by Greg Dragon
Alysia felt a deep wave of sadness overtake her, but when she looked around at the rubble, it seemed as if only a few buildings had fallen from the bomb’s impact. She didn’t see any fires, and the air, though thick with sulfur, was still breathable. They had been so worried in the past that there would be some sort of radiation, but she felt fine. The subway must have saved them from the worst of it.
“Was it always this chilly?” Jaime asked, and Alysia realized that the temperature had dropped significantly since the time when they’d run into the subway.
“It’s cold and the temperature is dropping,” she said. “Maybe that is what the bomb did. The demons are relatively naked and too stupid to cover up, so a harsh winter could freeze them out, along with the other things that don’t belong here. What do you think, Dad? Tracy?”
“I think it brings up another dilemma,” Tracy said. “We need to find warm clothes and shelter, fast.”
“Wait a second,” James said. Everyone looked back at him. “These buildings got rocked, old buildings that have been standing for years. We should be covered in dust, our lungs should be filled with the stuff, and the place should be absolute bananas.”
“That’s true,” Tracy said. “Then it wasn’t a bomb. Where the hell are we, and what was the noise and the destruction about, then?”
They walked around, taking note of the refuse and everything around them. Alysia scanned the skies to make sure they hadn’t accidentally triggered something to throw them into the demon world. Her father was right; it didn’t make any sense. The sky seemed overcast, but the sun was fighting to show its glory; she recognized a billboard that they had run past to make it to the tunnel.
“Do you guys see that?” she asked them, pointing at the billboard as her heart raced in anticipation.
“This is some seriously freaky sh—” Jaime started, but Alysia cut him off.
“See the rust, the fading of the paint, and the condition of that thing? It was new when we went down there. I’m not sure why a bomb could age it that quickly,” she said.
Tracy pulled out her phone and flipped through the screens. The interface had to do a quick update, but when it came back online, it showed them that thirty years had passed since they first went inside the subway. She showed it to everyone and they all looked confused; not even Isobel had witnessed the passage of time in that way before.
“So, we missed the last thirty years,” Tracy said, and there were tears falling from her eyes. “Time travel exists now? As if this mess can get any deeper. Thirty years is a lifetime! Look at this mess! New York is a wasteland now; I don’t even see demons running around. Is everyone dead? Are we the last survivors? Why are there buildings on the ground?” She was completely hysterical.
“Subway tunnels … it’s always subway tunnels,” Alysia said after a long silence. “I was captured and trained in a place that looked like an old subway tunnel and Dad, you said that when you woke up after Chaos attacked us, that you were in an old subway tunnel too. Why does everything seem to stem from the subway?”
“So, here’s the thing,” Jaime said suddenly, his face a mask of amusement. “No more subway tunnels, not until we figure out what the hell is going on.”
Chapter Two
A loud screech split the heavens, and Alysia drew her sword in unison with the other three girls. James grabbed his rifle from their supply pack, and Tracy looked around for some cover.
“James, back here,” she said, and pulled him and Jaime back to where a mountain of rubble stood next to what used to be a gas station. She and the two men set up positions to take on whatever it was that was coming, and Alysia and the girls formed a half circle and waited.
The screech got louder as something that appeared to be a flying man broke through the clouds and flew towards them. Koko jumped to the side as it threw a crude lance at her, and then rolled to the side as James and Jaime started firing at it.
Jasmine ran one way while Isobel the other, but Alysia stood in place, watching the demon intently as it banked, soared up high into the sky, and then came at her with intent to crash. The Twilight Sword remained in its sheath but her fingers danced in anticipation on its hilt. The creature landed with its fist hitting the ground where Alysia stood, but she jumped backwards, whipping the blade free and catching its arm as she landed safely away with the sword raised above her head.
Blood gushed from the open wound where the sword cut, but the demon did not seem to notice as it threw rocks at Jaime and Tracy, forcing them to run and duck for further cover. James was on the movie, taking precision shots at it, but the bullets were mere nuisances to the black beast, and it timed a rock perfectly to hit him in the chest and knock him out behind a park bench.
It was a giant, all black, smooth, and having the wings and visage of a bat. It wore black scale mail, with bracelets etched with jewels, and it was obvious that it was an intelligent, high-ranking demon, but they had never seen anything like it before.
Jasmine and Isobel finished their circling run to convene on the creature, and they both leapt and swung at its face with their swords. But the creature was too quick for their maneuver, and he flattened himself to the ground as their blades swung past his head, and then shot forward quickly, grabbing Alysia with talon feet as he did. In a matter of seconds, they were airborne. Alysia watched as the ground fell away from them as he climbed and she could see that the city, her beloved city, was now an icy ruin.
She kicked her legs and wiggled against his hold, but the creature had her locked in his grip. She reached for her sword, but he rolled mid-air, caught her arms and then tossed her away, flying off so that she could plummet to her death. Alysia felt the panic as she started to fall, but pulled the Twilight Sword free and flattened herself out, confident that Chaos would not allow her to die so easily.
The creature banked, and flew at Alysia with tremendous speed; he wanted to make sure she would die before hitting the ground. She timed him and brought the tip of the sword to meet him, and then when it struck, she ripped it to one side, and then swung it to the other. The creature screamed out in pain and then grabbed her by the waist. His grip was so sudden and powerful that she could feel her ribs breaking from his clutch. He rammed her into the side of a tall building, and then spun her and threw her through the window of another.
The pain was so intense, it was blinding, and as Alysia lay against a desk in what used to be an office, bleeding from every orifice in her body, she thought about what it would mean for her to fail. Across the world, numerous warriors like herself were empowered to take on the lost demons. Chaos had told her as much when she was with him. He would convert as many tough, human girls as he could find to remove the lost, but she had something they didn’t have. She had the fabled Twilight Sword. She used the sheath to climb to her feet and then hobbled over to the broken glass where she could see the demon flying around. It was throwing more debris at her friends, who fought back like heroes, dodging its projectiles and shooting up at it.
She thought about the period that had passed, of people in the bunker she had gotten to know. Were they still living there after all of these years, or was humanity all but lost, bunkers cleaned out to join the demon army? The wounds from the attack were slowly healing as she stood there in deep thought, and the sword pulsed, speeding it up as the energy returned to her limbs.
It was at that moment when disaster struck. Jasmine cut the creature when it flew too low, trying to snatch up Isobel. She lost her sword when she did, as it lodged inside the shoulder of his armor. So she decided to jump aboard on another flyby and the creature took her up into the sky in the same way that it did Alysia.
When it came back down she was missing, and Alysia panicked. She wished that part of her demon gift had given her wings. Where did it take Jasmine? She wondered when it came back hurling rocks, but after a few minutes she saw the broken body of the girl on top of one of the buildings. Her sword was next to her—she had managed to pull it free—and Alysi
a wiped her tears as she looked out at her helplessly, wondering how she could reach her to help her heal from her fall.
She took off down the stairs of the building to reach the floor. This time when I cut, it will die, she said to herself, and willed her limbs to heal faster as she made her way to the bottom.
~ * ~ * ~
James Knight woke with a start, his mouth full of dust. He coughed and blew his nose hard, then rolled over to see what was going on. There was no sign of Alysia, and Tracy and Jaime were ducking behind a broken down bus. In the distance, he could see two of Alysia’s friends with their swords out, waiting, bouncing in their fighting stance the way they all did.
The creature landed in front of them, and they took turns slashing at him as they fought back. James looked for his pulse rifle and couldn’t find it, so he picked up a piece of pipe that lay near him and checked its length.
“You won’t flex like a Bo will, but you will have to do,” he said as he ran towards the creature. It looked at him and screamed, then backhanded Koko into the side of a broken down car. James caught up to him and twirled the metal Bo masterfully over his head. He spun and jabbed it into the creature’s chest, then as it swung a long arm to counter, he jumped and brought it down on his head. This enraged the creature, who chose to ignore Isobel and come at James. It dashed an elbow into the big man, who brought the Bo up vertically to block, but was still knocked airborne from the impact.
“Jimmy, DROP!” Tracy screamed as she recognized what would be coming next for him. The creature’s wings began to flap and it rushed at him, trying to snatch him up and take him into the air.
James flatted out on the ground and rolled to the side as the talons barely missed, but little Isobel had hit an angle that it didn’t anticipate. She ran with her sword low to the ground and then swung it up, taking a piece of the wing off as she crashed into its side. She pushed off and then somersaulted away, helping Koko to her feet as the creature screamed out of frustration.
“Looks like you’re grounded,” Alysia said as she stepped from out of the building with her clothes in tatters. The Twilight Sword was free and she walked confidently across the rubble to the scene of the fight. “FACE ME!” she screamed, and her eyes glowed red as the full essence of the power took her over and fed on her anger.
James Knight motioned for Isobel and Koko and they joined him to retreat to where Jaime and Tracy stood.
“Now, look, CeeCee’s got this,” he said to them as they came together behind the building. “Let her fight him and kick his ass. We need to find your friend and make sure that she’s okay.”
“How do you know CeeCee will be okay?” Isobel asked, her face a mask of determination and anger.
“I just know that Alysia is a fighter, and we can’t leave your friend’s body in the middle of nowhere,” James said.
“Jasmine is alive and in the big blue building,” Koko said. “I can sense her even now, healing but unable to move. I saw her fall there when he took her, and we can retrieve her while the rest of you keep it distracted.”
They all nodded and Tracy handed James his pulse rifle.
“When you got struck earlier I feared the worst, but I kept it for you, just in case,” she said. He brought her in, kissed her hard on the lips, and then scrambled to the top of a mountain made from rubble. Jaime followed and then Tracy, and they began to fire on the creature once again.
Alysia tore her cloak off and stretched her arms out, one hand holding the sword and the other with her palm open. She walked slowly at the creature as it bounced around, trying in vain to fly and growing more and more frustrated with each failed attempt.
When she got closer, she gripped the hilt with both hands and then circled the creature, looking for an opening in which to get a clean cut in. It seemed frightened of her as she did this, unwilling to swing a claw or rush at her in fear of the Twilight Sword hitting home and taking its life. It kept on circling, the cruel red eyes dimming as it saw that Alysia was more than human.
It looked this way and that, trying to find a path for escape but then a shot from James’s rifle struck its face and distracted it. Alysia dashed in and swung the sword vertically into an arc, cutting off its left arm and another piece of the wing. She ran past him and spun around with the sword in front of her. The fallen arm became even blacker, and then crumbled up like broken charcoal when it hit the ground.
This was enough for the creature when it realized what the sword could do. It had expected their weapons to be mundane, not of the very world it was escaping. With speed that defied its size and weight, it sprinted back into the city. Alysia decided against chasing it into the great unknown, but she had seen what reflected within its eyes. There was a fear that increased once it saw its own arm disintegrate. She wiped the blade and sheathed it smoothly, then brushed the hair from out of her face and looked around.
“Alysia!” Jasmine yelled at her from several floors up, inside of a building. She waved when the warrior looked up at her. Alysia forced a smile and waved back, and then surveyed the city for any signs of more incoming beasts. There was nothing from what she could see, but she kept her wits about her as she regrouped with her father and company.
“Well fought, CeeCee. Your swordplay gave me goose bumps,” James said as he brought her in and kissed the top of her head. “Is your girl okay? I saw her waving, but the way he rag dolled her on the top of that roof, I can’t really tell.”
“Jasmine should be okay once we get her somewhere to rest,” Alysia said, shifting the hug to Tracy and then to James. “We’re in a strange new world now. It’s ours, but it isn’t ours; thirty years is a really long time. We will need shelter, water, food, and heat. From what I’m seeing all around us, I may as well be asking for a million dollars.” She scanned the area again and then shook her head at their luck.
“Let’s split up and do some scouting of the buildings. We can take care of the shelter part at least, and heat can be done,” she said. “We’ll worry about the food and water once we have it, but we need a place first.”
They all agreed and separated to scope out the buildings that sat within a block of where they had fought. Alysia waited for the girls to make it down. She looked over Jasmine and noticed that she had multiple fractures. She would need more time than she’d originally anticipated.
“Almost got you, huh, kid?” she said softly to the tall, brown-skinned girl. She picked out some fragments of wood from her hair, and then sat on the ground to place her head in her lap.
“I fought to—I fought to stay with you, CeeCee,” she said, and tears formed in both girls’ eyes as she held her. “You have become like a big sister to us, and I don’t want you to fight alone.”
“Shh, shh, Jazz,” she said, choosing to abbreviate her name in that tender moment. “I want you to rest, so that you can be healthy. We want our bubbly Jasmine back, good and whole.”
The girl smiled wide, the way she always did when it was genuine, and then closed her eyes to sleep. Isobel sat next to Alysia and hugged her close, and Koko hovered, looking angrier than they had ever seen her before.
“I want to hunt it down and kill it. Let me hunt it down and kill it, CeeCee. It cannot get away with this, not with what it did to you and Jasmine. Flying around to use the unfair odds to beat us. The lost have no honor, so I should be free to find it and kill it where it sleeps,” she said.
“Come here, Koko, come here, sister. Come and sit with us so that Jazz can feel your warmth. I know that you are upset, but we shouldn’t be rash, especially when many people are relying on us.” Koko hesitated and then inhaled and twirled into a fall. It was a masterful move as she ended up in a seated position, close enough to Alysia’s side to make an embrace.
“You girls did well. I know that none of you have fought the lost. You probably didn’t expect to be up against them until Chaos makes the call, but you chose to come with me, to be my arms, to help me save my world. I just want you to know that I won’t take it f
or granted.”
They hugged each other close while Jasmine slept and before long they began to feel warm; the shared demon blood was doing something from the way they connected.
“How did you know, CeeCee?” Isobel asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
“I—I really didn’t know we could do this. I know that as humans we can use one another to stay warm, but this… this is just wonderful. It’s as if we are recharging one another, just by being so close,” she said. They all smiled, feeling the connection, the energy, and the warmth. After a time it moved from a physical comfort to a mental one, and Alysia felt the stress, the worry, and the nagging memories of her mother fall to the side to be replaced with blessed nothing. It was a small island of peace in a gigantic world of terror, and the girls held onto it, losing track of all space and time.
When Alysia opened her eyes it was getting dark, and Tracy was standing with her rifle at her side, staring at them.
“Tracy?” Alysia asked, groggy and confused as to where she was.
“I didn’t want to wake you girls,” Tracy replied in a hushed tone. “You all looked so peaceful, plus, I didn’t know whether it was some sort of ritual you all had to finish, or if you were doing something to resurrect that poor girl or something.”
“She isn’t dead, it’s okay,” Alysia said as she shifted her weight slightly to try to not wake the other girls. “We all can heal from the blood of the Dra’yr. But it’s a slow process, nothing like that demon we fought.”
“Look CeeCee, I—” she started, and Alysia wondered what she was about to say. “About me and James, I—I know that you don’t approve, and…” She sighed and shook her head. “I…I—”
