Chapter Thirty The Nova #2
I plunged my hand through the black liquid, feeling around, to no avail. The surface rippled; my Peculiar was displeased.
My arm kept reaching deeper and deeper, palm wide open, as if he would grab my hand right there and I could pull him out.
“Dorian, can you hear me?” I yelled, now shoulder-deep inside.
“Careful!” Altair hissed.
With a gulp of breath, I submerged my head into the void. I forced my eyes open in the abyss, holding my breath. There was nothing. Just dark depths, and sunrays from above dancing around me, stretching down deep before the light ran out, and there still was no end.
It was quiet, as anything submerged would be. But eerily so. When I thought of the Otherside, even seeing it partially when traveling through water, there were plants, living things, what I assumed was a combination of both our worlds. But I looked through my Peculiar, and it was empty.
Then, a vibration.
It must have been loud, yet no sound could be heard except the rumbling in my ears. I thought my eardrums might burst.
I yanked my head from the void. Tonic was squirming, thrashing. Good thing I removed my head before one of these fits took it off.
“Tonic,” I called, but it just shriveled, a jittering mess.
Then, that awful, horrid shriek again.
“Back away!” Altair yanked me toward him.
With my arms wide, I scooped the items into the satchel, the last item being the grimoire. Then I noticed the page.
It wasn’t a portrait of Dorian.
It was black.
A long, sharp appendage forced its way up and out of my Peculiar, then it dug into the ground, a scythe in shape, like a mantis’s claw.
Another pointed limb sprouted from the small void opening, stretching out my Peculiar as it screeched. Then, many floating eyes juggling around the form, trying to find a place to belong, before they locked in on me.
I kicked up the dirt with my heel as I scurried back, ran through the back door, and then bolted it.
I ran into Altair, his form turning to smoke as I passed through him.
The noises from outside didn’t stop, and I kept running.
When my foot hit the first step, the back door and its hinges shattered, the bolt clattering across the hallway.
The entire house began to shake, just like the night Altair appeared. I stumbled halfway up the stairs, clawing at the steps to get to the next floor.
The beast produced a haunting wail, sharp in my ears as it came up behind me. I didn’t look back, but I heard the picture frames along the walls shatter one by one as it knocked them off.
I made it to the library without sparing a second glance back. I bolted the doors, knowing the locks weren’t going to hold.
I looked around, desperate for something to assist.
“Obscuria!” I shouted, placing my palms on the doors to brace for impact.
I waited—but nothing came. Not a knock, not even a whisper.
Did I do it?
My heart was pounding, threatening to burst.
I glanced down; the light from the other side of the door waned, a shadow moving in front of it.
Then, small tendrils reached beneath.
A sudden lurch of the wood, small splinters sounding as they rammed into the doors.
I screamed, holding the doors with all my weight.
“Altair!” I shouted, assuming he would be my last line of defense.
“I was wondering if you were going to handle this all on your own.” He was in human form, sitting in one of the reading chairs. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you about inviting things.”
“Help me!” I demanded.
“Not with that attitude.”
“It will eat me if you don’t,” I hissed, more thuds bouncing me against the doors. They weren’t going to hold much longer.
“You shouldn’t have called it in the first place.” He stood, then wandered to the back of the library like he was surveying for his next read. “This is a good time to test your abilities. A little bit of pressure.”
“Where are you going?” I yelled, turning to press my back to the doors.
“Well, it seems this is the end now, isn’t it?” He raised a brow. “You wanted to look for your dearly departed. Dying seems like an almost foolproof plan.”
“You are useless!” I screamed.
“And you don’t listen,” he chastised. “You use those poor Peculiars like tools. You forget that these things are living, and opening the otherworld so often brings much unwanted attention. Not to mention appetites.”
The doors were beginning to break. Splintering wood littered the floor and dusted my shoulder. “This thing is a Peculiar?”
“A rather large one,” he said with a nod, watching in amusement as I struggled. He looked up at the doors, smirking as the frame made a hard cracking sound.
“And this . . . came from the Otherside?” I panted.
“Yes, that’s what I just said.” He met my eyes with annoyance.
There it was. That was my answer.
His face fell, seeing my shift.
I held the doors for one more moment, then let go, running toward him.
He almost seemed alarmed. We crashed into each other, and he gripped my shoulders. For a moment, it was like he couldn’t read me. Like I was a stick of dynamite tossed at him.
His grip tightened, then a furrow of his brow.
The doors burst behind me, flying across the floor, debris hitting us.
I leaned up, a hand on the side of his face.
“Thank you,” I breathed, “and goodbye, for now.”
I threw the strap over my head, securing my satchel tightly on my shoulder.
“Stop!” he demanded. “What are you doing?” His tone changed, the anger making his human voice falter into his more monstrous one.
“Going to see him,” I said, turning toward the beast before us.
The thing was huge, looking vaguely like some sort of arthropod, but ever-shifting in shape. It screeched, three giant mouths full of sharp teeth.
It set several eyes on me, then charged. Its many legs scraped and slid against the wood, kicking up furniture and rugs, digging into the varnish of the floor.
Altair reached for me, but I ran head on.
The beast seemed to brace for another shriek—and that’s when I jumped.
It opened wide, the sound of the wail stinging my eardrums as I slipped past the teeth, tearing my sleeve on them before the mouth closed completely around me, and I was surrounded by darkness. Swallowed whole.