33
(Season
3, Episode 7)
Run
A lot of things should have been
going through Zachariah’s mind as they descended the ancient staircase to the
garden of Zersch. Something along the
lines of why was he going along with this, probably should have been one of
those things. After all, he was trying
to kill himself only a couple of hours ago. What had changed since then that would make
him want to stay alive? If he had been
asking himself these questions, this would have been the point where he looked
at his oldest and best friend walking ahead of him into the black unknown below,
willing to battle demons ninjas and apocalyptic horsemen to save him. He would wonder, if a guy like that wanted to
work so hard to keep him alive, was there something worth saving? These were the questions he should have been
thinking.
They would have been his thoughts,
by all means, if he was not so hungry. Since
they had begun their descent, a hunger had started to build inside him. It had spread like a wildfire until it
completely possessed him. All he could
think about was eating. It was the only
thing that occupied his mind, which was why, when he looked at his friend, he
did not have the introspective thoughts he should have been having but instead,
found himself asking if people really tasted like chicken.
“Holy shit…” Scott muttered it as they came out of the staircase
into what seemed like an endlessly huge cave. A dead forest stretched out in front of him,
thousands of tightly knit dead and leafless trees. A dim light stretched over
the impossibly massive cave. The light
source was unknown, but it created shadows that played through the woods. The cold and emptiness of the place hit them
all like a wave and it was obvious that the only thing that lived here anymore
were the shadows.
“What happened here?” Scott found himself asking, knowing this was
not supposed to be like this.
“It was once a garden, a place
where magic fed the life. The magic came
from a wyvern called Zersch.” Mel explained as simply as he could. “Zersch is dead… without him the place has
faded and will eventually cease to exist.”
“A wyvern?” Scott was not sure why he was surprised at
this point, “What happened to him?”
Kahn jerked her head toward
Zachariah. Scott’s eyebrows rose. “You killed a wyvern?!”
He turned and his curiosity was
gone once he saw the state of his friend. Zachariah had somehow lost fifty pounds on the
walk down the stairs. Scott could see
his rib cage through his tee-shirt. His
color had drained out of him and he was now an empty pale white. Sweat beaded on his forehead and a trickle of
foam fell from his mouth.
“Zachariah?” He asked concerned.
Zachariah’s lost eyes seemed to
notice Scott now. “Hungry… HUNGRY!”
Zachariah leapt through the air
like a possessed demon. Scott’s training
clicked on. Instinctively, he caught
both of Zachariah’s incoming hands and fell to his back. Scott put his foot to Zachariah’s abdomen as
he did and in one fluid motion, flipped Zachariah over him as he rolled to his
back.
Zachariah soared through the air
and crashed into the back of Mel who was unaware of the scrap. The small druid was thrown forward into a tree,
cracking his head on the trunk. Mel
dropped to the ground, motionless. Zachariah rolled to his feet then began to
roll around on the ground, screaming.
“Jibun o junbi shimasu.” Kahn spoke the Japanese and Scott did not have to speak the language to know it was an order. The four ninjas who had accompanied them on the trip tensed and got into fighting stances, hands to their blades.
“Jibun o junbi shimasu.” Kahn spoke the Japanese and Scott did not have to speak the language to know it was an order. The four ninjas who had accompanied them on the trip tensed and got into fighting stances, hands to their blades.
“What the hell is happening to him?!” Scott asked as arms began to pull themselves
out of Zachariah’s back. Zachariah screamed.
Kahn turned toward Scott. “The second horseman is coming. Plague.”
Scott was ready to prepare for
another otherworldly encounter when a screech cut the air, not from Zachariah
but from somewhere behind him up the stairs. The screech conveyed a hunter’s excitement as
he had finally found his prey. Scott’s
brain flicked back to the Dahaka and the shield that Mel maintained to keep it
at bay.
Scott pointed at Mel who was
unconscious on the ground. “Does he need
to be awake to keep that Dahaka shield up?”
Kahn’s face dropped. “Kuso ttare.”
Scott again did not feel he needed to know the language
to know they were in deep-
The Horseman pulled itself free from Zachariah. It was the visage of someone who had starved
to death, skin on bones, its eyes were white and pupil-less and it had long,
thin, wispy, almost clear, hair on its head. The only thing that looked healthy on the
creature was its rows of dagger-like teeth.
Zachariah passed out again and dropped to the ground next
to Mel. The Dahaka’s screech sounded
again, this time much closer and Scott could swear he was watching Kahn’s brain
calculate in her head. She had seconds. Finally, she stared acting.
She spoke Japanese at such a rapid pace, it was too fast
for Scott to follow. Her ninjas did not
have the same problem. Three of them
leapt into combat, drawing their blades and engaging the Horseman who screamed,
welcoming the attack. The other two
ninjas leapt over to Zachariah and Mel and with a puff of smoke, they vanished
and a dead tree appeared in their place.
Kahn made a series of hand gestures, then tossed
something at Scott’s feet and a burst of smoke made Scott cough. “What the hell?!”
He fanned the smoke away and looked at Kahn, confused. “You need to run.”
Scott was even more confused. “What?!”
“I’m sorry.” Kahn
said, unconvincingly. “It is going to
think you are Zachariah when it gets here.”
Scott’s eyes went
wide. “The fuck it is!”
Scott heard the screech again. Kahn snarled. “Run!”
Scott knew he had no more time to figure this out. He turned and bolted, sprinting into the forest.
The dead wood clawed at his face and
arms as he smashed through it with the finesse of a wild bull. He felt it behind him, tearing through the
trees after him.
The Dahaka; a creature that erased you from time. Now that it thought Scott was Zachariah, would
it take him instead if it caught him? Would he take Zachariah’s place in oblivion? If so, no one would ever know his sacrifice. No one would know he had ever been.
Scott turned, only for a second, to try and gauge how
well he was doing and he saw it. It was
indescribable, like looking at pure force. It moved like an animal with the intention of
a person. It was a phantom, a shadow of
a universe that was never going to happen. The fear it caused in Scott was unlike
anything he had ever felt in his life. No boogey man or monster under the bed could
equal the pure absence of existence that chased him.
Scott’s backwards glance cost him and he failed to see
the drop-off in front of him. He blew past the edge like some kind of cartoon
character and, for a second, he hoped that if he did not look down, somehow gravity would forget him.
Gravity forgets no one. Scott fell at least twenty feet, crashing into
the trees again before hitting the ground and rolling through the loose dirt. His body ached but something inside him kept
screaming at him to move. By the time he
listened, he pulled himself up, face to face with the creature.
He froze, as if coming face to
face with a jungle cat, and stared into the void of the force of reality. The creature looked clear, but somehow black
at the same time. At first, it looked
like a four-legged jungle cat-like creature then it looked almost humanoid at
the same time.
Scott took a deep breath,
remembering his wife for what he knew would be the last time. He remembered his son… would he even be born?
“I’m so sorry.” Scott said to the air, hoping that somewhere,
somehow, his family would know he was.
The Dahaka screeched and moved.
****
Kahn heard the screech and knew
she was out of time. She had healed
Mel’s head wound while the ninjas had been torn to shreds by the Horseman and
Scott had lead the creature away, but the jig was up. The screech meant it had caught Scott and was
coming back. The only way to finish the
mission was to wake Mel and get his spell back up. She shook him furiously but he refused to come-to.
The screech sounded again, closer
this time and Kahn finally grabbed Mel with one hand, pulling his head up and
with one large wind up, the other hand slapped him violently. She did this while yelling, “Mewosamasu anata no chīsana
rokudenashi!”
Mel snapped awake. “God Damn!
I speak Japanese and that was hate speech!”
The screech sound again only a few feet away, “Mel!”
Mel quickly muttered a series of Latin words and then a
light flashed from his hand.
****
Scott dropped to his hands and knees and vomited.
The creature had screeched and moved through him before
racing off, leaving him intact. It had
realized he was not Zachariah and lost interest in Scott. Oblivion had passed him over. His body began to relax slightly as he
finished spilling the contents of his stomach onto the ground.
His resolve was shaken. He had a family; a son; a wife. The weight of the insanity he was dealing with
dropped onto his shoulders like an anvil, he had been ignoring it, focusing on
helping his friend but he could not put it off any longer. He was in over his head.
Scott hated himself for his next thought, but he could
not help it.
‘Is Zach really worth this?’
When Scott’s resolve fails, you know the heroes are in
real trouble. Narrowly avoiding the
Dahaka again, the group has taken heavy losses and a second of the Horsemen is
free. Can they make it to the Chamber of
Time in time, or is the only way to save the world through Zachariah’s death? And what’s going on with those future guys?
FIND OUT NEXT TIME!
Stranger Things; Zachariah’s Death
