POV: Darren
Darren steeled himself, knowing there was no running away from the enemies racing up the hillside toward him and Kaycee.
The first wave reached the plateau, and he held nothing back. The spear felt like an extension of his body, his will, as the creatures started falling on all sides.
He tried not to lose awareness of the huge monster making its way slowly up behind the horde of smaller ones, but it was difficult not to get lost in this bloody dance as he stabbed, slashed, spun, impaled, pivoted, skewered, dodged, rolled, slashed, stabbed, pivoted, and decapitated... The dance went on and on.
He was vaguely aware of arrows flying around him, dropping enemies left and right, but it was only a peripheral awareness as his focus was on not dying. A claw raked his arm, and a dagger cut his leg, but he managed to stay out of the way of the most dire wounds, if only barely.
Soon, a couple dozen of the creatures lay on the ground, dead or dying, around him. Panting and trying to catch his breath, he realized he hadn't exerted himself like that in... well, he couldn't actually remember the last time.
It felt good, and exhausting, and energizing all at once. But there was no time to think as the second half of the creatures bolted over the ridge toward him. Kaycee was still safely over a dozen feet behind him, able to use her bow without much worry of having to face any of these creatures up close.
He kept an eye on the largest of the group, and the closer it got, the more apprehension he felt. He began the bloody dance once more, but soon found that he had nothing to strike at. A scream sounded behind him, and he realized the creatures had passed him and were headed straight for Kaycee.
The only creature left in front of him was the huge one, but it still hadn't reached the plateau. Darren rushed after the horde, stabbing and slicing bits of their bodies off, doing everything in his power to stop them from getting to Kaycee.
She bounced back on the balls of her feet, a strange mix of fear and determination on her face, rapidly firing arrows into the horde and dropping them one after another in steady succession.
Suddenly, Darren remembered the ability he had unlocked before entering the breach. The energy here didn't feel the same, but he could sense an electrical charge in the air. He pulled in the power around him and bolted forward. Instantly, he found himself between Kaycee and the encroaching horde, wasting no time ending the threats to her.
Crimson blood sprayed through the air as the wind picked up, and he channeled the lightning within him toward dominating his enemies. The lightning began to surge out of him, jolting and dancing around the spear in his hands, each strike sending bolts of electricity into the target.
His body ached, and his breathing was becoming more labored, but he couldn't stop. He couldn't let these things get to Kaycee, or get through the breach. There was no choice here but to win.
Finally, with the help of Kaycee's arrows, all of the eldritch monsters were down, lying in puddles of their own blood and viscera. There must have been at least forty or fifty of them in this group alone, not counting the first dead bunch.
A blood-curdling scream echoed through the rock pillars, and Darren knew the final enemy had made it to the top. The ground shook beneath him as the thing came into sight, stomping its feet as if to say, "I'm not moving."
"So that's how it is, huh?" he muttered.
He had just about enough of these ugly bastards. Darren pulled in the energy around him and bolted forward, spear extended. Before the monster could blink, his spear pierced the creature's face, slicing through its skull like a hot blade through butter.
Electricity arced from the blade, filling the creature with untold volts. The monster let out a squeal of pain as its insides began to cook. Soon, its entire body was burned to an unrecognizable crisp.
"Poor guy," Kaycee said, stepping up next to him as he withdrew the spear. "He didn't even get the chance to say hello."
Darren looked at her beautiful face and couldn't help but burst out laughing. This was absolutely the strangest thing he'd ever been through, and yet here this amazing woman was, just laughing it all off. His side started to hurt from the laughter, and he could see Kaycee wiping tears from her eyes, brought on by her own hard laughter.
"Something might be wrong with us," she said.
"What do you mean? It's totally natural to laugh after a near-death experience," Darren replied.
He looked back at the charred husk of a monster at his feet. "I thought this one would be harder to kill."
"Well, I, for one, am happy it was not. We should check the breach on their side, right?"
Darren nodded in agreement, turning and walking back through the stone pillars, Kaycee at his side. At the edge once more, he looked down and saw the breach in the inky barrier closing.
"I guess that was all of them," Kaycee said. She looked up with wide eyes, realizing what she had just said. Her attention swiftly shifted to the breach again, and he could see the relief written all over her face when she saw that it was still closing. "I thought I jinxed it again," she laughed.
"I'm glad you can't actually jinx things," Darren said. "Otherwise, I'd have to stop hanging out with you. And that would be super lame."
Kaycee smiled her trademark soft smile, and Darren couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by her. As if mirroring his thoughts, Kaycee looked at him with an expression he could only describe as longing.
Before he had time to react, she dropped her bow, stepped forward, wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her lips against his passionately. Darren was gone, unable to do anything other than kiss her back. It felt like he was falling, fast, toward an unknown end. But he knew that the only place he wanted to be was right here, right now.
Everything else melted away, and it was just the two of them. He didn't know how long they stayed like that, absorbed in each other, when they finally separated. But that was okay because he could have stayed just like that forever...
Ahem, if you do not wish to remain in the Rift, then I advise a hasty exit.
"Wait, what? Hurry, let's go!"
They ran together, back across the plateau, down the path, and across the open plain between the rocky little mountains and the breach they had entered through.
The trip back was far faster, and without stopping or hesitating, they both leaped through the breach.