Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

The First Legion

Adam fell to one knee spear clattering to the deck before him. All around bodies hit the floor in a cascade of agony.

He reached up to his head covering his ears as the horrible horrific sound rolled inside his head, hissing in his brain, and driving deep into a skull with a probe that was not entirely physical sound and not entirely mind spike. As he knelt there hands to his ears, he felt a sudden push back against the noise feeling the brush of Conn's mind for just a moment as the starborn attempted to shield them with a bubble of his own mind.

For a moment his head was clear, and he could think.

Beside him, Conn had a hand on his shoulder, eyes closed his fingers trembling with strain.

And then the bubble collapsed, crushed like an aluminum can under a giant's fist.

Conn fell to the deck clutching his own head. Adam howled in agony hands over his own ears, but still he managed to craw forward, pulling his body over Conn's prone, unconscious form, shielding his friend from what? He didn't know.

Two spots of dark red appeared on the starborn's skin and Adam pulled back in shock.

More dark red spots appeared.

First on Conn's cheek, and then on his neck, and then on the front of that annoying plaid shirt he always wore.

It was only after a few seconds of fumbling thought did Adam realize.

That wasn't coming from Conn.

It was coming from him.

Ears still screaming, vision still flashing , he held his hands out before him, only to see that they were covered in blood, a droplet traced a slow trail down one of his wrists and into the crook of his elbow where it pooled in ruby streaks in the folds of his skin.

He reached up to his face, feeling wetness against his skin, and pulled back with more blood.

His nice was bleeding.

The incomprehensible babbling grew louder and he screamed again covering his ears to no use.

Beside him the others where in similar states of agony. Sunny lifted her head, and orange tears were rolling down her face. He reached a hand out to her, and she did the same but before their fingers could touch the sound morphed, turning form a spike and into a spear pushing itself like a rod into his brain.

Adam screamed falling to his back and convulsing as the incomprehensible being clawed its way through the inside of his mind.

He was sure he would go mad.

His entire sense of self cracking like ice.

And then the spoke was gone,

He lay on the floor amidst a slow carpet of his own blood drops, and over him Stood Adham. All of the lights had gone out now, but for the burning glow that emanated from the man's skin, rolling out through the room and casting them all into a sharp white light, soft and soothing. His feet were planted against the ground, and his head was lifted. From where he lay on the floor, Adam could look up and see Adham's silhouette, and the thing that stood against him.

It was completely black.

But no, black was not a good approximation of what this thing was.

It was the absence of light, a darkness so profound that his brain could comprehend it as nothing other than an entrance to a void. Its body was..... incomprehensible, indescribable. It looked like a thousand things all at once, never quite entering one form or another, it shed tentacles and pieces of itself which writhed across the floor and then sizzled up in the presence of the light.