Erind Hartwell

2:49 a.m., Wednesday, February 5, 2020.

“No more shaking?” I stepped on the bullet-ridden head of a rotting ghoulish child and fished my severed arm out of its gaping mouth. Everything had quieted down but I still raised my gun at the unhinged double doors of the spacious conference room we fled in. “I guess no more monsters too. How are you guys doing?”

Paolo huffed and puffed as he waded through piles of monster body parts around him. He had planted himself by the door and bore the brunt of the wave of monsters that chased us after the building started shaking.

I checked the color of the corpses to make sure they were all dead. They didn’t seem to be specifically going for us. More like they were spooked by the quakes and stampeded, and then ran into us. I saw a few of them even eating each other.

(I’m fine), he said, noticing my gaze. How many times had he said that to me already? He was heavily bleeding after tearing through the monstrous horde. Definitely wasn’t fine.

“Mommy.” Lizzie emerged from under the table. “Are you…are you okay?”

“Yes, Mommy’s okay, sweetie,” Doms replied as she shoved the lifeless beast with weird fangs off her shoulder. “My armor protected me.” The thickly-furred monster fell on its back, revealing its gutted chest and stomach, courtesy of her bony blades. In a stern voice, she said, “Lizzie, look away.”

Her daughter complied and ran to Julie, hugging her arm and pressing her face against her side so she wouldn’t see anything.

“Ow! Careful, Lizzie. My shoulder hurts.”

“Sorry!”

Paolo went near his sister, making grunts and whines of concern that didn’t need any translating.

“It’s nothing, Pao,” she said. “Don’t worry. Just the recoil of the gun on my shoulder.” Props to her for knowing how to shoot with a rifle. “How about you? You’re covered in blood. Is that your blood—”

Paolo forcefully snorted and shook his head, returning back to his post by the door.

“Hmph, whatever then.”

Everyone was super stressed with everything going on, especially Doms and Paolo; they were so stressed their thoughts began to bleed into mine. I doubled my efforts to keep my own mind in check while making sure they wouldn’t notice each other’s minds. I did briefly peek on what they were thinking, careful that if I prodded too much, they might pick up my own thoughts.

Paolo’s was mostly on killing the monsters and the Adumbrae who turned this place into a hellhole. But I could tell he was only focusing on that to distract himself from the pain of his injuries. Was he afraid I was going to force him out of his gorilla transformation that he loved so much? Idiot kid.

Dom’s thoughts were a bit more concerning; mistrust was brewing. The scene of our earlier misunderstanding as well as the words of the 2Ms’ minion that I was from a rival organization was playing on repeat in her head. I bet she assumed I wasn’t really as good of a guy as I presented myself to be—which was true—and that I’d sacrifice them or something when I got the chance—which was also true.

Whatever. First things first.

“Seems like everyone is fine,” I loudly said to get their attention. “Everyone…except Paolo.”

“What?” Julie said. “He really is badly hurt! Don’t try to hide it, Pao.”

(I said I’m fine! I’m not going to get rid of this transformation.)

Even though Julie could only hear grunts, she understood her brother was being stubborn. “Miss Pino, you have to do something about it.”

“Relax, Paolo,” I said. “I’m not going to force you out of that transformation. But I can heal you.”

“Yes! Please heal my brother.”

Doms said, “Do you need to, uh, dispel, or what should I call it? Remove my armor, so you can concentrate your powers healing him?”

Paolo growled. (Pino, tell them I’m fine. It’s dangerous if Doms doesn’t wear—)

“Hey! I said relax!” I also blasted my words into his head. “Doms, you don’t need to take your armor off. But I do suggest you sit on the floor in a comfortable position because, when I focus on healing Paolo, you’ll feel very weak. Well, not really weak—”

“You mean I’ll go back to my normal strength?”

“Exactly.” No way I was going to keep her connected to my strength finger without the healing finger.

“Us weak normal humans,” she sighed.

“You don’t want to get squished by your own armor, do you? But we could take it off too, if you want.”

“I can manage.”

After changing my finger links, I pumped Paolo with healing power and…it didn’t have any effect. “Eh? It doesn’t work,” I exclaimed.

“You can’t heal my brother?”

“I…um, it’s not working. Hmmm.”

“What’s wrong?”

“My hunch is that it’s a limitation of the manifestation of the power I gave him,” I said, thinking on my feet to come up with a plausible explanation. “Like Doms can make her bone armor using her own energy. Which is, obviously, not advisable.”

“It feels awful,” Doms said.

“But we found out she can use corpses. As for Paolo, it seems he can copy corpses but I can’t do anything to the copied body, like heal it.”

“Why is it like that?” Julie asked.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Pino,” Doms said. “I’ve heard that Adumbrae powers differ from person to person—besides the usual strength and super healing—and it’s tied to their personality or personal circumstances, something along those lines?”

“I know only a few Adumbrae well enough to make an assessment of that,” I said, “but I think you’re right on that one.” Just talking out of my metal ass here.

“You mean to say this condition is my brother’s fault?” Julie asked. “Can’t really argue with that. He really is stubborn and doesn’t want help from others.”

Paolo snorted and looked away.

“Anyway, we have to get moving,” I said. “And since I can’t heal him, the alternative is turning him back to human. He can then choose a new body to copy from these ones around us.”

“Yes, you should—”

Paolo shook his gorilla head animatedly and made a cross using his arms to make his sister understand his vehement opposition to the idea. I conveyed his thoughts to her, “He says the bodies here are weak and not good replacements. To which, I agree.”

Julie struggled to keep her face neutral, trying to hide concern. “What’s going to happen to Pao then? He’ll just fight in that form until…until he couldn’t anymore?”

Correct, which I didn’t say that out loud. “If his situation gets worse,” I said, “I’ll turn him back to human no matter what he says.” Paolo gave us a thumbs up. “See? He agrees. That’s settled then.” I paused to listen to him speaking in my mind. “Your brother wants me to tell you that he promises that if his injuries become too severe, he’ll change back with no more complaints.”

“Pao, I’m going to trust you on this one,” Julie said, “so don’t do anything stupid.” Her brother carefully patted her head with a finger the size of her arm.

How sweet, would’ve been the appropriate reaction.

I knew that much.

Right?

Left with no other choice, we decided to look for the stairs and make our way down. Our best bet was indeed to fight while we still had Paolo’s copied gorilla monster body, our main source of firepower. If it was just me and Doms, we’d definitely have a hard time dealing with even just a small group of the weak monsters.

(Paolo, I know you have a strong body), I said to him in a private message, (but don’t be reckless.) No response from him, so I continued. (It would be bad if you're forced to turn back in the middle of the fight.)

(Yea, yea, I know.)

(I’m not sure if we’ll get lucky again and kill a monster as strong as that. I’d rather hope we don’t meet one—)

(I know, okay?) he replied, snappiness weaving through his thoughts. (Don’t treat me like a kid.)

Well, you’re really a kid. I considered scolding him, but I didn’t have any experience getting angry at a child, a teen, whatever. How was I when I was a teenager? I knew I was a petty bitch. Before I got lost in my thoughts reminiscing about the past, I luckily noticed a massive hole in our path. “Stop!”

“Big hole,” Lizzie said.

“Another hole?” Doms said.

I said, “That pillar thingy went through here.”

“Big, big hole!”

“Is this the power of an Adumbrae?”

“The 2Ms have many Adumbrae in their ranks. I’m not familiar with most of them, but I’m sure this is the work of one.”

“But why is this here?” Julie said. “We didn’t pass this way.”

Doms said, “Perhaps we’re wrong in assuming that pillar was aiming for us.”

While we did destroy the security camera by the freight elevator, we also didn’t show up in other cameras. Whoever was watching us would conclude we were either riding it or were somewhere near its door, which was why they cut the cables of the car and tried to squish us with the pillar. That was what we had assumed. But Doms might be right in her observation that they weren’t aiming for us.

“They’re fighting other people?” I wondered.

“The Adumbrae from Vegas? You said you’re different from them, right?”

“Yes, I’m not connected to those guys and their rivalry with the 2Ms. It would be bad if they’re here too.” Please don’t be here, I thought, whoever you fuckers are. I already had plenty of problems. “Anyway, let’s go back. We can’t pass by here.”

(I can get you down.)

“Hold on, guys,” I said. “You were saying, Paolo?”

(I can get you down through here. Faster to go this way.) I relayed what he said to the others. (I have a monster gorilla body. This should be easy.) He hunched over at the edge of the hole and bent down. (We can just look below if the coast is clear—HOLY SHIT!) He stood back up and rushed to us. (Run! Run! Run!)

“Wha-What’s happening?” Julie said.

“He said to run!”

A guttural rumbling vibrated through the floor. The building started shaking again. Was it the pillar? Were they aiming for us? From below?

(It's going to see us!) Paolo shoved all of us, including the cart with my human body, inside an office at the left side of the hallway. (We don’t have time! Hide!) Then he smashed his way into another office unit and hid inside.

Doms picked up Lizzie and tucked themselves behind a cabinet. Julie tried to pull my human body to the side but found it too heavy and left it in the middle of the room while she scrambled under the table.

Stupid useless kid. I desperately pulled my body to the wall, nearly popping my shoulder joints.

Julie peeked from under the table and whispered an apology to me. She hugged her gun and the weird box we looted from the 2Ms’ men. I stayed near the entrance of the room with a potted plant covering me and the cart to my back.

(Paolo! What’s happening?)

(I saw something below! A really big one!)

A monster? How big could it be? I thought he’d get excited if we found a possible replacement for his gorilla monster form. Was this one a bit too big? Judging from the quakes it caused and the sounds of destruction that filtered through the hole, this might be something we couldn’t handle.

I focused on the open door of the room. Just a normal glass door most modernish offices used, but it was angled in such a way I could pick off a faint reflection of the corridor outside off its otherwise transparent surface.

A creature emerged out of the hole.

I couldn’t see its form clearly, the glass door a bit blurry, but it was obvious it wasn’t as big as Paolo made it out to be. Perhaps as tall as an average NBA player but twice as muscular. Paolo’s form was bigger than it.

(That doesn’t look big). Is what she said, I added in my head. Mature of me, I know. We could use this one as a replacement for Paolo’s copied body. (Is this what—fucking hell!)

A colossal charred hand grabbed the lower body of the tall creature which was trying to escape out of the hole. A hand large enough to make the monster it captured look like an ice cream popsicle in comparison. A flaming popsicle! The first monster cried out mournfully as it slowly burned in the giant's grasp.

(Is it there?) Paolo asked.

(Yes! Damn, we can’t fight that.)

(Is it coming up?)

To answer Paolo’s question, the giant monster’s head peered out of the hole. Its glowing eyes, smoldering charcoals, clearly shone on the glass door, washing out the rest of its indistinct reflection. Smoke billowed out as it spoke, blanketing the corridor outside.

R A M O N N N?

Its voice wasn’t what I expected. Not deep and earthy like giants in movies, but chilly and eerie like those spooky voices in shows where the main character was being reminded by their conscience or a memory. The thin walls and even my body vibrated when it spoke.

R A M O N, M Y B O Y?

Ramon?

Who the fuck is Ramon?

I S A W Y O U. W H E R E A R E Y OU H I D I N G?

The head sunk back down the hole, leaving the corridor smoldering. The rumbling continued. Between that stupid pillar and this giant ass monster demolishing the building, the possibility it might collapse flitted in my mind. Don’t forget the fire, I thought sardonically.

There we go. The sprinklers turned on and the fire alarm wailed. This building was really going to get fucked. And I couldn’t save all of my stuff in my room!

I’ll need to find a new place to live in and buy new stuff after all of this mess.

Such a bitchass hassle.