Another eerie sound echoed into the dimly lighted Cold Lands that was threatening to bury us in it. I listened and suddenly it started to feel like it wasn't an echo, but similar sounds made from various sources.
I knew that sound from moments ago. It was unmistakably the Astor Bonechill, the creature that nearly destroyed my mind moments ago.
And there wasn't just one of them but about three of them.
As they reached close to us the eerie sounds they made grew louder and sent impulses to my brain triggering my fight-flight response.
This time it wasn't fear that filled my body but the opposite; a grim anticipation.
A sudden urge to make the creatures regret ever choosing to hunt me in my mind.
I started to feel a smile slowly creep up on my lips and I could understand the thrill that Hassan felt earlier.
'I'm going to transfer all the built-up aggression to these a*%h#l@s ' I thought as I sat waiting for them.
This time was different because there were three of them against me but still ...
And just like the first one did the three creatures immediately appeared in front of me, and they were three just like I had guessed. They all brought their faces a few inches in front of my face.
And just as they had appeared from nowhere I blacked out and appeared in the playground of the Orphanage home.
I looked around and saw that at a distance the playground was slowly crumbling away, giving way to the Cold Lands.
It sent a shiver down my spine, reminding me of the first battle with the first Astor Bonechill.
The creatures came darting from the part that had turned into the Cold Land.
They were all clad in the same dirty-looking light blue cloak.
I didn't wait for them to find out if they'd all dig their hands to get a hold of the ball of essence in there.
I didn't let fear consume me so things were clearer now.
It almost seemed like I had done what I was about to do before. I disappeared from their plane sight.
The three creatures said the same thing when I disappeared "You can run but you can hide"
Their voices sounded mere seconds apart from each other, creating the illusion of a single creature's echo.
"Evidence of a limited vocabulary"
I said.
They were wrong about everything they said.
I didn't run because I was there with them and in front of them... I was just imperceptible. And I could hide so they were wrong.
If only I did this with the first Astor Bonechill would the battle have ended sooner?
As they turned around, searching the playground with their sunken eyes, I sent them to different places in my mind where I could deal with them one by one until they all turned into piles of bones.
The first Astor Bonechill found itself in a rotating closed room with no doors or windows.
'One thing about the mind is that it's very malleable, to the extent that you can conjure up so many things in it. You just have to be creative enough or crazy enough ' One of the many Paula quotes that I didn't know I'd be looking back to in such an unbelievable situation.
I made the rotating room spawn so many weapons that my mind could think of.
Some firearms shot into the Astor Bonechill while bombs materialized out of the air and exploded on its head but none of the weapons worked.
It was all like special effects in a movie, and it only stunned the creature and made it more agitated and disorientated.
I kept on going with various weapons ... The room even spawned a laser beam that shot straight into its thorax but passed through the creature like a harmless ray of light.
As I tried so many weapons on the creature I made sure not to slip my focus away from the other two trapped in various places in the protection that represented my mind.
As much as the weapons did not work on the first creature, the rooms were formidable enough to keep them from getting out.
Soon, I was made to learn that the creature wasn't affected by the many weapons that I conjured. It was all illusions that were made to frighten and disorientate any intruders in my mind.
I immediately knew what I had to do when I figured that part out.
The first Astor Bonechill that I fought wasn't immune to the energy that was blasted from me.
It must have been killed by the ball of essence; which I assumed was the source of the ball of energy.
So, I had to confront the creature directly if I wanted to kill it. So I took advantage of its disoriented state and appeared in the middle of the rotating room.
It was still being tossed around the room with its eyeballs rolling in its sockets as the weapons continuously fired at it without causing any harm to it.
I rushed up the rotating wall and ran on it as it spun around making me unable to tell which part of it was the top and bottom of the room.
The creature must have sensed my presence because its skull turned in my direction and even with its gaze a bit unfocused it suddenly had that sinister smile.
A sudden chill ran down my spine as I rushed toward it. But the smile didn't stay long on its scrawny face because a bomb dropped in front of it and exploded sending it through the center of the room to the other part of the wall.
Even though I was at a safe distance from the bomb the effect of the explosion stunned my eyes for about a moment or two, but that wasn't so for the creature.
It rolled around covering its eyes as it was being tossed from wall to wall.