***

Seventh Stitch

Acolytes and Risen who have fallen to the Calling’s temptations are not beyond saving. Show mercy.

***

A tiny bubble forms under my abdomen. It inflates, and wraps around my chest. Air brushes against my armor. The Nectar recedes, and frees my limbs. The slime flows out of the alcove, its task completed. I fight against the current, but fail to keep my balance. I begin to fall. The platform Emilia threw me from hangs five jackal tails away.

I channel all my strength in my back legs, and extend them in one explosive motion. Metal claws strike the cobalt wall, and propel me in the reverse direction. I cast out a frontal paw, and attempt to reach the platform’s surface. I grasp at nothing but air. Too far.

My leap carries me into the center of the room. I reach the apex of my jump, and begin falling again. With nothing to push against, impact against the opposite catwalk is imminent. The sharp edge inches closer with every millisecond.

The plates on my abdomen crash against the cobalt. My body bends. The Nectar-blood inside stretches. My rear and my head almost split off, but resist the tension. I contract back into my normal shape, and bounce back, this time towards the floor at the bottom of the Nectar Pool.

I smash the metal with a terrific thud. I shatter. My armor fragments, and covers the ground with dozens of plates. My bones dislocate, and scatter around the room like broken glass. The yellow slime inside me, having lost its supporting frame, spills on the cobalt. I swim around the liquid, trapped within the ooze puddle. Two familiar Risen faces enter my field of view.

“Well, that was quite the spectacle,” says Lionel, wiping off a droplet of sludge from his cheek.

“So, this is what the Unification was all about? Transformation into a Forge-dweller automaton, and death ten seconds later?” asks Juliet. “Imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t exposed Emilia’s sinister plot. The floor would be littered with our limbs by now. Thank you, Lionel.”

“My pleasure,” he answers. “As much as I hate to admit it, Emilia’s Stitches were right about one thing. A good leader must show forgiveness towards those who accept to change their wicked ways. Young Risen like you tend to misplace their faith, and fight for the wrong causes. Your wisdom saved you, in the end.”

“I still can’t shake off this deep sense of guilt,” she says. “I wonder if Emilia could have been redeemed too.”

My Nectar-blood quivers. A tail-plate rattles. Where is Mother?

The Risen male places his hand on the Forge-dweller’s shoulder.

“I used to trust her. We all did,” he says. “She disguised her obsession for discipline under a mask of tolerance. I’m not proud of what happened here today either, but it was a necessary evil.”

A brown bear approaches, towering over Lionel and Juliet’s heads. It reaches down an arm, and pokes my Nectar-blood with a paw.

“Don’t touch that. I don’t want any more casualties,” warns the Risen male.

I drag my consciousness onto a drop of liquid, and cling to the Acolyte’s claw. He obeys Lionel’s order, and raises his limb. From this vantage point, the room appears in full.

Two monkeys squeal and throw a metal femur back and forth. A cow stomps on a back-plate, but fails to damage it. A toad jumps over three lined-up vertebrae, and her Parent claps his hands to cheer her on. Acolytes move around the Pool, looking for a trinket to play with.

On the other side of the room, a half-cut silkroot ladder dangles from the first catwalk.

Mother’s body lies under it. Her neck is bent in an unnatural position.