and discovered himself from the flannel sheets on which he had managed to get his hands on a second-hand market. His room had no draughts or holes from which air could penetrate but lacked any form of heating in addition to the sad and gloomy stove to which Klint had to pray to hope it would turn on. In the event that it accidentally lit up, its flame was completely insufficient to fully heat the room, which deeply saddened Klint but he decided not to dwell on it too much.
He put his feet on the ground and discovered his figure in his nightgown, although he was eighteen years old, his muscles were extremely defined and massive. His arms were incredibly toned with his back which was straight and robust. Lance touched his shoulder and smiled with satisfaction.
His body was the result of the fatigue of his work and was the basis of his successes and earnings, he was renowned in the city for being one of the best couriers in the whole district 0, Which was paid off well enough for him to have a decent apartment and basic assets
He snapped to his feet and walked over to the closet to wear his classic "mule" robe. Klint did not belong to any congregation and was considered a Freelancer. He reached out his hand, pulling out from the heavy dark wooden cabinet a hanger with a tight black shirt and some large trousers of the same color. He both wore them rapidly with some black socks.
He was about to complete his attire when he noticed a small bundle on the desk in the corner of the room. The night before he had studied until late notebooks and maps of the area where he lived, anything to find any trace of memory in his subconscious and he had probably fallen asleep, forcing the owner to put him back to bed. Klint approached the bundle and opened it. Inside was a white lacquered wooden box, decorated with lovely indigo outlines with a handwritten note on it.
The boy took the paper and noticed that the sinuous and elegant calligraphy belonged to the mistress, Sophie Maglarck. Lance began to open the folded sheet and quickly looked over it.
"I have left you a gift for the favors of the other day, you are always helping with the chores and looking after my daughter and I am deeply grateful, there are some homemade bread and bacon together with coffee, yesterday you were very tired and you fell asleep on the desk, I hope you didn't mind if I put you to bed, you're heavy!".
Klint laughed for a second as he watched the bizarre purple ink change from words to a stylized smiley face.
"If there's anything I can do for you, don't worry, you're family to me, anything that can help you with your sister, don't hesitate to ask."
Lance's smile slowly disappeared from his face as he watched the photograph pop out of his notebook. Portrayed on the film, there was a girl with thick black hair, the same as Klint, with eyes completely different from the boy's brown ones. His were light and pale yellow, almost golden. That was her younger sister, Jude Klint, who disappeared along with their parents and older sister Eva.
Lance barely remembered his accident and the more he thought about it the more his head hurt: Screams, flames, blood, steps and strange white lights shone in his skull every time he tried to put together the fleeting pieces in his mind.
His gaze fell on the letter, a portion introduced by an exclamation mark that had escaped his gaze. The ink was different and the tone of the words was much more serious.
"Klint, I read where you're going to make the drop, I heard a lot of people went missing along those woods, please be careful."
Klint put the note on the desk. He opened the box gently and began to eat, unfortunately both coffee and bread had cooled but kept their delicious fragrance.
He dusted his face and went to wash and shave, with a stern tone he glanced at the mirror and smiled while gesticulating. Satisfied he wore his black windbreaker, he was quite proud of it since it was a gift from a courier he saved in the mountains by pure luck. It was long, thin but kept warm and decorated with various white geometric patterns on the right side, longer than good six centimeters than the left, which stopped at the height of the groin.
Klint recovered his bag and package and walked to the door, wearing his thin-rimmed glasses with darkned lenses.
As soon as he touched the handle, an icy shiver crossed his spine. A cold touch, a touch of death had just caressed his back. He swiftly turned, noticing that the room was empty and that not even a draft of wind could have breached the solid walls.
Klint shook his mind from his head as he stroked the back of his neck, still in turmoil. As a precaution he recovered and threw in his bag a pocket knife, very popular among couriers who ventured away from sector 0.
Klint flew down the stairs and down the hallways, the landlady was gone. Lance recalled that he often met a friend of hers at the park on Monday, thinking about that Klint rushed through the front door of the building.
He found himself poured into the river of people on Boulevard III, the cold morning air combined with the loud noise that rang in the streets managed to keep his head from getting lost in useless wanderings.
< The city smells of life.... and smoke as always! > He said while inhaling a nice breath of air, a gesture of which he regretted bitterly after filling his lungs with the fumes of a car.
He made his way to the tram stop that would take him to the outskirts of Sector II, an area on the border of the capital much further away than Sector 0 or I where there had been a high rate of urbanization after the war. Sector II was a tremendously large, sparsely populated country area and where the habits of the land still remained firm and immortal.
The package in his bag was light: a set of spare gears for a machine for the extraction of the sap of the Andimicans Oaks, a real panacea for the muscles and also a great fuel.
As Klint fantasized about the route to take, the tram rushed to the stop, strangely in advance, which surprised Lance who took on his morning energy to not lose it. With a surprising athletic gesture he crashed into the door before it closed, showed his courier card and reciprocated the greeting of the driver.
He looked out from the small extension of the tram and began to contemplate the views of District 0 as he took more and more height on the hill, suddenly he had to hold himself to not fall so much was the slope: the city was alive as every week, the park exhales colorful fumes and swarms of balloons rushed past the smoke curtains of the factories, while herds of workers snapped right and left to occupy their seat at work.
Abruptly the tram straightened as it reached the top of the hill. Klint was thrown forward, but one hand kept him from hitting the railing.
Are you all right? > Whispered a female voice behind him, the figure portrayed his hand elegantly tapered as Lance turned around: A beautiful woman dressed in a shirt and a long black jacket looked straight into his eyes, a strand of blond hair slightly covered her right eye, almost touching her thin pink lips.
Lance became quite embarrassed, but he thanked her and blushed deeply. He lowered his head, noticing on hers chest, hidden between the jacket and shirt, a small golden buckle partially reciting a name: "Moni...".
The lady looked at him and gave him a little flick on the nose, which deeply shook Klint who had remained wrapped in a sort of trance.
Monica noticed him desperately trying to make a serious speech, only succeeding in stuttering snippets of thoughts, which aroused a lot of fun in the woman, to whom escaped a giggle. Meanwhile, Lance got horribly worse, gesturing and rotating his head to every point.
I was told by rumors that Lance Klint was an 18-year-old freelancer. > She continued while poking Lance on the shoulder, which almost caused the young man to collapse.
Klint noticed now that the woman was very young mentally for her body, she looked like an 18-year-old in the body of a 25-year-old, this relieved him, managing to adress himself.
< I didn't thought they considered me so widely in the inner sectors.... Well, neither that they knew me by name. > He said by gradually lowering his voice. The lady, trying to disguise an obvious wave of embarrassment, dropped a golden badge from her jacket.
Lance quickly caught him, before he could pass through the gates between the Tram bars. The writing, elegantly engraved, recited a name in large letters.
< Monica Net, research executive Ruther U.L.> Klint read quickly as he handed the badge to the woman, visibly shaken and uncomfortable.
He said, retracting his hand.
< Studies on a vein of an unknown mineral, probably of meteoritic origin. I prefer field work over desk paperwork. Better to die than spend my time there! > Net answered by waving her hand and returning to the tram'inside while smiling.
Miss Monica jumped down, turning to greet Klint. A sinuous movement of the hand and a warm smile accompanied her figure. Klint reciprocated affectionately, but something shook him, her eyes were busy transmitting something quite different from a simple goodbye.
Lance again felt that icy touch behind the back of the neck as soon as Net turned and disappeared into the forest path. He threw himself on the cold seat of the Tram, holding his heavy forehead. Those two eyes were a warning, a warning not to go further. Klint breathed deeply and waited for his stop.
He greeted the driver and went down. The soil was full of moss and the humid air smelled of grass and resin, a smell that reminded him of his childhood for some reason. That unpleasant sensation shook him off, but the thought continued to press him like a cold blade on his temple.
Distracted, he opened his bag and saw the directions for the delivery: from the stop he should have taken the path on the right and the small road that led to a glade inside the forest.
Klint went into the reverberating green of nature: the chirping of birds hidden in the branches, the scratching of squirrels on the barks, the rustling of the grass, the dripping of dew, the wind that moved the branches were all a comfort to his ears, but something didnt'sit right with him.
When he took the small road, a new shiver shook his synapses. The sound of the living had stopped, even the birds had stopped their joyful song, the sound of his footsteps pressing against the moss was the only anchor of contact with reality for Klint in that terrifying silence.
The thrill gripped him but he did not have time to care that a violent metallic scent penetrated his nostrils, a violent headache shook the boy, forcing him to rest his back against the trunk of one of the colossal oaks of the forest.
His thoughts clouded, his dreams began to come to the surface again, he recognized the same red splashes of his dream, the same taste in his throat, he immediately understood what that smell was.
As the wind brought the stench to intensify, his brain began to quiver and cause him violent migraines, his eyes painted before him unreal landscapes wrapped in blood. His red filthy hands as he struggled, closed his eyes and opened them to make the nightmares he had been plotting disappear.
Lance began to regain possession of his body as he came out of the forest, accelerated his pace, running towards the smell of blood, hoping it was a carcass of a recently killed animal.
He came out of the woods, finding himself in the clearing that the note indicated. Flowers of all colors decorated the green carpet of the plot of land. The earth was solid but not dry, it seemed almost a perfect natural paradise.
Klint took a breath of air and, sharpening his gaze, noticed that near a series of rocks there was a small country cottage, the red tiles and the classic pyramidal structure distinguished it from the houses of the capital, so smooth and cubic. The dark wooden walls appeared ancient, but cared for while various decorations and buildings on the porch embellished it.
One step after the other, the boy approached the house. His feet sank on the soft greenish ground of the clearing. No one came to greet him or follow him with his eyes as usual.
He put his leg on the first step of the wooden staircase and again a cold stab stabbed him in the back of the neck. The sensation did not disappear, indeed it began to intensify at every step.
He put his hand on the handle, an instinctive gesture, he should have knocked as usual but that feeling was warning him to open.
The horror unfolded in his shiny eyes, his nose filled with disgust as he struggled to restrain vomit: A violently mutilated body had been harassed by the entrance, blood stained the parquet while a part of the gut had been brutally pulled out of the flesh, ending up partially wedged between the legs of the table upside down, also filthy.
Klint, however, was not overcome by terror for the mere disgust of the macabre spectacle, but by the wounds that the body suffered, with horror he found that they were not the result of an explosion or an animal, but of human bites. The silhouette was incomparable to any bite he had ever seen in the forests.
As Lance recoiled, nauseated, a horrible hiss followed by a disturbing creak reached his ears.
Logic begged the body to continue the retreat to the door, but the frost sparks on the back of the head pushed him up the stairs. Step by step and the sound intensified as he put his hand to the multipurpose instrument, pulling out the blade and silently snapping it. The metal seemed to vibrate on contact with the faint morning light that seeped into the dust-saturated air.
The sound grew louder and Klint accelerated his steps, finally arriving at the room where the sound reached its peak. He opened the door slightly, but was petrified by the unclean scenery that his eyes observed: A beast with scaly and black skin, similar to granite, swallowed from a bone what remained of the flesh of his victim, the purple glow from it made the scene a grotesque disgusting.
Lance was motionless and in every way he tried to get away from that horror but his body didn't move at all. The memories began to flow like a flood in his brain, flooding his senses and causing him to agitate.
The creature felt the presence and without interrupting his meal turned to Klint: his face was composed of a vaguely human skull but his jaw and cheeksbone seemed a geometric cluster of mechanical pincers and the empty orbits but covered with shining violet crystals and black scales made the view more distant from any definition could exist of "human".
The unclean beast hissed against him with his mouth, still embedded, torn muscles and tendons. Klint quickly managed to move, causing the monster to collide with the solid wooden wall.
The creature hissed again, but Klint beat her with the handle of the knife, smashing a joint between her jaws, which remained grotesquely hanging. Lance noted with disgust that the beast seemed not to feel the blow, continuing his offensive.
With a lightning gesture, he managed to tear the beast's throat with his blade, making purple and dense blood flow along the walls and on himself. The monster fell to the ground emitting guttural sounds mixed with gargling, giving enough confidence to Klint to turn around, but a horrible feeling of warmth along his back made him regret that confidence.
The beast had risen, still bleeding, tearing Klint apart. Two shoulder-high holes dripped blood as the boy retreated in fear along the floor of the room, followed by the inhuman gaze of that being.
The creature lashed out again, in a fit of despair, Klint took a bloody axe near the wall, probably belonging to what was now a mutilated skeleton on the floor.
Shaking it with all her strength, he violently hit the head of the creature with the thick and ferrous back of the weapon, which fell disoriented as small splashes slid along the leathery skin at regular intervals.
Lance wiped his face with his sleeve and picked up the axe, noting with interest that the creature's body was dissolving into a heap of tiny amasses of shards of crystals.
He staggered because of fatigue and the pain caused by the violent blow of the weapon, the whole momentum had fallen into his shoulder during that desperate offensive and the adrenaline was disappearing from his veins. He dragged the heavy iron block with a yellow handle smeared with a mixture of dry blood and that mixture of purple and dense.
He slammed it heavily at every step, chipping the floor, but Klint just could not put strength in the arm to lift it, sweat soaked the neck of the shirt and several stains could be evident even on the black fabric of the pants.
His eyes were lifeless, unable to accept what they saw. The boy seemed less human even than the bodies in the house, the falling gait and the empty look would have instilled horror and disgust in all the people who had seen and known him, now more like a ghost that crossed the world of the living.
On the door door, his head turned slightly in the direction of the kitchen, noticing a shred of arm resting on the window, probably hoping that someone would pass, that the messenger would pass, a request for help, never satisfied.
Klint's desperation exploded violently, his face writhing in a grimace, ignoring the weight of the axe he was carrying, he began to run into the clearing screaming and sobbing. A laugh broken by hysterical moans was felt in the air. The hands carried on the face dropping the weapon in the green clearing.
The boy fell to his knees with eyes full of a crazy vitality, his grimace alternated between laughter and violent bursts of tears. He wanted to scream but from his mouth he could not get anything out, the voice had died from horror and his undefined shadow was already employed to laugh and to emit echoing laments.
All of a sudden he stopped and Klint struggled to his feet, looked at his blood and dust-greasy hands and vomited, finally recognizing that his cheeks were wet with sweat and tears, but that did not stop them from gushing. His voice raised him from the depths of his throat, but he could only express disconnected thoughts and questions he could not answer
< If I had arrived earlier? >
These were some of the questions that flew like flies in the boy's consciousness.
A bizarre event allowed Lance's mind to experience again the same shiver that had been tormenting him since he set foot in the house: black snow surrounded the clearing, a shower of ash that covered and weighed down the stems of green grass.
He looked up at the sky and his eyes were wide and noticed that it was a pale grey with various purple shadows dancing between the shades of black.
Lance fell to the ground screaming in pain, a twinge in his brain forced him to beg for mercy. A new stream of memories flooded his mind, he ecognized the sky and the creatures, he felt like they were similar and familiar but he could not conceive how and why, this led his brain to desperately strive to restore those images.
The twinge stopped instantly, as unexpectedly as it had arrived. Lance struggled to get up from the ground as drops of saliva and sweat slipped from the skin and broke on the ground. A hiss, followed by many others spread in the thick and dark bush. The boy, horrified, recoiled as he saw numerous bulbs of purple light advancing through the bush.
Klint counted 20 of them. From the bush, ten of the same "things" that had slaughtered the family of the house behind him quickly made their way to him from the thick darkness.
They were similar to the one in the house, but some had horns, others claws and one walked limping because of a strange mass of crystal on the right leg. The monsters threw themselves at motionless Klint and again unable to move. An instinct made him soar to the left, recovering the axe.
One of the creatures jumped ferociously into the air trying to cling to him, but as soon as he opened the gloomy jaws, Klint violently cut them with a circular motion. The creature fell hissing, but before it could lift a heavy block of iron penetrated her skull, violently ejecting scales, crystals and purplish liquid.
The creatures retracted momentarily as Klint lifted the axe from the body. Lance had for a moment a glimmer of hope as he watched them recede, but his gaze changed drastically when at count, he missed one of the creatures. A hiss behind his back confirmed his fear.
His fragile conviction was shattered when he saw a second beast jump. The monster opened his mouth towards Klint, preventing him from counterattack, a new reflex pushed him to block with the handle that was cut instantly, however he managed to gain precious seconds to recover the head of the axe and hit violently the face of the beast, which fell to the ground twitching.
A joy filled Lance with the thought of being capable of winning, but a twinge on the left side brought him back to reality. He turned his head and noticed only a copious gush of blood instead of where his arm once stood. His voice burst into a deafening scream as the creatures came close. Waving his stump, and what remained of the axe he tried to drive them away but lost strength in his legs and slid over its own blood.
The swarm of beasts rushed over him. Some bit and tore the flesh, others licked the remains on the ground. The sight abandoned him when one of the creatures began to approach his face.
He opened his eyes, in the dark, he still felt theirs jaws pop and the smell of blood and mud, realizing he was still alive. A figure in the darkness approached. A tall boy wearing a long black jacket. In his hand, covered with scars, a clear and powerful glow, but not enough to illuminate his face in the middle of the darkness of the ethereal salon in which he had found himself.
Klint reached out to the figure, hoping for help, but the man pushed his hand away, bent down and violently pierced Klint's chest. No pain, only a strong heat was radiated by the white light that expanded in his heart. Something deep in his skull started shaking, like an electric shock or a boil.
He opened his eyes, the figure hovered over him, bending down and opening his filthy, putrid mouth. Charged with new strength, she rose from the ground, moving the creatures away from her body. A vehement charge of energy flowed through him, a wave of pleasure intoxicated his synapses, he seemed to be reborn.
Stunned, he observed how the bleeding had stopped as the bite wounds were healing at a frightening pace. The creatures recoiled at the sight of that human, except for one, which had been over him since he was unconscious.
Lance and the monster looked into each other's eyes, both bloodthirsty. The monster hurled at him, but unexpectedly from where the severed arm once stood, a new outgrowth had formed, quickly taking the form of a limb.
With that new hand, Klint gripped the creature's skull, violently hurling it to the ground, fracturing the earth below and removing a large blanket of dust and soil.
The creature hissed furiously, trying to break free but Klint did not let go in any way, in his mind there was only the most violent intention possible, killing.
Repeatedly he began to smash the head of the beast with his bare hands, the fist closed by the vague shape of the hammer fell with renewed ferocity at every impact with the scales of the creature, which gave way surprisingly quickly.
The contents of the skull of the monster had poured and stuck to his hand, but this time, in his eyes, now of an intense yellow, they radiated deep joy and satisfaction. In those golden pupils there was nothing but voluptuous enjoyment to the sight of the violet crystal still intact among the remains of the monster's head.
He picked it up and quickly, after a faint glow, began to lose color and crumble, as if the energy had been taken away.
He massaged his shoulders, observing and jerking his hand still in disbelief of what had happened. The creatures were frightened but unable to move, like an animal that understands that it is prey, subject to the predator.
Klint hurried over the beasts, who tried to disperse, stumbling and staggering. The forest was full of hisses, echoing among the myriads of oaks.
Monica was running desperately, her jacket was ruined and torn all over her left arm with numerous thorns and splinters of wood to crown the few pieces of fabric left.
She reached the clearing but an insurmountable pressure began to weigh on her shoulders like a boulder, her ears felt the hiss of humanoid creatures, which she and her companions called Helspawn, but with surprise and unease she heard them disappear in the wind, followed by violent crashes. Those sounds echoed in the faint rustling of the forest, at regular intervals but never losing intensity.
Monica started running towards the sound source. A horrible spectacle was revealed in her eyes: A boy stood with his eyes closed, his arm perpetually contracted, holding tight what looked like the remains of the skull of one of the Helspawns, while in the other what remained of his chest. His eyes were clenched but he kept defacing the remains in his right hand and crashing them into the ground.
Net immediately recognized his face and clothes, although they were completely torn and gross. Klint opened his eyes, the yellow glow fading away, returning his eyes to their beautiful brown.
The boy released his grip, smiled and collapsed to the ground as the creatures vanished and the sky returned to normal.
Net was filled with a thrill of excitement and fear, preparing to record one last call on her device.