The First Plague

The eerie blare of mysterious sirens rang outside, accompanied by a strangely inconsistent Doppler effect.

We had been warned by the almanac to beware that sign. The book referred to it as a “harbinger” of some kind.

“Why’s it so dark already?” Indena peeked her head out of the fort, noticing there wasn’t any daylight coming through the thin blinds we pulled down. “Shrimp, what time is it?”

I was shocked to glance out a window and see it was pitchblack out there. A little readout at the very bottom corner of my vision claimed it was 10:03 PM. There was no chance it was already that late!

My systems were calibrated to match whatever time zones humanity had set up across the planet. It updates automatically wherever I go, so there couldn’t be a mistake. Whatever time my internal clock said, that’s what it is.

“What…?” Indena uttered quietly in disbelief. “I swear to the gods it wasn’t this late…”

“I know,” I agreed. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

Whatever time anomaly we were trapped in, it had me shivering to the core.

*Weeeeewwweeeeeeooooo…*

The sound of the siren continued, but among the constant drone was violent thunder. A battle of sound ensued for what felt like seconds, then both fell quiet.

Ringing filled our ears in wake of the silence.

“What the hell…?” Indena uttered in fear. “I have a bad feeling about this…”

Her bad feeling was nothing compared to the absolute dread that filled me. I was completely unable to move at this point and let my systems process the terrible vibe filling my veins.

Then a harrowing message appeared in my vision.

-WARNING! DARKNESS LEVELS RISING-

Darkness… Such a terrible thing.

My breathing became more frantic as I stayed still. It felt like the heated air was trying to suffocate me.

But another feeling put its foot in the door of my soul. It was soft, but strong, drawing me to calm myself and process the situation better. Even through the fear, this feeling told me everything would work out for the better, but only if I stood to my feet and faced it head on.

Now I had a leveled breath, trying to figure out what force of darkness was coming upon us.

“Shrimp, y-you think this place is actually haunted?”

“Worse.”

This feeling reminded me of something from last year. A being dragged from the depths of the dark flames of Heck and thrust into our world of light. A demon come to life.

You know the strange part of this? For as scared as I was, it felt like I needed to be here. It was almost exciting. Were these panicked breaths of fear, or exhilaration from a rising challenge? I wasn't so sure anymore.

“Well, if we stay here, we should be safe,” Indena said, clearly tensed.

*CRASH!*

It sounded like a window just broke in the kitchen.

"That safety aged like milk…" I commented.

~☆☆☆~

We both made our way toward the kitchen. I got an unnaturally bad feeling in my bones.

The kitchen was dark, even though the lights were clearly on. Indena lit a fire up in her hand, but the light from that didn’t brighten up the darkness.

We had one other option, which was stardust.

I let some solar crystal grow over my right hand, and stretched it out into the pitch black kitchen.

The dark haze became transparent, and something that looked like a cross between a big locust and a person was crawling around. Its bug legs were like warped arms. Its hands had spindly appendages for fingers. Its head was like someone had taken a person's face and stretched to strange proportions.

-WARNING! THREAT SIGHTED!-

-IFF tags activated-

-Unknown demonic hostile tagged; Foe-

“Oh no…” my eyes sank into my head, “it really is a…!”

The demon screeched loudly, accompanying its horrible voice with the returned siren outside.

It raced at us quickly!

Indena tugged me out of the way and the demon bit right into the wall, taking out a chunk of wood. That could have been me if she hadn't thought fast!

Fire balls left Indena's hand, exploding on contact with the demon! The demon wasn’t phased at all.

The creepy thing swiped at us with its buggy hands. Indena pushed me to the other end of the room to keep me from getting hit.

“Shrimp! Stay away from this thing! Let me handle it.”

She didn’t know that stardust was the only way to stop a demon. I had to warn her before she made a mistake.

“You need stardust!” I alerted her.

“Huh?!” She kept having to dodge the leaping attacks of the demon bug.

The demon bug bit into her arm and drew blood. She set off an explosion in its terrible mouth which blasted it off her.

More of those things crawled in through the broken window. The reinforcements saw Indena as the main threat, biting and slashing to overwhelm her. She wasn’t getting away from them, so I had to join the fight.

Since last year, I’d been honing my ability to use stardust. I made a crude spear before, more like a stick than a weapon, but that was because I didn’t know what I was doing.

My skills still left something to be desired, but I wasn’t helpless anymore.

I wanted to craft something like a spear again, but my stardust reserves were low, so I had to improvise.

Hazy white energy formed at the center of my palm, then lifted into the air and shaped into a stick-like shape. Within seconds it smoothed out into a dagger and then hardened into crystal.

I gripped the crystal dagger tightly. In my tiny hands it looked more like a small sword. All the demons froze and shivered at its white glow.

-Let There Be Light-

"Let there be light!" I announced.

I swung the dagger around, haphazardly cutting at the demons and trying to look cool like an anime swordswoman. As our main source of light, it made seeing them very difficult while I moved about, but it also made them cautious.

The moment it made contact with one, it would screech and leap back outside through the window.

Indena saw what happened, then ordered me to hand over the weapon. I did so.

The tables turned! Indena slashed the dagger around, cutting clean across one of the demons, tearing away a huge chunk of its face off!

It fell to the ground and started to sizzle up, then turned into a burnt mush.

“Who else wants some?!” She announced, lighting up her flame aura for extra intimidation.

The demons prowled around her, looking as if they were spooked. But they quickly grew the backbone to leap at her once more.

She kept cutting at them. Over and over she struck, killing the dark bugs and keeping our newfound advantage.

But there was something bad happening with the stardust dagger. Each time she’d use it, the weapon got smaller. She either needed to replace it, or have me regrow more crystal over it. But I really didn’t have many Stardust Points left in me, so all I could do was repair it.

“Indena!” I shouted. “Throw that back to me for a second!”

“What?!” she freaked out. “Hell no!”

“You don’t understand! It’s gonna’ break!”

Because I told her that, she noticed that it was getting smaller now. She must have figured there weren’t any other options, so she tossed the dagger back.

She wasn’t aiming for me directly, but I calculated the daggers trajectory and moved to just the right spot to catch it at the hilt.

“Good catch, Shrimp.”

I didn’t have time to pat myself on the back. I regrew crystal over the dagger. It didn’t look like normal stardust. It appeared more translucent and less bright. Maybe a bit red too. Still, this had to work for now.

I couldn’t throw for the life of me. So I slid the dagger back to her position and she snatched it up off the ground, immediately meeting the blade with one of the demons' faces.

The demon fell to the ground, stunned and nearly defeated, but not dead. I think the potency of my stardust right now wasn’t strong enough to kill it!

Not good…

The locust demon leapt back up, then raced at her for an attack.

She struck it with the dagger and cut away part of its face, but it still went full force against her.

She dodged its bite attack, then took advantage of a vulnerable spot on its nape. The dagger thrust down and stabbed deep into its neck!

The demon screeched in pain, then dropped like a rock. It wasn’t dead, so Indena took the dagger and jammed it into its torso, hitting its heart.

Haze of pure black flooded out of its wound, then the demon turned to ash and charred the kitchen floor like the rest.

Meanwhile, others came at her even more ferociously. She had to evade nearly five strikes a second! That sorta’ speed was inhuman!

*SCRATCH!*

“Gah!” One clawed at her left hand, tearing part of her glove. The shock caused her to trip over a chair.

Then another bit at her leg and tried to tear it off. Another started biting at her foot. Her fire aura was just barely keeping her protected, but I had to help or she’d be done for!

I grew some crystal over my hands with whatever stardust I had left. With all my training I leapt in with punches and chops against each of the locusts!

All I managed to do was stun them, but that was enough time for Indena to scramble away.

“We need to go!” She stood to her feet and snatched me by the hand. Then we left as fast as possible out the front door.

There weren’t many safe places with all the demons around, so what was her plan?

“Where are we going?” I asked, in just as much a panic as her.

“Don’t know, but we’re not staying here!”