Part X – The World is Not the Worst of Them III
A loud, devastating pistol report echoed through the east-wing patient ward corridor. A muzzle flash flared through the jagged opening of the breached patient-room door.
The .357 magnum round punched into the mass with a wet detonation, rupturing it at the point of impact and sending black ooze spattering across the corridor walls and floor. The impact carved a shallow cavity that hissed and smoked as heat bled off, surface tension drawing inward. Seconds passed. The opening tightened. The surface sealed.
Fragments lay scattered where the spray had landed. Thin, snail-like smears clung to tile and metal. The residue shifted. Separate flecks slid along their own trails, gathering into thicker patches that crept back toward the main body, the floor slick where it had passed.
Nyla leaned into the breach, breathing hard.
Somsri intervened at once, stepping into Nyla's left with a precise movement. Her servos engaged with their familiar uneven cadence. As she came to a stop, her right leg slipped briefly out of its latch and snapped back into place with a sharp metallic clack.
"Miss Nyla, I strongly advise you to return to your medical bed so I may recalibrate your stabilizer and stop the bleeding," Somsri said.
Her mechanical arm reached out, fingers adjusting mid-motion as Nyla shifted again, the grasp failing to settle.
"Not now, Somsri," Nyla snapped, eyes never leaving the mass. "Can't you see the situation? I don't plan on being eaten today. Try scanning that thing instead of my tiny far-from-death injury."
Somsri remained unfazed. "Miss Nyla, I can already see it with normal vision. A red spot is spreading near the lower tip, inside the stabilizer tissue frame around your left arm."
Nyla did not look. She knew this pain. Every time she fired, the recoil crushed the wound into numbness for a brief mercy before the pain returned, and she endured it. Something about the boy's brightness, the hope he stirred in those around him, held her steady. She knew he was their only hope. Fear tightened with the throbbing pain, and deep inside her, a dark pressure continued to build.
"Arika," Nyla said, her voice tight, "is there anything I should be aware of about this thing. How did it grow this big."
Arika glanced away from the damaged control panel set into the doorframe. Its housing was cracked where the door had taken the brunt of the creature's assault earlier.
"I have no idea how it got this far," she said. "All I know is—"
"What were you trying to do here, girl." Nyla's attention followed the glance. She stepped in, caught Arika by the shoulder, and pulled her back from the panel before the sentence could finish.
Nyla pressed her .357 magnum into Arika's hands, then immediately drew out her smaller nine-millimeter from the holster under her left arm.
"You know how to use one, right. There are five rounds left, so—"
Before Nyla could finish, Arika's hand closed around the grip. The weight surprised her, heavier than it looked, the frame wider than anything she was used to carrying. It did not slow her.
She brought the revolver up and closed her right eye as she tilted her head slightly, sighting through the frame, both hands steady. Her trigger finger stayed clear, indexed along the guard. Then she rolled the weapon back in a practiced motion, thumb snapping the release. The cylinder swung out. She checked the chambers quickly. One, two, three, four, five. Satisfied, she pressed the cylinder back into place. The latch clicked home.
Arika turned. Nyla had watched the entire sequence without comment. A faint smirk crossed her face. Arika's expression never changed, almost defiant, almost like bragging.
Then, Nyla shifted her focus. The safety clicked off.
She fired once into the exposed circuitry. Sparks burst. The lock failed, and the door slid open on dead power.
Nyla moved through the threshold at once, weapon up, driving straight into the creature's path with momentum alone.
"Somsri," Arika said, turning sharply, "hold your position here. Stay out of its line of sight."
Nyla and Arika burst out of the room side by side. The mass reacted at once. Even without visible eyes, it sensed them. Tendrils clung to the ceiling, choking out the red flare lights, while others spread across the floor, pressing close, drawing in every trace of heat they could reach, feeding on warmth it could not produce on its own.
The creature's surface convulsed. Tendrils that had just flung Kaodin aside tore free and snapped back, whipping toward the source of the shots. Its bulk shifted, attention ripping away from the boy and locking onto the patient room.
"Arika, I'll draw it," Nyla said. "Get to Kaodin."
"Agreed. I'll be quick."
They split at once. Nyla cut right. Arika pivoted left, sprinting toward Kaodin where he lay unconscious on the floor. Despite Arika's swift maneuverability, she could not escape the tendrils' expanding reach and fired the revolver to clear a path forward.
Nyla noticed the creature's renewed urgency. It had fully recovered from the earlier fight with Kaodin and had already begun moving toward him again.
She frowned once, then reached for the damaged round hanging from her necklace. The lucky bullet. She cracked it open, spilled the powder across the creature's vast central mass, and fired.
The thing surged. Its bulk tore free from the corridor, tendrils lashing out in a violent spread, all of them snapping toward Nyla.
There was nowhere left to move. The mass closed off every line of escape. Her nine-millimeter barked back at it, shot after shot, the rounds striking with sound but doing nothing more than marking its surface. The firepower was too weak to penetrate. Each bullet rebounded untouched.
"Kaodin, you need to wake up now, Kaodin."
Arika saw Nyla in grave danger, but she was still only halfway to Kaodin. Instinct pulled her back toward the room, toward the one who was conscious and exposed to imminent danger, but she was already too late.
The creature's black mass spread wider, smothering floor, walls, and ceiling. Light vanished beneath it as tendrils pressed in, closing space until the room felt smaller with every breath—almost like a clouded-darkened sky ruthlessly devoured the light and hope along with everything around it.
Fear no longer mattered. The boy still lay unconscious across the corridor.
That was Nyla's only concern.
With no other choice, Nyla drove herself backward into the room as the creature lunged, its convulsing hunger crashing after her. She ignored the dead weight of her injured left arm and threw herself to the floor, barely clearing the path of its relentless tendrils as they struck. Momentum carried her out of reach, tendrils tearing through the space she had just escaped by a thin hair.
A loud shot from Arika followed, but the thing remained unscathed, its surface tightening as if adapting, hardened by its earlier fight with Kaodin.
It followed Nyla relentlessly, hurling several tendrils into the room and forcing its massive body through the already broken entrance. The impact came too fast. Nyla was thrown back toward the window side of the room, metal and debris bursting outward as she hit. The window's integrity held, cracked along the seams.
Nyla shook her head hard, forcing the dizziness back. She stayed conscious, slid herself to the side of Kaodin's bed frame next to the window, while one hand still clutching her lower torso as she moved, pain reeled from the concussive blow.
Her eyes cut to Somsri. She could not speak. Pain contorted her face, but she trusted the android to understand and stay clear.
Several loud bursts followed. The shots drew the creature's attention to its rear. They did not damage it, but it paused, intent unreadable, lifting its massive body higher as its gelatinous bulk folded inward, tension building like breath drawn where no lungs should exist.
Then, a swift blink—it released. Tendrils surged out in a wide sweep, latching across the room almost simultaneously in a single ferocious motion.
Within a small blink, light vanished, plunging the space into complete darkness.
The strike caught Arika, Nyla, and Somsri together in the same violent instant.
Where was he. A familiar female voice called, close enough to feel present, too distant to carry warmth. The unease stayed. Where was he.
Gradually, a darker red light flashed, partially recognizable, though the space around it never fully resolved.
Kaodin did not panic; he tried to focus on his own body instead—attention drawing tight as he began forming an image of himself inside his mind.
When his outline became solid, his focus turned outward reflexively.
His vision widened, thus, the same uneasiness stayed—shapes hovered faintly, as though an unknown hand floated just enough to block his sight, part of his view remained buried in darkness—Red flashing light could still be seen, reflecting off the surroundings and lagging behind when he tried to shift his perception.
A warped familiarity began to stir—the suffocating sensation that surfaced when he tried to recall the atmosphere from a certain past memory, one that had led him to see something he should not have.
Then the sound came.
A heavy collision occurred, so close to where he lay.
The impact tore through the fog at once. His eyes snapped open.
Vibration traveled through his bones. His lungs dragged in a sharp, ragged breath that burned all the way down. Then the pain arrived—late, electric—racing across his body as the black ooze ate into his skin, hurting like he had been poured into scalding water and forgotten there.
Then he finally realized, the origin of the female sound he had heard.
"Wawa…"
And within him, even without answering, he knew it had always been with him all along.
Blue light snapped outward. His right hand closed against his chest over the already dried hoodie jacket. Again, a clear female cry rang out across the corridor.
Kaodin's eyes narrowed, steady. He dashed toward the source of the heavy thud, pulling white cloth from his hoodie pocket as he moved. Without looking, he wrapped the pair of white strips around both forearms and cinched them tight, fingers working by habit before locking the small aluminum fasteners at his wrists.
Every fleck of black residue reacted at once—blistering, shrinking, hissing away in smoking strands as if it had acknowledged of someone who it wanted to latch on.
Kaodin dashed through the room's threshold; the same rotting stench hit his stomach—he lurched slightly and raised his right hand to grasp his nose.
But what appeared before him caused him to tremble, but not fear from the fight or the unknown—fear of losing those he was meant to protect.
The room had completely changed. Even the air felt cooler, as if something had deliberately forced the body to burn energy faster just to stay warm.
The boundaries of the ward warped into something alien, like an insect nesting hive from an unfamiliar world—tendrils latched across the space almost symmetrically, web-like, anchoring into beds, equipment, and rails, everything sealed beneath black, glue-like flesh that spread across the ceiling, walls, the bathroom door, and even the long horizontal window panel—pulsating, as if this thing had learnt how to breathe.
He scanned the room to look for the familiar faces who he had just parted not too long ago; however, the ceiling lights were compromised, and the only light source that still allowed Kaodin to see came from a red, shimmering flash reflecting in from the corridor—preventing him from cleanly scan the surrounding.
Kaodin swallowed hard. His jaw locked as moisture gathered at the corners of his eyes.
"Where are my friends," he said. "Give them back."
Qi energy began emitting from his small frame. His breathing became rushing. His wrapped knuckle guard pulled tight as his wrists clenched.
It remained pulsating, seemingly ignorant of Kaodin
"I said, give them back," louder, multiple red lines started shimmering on both of his sclera.
The air across the room suddenly heated. Red Qi sparked through the blue, creating uneven thermal distortion as its containment failed.
Suddenly, it rippled out of its regular pulse, finally.
Several tendrils shifted, turning toward the familiar heat it had tasted before.
Kaodin, no longer holding on, moved reflexively, eyes latched straight at its main body.
Boots struck the nearest bedframe, and quickly he scrambled onto a tendril, momentum carrying him across the room, and left leg flew across the room hitting the side of the tendrils that latched on the room surrounding, then vaulted again to wall jumped avoiding another tendril lashed and in response, a momentum from the wall jumped, twisting in midair.
From above, he drove both heels down.
The impact detonated through massive part of the goo's main body at the center. Blue Qi compressed violently with red-searing-Qi creating a vast concussive damage on impact forcing main body of the massive black goo to fold inward before turning grey, cohesion tearing apart, then dry creaking across a large part of its body emerged, before dispersing like burnt thin paper.
And with it, the floor where Kaodin landed a circular fracture formed beneath him. A faint sound of metal cladding was heard.
The black goo began reacting, pulling back one of its massively large one-arm-width-sized tendrils then appeared the bathroom-side of the wall.
The first body released from being completely exhausted of internal heat—before hitting the floor hard, rolling free as black residue peeled away in thick strands, leaving just brownish-gooey liquid.
Kaodin quickly rushed in to pulled her up. "Commander, I'm sorry, please wake up, commander."
The person didn't move at first, then coughed after being shaken a few times by Kaodin, shallow and weak, fingers twitching against the tile. But as soon as she could aligned herself, Arika, her usual reddish-pink cheek completely paled, immediately grabbed onto Kaodin's hand
"Nyla…. quickly…she's badly injured…" her voice came out dried, almost like her throat had been completely dehydrated for days.
"I will." Kaodin, eyes grew wider, his red sclera still presented, he quickly used the back of his wrapped wrist to catch his eyes before it became obvious of his teary eyes.
The mass recoiled, tendrils shuddering as it tried to re-anchor, reaching again for the heat source. It faltered when Kaodin caught it with a heavy heel driven straight down. The concussive force folded the flesh inward, drying it into a smaller circular scar burned into the floor.
Kaodin scanned for the remaining two. Low light and movement interfered, thick tendrils sliding across the floor while others clung high along the ceiling, crowding his view.
Across the room, the black goo grew bloated and phased down in a slow, constant motion, hissing at regular intervals, but quickened, as if to compensate for the damage Kaodin had caused.
Kaodin reassured himself, he shall not see another person to die before him, not again.
Kaodin stopped thinking and leaped across the floor, avoiding patches of black adhesive where there was still space, before he used the momentum to kick the wall and heaved upward.
He grabbed what remained of the curtain rail above the window frame and swung, momentum carrying his small frame high—initially to send the downward strike at the black goo below, but then he caught sight of a large cluster of tendrils bound together into a single, wrapped mass, too suspiciously similar size with the one contained Arika.
Immediately, Kaodin left hand hung over the window frame beginning to swing, once, twice, then throttled front-facing, suddenly several tendrils caught on his leg midair—immediately pulled him down with relentless force.
Kaodin reflexively tightened his Qi into his feet.
Heat bled through the wraps before contact. Smoke traced downward along his calves as gravity finished the work.
The impact landed in a single brutal instant.
The floor ruptured outward in a wide circular break, tile and sublayer collapsing under compressed force. Black mass burned back from the strike point, cohesion failing where pressure drove heat inward.
The window frame shuddered. Metal screamed. The outer pane burst free behind the retreating flesh, orange-ray punching through the breach as the creature recoiled from the damage.
Across the room, just before Kaodin drove a devastating downward strike into the mass, Arika, partly recovered, noticed the large cluster latched near Somsri's station.
Immediately, she snapped the revolver open and slipped a single round free. The magnum bullet arced from her palm toward the swollen cluster above the station, a dull brass flicker cutting through the dark.
At the same time, her right wrist twisted.
The rapier segmented with a tight mechanical snap, joints unlocking as the blade unfurled into a flexible line. The motion stayed compact. No flourish. No windup.
The whip cracked once.
Metal links bit into the wrapped mass just as the loose round struck. The bullet ruptured on contact, powder igniting inside the compressed flesh instead of detonating outward. The blast stayed contained, pressure punching inward.
The cluster spasmed.
Adhesive strands tore free in wet sheets. The load slackened. Tendrils recoiled toward the main body, dragging scorched residue with them as Somsri's weight dropped closer to the floor, stabilizers screaming as traction returned by inches.
Arika retracted the whip back into its rapier mode in one clean pull, then moved quickly to check Somsri's power-down state—her chest plate visibly breached, thorium energy levels uncertain.
After being hauled downward by the goo to deliver a devastating impact, forcing the creature to begin reinforcing its main body, Kaodin did not spare another second. He drove off the bed frame and struck the wall, using it to redirect his momentum across the room. His foot caught the corner near the breached window, sending him upward hard enough to twist his body through a full arc toward the clustered tendrils gathered high along the ceiling.
The impact tore the wrapped mass loose. It collapsed to the floor in heavy sheets as Kaodin came down after it, knees folding deep to absorb the force before he surged forward again, hands already reaching as the black matter recoiled and streamed back toward its main body.
When the residue finally pulled away, only Nyla remained, motionless beneath the dim spill of corridor light.
He didn't waste a second, moving in at once.
His eyes widened as he panted, a sudden fear that the strike had harmed her.
He quickly bowed toward Nyla and pulled her upward, his mouth twisted unintentionally, almost like he was suppressing something.
"Nyla, I'm sorry for being late, please wake up." His voice came out low, almost like he was trying to beg for forgiveness as he whispered.
No response.
Nyla didn't cry out. Her chest struck the wall and stayed there, breath stuttering, skin already cold to the touch.
Before he could sink further, Arika—her complexion recovering, blood visible along her cheek—spoke.
"Let me Kaodin, but could I asked you to please deal with the creature? it's clear that you were the only one who can."
The creature stood between him and the window now, its bulk recoiled, surface stretched thinner where it had pulled mass away. Steam bled off its skin where the light touched it. The black sheen dulled, motion slowing, heat leaking without return.
That's when it started, once more.
Kaodin still sagged under the weight of it, head lowering as he gave a small nod.
"I will…, please save her, commander"
The room temperature dropped suddenly. He missed the warning a fraction too late.
And his defensive stance came a milli-second too late, causing his cheeks slightly cut for around an inch,
The creature didn't wait, it convulsed frantically.
"Commander Arika," Kaodin called without turning, breath sharp but steady. "Please get Nyla and Somsri out of the room. I'll open the path."
"Wait, Somsri.", Kaodin catch off the wrong beat, staggered, unknown of what should he do, and got himself hit by the another several tendrils' shots.
"Let me handle her, you focus on that thing first Kaodin."
He closed the distance with a pendulum step, then snapped into a fierce pendulum kick, the strike detonating with an extreme Qi outburst. The blow tore a deep cavity through the black mass and the wall behind it, forcing the creature to recoil and loosen its hold.
Alright. Just you and me now.
The creature peeled itself free as if in answer. Its bulk reformed, the frontal body weaving into a thick, jelly-like mass before it struck without warning. Multiple tendrils launched at once, lashing past Kaodin and chasing the three retreating figures.
His weight shifted before the tendrils finished crossing the space. His right foot struck the wall beside the bathroom door, using it as leverage. He spun midair, turning the kick through a full arc and catching the tendrils halfway, shattering them before they could reach the group. He landed and followed through, driving forward with a straight right punch that carried him across the room, his foot coming down just short of the bed frame near Nyla's position.
"That was close," he muttered, without waiting the black goo quickly clashed onto Kaodin with its large incline frontal jelly like part.
The speaker from Arika's arm pad activated, crackled once. Static chewed through the channel before a voice forced its way in, compressed and uneven.
"Commander Arika, emergency message" Yuri's, immediate, swift message came though.
Arika's responsively answered, "Proceed".
Arika, eyes widened, she didn't realized her arm interface could still functioned, and even better, now the ethernet system already came through smootly, which would only hinted one thing she thought.
No one else except Lina, who had initially warned her through encrypted message.
Yuri's voice cut in low-groaned, serious tone.
"Kid, listen."
The words clipped, warped by interference. Several buzzing cut sound interrupted.
"The creature"
The warning cut off as the black mass surged headlong toward Kaodin, its bulk collapsing space through sheer volume. It moved like a landslide given intent, faster than something that size should have been.
Kaodin caught the motion instantly, and he could have pivoted away, but he chose not to.
He held his ground, stance compact, guard high. In the fraction of a second before impact, his focus dropped inward, breath collapsing into his center. Dantian and just a small flickered on his compressed intent.
His Qi energy pulled outward at an exponential rate.
Heat detonated around him in a violent bloom, forcing a grunt from his chest as his lungs seized for a fraction too long. Heat flooded low and wide across the floor and walls, like a sudden furnace ignition. Lights burst. Consoles screamed and died. Plastic warped. Metal sang under strain.
And responsively, he stepped inward correspondent with the incoming creature with a short right uppercut snapped up into the mass, followed immediately by a left hook that tore sideways through softened density. His shoulder rolled through the motion as his knee drove forward, crushing into the same opening before it could close. Elbow. Cross. Another knee. Each strike landed inside the last, brutal and unadorned, burning paths rather than carving clean ones.
The creature convulsed, surging closer even as it burned, greedy for the very force that was killing it.
So that's it, Kaodin realized. You don't know the difference between hunger and death. its surface blistering where contact landed. Tendrils recoiled, collapsing inward as heat chewed through cohesion faster than it could compensate.
Kaodin continued on his relentless assault.
A low kick cracked into the base of the mass. The impact shuddered through its bulk and drove it back a half step. Kaodin followed immediately with a rising knee, then flowed into Jarake-Fat-Hang, the Crocodile Tail Strike. His heel curled through the yielding surface and wrenched its structure downward, forcing the towering body to sink closer to his height, posture collapsing under redirected weight.
Kaodin stepped in with it.
His right foot slid inward as his center dropped, the timing locked to the recoil he had just created. From that lowered line, he drove upward with a double uppercut. The motion began as Yor-Kao-Pra-Sumen, the old single-hand lift, then fractured and reassembled through instinct—the improvised technique.
Twin Pistons.
Kaodin drove both fists forward—and the space between them collapsed.
Qi compressed into a dense, invisible mass, slamming ahead of his strike. The air buckled inward with a deep, crushing report, heat and pressure folding toward a single point. The floor groaned. The windows bowed as if pulled.
Then his fists arrived.
Its surface greyed on contact, flesh draining of sheen and motion alike. The mass stiffened, drying into scrap that creaked as heat chewed through it from the inside out.
The hardened shell fractured. Pieces sheared free. The body didn't melt or recoil—it simply broke apart, collapsing under its own rigidity.
Hunger stirred.
Prey stands.
Prey breathes.
Heat rising.
We flailed.
We passed.
We wanted to live too.
Where the creature had been, there was only scorched residue, drifting smoke, and the heavy stink of something burned beyond recovery.