NOVPUBAlana ran. She ran with all of her might.
But where could she even go?
She could see the walls of this place. A cruel prison that Feris had abandoned them in. A cage with no bars, trapped with a beast with no leash.
Yet despite this isolation, it felt as though the island stretched on forever. Or maybe it was her that was slow. No matter how hard she pushed herself to run, she felt sluggish, dreamlike. No, a nightmare. She felt like she was running through sludge, unable to muster the strength that was required to escape.
She could hear the screams, the crushing of bones, the tearing of flesh. Behind her, distant yet so close.
Creeping ever closer. The footsteps of those frantically running away like her.
Those who fought, those who ran, those who stood still in terror, unable to comprehend the monster that they unleashed.
Their fate was the same.
Death.
She didn't look back. She couldn't. If she did, her eyes would analyse the deaths of her allies. The method of which Alice would tear them apart. The image of her own fate appearing in her own mind.
A cruel calculation of her own death that she couldn't stop. Analysing every detail like an equation she could never solve.
If she came face to face with Alice right now, perhaps she'd fall on her knees and beg for a quick death.
*Thunk!
She saw a corpse hurled overhead, twisting through the air like discarded garbage, slapping against the ground with a revolting wet thud.
Their. . . state. Neither Alive nor dead. Injected with both Alice's blood and the ambient Eldritch energy that she had purged earlier.
Alana's foot caught on a limb. She couldn't tell what it belonged to. It was too long for a human limb, too many joints for a beast limb. The texture of the skin was. . . 'wrong'. Overgrown, hardened like carapace, a vile mimicry of skin.
She turned her gaze towards the source.
She shouldn't have.
Bloated with mutations, his flesh pulsed with a sickening dark energy. Bones jutting out of his arms from uneven angles, veins dripping with a black mucus.
In that moment, her mind betrayed her. Her eyes analysed his state, flashing images of herself in his place.
Her flesh bubbling, her eyes melting. Her limbs bending in all the wrong ways and her spine arching until it snapped.
She gagged as nausea hit her like a punch to the stomach.
"Let go of me!" Kicking his arm away, she stumbled back and caught herself on a boulder before collapsing to the ground.
She had to hide!
Maybe! Just maybe! If she hid well enough. . .
Alice couldn't keep this up forever, right? This kind of power, this kind of output. . . There had to be a cost! There HAD to be!
A price, a backlash, there had to be consequences! Even Gods can die!
She won't let herself get taken by fear like this! She is the pride of the Hybrid Protocol! A Hybrid that could copy and counter Abyssal abilities when given enough time!
There was nothing she couldn't solve, no foe she couldn't kill. Time was all she needed!
Right!
Time!
She just needed time to analyse and find the weakness!
Time to think, time to analyse, time to find the flaws. The gaps that she can exploit.
Leaning on the boulder for a moment to catch her breath, a myriad of thoughts flashed through Alana's mind. Flashes of equations, fragmented data that she collected, probabilities of certain plans, every tool, every weapon, every variable that she could use.
. . .
Then there was a single thought. Staring back at her.
A shadow at the end of the corridor. It didn't move, it only watched.
A thought so clear, so cold, it silenced everything else in her mind.
What if there was no drawback?
What if she didn't burn out?
What if this rampage could be sustained indefinitely?
What if this wasn't her last resort but her normal state?
What if she could kill every last one of them before she ever got close to running out?
A chill raced through her spine. Ice water crashing through her veins. Her breath choked in her throat.
Looking down at her hands, Alana's gaze trembled. She couldn't find the strength to pull herself up.
Her mind, collapsed at the weight of her realisation.
Her mental world, built on a lifetime of understanding logic, laws and pattern recognition began to unravel. Tearing apart at the seams.
Everything she knew. . . No, everything she THOUGHT she knew crumbled to dust.
"It's not possible. . ." She whispered, feeling as though she was now standing at the edge of a cliff.
She thought about everything that led up to this point, the choices made, the actions done. The diverging paths that led up to this point.
Alana clutched her head, her nails digging into her scalp, drawing blood. Her vision swimming with the different possibilities that could've played out yet landing on this one.
No escape, no counter, no hope.
Her hands fell limp at her sides, the maelstrom of chaotic thoughts ended. Not because she found a way, not because the threat was gone.
But because she understood it deep down.
Death was inevitable.
Tears streamed down her face, mixing with her blood.
"Ha. . . Ahahahhaahhhhhhh!!!" Her laughter slowly turning into a mad cry. A bitterness in her heart.
A realization that the family tampered with something they should've never have touched.
A decision led by hubris.
They should have never tampered with her. They should've left this darkness buried, left this void unexplored with greedy hands, grasping for a power beyond their control.
She was no salvation, she was no gift of the Gods.
She was ruin.
Alana curled up, making herself as small as possible. She covered her ears, closed her eyes, hoping that this nightmare would end swiftly. She felt the vibrations in the ground, the vestiges of battle.
Silence.
A faint tremble. . . rhythmic.
Footsteps.
Alana looked up. . .
There she stood.
Alice.
She stared at the beast that they invited. The destruction that they summoned.
Painted in fresh blood, laced with viscera. A crimson halo burned above her head, bathing her form in red. Her expression was serene, calm. Untouched by the carnage that she had wrought.
Alana stared, empty, hollow. No anger, no fear, devoid of life.
Only resignation.
What stood before her wasn't human, it wasn't a beast. It was demon incarnate.
Her nightmare.
Their nightmare.
Biting her lips, she forced herself to stand on her feet with shaking legs. Her arms hung limp by her side. Staggering to the side, towards a discarded weapon fresh with the blood of its previous owner, her fingers curled around the handle.
One final act.
Not in defiance.
No.
One act to hope for a swift end to end this nightmare.
She turned to Alice with a trembling smile, fragile, broken.
The dried up tears staining her cheeks.
Using what remained of her strength, she raised the blade. . .
And slashed her own throat.
A splatter of red. A crimson arc.
Her world spun sideways, weightless. She saw her own body stumble, fall to its knees and collapse on the ground.
And as the darkness swallowed her, relief filled her head.
Her nightmare, it's finally over.
###
Looking at the headless corpse of Alana in front of her, Alice deactivated her abilities one by one.
A disappointing end.
She thought that Alana would fight. No matter what, no matter the opponent, Alice expected her to fight and go out with a blaze of glory.
But no.
She died ending her own nightmare before Alice could get to her.
Perhaps she expected them to be like the soldiers that she saw, willing to sacrifice themselves for one more hit.
One more hit so that their allies would have a slightly better time.
But this was different. A one sided slaughter.
All of them ran with only thoughts of their own self preservation. A panicked mob of people trying to desperately find a way out of this prison that Feris had constructed.
Her joy cut short by their lack of resistance.
Once they realised who they were up against, strategy disappeared. No sacrifice, no glory, just slaughter.
But. . .
What did she expect from this?
She saw their fear, she saw their panic, she saw their mind crumble. But only emptiness filled her chest.
She wasn't satisfied.
Alice stared at her own reflection in Alana's blood. She felt nothing.
No more thrill, no euphoria, hell. . . not even hate.
To Alice, they felt. . . pathetic. Not even worthy of her scorn.
Her joy was in abundance at the beginning. Realising that she could go wild. But now it was dulled. Blunted by how easily the opposition crumbled apart. 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙥𝙪𝙗.𝒄𝙤𝙢
Why?
Was her joy cut short because they broke too easily?
Her eye flickered for a brief moment, filled with an unknown emotion that Alice couldn't quite comprehend. She didn't even know how to put the feeling into words.
Standing in silence, she glanced down at Alana's head and kicked it away.
'Alana's power might be helpful for you Cayla. Do you think you can do anything with it?' Alice asked, gathering Alana's blood into a single orb and swallowed it, stealing what remained of her soul.
[Perhaps. We both work with analysis after all.] Cayla shrugged.
Alana was the only notable ability out of the crowd aside from Kaine which Alice had already extracted before she was dragged away.
'I see.'
Without saying anything else, Alice swept her gaze across the remains of the battlefield one more time before making a portal back to her realm.
