The Dead, They Be Caliing
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The sight of someone you thought was dead is a chilling prospect. Seeing Tom, who I thought was dead for good, stared at me impassively from across the crowd, seemingly unconcerned about everything that was happening around him.

“So, David…..”, another girl began to ask when I hastened to move across the room to reach Tom, eager to get him away from this crowd. While my behaviour would certainly be considered rude, I found myself not caring about it at all. I had eyes for only one person, a person I was eager to send back to the realms of death.

When I reached the place where Tom was supposed to be, I found myself looking at nothing but air. Looking around, I saw him exiting the party. It was clear that he wanted me to follow him and I had no qualms doing so. I quickly retraced his steps towards the exit, eager to confront him and finish him, once and for all.

I had barely made it out of Luke’s property when I felt myself being grabbed and thrown over someone’s shoulder, crashing into a wall. My entire body racked in pain, as I looked in the direction from where I had been attacked.

Looking at Tom made the resentment I felt towards him bubble back to the surface of my core. Last time I had faced him, I had been too concerned with Frost and his actions to dwell on my personal feelings towards Tom. Plus, any opportunity I had of exacting revenge had been robbed by Samuel, who, frankly, deserved it more.

I was surprised to find that I didn’t feel any fear towards my opponent this time around. After all, this was a guy who had gotten the better of me twice already and I had only escaped relatively unscathed because of terrific strokes of luck and the fact that I and Samuel outnumbered him.

Throughout all of this, one question continued to bother me. How the hell was he still alive when the Council had confirmed him dead? There were only two possible answers to that question. Either, the Council had lied about his demise, which was highly unlikely. No matter how tenuous my relationship with the Council was, I didn’t think they would stoop to such lows.

That only left the other, far more terrifying option. Necromancy. Sol Syntrivon. Somehow, the necromancer had found a way to resurrect a dead person on Earth when he was supposed to be in outer space.

I was distracted briefly by my thought process of the prospect of Syntrivon affecting things from outer space when Tom rudely reminded me to pay my undivided attention towards him. He ran towards me with lightning coated fists and only my quick reaction prevented me from being skewered.

The electricity seemed to be zapping around him incessantly. The electricity was different from the last time I saw as it had a reddish hue to it, serving to make Tom look especially menacing.

Before I could ponder further on the change in his lightning, Tom was on the offensive once more. I quickly summoned my own scythe and proceeded to swing towards him in a clean arc, not really expecting to make contact. My intention was to slow down the fight because Tom had the upper hand, having taken the early initiative in this face-off. I quickly used my own ability to slow down time, hoping to take hold of the flow of this fight.

Contrary to all my expectations though, Tom didn’t have any intention of dodging my scythe at all. He didn’t hesitate even for a moment and my scythe struck him in the shoulder, lodging in his bone. Instead of crying out in pain or even flinching back, Tom didn’t show even a trace of any outward reaction that he had his shoulder almost separated from his body.

I let go of the scythe and jumped back as far I could, narrowly missing another lightning punch from Tom. My scythe was still lodged in his shoulder and it made for a gruesome sight. There wasn’t any trace of pain on his face nor did it seem to impede his movement. He continued walking forward towards me, all the while trying to extract my scythe from his shoulder.

The scythe separated from his shoulder with a squelch before he proceeded to throw it at me, suggesting that he didn’t consider me a threat, with or without the scythe. I was too fascinated and disgusted at the sight of shoulders almost stitching together to perceive any slight towards me. Within seconds, his shoulders looked as good as new and I truly understood that I was faced with a daunting task ahead of me.

The next few minutes were spent dodging and ducking, trying to avoid Tom’s attacks, while attempting to retaliate in kind. It was a task made extremely difficult by the fact that Tom seemed nigh indestructible, his body healing almost immediately after I managed to damage him somehow.

It was clear that some sort of permanent solution was required to get rid of him for good. I clearly remembered Eirini mentioning the fact that he had to burn his brethren’s undead corpses to stop them from resurrecting. Sadly, that option wasn't available to me at the current moment, due to the lack of any sort of fuel, as much as I’d like to burn Tom to ashes.

The solution came to me completely by chance, when my scythe struck his shoulder again. Only this time, it managed to separate his limb completely. I expected the decapitated arm to rise and attach itself back or even for Tom to forego all that and grow a new arm altogether, this time, though, there was no suggestion of any sort of self-repair.

Tom didn’t seem to mind the lack of his arm whatsoever. In fact, his gaze has grown even more disconcerting, if that was possible. The odds were in my favour now. No matter how skilled an individual was, no one could overcome the loss of a limb in the spur of a moment.

Tom rushed towards me with nary a sense of self-preservation. I avoided his attack without too much of a fuss before swinging my scythe straight for his neck. This time, too, he didn’t seek to avoid my strike and my scythe passed through his neck unimpeded. I turned around almost immediately, feeling queasy about the prospect of seeing the beheaded corpse of my enemy, confident in my victory.

That confidence proved to be unfounded though as I felt myself being jolted from behind with Tom’s trademark electricity. I was lucky in the fact that it seemed to lack its usual bite and I was able to withstand it, not much worse for wear.

Turning around, I came across a sight straight out of a horror flick. A body, short of both a limb and a head, sparking with electricity and moving sluggishly in my direction, only one thought, or rather obsession, fuelling his actions.

He grabbed me, the action managing to send small shockwaves throughout my body as I struggled to escape his hold. The ensuing tussle resulted in the buttons of his shirt becoming undone and I was greeted by a symbol I was becoming increasingly and frustratingly familiar with.

There, on his chest, was the mark of a scythe, eerily similar to the one that adorned my own body. I didn’t have much time to ponder on it though, as I brought my scythe down on him with as much force as I could muster.

The impact was enough to cleave through his body completely and the mangled mess that was his body just fell over. Blood splattered all over my body, drenching me in its cold but at that moment, I couldn’t care less.

The whole situation took an even more ethereal turn when his body started disintegrating into something resembling red ash. As I looked at the gradually disintegrating remains of Tom’s body, red ash flying all around me, I couldn’t help but wonder how I, Sol Syntrivon and the Grim Reaper were all tied together.

The threat of Sol Syntrivon had gotten all too real very quick. Now, the mere thought of me taking a back seat and letting the Council handle the inevitable invasion seemed like nothing more than a pipedream. Sol Syntrivon had made a calculated attack on me, foregoing all other Untethered on this planet.

Once more, I found myself to be the centre of attention of a being I was hesitant to tussle with. As I turned back to walk towards my own room, I couldn’t help but feel slight inklings of fear. The fact that Sol Syntrivon had managed to initiate an attack when, by all indications, he was still in outer space and biding his chance, had me on edge.

I entered my own room like an intruder through the window. The clothes I was currently wearing seemed to be done for good. I merely stuck them in the trash, intent on burning them down after cleaning myself up.

As I took a shower to wash the stains of blood off me, I couldn’t help but wonder for Luna knows how many times, whether not being ordinary was truly a blessing as I had imagined or a curse, a pandora’s box not worth opening at all!

 

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