72 Pillar

It was a feeling I had felt before, when I thought everything was going to end.

It was a feeling that, when close to death, made me feel so alive and unstoppable that it didn't even make sense.

I looked down at the severed arm in my hands and smiled as the metal began to bend and deform until it barely looked like an arm at all.

"This is amazing!" I said, dropping the arm and raising my hands towards my face as the dark energy swirled around me, almost as if it were alive.

I turned and looked at the one-armed mannequin, still in a fighting stance as if it were ready to continue.

"Ha." I laughed, walking forward without raising my hands to defend myself. "You still want to continue?" I asked, knowing that this machine couldn't respond.

In a split second, the whole world slowed down, and I, the only thing moving in this frozen world, could see everything. From the smallest dust particles flying through the air to the shifting rocks and ground loosened by the huge craters.

I smiled as I sprinted towards the mannequin, the air feeling strange as it pushed against my body, almost like was pushing against a thin layer of plastic.

Up ahead, I could see and even hear the gears turning in the mannequin as it slowly moved to defend itself.

"Not fast enough!" I yelled as I reached out, grabbed its metal head, and with a swift, almost effortless pull, yanked the metal death bot's head clean off.

My body came to a stop, and time seemed to return to normal.

My back was to the mannequin's headless body that stood motionless as if paralyzed, while I still held its head in my right hand, sparks flying from the disconnected wires coming out of its severed neck.

I could feel my smile growing wider as my joy increased more and more, which I found strange. I'm not much of a smiler, and I definitely didn't smile this much until I started using this power.

"That girl smiled too," I thought, remembering the pale, white-skinned girl who appeared in my bathroom a few days ago.

I held the mannequin's face up to my own. I gripped it with both hands and began to squeeze. The metal head deformed and crushed under the pressure until it was nothing but a squished scrap of unrecognizable metal.

"Next," I said, looking up at Madelyn, who was sitting on a huge rock, dozens of feet away, looking down at me.

She looked beautiful as ever sitting there. At least, that's what I wanted to think. But the more I looked at her, the more I thought about tearing her apart with my own hands. I imagined her lifeless body on the ground, blood on my face and hands as I stood over her.

"No..." I thought, shaking my head to get the horrible thoughts out. "What am I thinking?" I asked myself, looking down at my hands with a troubled expression. "Why do I feel this way?"

Movement caught my eye. I looked up to see Madelyn raising her hand high into the air.

"What is she..."

I never finished my sentence before Madelyn snapped her fingers, and on cue, two bronze mannequins appeared out of nowhere, zipping past the rocks that had blocked my view.

"Shit!" I yelled, raising my arm to block as one of the mannequins kicked at my chest.

I took a few steps back before pushing against its metal leg, sending it flying.

"Are we doing this again?" I asked, feeling cocky. "I already beat the other one. Two more won't make a difference."

Moving with the unnatural swiftness of my new power, I effortlessly punched a huge hole in one of the mannequins' chests, causing it to fall over, unmoving.

"See? Now that I've activated this power, these things mean nothing to me," I said, crossing my arms and looking towards Madelyn, who continued to smirk at me from her perch on the rock.

"You don't get it," Madelyn said, her voice low but clear. "You have indeed activated Tzelem. But can you activate it whenever you want? Do vou know how long you can sustain it, even if you could?"

I knew the answer was no, but I wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of admitting it.

"There is still so much that you don't understand, so much that you are missing," she said, shaking her head like a disappointed parent. "But if harder is what you want.." She raised her hand again. "Then harder is what you will get."

She snapped her fingers, and from the distance, I saw not just any mannequin but a single, menacing figure walking towards me. Unlike the others, which were bronze, this one was a gleaming silver.

"Huh?" I said, feeling a chill as the silver mannequin approached. Its presence was more intimidating than the others, and I couldn't shake the sense of dread building inside me.

I really wanted to punch myself in the face. "I should've kept my mouth shut," I muttered, realizing this mannequin was vastly different from the ones I had already faced.

This is what I get for letting my cockiness go to my head.

"No..." I said, shaking my arms and legs to loosen up. "I already took care of the bronze fighters; this silver one can't be much different," I said with a smirk, ready to show off more of my skills.

"Huh?" I looked around in confusion as I suddenly couldn't feel the ground beneath my feet. The world was spinning. "What the..." was all I could think as my body slammed into a massive rock, breaking it upon impact.

I didn't know what had happened. My body fell down among a rainstorm of broken rock shards, slamming into the ground with a huge thud, buried in a pile of the unyielding rock that my body had shattered.

My vision was blurry, and I could barely move as I lay there in the pile of rocks that blanketed my entire body.

"Am I going to die?" I thought to myself, glancing up to see black and white sneakers walking towards me.

"Hard enough for ya?" I heard Madelyn's voice from above, her voice barely audible.

"Y-yeah," I managed to croak out.

***

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