Remy’s sword hand trembles as she scans the walls of the silent auditorium. Webs of ebony crystal render the space totally unrecognisable – more akin to a cavern from the game than an expo hall. Most disturbing of all, fused within the rugged geodes are the contorted bodies of the audience, all their faces frozen in a bloodcurdling scream. She senses a presence watching them and runs her eyes across the room until she clocks something scurrying across the ceiling. Her gaze tightens on her necrotic hand as it races towards the stage, which flickers in the glow of a strobing light dangling from the damaged rig overhead.
Clack, clack, clack. Hard footsteps resound through the crystal tomb. A figure emerges from the shadow and pauses at the edge of the stage. Its eyes gleam with the flashing light – not eyes, a pair of round lenses.
“Look at you here, I thought you fancied yourself a hero, but black does suit you, friend.” Eric pulls a wry grin.
Vincent looks betrayed. “I thought you were dead. I mourned you, but when Lauren confirmed you were alive, I knew somehow you must be responsible for all the others appearing in the game. What happened to you after you disappeared?”
“I was so pathetic then,” Eric replies, “pleading, begging for deliverance from that hell hole, but my prayers didn’t fall on deaf ears. In the blink of an eye I found myself bleeding all over the floor of my office. A few days passed and I started to hear whispers. That shard was still in me, showing me glimpses of things I never thought possible. A violent, irrepressible miracle.”
“What are you saying?” Vincent asks.
“It’s more than a gem, it’s alive. Incomplete and yearning to be whole. I could feel the other shards calling to me from beyond the abyss, faint whispers that grew louder with every moment someone played Ultimate Adventure VII. The game was like a conduit, strengthening our bond and our power. Maybe it was never just a game at all.”
“Then why drag them into it? Why not go back and get the shards yourself?”
“Far too dangerous. I couldn’t risk anything happening to me again. Without all of the shards I was still vulnerable, still just flesh and bone. Their sacrifices were an unfortunate but necessary evil.”
“Coward. Disgusting coward,” Lauren growls under her breath, then erupts, “you thought you could just throw our lives away for some sick fantasy?”
Eric’s eyes dart towards her. His sharp gaze still gives her the creeps. “I thought you of all people would be eager to escape your miserable existence,” he says.
Lauren gasps, at first stunned by the cruelty his voice carries, but her expression quickly turns fierce. “It was you, wasn’t it? You started the fire in Vincent’s apartment.”
His trademark wry smile creeps across his face. “I didn’t think you’d last a day in the game, but it saw something in you that I apparently overlooked, something beyond weakness. It knew the love for your brother and your determination to find Vincent could be exploited, and that all your choices would lead you here, back to me.”
Remy looks sceptical, and whispers to Bengeo, “All of this is because of him?”
Bengeo shrugs. “I expected something much more… well, just more.”
Eric laughs. “You expected what? A demonic knight carrying a flaming sword?”
As Eric sweeps his hair behind his ear Vincent notices strange blemishes on his hand. His flesh is turning necrotic – the crystal’s mark.
“That shard is rotting you to the core,” he warns.
Eric shakes his head. “I thought Grimoirh’s aim was to harness the crystal’s power and bend it to his will, but here you are dead set on destroying it. A futile quest, what’s done cannot be undone. You’ve all played your part in the dawn of this new age.”
Vincent pleads, “No, it’s not too late, we can still stop this, together.”
“Why, Vincent? Why develop fantasy when we can shape reality? We can mould this world into something we’ve always dreamt of. I left you in that dungeon with nothing but the clothes on your back and here you are. The Dread Knight, who transcended dimensions. Now that’s a world of possibility!” Eric cheers.
“People have suffered and died just so you can live out some twisted delusion?” Lauren’s eyes burn as she reels from the loss of Ed, Avarice, Esmerelda and, for all she knows, Valentine. “This is just a game to you?”
“What do you think this place is?” Eric replies. “It’s like a mass. People flock to this convention like zealots. They dress up, pretend to be someone else and buy into fiction and fantasy to escape their mediocrity.”
“Is that really how you see your fans?” Jessica snaps. “People dream of having what you have, loyal fans that cherish your work, how dare you belittle them!”
“People are fickle!” Eric sneers. “Their ever-escalating sense of entitlement disgusts me. Thanks to the internet every nobody who can fumble a controller believes their opinion means something. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a successful single-player game in today’s market? It’s absurd, there’s no creativity anymore, we’re just pandering to a horde of toxic, entitled brats while publishers racketeer your game, fleecing players with micro-transactions and loot crates. For years I poured everything I had into each game I worked on, but every new release was mired by past successes. Nobody wants anything new, they want what they know, but they don’t understand that you can never recapture that nostalgia.”
“Boo hoo,” Remy says, glaring. “Take it from someone who’s spent the last week stuck in your game. Reality isn’t that bad.”
“I disagree,” Eric replies. “I won’t live another second in this putrid world.”
Bengeo cracks his knuckles. “Well, that’s one thing we can agree on.”
Eric regards the bandit coldly, then looks to Vincent. “Stand with me. It’ll be just like old times. No pressure, no crunch, just pure uninhibited creation. The crystal chose me, I can feel it, control it!”
Eric turns his left hand. Pale green light shimmers in Vincent’s eyes as he seemingly mulls the offer over in his mind.
“We’ve always been a team. I only abandoned you because I was weak and afraid. I was certain you had died in that dungeon, but when you took possession of the shards I sensed your unrepentant will. I realised then that we both had to endure all of this suffering. It was our baptism. We have to let our old selves die to become what we need to be.”
Vincent recalls saying something of the sort to Remy and shudders. “What we need to be?” he asks.
Eric grins madly. “The Dread Knight and the Game Master. This is it, Vincent, the greatest game ever made. We’ll reshape this world into the ultimate role-playing experience. Only the strongest players will survive.”
“He always did have a complex,” Lauren mutters as Vincent hesitantly takes a step towards Eric. “Don’t!” she pleads. “Please don’t.”
He looks downcast and climbs onto the stage taking position at Eric’s side.
“So you’re just a villain after all?” Remy raises her sword defiantly.
Eric extends his arm and from behind his back, Remy’s malevolent hand scuttles on its fingers over his shoulders, down his arm and rests its palm against his. His eyes look starved of power as he interlaces his fingers with Remy’s, and a blinding light swells between them.
In a flash Vincent’s God Cleaver ignites with a swift tune. He brings it up to cleave Eric’s arm from his body, but a wall of crystal springs up from the stage, and the God Cleaver strikes against it. Eric looks coldly at his life-long friend.
“You always were too sentimental, Vincent.”
More geodes sprout between them and engulf Eric in a gleaming suit of crystal armour. He leaps from the stage in a swift motion, summoning a long emerald blade seemingly from nowhere. Its green hilt materialises in his left hand with a shimmer of pale light before he lands between Remy and the others.
She wastes no time and swings for his head. He blocks her strike effortlessly, then Bengeo lunges fists swinging, but Eric barely breaks a sweat as the crystal fights for him – or through him. He deals a flurry of counterattacks that floor Remy and send Bengeo skidding across the auditorium. His emerald blade flies at Lauren’s throat, and she gasps as he stops just shy of nicking her artery.
He looks her up and down callously. “You’re as useless to them as you were to us.”
Vincent lets out a deafening war cry and leaps off the stage, bringing his sword down on Eric with almighty force. Their weapons clash, again and again. Vincent swings with savage ferocity, but Eric deflects blow after blow with calculated precision until Jessica clips him with the shotgun. The blast shatters his crystal pauldron, stealing his breath as Bengeo comes back swinging, along with Remy too, twirling and slashing with rage. Eric’s composure breaks. He can barely hold his own against all three of them at once. Crack! Bengeo’s fist slams into his nose. His glasses clatter across the hall. He swings blindly in retribution, but Remy’s sword clashes against his and Vincent’s slams his back, knocking him clean off his feet. Jessica aims again, but Eric weaves the crystal’s magic, and with a push of his hand and a clench of his fist, manipulates the webbing lining the hall and sweeps her feet from under her. She shrieks as cold, hard crystal encases her foot and crawls up her calf.
Lauren rushes to break her loose and beats the webbing with the stock of the shotgun, while the self-proclaimed ‘Game Master’ lifts his blade, spits blood and grins with spite.
“Five against one is hardly fair.”
A rising croak commands their attention, and the party look on in horror as the contorted remains of the audience reanimate and break free of their crystal cocoon.
“Don’t come any closer!” Lauren’s hands quake as she clutches the gun.
The corpses clamber manically towards her, hurling themselves over the chairs – BLAM! The recoil knocks her back into Jessica who props her up while she picks them off as they come.
“Stop this, Eric!” Vincent cries. His chest tightens and his breath grows heavy as the sword tip still lodged in his ribs slowly drains him of life. Were it not for the magical properties of the Dreadmail he’d be a popsicle already.
The undead pile on him like a rugby scrum and wrestle him to his knees. Eric charges, and a lofty blow hurls Vincent across the hall. His plate mail crashes through the geodes. He tumbles and skids to a halt then lifts himself on all fours, but more undead pin him down and hold him in their punishing grasp as Eric approaches. Red clouds his vision, and Vincent roars as a creature gouges his right eye with its jagged fingertip. Struggle as he might he can’t quite reach his sword.
His screams draw Remy’s attention, and she brings her sword overhead, winds her arm back then hurls Mr Slashy at Eric. The magic blade twirls through the air with the grace of God and skewers him through the forearm as he brings his sword to Vincent’s head.
With a roar Vincent wrestles his arm free, clasps his God Cleaver and swings broadly. The blade sears through the undead like butter. His Dreadmail imbues him with the strength of ten men, and he rises to his feet, driving his weapon into Eric. The wicked flame torches his crystal cuirass. He writhes on the edge of Vincent’s blade as Remy rushes in and grips the hilt of Mr Slashy, impaled through his arm. Throwing all her weight forward she twists the sword, tearing flesh and crystal. Eric’s limb hits the floor with a mighty thud. He lets out a hoarse cry and convulses as his unravelling mind comprehends what has happened, then with a haunting scream he prises himself off Vincent’s sword and collapses in a gory heap.
Vincent falls to one knee, clutching his bloodied eye. He can feel the chill in his bones as with every second lassitude poisons his body. He staggers towards Eric, who crawls away on his belly and cradles his severed arm.
His sunken eyes tremble as he foolishly tries to reattach it. “My flesh feels wrong. My mind is coming loose… Dozens of worlds, I can see them all…” His voice reverberates with a deep undertone as though something else is speaking through him. “I thought I was a man, now I’m not sure…”
His detached arm ripples like liquid and sprouts fleshy vines that latch onto his torn elbow. The fingers grow spindly and long like spiders’ legs, and the arm races towards Remy dragging Eric behind it.
She looks disturbed as his flesh expands like baking bread, his eyes roll back into his head, showing only the whites, and his jaw unhinges as spires of black crystal protrude from his throat.
Would this have happened to me? Remy shudders, and her eyes bulge as the crystal contorts him into something unspeakable. “What’s happening?!” she shrieks.
Vincent shivers, lost for words. He edges away from Eric’s flesh bleeding across the auditorium like gelatine. It engulfs the stage in a matter of seconds, assimilating all it touches, melding, shifting, like wet sand. The undead in the auditorium grow frenzied and hurl themselves into the gibbering mass, which swallows each one into its being. Bone, crystal, metal, flesh, all recycled into something new, something blasphemous. Dozens of eyes flutter open and dart wildly about while jaws of all sizes breathe through the surface and wail like newborn children.
“The hell is it doing?” Bengeo cries.
“Feeding.” Vincent’s reply chills him to the bone.
The morbid living structure expands, buckling the roof. The ceiling cracks and caves inwards and the lighting rigs come crashing down.
“Get me out of here!” Jessica desperately tries to wrestle her leg free of the crystal grasping it, while gelatinous tendrils ooze from the foul form and snake towards her. Vincent severs them with a broad slash, but more spring out in place like living vines, lashing and flailing.
With every furious swing Remy chips away at the crystal, hacking relentlessly until it cracks like an eggshell and Lauren and Bengeo pull Jessica free.
A damning voice crackles around them. “Instruments of my reunion, weathered and weary, cast your struggle away and take solace in my form.”
More ghastly living branches sprout from the central mass, whooshing through the air, and latch onto Remy’s armguard with a thud. The flesh softens, quickly turning to spongy globules, which expand, engulfing her shield. She frantically unfastens the straps across her chest while Bengeo clings to her waist. They trip backwards as the last buckle comes loose, and she watches the abomination swallow her trusty prosthetic into its hideous mass. All she can think is, In a few minutes, that’ll be me.
The brand on her thigh glows hot as the voice booms again, “Rudimentary creatures, you cannot shirk your fate. You are marked.”
A rising horn resounds from beyond the walls. The burly armoured Tank Racer from the main hall bursts through the blockade, throwing hunks of crystal across the auditorium.
“Get in!” Ed, sopping wet and almost blue, leans out of the driver’s side window and looks aghast at the titanic horror. “What the f—?!”
“Drive!” Remy cries, shocked that Ed’s still kicking, as she and the others pile into the hulking all-terrain vehicle.
Ed shifts the jeep into reverse and peels out of the auditorium. The abominable blob lets out a thunderous roar through its hundred salivating mouths. The tendrils snake through the convention centre after the ‘players’, who blow through display stands and stalls.
“Buckle up!” Ed yells as he steers the car towards the foyer. Thank God it’s an automatic.
“You’re alive?!” Remy leans over from the back seat and punches him in the arm. “You stupid, selfish—” The others hold her back as she tries to kill him herself.
“Don’t obstruct the driver!” he barks while Jessica wrestles her raging sister back into her seat.
The tendrils constrict the vehicle and flip the car, so that it skids on the roof through the foyer, smashes through the metal shutters on the opposite side, and grinds to a halt.
“We can’t let it be,” Vincent growls as he forces open the door and staggers out.
Remy crawls out of the back seat after him and peers over the car as the tendrils plant themselves in the ground like malevolent roots while a shroud of dark cloud descends from the sky, enveloping the convention centre in a dark mist.
“Seriously, what is that?” Ed asks. “I don’t remember a giant blob monster in the original game!”
“We changed a few elements of the story,” Vincent sighs. “Now it’s whole again, it’ll consume the world and spread like cancer throughout the universe.”
“I could just about tolerate the midgey merchants, but this?! Why change what wasn’t broken?!” Remy snaps.
“It doesn’t matter, we just have to beat its final form,” Lauren says.
“Final what?” Jessica asks.
“All of these big bosses have a final form, something harder to beat than the last, it’s a trope,” she explains.
“I’m sorry, can we just circle back to you’re not dead?!” Remy looks at Ed, unsure whether to kiss him or kick his ass.
“I got a magic water-breathing ring, turns out it wasn’t a gyp,” he replies.
“You… what? Why didn’t you say so before you plunged into the river?”
“Well, I didn’t think it would actually work. Are you seriously mad at me right now?”
“Yes!” she scowls. “I thought you were… I can’t even say it.”
Though ecstatic that she cares for him, he suppresses his smile, reasoning she’d probably smack it off him if he did. “That water was freezing, I mean, I could still get pneumonia.” He tries to appease her. As usual, he only makes matters worse.
“Can you put a pin in your drama!” Jessica cries, looking apprehensively at the ground. “Does anyone feel that?” Her feet tingle through the soles of her boots.
The hall quakes. A low rumble rises from beneath and the tendrils rupture the convention centre floor, then retreat into the auditorium. Bengeo is the first to cautiously approach the gaping holes left in their wake and peers into the seemingly bottomless caverns. A choir of hissing, roaring, bellowing, shrieking rises, then a horde of undead beasts and giants, wyverns, ravenous wights, cackling harpies and living skeletons claw their way up from the underground.
The party scatter as the monsters tear the foyer apart, and they fight back where they can.
“Bengeo!” Remy screams as a colossal tendril comes crashing through the wall and sweeps through the hall. He jumps clear before it whips itself up and out of the building. “It’s getting bigger,” she groans.
“How do we kill it?” Bengeo asks.
“We don’t.” Vincent wipes the blood trickling from his eye and draws a small stone from a pouch on his belt.
“A rock?” Bengeo looks sceptical as he and Remy gather around Vincent.
“It’s not a rock,” Remy says, examining it with wide eyes. “Is that the ferry stone?”
Vincent nods. “Good for one trip to anywhere you’ve ever been.”
“You want to send that thing back?” Remy asks.
Vincent tightens his grip on the stone. “If we cast it back into the crater maybe we can destroy it.”
“Or it could corrupt the whole damn world!” Bengeo yells. “Last time it swallowed a whole city and reduced the north to a wasteland,” he squares up to Vincent, “who’s to say it won’t do worse this time?”
The tendril sweeps back, blowing through another wall and assimilating a tide of monsters before it retreats into the sky.
Vincent exchanges an uncertain look with Bengeo. “It has a physical form now, and that much spirit energy could destroy it. Imagine a droplet of blood in a limitless ocean, the water dilutes it until it fades entirely. Honestly, I can’t be sure what will happen, but that thing will not stop until everything in this world is dead or a part of it. None of us can kill it on our own.” He holds up the stone. “This is our only shot.”
“Are you telling me we could have used that ferry stone to warp back to reality this whole time?” Remy asks.
“No—” A wight charges and crashes into Vincent.
Mr Slashy springs to Remy’s defence and cleaves it in half. Two more come charging, weapons in hand, but Bengeo catches one and pulls it apart like a child tearing the wings from a fly. Vincent runs the other through and looks back at Remy.
“This might only work because that calamity has bridged the veil between reality and the game. You didn’t just open a rift into reality, it’s like both worlds are crashing together.”
She shrinks with guilt. “You mean—”
“It’s only a matter of time before our reality and the game world collide. The blizzard was just the start. Soon it’ll be landmarks, mountains, cities, all melding together at once. So if we don’t banish it now, we’re all dead anyway.”
Remy looks worriedly at Bengeo, who, after a deep breath, gives a reluctant nod.
*
Footsteps race through the foyer, crunching broken glass and debris. Lauren and Ed flee the onslaught of raving dead and leap behind the counter of a burger bar. The wights come sprinting after them, and Ed throws one over him then pushes it back into the kitchen while Lauren pulls down the shutters and locks them in. She trips backwards as dozens more bald, festering horrors pile up against it and shove their arms through the gaps in the metal, frantically clawing after her.
From behind a staircase, Jessica watches the monsters rush the barrier to the burger bar, and panics. She saw Ed and Lauren go in and knows they’re as good as dead unless someone comes to their rescue. She smacks the side of her head and breathes deeply to compose her racing thoughts.
Distraction. Need a distraction. Her eyes light up, and without a second thought she sprints from behind cover into the convention hall. A trio of harpies swoop down on her, cackling and shrieking, then lift her into the air kicking and screaming. Jessica slips out of her jacket and crashes to the floor with a wallop. The harpies set on her like a pack of drunken yobs, biting, scratching and pulling her hair. She crawls towards the karaoke stage she’d spotted earlier, enduring the savage beating through gritted teeth. The darkest of the harpies pulls her head back and looks at her with cruel eyes, cackling.
Memories of a seaside holiday come flooding back – rain lashing the window, scent of cheap pine air freshener, a dozen faces staring at her. She was small then, usually bright-eyed and full of energy, but not that time. Her throat dried up, she stuttered on the small stage, and the mocking laughter of other children was all she could hear. She took it hard, swore she’d never sing again. That night Remy – in an uncharacteristic act – had told her something she’d never forgotten: ‘Never give up and never let them see you cry.’
A berserk strength rises from her stomach and she forces herself up and takes hold of the cackling harpy, which shrieks and thrusts into the air to throw her off. She claws at its wings, tearing out feathers by the handful until they crash into the karaoke stage and tumble. She glances up and jolts as a hefty blade slams into the harpy and bursts aflame. The wicked creature dies with a shrill cry and the other two scurry away in fear of the Dread Knight, who draws his sword and winces at the pain shooting through his side.
Remy picks Jessica up. “You alright?” she asks.
Jessica wipes the blood from her split lip and nods. “I gotta get this thing working, Lauren and Ed are trapped!” She peers behind the velvet curtain and inspects the soundboard to check it still has power. Lights are a good sign.
“Where?!” Bengeo asks.
“We don’t have time, we need to get back to the auditorium before that thing gets any bigger,” Vincent says.
“You’re gonna kill it?” Jessica asks.
“Not exactly,” Remy replies, “but we think we can get rid of it. Maybe.”
“Then go, I’ve got this,” Jessica says.
“You sure?”
She nods. “Yeah. Maybe.”
The hall quakes again, with a thunderous roar from on high. Vincent looks worried as he rests his sword on his shoulder. “Come on.”
“Wait!” Jessica leaps off stage and launches herself at Remy, squeezing her tightly as years of animosity melt away.
Despite the new-found respect and admiration Remy holds for Jessica, she cradles her like a child. After all, no matter what, she’ll always be her little sister. “Be careful!” she says.
“You too,” Jessica smiles, and races back onto the stage. She picks up the microphone, then slides all the dials on the sound board to max.
*
Lauren and Ed do their best to hold up the shutters while the undead horde pile on the pressure until an enormous reptilian foot crashes down, smushing the wights and scattering their bones. A wicked wyvern casts its eye on them. Ed pulls Lauren behind the grill as the creature parts its slender jaws, conjuring a stream of fire that melts the shutters to molten goop.
A silky voice echoes through the convention centre and the tune it carries drives the creature into a frenzy. It whips around and stalks through fire after the source.
Ed looks amazed. “Is that singing?” he asks.
Lauren’s eyes snap wide with dread. “Jessica!” She bolts out of the kitchen, hops over the counter and sprints through the foyer.
“… Tear me up inside, her heart had buried a diamond, eyes are open wide, okay I’m looking to find you…”
Swells of power roll off Jessica’s tongue. Her voice is music, brought about by the heartfelt determination to protect the ones she loves. Her melody blares to every corner of the convention centre sending the game monsters into a fit of hysteria. They charge the stage desperate to silence her. Jessica opens her eyes and sees the wyvern barrelling through a horde of undead right at her.
“Oh shit!” She dives off the stage as the beast summons a stream of fire from its throat and burns the karaoke stand to ash.
Jessica’s distraction clears the way for Remy and the others, who creep over the crystal rubble and skirt along the back wall of the auditorium. They peek over the seats, peering through the sleet enveloping the room. The pale light from the hole in the roof illuminates the snow-covered stage, but there’s no sign of the living mass anywhere.
“It’s gone,” Remy whispers.
“Not gone.” Vincent points above, and cloaked in the blizzard, amidst flashes of lightning, a colossal, baleful eye blinks open. Enormous fleshy tendrils emerge from the dark clouds and crash into the sides of the building like thunder.
Remy scrunches her face with unprecedented dread. “How do we get close to that?”
“Did you ever play Shadow of the Colossus?” Vincent asks.
Remy nods, but her eyes protest as his mad plan dawns on her. “Climb it? Are you crazy?”
Vincent plants the ferry stone in Bengeo’s hand. “We’ll cover you,” he says.
“Bah, you’re half dead, and she’s got one arm, you’ll only slow me down.”
“We go together.” Remy gives him a stern eyeballing, and he knows by now there’s no use in putting up a fight.
“Fine, but you ain’t getting far on yer own.” He kneels and Remy climbs onto his back, wraps her arm around his shoulders and cinches his waist with her legs.
“Get ready.” Vincent forces himself up, and his sword erupts in hellfire. The blaze garners the eye’s attention, and it casts its unholy gaze upon him as he walks into the open.
“What is your purpose here, Dread Knight? You had only to retreat if you sought to prolong what life you have left.” The calamity’s voice booms like the wrath of a vengeful god, but Vincent lifts his sword high in defiance. “So it is oblivion you seek? Very well, I will grant thy wish.” The voice cackles, and the calamity brings a gargantuan tendril down on him.
Vincent draws long breaths to gather strength as the tendril barrels towards him, crashing into the auditorium floor like the trunk of a falling oak tree. The abomination slithers its appendage aside and snaps its eye wide, searching for Vincent’s remains, but the creature sees no sign of him, until he leaps through the sleet and drives his sword through its tendril, pinning it to the floor.
“Go!” he calls to Bengeo, who sprints from cover, flings his arms wide and leaps.
He grabs hold of its lumpy flesh with both hands and scales the creature with Remy on his back. Vincent clings tightly to his sword lodged in the calamity’s flesh and hurtles into the air as the creature raises its limb into the heavens.
The sky is an assault on all senses as a devastating storm cloaks the ungodly orb. Quaking thunder and howling wind is all Remy can hear, and she gasps as the frigid air fills her lungs and struggles to keep her eyes open against the bitter sleet and snow. The biting wind cuts through her like a thousand knives. She shakes on Bengeo’s back while he climbs the beast further, and watches the shadows of lofty tentacles sweep through the clouds.
The calamity’s flesh shifts like quicksand between Bengeo’s fingers. Malformed arms sprout from the tendril and grab at him with globby, misshapen hands. Remy quickly hacks them off, but more shoot up like malicious weeds and grapple them. Bengeo tears them off himself with one hand, but his grip falters and they both tumble downward, before more arms spring out and latch hold of him, pulling in different directions.
“I can’t reach them!” Remy cries, swinging her sword overhead.
“Go on!” Bengeo yells as a dozen more emerge from the trunk of flesh and pull him in. “Keep climbing!”
“Not without you!”
“Damnit, girl, for once just do as I ask!” and with all his might he tears one arm free, draws the ferry stone from his pocket and shoves it in her mouth.
She clenches it between her teeth and shuffles up his body. Standing on his broad shoulders she drives her sword into the tendril and clings to the hilt.
“Make it count, kid!” Bengeo’s arms sink into the creature’s flesh, and he writhes and struggles as it drives to absorb him into its form. Summoning every ounce of strength he possesses, Bengeo tears himself free in one broad swoop and then plummets.
Remy watches on the edge of despair as his tank of a body crashes into the auditorium below with a whomp. She stares through the blustering snow and prays.
Get up. Please get up, but he lies still amongst the rubble.
She clenches the ferry stone in her jaw, and wraps her legs and right arm around the tendril. Inch by gruelling inch, she jabs her sword higher and higher, using it as a hold to pull herself further.
“Fuuuuuck!” she cries as the creature raises its tendril high.
She spots Vincent hurtling towards her. Like her, he’s using his sword to cling to the beast and he holds out a hand as they pass each other. Remy shakes her head violently. There’s no way in hell she’s jumping.
“Come on!” Vincent cries over the raging tempest and leans out to catch her.
She shudders at a cold, wet sensation washing over her hand as the creature absorbs her sword and pulls her into its flesh. Against her better judgement she reaches out and takes Vincent’s hand. He pulls her free and they cling to each other with all they’ve got.
*
Jessica races up the stairs to the mezzanine overlooking the hall and with a shrill roar, the wyvern thrusts itself into the air, crashes through the balcony and tears through a wall. She doubles back for the stairs, only to see Ed and Lauren sprinting towards her with fearful faces, behind them a stream of gnashing violent wights.
Ed takes her arm as he passes and leads the girls through snaking corridors between various conference rooms. The wyvern comes bursting through the plaster walls after them, snapping and roaring, clumsily treading over the undead until it wedges itself in a narrow bend.
Ed and the girls skid to a halt as a blue amorphous blob rears up at the far end of the corridor. Two big round eyes blink open from the goo and stare at them.
“Aww,” Jessica swoons. It kind of looks like the emojis on her phone.
The blobkin parts its gooey maw and swallows her in one bite. She floats inside its gelatine body and chokes until Ed and Lauren plunge through the ooze and pull her to safety. All three of them tumble out the other side, coughing and wheezing as their skin burns like nettle rash all over. Jessica staggers to her feet and screams as the blobkin’s eyes shift inside its body and pop out of its back. Now she knows those adorable buttons herald a painful demise.
The goo expands, filling the width and height of the corridor, then advances like a boobytrapped wall. They flee but are cut off by a trio of skeleton warriors, who charge at them. Thinking fast, Lauren pulls Ed and Jessica into a conference room and slams the door behind her.
“Help me with this!” Ed drags a long wooden table in the centre of the room against the door before the undead come bursting through. Clawing. Swinging. Screaming.
Lauren scans the room. We’re trapped! Shit, we’re trapped! No no no! There’s always a way out! She glances up and gets an idea.
“Over here!” she cries. Climbing a cabinet in the far corner, she forces her way through the ceiling tiles into the crawl space above.
Ed boosts Jessica as the dead ram the door off its hinges until it caves inwards and burst into the room after them. A hand grabs Ed’s heel, but he kicks it free, pulls himself into the crawl space and shuffles on all fours after the girls.
“Are we gonna die?” Jessica whimpers as she crawls behind Lauren.
Lauren looks back and vehemently shakes her head, “Not a chan—!”
The wyvern bursts through the tiles beside her, and she shrieks as it beats and claps its razor wings then tumbles back into the corridor below. The ceiling gives way and the three of them crash on top of the snarling lizard, which spins and kicks, trying in vain to fling them off while they cling to the spines running down its back. With a roar it dives off the mezzanine and soars into the hall that hosted the convention.
The beast snaps over its shoulder as a searing fireball hurtles past, then another explodes in the wyvern’s face and it violently crashes through the demo area, scattering the monitors and games consoles across the hall.
Lauren lands awkwardly on her wrist and something that definitely shouldn’t pop, pops. Throttling pain lances through her forearm. She bites her lip to stop herself from crying out and watches her wrist swell. The wyvern rises behind her as another fireball comes soaring overhead. Ed and Jessica pull her onto her feet and they sprint across the convention hall. Fire explodes at Ed’s feet, hurling him back into the girls like a bowling ball. A hissing skeleton mage thrusts its bone staff forward, letting loose a chain of lightning that arcs straight at them. The wyvern crashes down between them, shielding them from the brunt of the spell, giving the girls an opening to get Ed to safety.
Jessica glimpses the vile undead mage, which hovers without legs, while two malevolent flames burn where its eyes should be. Behind it, more ravenous undead foot soldiers rally with weapons held high.
“We’re screwed,” she whimpers.
“Don’t say that!” Lauren scolds her. “We’ve been in bad spots before, but something always came along!”
Pearly tears roll down Jessica’s cheeks and she looks lovingly at Lauren. “I gotta tell you something.”
“We’re not gonna die!” Lauren cries, cradling her swollen wrist in her chest.
The building quakes and trembles, dislodging parts of the ceiling, which come crashing down around them.
Jessica looks at Lauren then quickly shies away. “I’m trying to—!”
The floor suddenly tears up in a circle. A long segmented worm tunnels around their feet and with a piercing shriek, rears its bulbous head. Great globs of phlegm ooze from its circular contracting mouth, filled with razor teeth that line its fleshy throat.
“What the fuck is that?!” Jessica screams.
“Death worm! Run!” Lauren sprints towards the toilets on the east side of the hall and pushes a dazed Ed into the men’s room while dragon fire erupts with a bang behind them, scattering the skeleton mage’s bones wide. Lauren watches the staff clatter across the floor and skid into the rubble. She lifts Ed’s arm from around her shoulder, shifting his weight on Jessica who gasps as Lauren takes off and makes a brazen play for the staff. Her racing panic crushes her chest as her feet thud the floor. She can feel the violent rumble of something big stirring beneath her and leaps onto her belly before a stream of dragon fire soars overhead. The death worm blasts out of the floor beside her and ploughs into the wyvern, knocking it on its side. Lauren tumbles across the floor, and slams into a broken game station stand. She lifts herself onto her knees and lurches forward, heaving from the adrenaline and pain shooting through her wrist. Crawling on her elbows, propelling herself with her knees, she reaches out and grasps the staff tightly as the death worm and the wyvern battle behind her like the climax to a Godzilla movie.
“Please work!” she prays as she points the staff at the beasts and tries to conjure something – anything – that’ll get them out of this mess. “Come on! Come on!” she cries, shaking it violently.
A hand lands on her shoulder. She jerks her head back and sees Jessica looking stern at her.
“Move your arse, Baker!” She drags Lauren into the men’s room and Ed slams the weighty fire door behind them then presses himself against it. It shunts open, but the three of them pile their weight against it, forcing it shut. It bursts open again with greater force, throwing them against the stalls. The death worm jerks forward. Its salivating maw huffs while it desperately tries to contract itself enough to squeeze through the doorway while the wyvern sinks its teeth into the worm’s tail.
Lauren looks at the evil creature then back at Jessica and takes a deep breath. If this is where their story ends, then she might as well come clean.
“I… I’ve felt pretty lost and numb these past couple of years, but somehow, it’s like you lift that burden off me. Despite everything we’ve been through, I’m lucky that I got to meet you… I wish I hadn’t waited until we’re literally about to die to tell you that.”
Jessica, thrilled beyond words to be the recipient of her affection, presses her lips against Lauren’s, and for a fleeting moment time stands still. All the chaos and suffering and strife melts away. There’s no more flesh-eating monsters or world-ending abominations, just the two of them. Lauren shivers and closes her eyes, but not to darkness. Instead she sees vibrant bursts of light. She’s always wondered what it meant to lose yourself in a kiss. Now she knows as she disappears with Jessica.
Ed smiles while the girls share their first – and probably last – kiss. After a deep breath, the worm flops into the bathroom, tearing part of the wall down with it.
They tremble as it rises before them like a cobra ready to strike. Splitting pain crackles through Lauren’s chest like a burgeoning panic attack, but she’s sure this is something different, yet not unfamiliar to her. Her senses go haywire. She feels the swell of despair coursing through Jessica and Ed, and the worm’s malicious intent. She can hear the wailing sky in the distance, and feel the heat of the fire coursing through the wyvern’s throat. Ozrune’s orotone voice resonates deep in the recesses of her mind.
“… Step into your fears and push through until you transcend yourself, ride the emotion…”
If her fear granted her power to tear the sky asunder, then surely her compassion could be the most effective way to banish the darkness. Kindness, selflessness, sacrifice – what evil could stand against that?
She throws the staff up in defence as the worm pounces, and releases a visceral scream that encompasses her entire being – her struggles, her pain, her hopes, her dreams. The staff shimmers with golden light as she clutches it steadfastly, illuminating her like some holy goddess. Warm tears spill down her cheeks as a wave, an awesome wave, swells from her chest and shivers to her fingertips, bestowing a powerful urge to nurture and protect – a love and light within that will not be threatened.
Jessica watches in awe as light engulfs the room. The thought that her life might be snuffed out before she had the chance to really live fills her with desolation, but the soft yellow glow quickly soothes her pain. The light must be – she thinks to herself – the prelude to some kind of afterlife, but no. In a flash, the light cuts them off from the death worm, which rages against an ethereal wall born of Lauren’s unyielding will to save her friends, until a surge of dragon fire floods the bathroom, scorching it, and everything else, to blackened charcoal. Varicoloured flame dances against Lauren’s barrier. She clenches the bone staff tightly in her hand and the tiny cracks that scar it splinter up and down as the spell takes its toll. The sweltering heat kisses her face as the barrier falters against the wyvern’s primal ferocity. She feeds the barrier her life force like an IV drip. Jessica and Ed prop her up assuring her she’s not alone, while the magic drains her already weary body.
*
Against the bitter rage of the calamity, Vincent battles his way towards the colossal eye. Every movement is a struggle as he bears the weight of his armour and Remy on his back. Jabbing his sword into its flesh, he forces himself across the jagged crystal spikes that jut out across its central mass. He bides his time and brazenly leaps onto a tendril as it sweeps by.
“Face me!” he cries over the thunderous tempest. “Let me look into the eye of the world-ender! Eric, if you’re in there let me see you!”
Somewhere in the darkest recesses of consciousness a flicker of Eric remains, aware of the malevolent force trying to erode his being – his memories, all he ever was. He can feel the pull of the evil, feeding on the tormented souls of hundreds, if not thousands, of undead that wail in despair amidst the cycle of energy coursing through its veins. To give in, to disappear amongst the tide would be the end of him – a fate that Eric cannot bear. The crystal was to be his tool to reshape the world. He created it. To become a mere part of it would be too cruel and too ironic. His hubris was always one of his most defining traits. Even in the face of utter annihilation his ego doesn’t shrink.
“M-y ar-m, i-t’s m-y a-rm.”
The calamity raises them before its gargantuan eye, and the unholy pupil bores into their souls, chilling their minds with unspeakable terror. Some say the eyes are the window to the soul, but this window gives way to no such thing, only darkness devoid of love, of light, of anything good and pure. If death is defined as the absence of life then they are certainly looking into the eye of the reaper. Ed was right, this is evil incarnate.
“Most run from death, cower before it, but the two of you stand in its presence, audacious. Others have tried, all have perished and risen again as my boon,” the voice thunders. Every word conjures a disturbing sense of wrongness that churns Remy’s stomach and makes her skin crawl.
Vincent collapses on his knees as it stares them both down and clutches the broken sword tip lodged in his side. “I’m done,” he groans.
“Not yet! We’re not done yet! So get up!” Remy pulls him on his feet. “We’ve still got the stone, we can end this!”
He struggles to focus on her and slips back onto one knee. He can feel death’s icy touch lingering over his shoulder. His blood runs cold, his limbs stiffen.
“I’m done.”
“I know…” Remy looks woeful at his ice-white face. The frost has him in its grasp.
“Finish it,” he coughs and collapses onto all fours as his body starts to shut down.
If I do this, there’s no coming back – a thought that breaks her bounding heart.
The violent wind scatters her hair across her face while she gazes at the ferry stone. Tears spill like water from a crumbling dam. Funny, she despised that bedroom – the pastel paint, the lumpy futon, the view of Ed’s house from the window – but right now she’d give anything to be back there, snuggled in her duvet, warm and comfortable, a far cry from the spite she’s enduring now. Her muscles quiver like a child taking their first steps, but she glares at the eye with utter fury and thrusts the ferry stone into the air.
“Darkness will never thrive where there is light to meet it!” she screams.
The eye tightens its gaze on her. “Foolish girl, I dwell in the shadows and extinguish the light. Hear me now, this world shall never see another dawn!”
Its pitch-black pupil expands, engulfing her field of vision. She glimpses a universe devoid of stars, of light, of life. A cold hopelessness washes over her, weakening her resolve – how can she stand against this?
She releases a rebellious cry imbued by love for her family and new-found friends. The stone glistens in her hand. She closes her eyes, accepting her fate.
Her unrelenting determination to persevere and sacrifice herself touches Vincent who, on death’s doorstep, forces himself on his feet one final time. The Dreadmail tightens around his muscles, bolstering the splinter of life he has left.
Remy pictures the crater and its holy light in her mind. The air dances around her and magic swells from the stone as it begins to transport them all back into the Scar. Cold metal grasps her wrist. She opens her eyes and Vincent snatches the stone from her.
“Remy… thank you… for playing my game.” A parting smile graces his gaunt face, and he pushes her off the calamity as it releases a cacophonous roar that shatters glass for miles. Rays of blinding light break through the black clouds like the grace of God. The calamity and the Dread Knight disappear in a flash.
*
Across the city Lin, Helen, Alapati and George watch from the barricaded hospital as the undead fall apart. With the evil vanquished from reality, the monsters fester and crumble to dust. Now the power that animated them is gone, perhaps their corrupted souls are finally free to make their journey to the lofty realm.
Helen looks ever so relieved that the madness appears to be over, but her heart is burdened with thoughts of her children’s safety. She looks worriedly at Lin, who hugs George tightly, and prays that Lauren is okay too.
*
Jessica, Lauren and Ed stare slack-jawed as the wyvern coils up before them and dissolves like sand in the wind. The dead too lay down their arms and fall away.
“Is it over?” Ed asks, picking himself off the floor of the wrecked bathroom.
He limps into the crumbling remains of the expo hall and sees nothing but ash and carnage. Lauren breathes a sigh of deep relief as she props herself up against the battered wall. The ExCel centre has been laid to waste.
Jessica races through the hall towards the decimated remnants of the auditorium and scans the rubble for any sign of the others. She finds Bengeo lying in a heap on his side and shakes him.
“Hey! Hey! Wake up!” she cries, fighting back tears.
“Stop…” he groans.
“Wha…? What did you say?!” She holds her ear over his mouth.
“I said, stop. You’re pushing on broken bones…” He rolls slowly onto his back, grimacing. “… Did we win?”
“Looks like,” she smiles, barely believing it herself.
“Good.” With a harsh breath he rests his eyes.
Lauren looks for signs of Remy and Vincent. Her heart sinks as she fears the worst. “I don’t see them.”
“Remy?” Jessica calls out while sifting through piles of rubble. “Remy?!”
No answer and no sign of her either.
“Did she—” Ed drops to his knees, unwilling to even consider that she got sent back into the game. Fury bubbles and he erupts. “Fuck! Shit! No!” he cries, beating his fists against the rubble until he can’t swing anymore.
“Ed…” Lauren says softly. He looks at her with reddening eyes.
“It can’t be….” He leans on his knees. His stomach twists in knots.
Jessica sobs as the thought of never seeing her sister again begins to sink in, but as the wind dies down a faint murmur catches her ear. She listens intently. It sounds like one of those groaning corpses.
“What was that?” she asks.
They fan out across the auditorium searching for the origin. Ed climbs over the crumbling wall and trudges outside, turning his head slowly to pinpoint the source.
“There!” He spots Remy lying in the crisp white snow and runs to her. Pressing his ear to her chest, he rejoices at the faint beat of her heart.
Her eyes flutter open to the sight of his head buried in her bosom.
“Get off me, perv,” she mutters groggily.
He looks at her, elated. “Yes! Yes! We did it!” He slumps back and laughs.
Jessica comes running and skids to her knees. Burying her head in Remy’s shoulder, she sobs, “I swear I’ll never complain about sharing my room with you again!”
“Same,” Remy smiles. Shifting her weight onto her elbows, she casts her eyes over the destroyed convention hall – which somehow looks worse on the outside than it does inside.
She jolts suddenly. “Bengeo! He fell and—!”
“Bengeo’s fine!” Lauren calls out as she hobbles over the rubble, leaning against the bandit for support.
“Bengeo’s alive. Fine doesn’t quite cut it,” he groans.
“W-what about Vincent?” Lauren asks in a meek voice. Deep down she already knows he’s gone.
Remy shakes her head. “He… he saved me.”
Lauren lets out a solemn breath. Another loss darkens this day.
Battered and bruised the friends embrace each other amidst the ruin and wreckage as the faltering snow flutters over them. The evil lies defeated, and the rift supposedly closed. It seems their adventure has finally reached its end. Game over.