Stormfront: Nibiru Rising: Book 2

by Chad Kunego

  You poor child… No wonder you are so broken…

  She shot sideways, narrowly dodging a huge block of ice hurtling toward her. Glancing back, she watched the block of ice disintegrate around the memory funnel she’d just exited. Scanning the area, her attention was drawn to another funnel swirling around behind Juan. Even though it looked the same as the others, something about it pulled her forward. Picking up speed, she shot toward Juan. At the last second, she changed trajectory, barely sliding by him as he reflexively threw his hands up in defense.

  Dodging past, she accelerated more, attempting to reach the memory before he recovered. Approaching the memory funnel, she felt the hairs on her arms stand up on end.

  “NOOOOOO!”

  Heat washed over her, the hairs on her body standing at attention a split-second before she dived into the glittering vortex in before her. This time, her world was plunged into darkness.

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  Cold… so cold… The darkness seemed to engulf and smother him. Darkness and cold. The pain in his chest seemed a distant memory now, replaced by the bitter cold creeping through him. He couldn’t remember how long the pain in his chest had lingered, nor could he really remember how he’d become lost in the blackness he now found himself in.

  “Am I dead?”

  The thought seemed to echo around him in the darkness. For some reason though, he was no longer concerned with the answer. He floated weightlessly, adrift in a nothingness that seemingly extended outward forever. The frigidness was making it harder and harder to think, let alone remember how he’d arrived in his current situation.

  Gradually, a tiny pinprick of light appeared off in the infinite distance. Not knowing what else to do, he tried reaching out toward the dot, but realized he couldn’t feel his body. Struggling to make sense of everything, he almost didn’t notice the speck of brilliance slowly growing larger. Or was it just getting closer? It was becoming so hard to concentrate. He couldn’t decide if the light breaking up the featureless environment was a good or bad thing.

  A sound caught his attention. Something that helped him focus his thoughts more. He strained to hear it again, to understand what it was and whether it was important or not. There… he heard it again, muffled but coming from the same direction as the light. Suddenly, the light surrounded him, and with it, pain. Along with the renewed agony, images started flashing before him. Struggling to make sense of them, with sudden realization, he understood what the images where. They were images he’d witnessed just before he died.

  “Is this… Hell?”

  The intensity of the pain flared up, centering on his chest, but after an indeterminate length of time, the pain seemed to ebb away.

  “Juan..”

  That sound again. As if someone was trying to speak with him. Was that his name? Juan? Another image flashed through his thoughts. A man’s head exploding.

  “Miguel!”

  He knew that man. It was, his friend?

  His mind splintered away before coming back together again. With more confidence, he understood he knew the man, that he’d been there when he died. Was he the one calling to him?

  “Juan! Can you hear me? You need to come back. I can help you, but you need to want to live.”

  The voice seemed both familiar and yet not familiar. Almost like something he’d heard before but couldn’t quite remember from where.

  “I’m sorry this is so painful for you, but you need to focus on my voice.”

  Slowly, the light began to take on a form, an outline of something he couldn’t quite make out. Straining, he struggled to bring the image before him into focus.

  “Concentrate on my voice. Let me help you turn your tragedy into something better. I know this isn’t fair to ask of you, that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we can make the world a safer place.”

  Something about the words seemed familiar. He’d heard something similar to them before.

  “Wrong… place?”

  Another image flashed through his mind. A shadowy demon… of evil incarnate… the beast that had spat fire and thunder at him.

  Pain rippled through his mind as he struggled to remember. The outline before him continued to become more defined, but it seemed to overlap with what felt like a recent memory. A man’s face. No, a bearded man’s face. The one who’d spat fire at him. He remembered now. That voice was the voice of the man who’d killed Miguel, the man who’d shot him.

  Panic swelled up within him. The evil man was coming to hurt him again! Struggling, he tried to get away from the man before him, his appearance finally resolving into the devil that had ending two lives. Miguel’s… and his. A scream bubbled up from inside him, threatening to burst from his chest, but he still wasn’t able to draw in any breath. He felt fingers clawing at his throat. Distantly, he realized they were his own fingers. Suddenly, with a loud gasp, he sucked in a deep breath. Looking at the bearded figure approaching him, he felt his eyes go wide.

  “Hello Juan, my name is Iškur. I’m here to help you.”

  The image of the man before him and the image of the man who shot him swirled around in his mind.

  “NOOOOO!”

  The scream that had been building erupted from the core of his being, shattered the world around him into a million pieces. He lunged at the man. Only a single thought echoed in his mind. A thought that burst from his mouth at the same time.

  “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”

  Chapter 30

  Zarina tumbled out of the memory, disoriented again. Getting her bearings, she searched for Juan. Now that she understood why he was so angry and confused, she no longer felt scared of Juan. Instead, she felt pity for him. Nobody should ever experience what he’d gone through. Spotting him floating with his back to her, compassion rippled through her very being. Squaring her shoulders, she felt even more determination to heal his fractured psyche.

  “Juan… you poor thing. No one should ever have had to go through what you did. Let me help you become whole again.”

  The man, no, teenager in front of her whipped around at the sound of her voice. The fury and terror radiating from him felt almost like a physical presence, something she hadn’t noticed before.

  “GET OUT OF MY MIND!”

  Electricity arced toward her, but she easily deflected it. She could feel more power welling up in her with her renewed focus to help him, rather than eliminate him. Drifting toward him, she continued to deflect his assaults.

  “Please, stop fighting me,” she said softly, reaching a hand out toward him.

  “GET AWAY FROM ME!”

  She could feel his panic rising even higher the closer she got, causing him to redouble his efforts to stop her. Before he could react, she lunged forward, placing the palm of her right hand over the spot where his third eye would be. Closing her eyes, she mentally imagined her fingers elongating to encompass his head. Opening them again, she saw Juan clawing at her wrist, her fingers stretching around his head and locking her palm to his forehead.

  Stretching her left arm above her head, she mentally envisioned tendrils shooting out, attempting to latch on to each of the memories. Acting almost like living entities, they began spinning around them more and more violently, struggling to avoid her mental anchors. Reeling them back in, she concentrated harder before making another attempt. This time, fiery white filaments shot out, embedding themselves in each of the memory, forcing them to stop their erratic movements. Another scream rippled across the landscape, a scream that contained equal parts rage and terror.

  Squeezing her eyes shut in concentration, she mentally willing the filaments to start retracting toward them in an attempt to draw them back into his head. Slowly, the memories started approaching, but the closer they got, the more they fought against her.

  Without warning, Juan suddenly kicked her, making her lose focus. The memories lurched away before she managed to stop them. A punch to the side of her face almost made her lose focus again, b
ut she gritted her teeth, drawing the memories toward them again. The repeated breaks in concentration started taking its toll on her, making it harder to reel them in.

  She felt Juan’s terror fueling the resistance she was trying to overcome, allowing the memories to resist her efforts more and making it even harder to draw them closer. Adding in the continued onslaught Juan was inflicting, she slowly felt her resolve weakening.

  I do not know if I am strong enough to do this!

  Unable to split her attention between drawing the memories in and creating another shield, she drew her knees up to her chest, attempting to deflect some of the blows Juan was raining down upon her.

  She barely managed to halve the distance when Juan changed tactics again. Something slammed into the back of her, knocking both of them several feet through the air. The impact blasted the wind from her lungs, allowing the memories to pull away again, almost to their original distance. Left with no choice, she erected a shield around them before the next impact, allowing her to begin drawing the memories back in for a third time. Reaching her limit, she barely managed to move them this time.

  So tired. Have nothing left, but if I stop, we will all die. I cannot do this alone. I need help!

  Unexpectedly, she felt her need take almost physical form before shooting down a tether she’d nearly forgotten about. She watched her need rocket away before Juan’s anguish scream forced her to focus on him again. She felt her cry for help fade into the distance as she struggled to keep going. Only one thought echoed through her mind, the same one being carried away to the only person that might be able to save them all.

  Rick! Help me!

  §§§§§§§§§§§§

  Rick watched Zarina’s aura flare into a brilliant white flame before his vision started to dim. The strain of igniting her had seriously drained him of energy. He felt his body start collapsing from the pain and fatigue. Then something strange happened. He felt a bubble form around him. Then an instant later, Zarina vanished. Falling to one knee, he cried out in pain. An instant later, cutting through his pain, he sensed a distant mental cry for help.

  Zarina!

  Expanding his awareness, he struggled to locate her through the fog of exhaustion. Trying to move his head, he felt the charred skin on his neck and back crack and flake off. Lightheaded and dizzy, he forced himself to ignore everything else, concentrating on the task at hand. Shifting his vision, he spotted the tether connecting him to Zarina trailing upward. Following it with his eyes, he spotted her struggling with Juan high in the air above them.

  She’s not close enough for me to reach her aura. What can I do? I can barely stay upright, let alone fly. How am I supposed to help?

  The next cry for help was noticeably weaker. The realization they would die if she failed reverberated through his mind. Closing his eyes, he ignored the world around him before drawing in as much energy as he could reach. But it wasn’t enough. Opening his eyes, he shot a desperate look toward his other teammate.

  “Kaitlyn! Hit me with everything you’ve got!”

  Without questioning him, flames erupted around her, engulfing her form. Heat suddenly washed over him, slowly replenishing his reserves. In his weakened condition, some of the flames licked across his tortured frame, causing his already abused body to start smoldering. Zarina cried out again, almost too weak to be heard mentally.

  Wait! That’s it!

  Closing his eyes again, he focused on the tenuous thread connecting him to Zarina. Mentally grasping it, he gathered up everything he had to give, foregoing even trying to heal himself in an effort to give Zarina all he had. Shifting his aura back to purple, he visualized the mental tether becoming a tube, hollow on the inside instead of being solid. With the image firmly set in his mind, he visualized all the energy he had surging up the tube toward Zarina, hoping desperately it would reach her in time and be enough to help her overcome Juan. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be around to care. He felt, rather than saw, the connection expand like a fire-hose, with energy rippling up it toward Zarina. When it reached her, the air caught fire around them, almost looking like the birth of a new star.

  Good luck…

  His thoughts drifted off, the fatigue and agony of his physical injuries overtaking him. He didn’t even feel himself collapse face first onto the ground. Instead, his world quickly faded to black.

  §§§§§§§§§§§§

  Zarina felt herself fading fast. For the past few minutes, she could barely maintain a stalemate. After her several cries for help went unanswered, she knew she was slowly losing ground. The memory funnels had started rotating around them again, their passage slowed only by the tenuous connection she barely maintained as her energy faded. The look of terror on Juan’s face had slowly shifted to one of triumph as she weakened.

  He knows he is winning. Is only matter of time now…

  Sensing death approaching, she began making peace with herself. Distantly, she felt something change. An odd sensation began building within the tether she shared with Rick. At first, it felt, for lack of a better term, clogged. Now it felt like wind blowing through it, humming with potential. With nothing to lose, she shifted her attention, mentally glanced back toward where the strand trailed off to in the distance.

  A strange shimmering light was rapidly approaching, a blinding glow that was different from the one cast by Juan earlier when he’d approached. Coming closer, it almost looked like a shooting star heading straight toward them, with sparks trailing behind it like a sparkler flying through the air.

  Bracing herself, it accelerated before slamming into her, stunning her for a split-second before she regained focus. The overwhelming power she had felt before paled in comparison to what she felt now. Before, she’d compared it to the noonday sun, but now, she felt like a star going supernova.

  Looking back at Juan, a look of shock spread across his face. The newfound energy began pouring from her eyes like tears. Luminescent pearls of light slowly trailed down her face before dripping off, falling away before being swept back up into her aura.

  “This ends now!”

  Raging currents of energy rippled from her hands, rocketing toward the swirling memory and forcefully yanking them back toward where they hovered in the sky. Distantly, she felt Juan thrashing against her in unbridled terror. Looking back toward him in compassion, she looked sadly into his eyes.

  “I am so sorry for this, I hope you will forgive me when this is over.”

  Rearing her leg back, she swung it forward with everything she had. It echoed like a thunderclap when her foot connected with his groin, causing his eyes to bug out while he struggled for breath. The sudden shock gave her the opening she desperately needed.

  With a primal scream, she yanked all the memories into her outstretched hand, gathering them up into one huge twister before thrusting it forward, slamming it into his head. Her hand seemingly passed through his skull effortlessly, dragging the funnel along with it. Making contact, the glittering funnel began spinning faster and faster, reminding her of water going down a drain as the memories were drawn back into his mind.

  Releasing her hold on him, she floated backward slightly before stretching both arms out as wide as they’d go. A sheet of energy appeared before her before she gently wrapped it around Juan, trying to trap him in with his fractured memories. Struggling, she couldn’t quite figure out how to make the glowing field completely enclose Juan with the memory funnel flowing into him. A look of desperation spread across his face before he thrust his hands into the gap, struggling to hold it open.

  A hand appeared on her shoulder, the suddenness of it almost causing her to lose focus, but a sense of warmth and well-being flowed from the contact. Looking back, she saw Iškur floating beside her, a smile slowly spreading across his face as he nodded at her.

  “Let me be of assistance to you one final time.”

  Reaching out, he touched her third eye again. More images and concepts flowed into her mind. Nodding in understanding, she
mentally shifted what she was doing. The field rapidly swelled around both Juan and memories, slamming closed and locking Juan inside something similar to the cell she’d originally found Iškur in, but this time, it was made out of glowing white light.

  “Please… no… I don’t want to remember…”

  Juan weakly beat on the walls of the cell, tears streaming down his face. With one final mental push, Zarina forced the remaining section of the funnel into Juan’s head. She only had time to notice his body starting to glow brightly before an explosion of energy erupt from him. Instinctively, she tried to wrap both her and Iškur in a protective bubble. The last thing she remembered was the pressure wave slamming into them, then nothing.

  Chapter 31

  Kaitlyn struggled to make sense of what was happening, but everything was moving too fast to process. First Rick getting hit by a blue flash of light, a scream, a flash of white light from Zarina before she vanished, then Rick yelling for her to hit him with everything she had.

  Digging deeper than every before, flames poured out of her, roaring around her body before spraying forth like napalm and covering Rick in an intense wash of heat. As the flames licked around him, she realized that they weren’t being snuffed out like usual. A split-second later, he collapsed, falling forward onto his face. Little wisps of smoke trailed behind him as he fell before he struck the ground with a thump. Alarmed, after he landed, he didn’t move.

  Before she could rush to his side, another brilliant flash of white light overhead dazzled her, freezing her in her tracks and leaving spots dancing before her eyes. Blinking rapidly, she shielded her eyes before looking skyward.

  Only moments before, the sky overhead had resembled being inside the eye of a hurricane, with wall clouds towering thousands of feet up into the atmosphere. Now the clouds were rapidly evaporating. Sunlight and clear blue skies peered down at them, quickly erasing all evidence of the rain and ice that had covered the landscape only moments prior.