Chapter Text
Chapter One
Sword
“Haah, hff, haah,” Run, run, run. Don’t stop running. Don’t let it catch you. He ran and ran. His legs burned as if they were on fire, stumbling every now and then on a twig or rock. Panting heavily, he couldn’t get enough air in or out and his throat burned from breathing so heavily. But why was he running? Well…
It was some time around two in the afternoon, early summer, mid June, and Kyle was walking home from baseball practice with some of his friends and teammates. He had just parted from Jacob and was now left to finish his walk home by himself. Jacob was one of Kyle’s best friends. Just an inch or so taller than Kyle, but he never let him live it down, his hair short and brown in an overgrown buzz. His house was on the street parallel to Kyle’s, the houses separated by about 10 acres of trees.
Kyle himself was your average 14 year old except he was the most awesome of them all, or so he told himself. He was one of the ‘popular kids’ as they thought of themselves. He had dirty blonde, that was cut in a mullet, the old haircut making a comeback it seemed. Emerald green eyes, dimples, and lightly tanned skin absolutely coated top to bottom in a dusting of freckles, traits he got from his Irish father. He’s forever greatful he got his mom’s blonde hair instead of his dad’s red, though he wasn’t lucky enough to avoid the freckles. None of them knew where he got his eyebrows though. They were thick and a bit darker toned than his hair but were shaped like little circles with the outside edge coming to a point. “They’re like comets,” his mom would say, he wasn’t too fond of them either. He’s had braces that he’s had since 6th grade, he’s supposed to get them out this next summer, currently they have blue rubbers attached to them. He always wore a faded purple baseball cap that he had long forgotten the origins of. The hat had been the butt of many of his friends' jokes, he didn’t care much. It was summer, so his wardrobe consisted mainly of short sleeves and shorts, today’s pick was a green tee with jean cargo shorts. His life has never been much out of the ordinary, he’d been playing baseball since he could swing a bat, and had lots of friends that he hung out with all the time. His life’s dream was to be a professional batter for the Dodgers. Not the most original plan, but he knew he could make it.
He had passed the last house on Jacob’s street, and was beginning his walk past the forest when an odd squelching sounded behind him. He turned to face… nothing. He glanced around a few moments more, clearing the area of any suspicion before turning to continue his walk home. He heard it again. But, when he turned this time, he quickly found the source of the sound. It was an odd looking…dog? No. It had far too many sets of legs-er, arms. It was a centipede of human-like arms. It seemed to have a human’s torso as well, centaur style, where a head devoid of any features rested atop it with a large vertical mouth that drooled endlessly ran from where a nose would sit to right around the base of the torso curving towards the left of its body.
Kyle took a step back from this thing that he was now facing. One of its arm-legs took a matching step forward. “Found..hgg, you..” The words seemed to claw out of its throat, sounding like he was drowning and parched at the same time, in a decibel no human could ever mimic. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his heart pounded in his chest and ears. He turned, and he ran.
This brings us back to where we started. He had no clue what this thing was but it was keeping him from running towards any help. He had originally tried to run in the direction of his street, but it rounded him into the forest and prevented him from reaching either set of houses. It almost seemed to be herding him into the thicker part of the forest, and they were getting real close. Kyle was starting to slow down. He had been running for a while and the beast seemed to just be toying with him, the only thing keeping his legs from giving out was the fear of what would happen if he was caught. And, so he kept running, he didn’t think he had run this hard before in his life. His legs burned and his breath came in shorts pants as he tried to keep pushing as hard as he could, but adrenaline can only do so much.
—BAM!
He tumbled to the side and rolled over what felt like another person. A groan came from someone other than him. He opened his eyes to see Leo crawling back to his feet beside him. “What!” He jumped to his feet in surprise. He thought that the thing had decided it was done with its games and attacked him, not that he had been bodied by the worst person in his grade. And Kyle spoke at a speed Leo was hardly able to keep up with,“What are you doing here, how did you get here, th-theres something following me we gotta run hurry!” Kyle grabbed Leo’s wrist and ran at the fastest speed his tired legs could muster while dragging Leo, who obviously wasn’t pulling his weight. “Hurry up, pick up your feet and run!” Right now was not the time for Leo to be the lazy, unathletic loser he was. Leo was this one of the kids that had been in the same grade and school as Kyle since at least the third grade, and he did not like him one bit. Leo was one of those weird kids that wore pants and sweaters even in the summer heat, which he didn’t understand how he didn’t constantly get heat stroke in this California heat. He had shortish, dark chocolate colored hair with layers that ended at his shoulders, he had seen others call the style a 'wolf cut' before, with the undersides of his hair bleached. He had matching brown eyes and a much paler complexion with moles showing up here and there, a handful sprinkled across his face. He had what Kyle was sure was a total of like three friends, stayed inside all day and never did anything but play video games. And the dude must have been really weird because they were being chased by some freaky monster and was telling Kyle to let go of him so he could go face the thing. Does he mean to fight it!? This guy was crazy!
Leo had managed to break free from his hold and turned to face the thing. Kyyle stopped a moment to yell at him to keep running and that he was crazy, but all he got was an,”I got this, you keep running!” Well he didn’t have to tell him twice, if he wanted to die today, that was his choice. Kyle gave a huff then swivelled on his heel to keep running away from what might be a crime scene soon. He was running as fast as his legs would take him, but he was struggling to stay up.
He made some good distance when he was sent tumbling again, at first he thought it was due to his legs finally giving out, but he quickly became aware of the weight on his back as Leo sat back up, making a noise of discomfort as he tried to stand again. Oh come on! Why does he keep getting tackled by this guy? “Okay, now we should run.” stated Mr. Obvious as he grabbed Kyle’s arm and pulled him to his feet before taking off running, now being the one to drag a lagging Kyle behind him. They ran, now fairly deep in the open trees behind the more urban living area, and both were obviously running out of juice.
Kyle tripped on some sort of gopher hole and was sent tumbling, just missing taking Leo with him. Leo stopped, stared at him for a while with a look of worry and deep thought as he tried to stand back up. He had seemed to make up his mind and quickly helped Kyle get fully back on his feet and pulled him behind a particularly thick trunked tree. “Okay, I need you to listen to me… Okay?” Leo said, both of them obviously out of breath from their earlier cardio, Kyle nodded with a light huff.“This is probably the only choice we have now so save the freak outs and questions for after we’re safe” Kyle was obviously puzzled and about to question what he was talking about but Leo shushed him quickly. “Repeat after me, okay?”
“...Okay” Kyle was hesitant but he was probably going to die either way.
Leo let out a breath he seemed to have been holding. “You need to say: I’ll lend you my strength if you lend me your power.”
“What!?”
“Just say it!”
“Are you crazy!? We’re about to die!”
“Thats exactly why you have to say it. Quick!”
“You’re insane!’
“Just say it damnit!”
“Fine! We’re gonna die anyway!” He hesitated a moment to recall the words if not to pray for his life. “God this is crazy,” he murmured before quickly announcing what he had been told to before. “I’ll lend you my strength if you lend me your power” His voice held no enthusiasm, only acceptance for his early fate.
Leo blew up. Not like blew up blew up, but like he poofed into a cloud of falling flowers in an instant. One moment he was there, the next a gathering of orange flowers. “Oh my god… I’m hallucinating, I have to be. There’s no monster, and there’s no dudes exploding into flowers.”
“They’re not just flowers, they’re tiger lilies.”
“Ah!”
“Calm down Mr. 80’s” Leo was there behind him but also not there. He was holding onto Kyle’s shoulders like he was getting a piggy-back ride, but he was floating! And he was see-through! Like those plastic sheets from math class. God he really was going insane. “Youre not going insane.” Leo said with an amused tone,“like I said earlier, save your questions for later, now’s not the time.”
How could he read his thoughts? “Questions later, fight now” Fight!? “Yes, fight. Your weapon should be forming now.”
“What weapon-” A crawling started at his feet and finger tips, like thick fat slugs were crawling up his limbs under his skin.”Urp-” He really felt like throwing up.
“This is really gonna hurt, so just let it out” Leo said while awkwardly standing to the side. He didn’t know how to help him, he’s never done this before.
All the slug things were crawling towards Kye’s right arm. “AAAAAH” It hurt. They had burst through his hand. He was bleeding a lot and- He threw up.
“I know it hurts dude but you gotta get yourself together or we’re gonna die.” Kyle had half a mind to turn and retort when he realized the pain was now gone. He looked to his hand and found that it was now back together, and clutched in it was a large sword that had to be at least the size of him.
“What the-”
“Questions. Later. Right now we need to fight.” Fight? Wait…Shit. He turned around the tree to see the centipede seemingly searching for them. “It’s blind” said Leo. “It seems it can’t smell either, otherwise we'd be found already. We should try to be quiet and sneak attack it since it seems to rely on hearing.”
“Attack with what? You're a ghost and I don’t know how to fight that thing!” Kyle whisper-yelled, taking the fact that it tracks based on hearing into account.
“With your sword stupid”Leo looked down at the crouched boy like he was an idiot. Kyles looked at the sword for a moment, now really looking at it. It was large and wide like something from a fantasy game. It was pinkish-red in color and had white strings scattered within it; it looked the innards of chickens they had dissected in science the year before. Kyle almost threw up again but held it in. It was a one-sided blade and along the spine of it were three half circle chunks taken out of it, going from largest to smallest from hilt to tip. In those missing chunks were more of those white-ish strings stretching across the empty space, on those strings sat more of those orange flowers; Tiger Lilies Leo had called them. The end of the hilt had a larger one blooming from it. The hilt itself was a greenish toned metal with dark brown leather tightly bound at the grip.
How was he supposed to fight with this thing? He doubted he could even pick it up. “You’ll be able to lift it just fine.” he jumped a little, having forgotten Leo was there. “C’mon, we don’t have all day, the thing’ll find us eventually.” He gave Leo an annoyed look before attempting to lift the sword. It was light! That certainly surprised him, it felt like holding one of his bats at practice.
“RAOUGH!”
“AHHH!” The monster had found them and Kyle stupibly screamed in its face for a moment before getting himself together and bolting in the other direction, almost eating it face first a couple of times before getting his feet properly under him. Unable to let go of the sword, he was just dragging it behind him.
“Turn around and fight the thing!” Leo yelled in his ear, holding onto his shoulder with one hand and swinging as if he was a flag Kyle was holding.
“I don’t know how to fight!”
“It can’t be that hard, just swing your sword at it!”
“It cannot be that easy!”
“You don’t know till you try! And I hope you plan on trying soon ‘cause it’s catching up to us!” Kyle was probably gonna die anyway so might as well try. He swiveled on his heel, raised the sword and swung it down as if it were a bat. The thing dodged just enough to where it only lost an arm. It’s lost appendage thud to the ground before melting like a chuck of that oobleck stuff.
“You gotta aim for that grey orb in the center!” Kyle looked to the center of the torso and spotted it. It was kinda like X-ray vision. He could see the orb, but the orb was like inside of it. It was definitely something he couldn’t see before because it was large enough to be very noticeable, around the size of a cantaloupe. He tried to raise his sword again to go for another hit but the thing got its bearings first and struck him in the gut with its remaining arm. He spit up a bit of whatever was left on his stomach and let out a pained groan. “Get up, it's heading this way!” Did this guy ever shut up?
Kyle wiped at his face with the back of his arm struggling to lift himself to his feet. He was shaking now. Reality had really hit him now, literally. He was tired from running, he struggled to take in air and his gut felt like he had taken a hit from John Cena, eyes tearing from the pain. The ever present and annoying voice of Leo sounded again,“Come on, I know you're hurt but it’s better to hurt then to be dead!”
“Then why don’t you fight this thing!” Kyle shouted back at him. He was sick of it, Leo obviously knew more than he did so why doesn’t he fight?
“I can’t!”
“Why!”
“Look at me, I'm only visible to you. I can’t touch that thing if I wanted to! Just- we don’t have time for this right now. After we deal with this guy, I’ll tell you allll about it. Okay?” He spoke in a tone full of desperation and annoyance. Kyle huffed and turned away, sick of being told he’ll get answers later.
“Fine! But you're not gonna get to worm out of it later.” His muscles burned, he was so tempted to just collapse but Leo would yell his ears off. He dragged the sword in front of with much more effort than he had needed earlier. He looked in all directions to find the thing. Where had it gone? A thick drop hit his head and he gave a short “bleugh” before looking up to find the thing had climbed the trees and was looking down at him from above. They had wasted time arguing and now the thing was practically on top of them. It jumped with a wet screech. Kyle panicked and lifted his sword directly above him. He turned his head to the side and screwed his eyes shut tightly. The beast was already in the air and could no longer change its path, the sword went straight through its chest and the grey orb. It released a pained gargling and a higher pitched whine as it started to melt in the same fashion as the arm. Kyle, being directly below it, opened his eyes when he started to feel the goop fall on his face.
He dropped his arm holding the sword to the side and collapsed to his knees, taking a deep breath in before opening his eyes. “I.. did it. I did it!” He pumped his fists in the air with a huge grin on his face before letting his arms go slack, then let out the biggest exhale he’s probably ever released “huugghhhh…” Kyle flopped to his back and kicked his legs up before dropping them again, a small smile still lingering knowing that he had survived.
The sword in his hand began to deconstruct back into the slug-like things that had made it earlier and this time Kyle braced for the impact of then crawling back into his hand and wrist. No bracing could stop him from rolling onto his elbows and throwing up at the feeling of the things crawling around under his skin. He sat up to find that Leo was sitting beside him, legs spread out in front of him and propping himself up with one arm while the other plugged his nose from the smell as he grimaced. “Dude that stinks.”
Kyle mockingly repeated back to him, “‘Dude that stinks.’ Well why don' t you try letting some weird pink slugs crawl around in your skin and see if you can manage not to throw up. Wait!” He launched onto his knees and faced Leo, seeming to suddenly remember that everything that had just happened was not, in fact, something he should be acting this normal about.
“What the hell was that, what were those pink slug things, what was that-that monster. It didn’t look normal. There's no way that was normal. I mean it can’t have been, right? Am I going crazy, I bet I’m going crazy-”
“Just calm down, take a breath-”
“Take a breath? Take a breath!? I almost died I think and I want some answers. You promised me answers, now answer me!”
“Okay, okay. You gotta come with me somewhere first though” Kyle tried fighting him on this, he wanted to know now, but Leo was persistent.
~End Chapter One~