Cold sweat slid down his neck, drenching his bloodied shirt until it clung to his bruised body. The pain shooting through him was enough proof that this was no dream.
Veiny clicked the safety off.
No dream. He was finally going to die.
Everything eventually came to an end and his had been decided years ago; he'd just been too stubborn to accept it.
But the Ashborn wasn't pulling the trigger. Instead his eyes were widened at Eric as though Eric were the monstrosity, not him.
And the way he blocked that floating object behind him, with its glow intensifying, made it hard to focus on just dying when Eric had so many questions .
"You brought them here!" The man cried. "The blast was supposed to distract them, the warmth! but you brought them straight to me!"
The fucker acted like there was a script they played, and Eric's role was to just die.
"I'm sorry, but one grand to be used as bait?" Eric sneered. "I'm up for selling but life's worth more than that, you know."
A pause.
"Did you say life's worth?" The Ashborn's shaking intensified but this time in laughter, his darkened eyes scanning Eric as though he were the dumbest person he'd ever met. And that seemed to offend him more than his ruined plan. "Life's worth nothing to them. Look at me!"
Eric was. Really saw him this time.
Colors crawled beneath his skin, painful to look at. Even his eyes, like a full-blown eclipse, screamed of something unnatural.
"This is what life is: weak, nothing." The man stretched out his hands. "We think we're so important, so indispensable, but…" He swallowed hard, shielding the circle further. "We're nothing more than specks the universe uses or discards." The gun swung back, aimed at Eric. "And when you think you're being used, you're just getting discarded."
What should he say? Eric wondered. Play along with the madness to buy a little more time?
His head spun, the room lurching as if tipping sideways. Blood soaked the concrete beneath him, it felt warm and slick, seeping from his torn leg faster than he could blink it away.
He tried to focus on the Ashborn's rant, the gun, that damn circle, anything to keep his body from going numb, but it all blurred.
"Specks, huh?" he staggered back, voice slurred. "Guess… I'm a weak one, then."
The Ashborn stopped ranting then. His eyes softened for a second before he buried his face in his hands. "I had to do it," he whispered. "I… DON'T YOU DARE BLAME ME, I HAD TO DO IT, OKAY!"
The gun was back, pointed at Eric as the man heaved heavily. Only then did Eric collapse to his knees, eyes fixed on the light behind the Ashborn as the shrieks of the spawns closed in.
"Make it fast," he muttered. "Your whining's getting on my nerves."
Jaw clenched, the man's hands still shook, his finger still resting against the trigger.
An Ashspawn launched into the room at full speed.
"The light!" A loud detonation rang out, and the creature dropped mid-leap, blue goo spilling from its shattered skull. "Can't… let them touch the light…"
"Not the… hic… not the light."
Perhaps he was mad. An Ashborn teetering on the edge of insanity wasn't rare. But with every minute Veiny didn't bury bullets in his skull, Eric doubted his own perception.
Or maybe the bastard was betting on him bleeding out. Effective without soiling his hands.
But... the light… what's wrong with it.
What was once a perfect circle had begun to splinter, its soft pulse now a small roar as thousands of sharp streaks of color formed a jagged, caninely toothed kaleidoscope, sucking in his attention and the silence between them.
"I wanted to be more than a speck. I needed to be needed," Veiny looked at the sky overhead. "Instead… I became a freak… so I thought…"
Shriek.
Crack.
Detonation.
An Ashspawn dropped.
"...I need to be a god. The greatest God ever known!"
Yeah… he was crazy.
But the light seemed to want to consume everything in its path. What exactly was it? Magic? No—if it was, it didn't come from Veiny. It took a moment to realize, but Veiny wasn't an Ashborn just insane.
Behind the light, ashes like crystals swirled, a beautiful sight, if Eric ignored his brain's insistence on figuring out what kind of ashes they were.
Veiny blasted another Ashspawn storming in, the force splattering its hide against the wall. "In a few minutes, I'll know what it feels like to be needed. Unignored. Divine."
"I know, though," Eric's amused voice cut through his reverie. With the silence he continued. "Obviously not divine—you should get your head checked for that." A small shrug. "But needed? I know that. You took that from me."
Veiny turned to the half-dead man on the floor, skinny and clutching his side. He frowned. How could this wreck possibly understand what it felt like to toil toward a goal, only for it to explode in your face?
And two weeks later, to slowly become this...freak while someone else took your sweat and made it…
"Better?" Eric cut in again with a small, sad, dying smile. He nodded at the light. "Is that it? What does it do? Hopefully cool enough to warrant me dying."
"Stay alive a little longer, and you'll see."
"Secrets Secrets."
The swirling ashes had grown, claiming half the room. Eric pushed himself further against the wall. Better dead than an Ashspawn.
But…
Shriek. Shriek. Shriiiiiiieeeek!
Veiny's eyes widened, turning to the entrance as it darkened heavily with the noise of numerous feet skittering closer.
"Son of a…!" He looked back at the light. "Not yet!" He fired like a madman, spraying bullets at the entrance. "Go back! You can't come in now!"
Eric didn't have the heart to tell him there were thousands of them, just below, waiting for their turn.
"Why didn't you just die?!"
Because he couldn't let go of the ecstasy of being needed. Because there was a gold-level Ashborn he was trying to protect while being laughably pink.
He chuckled as his sight blurred. Sucks.
The Ashspawns crashed into the room in their numbers.
Eric watched it all through fading vision: the creatures rounding Veiny, their laughter every time he fired, doubling in their numbers with each shot.
"Get out! You can't come in now!"
A limb shot out, knocking the gun from Veiny's hands. His harsh breaths filled the room as he lunged toward the light. A clean swipe—sounding like a blade—and—
Veiny's torso slid off his lower body, dropping to the floor in a heap.
Quick, Eric thought as dread pooled in his gut. For now, the creatures had their attention on him.
Kael and Natalie, they were going to have his head for this. He could feel the icy chill surrounding him. It smelled of metal, of death.
An Ashspawn stood before him, head tilted, void eyes studied him for seconds that seemed too long, then with a loud, continuous crackle that made Eric nauseous, it opened its mouth so wide it nearly split its head in two.
Eric scoffed. "Only regret is you being the last thing I fucking see."
But as those rows of teeth nearly enclosed around him, a loud explosion rippled through the room, shaking the building's foundation.
The walls denigrated to dust in a flash. A burst of illumination followed, and for a long second, time seemed to stop.
"What… what… is…"
Eric tried to swallow, but every movement in his body seized. The room stood still. He couldn't feel the gritty floor anymore.
Am I… floating?
Maybe he was near death, hallucinating. But this didn't feel like death, he could feel the heat against his skin.
Did one feel this hot when they were about to die?
Another sound, softer, like an implosion, and he found himself sucked into a brighter colors. It looked like a constellation.
Pretty… pretty enough to distract from the fact that he was falling, quite rapidly.
Then the light cleared, and he heard it—the sound like a waterfall he'd noticed on the bridge to this room.
But it was no ordinary waterfall. Ashes like crystals cascaded down a jagged, high, black cliff, filling a river of ash below.
An Ashspawn… he'd be buried in that… and become the same creatures he detested.
Wow, nice one, poetic justice. Outdid yourself this time.
Kael should be calling. Sending messages. Tomatoes.
She'd have no meds to stop her glowing.
His back hit the surface of the ash, sinking rapidly as the currents sucked him in. Shutting his eyes, his body went numb, particles filling his nostrils…
But even with that, he regretted nothing… absolutely… nothing.
***
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