Chapter 28 A Clawing Rage
Even though much still burned, hours of rain had driven the smoke away, allowing Ender to see well enough as he stumbled through the streets of the destroyed city.
His legs were barely holding him up anymore, yet his body somehow managed to keep going under the dropping temperatures and exhaustion.
Though he didn’t think he could get any colder.
Despite the rain, the blood and dirt kept the burns covering him hidden well enough. He was bruised, cut, and seared, yet the physical pain was almost absent. Ender would have assumed he was going into shock, if it weren’t for the constant stabbing agony in his chest.
As Ender turned down a road, he careened to a sudden stop when he caught sight of the end of it, clutching at his chest as another throb of pain sliced through him.
Coughing, Ender took a stumbled step forward, his eyes locked on what had him freezing in the first place. He hadn’t found him…his brother. Soren hadn’t been with them… He usually was…but Ender had searched and searched, and he hadn’t been there.
More tears broke free as he reached the end of the road and fell to his knees in front of the crater that was now all that remained of his brother’s house.
“S-Soren,” Ender whimpered. He tried to breathe in through his nose, just to see if he could smell anything that would tell him if his brother was really gone, if he had been there. But all he could smell was the burning scents that had plagued him since reaching the valley. “Ah…”
“Ender…”
His head snapped back around, eyes going wide as he spotted the tall man standing behind him. Halus Grimm was seven feet tall and muscular, with pale skin, a hawklike nose, a boxy yet slightly rounded jaw, black hair, and dark reddish-purple eyes that sometimes looked black in darker lighting.
“Halus, y-you’re alive!” he cried out as he stumbled to his feet, latching onto his friend.
He started to sob harder when the Cryptid wrapped his arms around him, giving him the first bit of warmth he’d felt since reaching the valley.
“Halus, t-they’re all gone! AH—they’re gone!
Coop…m-my parents…my babies… I’m alone… I’m alone! It’s…it’s c-cold.”
“Shh, I got you, I got you,” Halus murmured gently. “You’re not alone, you have me. You’ll always have me.”
“My brother! I-I can’t find him! I c-can’t find Soren—ah!” He gasped, his breath stuttering before he managed to get out, “Please, please, help me find him! M-maybe he w-went on a tr-trip without telling us! H-he’s all I have left! I have to find him! Help me… HELP ME!”
Halus caressed the side of his face. “We have to leave.”
“Leave?! I can’t! They’re… I can’t leave them! And—ah—Soren! I haven’t found him!”
“You have to. It’s what’s meant to be.”
Ender jerked away from the man’s hold, stepping back as if he’d been struck.
His eyes grew wide as the words repeated in his head.
More than that, he now noticed the expression on Halus’ face.
Empty… No pain, no hint of loss. The Fate’s face was blank and completely relaxed, as if the city wasn’t burning around them.
“W-what did you… What did you just say?” he rasped, his words a mere whisper.
Ender’s tears started to slow, even as more dripped down his face when the Fate didn’t answer. Halus reached out to touch his cheek again.
Ender slapped his hand away, croaking out, “What do you mean it was meant to be?!”
“I don’t think there is anything to explain. It’s time for you to come with me, Ender. I’ll take you to where you belong.”
His body started to tremble for a whole other reason than the cold. The man’s words planted a small seed of hatred inside him that bloomed rapidly, growing with each second that passed. “Y-you knew…”
“I did what I had to do to guide you to the place where you belong, with me. And you will be coming.”
The beat of his heart thudded in his head, his rage beating down the devastation, as Ender let out an enraged hiss. “I’ll kill you!”
His fangs dropped when Halus grabbed his arm and dragged him up against his body.
As the taste of poison filled his mouth, he tried to strike, but between one blink and the next, he was suddenly no longer outside.
The room he was in was dark, but he could see well enough from the bed he was now lying on.
It had gray walls and a wooden floor, along with wooden nightstands, and deep-violet covers were over top of him.
There were also two doors, one that notably had a series of locks along one side of it, marking it clearly as his cell door.
Ender’s vision spun with the jarring shift of reality, the throbbing of his heart growing louder in his head with his still rising and present rage.
As he realized he was now clean and bandaged, his clothes changed, and his healing days old, not hours, his hatred boiled over. Ender lunged from the bed, straight towards the locked door of his prison, clawing at it as he roared, “I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL—”
Ender’s eyes snapped open as a scream wrenched its way out of his mouth. The sound kept coming, with the agony rocking his body. It felt as if his rage had claws, and it was shredding through him. And then it was.
Ender’s mind fell away while his body stretched and grew. The scream soon turned monstrous, echoing around the cell he was contained in.
Soren snapped awake, tears filling his eyes when a too familiar screeching roar reached his ears. The sound was likely causing terror to everyone else who heard it, but all Soren felt was utterly devastated… As that was what was surely to come…devastation…
“Ender…” he rasped in despair.
Shaking his head, Soren forced himself to get up, and with only pajama bottoms on, he ran out of his room.
Rushing to the bridge, he reached it just as Kore did.
Soren didn’t even acknowledge the Electric Elemental while he activated the rigged alarm they’d set up between the three ships for emergencies.
As the ringing started, he went right up to Kore, who’d either had taken time to attach the communicator or slept with it, and pressed the button on his collar to connect to the PA system. “Protocol Last Stand activated. This will be your only warning.”
“What do we do?” Kore rasped.
He met the Cryptid’s worried light-gray eyes, and stated honestly, “Try not to die.”
With that said, Soren sprinted back the way he’d come, starting to yell orders at anyone he passed, as more and more people rushed from their rooms.
Cyrus jolted back to consciousness at the sound of an alarm going off, his ears picking up shouting and screaming in the distance soon afterwards. Beyond that, there was also a sound that he couldn’t place, one that sent a shiver down his spine.
He met Killian’s startled gaze for a moment, before they both stumbled out of bed. He pulled a shirt on, and then followed Killian—who only had on one of his oversized T-shirts—out into the hall.
Running barefoot down the hall, people in various states of dress ran past. Those of Cryptid Means seemed to be trying to wake everyone up with warnings, but were also searching for something.
He just wasn’t sure what they were warning about or looking for.
Unsurprisingly, the commotion led them right to Ender’s ship.
“GO, GO!” he heard Soren shout, as they neared Red Herring’s breach point. “Find anything you can that we can use to block his path! He hasn’t broken out yet, but he will!”
As they rushed toward the Harpy, Cyrus almost hesitated when the man’s gaze turned his way. Soren’s eyes were filled with a burning hatred, literal fires seemed to be flickering inside his pupils, but it was what was underneath that pushed him forward—fear.
“What the hell is going on? Who are you trying to block?!” he demanded.
As if the Cryptid hadn’t heard the question, Soren snarled, “If you and your damn Fates would have just left us the hell alone, we wouldn’t even be in this situation!”
“Based on all the damn people panicking, we don’t have fucking time for your tantrum, Harpy! Just tell us what the fuck is going on!?” Killian snapped.
Cyrus shuddered at the power he felt in the Siren’s words, but easily pushed back the urge he had to respond in some way.
“Don’t you fucking dare try to compel me, Siren!” the Harpy roared, a southern accent slipping out with his words.
Cyrus blocked the man when he lunged for Killian, shoving him back with a hand to his neck. The man stumbled, but caught himself.
“Threaten him again and you’ll have a new problem, on top of whatever the fuck is going on!” Cyrus snarled.
“What is the point of arguing?! Who is that going to help?!” Killian admonished. “Just tell us what is happening!”
“You want to know? Fine! I’ll tell you.” Soren laughed, though the sound was oddly heartbreaking, his accent still present and clear. “Ender has lost it. He, at this very moment, is a giant rampaging snake, trying to break free from the cell he chose to sleep in last night.
“And he will. Because no matter how much he hurts himself in the process, he will continue to chase the revenge he is owed. Killing anyone he comes across, as he attempts to hunt down and eat the fucking bastard who betrayed us to the humans, cruelly setting everything in motion for his own gain.
“Aha, and guess what? You probably know him, Cyrus Grimm. At least, you should, since he is a relative of yours. Haven’t seen him in a long while, though, but I wonder, do you happen to know what Halus Grimm is up to?”
Cyrus’ eyes widened as his heart started to race. He struggled to stop himself from instantly denying the accusations, even if he didn’t know the name. “W-what did you say?”
“What—aha, that’s right, you don’t know, do you? Then again, the world doesn’t know, because they hid it.
“Well, here’s the truth… Your family let that bastard, Halus Grimm, expose our location to the humans, and then they let them burn us to the ground!
Hell, they blew most of our city off the FUCKING MAP!
” Soren screamed, a sob slipping out after the Harpy grabbed onto the front of Cyrus’ shirt. “You did this! You did this to him!”
He didn’t know how to react, so he just stood there as the man blamed him, until Severo suddenly appeared, the Shadow Dweller yanking Soren away.
Cyrus flinched when a hand grabbed his. He swallowed as he looked at Killian.
“IT’S HIS FAULT! IT’S ALL HIS FAULT!” the Harpy screeched, his body igniting, as feathers started to sprout out of his skin, and the man struggled to get to him now.
“ENOUGH, SOREN!” Severo roared. The fire obviously was not burning him, or if it was, the Dweller managed to ignore it. “You know damn well that Cyrus is NOT responsible for what happened to the Gorgons. For fuck’s sake, he wasn’t even born yet!”
After a tense few seconds more, just as swiftly as it had come, the fire went out, and the feathers disappeared. Soren started to sob harder as he sagged in Severo’s hold.
“Yeah, ah—but it’s his fault he’s here now!” The Harpy swayed on his feet. “Ender wouldn’t even be HERE if it wasn’t for him!”
They all froze when there was this awful booming noise, with an almost triumphant screeching roar following it.
Soren spun, staring down the short connecting bridge onto Red Herring, before turning to look at them.
His eyes were full of tears and hopelessness as the sound of something large crashing into things in the distance could be heard.
“I… I didn’t think…he’d break out this soon…” the Harpy rasped, sounding broken. “He…” Soren swallowed, more tears trailing down his cheeks. “He wanted me to…eject him… I couldn’t—ah… I couldn’t do it…”
“Is there any way to contain him again?” Cyrus asked.
Looking as if he didn’t even see him anymore, the Harpy just shook his head.
Then what were they supposed to do? Just die? No! There had to be another way…