Neo Chronicles: Nexus
Episode 49: I'm Drowning
Table of Contents
I'm drowning. Each breath I take is harder than the last. I can't see any light above me. Only the darkness from below.
I don't know how long I've been falling. Every so often, a vision flashes before me. A vision of sorrow. A vision of suffering. A vision of death. The visions carry weight. They're so real. So immersive.
In one, I'm chained to a dying tree. Lightning strikes it at regular intervals. No one else is around. No one can hear me cry out as the bolts run through my body.
In another, I'm alone in a barren wasteland. The ground is breaking apart. Geysers of fire spew forth. Meteorites fall from the sky like rain. Skeleton bones litter the field. The heat alone is almost too much. Then there's the smell of rotting eggs coming from every direction.
My heart races as I try to avoid this landscape's attempts to kill me.
Then I'm drowning again. Back in this viscous, black liquid, in a state a free fall. I'm choking, trying to inhale something akin to air, but doing so only makes the situation worse.
I feel cold. I feel scared. I feel alone.
This is torture. I'm bombarded by all these images and the feelings that come with them. I'm not even sure if I can point out which one is real.
But then again, this is how it's always been. Since my ST began to manifest, I was never sure which emotion I felt was true. They were all true, but not all of them were mine. I had to filter through the noise. I had to make sure I never lost myself to the waves.
My entire life has been a fight to maintain control. There wasn't anyone around like me to guide me through it. There was never anyone I could truly relate to about this. Friends, family, teachers, it didn't matter. I was only able to make it this far by trusting myself.
Now that I'm here, alone—on this tree, in this wasteland, in this ocean—I'm forced to remember the same lesson: It's only me. I'm the only one who can pull myself through this.
So I push it all away. The pain, the anguish, the anxiety. I still know about. I still feel it. But in pushing it aside, I can see the picture for what it really is.
I stand alone in the dark. Nothing extra is happening. It's just me standing still. Before me, I see the three of them: Mayer, Tameka, and Rayne. But I know that's not them. With a little bit more focus, I can see past the facade.
Mayer, Tameka, and Rayne aren't there. No, it's a group of shadowy figures. I can't make out any of them, but I know they're there. Dozens upon dozens of them. The more I focus, the more I see. Probably in the hundreds. Some of the figures look like animals. Some them human.
This is who I'm dealing with right now. I raise my hand out. It feels warm. Some bright purple, red, and blue light starts shining from it. The light chases away all the darkness around me, including the shadow figures.
Then something inside me wills the light to fire. It shoots forward like a beam, like a wave, and pierces right at the core of the shadows. The darkness shatters like glass, and in a flash of light –
/*
I'm awake.
“CHRIS!!”
Lynn rushes in, tears streaming from her face, her hands emitting a blindingly bright light.
There's an older boy rushing in after her. He wields a rod of some sort. Green fire trails behind him.
Tameka is the first one of the possessed to strike at them. With a wave of her hand and a gust of wind, the two are flung aside like loose papers in a storm.
Noah and Jamal are standing still. Their eyes wide open. Shock, disbelief, fear, I feel it strike me at my core.
My heart races. My breathing sharpens. I can feel a cold sweat form above my brow.
Then I see it.
I see him.
He's lying on the floor. His entrails out next to him. Blood is everywhere. The scent it carries is strong.
Lynn and the boy are back on their feet. Their fierce cries signal the fury behind their actions. They each shoot forth wave of light at the demons.
The demons erect some sort of force field to protect themselves. I see a glimmer of crimson flash from their eyes.
The two parties seem to be at a standstill. The stream of light against the wall of darkness.
“We have to find a way to draw the demons out without harming their victims,” the boy says.
“Caleb, they killed Chris!” Lynn shouts back.
“Lynn, I need you to focus! Those demons will kill everyone in here if we don't get this right!”
Noah and Jamal finally come to. After a quick exchange of glances, they add on to the assault with their fire and ice blasts.
I see the demons almost chuckle at their efforts. Rayne leaps from behind the dark wall and lands on all fours in a prowling position directly in the other group's midsts. Everyone stops as a result. They're surprised.
Jamal gathers his flames in his left hand and tries to throw it at the wolf demon, but Rayne's too fast. She spins her outstretched leg, sweeping him off his feet.
Noah pulls back his right arm as a spear of ice forms out of thin air. Before chucking it, Mayer shows up from behind and decks him on the back of his head. The boy hits the ground hard. I hear a loud thud on impact.
Tameka's taking on Lynn and Caleb at once. She effortlessly parries a blast from one and then the other. The sequence repeats itself as if on an infinite loop before she finally attacks back.
Mayer's foot hovers over Noah. I see Noah try to blast him with all the ice he has left, but Mayer isn't moved by the effort.
Jamal ignites his fist and, with a loud shout, punches Mayer across the face. I can see Rayne come in to make Jamal pay for that, but Noah repays the favor by directing his next ice blast at her.
Mayer turns around and delivers a heavy blow to Jamal's ribs. I can hear the crack from here. It sounds like steel breaking through concrete. Jamal falls to his knees, holding himself as he shouts out in pain.
I look down at my hand. I see it give off a deep and purple hue. This isn't ice, and it isn't fire, so I'm not using Jamal or Noah's powers. Is this Lynn?
I look back up and see that she's still making use of whatever ST she has. Maybe I've managed to copy instead of steal. I thought I was just an empath. Where and when did this power leeching thing come from?
This is so weird, but I can't really dedicate much thought to it now.
As I focus on my hand, the light becomes brighter. I can feel a warmth to it. I clutch my hand into a fist and imagine myself next to Mayer. And in the next instant.
I'm there, punching Mayer halfway across the room. He didn't see it coming. He didn't see me coming. No one did.
All eyes are on me. The demons slowly crowd around me. Everyone else tends to their wounds. I start walking away from the crowd, and the demons follow.
“Who the heck are you?” Jamal asks, looking up at the older boy.
“He's Caleb,” Lynn answers, “now quit moving!”
She lays hands on his chest, and the light emitting from them, cover him whole. Caleb places his hands on Noah's arm and does the same.
“I'm gonna guess everyone here knows that these are demons we're fighting, right?”
“Ya think!?” Jamal snaps.
“Good, that helps out tremendously. Since we can see them, we can fight them.”
“Is this guy for real?” Jamal says.
“We've been fighting!” Noah shouts. “How you think Nexus over there got killed! They're better than us! This whole thing is a game to them! Nothing we do works, and since they can stop time whenever they want –”
“Shut up!” Caleb says, only slightly raising his voice. He pauses before continuing. “If their time warping is the problem, then that means we need to stop it. Lynn, if you can help me, we can raise everyone's spiritual defense. That should at least level the playing field.”
“We can do that?” Lynn asks.
“Yes, now concentrate.”
I see a bubble form around Lynn and expand outward, covering her, Caleb, Noah, and Jamal. This act catches the demons' eyes as well, but they scoff it off. They're clearly more concerned about me. Not sure why they haven't attacked yet. Maybe they don't know what to make of me, either.
I can't feel what they feel. Or maybe that's what this cold is. Maybe cold is the only emotion they have. It feels empty and hollow. The further I walk away from the rest of the kids, the more cold I feel.
“Great, no more time freeze!” Noah says. “But then there's the possession and their speed and their numbers. They can pick and choose any number of methods ta kill us.”
So far none of those options have worked on me. The demons know that, right? Of course they do. Maybe that's why they wanna focus on me. Am I really a threat?
“How do we put a stop to all this?” Jamal asks.
“You're all right. Fighting them as they are won't get us anywhere. And even if it did, we'd be harming the hosts they're using. We have to separate them.”
“Separate them?”
“Yes! We need to separate them from their hosts. It's the only way we can actually banish them.”
“But how? The banishing part is the issue. Nothing we do can actually stop them! Say we do separate them. They're still demons!”
“We can handle that!” Lynn says.
“Are you sure?”
“Been doing this all day!”
“Fine, separate the demons from the hosts. Any ideas? What are you thinking? Some kind of exorcism?”
“Exactly! It'll be tricky since there's three of them, but if y'all can buy me some time, we can get it done.”
I see Rayne flinch. She's the one who's probably gonna attack first.
Out the corner of my eye, I see Caleb become engulfed in his green flames. That's probably how the exorcism starts. All I have to do is hold off these demons long enough for him to finish.
Lynn starts to move in.
I feel a burning desire to rip these demons apart with my bare hands. The more I stare at them, the angrier I get. I want to strike now. Forget the exorcism. Forget tryna figure out why they see me as a threat. All I wanna do is kill them in the most gruesome way possible.
And I have every reason to, too. They've already killed one of us. They're wearing our assistant principle and classmates like a costume. They've got to be stopped. They've got to be killed. I have to –
That's not me.
Dang it Lynn, calm down. You're not thinking straight.
She's gonna be a problem.
Rayne's leaps in front of me. She pulls back her hand. Her claws as gruesome as can be.
I grit my teeth as I pull back my fist. It's glowing. Tameka appears next to me. They're both—now, Mayer too—all of them are poised to strike. They all are surrounded by that dark, cool light.
The rage in me subsides. I'm left feeling empty, which is good. It helps me to think straight. I can see what they're doing and how they're doing it.
And with the wave of my hand, I strike back.
