ELDRITCH NIGHT (Rough Draft)

Chapter 55: Darkness Before Dawn

The being that shared half its face with one of my oldest and dearest friends continued to descend, her feet finding purchase on empty air. Her wings slowly shrank and folded behind her like a feathery, mismatched cape. Apparently, they were not needed to maintain flight. Liv always had been one for dramatics.

"... But how?" I stammered.

I was horrified at the implications of her appearance, but a large part of me was relieved to see her alive. Could she finally explain what was happening? God, did she know about Troy? Did she know what he had become, and what I had done? These thoughts crashed through my head, silencing questions of much graver import.

"Hold on, Finn," she said. Her voice was soft and seductive, with no trace of the vileness that invaded her flesh. "Our reunion can wait. We have other friends coming over to play. It would be rude not to invite them in."

She extended the broken, charred flesh that was her right hand and closed her claw-like fingers into a fist. I followed her gaze to the second Peacekeeper transport, which was charging up another mound of bone. Just as the transport reached the apex, it's front two tires beginning to gain air, the mound exploded.

"Fuck, Liv," I screamed. "Please, you don't have to do this. You know I'm not your enemy."

"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport," she waved her hand dismissively. "Your new toys are fine, see?"

Broken bits of bone were still raining down around us, but when I looked back to the destroyed mound I found another of the giant bonetacles reaching into the sky. It wrapped around the Peacekeeper vehicle, swallowing it into a mass of bone. Slowly, the giant limb began to move towards me – bringing the transport with it.

"Liv, I don't know what..."

"You don't need to say anything, Finn." She continued her descent until she was standing before me on an invisible plane of air. "It's enough that you stand with me."

"I don't... but stand with you against what?"

"Against the world, Finn. Everyone and everything." She reached out and cupped my cheek with her unmarred hand. I placed my inhuman hand over her pale flesh, leaning into her embrace.

"This entire fucking universe would see us slaves, homogenous drones, to serve a broken system. A system that has invaded even you. We are more, don't you see? We can be gods, Finn. It's our birthright, given to us by the Founder, his greatness knows no bounds."

Behind me I heard a crash and the groan of bending steel. My eyes stayed firmly locked on Liv's. There was a strange beauty to the sharp contrast of her new form, a fierceness mixed with the pureness of her former self. The vortex of her empty socket drew me in, even as an eye of beautiful sapphire-blue promised me warmth and love.

"And you would what?" I asked. "Tear down the system, and kill thousands — just for power? I can't support that Liv. Don't you know what your ambition did to Troy?"

"Troy?"

Earsplitting laughter echoed through the bone-lined hills and canyons. It was an inhuman screech, like the mocking call of a stalking predator.

"Troy was never one of us. Just a disposable tool, though it is unfortunate you had to kill my serpent. He would have been so much fun." She sighed in annoyance, a blackened hand coming to rest on her hip.

"But then, who am I to deny my former paramour his jealousy." She pulled her fingers across my cheek until they came to rest below my mouth. "I do hope you enjoyed the feel of his flesh coming apart in your hands. The power you hold, Finn! Isn't it intoxicating?"