Chapter 32
Humans and Monsters
Ethan stared emptily at the expanding field of twilight-purple, its mist a devourer of the living. It was the nature of the Tunnels of this type–the mist would expand up to a mile in diameter, its colour diluting from deep, twilight-purple to a faded shade of azure which would be when the Tunnel's spacetime membrane weakens, and monsters come flooding out. They were still at least ten days away from it, but he was no less calm because of it.
Flanking him were Tara and Ronald who were informed just a few minutes prior of the phenomenon. Both had hardened expressions, their eyes glazed in worry. In their minds, whatever could scare Ethan ought to scare them tenfold–and they were battling their best to not let their fears come to the surface.
"Are you ready?" Ethan asked as he stood up. He didn't bring them here to simply mist-gaze, nor did he bring them just to inform them of what kind of a Tunnel it was. He brought them to teach them–to beat into their bones lessons they would have to absorb like sponges in just ten days.
"Yes," both nodded firmly.
"You ain't," Ethan's voice was calm and cold; there was no time for playfulness and nonchalance. "Attack me. Go wild."
Neither Tara nor Ronald protested–the latter led the charge, summoning the bloody needle above his palm and surging it toward Ethan's abdomen while Tara curled to the flanking position, casting a conal blood spray aimed at the both of them. Ethan readily stepped to the side and yanked Ronald's attacking arm, pulling it back till the bone cracked. The boy yelped in horrible pain while Ethan used him as a shield against the incoming spray of blood. Ronald's hitpoints fell by over a half as Ethan tossed him to the side and rushed at the beyond-shocked Tara, summoning a crimson whip and lashing it out.
The whip connected directly with Tara's face, scalding it and causing a massive gash that dyed her vision red while Ethan's fist not-so-gently lodged itself into her left-side ribcage. Bones, once again, creaked and cracked and cried, as did Tara, her voice burning. She fell to her knees and keeled over, the pain and nausea being too much, letting her innards out. Both rolled on the ground right after and passed out.
It was about an hour later that they woke up–they were when they fell, and their calm hearts surged in horror once again as memories besieged them fresh. They recalled the incomparably terrible sensation of death overwhelming them, but they were alive. And, for better or for worse… they were healed. Were it not for the memories and blood stains on their clothes, the two would have thought it was just a passing nightmare. Ethan sat on the edge and observed them silently, his gaze cold and apathetic.
"It was stupid, separating," he commented. "You attacked me like you would a random person on the street. I'm not human–I'm the boss inside the Tunnel, a monster that does not operate within the flimsy structure of 'one vanguard, one flanker'. You gave me room to breathe in a stupid attempt to play by some clever rules."
"..."
"When meeting an unknowable thing, your first instinct should always, always, always be to run–run as quickly as your legs can carry you, all else be damned. However, if running is not an option, throw yourselves at it. Attack at the same time without any delays. Force it to make a choice, rather than giving it options. Get up. Attack me again."
Through creaking bones and pleas of the minds on the verge of collapsing, Tara and Ronald stood up and, once again, focused themselves on Ethan. Per instructions, the two rushed at him at the same time, one from slightly left and the other slightly from the right, but the outcome was hardly different–if not worse, then the same.
Ethan ignored Ronald and kicked at Tara's left kneecap; the latter managed to shift her leg in time, but not enough. The kick landed and squarely tore through the femur, tibia, and fibula, undoing the entire structure of the leg. Bone shards flew out in addition to blood and flesh, ligaments tearing like paper, the crackling sound enough to incite heart-tearing horror.
Tara cried out once again, her eyes bulging while her mind snapped. It was akin to getting a life-ending injury–her leg was done. She would never walk again. She would never run, jump, or skip again. She would be chair-bound until she died. Her eyes closed, her blood pressure plummeted, and she felt the world fading. It couldn't handle the reality of it all.
In the meantime, while Ronald cringed in horror at the sight of an entire leg being discombobulated like a piece of machinery, Ethan rounded him and stabbed a crimson blade through the boy's back all the way through the front, tearing open a fist-sized hole that seemed beyond deadly. Blood sprayed out for a moment before it stopped and all Ronald could do for a moment before passing out due to the sudden change in blood pressure was whimper and wonder whether it was worth it.
This time around, it took over three hours for the two to wake up. Tara blitzed to a seated position, doused in sweat, and immediately looked at her leg. It was… normal. It was her leg, as it was before. The only signs that anything even happened, again, were the blood stains as well as the torn clothes. Her body started to shake as her mind recalled the sensation–the initial burst of pain as though someone jabbed a massive needle into her knee, the awful, awful crunch that was almost a whisper yet, in her mind, an explosion, and the radiating pulses of pain that followed as well as the mind catching up to the reality of what happened… and then, there was only darkness.
Tears began to stream out of her eyes as she sobbed, cradling her face in her hands. She ought to be stronger, she knew, but her body wouldn't listen. The heart was numb to the pleas of strength, and it cracked.
Ronald, on the other hand, was sitting in a daze, his mind replaying the fading scene of his abdomen being ripped open. He couldn't quite recall the sensation of it, only the coldness that overwhelmed him right after. For a moment before the nothingness consumed him, he didn't feel human–he felt less, as though broken.
"You rushed at me head-on like morons," Ethan's voice remained cold and apathetic, and as they looked up from the ground and at him yet again, they only saw a visage of torture and death rather than a man of flesh and bones. "Would you rush at me like that if I were a ten-foot lion with fire for a mane? No. So, why did you? Because I told you that one of the ways to confront a monster was to rush it at the same time?"
"..."
"Tara has a ranged attack–a conal one, a spray that not only deals damage but also creates an obstructive field. A field you control. In a battle, be that on a macro or micro scale, the key element is how much control can you exert. Nominally, here, control to guide the monster where you want it to be. There's a fairly steep fall behind us, and I purposefully sat to its edge, but you didn't take advantage of it at all. You bum-rushed me, and you failed. Get up. Attack me again."
"..." Ronald and Tara wanted to protest–they wanted to cry out over the injustice and inhumane treatment. After all, Ethan was treating them like cattle–no, he was treating them even worse. He didn't look at them as living things but more just shapes he had to mould into something functional. But they stayed silent. Ignoring the alarms of their minds, they stood up to their wobbly feet and faced him. He was no longer sitting on the edge but was instead standing with his back to a thick line of trees. It was purposeful, they both knew. But what the purpose was… they didn't.
They hesitated, and stood around for a few seconds–and immediately realised it was a mistake. Rather than waiting for them, Ethan rushed forward. Though his speed wasn't much quicker than what the two of them were capable of, the way he moved made it seem that he was a ghost tearing through the physical and bounding distances so quickly it did not make any sense. He went after Tara first yet again, and beyond the overwhelming feeling of terror due to what he would inflict upon her, she also felt anger.
She had no time to stew in it, however, as Ethan summoned a crimson blade from the seeming nowhere and sliced it forward with his mind. Tara raised her hands to defend but it was pointless–the blade sliced through them, cutting off eight out of her ten fingers. Blood, once again, sprayed out and a mind stretched to its finite limits snapped once again. The fingers flew through the air and barely got to touch the ground before Tara fainted and fell down.
Ronald used the brief moment to try and sneak attack Ethan, but it failed; the latter easily dodged the shoddy attempt from the rear and grabbed Ronald's arm, pulling it forward and dislocating the shoulder before continuing to yank it until the entire arm flew out. Ronald froze and all his mind could do, at that moment, was shut itself down. It could not comprehend the sight of an entire arm being ripped out by the raw, brutal force of another man. A man who stared down at him emptily, holding the dangling arm to the side, the gaze glazed in absolute nothingness. Ethan was a monster, perhaps a perfect replica of the kind they would face in the Tunnel–but it still hurt, hurt beyond the pain of the flesh, to see him be able to harm them so gravely without so much as flinching.
As his mind began to drift, Ronald wondered just what they meant to him. He knew that Ethan likely saw them as useful pawns, but had hoped there was something more there. All that hope was burned in the fire of indescribable pain and the darkness that took over. His mind fell silent, and the seeming death took hold. He was dragged to the cold depths of the abyss, never to be woken it felt.