I stand next to Frank, both of us breathing hard. His chest heaves as violently as mine, though where mine is panic, his is something else. It's steady and controlled, despite the sweat soaking every inch of his broad body.
Only now, through the edge of my vision, do I realize his tentacles are gone. Gone. Torn or severed—perhaps he cut them off himself. It's hard not to notice it now, even though this body doesn't let me stare directly at it. I look left, then right, frantic. My body panics more than ever before.
"Get to your chamber, boy!" Frank growls, patting my back hard enough to jolt my ribs.
We move—light jog, half ducked, all desperation. Behind us are other humans being ripped apart, one after the next, by the mud-soaked, red-blood-tainted lion. Screams blend into roaring, then into gurgling silence. My hands swing wildly, no rhythm to match my legs. I stumble twice, as if I were running from something in a nightmare.
Ahead, through the thinning dust and the echoing boos, I see the massive door in the stone-brick wall. The same door we came from. Men and women stand above it, each broad and painted like a tree, booing, spitting. They throw drinks, rocks, whatever they can reach. Some miss our heads by inches, others don't.
Another trumpet blast. We duck further, covering our heads with our hands. Something hits my back—hard, deep, a wet thud. I snarl as pain bursts along my spine. My heart races, hammering three, no—four times every third second. My breath comes shallow, rasping through a throat scratched raw from dust. I glance back and scream loudly, my voice raw.
My first real scream in this body, one so loud even Frank hears it. "Fucking run faster!"
Frank glances over his shoulder. His face is pale, jaw clenched. I see it in his eyes—the same pulse of panic rushing through my own. Behind us, the lion runs. It's fast. Faster than anything should move, faster than any faceless or one of their orange orcs. Blood streaks its mane like ribbons of warpaint. Its eyes glow dull and in dark amber, as if the light was banished from its very being. Its maw opens.
The loudest trumpet yet—one that pierces the air like a divine command. The stone doors begin to shut, slowly, but far too slowly.
Frank's feet hammer the ground faster than mine, even though he's wounded, torn up, and half-bleeding to death. He shouldn't be able to walk, let alone run—but somehow, he does. He runs like it's the last thing he'll ever do.
Wind and dust fly straight into my eyes. It stings, vision blurring, blinking away the sting with each stride. By the last few steps, my eyes close on their own. Lastly two hot tears break free and trail behind me.
I see nothing. A heartbeat stretches into an entire breath, and the darkness pulls me in.
A scream. Mine. This body's.
My eyes snap open, lungs expanding with a gasp that feels like my last. Relief. Blood rushes like fire through my limbs. I feel it, feel it, as if the soul trapped inside this flesh is finally real again. My ears pulse with the rhythm of life, my fingertips sting, and my stomach is soaked from lying flat. My cheek is half-buried in grit.
Landing face first, I turn my head. There, a few feet away, Frank, once towering, now folded in on himself. One arm rests on his knee, the other is limp. He coughs and gives me a crooked grin before collapsing sideways onto the open wound on his ribs.
"Help! We need help!" I shout, voice raw and tearing at the end. My body moves faster than it ever has. I rise, stagger, reach out—and then it's gone.
No. No, not again—but it is. The real me—the me behind this shell—is being pulled back, dragged down. I feel it. See it. Hands—invisible but unmistakably real, translucent—pass through my chest, press against my soul, claw it back into silence.
I fall back into the dark—back into the void I left only moments ago.