Lost
Too Late
Kneel, for you shall now be bound by blood and flame. Pro omni tempore et spatio.
Their first volley of indecipherable blows misses when I toss myself and Percy out of Omen’s reach. Percy’s landing is somewhat softened by the tendril of shadow that grabs her, but she still lets out a grunt as she rolls.
Omen doesn’t fire normal weapons; hell, they don’t even use their hands.
Things just happen when you’re around them.
In the years I’ve spent studying Nye Verden, one thing has always been certain.
Between Omen and Darkrend, neither of them have been beaten.
And neither of them leave survivors unmarred.
And it isn’t that I don’t think I can win. It’s that as I watch Omen’s approach, I know that if we escape this, we’re only going to be facing Darkrend next.
He won’t let us get away—I will not be able to beat him.
Shadows jab at Omen as they take off at us at a sprint. Instead of striking true, though, they seemingly miss by the smallest of margins. The sharp manifestations are never imprecise. Yet with each passing strike, they whiff just barely over the reflective helmet.
Omen’s fist lands squarely along my jaw and the force sends me staggering backwards.
“Shit,” I grunt, shaking my head at the pain. The split lip mends almost immediately, but the coppery taste in my mouth lingers.
The next two spikes miss as well but tie themselves around Omen’s waist as they lunge forward. Rather than moving, though, their stagnate movement sends a shuddering crack through the infrastructure of the parking facility.
“Get out of here Percy,” I yell behind me, unsure as to where she might be in the darkness.
“Fate is a funny thing,” Omen says, grunting though the tightening band of shadow. “It weaves itself for no one.”
The darkness tenses, and I can feel its anguish in my teeth.
“Except me,” Omen hisses and the shadows explode outward.
I launch myself at Omen this time, hoping the direct assault may put them on their back foot.
To my surprise, the gambit works and they try to sidestep me, but a tendril shoots from the nearest vehicle and impales itself in Omen’s thigh.
They yowl in pain as it skewers flesh and bone, exiting out the other end and snaring like a perverse grappling hook.
I land a blow to Omen’s helmeted jaw. Then another. And as the third one strikes true, the reflective glass chips.
“Fuck,” Omen growls, sounding uncharacteristically annoyed.
They kick out with the other leg and I catch it, but the force overbalances me and I fall onto my ass, taking them with me.
Or, at least, they should have.
The sound of spike through flesh turns my eyes to where Omen stalks past me, their leg now mending despite the blood slowly spilling out.
“Why do you want her so badly?” I yell out, several tendrils of darkness wrapping around Omen’s neck and arms.
They yell out something caught in the muffled shadow.
I get to my feet and reach out another shadow, its point already sharpened. It inches close to their helmeted face as they continue to struggle.
“Why do you want her so badly?” I ask again, this time letting the shadow around where their speaker is to fall.
“Darkrend said so,” they hiss, then they let out a soft giggle.
I turn to where they’re looking and find Percy aiming at me again.
“Fate is funny like that,” Omen says, their voice raspy.
“Percy,” I warn, raising my hands placatingly. “We can talk after I put this freak down.”
“How do I know you aren’t like them?” she asks, eyes wide with fear so primal I almost feel it myself.
Omen’s struggling continues behind me, and I know this is their doing. Fate and probability are one and the same.
“You’re being manipulated, Percy,” I whisper, trying to approach, but she pulls back the safety on the pistol. “They’re messing with your head.”
“This kind of power shouldn’t exist,” she says, sounding terrified. I want to close the space between us and hold her. Despite all the wounds she’s landed, I want her to know she’s safe. That she can trust me.
That I would never hurt her.
“I know, sweetie,” I say, trying to sound affectionate despite the way my voice breaks. “I know, and I will turn myself in if you just lower the gun. We can stop Omen now. I’m strong enough to—”
The gun goes off.
Be it chance, fate, or something worse, the bullet strikes my arm and, again, hurts like the blaze of a thousand suns.
My vision darkens as I fall, head rebounding off the concrete floor.
Omen’s heavy footsteps land beside me, their coughing and grunting makes what had just been imminent victory into a deranged defeat.
“Nice to see you again, De Luca,” their voice is sadistic as they step past me. The sound of a gun strikes the concrete as Percy’s scream turns feral.
I roll over to my side, gripping at my useless arm to see Percy on her back.
I send out another tendril, and it latches around Omen’s neck. They gag for a moment, their attention reaffixing on me.
The parking structure rumbles and a fragment of the concrete ceiling lands beside me, nearly crushing my skull.
“Damn,” Omen grunts out, tearing themselves free from the tendril. “You’re a hard fucker to kill.”
“I try,” I spit, rolling to my knees. Shadows darken around the structure, and they all lash out at Omen.
Except they don’t go the right way. They should have gone through Omen. Through their heart. The shadows should have found their mark.
They find Percy instead.
But it didn’t matter.
It never mattered.
The spears pinion Percy to the concrete floor, and Omen simply barks out a laugh.
Her bionic arm is clutched between both of Omen’s. The Remnant’s foot pressed squarely to her chest. And then they pull.
Hard.
Percy’s bionic arm tears free from her torso and, with it, the rush of blood and viscera. Rather than just taking the bionic piece, they took the entire shoulder and part of her collarbone.
She doesn’t even scream.
“Humans are so frail,” Omen coos, waving the warm like a trophy.
I dive forward, but only one of the tendrils sinks into Omen’s shoulder. They howl in pain while clawing at the manifested dagger.
“Fate,” Omen huffs, tugging at the fragment of shadow still embedded in their shoulder, “is a fickle mistress, Dark One.”
Then I see her. The way her eyes have glassed over. The way blood has drenched the concrete and her side. The way my shadow-spikes pocked holes along her chest.
The way she’s dead.
A keening sense of frosty numbness strikes at my chest. I crawl forward, cradling my arm that feels like it’s being torn from my body.
I reach her side, unable to see anything but the shocked look of pain permanently etched on her face. My hand finds her remaining one and Omen’s hideous laughter disappears.
As does everything else.
Darkness pools around me—like an ocean of nothingness that ripples and rolls. A glowing light sits somewhere, but I can’t see it in the darkened sky above. It’s like a lake of void, detached and dismantled.
And there, sitting crossed legged in the rippling nothingness, is Percy.
“Hey,” she greets. “Come sit.”
She gestures to the space beside her and I dutifully sit. The fluid darkness neither cold nor wet on my skin.
It just is.
“You died,” I whisper somewhat stupidly, the sudden loss of my adrenaline hits like a club to the head.
She gives me a soft grin, much like the ones she used to give me before the last twenty-four hours had happened. Her amber eyes twinkle with a knowing mischief.
“Astute observation,” she nods.
“Then—”
“I take it the dead have never talked back?” she asks, tilting her head a little as she watches me. The expression is so familiar I feel tears sting at my eyes.
“Only to insult me,” I say softly. “Oh my God, you’re—”
It hits me like a wave of anxiety and exhaustion. Like a hammer striking at my sternum.
“I’m so sorry,” I rasp out, covering my mouth with my hands. And realizing now that I’m not wearing my gear. Just a shirt and jeans. “I’m so sorry, Percy.”
“Last I checked,” she says, soft expression never changing, “I was the one who shot you.”
“But my spikes–”
“I don’t have long,” Percy shakes her head a little. “Omen’s going to make another attempt at killing you here in a few moments. In fact, they’re already dropping the building on us.”
“Us?”
“You,” she amends. “I’m gone, Arya. But you have to survive.”
My head spins at her words. At the certainty of it all. Grief doesn’t seem like the right word. Neither does sadness.
It’s just final. The end. Over.
“I don’t know that I want to survive,” I say softly, looking down at the pool of darkness around us. “I loved you, Percy.”
Percy is silent for a long moment before I look back up at her. The shame of cowardice burns deeply in my chest.
“No, you didn’t,” Percy finally says, giving me a grin. “You were in love with the idea of being cared for. Of someone giving a shit whether or not you ate. Or if you managed to get sleep.”
She seems to finally notice the way I flinch at her words. Something she’d apparently decided not to acknowledge when she was alive.
“Arya,” she whispers, hand coming out to cup my jaw. “When you finally find her, you’ll know what love is. You’ll want her to know your secrets. You’ll want her to know your darkness.”
She brushes a soft thumb across my chin.
“You need to survive, Arya,” she says, dropping her hand. “You need to live because this is bigger than all of us. The other side is strange, but it’s a mess right now. It’s fragmented. This entire reality is broken. They’ll need you.”
“Who?” I ask, confused by the sudden change in subject. “Who will need me?”
“Don’t resurrect me, Arya,” she says instead, ignoring my question.
“I can’t do that even if I wanted to,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s not possible.”
Percy smiles brightly, the darkness begins to ripple and bubble.
“One day it will be. I need you to promise not to. I don’t think I can handle the voices the way you do. You’re so damn strong, Arya. I don’t think you really understand. I’m sorry I never did in life, either.”
There’s a keening crash of noise somewhere off in the distance. It echoes through the dark lake around us. The overhead light wavers slightly.
“Goodbye, Arya,” she says, waving at me with a fleshy hand that had once been bionic. “I promise not to haunt your shadows.”
The abyssal landscape disappears. Light suffuses my vision with flashes and whirls. Then pain erupts from every fraction of my body. Fire feels like it’s ticking at my back and spine. Like the entire weight of a building sits on my chest.
My eyes flash open to nothingness. And I can hear the screams and shouts of people. Their voices make no sense, though, and sirens sound in the distance.
“You will not die on me, Arya Skovsgaard,” an eerily familiar voice says almost into my ear. “I will not allow it.”
Rock and rubble tumble from wherever it must be on my body and the scene around me shifts. Light peaks through the debris and—
A woman. A woman I’ve seen before.
Her midnight dark hair falls long and loose down her back, curtaining her face in a way that makes it somewhat difficult to see her expression. But I can see her orange eyes peering down at me.
And they don’t look angry. Rather, there’s a definitive hint of worry glistening in the light hue.
She tosses back her hair and now I can see her full, red lips and thin, delicate nose. Her skin is somewhat pale, but no worse than my own.
And she is, by far, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
“There you are,” she says, huffing out a little in what could be exhaustion or nervousness.
She leans forward and presses lips to my forehead. They’re soft and delicate. And then the world dims again, leaving me with the barest sense of my surroundings.
Then that fades, too.