"G-Genneth…?" Mr. Himichi stammered, in lurid terror.

Up ahead was a horror I couldn't name. Looking at it was like staring at the sun. Its presence burned itself into my third pair of eyes.

A shadow stood in the middle of the street. It wore the tattered flesh of dying man, was tall and slender, razor thin, even, stretched beyond its vessel's confines, which bobbed on the shadow like beads on black string.

Much of the man's body wasn't there. He lacked a forearm, a shoulder, half of his face, and patches of his waist and legs. The shadow poured itself into those absences, filling them with the Night's own limpid, immaculate darkness, one that seethed and twined like tongues of fire where it poked through the breaks. The shadow's edges glowed in many colors; a halo of burning rainbows.

My other two sets of eyes saw only static and swirls, a howling sandstorm that made no noise. Waves poured onto my second sight like echoes and lava, while through my third, I watched as everything seemed to get pulled in. The threads of creation frayed off the air itself and rushed into the shadow, like a wind at the door.

And whatever they were—whatever this was—one thing was clear to me; clear as crystal: this was not &alon. This was something else.

Angel's mercy…

What if &alon had been telling the truth? What if she wasn't the darkness?

No, there was no thinking to it. I knew it with every fiber of my being. This was Kléothag's killer. This was the evil behind our starless skies. This was the evil that made even the destroyers of worlds cower in terror.

This was the DARKNESS.

Just looking at it made me feel as if all the souls in my care were about to be dragged out of me, through my eyes.

The shadow's arms drooped onto the street, dragging slack behind it.

Within me, &alon screamed: "Run, Mr. Genneth! RUN!!"

I sped up my thoughts as fast as they would go. I needed to understand what was going on. I needed—

—The thing moved, defying my thoughts.

This isn't possible.

The shadow was lightning in slow motion, limbs calmly sweeping through a single step as it rocketed toward me.

I tried to move, but I couldn't, and I screamed, only to remember my thoughts were still careening forward at high speed.

I returned my thoughts to normal. My body instantly responded.

There was no time for questions. I couldn't even have asked &alon if I tried. Her presence was a ball of petrified wood, trembling even as it melted across my thoughts.

I conjured a wave of force and threw it into the shadow's path. With my third eyes, I saw my power's threads more clearly than ever before. The glistening fibers spewed out from my three-fingered palm in azure and gold.

The shadow lunged toward my pataphysics, vacuuming them up the instant it made contact. Its presence stung my thoughts as it tore my power away from where it was anchored in my hand and swallowed it whole.

Pouncing across the ground, I slithered along as fast as I could, just barely evading the shadow's strike.

Its needle-like legs cut through the street like butter.

A wave of torpor swept over my thoughts, making me shudder. The feeling was accompanied by a jolt of pain.

Just being near the darn thing was draining my vitality away!

If I hadn't known any better, I'd have thought it had hit me!

Staggering, I slithered onto the sidewalk, pushing off an infected palm tree to speed myself forward. Needing to get a lot of speed quickly, I wove a shawl of power, scooped myself up in it and launched myself forward. As I careened through the air, I warped the shawl around me, changing it into a levitation that sped me over the ground like the L85 zooming down the Expressway, half floating, half skidding.

Still unused to seeing things with my third eyes, I glanced back over my shoulder.

The shadow was surging toward me, afterimages of itself trailing behind it. The echoes of what came before made a near 360° degree turn, as sharp as a triangle's tip.

I crashed into an unbroken storefront. Everything spun. My body folded in on itself as I cradled the pill bottles against my palm, wood and metal clattering all around me.

Then I ground to a stop, strewn over and in between a menagerie of different shapes. Raising my neck, I shook my head and thrashed, trying to right myself.

I was in a furniture store. Dust and light streamed through the gash I'd made in the front wall.

Past the busted wall and shattered glass, the shadow approached.

I lobbed a wave of force, blasting ergonomic chairs and crane-necked through the broken wall and windows. The shadow leapt at my weave like a dog to a ball, trailing an arc of afterimages behind it. The flung furniture bashed the human shell, knocking the shadow back, but still, the shadow chased after my spell.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Not stopping to see what happened next, I squirmed my way to the back of the store, using my body to sweep objects out of my path.

There was a door in the back. Going through it was like threading myself through the proverbial eye of the needle, head to tail. It was a messy fit. I passed through a corridor lined with shelves and dollies and bashed my claw against the back door until it gave way and I spilled out onto the alley.

I clambered out onto the alley, and turned—only to get stuck.

I looked back.

There was still more of me threaded through that corridor. I wriggled and tugged until, with a jolt, I pulled myself free.

I coiled myself in the alley, frantic. My eyes turned to the tip of my tail, where the shadow had almost cut me.

Why did it hurt so much?

Sword stab me…

Threads of power flowed out from the patch of my tail where it ached. Where they were going, I had no idea. The same threads were also peeling away from the rest of my body, but at a slower rate.

And all of it was slowly drifting in the direction of the shadow.

I shuddered to think of what would happen if I let it touch me.

Uncoiling myself, I slithered over to the other side of the alley.

"Genneth," Yuta said, "the furniture. You were able to strike it with the furniture!"

"Don't just sit there," Lark yelled. "Do it again! Super-size it! Knock 'em into that pit. Hole-in-one!"

The pain from my tail was fading, but slowly.

I'd bet getting more fungus would heal it up, quickly. That, and give me a much needed power boost. My many nostrils flared as I picked up the scent of fungus. The smell got stronger when I lifted my snout.

"No, Genneth—wait!" Yuta yelled.

I brought Yuta's spirit out into the open.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"The unobservant combatant fights blindly," he said. "Pay attention: the shadow didn't attack you until you used pataphysics to free yourself from the alley. Then, when you used those same powers to throw things at it, the shadow chased them. Them," he said, with emphasis, "not you."

He was absolutely right.

Wait…

"It's just like the creature in Zaina's penthouse," I said, "from Suisei's memories."

From what I'd seen there, the nightmare in the penthouse started when Zaina had attempted to use the Sword. And just like this shadow, the horrifying creature that had been unleashed there also seemed to be drawn toward pataphysics.

I didn't know if the puzzle was coming together or not, but at the very least, I held a piece of it in my claws, as surely as the bottle of painkillers. Whatever the ultimate nature of our powers was—mine, Suisei's, &alon's, the Sword's—this Darkness, whatever it was, it was feeding on it.

Focusing, I knit a sheet of psychic threads in front of a shop over a block away from my current position. (I did not want the shadow to trace it back to me!) Letting my power flow, I chucked a burst of pure force at the building, shattering the street-side window and the home appliances displayed on the tables behind it.

The shadow displaced itself, cutting across my vision in a blur as it slid into the store. The wall posed no obstacle to it. The shadow phased through the solid matter, deleting what it touched, erasing it from existence. The asphalt and concrete underneath it was similarly erased, revealing a layer of gravel underneath.

That clinched it, then: the darkness was drawn to our powers.

I needed to get a better view of my surroundings. For a moment, I hesitated, unsure of what to do. I didn't dare float into the air; that would probably draw the monster to me like I'd slathered myself in shadow catnip.

Then, an awful thought popped into my noggin: there was a very real possibility that there was more than one shadow roaming about.

Fudge.

So I just tried something. Rearing my forepart up as high as it could go, I pushed up against the wall like a climbing vine. To my pleasant surprise, I could stick my head onto the rooftop with barely any trouble. So, raking my claws into the rooftop, I pulled myself all the way up, slithering against the wall—pushing with ripples of my underbelly—like I did on the street.

I quickly spooled my body onto the rooftop. Once all of me was up there, I looked over the edge, out to the street below.

Double fudge!

I had found the missing townsfolk, or, well… some of them, anyhow. They stood like statues, but flickered like fading ghosts. The upper parts of their bodies disassociated into mist and wisps that undulated in slow motion as they pulled apart and vanished into nothing. Bottomless ravines zigzagged through the street in fractal branches. I followed their trail down the street, to where they widened and merged with one of the larger rifts.

Another shadow hovered above the street. It was nearly motionless, except for an occasional twitch or twist.

Somewhere, there was a soft, muffled crunch.

As I craned my neck about and repositioned myself on the rooftop, I noticed the shadow and the flickering candlelight ghosts rotated in place, always keeping themselves facing toward me, as if they were compass needles and I was their north. Sure, they didn't move toward me, but that was little comfort. I froze stiff, terrified of an imminent attack, but it was difficult, my fear kept making my mane twitch, not to mention the phantoms' gaze stung my back with hot and cold.

The soft crunching sounds returned, this time in battalions. The roof caved in, collapsing onto the interior below. It took me down with it, along with a good deal of the street-side entrance.

I froze again, absolutely terrified of drawing the shadows.

But nothing happened.

Slowly, very very slowly, I poked my head out through the gaping hole in the ruined front wall.

Again, nothing happened.

I slithered forward an inch, then another, and another, gradually coiling myself onto the street. I took care to coil my body as far away from the bottomless ravines as possible.

Kléothag's scream echoed in my mind: "Run!"

And I did, I ran like hell.

I just couldn't take it anymore. I propelled myself out onto the street with a sling of psychic force, not caring that part of me was tangled in myself.

Afterimages blurred as the shadows—plural—took pursuit.

Yes, both of them.

I slalomed between the dissolving souls, my body thumping on the street. Segments of road between the bottomless ravine cracked beneath my newfound weight and fell away into the yawning abyss. I fumbled with my claws to scramble up the road even as it crumbled beneath me. I was a leapfrog, lunging forward with my powers—a skip and a hop and a frenzied roar.

Then I hit solid ground, and rushed forward, half-way floating, far enough from the shadows that I dared to fly.

I was supersonic.

The shadows chased, leaping in arcs of afterimages almost too quick to be believed. Swaddling my claws in psychic might, I grabbed a car right off the roadside, but the weight was so much less than what I'd seen expecting that my effort threw me off kilter. My arm's momentum kept it going, chucking the vehicle forward before I'd let go.

I crashed in coils, the car flying out of my grip, out of sight, into the rift.

The ravine loomed to my right. I was right at the edge. The street crackled and groaned under my weight.

I looked back. The shadows were almost upon me.

Across the street, I saw another car.

I only had one shot.

I reached out, my power flowing through the air in my third sight. I lassoed the car and made it levitate.

"Wait for it…" Yuta said.

I saw their darkness, gleaming bright.

"Wait for it…"

Circling around, I reared up and roared.

"Now!"

I swung the car at the rift at my left, imagining it was an invisible frisbee, one just my size.

The car swung through the air and hit my two targets.

It was my first and only knockout blow.

The shadows rode the car as it careened into the abyss. And then they were gone.

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