Their Howls Rise Like Screams

He felt his body double over with a ragged gasp, the freezing heat of a burning inferno that tore out between muscle and bone spilling sticky red between his fingers. It wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop.

Oh God I’m bleedin’ out like a bloody pickat.

The thought felt distant, hysterical. He couldn’t tell when he’d slumped to the ground. Shouting rang all around him. The numb fire spilling between his hands pooled on the ground, on the hard wall gritting against his shoulder, reflecting flickering tongues of flame rising towards the black sky. All of it blurry. All of it a mess of roaring and shouting.

The shadow in front of him swept past. Had it already swept past? Glints of teeth in a head that seemed wrong flashed out, tearing into a woman he— didn’t he— NO! Marain!— didn’t know? She screamed. A cry that cut into a sickening gurgle, the coppery tang of blood and something sharper, something raw, abruptly rushing through his senses.

His stomach lurched, his entire soul abruptly heaving, his body refusing to follow suit. A slithering end of a segmented tail lashed over the ground, glowing embers within what should have been eyes locking onto an armoured figure slashing with a sword. Scales and clawed hands. Talons. Talons slashed back.

He couldn’t feel anything. He felt numb. And he gritted his teeth as that numbness turned on him with snarling fangs, burning from the inside out, dying. He was dying. He was bleeding out and his sister—who?—Marain. God no. Marain—was dead. She was dead and her blank eyes stared into his, his hands trembling, his life’s-blood pumping into the dirty street already soaked with slick red, the shouts of soldiers distant.

What—?

The soldiers didn’t matter, the creature didn’t matter. He choked on a sob that rattled in his lungs and jolted at his stomach as the agony flared and seized his body. Of course she’d died, hadn’t she? She’d been an idiot. Always a frozen, half-asleep fish of a girl.

What was going on? Reyahn— what was happening?

I’m— I’m dying. Those were his thoughts. Weren't they? Who was he?

Bitterness rose on his tongue and spilled over his lips, his teeth grinding as he sobbed and spat curses at a bloodied face half-covered with tangled hair, his own body writhing in the dirt. Stupid— stupid—

A taloned foot stomped in front of his face, inky scales absorbing the light.

His eyes twitched up, burning and gasping at jaws with too many teeth. Pupils like glowing coals seared into his brain, a horrible gurgle in his ears, a rumbling, throaty clicking shaking the ground.

It lunged.

Seih jerked forward, a cry dying in his throat as he abruptly snapped back into—not the real world, Soulspace—in the dark, flickering depths of the archives, surrounded by horrors like the one he’d just absorbed floating quietly on their shelves. And he dug his nails into his skull, a sound that must have come from him choking out of his throat as he pressed his forehead into the surface of a table he couldn’t remember sitting at, and fought not to vomit.

None of these reactions felt purely like his own. He shook uncontrollably, his skin fighting to crawl off his bones, alarm sliding rapidly into cold fear. An experience. He’d absorbed a fragment of someone’s soul. Logically, he knew that, but—

“Hh— ghk!” He choked, jolting as a massive hand grabbed the back of his neck, the sense of something tugging at his soul catching a grip and yanking.

He didn’t even get an opportunity to start thrashing before it pulled back, dragging flickers of memory and whispers and thoughts and instincts with it like ooze, congealing in a meaty palm.

Seih panted for breath, watching the glowing orb in disbelief, vaguely aware that he couldn’t recall sitting up or pulling his hands free of his own head. It was like tapping a Light starter. The difference between night and midday. Except for a fainter shiver crawling across his soul like oil on water.

|No more.| Tozu’s hand rose to place the experience back on the shelf, the only other sound in the quiet space Seih’s own breathing as he gradually coaxed it back under control. |You’ll be cracking with another. This one will give you mild side-effects. Think you’ve handled it, and I give you more if you return.|

He shuddered, rubbing at his forehead and the spiking pain shooting through his skull, crawling under his skin. Another? Not in a thousand years.

|I think... I think I’ll pass the offer.|

(9:3:5)

|I don’t think it’s just Drillers.|

Brei hummed as she tinkered with the suspension chamber, frowning at a wayward line of SA—soul aura—refusing to connect to its proper scalelet node and form the conduit she was trying to make. Not quite the right resonance of Lightning scalelet, maybe? |What else could it be? Sapient spidorcions? Forest Haunts?|

|...It could be Haunts.| That was the most unconvinced tone she’d ever heard. |That didn’t seem right, though.|

|How did you say you managed to see one, again?| She took her focus briefly off imbuing the scalelet with a slightly different balance of energies to squint suspiciously at him across the link.

|Voice filtered an experience I was given by someone from Loh. They’d seen it.|

|...You’re a terrible liar, Seih Hestas.| She placed it back, watching as it settled to float in the right spot, this time. Perfect.

|It didn’t look anything like a Driller.| Apparently, when one knew he was beaten, the next best option was to pretend he hadn’t heard.

She’d let him get away with it. This time. |So, what, it was Darkness himself, then?|

|No. Reya. It was... something else. I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t think I could.| She had the impression of him hissing between his teeth. |The imprint was... hard to see properly. It was more of a.... It was like some monster parents warn their children about to keep them out of the Strange Forest.|

|Well then, sounds like a Haunt.| She mentally flipped her hands up in a shrug, clicking the chamber’s lid shut and making sure it was secure before placing it back into its little round housing. |I hope you really did filter it through Voice, because you’ve been acting odd all day.|

|I’m fine.| Also incredibly unconvincing. |It’s just the weather changing. Pressure fluctuations.|

|You know, I preferred it when my man wasn’t possessed by the soul of a liar.| She made sure the core of her construction was attached to all its proper connections and began closing it up. |What in Darkness’ core possessed you to take it directly?|

|A liar, apparently,| he growled, and sighed. |Is it that obvious? Tambo picked up on it immediately, too. I must be favoured that Hafest didn’t.|

|Well, your soul feels a little off,| she waved her screwdriver vaguely. |I tried it once. We had to for a lesson on why you never—unless absolutely necessary—never take an experience directly. Divinations are made for it, people aren’t.|

He sighed again, the vague impression of him rubbing at his forehead filtering through.

At least he knew now, and the effects would fade in a day or so. Hopefully he’d learn the lesson as well as she had and stay away from it like all of Darkness’ Dwelling would rise to eat him if he did. She’d certainly give him a good whack if he was stupid enough to try it again. |You know, I’m not surprised Tambo saw right through your veil. He seems like the kind of person who’d head down to the darkest corners of the archives.|

|Mm. Alright, I’m going to take a nap. My head’s killing me.|

|I don’t envy you.| She gave him a mental wave. |You’ll be better off sleeping it away, anyway.|

He snorted softly. |Don’t take it the wrong way. Voice has been staring at me for the last two minutes. I think I concerned him coming out of Soulspace like that.|

|Wow, that’s an achievement.| She flickered farewell to him as he waved her off and went silent, releasing her focus on the link and tapping at her little construct as its “eyes” flashed into glowing life. “Alright then, Rounds, let’s give you a little test run.”

The construct flashed again and poked out one of its four little propulsion flaps, rolling to the edge of the desk. She caught it with a laugh, setting it on the floor and watching it roll off around the little workshop given to the students of the tutorship program. At this time of day, late in the evening, it was quiet, sunlight streaming through the open front with a vaguely sweet-smelling breeze from the flower-bushes scattered over the open space outside.

She followed it as it navigated the slightly cluttered space, stepping out onto the paving stones forming a small path in the springy grass, watching it roll itself around. So far, it looked far better at navigating its environment than before.

“Is that yours?”

She glanced up to see a young man—more of a teenager—she didn’t recognise gazing curiously at the construct. “It’s mine, yes.”

“Huh, he’s neat.” The boy crouched down, holding his hand out and wiggling his fingers. When the construct actually responded and rolled towards him, bumping up against his hand, he grinned, his face lighting up. “Did you make it yourself? This thing’s really well done.”

“Thank you.” She folded her arms, frowning at him. “But I’m sorry, should I know you?”

“Oh.” He stood, offering her a two-handed formal greeting, dipping his head and flicking his fingers from his forehead towards her. “I’m Dais. Just here to pick up some tools for my older brother. He left them in the workshop.”

For a moment she regarded him, flicking her gaze from his simple sandals to the shorts and cropped tunic, a veritable mop of dirty blond hair that was nearly black at the roots flopping close to his brown eyes. His face was sharp, but the innocently warm expression softened it. He probably wasn’t lying. Probably.

If he came out with an armful of scalelets or something, she’d see it, anyway. Waving a hand, she offered him a smile. “That’s fine. Just don’t take anything that doesn’t belong to you.”

“’Course not.” He offered her a cheeky grin and continued on, disappearing inside.

She watched her construct as it attempted to trundle after him and gave up when its slow progress over the grass impeded it. It seemed like one of the other students always forgot their tools or parts of their projects.

Well, it was nice to have one little thread of normalcy in a world slowly going crazy, anyway.