MISSING PERSONS - PART V

I cry out to my saviour, but the elation is short lived.

As Merlin floats up through the entrance she made, her face turns pale.

I take in the scene for the first time as my eyes adjust to light once again.

A black sludge is everywhere not directly illuminated.

It stinks of oil and shit, like every form of putrescence at once, now that I'm aware of it.

About us, clinging to both Álfhildr and I, are malformed bodies. Accursed approximations of Meganie, Nya’lah, and Merlin herself. Other women and creatures besides. An orgy of ooze unto itself.

That explains the, 'They', then!

I look down and see how semi-undressed we captives are. How compromising our positions in the mass of forms. Almost pressed together in carnality, had it not been for the interruption sparking our senses back to life.

God she’s perfect- NOT NOW!!!

At the sight of deepest green upon a sea of pearlescent cream, I struggle to contain myself, but even now my dull brain knows right from wrong.

I turn my attention back to Merlin, but she remains rooted to the spot.

It probably looks like I’m forcing myself on a elven maiden while clones of all the girls I know get in on with each other around us. That’s what it looks like to me and I’m one of the victims being puppeted about by this sickening slime.

“Daemah...” Merlin finally speaks.

“Uh, yeah... Hi! It’s not what it looks like! This thing locked us in and started trying to tempt us, mostly me, Álfhildr was unconscious. I think it might have been possessing her? She cornered me and threatened me, then broke down crying and passed out, then the cubes all started closing in, and we were sucked into this darkness, now there’s crude oil stuff everywhere, and-” my mouth moves a mile a minutes. Every moment Merlin has missed since we were separated and the hunting idol eviscerated.

“Ken,” this time she uses my preferred name, her tone just as short, “shut up.”

The writhing, naked bodies freeze, their heads snapping in Merlin’s direction, then all hell breaks loose.

Vines of black lash out at the mage, disintegrating to a chorus of screams from the bodies behind, just before they can reach Merlin. The outer most tendrils licking at her robes, leaving scorch marks in the fabric, unable to land their blows.

The light hurts it, whatever ‘it’ is, but its power to hold the cubes together, as well as Álfhildr and I captive, while fighting off a big name hero, is unreal.

No wonder she seemed... scared? Wait! She said, ‘Daemah’, not 'Daemahken'... is this a Demon?!.

I’ve not heard much about Demons at the Returns Agency, other than they exist.

Like the bogeymen of heroes and the antithesis of the literal gods we work with. Super powerful supernatural beings that seek chaos and destruction for their own sake.

Merlin seems stuck.

She can’t attack the Demon directly or it might kill me and Álfhildr, and she can’t destroy the cubes to let in more light because of collateral damage. Every cube holds a person within.

It must have been hard enough picking one to try and save us, but the strength of the Demon is just too great. We would have been trapped in here until our natural deaths had Merlin not taken such drastic measures. The loss of one an acceptable concession to save two, and the millions or billions that would be lost if no action was taken at all.

Real life trolley problem, huh...

I feel a tug on my blood and bones, the heavy elements of my body being magnetized towards Merlin. She’s trying something.

Without making a sound or gesture, so that the Demon isn't alerted, she attempts to pull us free.

Álfhildr’s flesh growing taut on her bony frame as it’s pulled at by unseen forces. She moans from the dull pressure on her weak grasp of consciousness. Our bodies make contact again and even in the chaos I have to bite my lip.

If I’m going to die, this isn’t the worst way- STOP IT!!!

“We feel you witch.” all the clones speak out as one “We are not impressed.”

A little taunting and Merlin succumbs.

I’d thought her older and wiser, but the high stress of the situation must have gotten to her... but still, that woman is ingenious.

No flying off the handle with rage, just a creeping charge to the room, like static before a storm.

At the points where my skin isn’t entirely in contact with the sentient sludge, I feel tiny hairs prick up. It grows along the surface of my body, like a wax coating between me and the Demon’s touch. Then, as it completes the circuit across every inch, there is an intense chill.

She must have been chanting the incantation in her head, because her usual lascivious voice only reaches me for the keyword...

“Entropy!”

And, at once, all the energy dissipates from the room.

Whatever magic barrier Merlin cast around Álfhildr and I is enough to keep us alive. But, when everything around you is plunged to absolute zero, you don’t have to worry about thermal expansion.

Quite the opposite.

The Demon looks exactly the same. Its replicas of the women in my life stop their squirming and screaming, becoming as jet rather than oil. The same lustre, just no longer liquid.

A hideously beautiful diorama cut from a single massive jewel.

Our saviour sighs and raises her hands to wiggle us free from the rock formation. Instead of having to traverse the frozen Demon, we are floated out to Merlin over it, and into the light.

I twist and pull at myself to ease the process, feeling part of the solidified ooze crack and crumble away.

“Oh Merlin, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou...”

I voice my gratitude every step of the way, as if I were walking, not hovering in the chilly air.

“I could kiss you! You wanna get married? I’ll make you the happiest wife alive!”

Merlin does not swoon at my offerings, but waves them away as the near death experience talking, “I’m much too old for talk of eloping my dear Dae... my dear Ken.” She corrects herself to avoid speaking the monstrosity’s name.

As the more compos mentis and enthusiastic of the two, I am free before Álfhildr, so Merlin leaves me levitating at her side to help chip away at the dark crystal.

I scurry to get my clothes in order to preserve what little dignity I have left.

A stifled giggle pierces my heart.

“It’s cold and I was terrified!”

The excuse may be true, but it feels hollow. The only thing to do is laugh along with my liberator in self-deprecation.

“Oh I’m sure it will recover.” the Mage, still working her magic – figuratively and literally – continues to tease, “I’ll just have to warm you up again.”

Be still my beating heart...

“I’ll hold you to that!” apt choice of words, because that is exactly what I want to do. Mostly innocently to thaw out, but I’m not complaining about whose body heat I’ll be stealing.

As Álfhildr finally starts to come free, so too do more shards of iced demon.

I resist the urge to snap off a piece and throw it into the light just to see what happens.

With a loud crash as a whole sheets falls away, like an avalanche of black ice, the elven queen is wrenched free.

A sight to behold in the twinkling darkness, as if we were drifting through space... I quickly warm up at the sight, readjusting her threadbare clothes to retain some modesty.

“Aww... it looks like I won’t need to warm you up after all.”

A pang of disappointment runs through me as Álfhildr and I float towards Merlin, her remark at the blood rush to my face, and other extremities.

I have nothing left in the tank for witty comebacks. Only relief at it all being over.

…rrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmbbbbbbbbllllllllllllleeeeeee…

At first I assume Merlin is running low on mana or something, having cast so many spells in quick succession, or that the mass of blackness is finally starting to come apart. Then I remember the cubes are floating partly under their own power, but also from being held in place by the Demon itself. I get a little anxious about leaving our would be tomb before it collapses.

…gggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn…

“We need to get moving,” as my foot makes contact with the light, I take hold of Álfhildr and guide her to the floor. She moans in her semi-conscious state, still recovering from the demonic possession, “I don’t think the cubes will hold together much longer.”

…ccccccccccrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkk…

As our sinking ship continues its noisy complaints, I remember the cube Merlin had to destroy to get inside, so peer over the edge out of guilt and morbid curiosity. Something in me needing to know whether it was occupied, and to pay my respects for the departed-

Merlin you absolute legend!

Several stories below – certainly enough to cause liquidation if you fell – I can still make out the weird little rat baby looking form of a person blinking myopically into the sky.

Whatever happens in the next 2000 years from my time, humanity looks like it’s on its way to that classic grey alien territory in terms of evolution. Pasty Vitamin D deficient skin, larger eyes and forehead, with shrivelled gangly limbs and a bulbous torso.

Almost like a humanoid ant with how juxtaposed the abdomen and head are to the arms and legs.

Just makes me glad I got to exist during a period of time when people are hot… though I’m sure I’d find those insectoid proportions attractive if I was from this timeline.

I wave.

The bipedal rodent person – pretty genderless honestly – waves back.

Glad that hasn’t changed at least.

Like with us against the frost, Merlin must have shielded the cube’s inhabitant from their home’s destruction. Lowering them to the nearest safe surface.

I walk over and throw my arms around the arch mage, taking in her perfumed scent, her soft curves, lifting her up with pure joy.

“Stop that,” she jokingly protests, a girlish titter to her tone, “We have an audience.”

Álfhildr is still sat on the floor, palms flat against the cube below them, like someone with a hangover gripping their bedsheets to try and stop the world from spinning. I give Merlin one last squeeze and go over to check on her.

“Hey, you OK-” she projectile vomits.

It’s black as pitch.

It fizzles and pools then moves like mercury across the surface towards-

“It’s the Demon!”

I shout to Merlin and grab hold of Álfhildr to shield her from whatever the mage unleashes at the fleeing sludge.

The light making it boil every inch of the way, but some still reaches the shadows.

She casts an illumination spell from her staff, her pale hair shimmering in the glow, but the unnatural light has no effect on the black ooze.

All we are treated to is a vision of darkness.

The glassy surface melts, peels back, absorbs all light like an abyss. As if a hole into the deepest depths of space – far beyond the reach of any astral body, where neither matter nor energy exists – stares back at us.

This can’t be good.

KKKKKKKRRRRRRRAAAAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!

All the cubes around us rattle, muted screams from within coffin homes, and the whole structure crunches into those below... sealing our exit.

Merlin’s staff is snatched aside.

It’s light swallowed into the mass.

Somehow, the phosphorescence is refracted through the ooze, like gel filters on a camera flash, and we are bathed in a black glow.

No hint of a deep red like over oxygenated blood, or the deeper blue of a midnight sky, or deepest brown from all colours combined as the cosmos is meant to be.

Just black.

Light the very opposite of the spectrum.

“We were born of nothing...”

A new voice.

“We have lived beyond the veil...”

Undulous to the bone.

“We saw the first stars form...”

Peeling and tinny to the back teeth.

“We will not be ended...”

The cairn of cubes is flooded by its foul fluidity.

The rush of pressure as the space around us shrinks, the Demon filling every void.

Then nothing but pain. As if we’d been swallowed alive and were drowning in a great stomach. A slow death by digestion inside and out. Oceanic weight crushing us whole.

Álfhildr, panics at the same thing happening to her again, the Demon filling her lungs.

Merlin is restrained by the currents themselves. Her robes dissolving and – like in the vision, as Álfhildr was before her – she is offered to me.

I tear at the tides to free her... to no avail.

She tries casting spells with no voice, but inside the abyss no energy can reach us.

Every spark of electricity, lick of flame, or crystals of frost die upon her fingertips. A few bubbles or icicles all there is to show for her efforts. Even wind and water magic only stir the slime in this or that direction.

With her mana low, and hypoxia setting in, the arch-mage of the Court of Camelot, succumbs to the Demon, and it enters her wholly.

This is it.

I flap and try to look around the black lit waters for something, anything, that could help... there’s nothing.

This is how we die.

We couldn’t even save ourselves against this thing. Let alone the freaky little rat people with their distended stomachs and lives lived in boxes. I hadn’t even decided what to do with mine...

Might as well make Janus jealous...

I exhale…

Sorry everyone~

…then breathe in.