And Then There Was Hope

by Greg Dragon

  She wondered how she would get out, but it was hard to think as the cold and the damage from striking the trees was getting worse as she spun. She fought to place both hands on Euphoria as she squeezed her eyes shut against the stinging blackness.

  “Euphoria … help!” she muttered.

  The sword reacted and the spikes shot out from the handle as they did before when she first took hold of it. She felt herself dying as the tornado beat her like she had never been beaten before. Blood flew from her enclosed hands as the spikes pushed through, and then the armor wrapped itself around her arms, pushing further that it had ever did before. It formed pauldrons, tearing away her top in places to build itself into a bit of a breastplate. As the spikes retreated so did her pain and she began to reorient herself with her position.

  She was still aloft in the darkness of the tornado, but the strikes from the trees and debris no longer hurt. She needed the demon’s blood in order to heal, but for the time the deadly shadow spiral was no longer killing her.

  When the demon thought that Alysia Knight had been reduced to pulp, she pulled in the darkness to allow the lifeless body to fall. What she saw instead was an armored Alysia, falling towards her, sword pointed down. The blade impaled her through the shoulder as she crumbled to the ground beneath the weight of Alysia’s fall. Euphoria lit up with power once the blood poured from the wound; it healed Alysia’s battered body and reinvigorated her as she bounced back from the demon’s fallen body.

  “Like my new outfit?” Alysia said as she stood up. “This one seems more European, like one of the knights. Is it a more pleasing costume to your demonic tastes?”

  The demon rushed back into the woods, pulling the shadows with her to heal her shoulder. Alysia Knight was a lot stronger than she had imagined, and with the energy that she had expelled in the tornado attack, she didn’t have enough to put up a suitable fight.

  “Of course, there wouldn’t be a demon fight without a chase,” Alysia muttered as she held the sword aloft and ran after the shadowy beauty.

  From out of nowhere demons began to appear. They moved to block her as she picked up speed in pursuit of the woman. It was then that Alysia realized that the shadows themselves were actually demons. It was why her voice seemed to come from several places, and why she referred to herself as ‘we.’ These shadowy demons wanted nothing but to protect their host from the cruel blade of Euphoria, and as they popped up in front of her, Alysia cut and their bodies exploded into cold, black, water-like droplets.

  She chased the demon for about a mile before catching her in front of another section of the Great Wall. She looked weak and defeated as she stood, the shadows dancing around her shoulder, repairing her wound. This time Alysia did not hesitate as she dashed in, but out of nowhere the demon produced a beautiful broadsword and parried the strike that was meant for her head. She pulled the demons in so tight that her skin appeared like sooty stone. The other demons hadn’t shown this form, and Alysia assumed that it would act as armor against her strikes.

  The two women circled, swords high, eyes locked on one another, looking for an opening. The demon dipped low and backwards, and spun with the tip of the blade thrust at Alysia, who merely stepped back to avoid it. She stepped in quickly and struck high twice. The first was blocked, but the second, unexpected and quick, tapped her on the shoulder, causing some of the black mist to explode into a fountain-like splash. Yes, Alysia thought when she connected, it is definitely her armor.

  The demon twirled gracefully, backing away, the fabric hanging from the pommel of her sword spiraling like a dancing blue spirit. She must have been very good back when she was human, Alysia thought, saddened at the prospect that they could have been friends or friendly rivals. She poked and prodded at the demon’s dance, but every time her blade would get near, the broadsword would parry it back with unbelievable strength.

  I didn’t expect her to be a sword fighter, Alysia thought, reassessing her situation as she tried in vain to find an opening.

  “Screw this,” she said out loud and then sheathed the sword and held her armored fists up in a boxing guard.

  The demon spun and dashed in with a speedy slash that should have disemboweled Alysia instantly. Alysia blocked it with her arm and used the other to grab her under the shoulder. She stepped in to the side and shifted her weight, causing the demon to lose her footing and fall on her back, hard. She sprang up instantly and swung the broadsword in retaliation. As she did it cut Alysia on the leg, and it stung like lemon juice fell into the wound.

  It had been ages since Alysia had been beaten in a duel, let alone cut by an actual sword. She wanted to dwell on it, look into herself, and figure out how it was that she had allowed a demon to get a cut in. But there was no time; this was the real thing, and dwelling on her mistake would mean death. She ignored the cut and socked the demon in the jaw, slamming one fist and then another before snatching her under the arm once again, spinning away and then slamming her into the ground again.

  The demon sprang up, but this time Alysia blocked the sword. She blocked it in a way that allowed her to spin outward, and upon completing her spin, drew Euphoria and cut, deep and true, into the demon’s breast. The shadows exploded and vanished from the demon’s body and she stood up, revealed, beautiful and almost human. The shadows that stuck to her shoulder however, refused to leave their place, trying to speed along the healing as she shifted into a Fu Hu Bu stance, the broadsword high, ready for Alysia.

  “It’s kind of sad that you’re fully V’Kosha,” Alysia said, as she held her sword up high and cat-walked backwards away from the coiled demon. “It means that there is no saving you, and I want to save you so bad.”

  The demon growled at her in one hundred voices, and she was back on the attack, spinning and thrusting the sword as Alysia violently deflected it. They did this deadly dance for quite some time as the sun settled. It was growing dark and Alysia began to worry that even without the shadows, the woman was better than her in a swordfight.

  The armor held its place along her limbs and she realized that it was slowing her down. When the demon came in for a violent yet graceful cut towards her neck, Alysia shoved her sword into the ground. The loss of proximity to her body caused the armor to retreat, leaving her vulnerable, but when the demon dashed in and took advantage, she pulled the sword free and knocked the broadsword back.

  “Get out of my world,” Alysia said to her, and shifted her stance forward as she changed her technique. She was no longer traditional in her swings, choosing a more circular, fluid style of fighting that was akin to the Kung Fu that the demon was disciplined in. Circular swings were no longer parried but were made to miss as Alysia spun into a similar dance, cutting when there was an opening and swinging masterfully to force a mistake.

  The demon grew annoyed at her mockery and changed her rhythm too abruptly. It was in this moment that Alysia reeled back on one leg, like a flexible stick in the ground bent back to pop someone in the face, then thrust forward with blinding speed, pushing her sword through the demon’s upper thigh, She screamed out and collapsed to one knee.

  The victorious Alysia feinted backwards to watch the shadows to see if they could heal her, but there was not enough to finish her shoulder and attend to the knee of her useless leg. Alysia sheathed her sword and exhaled a long, steady sigh of relief.

  “My dad, James, would tell me about fights like the one we just had. Those legendary duels where masters of respect would fight one another to the death. Normally a grave wound like the one you suffered is enough for one like me to bow, give you a ‘good fight,’ and walk into the moonlight knowing that you will go on, get stronger, but remember me as being the better. It would be a mutual respect between warriors that have given their all on the battlefield,” she said and hung her head to examine her own leg wound which was now healing itself slowly.

  “You are not my equal, Alysia Knight. Your entire existence and bastardized sword style offends
me immensely,” the demon said, her voice taking on a feminine edge and her accent thicker than it was before. “Still, it would be untrue to say that you are not impressive, I—we …” She began to retch and shake as if something was taking her over, and from the shadows of the looming night sky, more demons seemed to enter into her frame and she suddenly stopped talking.

  “I understand, sister. It was good to at least see some of the real person behind the vessel, and to cross swords with you by this spectacular wall,” Alysia said, and she stood up and used her thumb to open the blade from its guard about an inch. The demon made to stand but her leg buckled and she fell. As she stumbled and used the broadsword to catch herself in the grass, Alysia stepped in and cut her neck with a motion so quick that her head was off before her body could hit the ground.

  Ashes and water like droplets of black splattered across Alysia’s face and Euphoria drew the essence in like a powerful vacuum. It lifted Alysia off the ground. The power consumed her, wracking her limbs and breaking her bones to make them stronger. The mixture of pain and healing, equally shared throughout her floating body, forced tears from her eyes as the spikes sprung out. New armor ran the length of her body, from fingers to toes, decorative in its appearance, bright and silver. It became a part of her, digging into her flesh and absorbing into her skin.

  The pain was so immense that Alysia wanted to black out, but she held on, watching her transformation so that she could understand the gift that the demon’s life had given her.

  When it was all over she fell to the ground, healthy, strong, and still very much human in appearance. She sheathed Euphoria, dug a hole, and buried the demon’s broadsword. She looked down at the ragged garment that had once been her Hakama, and shrugged apathetically at her appearance. Who will ever be here to judge how I look as I hunt these demons? she thought to herself.

  Chapter Three

  “Have you seen Koko?” Jaime asked a sleepy James Knight as he sat up by the wall.

  “No, haven’t seen any of those girls all day,” he replied.

  “Why would they up and leave like that?” Jaime asked.

  “They were here most of the morning,” James said. “We ate, I had a nice talk with the little one about CeeCee, and, well they probably went off looking for her.”

  Jaime walked outside and looked around again, he had done this several times already and an hour before he had searched the grounds, calling Koko’s name as he did. They had been in the barracks for three days longer than they had expected. James wanted to make sure that Tracy was okay to travel, and he was under the illusion that he could convince Maria (now Hope) to come with them.

  The rough, brown warrior would check in on them every day, normally around 2:00 pm. She would sit with James for long hours, talking, and then disappear back into the woods before 5:00 pm. It was now 3:15 pm and she hadn’t shown up, so Jaime’s mind began to work at different theories, one of them being that an elite demon had killed Maria, caught up to the three girls, and killed them, too.

  Without thinking better of it, he marched towards the area of the trees where Maria would go in the afternoon. He passed the old bones of people who had died sometime in the thirty years after they left the bunker, and he pressed on into the thick woods that surrounded their barracks home. There was no trail like he expected, and he could see no evidence of anyone having pushed through there. The trees grew close to one another so it was hard to maneuver, and after a while, he gave up and returned to the clearing where the barracks and bunker sat.

  Where could Maria have gone? He thought about this, wondering if she had left without telling them she was gone. He scanned the ground and saw the impression of her tracks, but they led to the area he had just checked, so it made no sense to assume that she went elsewhere. He walked around the edge of the clearing, looking for anything that was out of place. Once he finally found a trail, it was far away from where he had originally looked, but there was enough evidence to let him know that people had used it recently.

  He walked back into the woods, keeping his hand on the butt of his pistol and looking around to catch anything that would try to ambush him. He thought back to the day that they had all left the bunker, thinking that it was the right move since that demon had screamed out Alysia’s name. They were so close back then, but now Alysia was something that he couldn’t understand, and to make it even worse, she was even colder to him.

  Koko had become his new target for joking and playing around. She looked Asian, and was pretty; not end of the world and there is no one to compare pretty, but pretty by anyone’s standards. She was young—a point Alysia had taken extra care to remind him of whenever she could—but she was from a different realm; if she was of his world she would be about seventeen. He didn’t see a problem with that, but for whatever reason Tracy thought it was funny, and James Knight, as usual, was a mystery.

  It didn’t matter what anyone thought; he really liked Koko. She was quick; like, quick with the wit to catch him on his jokes and lies. She would counter with her own, and the two of them shared something they could not put words to. Oh, how he missed her now, in this thick, cold forest, which was dark, save for the thin lasers of light that beamed down from between the branches hung so high above his head.

  He thought about the night when Alysia left with Isobel. He and Koko had kissed for the first time. He had kissed girls before, much more than that, actually, but no other girl had been like Koko. She was different, from her strange bashfulness to the times when she was angry and broke past it to be blunt. He thought—no, he knew—that he loved her, and she was causing him the biggest turmoil on the inside that he had ever faced in his life.

  When Debdan turned, which was pretty much the equivalent of death in his eyes, he didn’t know what he would do. They were close; not that close, but Debdan was the reminder of the old world that kept Jaime grounded. Without him, he had given that symbolism over to CeeCee. She was a lot more hostile than Debdan could have ever been, but she was near his age and smart. When she became “Alysia, the half-demon, savior of the world,” he lost her as his avatar of humanity. Life began to lose meaning and hope, the hope of getting something back of the life that he had loved so many years ago. His life had become without hope.

  But then in came Koko, the girl of his dreams, during a time when billions were dead, the survivors were so deep into hiding that he felt alone, and the world had gone to hell. It twisted him up. Should he applaud the fate of humanity because it gave him a chance to meet his Koko, or should he wish for the old days, for Debdan to be alive, so that he could be Jaime the bullied loser once again?

  He put it out of his mind and pressed on. The woods were beginning to grow darker, and he felt a fear creep into his bones that he could not shake, no matter how much he told himself that it was nothing.

  “Go back,” a voice whispered, but he could not tell its source. It sounded like Isobel, except deeper. “Go back Jaime, please go back,” it said, and every ounce of his being wanted to comply. If Koko was in trouble—and that voice very well could have been Koko’s—he wanted to help her. His body and mind feared the strange woods in all its blackness, but love prevails, right? He would use his heart, so filled with love, to reach the voice. If she was in trouble, he would be there, ready to fight ‘til the end.

  He pulled out his gun, looking frantically to the left and right as he marched ahead. He could feel the blood pumping into his ears; it was loud, too loud for him to hear the demons or whatever it was that were there. How does Maria walk through this every day? he thought. If she can do it, I can do it, too. He pushed on with more determination, knowing that at any moment he would break through the trees and stumble upon her encampment.

  When he pushed into the darkest part of the woods where the voice was cautioning him to stop, he realized his mistake. He had his eyes wide open and was ready for anything, but he had not been thinking clearly. Koko, his beautiful young warrior, and her tiny frame had o
ccupied every inch of his mind. The cold was what hit him first, and then the pain, as several black figures slammed into him from every angle, bruising him and cutting him until all he knew was pain. He saw the mangled body of Koko, inverted and tied to a tree limb, swaying in the near blackness of the clearing. He felt his life passing, and he knew he was in trouble when the love of his life, this young, brave, warrior of the Garot, screamed his name with a blood curdling finality.

  ~ * ~ * ~

  A kick in the gut. That was what it felt like to Alysia Knight as she faced down a tall thin man in the ruins of a castle of what used to be Ireland. The man was a zombie if appearances said anything. His skin barely stretched across his big bones, and the tattered clothing he wore would have been an expensive suit, treasured by a businessperson, back in the days before supernatural creatures ransacked their world.

  She slipped behind a pillar of stone as his bullet rang out, and then used her thumb to open the blade from its scabbard the way she always did. She felt the kick again, this time stronger, and she knew instinctively that one of the girls was in trouble. They needed to end this fight, so that she could get back to Isobel, Koko, and Jasmine. She peeked her head out to see what the old redheaded corpse was planning to do, and he fired another shot, barely missing her face as the bullet lodged itself within the rock.

  Alysia squeezed the hilt and allowed herself a moment of panic, causing the armor to react and encase her body in its silvery steel. The demon wasn’t expecting this when she popped back out and he began firing immediately. The bullets from his small handgun merely bounced off the armor as Alysia closed in on him. She took his hand off with the swing of her sword as she sped past him, turning as she did to see what kind of damage the cut had done.

  He held the bloody stump, smiling in the way a skeleton does out of no fault of its own. The skin that would have covered his mouth was long gone, and the jagged row of teeth that ran from ear to ear chattered as he looked down at his wound and then back up at her. She waited for him to speak. She was expecting a threat, some kind of warning, or perhaps a loud boast, telling her which friend or family member she had lost in the last few hours.