More questions that could wait.
Bloody knife in hand, Cyn whipped around to check her original enemy, backing at the same time to avoid the monster’s grasp.
A tentacle slithered out in mid-air, spearing for her, hissing as it slid past the other wormy appendages. Squinting at the glare, she severed the two-arms-thick tube with a swipe of blade, all the while marveling at her prowess with the weapon.
She flipped the knife, moved to catch it so the handle smacked into her palm, but fumbled, crazily, and dropped it. Shit! Her weapon!
Even so, the knife had sliced easily through a throat and this monster flesh as if they were butter. White, icky butter.
Back off, Kraken-boy.
Was it a male?
A guttural, dark chuckle filled her mind, not her ears. And then… the image of a handsome man flickered and stuttered into view, again, with the tentacles fading. Fading…
Her lover.
Which was when she somehow tracked back along the path of that illusion, her thoughts following with detective-like determination all the way to its origins. Grim with revenge, she latched onto the alien mind at the other end and twisted it, with extreme prejudice.
The shriek it let forth was painful, scratching across her thoughts like a whole bunch of mad fingernails. A headache exploded between her temples. She’d harmed it, for sure.
“Ack!”
Knife discarded but with the severed tentacle still clutched, she turned and bolted.
This piece of Ghoul Lord might be worth keeping.
Cyn kept hold of the sample of monster until she abruptly found she’d run clear out of floor, had skidded past the edge of the building’s top floor, and was flailing her arms as she fell into a chasm. Twirling, the piece of tentacle fell faster. Wrecked building scrolled past her going up, while she went down.
Twisting her body, she reached out and snagged a piece of building, and was wrenched to a shoulder-searing halt, her stomach slamming into something below that made her cough. She swung there, by one hand, cursing yet again.
She might still fall and die.
Still, this did seem a better ending spot than being fucked by myriad tentacles and turned into dinner.
Cyn swung her left arm up, groped among the dust and grit, and found another bit of building to hold onto. Give her a second, and she’d drag herself up. All would’ve been well if not for the blue bolt that sizzled past her ear. Below, something exploded then shrapnel cracked and thudded as it hit whatever lay in its path.
Above, against the bright sunlight, a head appeared, and a weapon was waved. She walked sideways with her hands, legs dangling, trying to spoil their aim.
Another bolt scorched past.
The guard’s friends were firing at her. She’d fallen... Five stories?
Swinging on her hands, unsure where to go, she looked about. Her eyes seemed wedged open.
From the other side of the chasm and three more stories deep, a hulking male stared up at her—a human who was likely not in league with monsters, though his eyes had an eerie blueness. This chasm was only a large hole, but it spanned at least seventy yards. Might as well have been forever. She couldn’t get to him, nor he to her. Not without circumnavigatingthe hole, and there were the walls of old rooms, debris, and piles of mess to navigate.
She should climb up and get out of sight. Bunching her muscles, she readied herself, took a breath, held it, and lunged on the exhale. Her arms flexed at the elbows as she strained and attempted a pull-up her gym trainer would’ve been proud of.
Just… a… little more.
Whatever her left hand was holding snapped, and she was left swinging wildly, her right hand sliding in the dust to the very edge, her knuckles aching.
She was going to fall. Her fingers buckled, hurting, with her whole bodyweight suspended on those five little parts of her. Cyn grunted, desperate to keep her hold. With fingernails, she dug at the ungiving hardness and felt them snap and wear away.
“No! Please, no!” She sobbed a plea to whatever might rule the heavens, not that she believed anymore… She had stopped when the aliens came.
Then she fell.
