Chapter 39: Puppets Army
Dylan watched as Élisa picked up the machette beside him. His fingers, smeared with spores and dried blood, closed around it with an almost ritualistic precision.
When she looked up, her golden irises seemed to crackle with a quiet light. A glacial determination. He had never seen her so... at peace. Not calm. Not soothed. Serene. As if she had just accepted something she could no longer push away.
"I’ll buy you some time," she said simply.
Then she began running toward Maggie, who was surrounded by those creatures controlled by the fungal filaments.
He couldn’t look away. Élisa’s slender, wiry figure receded like a fading heartbeat.
Machette in hand, she cut through the tall grass and the twisted figures that screamed without voices. Her body seemed almost to dissolve in the green mist, thick with spores.
But Dylan could no longer move.
He tried to lift his arm. Just the left one. Nothing. It felt like his bones were made of glass, and if he pushed any harder, everything inside him would shatter. So he closed his eyes.
And felt his mind descend.
Not physically. He no longer had the strength. But mentally, viscerally, he plunged inward. He visualized his body as contaminated terrain. Explore. Map it out. He imagined himself standing in an organic cave, the damp walls of his veins pulsing around him.
"Where are you, you bastards..." he thought.