Void

by Kate Sander

  But she couldn't, not this time.

  Senka took the full force of the image. Her daughter, screaming. Wolves circling. Instead of pushing it away, she closed her eyes and accepted it as false. A terrible, punishing falsehood.

  Roald swung his sword at her head, clearly under the assumption that she would be overcome and unable to block, so he swung haphazardly. Opening her eyes, she saw it coming, and easily blocked the blow with a tanto.

  Roald's eyes went wide. Senka smiled and cocked her head. With a spinning kick to the stomach, Roald folded in half and fell to the ground, winded. His sword skirted away across the room.

  A gasp from the other side of the room drew her attention. Eris was not faring well against Malin. Her khopesh was lying uselessly in the middle of the floor, some twenty feet away from her. Senka strode forward to help, when something picked her up around the waist and threw her heavily against the wall.

  Roald clambered up from the floor, arm still outstretched, as Senka lay coughing on the floor. Something was broken somewhere, she knew it. Figuring a rib or two with how much it hurt to breathe, she scrambled to her feet, guarding her ribs and leaning heavily to the side. She'd manage to keep a hold on both her weapons, but with how she was feeling it wouldn't be long until she couldn't use them.

  "You!" Roald cried, striding up to her. Her body wasn't working properly. She couldn't even bring up an arm to block as he punched her in the face. The blow landed full force, and Senka fell to the ground on her stomach, dazed.

  A knee was pressed into her back. Her head was lifted off the ground by her hair.

  "Any last words?"

  A dagger was pressed against her throat, tip digging in, a small drip of blood joining the pool from her face on the ground underneath her.

  Nothing. That's all she could do. Using the last of her energy, she skidded her tanto across the floor in the direction of Eris, hoping desperately it reached close enough to Eris to help her.

  Roald laughed, "How sweet. Your dying breath was to save a traitor instead of saving yourself." The dagger pressed and Senka closed her eyes.

  I'm sorry, baby. I tried.

  It's funny. She'd craved death for so long. Wanted it more than anything. Now that it was upon her, all she wanted was to stay alive.

  A yell from across the room had Roald hesitate and look up. Just in time to see Kai flying at his head. Removing the dagger from her neck with a cry, he tried to block the five hundred pound pissed off cat. Kai grabbed him by the throat, tearing him off of Senka's back. Shaking him violently, Senka heard Roald's neck snap as Kai tossed him away with a growl.

  Dragging herself to her feet, she limped towards the disfigured body. Roald’s arms and legs stuck out at odd angles, with one finger twitching. His eyes tracked her across the room.

  "You good, Kai?" She asked as the panther limped up to join her. "Fucker didn't get yah with the knife?" Kai nuzzled her hand. "Good".

  Roald's chest rose and fell quickly. He lay there, looking at her, head cocked awkwardly to the side, unable to move.

  "You asked for my last words?" She twirled her remaining tanto. "Fuck you."

  She stabbed him through the eye, lodging the blade into his skull. With a twist of the knife, she pulled the blade back out, sending blood and brains flying into the air.

  "Asshole."

  29

  Eris

  Eris jumped over the wrestling bodies of Roald and Senka and swung wildly at Malin's head. It wasn't well aimed and her feet weren't planted, so Malin easily parried the blow. Eris skidded to a stop and pivoted recklessly, barely blocking Malin's counter.

  They faced each other, both chests heaving.

  "I thought better of you," Malin snarled.

  "Mother, it doesn't have to be this way."

  Malin screamed, face contorted in a look of hate that was foreign to Eris. She attacked with such fury that Eris was immediately put on the defensive, trying desperately to stop Malin's sword.

  Eris blocked and was thrown off balance. Malin flicked her wrist and sent the khopesh flying, leaving Eris undefended. With an easy kick and step through, Malin had Eris on her back.

  "Get up," Malin snapped. "You are an Ampulex princess. At least you were. And you do not die on your back."

  Eris kept her hands out in front of her, palms out. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Not how she'd pictured it at all.

  "I said GET UP!"

  Eris scrambled to her feet, obedience to the cause deeply ingrained.

  Malin swung again. Eris ducked and stepped in, blocking Malin at the elbow. Malin anticipated the move and, lowering her hips, flipped Eris ass-over-teakettle and back on the floor.

  Winded, Eris stayed on her back, Malin standing over her.

  "GET UP! You are a princess. I CHOSE YOU!"

  Eris stood. She'd had enough. Her skin was as hard as steel. It could still be cut by a sword, but blunt trauma bounced off of her. It was how she'd defeated countless others, now was the time to use it.

  Malin attacked again. Instead of trying to dodge or block, Eris simply held a forearm up to Malin's wrist and ducked so that the sword swung over her head.

  Malin's wrist broke with a sickening crack. With a scream, her sword dropped to the ground.

  Eris tried to back up, but Malin was too fast. With a yell, she charged Eris. Her six-foot frame lifted Eris off the ground and slammed her down on her back. Conveniently, right beside her sword. Malin straddled her and put both legs on Eris' arms, rendering them useless. Eris tried to buck to destabilize her, but it didn't work.

  Her mother had her pinned.

  Malin reached for her dropped sword.

  "I picked you," she whispered softly, brushing the hair out of Eris' face lovingly. "I picked you. How you disappoint me."

  Placing the tip of her sword right underneath Eris' ribcage, Malin leaned in.

  "Mother," Eris gasped as the knife entered slowly. "Mother. Why?"

  "Shh, shh, shh," Malin said softly. "This needs to be done. You didn't do your job, so this is what happens."

  Pain. As the blood dripped down the sword and Malin cut her so slowly, it took everything to keep from crying out.

  Malin pulled the sword out and blood welled in the hole. She hadn't hit the lung, had stopped just shy. But the pain.

  Malin placed the sword at Eris' collar bone and leaned in again.

  This time, the pain was too much and Eris cried out.

  "Shh, shh, shh. Darling. You're an Ampulex. The Ampulex are strong. Not weak, weeping children."

  Eris glanced around wildly, trying desperately to find something, anything that would help her.

  Senka's tanto skittered over the ground and cut deep into her hand.

  Eris cried out, but managed to buck off Malin enough to grab the hilt of the tanto.

  A cry. A single thrust.

  Eris stabbed her mother in the stomach. Right below the center of the ribcage.

  Malin gasped and her mouth opened and closed as she stared at the tanto sticking out of her body.

  Eris sat up and, ignoring the pain, gently lowered Malin to the ground.

  "It didn't have to be this way," Eris sobbed, holding Malin's hands as she gaped at her. "Mother, it didn't have to be this way."

  Malin whispered something. Eris leaned forward to hear better.

  "Pull it out," she whispered.

  "But... You'll die!"

  Malin took her hand and grabbed her cheek, staring her in the eyes. She didn't use her powers, she simply wanted to see her daughter's eyes.

  "Daughter... Let me go."

  Tears blocked her vision but Eris managed to nod as sobs wracked her body. Taking the hilt of the tanto in her hand, she looked at her mother's eyes one last time.

  "Do it."

  Eris pulled out the sword in a spurt of blood. Malin's eyes died and she slumped to the floor as blood seeped and spurted wildly out of her chest.

  "Mother."

  Sobs wracked her body as she
weeped over her dead mother.

  The only family she'd ever known.

  30

  Carter

  CHAPTER 31 CARTER

  The massive gray metal garage door raised with a whirl. The key he'd stolen from Freudman had worked.

  A large room opened up, with high ceilings and massive cables running over the ground. As he stepped through the doorway, fluorescent lights flickered on above him, illuminating the entire room in a harsh, white light.

  Tubes. Maybe fifty of them, all lined up in rows across the room. All of them were three meters high and a meter wide, cylindrical and made of steel. A foot square window was illuminated in each one. An eerie, blue light in each tube.

  Two tubes were right at the front. They had health monitors hooked up beside them. Each showed a pulse meandering across the screen.

  Carter made his way towards the tubes, ensuring he didn't step on any of the cables. Silence reached him. Carter wasn't surprised. Freudman didn't expect any of them to get out of the forest.

  Maybe Tesla had lied just enough to cause the downfall of the Ampulex. Told Freudman they were coming but didn't tell him about Carter making it through the wall. Carter hoped so. Give the old man a bit of redemption in death.

  Carter made his way to the tubes and looked through one of the windows.

  Roald Ammondson was staring back at him.

  Jumping, Carter took a second to calm himself and looked back in the tube.

  Roald Ammondson, naked, frozen in a tube. Eyes half open, he looked awake, but Carter realized he wasn't tracking him. Frost covered his nostrils and a breathing and feeding tube was attached over his mouth.

  Cryogenics. It's how Roald and Malin had stayed alive in The Other Place for so long. Frozen. Kept alive.

  Must be nice to be rich.

  A beep sounded from the monitor beside Roald's tube. The heartrate jumped from eighty to one-sixty.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  It sped up. Pretty soon it was over two hundred.

  Carter went to look at the other tube. This must be Malin. A beautiful woman, long blond hair, fair skin, frozen and staring back at him.

  Her pulse increased as well, matching the rhythmic beeping of her monitor.

  Both were well over two hundred.

  A long tone sounded from Roald's side.

  Carter walked over to look. Flatline.

  A red light triggered on the top of his tube and an alarm sounded somewhere in the building. Trying to warn someone of the impending doom of their leader.

  No one to hear it now, asshole.

  The same tone sounded from Malin's monitor.

  Carter smiled.

  Atta be, Senka. You got ‘em both.

  Except this time a green light illuminated on the top of the cylinder. A whoosh sounded as air was pushed in through the bottom.

  Carter walked over and stood in front of the cylinder.

  A solid tone sounded from the monitor. Carter took aim. After a few seconds...

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Starting slowly, but increasing. They were thawing her out.

  Five pounds of pressure. And Carter didn't miss.

  Malin had a bullet in her brain before she even opened her eyes.

  Not a shred of guilt made its way through Carter's brain as he found an exit out of the building. It was easy with Freudman's master key. Igor and Johnny were staring at the collapsed wall, discussing how they were going to get inside and help him. Bodies of the Ampulex were scattered over the field and into the forest. His team had done a number on them. Smoke rose from the trees, the drone decimating the forest and leaving charred twigs in its wake.

  But, four white sheets stood out to him. Covering bodies with care, all lined up in a row.

  Four. He'd lost four. A whole third of the ZTF. Gone in one mission.

  Igor noticed him and gave a yell. Others crowded around him.

  "What happened?" Carter asked. John, Lee, Emily and Simone were still alive. They looked at him sadly.

  "It's Matty, Pierre and Cathy," Leslie said. "Matty died putting a hole in the wall. It just took too much out of him, I think. Cathy.... Cathy shouldn't have been out here. Losing Annabell hurt her, and she tried to take as many with her as she could. Pierre was shot in the back of the head by some asshole. And we went and got Annabell from the woods. What was left of her, after that explosion."

  "We'll bury her and Cathy beside each other. Think Cathy was the only mother she had," Simone said.

  "I tried to get to them," Igor said softly. "They were dead already. I was shot... six times. It took too long to heal. I'm sorry."

  John gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "It's all our faults, chum."

  "Was it worth it?" Lee asked.

  Carter nodded, "Yes. They're all dead. Freudman, Malin and Roald. Senka managed to kill them in The Other Place, I finished them off here. It's done."

  "What now?" Simone asked.

  "We burn this place to the ground. Then we bring our friends home and we bury them beside Senka and Tomo. Then... Well, I'm assuming I'll be court martialed. Four dead in one mission, people are going to ask questions." He gave them a reassuring nod. "I'll take the fall. I doubt I'll be in charge here very much longer. But, we did it. And they can fire me. Or put me in jail. But we did it."

  "And Senka?" Emily asked. "She's still over there. How are we getting her back?"

  Tears formed in his eyes. "We're not. She's trapped in the future. The stone is destroyed here and they destroyed it over there. Black Eyes and Senka won't be able to come back."

  Carter strode away.

  "Wait!" Emily said, running up to him. "I have an idea."

  31

  The Forsaken

  Fog and anger. That was the Forsaken's existence. Fog, and a blood lust he couldn't explain.

  He'd been fighting someone for a long time, but exhaustion didn't hit him. He'd fight until he died, or until Mother told him to stop.

  Suddenly, he couldn't fight anymore. Something was stopping his hands from moving. Frustrated, he cried out, trying desperately to free himself.

  It wasn't gradual, the change.

  Suddenly, the fog was gone. Titus was standing next to a pillar in the castle in Solias. His castle. How he'd gotten here, he had no idea, but his hands were tied to the wall with a piece of leather from the window covering. They were slick with blood up to his elbows.

  "What the hell?" he muttered out loud as he looked at his damaged and ragged wrists. The taste of iron was in his mouth and he spat blood. A sudden realization hit him...he'd been trying to eat off his own hands.

  "What the fuck?" Titus said, panicking, and easily able to unwrap the leather. It hadn't even been tied. Why would he be chewing off his own hands?

  Pain hit him next. He hadn't gotten through to the bone yet, but small holes lined his forearms.

  "Help!" Titus yelled. Where was Jules? And Big Mamma? The last thing he remembered he was standing in Shamrock, trying to rally the villagers.

  Memories flooded back in such a mess of sound and colour that he fell to his knees and held his head.

  Jules crushed by bricks.

  Crowning Malin and Roald.

  The long march, as he performed embarrassing dances to the jeers of the Ampulex.

  And finally... killing Big Mamma with his own sword.

  Sobs wracked his body. What had he done?

  You're a monster.

  "Titus?" A voice, so familiar, yet so different,ferent called from down the hallway.

  Looking up, he saw him. Thought to be long dead.

  Titus leapt to his feet and ran to greet his brother. He was easily a foot taller and a foot wider than his big brother, so he picked him up in a bear hug and squeezed.

  Sol laughed and patted his back, "Hey, little brother."

  "How the hell are you alive?" Titus asked, putting Sol down and wiping his eyes.

  Sol smiled at him, but wasn't crying. Sol never cried. Never showed emotion.
/>
  "That's a long story, brother." Sol said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "You look like shit. Let's go fix your arms up and go take our kingdom back."

  Take our kingdom back.

  It was all Titus had ever wanted.

  Part III

  “Yet each man kills the thing he loves

  By each let this be heard

  Some do it with a bitter look

  Some with a flattering word

  The coward does it with a kiss

  The brave man with a sword.” - Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol,

  32

  Akira

  Akira watched the wedding from the back of the crowd, dangling her feet off the wall surrounding the castle.

  It had been a long time coming, it seems, even though Eris and Sol had only met seven months ago after the defeat of the Ampulex.

  Tory and Senka couldn't be here, for obvious reasons. So Akira had been sent in their stead. Life as a Melanthios was a good one. Ismat was thriving, babies were being born left, right and center. Solias and the Melanthios had developed an excellent trade relationship under the new King, and Laungundo as a country was thriving.

  Thriving and healing.

  Solias used to house tens of thousands of people. Now it really only held five thousand at most. Many people from Carabesh were moving to start farms and to find jobs. There were even talks of sailing to Anzen to open up trading there.

  It seems the world was right again.

  After years of war, Langundo was at peace.

  Something was nagging at Akira. She wouldn't go back to Anzen. Without her family, that was no longer her home. But, something was still nagging her.

  Unfinished business.

  Conversations with Eris on that boat felt like years ago. But they kept Akira up at night. Analyzing every single detail, Akira came up with a solid theory that Eris knew exactly what had happened to her parents.