NOVEL NEXT Chapter 115: Threnody of an Apex Predator
Mere minutes before the attack on the harbor...
A Starglider carrying goods into the port had a proximity alarm flicker as they crossed the threshold into the Rip Translate.
"What the hell was that? Officer Shēn, check the hull integrity." A commanding officer ordered.
"We're all clear sir! No breaches detected. Maybe a stray piece of debris clipped us?" Shēn called back.
The commanding officer frowned, leaning toward the proximity log. Odd, it was right as we surged into entry? The timing bothered him. "Run a full damage report once we dock at the port," he said.
"Yes, sir!" the crew responded, already moving back to their stations.
The Starglider crashed into the waters of Himadri, and with it a long, spindly figure splashed into the water, disappearing into the darkness.
At the port, two men were idly chatting on the furthest pier, the two drinking from thermoses as they mused about sweet nothings.
Beep~
Both of their crystalcomms chimed. One of the special sensors lining the pier was tripped. They frowned, glancing toward the end of the docks. An amber warning light was blinking sporadically in the distance; a lone sensor flickering at the very edge of the floodlit pier, swallowed by the surrounding darkness.
"Of course it had to be near us," One of the men muttered under his breath.
"And during our break," the other added, unimpressed.
"Must be a chunk of ice. Think we can ignore it?" the first said, taking another sip from his thermos.
"Nah. The Harbor Reeve'll complain about it clogging their logs," the second sighed.
"Well, fuck if I'm walking all the way out there," the first man said.
"I'm not doing it either, sport," the other replied flatly.
"I got an idea!" The first man pulled out two metal caps, weaving Kyyr lightly; he pressed down on the two caps flattening them into flat circular sheets. "Up for an accuracy game, Todd?"
Todd smirked and set down his thermos. "You sure about this, Benny? You lost the last couple times."
Benny returned the smirk. "I've been practicing. So quit stalling—put up a target."
"Sure, bud… what a way to waste our break," Todd sighed. He fished a bolt from his coat pocket and pulsed Kyyr into his palm. The metal glowed, expanding with a faint hiss until it was large enough to see at a distance. "Alright. Whoever hits the bolt wins."
Benny nodded as Todd jogged down the pier and set the target on the cold metal.
The two then readied themselves aiming the flattened caps at the bolt.
Plink!
"OH COME ON!" Benny groaned. "I freaking nicked it—that should count for a redo!"
"Nope. Start walking, bud," Todd said, amused, picking his thermos back up.
Benny sighed as he began to walk down the dimly lit pier. He cursed under his breath, mainly due to the fact the pier was about 400 meters long and the cursed light was at the very end—flickering.
He muttered curses under his breath as he went. Every so often he glanced back, only to see Todd raising his thermos in a smug little salute. Benny scowled harder each time, picking up his pace. His ice cleats clanked against the cold metal, the sound echoing into the vast, open nothingness beyond the pier. Somewhere out in the dark, a distant Starglider blared its horn as it approached the port, the low, resonant note rolling across the frozen harbor like the groan of a waking dragon.
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"It better be a little piece," he grumbled, pulling a compact rod from his pocket and flicking it into the air. It extended with a sharp snap.
DEATH.
A horrid feeling stabbed into his chest.
He froze just short of the flickering sensor light. Every alarm in his body exploded into action. Benny Reils was a relatively common Translate dock worker. Except for one fact. He'd made it through more port cities and more freak incidents than most, all thanks to his peculiar Kyyr ability: Living Abeyance. It wasn't flashy. It wasn't powerful. But it had one amazing perk—it allowed him to detect impending danger within a 3-meters radius. There was, however, one flaw in his otherwise lifesaving ability…
"H-help!" A feminine voice called out weakly from beyond the dock.
"A person? Out here?" he muttered. He cleared his throat and raised his voice. "Are you okay?" he called, edging toward the sound.
"I can't feel my legs! P-Please help me!" the voice whimpered, faint and trembling.
Benny hesitated, reaching for the crystalcomm on his wrist.
"HELP!" the voice cried again, louder, desperate. "I'm sinking!" The warning light snapped off.
"Shit!" Benny sprinted to the edge of the pier and nearly slipped straight into the water. "HELLO?!" he shouted, peering into the murky black beneath the dock. But there was no one there. Did she sink? Oh no! Fuck.
His eyes caught something in the murk. They widened as he instinctively tried to pull back when—
CRRRRRRG!
The sound tore through the stillness.
The most glaring fault of his Kyyr ability, Living Abeyance, was that it was sympathetic. Meaning the sense of impending danger could stem from anyone within the radius of his ability. Making it hard to distinguish between his own and others.
A long, thick, needle-like blade punched through Benny's throat. It was metallic in texture and appearance, yet somehow paradoxically organic, its surface bubbled. Benny was grievously wounded—paralyzed but still conscious. He gagged, blood pouring into the cold water as he sagged forward, eyes locked on the black abyss beneath the pier. From that darkness, an ominous red orb rose toward him, glowing faintly as it emerged from the depths.
The needle-like claw continued to bubble, its surface pulsing as tiny, microscopic tendrils burst outward. They wriggled into the gash in Benny's neck, crawling up his throat, into his sinuses, and burrowing toward his skull. Benny convulsed violently, tears, snot, and blood dripping down the length of the living blade impaled through him.
The red orb floated up from the depths, unattached to anything. It pulsed once, then vomited out a chorus of fractured digital syllables, rattling like ancient circuitry.
"⠠⠏⠕⠗⠞ ⠊⠝⠋⠕⠗⠍⠁⠞⠊⠕⠝ ⠁⠉⠟⠥⠊⠗⠑⠙⠲ ⠠⠞⠓⠁⠝⠅ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠋⠕⠗ ⠽⠕⠥⠗ ⠎⠑⠗⠧⠊⠉⠑⠎ ⠓⠥⠍⠁⠝⠲" It warbled, the fragmented syllables stuttering through the air like corrupted data. The red orb began to rise from the waters.
A colony of long metallic blades lifted with it, breaking the surface one after another in absolute silence. They varied in size and length, but they all swarmed weightlessly around the ominous red orb. Together they formed a vague skeletal recreation of something barely human. An imitation composed of paranormal, gravity-defying blades that orbited a single staring red core. The entity hovered there, its shifting limbs quietly spinning, its orb gazing out into the port with cold, unknowable intent.
It shifted its attention to Todd, who was absentmindedly scrolling through his crystalcomm.
"⠠⠞⠕⠙⠙ ⠠⠗⠁⠍⠕⠎ ⠇⠕⠉⠁⠞⠑⠙⠲ ⠠⠅⠽⠽⠗ ⠁⠃⠊⠇⠊⠞⠽⠲ ⠠⠍⠁⠎⠎ ⠊⠝⠉⠗⠑⠁⠎⠑⠲ ⠠⠓⠊⠛⠓ ⠠⠥⠞⠊⠇⠊⠞⠽ ⠺⠊⠇⠇ ⠁⠉⠟⠥⠊⠗⠑⠲" It warbled out.
Todd glanced over to check on Benny—but he was gone. There was nothing more than empty silence. "Did that idiot fall? Shit, I have to—AUGH!" A bolt of agony tore through him. Todd doubled forward, breath vanishing from his chest. He looked down, confused—
A massive metal blade, long and gleaming and impossibly cold, was impaled through his stomach, lifting him off the pier like a skewered puppet."Wh—what the…?" he gasped, fingers trembling as they tried to wrap around the slick, living metal jutting from him.
He struggled to look back as he felt his body rise off the ground, his limbs unresponsive; they dangled down like dead weight. The bladed tip bubbled inside him as a weave of tiny tendrils unfurled, treating his wound as he began to meld with the metallic construct.
Teary-eyed, he felt something twitch violently under his skin. Then his arms jerked outward. His legs followed, stretched wide and painfully taut as the tendrils puppeted his body, pulling his limbs into unnatural positions.
"⠠⠉⠕⠝⠞⠗⠕⠇ ⠞⠁⠅⠑⠝ ⠞⠕⠕⠇ ⠇⠊⠋⠑⠞⠊⠍⠑ ⠼⠙⠚ ⠍⠊⠝⠥⠞⠑⠎⠲"It warbled, the disjointed syllables scraping through the air like corrupted warnings as it turned its aggregate body toward the bustling harbor.
Todd, still unfortunately alive, failed to struggle. He tried. He begged his arms to flinch, his legs to kick, anything. But his body would not answer. His heart beat only because it wanted him.
He knew his struggle was pointless.
He'd been dead the moment that thing violated him.
He knew exactly what had him.
Because after years of working in the Translate, there was a long, ugly list of things he knew to avoid—beings of death and domination.
Monsters even among monsters.
Entities like the one holding him.
A Hy'Kyyrian.