11 – Sparkle, Sparkle, Sparkle
908 5 23
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.
Since I struggled a bit with the previous chapter, I actually had already some progress done on this one. So here it is.

Hope you'll enjoy it.

And here's a bit of music. Adrian vo Ziegler - Veiled

Dark metal steps, then rustic wood paneling blurred past me. Before I realized it, I was back in the living room, staggering to a halt and confused. The room was empty, the dying fire crackling by its lonesome.

There was no Mavis in sight, nor anyone else. However, the door to the atrium hung open, letting in a cold breeze. Without much thought, I stalked towards it. Down the hall, the front door of the range swung silently on its hinges.

Through the gap filtered distant shouts, screams, and inhuman roars. Gunshots. Something exploded.

I paused, struck by hesitation.

What am I doing?

Why did I run after Mavis? I didn’t even like the woman. So why was I rushing headlong towards danger and nightmare when I should be cowering wisely inside the Geraghtys’ bunker?

I shivered and swayed on my feet. A memory flashed through my mind: Shivaya dangling limply in the sadistic alien’s grip. No. I couldn’t let that happen again. I couldn’t. That monster was after me. The thought of anyone else falling prey to it by my fault made me physically ill. Anyone. Even Mavis.

But what could I do?

What imperial galactic princess? This made no sense. The world had gone mad, everyone caught in a mass delusion. I was no princess, only Terry Barker, an unremarkable freak who only knew how to cause trouble for the people around him. I’d tried fading away my whole life, yet I still somehow brought an immortal killer to my family’s doorstep.

I don’t like this.

Fever seemed to ignite all my cells at once and scorched my thoughts. Sweat poured down my face and back in thick droplets. My body felt like a melting lead puppet pulled along by janky strings. My bones ached. My teeth ached. My head. My hands, my arms, my chest, my stomach, my hips, my legs, my feet. Everything hurt.

Everything burned.

Everything blurred. My vision swam. The cozy hallway became a nauseating kaleidoscope from which emerged shapes and people.

Before me, Hunter laid still on the red carpet turned pool of blood, half-human, half-horse, all broken. His body was a mess of mangled limbs and gore. Onyx crumpled next to him as a dismembered pile of metal scraps. Her severed head stared at me with empty eyes. Gerald, Aponi, and Shivaya rose from the sea of blood, floating lifelessly. Hunter Senior and Tracy joined them. Mavis kept scowling even in death. Aunt Carmen; Grandma Barker; distant family members I hadn’t seen in months; Hunter’s aunts and uncles; classmates…

The heap of corpses rose and rose, towering, every single lost life my fault—until it collapsed, becoming a tidal wave that threatened to drown me.

I gasped for breath, stumbled away, tripped on the carpet, and hit the wall.

I don’t like this.

Lightless stars danced in my vision. Pinpricks of blackness that hurt my eyes. The atrium twisted and lurched around me like an expressionist painting. Bile burned my throat, and I bent over, coughing. Red splattered my feet.

Blood?! My terrified brain panicked.

Meatball sauce, my nose corrected. Half-digested.

I’d vomited.

I felt terrible for wasting Aponi’s cooking. Why can’t I do anything right?

Bleary-eyed, head pounding with heat, breathing loudly, I pushed off the wall and stumbled for the open door. Pins and needles stabbed at my limbs like fire ants crawling through my veins. The dead bodies of everyone I knew faded in and out of view, shrouded in a delirious heat haze. Among them, the black sparks multiplied, burning holes into my aching eyeballs.

“It’s me you want,” I mumbled. My tongue tasted stomach acid with an aftertaste of tomato. “Leave them alone.”

I half-walked, half-fell through the doorway and into the front yard.

I stared around groggily. The graveled space was empty, save for a couple of motorcycles, an armored van, and a muddied jeep. This was bad. I need to see someone to tell them… Tell them what again? Why had I come out here?

Flashes lit up the night, a fair distance away. The patter of weapons. Then another explosion.

There was fighting over there.

How many were already dead because of me?

I don’t like this.

I needed to go there. Stop this, somehow.

But when I tried to take another step, a solid and slender hand landed on my shoulder and harshly yanked me back. The sudden movement spurred my nausea. I gulped, and I would have lost my footing if not firmly held up. Instead, I was spun around and found myself staring into Onyx’s black eyes.

My friend looked angrier than I’d ever seen her. Her pained grimace pulled taunt the rips in her synthetic skin, accentuating her expression.

“Pillows!” she snapped.

I blinked. “…I’m sorry?”

Her eyes vibrated oddly. She shook her head, and then she shook me. “What are you doing?! Are you trying to get kidnapped?!”

My brows furrowed. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but… if the Vraex’ein took me, would she leave everyone else alone? She had grabbed Shivaya when she mistook my sister for me. So, maybe handing myself over was the best way to keep everyone safe?

She’d been sent to capture me. I probably wouldn’t be killed—at least, not right away. Maybe. Who knew?

Did it matter?

“Maybe I am,” I mumbled.

*SLAP*

My head rocked to the side, and pain blossomed across my left cheek.

She had slapped me. Onyx had slapped me. I couldn’t quite believe it, and neither could she, judging from the horrified expression she wore.

She recovered first. “Stop acting so selfishly!” I was grabbed by the collar and hoisted half off the ground. Our faces almost touched. “Do you have any idea what losing you would mean to m–m– everyone?!” A worrying spasm of her head accompanied her odd stutter.

“I’m selfish?!” I blurted out and shoved her away. Tried to. Didn’t do much. Well, she did set me down, but she didn’t go. Probably for the best. I don’t think I was capable of standing on my own.

I was still seeing stars—and not the kind I liked. The burning black sparks were now thick as dust clouds, hot grains of sands slowly burrowing towards my brain. And they might have set the corpse pile on fire. White flames engulfed my thoughts, devouring the dead bodies of everyone I loved.

“Do you know what it would mean to me, knowing people died to keep me safe?”

I wasn’t sure myself. Nothing good, I imagined.

“I’d comfort you?” Onyx sounded torn between hopeful and lost. A bizarre tick had overtaken her left eye, and her head kept starting to slowly spin left then snap back forward. It might have been comical if her expression wasn’t so distressed.

The opportunity to ask her about it was abruptly cut short when something crash-landed into the jeep. The car folded in on itself and was sent tumbling across the yard, glass shattering, metal banging, to end its course into the ranch’s wall. I yelped at the sudden explosion of noises spiking through my eardrums, and Onyx flipped us around to shield me behind her back while she faced the commotion.

The silence returned as brusquely as it had left, bringing along a heavy tension.

Then from the wreckage rose the snaps of breaking bones and wet rips of tearing flesh. Powerful arms broke through the crumpled metal, wrapping the jeep from within. A creature pulled itself out, a seven-foot-tall misshapen hybrid between woman and draconic unicorn, drenched in grime and blood from rapidly sealing wounds, long crocodile maw full of fangs parted in a soundless roar.

Articulations popped back into place and shifting flesh settled, and the apparition lost her terrifying edge. Chiseled muscles flexed underneath a layer of tightly meshed red scales. Pendulous breasts and wide, enticing hips, bare of any form of clothing, left little doubt as to the identity of the real-life furry fanart, and my roller-coasting hormones eagerly tied my burning guts into knots over it.

I’d read somewhere that fear and stress supposedly countered arousal, but Draskelite biology obviously disagreed. Or maybe this was yet another way in which I was fucked up.

A long face with front-facing, icy blue snake eyes glared at the horizon, where the explosions had briefly stopped. Then the being spotted us and did a double-take. “What are yoo-oo-ou doing out here?!” Tracy’s reproachful voice was recognizable even through the neighing modulation.

It snapped me out of whatever fugue I was sinking into. I swallowed, tasting lingering vomit, grimaced, and wiped the drool off my chin. “Mavis ran out!” I blurted out. Right. That had been my initial reason to come back out. Focus, Terry. It was hard, though.

“That little–” Tracy let out a furious neigh. “Never mind! Go back in! It’s not safe!”

She’s sexy when she’s angry too, prickly thoughts whispered. My headache throbbed. I scrunched my painful eyes shut. No! No! No, bad me! That’s Hunter’s mom! But thinking of Hunter did not help at all. My face burned, and my heartbeat shot up. A tight fist gripped my stomach, and I nearly emptied it again, only managing to gulp the tomato-flavored bile at the last second.

Onyx didn’t wait for even that long before dragging me towards the door. “You heard her. We need to leave before–”

The roof on the far right of the ranch suddenly exploded in a shower of shattered tiles.

A breath later, the living embodiment of my worst fears kicked her way through the wall and casually walked out, three yellow eyes glowing in the night, dusting plaster off herself with a mildly annoyed grimace.

“Eh, fuck. I overshot.”

Then she spotted us and grinned through multiple rows of sharp teeth.

“Missed me, pipsqueak?”

. . . . .

Next time, we're back into fight scenes... Eh. I'll manage. It'll be fine. I'm sure. Yeah.

Have a wonderful day, you.

23