Chapter 68. The Beginning of Despair
Chapter Warning
This Chapter contains graphic scenes of violence, including a monster brutally attacking and killing multiple people. Readers can expect depictions of blood, gore, severe injuries, and death.
Reader discretion is advised.
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The clearing where they’d all gathered was scarred by the creature’s landing a shallow crater of upturned soil and shredded grass spread out beneath its feet, and a fine haze of dust still hung in the crimson air, drifting slowly in the windless stillness. Overhead, the sky remained that unnatural blood red, casting a dim, sickly light across the clearing that made every shadow look wrong, too long and too dark for the hour. The scattered trees at the clearing’s edge stood motionless, not a single leaf stirring, as though the forest itself had gone silent in dread.
Everyone present turned to look at the thing that had just crashed down before them. Some were still standing, others were still sprawled on the ground, but all of them stared at it together, unable to comprehend what they were even looking at. A horror stood before them, its head split into four distinct parts, each belonging to a different creature. At the front, a goat’s skull, crowned with massive curving horns. On the left side of its head, a mantis-like growth, its mandibles clicking together in a low, grinding hum. On the right, a lion’s head, its jaws swollen and gaping, lined with brutal fangs. And at the back of its skull sat the head of a turtle.
Its body was roughly humanoid, with sixteen arms extending from its torso. From its waist sprouted two enormous claws, each fitted with a blade nearly four feet long, like massive curved swords. Below the waist, its body shifted into the form of a mantis, its entire lower half armored in what looked like a turtle’s shell. The creature stood roughly fifteen feet tall, its gaze locked onto them with predatory hunger. A low, wet clicking sound rose from its mantis-jaw, carrying strangely far across the clearing’s dead-still air, and a faint sulfurous odor drifted off its blackened hide, thick enough that several students nearby gagged where they stood. The ground beneath its many feet had already begun to blacken and smoke faintly, the grass curling into ash wherever its claws touched down.
The instant they laid eyes on it, the color drained from every face in the crowd. Their ability to think seemed to fail them entirely. No one could figure out what to do. For a long, terrible moment, they simply stood in stunned silence. Then, as the full weight of the situation crashed down on them, the same students who moments ago had been swept up in a wave of courage broke down entirely, wailing in terror.
"Ahhh, we’re all going to die, we’re all going to die!"
"Ahhh, what is that thing? How are we supposed to fight it? We can’t! We can’t!"
Panic swept through the crowd, and students scattered in every direction, running blindly. Their scattered footsteps churned up the dry, dead grass beneath them, kicking loose clouds of ash-gray dust that hung suspended in the red light before slowly settling again. Those who had fallen and couldn’t find the strength to stand tried instead to crawl away, dragging themselves across the ground with whatever strength remained.
The creature watched all of this unfold before it, but it didn’t attack right away. Instead, it let out a thunderous roar from all four of its heads at once, a sound so immense that it rattled loose leaves from branches far across the clearing and sent a visible ripple through the dust-choked air. The moment it did, the fleeing students felt the strength drain from their legs entirely. No matter how desperately their minds screamed at them to run, their bodies simply refused to obey.
But not everyone had fled. Elizabeth, Lyra, and their team. Dominic and the others. Lloyd’s group, Nix’s group, Rosalin’s group. They all remained standing where they were. It wasn’t out of pure fearless courage their whole bodies were shaking, every instinct screaming at them to flee. But they pushed that instinct aside and held their ground. They would not run.
Elizabeth’s hands trembled. The sight of the sixteen-foot abomination looming before her sent a shudder through her entire body. The surge of courage that had filled her only moments earlier was beginning to waver, the urge to flee creeping back in. But she didn’t move. She wouldn’t.
The abomination swept its gaze across the students, then settled it on Elizabeth. As its four heads turned toward her, they began to circle and twitch, as though something about the sight of her amused it. It began advancing slowly, unhurried, as if out for a casual morning stroll. Each footfall struck the earth with a heavy, bone-deep thud, sending small tremors through the ground beneath the students’ feet. But even at that leisurely pace, its massive frame covered ground faster than any sprint. As it walked, it suddenly stopped, looked down, and found five or ten students sprawled beneath it, unable to stand, crawling desperately to get away. It stared down at them for a moment. Then it raised its right claw the one fitted with the four-foot blade and brought it down in a single sweeping strike across the students below.
The blade passed through their bodies as easily as a knife through butter. In an instant, roughly ten students were cut clean in two. Entrails spilled from their bodies, and the upper halves of several corpses crashed down onto other students nearby, who had been standing or running close by, knocking them off their feet and drenching them in blood. The blood pooled quickly across the cracked, ash-covered ground, running in thin dark rivulets between the dead roots and stones, and the heavy iron smell of it mixed with the sulfurous stench already hanging over the clearing.
Varon, who had been running, was suddenly struck from behind by something and sent sprawling to the ground. The impact was heavy, as though something massive had landed on top of him. Struggling, he managed to shove whatever it was off to the side and the moment he saw what it was, he nearly vomited. It was one of his classmates, the lower half of his body gone entirely, his intestines spilling out from his torn abdomen. Blood poured from his mouth. But somehow, he was still alive. With the last of his strength, he lifted his head slightly and whispered to Varon.
"Va...ron... help... me."
Then his head fell back to the ground. He was dead. The instant Varon saw this, the shock that had held him silent broke, and he let out a raw, tearing scream.
"AHHHHHHHHH!"
Watching this unfold, Lyra felt her entire body turn to ice. Something twisted violently inside her stomach. She had no idea what to do. Everything around her seemed to move in agonizing slow motion. She sank to the ground, hands pressed to her head, eyes wide, tears streaming down her face, the cold grit of ash and dead grass pressing into her knees where she knelt. Somewhere behind her, the screams and the wet, tearing sounds of the creature’s claws continued, distant and muffled, as though the whole world had gone underwater. Her mind refused to produce a single coherent thought.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
The thought looped over and over in her head. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. But right then, a gentle hand landed on her shoulder. She turned to find its source it was Elizabeth, looking down at her with a steady gaze. When their eyes met, Lyra broke into tears.
"I can’t do this. I’m not capable of this. How am I supposed to face something like that? I’m a failure."
Elizabeth took in the state Lyra was in, then spoke to her firmly.
"Lyra, get a hold of yourself. You cannot fall apart like this in a moment like this. Calm down, Lyra."
"I can’t do this."
When Elizabeth saw that Lyra wasn’t responding, that she wasn’t coming back to herself, she did the only thing she could think of she slapped Lyra across the face.
Lyra reached up, touching her stinging cheek, and the shock of it snapped her back into focus. She looked up at Elizabeth, who spoke to her once she saw her come back.
"Lyra, this isn’t the time for us to fall apart. We need to stand and fight back against this. We need to hold it off."
Lyra stared back at her, eyes still brimming with tears.
"Can we actually beat this thing? Can we survive?"
Elizabeth clenched her fists at the question, because she didn’t know the answer herself. She had no idea whether she would live or die. Maybe she was leading everyone here straight toward their deaths. But what other choice did she have? Nothing else came to mind. What was she supposed to do?
"I don’t know the answer to that. But I know one thing for certain we have to survive until Lord Necrotize returns. And I have complete faith that he’ll come back soon. Until then, we have to hold this abomination back."
Lyra stared at her for a long moment. Then she wiped the tears from her eyes with both hands and pushed herself back up to her feet, her hands still shaking.
"You’re right, Elizabeth. I shouldn’t be thinking like this. I need to fight. I can’t keep breaking down like this over and over. And I have complete faith in Necrotize that he’ll protect us. Until then, we need to stay alive. And we need to keep everyone here alive too."
Seeing this, Elizabeth smiled at her.
"That’s the spirit. That’s exactly the mindset we need right now." With that, she turned to face the abomination once more, gripping her sword tightly.
"We have to survive this," she said.