Chapter 13: Strange Encounter
Sym’s boots thudded softly against the worn pavement, his body moving on autopilot while his mind churned.
Another day returning to HQ.
Another day of calcuted submission beneath Evin’s sadistic grin.
He wondered, no, he knew, that bastard had something worse pnned for today. And the worst part? Sym couldn’t fight back. Not yet.
He couldn’t risk blowing his cover, couldn’t risk revealing Sage, not when his abilities made him an anomaly in a world where anomalies disappeared.
Besides, killing a Blessed inside their own territory would set off arms far louder than anything he was ready for.
For now, he had to bide his time.
His eyes drifted along the desote walkways, the skeletal buildings leaning against one another like drunks holding themselves upright.
Pipes jutted from walls, leaking steam in sharp bursts that hissed into the stale air.
Machinery groaned overhead as ancient ventition systems struggled to stay alive.
Somewhere above, something rumbled, rattling loose bolts in the warped metal structures.
The city always felt loud, but in a hollow way, like it was trying to drown out its own decay.
It struck Sym that he hadn’t had a truly quiet walk since before his death.
That thought barely had time to settle before something else cut through the haze.
A sound, scratching. Sharp and unnatural.
He slowed his pace, eyes narrowing.
It came from above, across the roofline of a leaning tenement building.
Sym followed the noise with his gaze.
And froze.
The creature perched on the rooftop was strange.
Bipedal, but twisted, like something had tried to imitate a human form and failed spectacurly.
Its two heads pulsed with sinewy muscle, each head ending in a single gaping maw packed with jagged, overpping teeth. It had too many eyes that covered the heads and back, darting in all directions with frantic, unnatural movements.
Its front was covered in patchy bck fur, matted and slick with grime.
Two elongated arms hung at its sides, each ending in a pair of razor-like cws that twitched as it shifted. Its tail, a short, fuzzy thing, swished absently, as though the creature couldn’t decide if it was predator or prey.
It screeched, a guttural, warbling sound that made the hairs on Sym’s neck rise.
Its heads snapped around wildly, as if in panic.
For a moment, Sym’s brain cataloged the details with the cool detachment of someone who had seen his fair share of horrors, alien ndscapes, impossible lifeforms, but this?
This thing was different.
Different enough that he felt something cold coil in his gut.
Why is it here?
“Sage.”
“Active.”
“Scan if you can.”
“Target is out of optimal range. Visual confirmation logged, but detailed analysis unavaible at current distance.”
Sym’s mind raced.
Creatures like that didn’t belong inside the walls.
Something like that belonged out there, maybe, beyond the Gateways, where corruption festered and bled into reality.
“Recommendations?” he murmured.
“Remain alert. Potential expnations include: breach in wall integrity, unauthorized Gate activity, or controlled introduction by Order or faction.”
None of those options felt good.
He weighed his choices: engage, observe, report.
The creature’s eyes twitched, its head snapping toward him for a fraction of a second.
And then.
It screeched again and scrambled back across the rooftop, vanishing behind a rusted ventition duct.
Sym stared at the empty space where it had been, heart pounding, mind already spinning through possibilities.
Something was wrong.
Sym’s breath caught as a figure stepped into view, a man cd in bck robes trimmed in red, the unmistakable symbol of the Order of the Obelisk stitched into his chest: a blood-red eye, half-lidded, as if always watching.
The man’s expression twisted into something manic; his smile was too wide, too eager.
Eyes gleamed with a kind of madness Sym had only seen in zealots and executioners.
“Sage.”
“Active.”
“Can you pick up what he’s saying?”
“Negative. Environmental noise is masking phonetics. I can attempt localized isotion by canceling city ambience and approximating based on lip movement.”
“Do it.”
But before Sage could begin, the battle exploded.
The Order’s Awakened leapt into the air, rising with unnatural grace, his bck robes fring around him like wings of smoke.
The creature, still darting across rooftops, let out a choked screech, its two heads whipping around in pure panic. It knew what was coming.
Sym saw it then, orbs of snow, bright and crystalline, forming midair around the Awakened. They spun in zy circles, too serene for what followed.
With a flick of his fingers, they shot downward, each one accelerating mid-flight until they flew through the sky like falling stars.
The first barrage missed, barely. Shards of rooftop and shattered concrete burst into the air. The creature leapt again, fleeing in jerking, clumsy arcs.
Sym ducked into a nearby alley, pressed to the shadows, eyes tracking every movement.
The Order didn’t care who saw. Or what they hit.
People burst from their homes, some leaping out windows, others stumbling into the streets.
Their faces were pale, hollow-eyed, caught somewhere between confusion and terror.
BOOM!
BOOM!
CRACK!
Another shot nded, sending shockwaves down the block. Debris rained into the alleyway. Pipes burst.
A building groaned in its foundation.
Then one of the ice attacks hit.
The creature shrieked as the icy meteor crashed into its spine, smming it through the roof of a tenement and down into the second floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
Sym didn’t flinch.
But he didn’t move, either.
He watched.
The Awakened descended like a predator descending on prey. And even though the monster had stopped moving, the assault didn’t.
The ice meteors kept falling.
One. After. Another.
The street shook under the weight of cold fury as the attacker painted the crater with ice and ruin.
The building colpsed in on itself, brick and steel vanishing into dust.
And when the blizzard ended, only bones and slush remained.
The Order’s enforcer stood tall, eyes alight with smug triumph, his chest rising and falling like he’d just finished a song.
And then from above, another figure floated down.
A girl descended like a snowfke through ash, her boots barely disturbing the cracked pavement.
Her fairy-like wings shimmered, iridescent, faintly pulsing with some inner light.
They fluttered as if caught in a wind only she could feel. Her hair, a cotton-candy shade of pink, cascaded down the Bck of her robe in gentle curls.
She looked like something from a child’s fairy tale.
And both individuals had nded in a graveyard of their own making.
Sym watched from the alley’s shadow, half-concealed, his breath low and even.
He could barely hear them speak, but Sage was already working.
“Amplifying frequency and filtering ambient noise. Isoting subject conversation... now.”
The two Awakened stood amidst the ruins, the body of the two-headed creature buried beneath ice and rubble.
The man with the bck robe kicked aside some scorched debris.
“Commander Ray said that the appearance of these creatures should be expected… I wonder if they also drop the crystals like the ones outside? Do you see it?”
“Not yet,” the pink-haired woman replied, voice smooth and unconcerned. “It should be in the chest cavity. They always form near the heart, but if not there, then maybe the head.”
They began sifting through the wreckage casually, like they were looking for something they’d dropped, not dissecting a corpse in a destroyed home.
“I can’t believe we have to walk through this filth,” she added, wrinkling her nose.
“I know. I hate being outside of our headquarters. I just hope to one day cross that inner wall and head to Zone 8. Here, it stinks of weakness and garbage. Parasites. Their underground is riddled with even more filth.”
The man chuckled with a dark look in his eyes.
“They probably thought we’d help rebuild.”
“Please. Let them choke in the dust. The Order has bigger pns than saving rats.”
Sym listened.
He didn’t move.
But one of them, the girl, turned suddenly, eyes narrowing slightly, scanning the crumbled streets.
Her eyes passed over his alley.
Sym shifted, just barely, feigning distraction, pretending to be a dazed survivor taking stock of the damage.
After a moment, she looked away.
He moved.
Quietly, carefully, he turned from the wreckage and made his way toward HQ, his thoughts spiraling as Sage echoed silently in his mind.
“Conversation logged. Crystals appear to be internalized by corrupted entities, a potential power source, or systemic residue. Retrieval prioritized by Order. Reference to underground breach frequency aligns with Cassius’s testimony. Subsurface exit paths may exist.”
Sym didn’t speak for a while.
His boots echoed in the near-empty streets, passing people who stared at the ground, too numb to ask questions anymore.
Eventually, he murmured, “What other reasons do you think might make the crystals important, Sage?”
“Unknown. But the Order’s retrieval urgency suggests high systemic or experimental value. Possibly energy storage. Maybe data?”
“Data?”
“If the corruption is conscious or communicative, these creatures may be carrying messages. Or it could simply be an expensive material object sought out by the higher-ups.”
Sym clenched his jaw.
He looked once over his shoulder, back toward the ruined street, where ice still clung to what remained of the creature and the home it died in.
He had learned something important today.
