Myrikal

by Holli Anderson

  Myrikal plummeted into the green liquid below.

  Ceiling flaps closed above her, plunging her into a darkness so complete, even her super-sight couldn’t pierce it. The acid-like liquid sizzled against her skin, but didn’t seem to be doing any damage. She kicked her feet until her head surfaced at the narrow space at the top. This small bit of open air lasted only a few seconds, as the green liquid quickly gushed to meet the ceiling.

  Holding her breath, Myrikal hit and kicked against the walls, but the strange material gave not an inch. She braced her shoulders against one wall and pushed with her feet and legs against the other. Again, with no results.

  Panic welled up inside her like her gut and chest were filling with cement, ready to burst outward. She forced her muscles to relax and she sunk to the bottom, resting against the floor to think. She knew she could hold her breath for about an hour—any longer than that and she’d start to get dizzy and see spots. She wasn’t sure what the time limit was after that, but she was sure it’d be short. And that was in water. Who knew what this green goo was doing to her?

  Just as that thought seeped into her mind, her limbs began to shake. Overwhelming weakness penetrated every fiber of every muscle in her body. She wilted back against the wall. Just the act of lifting her arm took all her strength. Her stomach, and everything else inside her, revolted, making the queasiness she’d felt near Cascus—and even the crevasse—seem like the fluttering of a butterfly. She doubled over as massive cramps rolled through her abdomen. She’d never known physical pain before. Her ability to think seized up, just as the muscles in her arms and legs did.

  All concept of time and space blurred into one continuous internal shriek of pain. Myrikal had no idea how long she’d been trapped in the life-sucking liquid. It could have been anywhere from a few minutes to an hour. The earth rumbled beneath her. The tight ball she’d curled herself into unwound as the ground shook violently. She slammed into the walls of her prison over and over again, tumbling around until she had no idea which direction was up.

  Take control, Myrikal! She yelled inside her head. Ignore the pain. Something bigger than your circumstance is happening right now.

  Myrikal thrust her arms and legs out to the sides, making contact with the walls. Forcing her muscles to obey, she pushed the stabbing pains to the back of her mind. She couldn’t get out through the walls, so she’d have to find another way. The only other option lay at the top, with the trap-like doors.

  Not entirely sure she headed up and not down, Myrikal pushed onward as the world trembled around her. Her head bumped into the ceiling doors sooner than she expected. She’d forgotten how small the building was. She braced herself with her feet each pressed against a wall, thrusting the waves of agony to the back of her mind, a distraction to clear thought. She pounded her fists against the doors, fit so tightly together they may as well have fused when they closed. Not one tiny crack of light shone through.

  Panic rose in her chest as spots danced behind her closed lids.

  Her head swam with dizziness.

  Her hour was up. Myrikal needed oxygen.

  She stopped pounding and tried pushing. Not a budge. She ran her fingertips along every inch of the doors, searching in vain for a weak point or a finger hold with which she could gain some purchase to pry the doors apart. Nothing.

  Bubbles floated from her mouth as she released the last bit of air she held in her lungs in a silent roar of rage. The spots turned to surges of light behind her eyes.

  Flashing lights…

  …that slowed to…

  pulsing lights…

  …that slowed to…

  an occasional flicker…

  …that faded to…

  darkness.

  One small part of her brain remained aware as she pounded a fist one last time at the doors. That small part of her brain, aware that her legs had relaxed, demanded with a feeble command that they hold on. Too feeble to reach the synapses that controlled the muscles there.

  Her hands fell to her sides as she slipped toward the bottom of the tank.

  Myrikal’s eyes flew open. Something happened. Something changed.

  Light.

  That awareness hidden deep within her dying brain surged with one last effort, and this time, her body obeyed. Myrikal raised one arm, hand flopping loosely, above her head as she continued to slowly descend.

  Something gripped her wrist tight and raised her from the depths of a sure death. Her rescuer struggled to keep hold of her wet, slick skin. He pulled her up enough that he could submerge his head, shoulders, and arms and grab her under her armpits. He heaved with such great power, as she emerged from the goo, they both flew back over the edge of the building and crashed to the ground ten-feet below.

  Myrikal landed on top of her rescuer and rolled off him with an incoherent grunt.

  “Myri.” It came out as a half-rasp, half-gurgle. “Myri.” He reached toward her.

  She gasped for air. It took a few moments for her mind to respond to the fresh intake of oxygen. She blinked at the rasping figure lying next to her. With the fuzziness of her brain and the green ooze dripping into her eyes, she had a hard time focusing.

  “Branch?” she whispered. She lifted up on her knees and moved toward him. “No! Branch!” A sob tore from her throat. His shirt had been eaten away and his skin bubbled. His arms, face, torso—bubbling, burning, right before her eyes.

  “Myri.” He reached out again, blind eyes searching to no avail. “I promise… I promise I didn’t tell him. I kept your secret.” A racking tremor passed through his tortured body. “He guessed. He just guessed you could drown.”

  She wanted so bad to hold him in her arms, but she was afraid to touch him. His bubbling skin turned black and sloughed off in large chunks, revealing the muscle and sinew beneath. “I know, Branch. I know.” Another sob tore through her.

  His hand found hers and his fingers curled around hers. “I saved… you. How… many… points?” His muscles started turning to liquid, pooling around his bones.

  Myrikal laugh-cried. “You win, Branch. This gives you all the points. You win.” She leaned in next to where his ear had been a moment before. “I love you.”

  His lips and tongue dissolved. His eyeballs rolled around in skinless sockets before popping and liquefying with a hiss.

  With a roar of anguish, Myrikal leaped to her feet and rounded the corner of the small building in which she’d been trapped.

  The scene before her stopped her as if she’d hit a wall. She turned her head from side to side, trying to take it all in at once and make sense of it.

  Ya, Connor, Donna, Bryan, Aaron, and Sandeep formed a protective semi-circle—facing outward—around three figures. Myrikal shaded her eyes with her hand and peered between them. Baby lay still, except for the heavy lifting and dropping of his chest as he struggled to breathe. Chansong knelt at his side, holding pressure to a chest wound, her hands and arms bloodied up to her elbows. Chansong’s mom held Baby’s head in her lap as she rocked back and forth.

  “Baby!” Myrikal cried. The panther raised his head and mewled, then scrambled as he tried to get to his feet. “No. Stay, Baby. Lay down,” she commanded.

  Myrikal turned to see what force the DefCo deserters faced. She gasped. Where the larger building had stood just prior to her splash into the dunk-tank of death, now stood an enormous machine, the same green liquid that had killed Branch running through transparent tubes. Miguel and Vicky stood about six feet in front of the machine and the quickly widening gap in the earth Myrikal assumed was being caused by said machine.

  Her eyes locked on the figure standing behind them, right on the edge of the chasm.

  Cascus. In his true form.

  That explained the wide-mouthed stares of those who faced toward him. Myrikal dropped her hand, the dim sunlight no longer a problem to her rage-filled mind.

  “Cascus!” Her voice boomed like thunder.

  Without so much as a flinch, Cascus said
, back still facing everyone, “Ge-et. Rrrid. Of. Herrr.” The words came out slightly garbled and with a deeper, older voice—his true voice, unhindered or unchanged by the human façade he’d worn.

  Miguel and Vicky whipped around to stare at their inhuman boss. The fear in their eyes and draining of blood from their faces as they turned back to face Myrikal proved that had been their first glimpse of the real Cascus. His transformation must have taken place only moments before.

  “Choose now, Miguel and Vicky,” Ya yelled. “Do you stand with this alien species, or with us?”

  With one last look back at the writhing, multi-limbed, semi-transparent Cascus, they both dropped their weapons to their sides and pushed off like speed runners to join the others. Two clawed limbs stretched to grab each of them about the waist. Amidst screams of terror and agony, Cascus lifted them ten-feet into the air and threw their now severed bodies into the chasm. Dark, whirling smoke tendrils reached from the crevasse. Cascus let out a joyful whoop. “I’ve reached them.”

  The same voices from the crevasse Myrikal had found a few days prior, now filled the air.

  Cascus...

  …needs to be wider.

  Almost there…

  …freedom is nigh.

  Myrikal stretched her hand out in front of her, little bolts of electricity turned to huge bolts that coursed up her arms, quickly surrounding her entire body. She had to stop Cascus. Had to stop the others from reaching the surface. She sensed her loyal DefCo teammates spreading out behind her. “Give it all you’ve got!” she yelled back at them.

  Guns blared and bullets whizzed past her as she blasted the inhuman figure with electricity. She smiled grimly as guttural noises escaped its mouth. The smile dropped from her face as she realized the noises were an alien form of laughter instead of cries of injury and pain.

  She poured more power into her blasts. Its gelatin-like body just absorbed them, seemingly without any damage.

  Two limbs whipped out, their claws grabbing two of the defenders behind Myrikal. Cascus slammed them to the ground with bone-crushing force then swept the lifeless bodies into the chasm. More of the dank-smelling smoke rose from within, along with the ancient voices, cheering Cascus on.

  With a primal roar full of anger and grief, Myrikal rushed toward Cascus. Part of her recognized a wild snarl and a slew of shouts from behind. Her focus never waivered. She lowered her shoulder and crashed into Cascus full-force, the momentum carrying both of them over the edge of the chasm.

  Sharp teeth clamped into the tight-fitting uniform and the flesh beneath. Myrikal’s body jerked back as Cascus plummeted into the crevasse. Myrikal tumbled to the ground and scrambled backward to distance herself from the edge. And the rancid smoke. And the voices.

  Baby collapsed onto her chest as she rolled to her back. Blood oozed from his side and he breathed in deep, rasping breaths.

  “Myrikal.” Ya hurried to her side and knelt down, speaking in a low tone. “The slit in the earth… we must… we must close it. Or cover it. Or fill it in.” He pulled his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose. The smoke and accompanying odor had intensified.

  And… the voices.

  I see light…

  …freedom is nigh.

  We can compress enough…

  Cascus, why art thou…

  Myrikal drew in a deep breath and gently pushed the injured Baby off of her. “Get Baby back away from here.” She looked up at the approaching crowd of people. At her friends. “And them, too. Get everyone back.”

  Weariness as she’d never known it seeped into the marrow of her bones. She climbed to her feet, walked a short distance away from the chasm, then turned to face it.

  Thoughts of Branch filled her head.

  The young Branch she’d saved from bullies.

  The angry Branch, leaving her because of her father’s sins.

  The happiness they’d both felt at finding each other again.

  Myrikal’s face contorted in anger as her thoughts turned to Cascus. How easily a young, traumatized Branch had been conned by him. By it.

  Branch’s last act of bravery and loyalty as he lost his life to save hers.

  His skin dissolving and pooling around him as he died.

  Burning anger replaced the weariness inside her, filling her with a strength beyond her own. Every cloud in the sky above Manhattan converged above her as Myrikal raised her hands into the air. Every particle of electricity stored in the clouds, in the atmosphere above the clouds, in the huge machine built by Cascus, and in any and all items containing batteries or other man-made power within a hundred miles of Myrikal—coalesced above her.

  The massive electric storm crackled and thundered as it hung in the sky, waiting to be released by the power that called it.

  Not a sound escaped from Myrikal as she circled her hands in the air. The power soaring above her followed her movements, whipped into a frenzied electrically charged vortex. She threw her hands down, directing the storm to strike the chasm and the machine that created it.

  She held the firestorm there, staring into the maelstrom with unblinking eyes. The machine exploded, its splintered pieces falling into the chasm. Unaware that she was even doing it, Myrikal directed the power to push the sides of the crevasse together, instead of just filling it up with the surrounding dirt. The earth trembled as the fault lines beneath it moved back to their former positions.

  One last blazing white bolt of lightning, as big around as a car, struck the now closed crack at Myrikal’s silent command. The ground sizzled and the pyrotechnics ended, the dark clouds slowly moving away.

  Myrikal stood, frozen, as Ya and some of the others stepped up behind her.

  “Qiji,” Ya whispered. He stepped closer and crouched down where the chasm had been only moments before. “The ground is hard as stone. Smooth as glass.” He looked up at Myrikal, tears in his eyes. “You truly are qiji. Miracle.”

  She smiled, then swayed before collapsing to the ground.

  Alyssa helped Myrikal to the nearest house where she showered, getting the Cascus-goo off of herself.

  Alyssa stood just outside the bathroom, new clothes in hand, as Myri exited with a towel wrapped around her.

  “Thank you.” Bone-deep weariness pressed down on her as she reached for the clothes. She turned back and looked at the filthy discarded unitard, then back at Alyssa. “Why didn’t my suit dissolve in that stuff?” She grimaced as she recalled Branch’s clothes disintegrating before her eyes.

  Alyssa shrugged and drew her eyebrows together. “Maybe because it isn’t made of organic material? I don’t know.”

  Myrikal closed her eyes, trying to gather strength from an empty well. She reached to steady herself against the wall. “It doesn’t matter. Gather the DefCo team, please,” Myrikal said, eyes still closed.

  “Myri, you should rest,” Alyssa pleaded.

  Myrikal shook her head. “No time for that. Please gather the others so I only have to explain once.”

  “No.”

  Myri opened her eyes and looked at her friend.

  Alyssa softened her voice and reached out to squeeze Myri’s arm. “You need to get some rest. Whatever it is, it can wait. It has to wait.”

  Myrikal lowered her chin to her chest and sighed. Her friend was right.

  “Get dressed. I’ll go turn down the bed for you.” Alyssa squeezed her arm again, a sad smile flitting across her lips.

  Myrikal curled into a ball on the stranger’s bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. Losing Branch before had hurt. But she’d known he was still alive then. She’d known there was still a chance of reconciliation. This was a whole new kind of pain. She wept into the pillow. She’d heard people say the death of a loved one left you feeling like there was a hole in your chest. She wouldn’t describe it that way. Her chest wasn’t empty. It was bursting. Like her broken heart was pushing to escape the confines of her body. Like it had grown—swollen and inflamed—to ten times its normal size, collapsing her lungs and
pressing against her other vital organs like a vise.

  Her thoughts turned to Baby. Alyssa assured her that Sandeep bandaged his wound and took him home to care for him, Chansong and her mom never leaving his side. He has to be okay. I can’t lose two friends in one day.

  Fatigue won out, and Myri slipped into the deep sleep of the physically, emotionally, and mentally wrecked.

  “Everyone’s here, Myri.” Alyssa peeked around the door into the room where Myrikal paced back and forth.

  With a heavy sigh, Myrikal joined the shell-shocked group of DefCo members and friends crowded into the small house. The crowd parted as Sandeep and Ya entered, carrying Baby between them. Myri rushed to meet them and fell to her knees beside the panther as they gently laid him on the floor. “Baby?” She held her breath, watching for the movement of his chest.

  Baby let out a weak growl and pulled himself the couple of inches it took to lay his head on her leg.

  “Oh, Baby. I’m so glad you’re alive.” Tears sprang to her eyes as she ran her hand over the fur of his head. She looked up at Sandeep. “Thank you so much for taking care of him.”

  Sandeep nodded, lips pursed and brow furrowed.

  Myri knew she should stand to address the crowd, but she wanted to stay next to Baby. She swallowed the huge lump in her throat. She didn’t want to have this conversation. She released the breath she’d been holding. “What did you do with Branch… Morgan’s body?”

  Ya lowered himself to the floor and sat cross-legged near Myrikal. “We wrapped him in a quilt and laid him in a casket that Bryan and I built. The casket is in Morgan’s house. We didn’t want to do anything further until we consulted with you.”

  Myrikal leaned forward and patted Ya’s hand. “Thank you.” Another deep breath. “I’d like to hold a simple service and bury him. Today.”