Chapter 11 A Colorful Night to Ride a Merry-Go-Round

“Ring-a-ring-a-rosies

A pocket full of posies

A tissue, a tissue

We all fall down.”

“Jun,” Aiden finally called out.

She still crawled, tears still flowing from her face and onto her mask.

“It isn’t working.”

In that short span of time, Jun ran a kilometre of distance.

She didn’t move a single step.

“Jun.”

She didn’t stop.

“Jun!” Finally, Aiden took a step to his left, past the wolf, laying a hand on her shaking shoulder. “It isn’t working,” he told her, not unkindly.

Finally, she stopped. Chest rising and falling as she tried to calm her erratic breathing.

She punched her fist onto the ground, “Damnit damnit damnit… Not like this… not like this…”

She knew this whole time she wasn’t making any progress.

Because no matter how much she moved, she could still hear the screams of those dingoes behind her.

Bite and bite.

Chew and chew.

Spit and spit.

Looking up, Aiden noted that some were little more than rogue pieces of flesh hanging onto a bloody skeleton.

Yet, even the skeletons still screamed and howled.

There was no peaceful death against this thing. As it still feasted on the tortured bones of once live creatures.

“There lay three options ahead of us,” he began with an unnatural calm.

“One,” he raised a finger, “we lay down and get killed by this thing.”

“Two,” a snake tattoo covered his right hand, curving two fingers into fangs, “I give us a relatively painless death by snake bite.”

Jun found her tears letting up slightly, her fear slightly subsiding. Not because she suddenly grew another backbone, but because of the sheer absurdity of this man calmly informing her of her death.

“And three,” he finished, his voice so utterly calm and monotone, it could almost be mistaken for a machine. “We try to get out of this because the only option is death. So if we happen to get away, it’ll be a rather pleasant surprise.”

‘What the fuck is he talking about?’ Jun thought, suddenly wondering when she became the saner of the two.

“I’m taking three,” he spoke with a glassy serenity. A tranquillity unlike that of a calm lake, but of a lake so dry there were no ripples. “If you’re going to do two then let me know, I’m going to try.”

He finished and stood, where Jun still lay on the ground.

She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, her heart was heavy with fear. Every breath she took she felt like there was a golf ball blocking her throat.

While Aiden merely observed the monster with a curious look. Taking a step forward, then another, and another. All without making any actual distance towards the creature.

“How?” Jun gasped out. “How… How are you not afraid?”

He turned and glanced at her. “Truthfully speaking, I would much rather curl up into a ball and hope I’ll be fine. Or worst case, find a hole to die in.”

“But that wouldn’t achieve anything, would it?” he asked before he tried moving another step forward. “If tears could fix problems, I would be crying a river right now, but they don’t. They never will and they never have.”

Aiden ruffled the ears of the lying wolf, “So no matter how sad you are, no matter how much it hurts. You put it all inside, into a neat little box. You do this a lot, you get very good at it. But eventually, you realise if you keep doing this, you’ll put away the part that cared. The part that made the box in the first place. And then you realise there’s no going back. You have a box without a key. You no longer cry, you no longer make a fuss, but eventually, you will no longer care. And so, you try your best.”

“Get up boy,” he said to the wolf. “We have work to do.”

The wolf seemed to grit its teeth, and finally, instead of whining, there came the beginnings of a low growl. It finally rose again, shakily it did so, and its tail was down in fear, but still, it rose.

“Running away and towards it is impossible,” he said. The shadow of the colossal creature dwarfing them all. The petals finally receded from their horrific dance. Bloody arms and hands unfolded over them. Their tips folded inwards to try and reach them. Jun winced in fear, but the hands fell short only a few metres of them.

“It isn’t space locking,” Aiden continued, “it can’t be. Abilities have weird and stupid rules and limitations. We can’t go toward or away from it, but what about parallel?”

He took a step to his left, over Jun and was now left of her.

“Thank you,” he said, “if you weren’t like that I wouldn’t have noticed this detail. If you want to run, wait for my distraction and try to break out of its attack range.”

The thing covered all angles with its petals, any attempt of getting out would inevitably attract one’s attention.

“Eight metres,” he declared, “the top petals cannot reach a range within eight metres of itself, it can only reach a doughnut shape of at least two metres thick past that range.”

“Wha- What are you trying to do? Jun stuttered.

“In this current situation, I don’t see either of us making it out of that two-metre thick attack range. Maybe you, but definitely not me,” he raised an arm, the serpent hissing as the wolf growled beside him, “It’s too fast. So, I will attempt to attack it at close range. If that distracts it, you can escape and get help. If that is insufficient, you still have the higher speed needed to dodge the arms.”

“But- But what if it can grab you? Whatifyou’rewrong?” she yelled, finally pushing herself back up.

The monster stirred, the myriad arms weaved in a mockery of fibre began to move. It very slowly began to shift away. Trying to put the two in its attack range.

“Then I’ll be a very tragic statistic,” he replied. Turning to his left, he began walking with the wolf following him, but instead of a straight line, he curved his path slightly inward, so that he was walking in a circle at a very brisk pace.

A circle that continuously closed in on the monster.

To get away from it, one ran parallel to it, so that one was never directly running away from it.

To get near it, one would need to move in a shrinking circle.

‘Sorry Jaiden,’ Aiden thought as he gradually closed in on the oscillating creature. ‘I might bite it here. Sorry for being so irresponsible, I hope you’ll have a peaceful death.’

Three cycles around the monster. He was close enough he could make out the details of the eldritch symbols painted in blood. They seemed to bleed at the edge of reality, burning away at the fabric like a flame.

‘If reincarnation happens to you as well, I hope you’ll wake up with a good family in a normal and peaceful world.’

He was close enough he could make out the individual arms now.

He raised his snake arm, the wolf next to him growled. ‘Sorry for being so unreliable.’

The weave of the arms burst open, revealing a second flesh ball, but this one was covered in innumerable eyes. The gore from above dripping down onto them and staining them crimson red, weeping bloody tears in a mockery of true sorrow.

An arm shot out, made of dozens and dozens of interlocking ones, but it was slow, he just managed to dodge it. “Colorful!” The snake arm coiled to strike, biting onto the flesh.

But it didn’t pierce.

Instead, the fangs, his fingers broke as he slammed it into something as hard as stone.

The wolf jumped, clawing and biting at the one outstretched hand, but it never made a scratch.

Aiden saw them coming, the petals above rising up and down in some alien display of mirth. The arm turned back to grab him, but he dodged them again, but another shot out, though they were slow, they were many, slowly surrounding him and restricting his movement to the side, blocking him from his wolf. And it was impossible for him to walk forward or backward.

Until finally, when the stone-like arms blocked both possible routes of escape, and when a third came straight for him, did he see death.

‘Oh,’ was his reaction to death. That was it. There was no great feeling of disappointment. No great feeling of remorse or fear, only a tranquillity.

‘If there is a god, cash out all my good karma for Jaiden, she needs it more than an idiot like me.’

Truth be told, Aiden Lu long forgot what his sister’s face looked like.

‘Thank you for reminding me.’

And he closed his eyes, ‘Thank you for this blessed life,’ he thought. ‘Sorry for wasting-’

“Thereisaway!” he suddenly heard Jun yell. Somewhere close to him. ‘She didn’t run?’

“There’sawaybothofuscangetoutofthis!”

Further away now- no, she was running in a circle, following the same route to get closer to the monster. “Why didn’t you run?” he yelled, just as she vaulted over the arms keeping him trapped.

“Atragicstatistic? Youwantmetojusttakethat?” she rapidly yelled as she landed onto an arm, her right hand grabbed the incoming arm, “I’mgonnahavenightmaresaboutthis! Idon’twanttohavenightmaresaboutyou! Youdon’tevenlookthatgood!” she spoke so quickly she was nigh incoherent, “Atleasthauntmydreamswithahandsomeface!”

The arm she grabbed slowed. Almost stopping in its tracks, “Daycore!” she yelled as the sun symbol on her right hand flared brightly like a newborn star. The slowing extended all over the monster. Aiden watched with awe as he saw the beast slowly slowed down, then,

A crackling sound rang through the clearing, as Jun’s mask started to crack and crumble. His eyes widened as her hair began to turn grey, “Stop that!”

But her mask kept crumbling as more and more of the monster started to slow.

Aiden quickly looked around. She was above him, he couldn’t reach! Unless… he grabbed onto the arm by his side. It was almost like a wall but the gaps between each arm could he used as a ladder.

He quickly scrambled up, uncaring of the fear that gripped him previously. Crawling upwards till he reached Jun and grabbed her, pulling her off the Invader as the last tips of the beast slowed to a crawl.

“You idiot!” he yelled as he tested a step away from the beast. No distance, its ability was still active. “You could’ve gotten out on your own!”

“Heh…” she weakly uttered as Aiden turned sharply to the left, running perpendicular of the Invader’s ability effect. “I’m not gonna have nightmares about you…”

“Wolf!” he yelled and a howl responded, “You know how to get away, meet with me later!”

Another howl in response and the sound of scrambling feet. “I’m gonna haunt your dreams…”

She was fading in his arms, her mask cracked and her hair turned an unnatural grey. ‘No no no no no!’

As he sprinted away from the slowed monster, his mind raced with thoughts.

‘Freddy managed to reinforce Isaac using his Hume, could I do that? It’s just imbuing right?’

He paused in his thoughts, once he realised that he was suddenly no longer making any progress. Jerking his head behind him, he saw that the massive beast had yet to move. Still retracting the arms that tried to catch him.

‘I got far enough that it counts as running away from it again.’

He turned another swift left, realising that if he wanted to get away from the beast, then he’ll need to start going in another circle.

And Jun was still fading in his arms.

‘It’s simple, I need to know how to Imbue my Hume into her,’ he thought as he ran.

One problem, he had no idea what his Hume felt like.

Unless…’

The wolf was created using a quarter of his Hume level, does that mean his tattoos had Hume in them?

“Please work,” he prayed, for he was at peace with his own death.

But not another’s.

The tattoos he had prepared flowed off his skin, onto Jun’s fading clothes, off of them and onto her skin. Rabbit, beetle, snake, mouse, rat, gecko, sea krait, all flowed onto her skin like dancing images. And to Aiden’s brief alarm, they faded, however, Jun’s hair gained colour, shades of black returning from grey.

‘It’s working!’ he thought as Jun’s eyes fluttered open once again. “Huh? My power… it’s-”

A sudden hand grabbed onto his own, ripping it away. He dropped Jun as his left hand grabbed onto a nearby tree burning with false flame, as the monster was moving again. One arm, extended and propelled from a weave of thousands of others, was grabbing his right hand.

He grit his teeth as he strained against the force threatening to pull him apart. The tree he grabbed strained, crackling as it was threatened to be uprooted. Suddenly a smaller pair of hands grabbed onto his left, Jun, grimacing as she tried to hold him back. “Daycoreisstillonhim! Howisitthatfast?”

No, only parts of it were slowed now, whatever Aiden did to Jun disrupted her ability. Enough that a single petal could shoot out.

A loud bark, and from the distance he saw the wolf rushing towards them. The wolf leapt, pouncing on the grey arm, gnashing at it with its teeth and claws. But no matter how it bit, it was a wolf trying to blow down a brick building.

“Wolf,” Aiden spoke, commanding its attention. They locked eyes, and he simply said, “Not that arm.”

The wolf jumped off and with a swift motion bit onto Aiden’s right wrist, its teeth tearing into his flesh.

The wolf glanced at him one last time, and he smiled. A vicious, villainous smile, “Fugu puffer fish!”

He yelled just as the tattoo appeared on the tips of his hands, the wolf bit down. Crushing bone and tearing flesh in a single bite as they fell to the ground. The monster’s petal pulling back like an elastic pushed too far, making off with his hand before it slammed it into that ball of mouths, holding it there as they chewed it into smaller and bloodier pieces.

Jun was up before Aiden, “Yourhand-”

“Run now,” he uttered out with a grimace, clutching the bleeding, mangled stump where his right hand once lay. “While it’s eating. Run in a circle around it. We’ll get out of its ability range eventually.” He lay his remaining hand on the wolf, reabsorbing the concepts of a dire wolf that was loyal and afraid.

Jun looked at his face before she put away her doubts. Stepping in front of him, she helped him onto a piggy-back, before she fell into a runner’s starting position.

“Nightcore,” she uttered and she took off. Drawing on the last of her Hume to run as fast as she can. Like a blur, she finished the first circle in mere moments. Slowly expanding out as she raced away from the creature.

She knew when her ability became fully released and as the first of the petals reached out to grab them, she dodged, seeing them come in slow motion as they slammed behind her.

Her heart thumped in her chest, her lungs laboured with every breath. Every cycle she ran, she had to run another that was slightly bigger. And with the weight on her back, she was tiring.

That was how this beast hunted, even if it escaped its trap, just needing to run a dozen circles around it to escape would tire out prey enough to catch up. It was an endurance hunter.

Jun knew that if she threw away her load, she would be able to make it. Now that she knew how its ability worked, how to escape it. She knew for sure if it was just her in this scenario, she could make it.

But her eyes were firm and determined as she ran.

Her lungs burned, her heart beat like an engine in its final death throes, her legs screamed in pain, but she still ran.

Dodging the petals, not looking as they caught some other poor screaming wildlife. Pushing away branch after branch. She kept running and running, focusing on nothing but the ground before her as she ran circle after circle around the beast.

Until eventually, after ten minutes of running, making it through over forty kilometres of distance, she ran in a straight line and she moved.

Screaming raw her throat with a yell of triumph as they finally made it out of the monster’s ability range.

Arc 1, Introductory Arc Fin.