-“There’s no way! You’re lying to me right now!” Says Mary as she tilts her head in surprise looking at Linn.
-“I’m not lying…I have no reason to…” Says Linn.
-“You’re telling me that you” Mary looks at Linn from head to toe “YOU never had a boyfriend? Come on now who would believe that lie.”
-“THAT’S the exact reason why, they never…” Linn looks at the floor her eyes starting to get a bit watery “They’ve never cared about me, they only cared about my body, about the way I looked…they pretended to care just to get to me…”
Mary keeps walking looking at the ground.
-“Men can be such animals…I’m sorry to hear you went through all that that stuff…”
-“It’s fine…I can talk about it.” Says Linn.
-“So did you have even one guy that seemed to be like, different?”
-“No…it’s so disgusting…some were pretending to care, like putting on the most convincing act…I remember this one guy that was really listening to me talk about my interests, my hobbies, my thoughts and giving his opinions, showing what he is interested in and all that stuff…until…”
-“Until?” Says Mary..
-“Until one day one of my friends sent me a screenshot of him boasting to his friends in a group chat saying some stuff like…you all are losers the hottest babe in the entire highschool is texting me at 2am and talking to me for hours, she’s basically all over me dude, next time we meet in person I’m inviting her to my house and I’m gonna kiss her and she’ll take things further on her own dude you know how these bitches are like…”
Linn exhales deeply, still looking at the floor as they were walking.
-“I’ve never felt more used, more objectified and more disgusted in my life…I was actually being nice to him and I actually thought that for once I met someone who looked at my eyes and not at my breasts…and in reality he was the same kind of perverted piece of shit that was just pretending to be human to me…and that was like the moment I snapped and I just said fuck it I’ve had enough of every guy I met being a horny pig who only thinks with his dick.”
Mary listens to her attentively, looking forward.
-“Sorry to hear that…but you’re right…most of them are indeed like that…”
-“What about you? Did you ever have a boyfriend?” Says Linn.
-“I did…but we broke up after like 3 months…he said I was too anxious and he couldn’t take me out anywhere to any restaurants or clubs or parties with his friends…I’ve always hated that kind of life with clubbing, partying going out to I don’t know what concert, drinking doing drugs and all that kind of stuff…”
-“How the fuck is this even possible we’ve been walking for hours!?” Says Fedora staring at the screen of her smartwatch.
-“Most likely there’s some kind if magnetic field around here, or some metallic casing preventing our coordinates from being sent to the Kola’s systems.” Sylvia looks around for a bit “If that’s true we are in some sort of Faraday cage, since the metal would be abs-“
-“I know what a Faraday cage is, I don’t need a physics lecture right now, let’s get the fuck out of here.” Says Fedora.
She looks at her smartwatch, and it said 19:18.
Her eyes widen in shock under her glasses.
-“HOW THE FUCK?! We’ve been here for HOURS!”
-“Yeah, what about it?” Says Sylvia.
Fedora raises her wrist and shows Sylvia her smartwatch that showed the time 19:18.
-“This shouldn’t be possible, the time is kept by atomic clocks inside their structure…how is this possible…” Sylvia’s face was now just as confused as Fedora’s.
-“Man fuck this shit…” Says Fedora as she begins walking around.
They both being trying to trace back their steps to return to where they came from, but to no avail, every room looked like the previous one, there were no landmarks or anything to distinguish the terrain.
After a few more hours, they finally sit down against one of the walls, tired of searching for nothing.
Fedora looks up at the ceiling, her hand on her stomach, her lower body on the floor while her upper body was leaning against the wall.
-“What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever done with your abilities? Something that’s like way off compared to what your actual ability is?”
Sylvia smiles, she was laying down on the floor with a few books under her head like a pillow.
-“I remember once I powered a hydraulic press, to compress a few tons of graphite to make a diamond…”
Fedora smiles and laughs.
-“In what possible context would you need to make a diamond on the spot?”
-“It’s hazy, it was years ago, but I remember I needed an exceptional heat conductor between two components of some machine to get it to work…and I had no other option so…”
-“And you just had like a few tons of graphite laying around?” Says Fedora.
-“Well it was a factory, I can’t remember what they were making there but there were tons of graphite deposited around there in containers. But what about you? I’m sure you can do some weird stuff.”
-“I think the weirdest one is that I can date any living organism with it.”
Sylvia laughs shaking her head.
-“How would you even do that?”
-“Well for humans and mammals it is the easiest, even though most of the cells in their bodies replicate and vary in age, neurons, especially those in the dorsal root ganglia, or inside the spine, their cell bodies never replicate, so they are as old as the organism itself. I don’t know how it works to be certain but, if I extend a tiny tiny blade, and place it on the skin just above those cells, I can vibrate it at an insanely high frequency to target the DNA inside those cell bodies, and I know how old those organisms are.”
-“How? Do they email you the age?” Says Sylvia laughing.
-“I don’t know how to explain it, it’s like trying to explain colors to a blind person, I just feel it and I know the age.”
-“Try it on me.” Says Sylvia.
-“Nah, I already know how old you are, you’d say I cheated.”
Fedora looks at the bottom of Sylvia’s boot as she was laying down, and she spots a leaf which stuck to it. She sits up and reaches for the leaf, unsticking it from her boot.
-“Let’s try it on this leaf, I’m no expert in plants so I don’t know what cells inside it never divide, or if they have any nondividing cells at all, but I think if I go for the DNA it should work. Here scan it and you date it first.”
Sylvia sits up as well, she taps a few buttons on her smartwatch, and a laser shoots out of it for a split second.
-“Okay, I got my results, now your turn.”
Fedora places the leaf on her left hand while out of the index finger of her right hand, a tiny bone plate extends out of her fingertip, maybe about 1 cm in length, and she places it on top of the leaf, then for a split second Sylvia hears a very faint high pitched hissing sound coming from it.
-“I’d say…around 2 months old?” Says Fedora looking at Sylvia.
Sylvia’s face opens in shock and amazement.
-“That’s…just wow.”
She rotates her wrist and shows Fedora the screen which said exactly 2 months.
-“PFAHHAA! Told you!” She looks at the leaf as she rotates it “I know it’s not edible…but hey maybe Ergals have a different digestion and we can eat leaves, we can share if you want I am star-“
Just before she got to finish her sentence, out of nowhere, they were back at the two small glass gates with the long gray corridor at the bottom of the escalators.
Fedora throws away the leaf, stands up and runs to hug Linn.
-“THANK GOD I THOUGHT WE WEREN’T GETTING OUT OF THERE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”
Linn smiles and hugs Fedora back gently.
Sylvia checks her smartwatch, the time said 19:19.
-“Are you okay?” She asks Mary and Linn.
-“Yeah we’re fine…but this place goes on forever, and the windows they show the sa-“ Says Mary.
-“The same stuff? Yeah it’s the same on the other side.”
Sylvia looks at her watch again, then up the escalators.
-“The Ergarch will be very intrigued by this place, let’s head out, we’re done here.”
They all walk to the escalator and head out of the building, crawling under the 1 m opening at the entrance again.
-“I’m so done with this place…” Says Fedora as she looks outside, it was midday.
Fedora looks again at her watch, it said 19:26.
-“Is my watch broken or something? It clearly says 19:26, shouldn’t it be dark outside?”
The others look at their watches.
-“Mine is showing the same time,” Says Linn.
-“Same here.” Says Mary.
Sylvia walks forward and off of the wooden bridge.
-“Well time is relative isn’t it Fedora? You’re the one who taught me that.” Says Sylvia.
Fedora shrugs and walks after her.
-“Eh fuck it, let’s just go home I’ve been blessed enough for today.”
Linn laughs and her and Mary walk after Fedora as well.
They reach their motorcycles and begin gearing up.
-“I must say, this has been the most boring mission I have ever ha-“
Just as Fedora was putting on her helmet, they hear wood crackling and breaking in the distance, birds flying away in the opposite direction.
-“WELL FUCKING FINALLY! Looks like our wide eyed friends didn’t let us down after all!”
Sylvia quickly takes off her helmet and her coat, handing it to Linn.
Mary takes off her coat as well and hands it to Linn.
-“Could you please hold this for me Linn? I don’t want to rip it again.” Says Fedora as she hands linn her coat.
Linn stands there, looking at them while holding all of their coats in her arms.
-“Guys…where do I go…?”
Sylvia runs over to her as the noises from the forest were getting closer and closer.
She taps a few buttons on Linn’s motorcycle.
-“Thank Ahvela for this.”
Suddenly around Linn’s bike a large cube of metal expands and envelops Linn in the small space.
-“WOAH this is so cool! I even have screens in here, with cameras that are locked on each of you!”
Nobody responds to her.
-“Oh yeah they can’t hear me…” She presses the button on her earpiece.
-“Can everyone hear me?”
-“Yeah” They all say in unison.
Linn was now inside the metallic box, which had above it 3 rotating 360 degrees cameras, each of them designed to track one of the Ergals.
-“Ear protection.” Says Sylvia as the selvim begin to be visible from deep within the forest, charging at them through the trees and the rocks in a straight line without avoiding any obstacle.
5 out of 10 dahlias wither on the back of Fedora’s arms.
6 out of 14 roses wither on Sylvia’s chest.
2 out of 6 snowdrops wither on the back of Mary’s head.
The first selvim charges at Sylvia with immense speed.
She punches it straight into the torso.
An incredibly loud sonic boom echoes in the entire forest, as a gigantic hole is left in the torso of the selvim, completely destroyed.
Another selvim charges at Fedora, claw about to slice her in half, but before it gets the chance to, a very long bone blade extends from Fedora’s arm and he cuts it in half diagonally.
-“Been a while since we last fought together hasn’t it?” Says Fedora turning to look at Syliva.
They both speed up at incredible speed running through the forest and killing every selvim in their way.
Mary stays back and protects Linn.
Every selvim that came her way either collapsed on the spot, killed itself by self-mutilation, or if there were more than one they fought one another to the death.
One particular selvim got very close, its claw about to slice the box that Linn was in, but it suddenly stops, turns around and begins attacking every selvim that Mary was looking at.
-“You know I didn’t miss the sound of your punches, I always said they’d make me go deaf!”
Says Fedora while running around Sylvia and killing selvim with her various bone formations.
-“I always said you should wear ear protection.” Says Sylvia as she throws a selvim at Fedora and she cuts it half, one half going to her right and one to her left.
-“I already have to struggle to keep my glasses on while fighting and you think I’d want to take care of some headphones too? Why don’t you ask Ahvela to make you a pair of aerodynamic gauntlets to minimize the sonic boom?” Says Fedora as she catches one selvim with a bone formation which looked like a hook, and throws it at Sylvia.
-“Not a bad idea actually.” Says Sylvia as catches and rips apart the selvim that Fedora threw at her, tearing its spine in half.
She touches her earpiece.
-“Linn are you there? What’s with the silence?”
-“I’m here I’m here just figuring out the controls here….got it! The cameras were not locking on. Fedora AoE behind you.”
Fedora turns around, her arm extends into a 20 meter long elastic bone blade which instantly slices through a group of selvim coming from behind her, as well as all of the trees behind her.
-“Sylvia to your right vertical line.”
Sylvia kicks the base of one tree, cutting it, and as it was falling she catches it and throws it to her right, impaling 8 selvim at the same time.
-“Fedora diagonal left then scattered right diagonal up.”
Fedora dashes to her left and slices open two selvim with the blades coming out of her shin, and then accelerates to her right in a diagonal motion, bone blades coming out of her back and forearms, she kills all of the selvim scattered in that area.
Time passes, they have killed thousands of selvim by now, and they were starting to get a bit tired.
Fedora cuts off the head of one dead selvim laying on the ground and throws it at Sylvia’s feet.
-“Mary you okay?” Says Fedora.
-“Yeah all good and clear, no enemy in sight.”
Countless remains of selvim body and rivers of blood were all around Mary, she had killed so many that she wasn’t even standing on the grass anymore, she had to stay on top of the dead bodies all around her.
-“See? What are you so worried about? Even if they have millions of selvim stashed in one of those evil little hives, if we fight together they have no chance.”
From far away, from within the remaining trees, they hear a terrifyingly loud screech mixed with the oscillating roar like sound of a cassowary.
-“Yeah well it looks like there’s one more.” Says Sylvia.
Fedora squints her eyes under the glasses and looks at the figure in the distance, she couldn’t really tell since it was between the trees.
-“Is that even a selvim? They are tall but not that tall, and you know they don-“
It was right in front of Sylvia’s face.
She could see it in crystal clear detail.
It had 3 eyes, 2 placed exactly like a human’s, and one placed in what would be its forehead. The space around its 2 horizontal eyes were surrounded by some grey tissue which appeared to be some sort of rough skin. The 3rd eye was placed in the middle of its forehead but that skin was not around it, it seemed to be surrounded by some kind of rhombus looking muscle. Its two horizontal eyes had no eyelids, they were perfectly round, and like dirty spheres, the irises being blown out dark voids. The 3rd vertical eye had a more vertical shape, it was similar to a convergent lens in shape, its iris was just as big. Around its neck it had what appeared to be some kind of neck frill, which was made out of some reddish, wet looking tissue, the veins coursing through them being visible. It had 4 arms, 2 smaller ones which barely had any claws at the end but had long fingers, humanoid hands. Above the skinner arms were 2 massive arms. Its torsos was wide, its obliques being extremely developed and thick. Its legs were muscular and had the same grotesque appearance of a malformed human without its skin. Its entire body had no skin, the muscles and veins fully exposed, giving it a visceral open wound appearance. It had a large lipless gaping mouth which revealed a burning red flesh on the inside leading down a dark esophagus, with rows of needle like teeth longer than half her body.
One of the bigger, more muscular arms was wound up, about to punch Sylvia.
Sylvia manages to react just in time, she clenches her fist and aims at the creature’s arm with every ounce of strength she got.
Its punch lands way before hers.
A loud bang.
Half of her upper body was gone, her body sent flying hundreds of meters away.
Before Fedora can even realize what happened, the creature was right in front of her, its other large arm about to punch her.
She barely had the time to react, she tries to form a bone shield from her forearms as fast as she could but she didn’t get to fully form it, the creature was too fast.
Both of her forearms got shattered just from the impact coursing through the shattering bone shield.
She’s sent flying away, rolling through the dirt as her body hits the remaining tree trunks.
Linn was watching all this unfold on her monitors, her eyes open wide in shock, unable to understand what was going on.
Bang.
The entire upper side of her shelter was blow off nearly instantly, and the next thing she saw were the large jaws of the creature, the dark void of its mouth about to envelop her.
Mary was right next to the box as this was happening, her heart seemed to explode in her chest as she saw that thing about to kill Linn.
She screams.
She lets out a scream of pure fear and terror as she watches her friend about to be brutally mauled by this creature, her lungs squeezing out every bit of air like a sponge, her vocal cords vibrating and pulling so tight it felt like they were about to break.
Another snowdrop withers on the back of her head.
Mary’s magnitude has now reached 3 out of 6.
The creature collapses.
It lays motionless in front of Linn, on the edge of ripped metal.
Mary was hyperventilating, she had dropped to her knees and was gasping for air uncontrollably, her vision blurry and shaky.
-“ITS NOT DEAD IT’S NOT DEAD IT’S NOT DEAD IT’S NOT DEAD” She was repeating uncontrollably with each forced exhale.
Linn could feel her heart beat out of her chest, her body felt frozen in fear.
She quickly closes the metallic box by clicking on the screen of her motorcycle, the remaining metal retracting into it.
She throws the coats on the bike and runs in the direction where Sylvia was thrown into.
As she runs she frantically presses buttons on her smartwatch.
-“THIS IS ORCHID LINN WE ARE OVERPOWERED WE ARE OVERPOWERED WE ARE OVERPOWERED SEND AID ERGARCH SEND AID WE CANNOT DEFEAT THE ENEMY FATAL INJURIES PRESENT!”
Her voice was shaking, terrified and almost unable to speak as tears begin running down her cheeks.
She reaches Sylvia, and she was already halfway regenerated, most of her right arm still missing, but besides that everything else was untouched.
-“WHERE’S FEDORA?!” Says Sylvia scared.
Linn points in the direction where Fedora was sent into, and she was already running back to them, her hands fully regenerated.
-“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT THING THAT IS NOT A SELVIM LET’S GET OUT OF HERE WE ARE DEAD MEAT!” She says waving around frantically.
Suddenly, a robotic voice answers from Linn’s smartwatch.
-“Nuclear strike is sent your way, seek deep shelter immediately. Nuclear strike is sent your way, seek deep shelter immediately. Nuclear strike is sent your way, seek deep shelter immediately.”
The voice was so monotone and obviously robotic that she could feel a cold shiver run down her spine and in every blood cell of her bloodstream.
Fedora suddenly walks up to Linn and grabs her wrist, screaming into the watch.
-“YOU FUCKING BITCH WE ARE STILL HERE YOU’LL FUCKING KILL US CALL IT OFF CALL IT OFF WE ARE STILL HERE!!!”
The call ends without Fedora touching anything.
While Fedora talks with Linn, Sylvia runs over to Mary and picks her up in her arms.
-“ARE YOU OKAY MARY ARE YOU HURT?”
But Mary’s eyes were still wide open, she was still hyperventilating, her hands coiled in front of her chest, her muscles locked up.
-“IT’S NOT DEAD IT’S NOT DEAD IT’S NOT DEAD IT’S NOT DEAD!”
Sylvia runs back to them while carrying Mary.
-“WHAT DID THE ERGARCH SAY WHAT DO WE DO?”
-“THE FUCKING BITCH SAID SHE’S SENDING A NUCLEAR STRIKE THIS WAY WE CANNOT ESCAPE IN TIME WE’RE DEAD ALL DEAD!” Says Fedora.
Linn suddenly gets on her motorcycle, and she accelerates towards the church, a layer of armor encasing the entire motorcycle. She uses the hilly terrain as a ramp and bursts right through the concrete of the entrance, out of sight.
-“Get in here immediately, this is our only chance!” Says Linn through her earpiece.
Fedora and Sylvia begin running towards the church as well.
-“Why did you crash the motorcycle into the structure? The Ergarch told us only to explore the structure not des-“
-“SHUT THE FUCK UP DO YOU WANT TO WALK HOME BY FOOT WHILE DECOMPOSING ALIVE FROM THE RADIATION? FUCK THAT BITCH CATHERINE AND GET THE FUCK INSIDE!” Says Fedora.
They reach the church and jump over the bridge, straight inside the structure, the opening having been destroyed and made big enough by Linn’s motorcycle, and all of the walls have been destroyed.
Down at the base of the escalator, into the room on the left Linn had trashed and thrown around some bookshelves to make room for her motorcycle.
Once in, Fedora turns around and makes a huge bone wall that seals the room.
-“It probably won’t hold but it’s better than nothing…” Says Fedora exhausted as she crashes down against one of the walls, naked, her chest and genitals covered by her bone formations, like multijointed armor.
Sylvia carefully places Mary on the floor, she had passed out.
Just as she put her down, Sylvia collapses from exhaustion against the wall as well, her clothes all torn up but still enough to cover her.
Linn was the only one left standing.
She stands on her tippy toes and looks outside one of the small windows.
She sees a large plane, with a huge wingspan slowly flying above the forest.
-“I think I see it…”
