[REND] 1.3 - Crappy Monday

The lonely echoes of my footsteps through the empty stairwell kept me company. I clutched my stomach with an arm, putting pressure on the wound. My blood dripped on the steps as I gripped the rails with my other hand, almost pulling myself up. My backpack felt heavier and heavier as if I were carrying massive law books. I left them back at my condo because I made notes for class.

My poor notes. They must be soaking red by now.

Should I ditch my backpack?

Wait. My phone was inside. I should call for—never mind. The police should know about the massacre galore going on. Should be dozens of other people calling for help. It wasn’t like the cops would prioritize me. I was on my own.

I reached a landing. Still no Adumbrae. Dunno what it was doing. I looked up, saw how far I had to climb, and let out a string of curses that surprised me. I often cursed inside my head but never in public. Always prim and proper, the perfect daughter my mother raised.

Mom. What about calling her?

I shook my head. She was in Switzerland. I couldn’t remember the time zone difference. She was probably asleep. What was I going to tell her? Goodbye, or some shit? I couldn’t come up with emotional parting words even if death came for me. And I was super dying!

I refused to be cheesy in the face of death. I refused to die.

Climb, climb, climb. The stairs began higher than the level of the railway. Shouldn’t be that much lower than the station’s platform. The stairs going up and down the subway wasn’t that long. I could do this.

Stairs were long? Tall? Deep? How was the length of a staircase supposed to be described? All sorts of nonsense swirled in my head as I continued to lose blood. I felt lightheaded and I gripped the rails with both hands to stop falling.

Sticky. Cold. Heavy. Just continue climbing.

“Huh?” I blinked as I looked at the door in front of me. By some miracle, I reached the top of the stairs still conscious. I couldn’t recall the last couple of minutes or so.

I reached out with my hand, red from my blood. Too weak to push the door open. I inhaled and threw my body against the door. My weight pushed it outward. I fell on the floor.

Sunlight? I was out!

The street. Some people. No screams.

Safety?

Noises of pounding on the door below boomed up the stairwell and cut my celebratory mood. Roars mixed in. Baggy Overalls or a different Adumbrae? Didn’t matter. I hobbled forward as the door behind me swung close, deadening the Adumbrae’s sounds. The last thing I heard was the screech of a can opener ripping through metal, amplified a hundred times. The Adumbrae was coming.

I wanted to run out on the street. Parking area? I didn’t know where I was. But I’d fall without support. Instead, I followed the side of the squat building. Leaning against the wall with my right hand, I started hopping. Agonizing to run or walk fast normally.

“Help! Help!” I could barely shout with how weak I’d gotten.

The people in the distance suddenly broke into a run, yelling in panic. I couldn’t see what they were fleeing from. Another Adumbrae, probably.

“Okay, no one’s helping. Fuck you all.” I spat out blood on the floor and hurried along. I thought I was already saved by reaching aboveground, but obviously not.

Loud banging. A crash.

Checking behind me, I gasped as a ten-foot monster made out of spikes squeezed itself out of the door I had exited. Strips of the clothes it wore when it had a humanoid form draped over some of its spikes. Was this Baggy Overalls? How did it transform this fast? It was still humanoid some minutes ago.

The spikey monster puffed up its chest like a croaking toad, spikes bristling. It got larger and larger. Was it going to burst? I closed my eyes and crouched down, curling into myself like an armadillo.

Layers of whooshes. Several thuds. Spikes must’ve hit the pavement and concrete walls. Glass shattered. Alarms blared as cars got turned into pin cushions.

Did I get hit? I patted my body. No spikes. Still, just one hole that shouldn’t be.

The Adumbrae bellowed, competing with the wailing car alarms. It faced my way, red eyes ablaze with fury. I pushed myself up. My vision went hazy. Searing pain from the exertion. The monster charged at me. I shambled onward, trying to look for somewhere to hide. The car alarms made it hard for me to think. My head was swimming.

But I wasn’t giving up. I was the main character of this movie! I wasn’t going to die this easily.

An even louder blaring noise to my right. Bright red and blue lights. A car heading for me? It swerved, tires screeching. It slammed the Adumbrae. A loud crash and crunchy crunch. Agonized roars. The cop car pinned the Adumbrae against the wall.

A female voice shouted, “Get away from here!”

Duh. It wasn’t like I wanted to stay.

I was in front of a door. Continue fleeing out here or get inside? The Adumbrae wasn’t dead yet. If it exploded with spikes again, better be inside.

I entered the building just as gunfire rang, finding myself in a bleak narrow corridor with doors widely spaced apart along its sides. An office? Maybe not. I didn’t really care. Too weak. Too cold. I forced myself to walk with no clue where I was heading too.

Darkness. I opened my eyes, jolted by gunfire. The floor. I passed out for a moment and fell.

I’m not going to fucking die, I thought as I crawled past an open doorway and into a locker room. Maybe this was for the train employees.

More shots. A female voice yelled. Was the cop dead?

A lot of noise. Metal crunching.          

Did the Adumbrae free itself? I needed to hide!

Where’s an open locker? Found one.

I stuffed myself into the tight space, parting the clothes hanging. Not wanting to lock myself inside, I pinched the slits on the locker door and held it in place with my shaking fingers. This would have to do. My left hand remained clutching my abdomen.

No help. Monster outside. Was I going to die here?

I can help you.

The voice popped into my head. Not mine. I had enough consciousness left to realize that. The video I watched at the station returned. Was this an Adum—?

A whole new wave of pain radiated from my wound. Something wriggled inside me! Butterflies made of thorns in my stomach. I fought the urge to scream, biting my lips hard until my teeth drew blood. My fingers held vigilantly on the locker door.

Part of me wanted everything to end. A bigger part wanted to live!

I can help you with that.

“You have got to be kidding,” I hissed. “An… Adumbrae is—urgk!”

A black spike burst through my stomach, piercing the locker door. It also erupted out my back, pinning me to the locker like a note stuck on a corkboard with a thumbtack. I opened my mouth to scream, but the pain was too much I couldn’t make any sound. My arms fell limply to my side; the locker door remained shut, the black skewer holding it in place. A macabre rotisserie human.

The taste of iron filled my mouth. I tried to stop vomiting blood. It rolled down the sides of my mouth down my chest, warm streams on my skin that was steadily turning cold. I didn’t have the energy to cry for help. My head slumped on the locker door.

I opened my eyes.

Nothing.

Total darkness. Pressure on my ears. There was nothing to hear. So weird.

Another blink. I stared at the door of the locker that was to be my coffin, hints of light coming through the slits. Couldn’t move. My heart beat slower and weaker.

The next I blinked it was the void again.

A small point of light in the distance. It grew brighter and brighter until it exploded into millions of sparkles.

It wasn’t merely boring twinkling stars punctuating the darkness. Clouds of colors flew through space, like those pictures of nebula I saw in the encyclopedia Dad bought me as a kid. The mesmerizing display was interspersed with tendrils of darkness, threatening to consume the radiant plumage. The tendrils weren’t noticeable in the backdrop of dark space. But when they snaked through the technicolor fog and stars, I could see their outlines.

Beautiful.

Was this heaven? Did that exist?

Despite not being normal and messing with people from time to time, I wasn’t so bad. Not bad enough to warrant hell. I’d let myself into heaven if I were a god.

I jolted and was back in the locker again as if awakening after falling in a dream. Then I saw double: the real world and whatever this space nonsense was.

Fancy seeing you here this early. A female voice with a mischievous tone.

She didn’t speak into my head like when I internally monologued. It was more like I felt her very words, an unsettling feeling. She was inside my head but I was reading her mind.

“Who are you?” I said the words, but no sound came out. There was no air. I wasn’t breathing anything. But I was alive, and that was the important part. “Am I dead?”

Always leading with stupid questions. I’m you.

“Is that some kind of trick? You’re an Adumbrae.” Some of my earliest memories were of Mom and Dad telling me not to listen to the voices if I’d ever hear them. Other parents surely taught their kids the same. I never thought I’d experience this, but here I was, in the middle of life and death, staring both at the insides of a stinky locker and another freaking dimension, talking to a monster. “So… are you offering to save me?”

Will you accept?

“You’re an Adumbrae,” I repeated.

You’re dying.

“Touché. You know, Adumbrae Ma’am, I used to read touché as touchie, as in touch and—whoops. Random thoughts. Anyway, yep, you’re right that I’m dying.” Which meant I wasn’t dead yet. I had a chance to live. Do I accept this chance?

It’s going to be fun…

“Well, it’s fun to not die. Do I become a monster?”

Does it matter?

“Well, not now. But like, if I’ll apply for a job… I guess I can’t work if I’m dead now anyway. Sure, let’s do this. Save me. Give me powers and shit.”

I lost sight of the locker. My view was solely in this magical outer space. Two points of red glowed brighter than the rest of the lights. Strands of white swirled around the glowing red. Then a flash of blinding gold.

I tumbled forward. Someone caught me.

“Wha—?” I was no longer in magical outer space. A ceiling above me. I was out of the locker.

“I got you, don’t worry.” I focused my eyes on the face of the person looking down on me. A woman with dirty blonde hair tied up in a bun. She wore a dark blue shirt with a color. A shiny badge and a radio thingy on her chest. Was she the cop who rammed the Adumbrae out there?

“I got you,” she repeated, her forehead wrinkled in worry. I must’ve looked like a mess. “You’re safe with me. What’s—? Damn, this is bad,” she added under her breath.

We both looked at the spike protruding out of my stomach.

She felt my back. The other end of the spike was there, sticking out of my backpack. “I’m going to lay you on your side, okay?” she softly said as if I were a child. “I’ll call for help. We’ll get you through this.”

I was about to express gratitude as she rested on the floor when I noticed a concerning feeling. The pain. It was gone. Wait, no. It was still there but severely muted. Compared to the pain of having a hole in my stomach, it just felt like I knotted my abs after doing too many sit-ups. It had been ages since I seriously worked out.

And it was going away. I was regaining my strength and consciousness. The world was in focus.

It wasn’t a dream.

“4B62, the Adumbrae with spikes is in my vicinity,” she said to her radio. “But I do not have visual. I’m inside the building fronting the parking area with an injured individual. Abdominal wound; skewered by a spike. High blood loss.”

I stared at the cop as she radioed for help. She had a back-and-forth with the dispatch officer because no ambulance was allowed to get close. She wanted to carry me to somewhere the ambulance could reach, but she was ordered to stay.

She shouldn’t be so worried—I was no longer dying. I was an Adumbrae.

The cop returned to my side. “Okay, so we still can’t move until things are secured. But it won’t take too long, I promise. Don’t worry. Let me see your wound.”

“No… too painful…” I said with a dramatic groan. I should have an acting award. I twisted my body away from her, covering my abdomen with my arms.

“I’m not going to pull the spike out. That might cause you to bleed more. I want to see the wound so we can clean it and put pressure. We need to stop the bleeding while waiting for help.”

She pulled my hands away. Her force was so weak. Yes, I knew she was being gentle, but I feel like I could snap her wrist if I wanted to. It was inexplicable, this newfound feeling of strength. The closest I could compare it with was fully recovering from a severe flu. Times a hundred.

I didn’t resist the cop. One, that’d be suspicious. Two, I wanted to see what was happening to my wound. It was super itchy. Three, I was interested in the cop’s reaction. This was going to be fun—the Adumbrae was right. A certain giddiness shot up my flanks as I opened my arms. When was the last time I was this excited for something?

The cop tore my sticky shirt and used the cleaner part to wipe away the blood around the wound. “Just slowly breathe, miss. I’ve seen worse injuries than this and they’ve survived. Fortunately, you’re no longer bleeding much. But we still have to put pressure on—” She narrowed her eyes as she peered closer at my wound. “Your skin is growing—Mother Core’s grace!” She jumped away as if I had electrocuted her.

“Wha-what’s happening?” I continued to moan in pain and writhe on the floor. “Please help me…”

“Don’t move!” The cop barked as she trained her gun on my head.

Just like zombies in movies, the weakness of an Adumbrae was their head. Our head. Something about the brain communicating with the monsters in the other dimension. I didn’t expect this cop to react fast considering there had been no Adumbrae in La Esperanza for years. Maybe the ongoing Adumbrae attacks made her jumpy.

“The fuck was that wound?” she exclaimed. “You’re regenerating! Are you another Adumbrae?”

“I… I… was attacked.” I crumpled on the floor, pretending to weaken. “I… don’t understand.”

She stepped closer, probably wondering if she was imagining things. I had lots of blood on me. And why would an Adumbrae pretend to be injured? “Show me your wound! Don’t cover it.”

I turned my body to face her. Awkward to do while on the floor and the other end of the spike stuck out my back. I moved the blood-soaked tatters of my shirt aside.

The cop frowned as she leaned down, gun still pointed at me. Then her eyes went wide. “You’re really an—!”

I kicked her legs with all my might. I wanted to just trip her but my force was so strong it snapped her bones and bent her right leg in a way it shouldn’t. A bang! She yelled in pain as she fell on me. Her smoking gun slid across the floor.

Personal space, lady! My body shivered at the sudden physical contact. I instinctively thrashed around like a cat thrown into water, launching the cop towards the other end of the room. She didn’t move.

I stood up and approached her. "Lady policeman, are you ok? Err... I mean, policewoman. What’s the gender neutral—? Oh, yeah. Police officer. Didn’t mean to be sexist to…"

The police officer’s head got bent at an awkward angle.

Awkward or deadly?

She was no longer breathing.

“Whoops… I didn’t mean to do that.”