James scrambled to his feet after being blown away by the shockwave of the explosion. Dust and debris clung to his clothes, his hair, his skin. He coughed, spitting out grit, and forced his eyes open against the stinging haze. The dusty atmosphere was thick, almost suffocating, making it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. He tried to get a glimpse of Rowan and Koby.
Koby had just plunged his fist into Rowan's chest. He was sure of that. He had seen it—the wet, sickening sound, the blood spraying across the rocks, Rowan's eyes going wide with shock. Then Rowan had caused a huge explosion. Were they both dead?
The reality of both of them dying slowly started to dawn on James as he tried to maneuver his way through the smoke. His hands reached out blindly, his feet stumbling over rubble and shattered stone.
"Koby!! Rowan!! Where are you guys?!" he screamed, his voice raw and desperate.
"Will you stop screaming? You're giving me a headache."
James turned, running toward the voice. He found Rowan kneeling on the ground, one hand pressed firmly against his chest, blood seeping between his fingers. His face was pale, lined with exhaustion and pain. His eyes were fixed on a massive landslide that had appeared not too far from him, a fresh scar carved into the already wounded mountain.
"Where's Koby?" James asked, kneeling beside Rowan and gripping his shoulder.
Rowan didn't look at him. His gaze remained on the rubble. "I'm not entirely sure he could survive that kind of attack. What's left of him will probably be among the rubble." He gestured toward the landslide that stretched out for more than fifty feet—a graveyard of stone and dust.
The tears came rolling right there from James's eyes. He heard the words, but they didn't make sense. They couldn't be true.
"Why?!" His voice cracked. "Why did you have to kill him?"
"He was long gone." Rowan winced in pain, blood flowing from the hole in his chest. The loss of Koby was evident in his eyes—deep, hollow, unshakable. "I tried my best."
"We could have used healing to help him out." James's voice rose, desperate, grasping. "That's what happened before! We could have—"
The words drifted into nothing. He hit the ground and cried.
Stifled sobs at first, then loud wails as he bashed his fists on the rocky ground. Each strike tore his skin, bloodying his knuckles, but he didn't stop. The pain was the only thing that felt real. Rowan, amid his own agony, tried to comfort James.
"James, you don't have to blame yourself." Rowan's voice was weak, but steady. "Koby just wasn't strong enough to contain that darkness. He tried, but he failed."
"I'm the cause." James's voice was muffled against the ground. "If only I had been stronger. If only I had been more strong-willed, he wouldn't have fallen into the horde of Shoggoths and gotten possessed. He couldn't have been this way." He looked up, his eyes red, his face streaked with tears and dust. "Things could have been different."
At that moment, Lyrielle came running into view toward the two kneeling figures—victorious in battle but defeated in soul.
"Rowan!" she screamed, collapsing beside him, her hands immediately going to his chest. She saw his ruffled hair, his tired eyes, the blood-soaked hole in his chest. And she saw that he was still alive.
"Ellie." Rowan's voice was soft, almost surprised. "You're okay."
He reached up and held her cheek affectionately, his dirty hands smearing her face with blood and grime. He smiled—a fond, relieved smile. Lyrielle rubbed her face into his hand, tears falling from her eyes.
"I had thought you wouldn't be able to handle it by yourself." Her voice cracked. "Turns out I was wrong."
Rowan's smile turned sheepish—the expression of a boy who had just been caught doing something wrong by his mother. "You may have been half right."
Then Lyrielle's gaze fell to his bleeding chest, which he was still trying to cover with his left palm.
"You're bleeding." Her voice was sharp, clinical. "What happened?"
She forcefully pulled his hand away. Rowan grunted in pain, then smiled—as if to assure her he was okay.
"It's nothing much," he tried.
"You have a hole in your chest, Rowan!" Lyrielle shouted, as though saying it louder would make it less true. She didn't want it to be true. But reality was a monster, and she was staring it in the face. She immediately began healing, her hands glowing with the last vestiges of her aura.
She caught a look at James, still sobbing on the ground, his fists bloodied, his face bent toward the earth.
"What happened to Koby?" she asked.
Rowan was silent for a moment. Then: "He's dead. I had to kill him."
The dark circles around his eyes were very visible in the morning sun. He looked like he had aged a decade in the last hour.
The realization hit Lyrielle like a physical blow. She took in a deep breath, watching James grieve. She understood what he was feeling exactly. Pain. Regret. Mind-numbing guilt. She had once lost comrades who were like family to her. She knew the weight of loss, the loneliness it brought. Rowan would feel this too heavily.
But then her focus returned to the situation at hand. Rowan's injuries were far more deadly than she had thought. It wasn't just a hole in his chest. His heart had been squished. His body had gone far beyond repair. It was honestly a surprise he was still alive.
"Rowan, it's very bad." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Your heart—"
"I know." Rowan's voice was almost decisive. He had already understood what was happening.
His heart was squished. Lyrielle was already low on aura and couldn't use her regenerative abilities. Even if she could, in her state, she could die. No other help was in sight. And even if there was, no other healer could do anything.
"Let's move you to town." Lyrielle made to get up, to start moving him. "I may be able to figure something out fast."
Rowan grabbed her hand—firm, steady, immovable. He pulled her back down to him as he rested against a small boulder beside him.
"I would die while being moved." His voice was calm, accepting. "It's better for me to just stay here and have at least a small semblance of good last moments. Don't you think so?"
"Shut up." Lyrielle's voice cracked. "There will be no last moments. We're going to town now, so shut up." Fresh tears dropped from her cheeks. "I didn't follow you to these mountains just for you to die on me."
Rowan's smile softened. "I'm sorry—"
He couldn't complete his sentence before a loud humming sound cut through the air. It came from the direction of the landslide, from within the dust clouds that still hung thick and gray. The sound caught the attention of James, Lyrielle, and Rowan, all of them turning to look, expectant and terrified.
The dust cleared—just slightly—to show Koby.
Or what was supposed to be Koby.
He was different. Very different. A monster. The transformation ripped through him, and for a moment, he was two things at once. Half his face still looked human—tired, stubborn, clinging to who he was. But the other half had gone black. Not like shadow, but like polished obsidian, jagged and wrong, crawling up his neck and across his chest. His skin cracked along the seams where the demon bled through.
His eyes told the whole story. One still human, tired and afraid. One burning with something ancient, something that had been sleeping and was now very, very awake.
He was fighting it. Losing it. The black crept further with every breath, and a low, pulsing energy radiated off him in waves—dark purplish and heavy, like a thunderstorm about to break. It made the air thick. Made your teeth ache. He wasn't in control anymore. He was just holding on.
Then the sound came. Not from his mouth—from everywhere. A screech that split the air like glass breaking, raw and guttural and hungry. It rattled his ribs, climbed higher and higher until the world itself seemed to wince. The ground trembled. Dust shook loose from the rubble around him. Anyone close enough felt it in their teeth, in their skull, like the noise was trying to claw its way inside.
And through it all, he just stood there—black half spreading, purple energy pulsing, one eye wild and burning, the other still clinging to something human. Barely.
The shriek resounded all through the mountain and valley. James's ears hurt at the pitch of it. Looking at this creature that was once his friend, he knew that Koby would be killed for sure now. He tightened his grip on his sword and looked over to Rowan and Lyrielle.
"Don't you dare do what you're thinking," Rowan said, knowing full well what James was thinking.
Determination flashed in James's eyes as he ruffled his blonde hair. "Rowan, I remember when you were teaching. You told me to follow the flow of a fight and I would move efficiently." He paused, meeting Rowan's gaze. "My gut is telling me that I can follow the flow and save my friend right now."
"That's not guts." Rowan's eyebrows creased with worry. "That's stupidity."
"They're kind of the same thing." James tightened his grip around his sword, jumped down the landslide, and ran straight for Koby.
"James!" Lyrielle and Rowan shouted together as they watched him go.
Still a bit far from the creature, James kept running, closing the distance with each stride. Then a flash appeared, and the creature was flung aside.
James stopped briefly at that turn of events, looking at the direction the attack had come from. The attacker came into view.
Silas.
Blood sputtered in huge amounts from his sides. His skin was pale, almost grey. He used his poison appendages to lift himself up like a spider, his movements jerky and manic.
"I have to collect..." He kept muttering, his eyes fixed on Koby's direction. "I have to collect... I have to collect the vessel!!" He readied to charge for Koby. "I have to collect, or else I will be of no use to the Eclipse Collective."
Koby pushed away all the rubble as he stood and let out another shriek.
Silas yelled out too, and they ran for each other.
James looked on.