28
(Season 3, Episode 2)
Things Get Bad
(Season 3, Episode 2)
Things Get Bad
2 days before the instant
“What the fuck are you doing?” The rage was obvious in Scott’s voice. Even if it wasn’t, he reserved his swear words
for proper times since he never really sounded right saying.
“Well, this is awkward.” Zach muttered slowly, pulling himself to his
feet.
“What the hell, Zach? I know you were depressed, but trying to gas
yourself on your birthday?” Scott was flabbergasted at his best friend since
fifth grade. God love the guy, he had
never considered this as an option for Zach. He was hurt, confused and disappointed.
The disappointment would be in himself. He would blame himself for not seeing the
signs, not getting to his friend earlier. Zach hated that about him. To Scott, when things went wrong it was always
his fault, always his responsibility to save the day.
Zachariah internally groaned… Heroes.
Zachariah was saved the conversation however as destiny
seemed to have more for him then drifting off into the sweet blackness that
would be death. Mel stepped into the
open doorway behind Scott. He was
accompanied by a man that Zachariah had never met. The man wore a long, brown trench coat and
had long, jet-black hair which was restrained in a loose ponytail. He was young, in his twenties, and he held a
strange gun in his right hand. It bared
resemblance to an old-timey musket pistol, but it was longer and had strange
red markings all over its barrel and stock.
Zachariah looked confused as they laid eyes on him. Scott turned and saw the two, as well, and
looked just as befuddled. Zachariah felt
the hand of panic wash over him as he realized his real life was colliding with
his magical one.
The panic also stemmed from a knowledge that whenever the
dwarf spell-caster showed up in his life, bad things happened. Mel only heralded heartache and pain.
“Bevan, do it now!” Mel
yelled and the gun wielder stepped into the room and raised the gun at
Zachariah.
Zachariah could only stand there bewildered as the barrel
raised to look him in the eye. Scott, on
the other hand, was a warrior. His
instincts kicked in and he moved, stepping in with a quick snap kick to the man
called Bevan’s gun hand. The blow struck
his wrist and sent his gun spinning into the living room.
“Hey!” Bevan said, frustrated. He had no idea that the factory worker/martial
artist was far from done as Scott used the momentum of the first kick to step
in on the intruder and spin into him, driving his foot up into the man’s chest
with an Earth shattering kick.
Bevan was launched backward as if rocket propelled, through
the air over Mel’s head and into the hallway.
Scott got into fighting stance, preparing for the next
attack. No amount of preparation could
have readied him for the small Nex to utter a couple of words that sounded like
gibberish before a bolt of light arced from his hand and into Scott’s torso. The energized attack sent him backward into
the drywall, his body denting it before he dropped to the floor.
Anyone else would have passed out. Scott did not. This was not a testament to his skill or endurance,
but more a show of how damned stubborn he was. He tried to will his body parts to move, but
they were not having it.
“Jesus Christ, stop!” Zachariah yelled.
Mel turned. “Who the
hell is this guy?!”
“He’s my friend, Scott! What the hell are you doing?!” Zachariah
pleaded, angrily itching at his bite covered arm.
Mel looked indignant as his partner picked himself up in the
hallway. “Well, he attacked us first!”
“You guys were trying to shoot me.” Zachariah rebutted.
This seemed to jog Mel’s memory. “Oh shit, that’s right. Bevan!”
Bevan had pulled himself together and moved through the
doorway into the hallway after his gun.
Zachariah scratched harder. “What the hell are you doing?”
Suddenly, Mel’s face lost all color. “Oh God, it’s too late.”
Zachariah followed Mel’s eyes and looked down at his arm. A small red beetle seemed to pull itself out
of the itchy bump on his arm and Zachariah felt himself wretch. The itching grew worse and worse all over his
body and he watched himself in horror as another small bed bug pulled itself
free of his skin. Strangely, there was no blood as the phenomenon continued to
pick up pace. Bug after bug pulled themselves
out of Zachariah’s flesh.
The sensation of itching had become overwhelming, almost
numbing. It was as if his whole body was
consumed in a white hot fire. It lasted
for what felt like an eternity before stopping as quickly as it had begun. He felt himself slip into unconscious, but as
he did, the last thing he saw seemed to be the bugs swarming into the middle of
the room and seemingly becoming a man.
10 years after the instant
The killer shook off his daze and grabbed the key. He knew they would be coming.
The ninja.
Mel had made them his personal guard after the death of his
father, bringing them back to Avalon. The
community had been skeptical at this decision, but Mel was an important member
of the council and no one wanted to argue with his decree.
It had all worked to the killer’s advantage. By that time he had already been one of the
ninja for two years, having learned both their magic and their secrets. They had become his friends, some more than
others, but in the end it had all just been a means to an end.
He had to keep telling himself that, it was the only way to
justify his betrayal to the clan, to his family, and to her.
He placed the key into his long black trench coat and then
pulled the black mask back over his scarred face. The killer then moved out of Mel’s room and
into the hallways that laced the giant castle city. He needed to get to one of the edges, he had
prepared for his exit.
“Stop!” He heard as he wheeled to see two ninja appear out
of the shadows and charge.
More bodies, more death. The killer hated himself already.
As the two approached, he drew his sword with one quick
motion and stepped forward with a quick and precise cut. A string of blood hovered in the air for a
moment before the ninja’s body lurched and fell forward, crashing to the floor.
The other ninja stopped in his tracks, eyes wide, only now
realizing what he was up against. “It’s you… The traitor!”
The ninja stood for a second in shock and looked at his past-tense
friend who now lay on the floor, a pool of his black blood forming under him.
The killer turned and ran. He flicked the blood from his blade and
sheathed it in one step as he, again, took off in the direction of the castles
edge. That ninja would return and he
would bring friends...
…He would bring her.
He hit the stairs and ascended at high speed. He could almost feel the others giving chase.
They would use their ninja magic to come
fast. He only had seconds.
He slammed into the trap door and it popped open. He was on the outer wall of the floating city
of magic. The killer moved to the edge
and could see the clouds below him. In
the distance, the sun was beginning to rise and was spreading its orange hue
over everything.
Young light. It was
new and full of hope. The killer, for a
second, remembered his lost family, and his alienated friends. Could he ever really get back there?
“That’s enough, Scott.” Her voice was soft but stern and full of
intent. The killer had always her voice
was what a coiled snake would sound like if it could talk.
“Not yet.” He said
without turning to face her. He didn’t
need to. After all, it was she who had
trained him in the arts of Ninjitsu and taught him to sense his enemies, which
is why he already knew that there were seven of them; seven and Kahn.
Kahn, the coiled snake. Kahn, the fierce protector. Kahn, the only friend. Kahn, the worst enemy.
“You have killed so many of us, how much blood must be
spilled?” She asked as she looked for an
opening. Her dutiful soldiers began to
flank the killer, thinking he had nowhere left to go.
They were wrong. “All
of it… And none of it.”
The killer leapt over the side of the castle making himself
as thin as he could as he went for the clouds. Kahn stepped to the edge and
hurled stars, which cut the air. One
caught the killer in the back of the shoulder.
He gritted his teeth and hit the cloud coverage.
Safety, at least from his pursuers. The wind raced past him as he approached
terminal velocity. He broke the cloud
coverage and, miles below, he saw the Canadian wilderness where it had all
started. He reached into his coat and
grabbed the feather-fall amulet that he had taken from the rogue Nex known as
Quintalo.
He invoked the amulet’s powers by opening his palm with the
edge of his sword and touching his blood to the artifact. A light glowed and he began to float, as if he
weighed no more than a blade of grass. He floated in that moment of peace and watched
the sun finish rising. He watched the
light age in front of him and knew they would never be the same.
The point of no return had been passed long ago. The real question, the killer asked himself,
was if he ever really had a choice.
****
Kahn felt a deep sadness when she returned to the office. Mel had been her friend for many years and the
reason her clan had been allowed to return to Avalon. Now he was dead, extinguished by a mind filled
with madness.
Kahn walked to his old friend and closed his eyelids. “Nokori.”
She then looked at the open wall and the bare pedestal. “The key.”
“What was in there?” One of her lieutenants asked from behind her.
“Doomsday.” She
answered, emotionlessly. “Gather the
clan, the killer will be brought to justice.”
This is just downright depressing! How will Zach and Scott deal with the bed bug
monster that came out of him? Are Mel
and his partner actually there to kill Zachariah? What is future Scott’s deal?!
NEXT TIME!
Stranger Things; Zachariah’s Death
TO BE CONTINUED!
