Part Four

*WARNING* THIS PART IS GRUESOME AND GOREY. WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THIS PART MAY BE TOO INTENSE TO READ FOR SOME VIEWERS. IF THAT IS THE TYPE OF CONTENT YOU CANNOT HANDLE, PLEASE DO NOT PROCEED.

“Gross, I know. He came over to my home last night, clearly panicked over--well, you’ve already seen it. I guess he knew destruction was impending.”

Avail’s legs wavered.

“Want to see something else? Fido, show Avail the new trick I taught you.”

            The abrupt sound of glass gently breaking served as a response to Cameron’s command. The noise was torturous to listen to. The glass sounded as if it were stretching, like a strained rubber band, but it was hard to perceive what was causing the bowl to destroy itself.

 Avail’s body numbed, now seeing the culprit of the pulverized bowl.

            She frantically dove to the ground, as a massively overgrown Fido used its new teeth in an attempt to crush his previous owner. Everything in the creature’s path was minced and wrecked. Avail felt excruciatingly nauseous when she realized that she could’ve been the one who was destroyed.

            Fido continued to peck and charge towards her, with his powerful teeth, as she screeched in overwhelming terror. She cornered herself in between two walls, so that Fido’s body size would prevent him from closing the distance. But the tactic barely saved the skin of her nose, for he was still lethally close, ravenously determined to consume her.

            Avail had no other defenses, but the skin of her arms. She used them to block her face from Fido’s feverent biting. The storm of her fear had completely wiped out her courage.

“Geez, Fido, take a hint! She clearly doesn’t want to play.” Cameron’s dismissal of the fish’s attempt to kill Avail had come from the lowest levels of sympathy. It demolished her heart.

            Fido’s attacks had ceased, but Avail didn’t dare take a breath. In her head, she was already dead. At that point, she had abandoned all fear of dying. The only factor of death that petrified her was how and where she was going to meet her end.  

“I get why others hate the Takens. We can be pretty low-down.” Cameron spoke casually.

“I don’t hate you…”

“‘I just hate what you’ve become.’” He mocked in a high-pitched tone. “Is that the bull you were about to force down my throat?”

            There was no denying that Cameron took the words from her mouth.

Devious intent formed a cynical smile on his face, as he snapped his fingers of his left hand. “Fido, erode.”

            Right before her eyes, Fido had loomed over Cameron, growing in size behind him. The contrast of the two were exponential, but Cameron remained still. Avail felt a slight tickle graze her brow, to her ear, then to her shoulder. Instinctively, she looked up, shocked to see that black specks were gently floating downward. They flickered as they reflected their own shine. Taking her gaze to Fido, she noticed that his skin had developed far more rotted spots than what she noticed before. Her stomach managed a tremendous churn once she realized what was happening. Fido was decomposing.

            She couldn’t escape the infinite flakes that toppled onto her skin. It was so beyond torture, she was beside herself with disgust. Avail found herself paralyzed, as her friend was literally falling to pieces in front of and onto her.

            So many scales died off his skin, which caused the trickle to transition into a heavy rain.

“Dismember.” The death infested rain had returned to a trickle. Avail, still being picked apart by her ravenous panic, had managed to notice a sound. Fido created a new kind of torment, as she was forced to listen to his low gurgling and grunts that were rich in pain. Her eyes had forgotten how to blink, as her gaze locked onto his next performance.

            First his tailfin tore away hideously from him, then his left and right fins followed suit. The heavy ripping had left withered bones exposed, decorated with the drapery of dead entrails and muscle.

            Remembering she could walk, Avail didn’t even realize when she stood up as she bolted for the exit. She wanted to vomit, sob, and scream. This was a sheer sign of the totality of her terror. She begged her tears to well up and blur her vision, so that she would not have watch the horror before her. But her body would force her to endure the next act of this horrendous performance.

Along with the abolition of plant life, the sky was masked with a magenta hue, accompanied by dirtied gray clouds that appeared miasmic. The clouds danced like smoke, but thickened and clotted as they combined. The entire ambience was poison to her.

From the destruction of the forest, to the corruption of Fido, she had fought to keep standing on her wounded feet. But the world before her was falling apart so quickly, she couldn’t keep up anymore. Grief forced her knees to the ground.

“What…is happening?” Her shaking hands dug themselves into the hard crusty floor of mud.

“The Taken, have taken over. No pun intended.” The thing behind her chuckled at his own sick joke. His laugh was the only real thing that remained as Cameron.

            He knelt beside her, delicately placing his hands on her quivering back. Avail had remained silent, drowning in the venom that was this world. Her breaths were becoming short and quick. She was accepting the reality that both her of friends and her world were erased.

“Avail, there is nothing left. No Manifestors or manifestations. Even the land they lived on has been tarnished by us.” Cameron moved his hands towards her shoulders, gripping tightly, as if trying to stabilize her inhalation. He was attempting to seduce her into a Hell.

“When did you do this?” She had managed to ask, still with her breath slipping through her fingers.

“I want you to think really hard. During the past week, did you ever once notice how persistent I was about becoming a Manifestor? Haven’t you noticed that I’ve been less tolerable of the Manifestors?” Avail snapped her head towards him. “This didn’t just happen overnight, Avail.” The Taken had shed his shadow form, to reveal the human appearance of Cameron.

“You…this whole time?” Her head had begun to spin. She was in disbelief of how fooled she had been.

“Not just me, and not this whole time. Just for the past three weeks. Many others had joined during that time.” Cameron shrugged as he returned to back to his sinister form.

            The race Taken had occupied the putrid sky. Soaring on their manifested chariots, they laughed, drunk off of the devastation. They mocked Avail as they sang of their victory all the way to the atmospheres.

            Avail’s heaving worsened, now producing desperate grunts. “Panic as much as you need to, but realize that there is no way out.”       

Muteness replaced Cameron’s cynical and tempting voice. Avail knew she was finally screaming. She knew she had finally gave way to the unmerciful pressure that was this world, and released a scream so epic, not even she could hear it.

            Her eyes were bonded shut. Avail was revolted with the sight of this world, and the reality of her having nowhere else to go sent her completely over the edge of her sanity.

            Eyes still closed, Avail gradually heard her own screeching voice becoming too piercing of a noise, that she immediately slapped her hands over her mouth.

“Good gracious, child!” A womanly voice spoke, one Avail had not once heard before. “Your shoes? Where are they?”

            She immediately found her feet, staggering as she was forced to endure a chilling and hardened ground. “No…I-I took them off at the St--” Avail looked towards the person, a woman, who had addressed her. An immense weight fell into her stomach when she noticed how aged she appeared; something Avail hadn’t seen in four years.

“No…no. How did…why am I back here?” She frantically took in the surroundings. There were tall black skyscrapers that immediately reminded her of the forest trees of the Still Waters. Vehicles, instead of giant manifestations, were actually driving on roads. And the streets were crowded with older adults. Avail hadn’t seen older adults since the day she left. She confirmed she had returned to her birth world.

“Come with me, child. My shop is right down the street. You need shoes to walk in these streets.”

“No! I don’t even know you. I can find my own w--”

“Child, you do know me. And you cannot find your own way.” The woman shot back.

“I don’t want the help of a stranger.”

            The old woman chuckled. Avail realized the elder had adorned a lovely satin charlotte coat, embroidered with a darker red filigree. She even sported a dramatically heavy black hat, topped with a fish-net material that hovered just above her nose.

“How will you return to your world? What will you do once you return? You will rot with it, unless you accept my help. There is no other choice, child.”

“You know nothing of where I am from!” Avail yelled, stubbornly refusing the woman’s assistance.

“I did not come across you on a mere whim, child. Either you accept my help, or that world will perish.”

            Avail went quiet. It was admittedly strange that the woman had embraced her sudden appearance. Not once did she ask where her parents were, or where she came from.

“Come, child. You need shoes on your feet. The ground here ain’t as comfortable.”