Odyssey II Chp VI: Something Worse than Nobody

Part of his foremost tentacle spun across the room, followed by a trail of shimmering black ichor. Maya’s blade brought a paradox to his senses. His injured limb accepted the cold steel. It felt right when she cut him, as if his flesh knew it was being purified. At the same time, pain screamed through him, reeling from the touch of the metal, causing what remained of the tentacle to spasm.

A seizure. The memory of the subway surfaced, and for a moment he wasn’t in the room anymore. He clung to those little flashes of memory, grasped at every word he remembered in order to keep his mind working, to keep himself. The creature sharing his body struggled to escape the pain, to fight back, but not while he still held some control. He felt a tingling pressure reverberating through him. The bones of his mouth cracked and split, his teeth melting away and forming a hard cephalopod beak.

Maya. Could she carve him free? The creature within him pulsed and her face vanished from his memory, as if blotted out by ink. He still knew her name, knew who she was, but could no longer recall her face. Then her name disappeared too.

Tal’shen forced thoughts into his mind. Why do you resist? She will kill us both. Go to sleep now and I will ensure that we both live!

More knowledge disintegrated. He couldn’t even remember his own name now, or where he was. His thoughts veered again to the train and fought to replay the events. But what was a train? All that remained now was a bland feeling, a useless feeling.

Then I shall take you by force! Tal’shen raged.

The pressure started to crush him. The creature was intent on forcing every last reminder of self from him. It wanted to erase him from his own body. He could visualize its essence crawling through him, his blood turning black and more of the prism-like scales sprouting on his body.

He could almost laugh. All this, only to become something worse than nobody: nothing.

So he focused upon the last of his being. The electrical impulses still racing up and down his spine, the churning essence of his cells, the last shreds of muscle that hadn’t been reduced to rubbery sinew. Through them he pushed out the scream locked behind his beak and twisted windpipe.

OUT.