Face of Eternity : The Little Angel

The eerie blare of sirens rang outside, accompanied by a strangely inconsistent Doppler effect.

We had been warned by the almanac to beware that signal. The book referred to it as a harbinger of some kind.

“Why is it so dark already? Shrimp, what time is it?”

A little readout at the very bottom corner of my vision said it was 10:03 PM. There’s no chance it was already that late! I know we spent time doing stuff all day, but last I checked it was evening.

My systems are calibrated to match whatever time zones humanity has set up across the planet. It updates automatically wherever I go. So there couldn’t be a mistake. Whatever time my internal clock says, that’s what it is.

“What…?” Indena uttered quietly. “I swear to the gods it wasn’t this late…”

“I know,” I agreed. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

Whatever anomaly we were trapped in, it had me shivering to the core.

*Weeeeewwweeeeeeooooo…*

The sound of the siren continued, but among the constant drone was violent thunder. A battle of sound ensued for what felt like seconds, then both fell silent.

Ringing filled our ears in wake of the silence.

“What the hell…?” Indena peeked her head from the fort, looking around the room. “I have a bad feeling about this…”

Her bad feeling was nothing compared to the absolute dread that filled me. I was completely unable to move at this point, letting my systems process the terrible vibe filling my veins.

Then, a harrowing message appeared in my vision.

-WARNING! DARKNESS LEVELS RISING-

Darkness…such a terrible thing.

My breathing became more frantic as I stayed still. It felt like the heated air was trying to suffocate me.

But another feeling put its foot in the door of my heart. It was soft, but strong, drawing me to calm myself and process it. Even through the fear, this feeling told me everything would work out for the better, but only if I stood to my feet and faced it head on.

Now I was standing with a leveled breath, trying to figure out what force of darkness was upon us.

“Shrimp, you…you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Worse.”

This feeling reminded me of something from last year. A being dragged from the depths of the dark flames of Heck and thrust into our world of light.

You know the strange part of this? For as scared as I was, it felt like I needed to be here. It was almost exciting. Were these panicked breaths of fear, or exhilaration from a rising challenge? I wasn't so sure anymore.

“Well, if we stay here, we should be safe.” Indena said, clearly tensed.

CRASH!

It sounded like a window just broke in the kitchen.

"That safety aged like milk…" I commented.

~☆☆☆~

We both made our way toward the kitchen. I got an unnaturally bad feeling in my bones.

The kitchen was dark, even though the lights were clearly on. Indena lit a fire up in her hand, but the light from that didn’t brighten up the darkness.

We had one other option…stardust.

I let some solar crystal grow over my right hand, and stretched it out into the pitch black kitchen.

The dark haze became transparent, and something that looked like a cross between a big locust and a person was crawling around. Its bug-like legs were like warped arms. Its hands had bug-like appendages for fingers. Its head was like someone had taken a person's face and stretched it to be bug-like.

-WARNING! THREAT SIGHTED!-

-IFF tags activated-

-Unknown demonic hostile tagged; Foe-

“Oh no…” my eyes sank into my head, “it’s a…!”

The demon screeched loudly, accompanying its horrible voice with the returned siren outside.

It raced at us quickly!

Indena tugged me out of the way!

The demon bit right into the wall, taking out a chunk of wood. That could have been me if she hadn't thought fast!

Fire balls left Indena's hand, exploding on contact with the demon! The demon wasn’t phased at all.

The demon swiped at us with its buggy hands. Indena pushed me to the other end of the room to keep me from getting hit.

“Shrimp! Stay the away from this thing! Let me handle it.”

She didn’t know that stardust was the only way to stop a demon.

“You need stardust!” I warned her.

“Huh?!” She kept having to dodge the leaping attacks of the demon.

It bit into her arm, drawing blood. She set off an explosion in its terrible mouth, blasting it off.

More of those things crawled in through the broken window. The reinforcements saw Indena as the main threat, biting and slashing, overwhelming her. She wasn’t getting away from them, so I had to join the fight.

Since last year, I’d been honing my ability to use stardust. I’d made a crude spear before, more like a stick than a weapon, but that was because I didn’t know what I was doing.

My skills still left something to be desired, but I wasn’t helpless anymore.

I wanted to craft something like a spear again, but my stardust reserves were low, so I had to improvise.

Instead, I could create something like a bowie knife.

Hazy white energy formed at the center of my palm, then lifted into the air and shaped into a stick-like shape. Within seconds it smoothed out into a dagger and then hardened into crystal.

I gripped the crystal dagger tightly. In my tiny hands it looked more like a small sword. All the demons froze and shivered at its white glow.

-Let There Be Light-

"Let there be light!" I announced.

I swung the dagger around, haphazardly cutting at the demons. As our only source of light, it made seeing them very difficult, but it also made then cautious.

The moment it made contact with one, it’d screech and leap back outside through the window.

Indena saw what happened, then ordered me to hand over the weapon. I did so.

The tables turned! Indena swung the dagger around, slashing across one of the demons, cutting a huge chunk of its face off!

It fell to the ground and started to sizzle up, turning into a burnt mush.

“Who else wants some?!” She announced, lighting up her flame aura.

The demons prowled around her, looking as if they were spooked. But they quickly grew the backbone to leap at her once more.

She kept cutting at them. Over and over she struck, killing the dark bugs.

But there was something bad I was seeing with the stardust dagger…each time she’d use it, the weapon would get smaller. She either needed to replace it, or have me grow more crystal over it. But I really didn’t have many Stardust Points left in me, so all I could do was repair it.

“Indena!” I shouted. “Throw that back to me for a second!”

“What?!” she freaked out. “Hell no!”

“You don’t understand! It’s gonna break!”

Because I told her that, she noticed that it was getting smaller now. She must have figured there weren’t any other options, so she tossed the dagger back.

She wasn’t aiming for me directly, but I calculated the daggers trajectory and moved in just the right spot to catch it at the hilt.

“Good catch, Shrimp.”

I didn’t have time to pat myself on the back. I regrew crystal over the dagger. It didn’t look like normal stardust, it looked a bit more translucent and less bright. A bit red too. Still, this would probably work fine for now.

I couldn’t throw for the life of me. So I slid the dagger back to her position and she snatched it up off the ground, immediately meeting the blade with one of the demons' faces.

The demon fell to the ground, stunned, and nearly defeated, but not dead. I think the potency of my stardust right now wasn’t strong enough to kill it!

“Not good…”

The locust demon leapt back up, then raced at her for an attack.

She struck it with the dagger, cutting away part of its face, but it still went full force against her.

She dodged its bite attack, then took advantage of a vulnerable spot on its nape. The dagger thrust down and stabbed deep into its neck!

The demon screeched in pain, then dropped like a rock. It wasn’t dead, so Indena took the dagger and jammed it into its torso, hitting its heart.

Haze of pure black flooded out of its wound, then the demon turned to ash and charred the kitchen floor like the rest.

Meanwhile, others came at her even more ferociously. She had to evade nearly five strikes a second! That sorta’ speed was inhuman!

SCRATCH!

“Gah!” One clawed at her left hand, tearing part of her glove. The shock caused her to trip over a chair.

Then another bit at her leg and tried to tear it off! Another started biting at her foot! Her fire aura was just barely keeping her protected, but I had to help or she’d be done for!

I grew some crystal over my hands with whatever stardust I had left. With all my training, I leapt in with punches and chops against each of the locusts!

All I managed to do was stun them, but that was enough time for Indena to scramble away.

“We need to go!” She stood to her feet and snatched me by the hand. Then we left as fast as possible out the front door.

There weren’t many safe places with all the demons around, so what was her plan?

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Don’t know, but we’re not staying here!”