command noun (ORDER)

• an order, especially one given by a soldier
• control over someone or something and responsibility for him, her, or it.

command noun (COMPUTER)

• an instruction to a computer to perform a particular action

- Cambridge dictionary

 

*** 

 

I woke with a start. I'd fallen asleep under the propped-up door after eating the can of vileness.  

Stupid. 

Mistakes like that would get me killed. I had to keep my head in the game, no matter how tired I was. 

It was still the middle of the night, and eerie whisps of fog drifted past me. The constant overcast blocked outmost of whatever light the moon and stars gave. I could see at least a few meters around me if I focused, despite the lack of light and my less than twenty-twenty eyes. 

Keeping myself utterly still and straining my ears for any sound, I tried to figure out if I'd been woken by something out there or if my churning stomach had been the cause. 

I didn't feel well, but I wasn't sure if it was due to the dog food not agreeing with me or if I was making myself sick thinking about the vile substance I'd forced down my throat. I swallowed back the stuff that was trying to escape my stomach. 

I could still taste it. I could still smell it.

Shit.

My eyes flicked down to the empty can half a meter from where I had fallen asleep, and I knew I was in trouble. 

The insect thing I had forced to leave had probably found me because it scented my blood through a rainstorm. If I could smell the residue in the can from where I sat, that meant that…

Snatching up my rucksack and dragging the massive sodding sword behind me, I rolled out from underneath the door, somehow getting to my feet with my backpack on in the same motion. 

Nameless terror lent me speed. Something was coming for me, barreling through everything like a runaway freight train aimed straight at me. 

Except it was utterly silent. 

I almost started running in the direction I was facing, but for some reason, I hesitated. 

I breathed in and out. 

Something was wrong. 

Not that nameless terror was ever right, but this had me wanting to bolt. To just run away from whatever it was in a blind panic after I'd spent most of the day keeping myself under cover and hidden as best as possible. 

Acknowledging that acting like this was nothing like me gave me a beat to think about it. Thinking about it, I could recognise the sensation and soon isolated what caused it. 

It wasn't a glass hand or a stainless steel claw. It was a tendril that wasn't trying to control me this time. It was...

{Panic}

It hit me again, like a wave that had receded, now slamming back into me. I grit my teeth, refusing to acknowledge the meaning of the Word, and pushed it as if it was a physical object. Like I had resisted Glasshand a few days ago. 

This was different, though. This Word wasn't... strong. 

It wasn't even a fraction of the strength of Glasshand, let alone Steelclaw. Those had felt solid, like hardened glass, stone or metal. This one was… soft. Like wet clay. And widespread. Pervasive even. 

It all just clicked just a second later. Whatever it was, it was trying to flush people out of hiding. 

And I was standing out in the open. 

I heard heavy clumps stamping towards me moments before I saw somebody rip through the fog only a few meters away. 

A black woman -or at least I think she was a woman- dressed in what looked like dark ski-clothing shot past me. When it registered that she had fine stubble instead of hair and eyebrows, I almost turned to sprint after her. She'd lost her hair just like I had! She was an Ironhide!

What stopped me from following was the Insectman only a few meters behind her. As soon as it saw me, its head whipped my way, and it adjusted its trajectory without breaking stride.

It was barreling straight towards me. 

[STOP!]

It was visceral. Instinctive in the way that I think trained martial artists react to a threat. That split second when they consciously choose to either try to avoid the danger or step into it and counterattack. 

I think.

My reaction wasn't me attacking physically, but a silent scream. I'd done it before without realising what I was doing, except this time, I took it all in. 

I felt the heat build in my spine's machinery and extend into my head. There I forced it into a Word. I wanted to live, so I wanted the thing to stop. 

It was a concept that took physical shape before I flung it at the Insectman. It burned as it went. I tasted blood and smelled charred toast. 

I didn't release it, however. The heat that originated in my spine and threaded through my head stayed connected to the Word. At the same time, it was like and unlike a kite being controlled by a string or maybe more like a shield being pushed forward and held fast in an invisible arm. 

It's hard to explain, but it was something rigid and undeniable, controlled by something flexible that slammed into the Insectman. 

And it stopped the creature cold, but I hardly noticed the giant mantis when I discerned what I was doing. I was doing the impossible, and I couldn't stop myself from trying to understand what I was doing. Even if I'd wanted to.  

It was like I was physically pushing the Word into a stream of pressurised water. Like running into a spewing firehose while standing on wet ice with the Word held out in front of me as a shield. 

No. Word doesn't describe what I was pushing into the stream. It wasn't a language. It was... Primal, I guess. I was forcing what I wanted to happen into the water. Into the Insectman. 

It was a... Command. 

No other word describes it better, but even that one falls short. Like any order or request, you can disregard a command. I don't think you can disobey a Command. Not unless you could fight it off.

My control over the Command wasn't perfect, though; it was even less steady than I was. And the Insect-thing was resisting. It pushed my Command away and to the side, trying to force it from the centre of the stream as if deflecting a punch or kick. 

So I dragged and pulled it back into the centre of the stream repeatedly. Where it instantly started to skip and skid away again. 

I kept the creature fettered while I got used to what I was doing. I was getting better at controlling it with each second, even if each second felt like I was running up a steep hill. 

It didn't take a genius to know I was as good as dead if it slipped out completely. The insect's claws would see to that, but I also knew I couldn't keep it there for too long; my eyes were already feeling hot again, and the longer I held it out, the more I smelled charred toast and tasted burned blood. 

It was then that I realised that I'd closed my eyes, so I forced them open again. The Command bucked like a wild horse when I did, and I couldn't suppress a groan as I pushed it back into the stream. The burn in my head spread even further, and my breathing was heavy. 

It had been easier to keep the Command in position when my eyes were closed, but I was glad I had opened them. I could see what was happening now; how royally screwed I really was. 

Maybe ignorance is bliss.

The man-insect stood towering over me less than a meter away, and I finally got a very good look at the creature. 

It resembled nothing more than a giant two-meter-tall insect standing upright on two segmented legs. It was covered entirely in a mottled grey-black carapace, but the more I looked, the more I saw the clouds shifting slightly when the fog whisps streamed by. Maybe camouflage that adapted, like a chameleon?

Its head was almost praying mantis-like, with two antennas and mandibles, but it had two large almost-humanlike eyes and sharp mammalian teeth behind its mandibles. A little drool dribbled down the mandibles.

Its large thorax was roughly the equivalent size of an adult human male torso, with two segmented arms ending in sharp-looking five-digit claws coming from a single shoulder joint on each side. 

Comparatively, its abdomen was small, not even half the size of the thorax. The wing casings on its abdomen were pulled back, but instead of a set of wings, another set of segmented limbs with a jagged white barb extended from there. 

It had turned into its attack, lining up its left two claws low and slightly to its rear, ready to rip me apart. 

I grit my teeth, tightening my control of the Command to keep this thing frozen. It was shaking fiercely but didn't move forward. But it still resisted, even if it could not break free from me. 

I knew I needed to get out of there. 

I edged back a bit, away from the claws claiming most of my attention, not daring to take my eyes off it again, and almost tripped on whatever debris I was standing in. 

The Command slipped. 

One of the claws moved a few centimetres towards me. 

Panicked, I refocused on the creature again, and the Command slippage instantly lessened. Ignoring everything else made it easier, but not by much. 

I didn't have much time. My vision was already turning red again. My breathing slowly turned ragged. I couldn't keep this up for long, and as soon as the Command slipped out entirely, the thing would rip me apart. 

I could almost feel its bloodlust oozing out of it. 

I was going to die here.

I froze, my ragged breathing hitching when I stared at the thing in front of me. 

There was nowhere I could go. There was nothing I could do. 

It was over. 

HUNT

GROW

SURVIVE

I blinked. 

The Sword.  

I'd been dragging the absurd thing around with me for days. Each time I'd decided to leave it behind, I'd changed my mind and decided to bring it along with me. 

Without looking, my left hand found the hilt my right was already holding, and I just pulled it up in front of me. It was ridiculously heavy, and I was exhausted, but this was my only chance. 

Again the Giant Bug moved a bit when my concentration slipped, but I pulled my Command back when I pulled the sword up. 

I grabbed hold of any killer instinct I could find, brought the blade back behind my right shoulder and swung the big honking slab of steel diagonally down on the creature. 

Gravity did more than my noodley arms, but my aim was on target, and I hit the creature on the left shoulder with everything I had. 

But, instead of slicing into the creature as I expected the ridiculously large weapon to do, it stopped dead against the armoured skin.

I was not expecting anything like this - nor was I particularly experienced in attacking things with swords- my hands slipped when the blade stopped dead against the armour. The crossguard blocking me was the only reason I didn't cut my fingers off. 

I hope the inventor of crossguards got his share of royalties. He more than earned them if you ask me.

The stray thought and shock of the impenetrable armour caused the Command to slip about as much as my hand did, and it took all my effort to force it back. I felt more blood vessels in my eye pop, turning my vision red, and my head burned. 

That feeling was already getting way too familiar.

The man-insect had turned to face me entirely during this slip, but I'd pushed the Command back before it had tried to eviscerate me. Opening and closing my hands on the sword's hilt, I brought it back under control and looked over the bug for any weak point. 

The creature was turned straight towards me, its disconcertingly human-looking eyes glaring at me. And I realised the insectman hadn't been angling its body towards me to attack but had kept the other side pointed away. 

Now I saw why.

The insect's far side wasn't as pristine as the left one. It had been wounded by something strong enough to rip through its armoured skin. 

It was missing part of its right mandible, and that entire side had cracked and showed ichor dripping down the chitin from his face to where his top arm should have been. 

Where the arm used to be, there was now only an empty socket with a ragged mass of flesh and gore still dripping watery red fluids. 

HUNT

GROW

SURVIVE

I didn't hesitate: that hole was the only weakness this thing had. Keeping an eye on the creature and forcing the Command to keep it immobile, I carefully shuffled to its left and raised the sword above my head horizontally to align with the hole. 

The creature started almost oscillating, and the Command became virtually impossible to handle. I pushed all I had into holding it as steady as possible and simultaneously stabbed the sword into the ragged mass of flesh with all my meagre might. 

I screamed as I stabbed, and my Command was flung from the stream, but the blade slid deeply into the creature. Half the weapon disappeared into its chest cavity at a slight upward angle. 

For a fraction of a second, I thought I'd killed it and was safe. Nothing could survive a chunk of sharp steel thrust into their chest like that. 

I was wrong. 

I lost control of the Command when I thought I'd won. Exhilaration banishing the terror fuelling my Command, and the enforced containment broke. 

The Insectman thrashed when my sword cut into it. 

It wasn't even any kind of fancy move or something. It just flailed its remaining arms around and backhanded me across my chest and face. 

Jo would have called it a pimp-slap, but it felt like I was finally hit by the freight train that had been barreling towards me since the moment I'd been taken.

The last thing I remember is sailing through the air and cracking my head against the broken toilet bowl…