Thewall of bone closed in around him, reaching out a dozen arms.Bony handsgrabbed at his shoulders, rubbed through his hair, felt at his face.He feltswallowed by a grasping forest of limbs.Around him, the sea of bones seemed toshudder and sigh.
Heclosed his eyes, imagining a hug.
“Isaac.Isaac.Isaac.Isaac.Isaac.”
Thebones were dry and old.They had no warmth.They were clumsy and smothering anddesperate.
“I-I-Issaa—cccc—Issaaaaa—”
“Waswhat he said true?”Isaac asked.
Aroundhim, the grasping limbs froze in place.
“Didyou really mean to kill me?To save yourself?”
Theocean of bones rustled and cracked, like a gust of wind slicing through a bush.The skull stalk looked away, shifting its eyeless sockets to the floor.
“Thiswas all your fault,” Isaac said.
Theskull looked up, staring deeply into his face.
Isaactook a step back, brushing his way through the thick nest of hugging arms, andthe ocean of bones nearly shrieked in response.Dozens of limbs reachedoutward, stretching their skeletal fingers, spreading an ocean of ribs andteeth and death.
An axeblade came smashing down, splintering the arms.As Isaac took another stepback, Zaria swung her polearm back into the air, cleaving through a tentacle oflegs and spines.The entire mass shuddered back, reforming itself into softershapes.Zaria snarled at the tide of bones.She stepped forward, teeth bared,and the mass squirmed against the pelvis, fleeing up the wall like a swarm ofbugs.
“Stop,”Isaac said.
Zariaglanced at him, still snarling.
“Z.”
Shenarrowed her eyes, gave a reluctant chuff, and lowered her polearm, steppingback to his side.Her weapon remained tightly in hand.
“Is thatstill your plan?”Isaac asked.“Are you still going to sacrifice me?”
Thehead stalk had receded down to a few stubs of vertebrae.Slowly, it lengtheneditself out of the central mass, just enough for the head to shake from side toside.
“Am Isupposed to believe you?”
“Isaac,”the skull said.
Helooked away, staring beyond the striped flag, the piles of blood and metal.
All hislife, he had heard stories of his father.Every instructor who had graced thetower had known the man, in one way or another.He had been told stories of hisfather’s bravery, his many expeditions into foreign lands, his humor and cheer,his love for his wife.
Howhappy he had been to become a father.
And, ofcourse, Isaac couldn’t believe any of those stories anymore, because how wouldhe know they were not a lie?Maybe Berith had asked these people to say whatthey had.Maybe it was all part of the conspiracy, a carefully craftednarrative whose only purpose was to ensure his obedience.All he had ever known was what he had been told, and what he hadbeen told was now, quite obviously, a far cry from reality.Maybe, in the end,some of the tales about his father were actually true, but, at that point, didit even matter?
Isaacstared off into the extraction chamber, trying not to cry again.
Heheard the crack and shuffle of bone.When he looked, his father had shifted thehead stalk up through the substrate layer of bone, moving it to a slightdistance above Isaac’s head.Below, a gushing of bone began to spill from thecentral mass, like a mother spider birthing hundredsof children.They scuttled and leaped, snapping together on the floor.
Zariaraised her axe.
“Holdon,” Isaac said.
Thebones were not building another monster.Instead, they were linking together atprecise angles, forming letters from the connection of knuckles and ribs andtoes, all of it spreading flat across the floor.After a minute, the corpsesformed a phrase.
