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Chapter Six
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“Where does this get us?”
“That,” Kauri gestured to the figure on the bed, “has got to be Wild. Whoever it is running around with a backwards hand is just a copycat, maybe a yokai of some kind that got the details wrong.”
“He was certainly a livelier color,” Ado mused, feeling the bone-white skin of the motionless figure’s neck. “No pulse. But if he’s rotting, he’s doing it in a very weird way.”
“That thing wasn’t a yokai either.” Uchū clambered onto the bed, lifting and dropping the empty left sleeve with an inquisitive attitude. “Maybe the product of a yokai, or maybe someone’s got a really weird mask that makes inaccurate flesh amalgmatons of people.”
“Amalgamations.” Ado corrected.
Uchū shook his head. “I will never understand English. It’s not amalgmaton but it is automaton, and automation is something completely different. I don’t get all these A words and their unnecessary complexity.”
“How about atrophy?” Kauri puzzled, lifting up the figure’s shirt and exposing his stomach. “Dude’s got a six pack from lying in bed for two years.”
“Wow.” Ado raised her eyebrows dramatically, sending an elboy Kauri’s way. “Don’t be getting jealous now, big guy.”
“That isn’t funny,” Kauri grumbled, throwing the shirt back down. “Why didn’t his muscles starve themselves after all this time? He can’t have been here long. Otherwise he wouldn’t have any of that.”
“Oh! I know! I know!” Uchū threw his hand in the air excitedly. “He was being fed a mixture of proteins to keep his body from pulling stuff from the muscle! It’s like how they did it in that film you showed me a couple months ago where the guy is in space and-”
“No tubes.” Kauri pointed at the flickering machinery. “Nothing running from his body to anywhere else here. Not even for waste. Either he hasn’t been here that long, or something strange is going on. Either way I don’t like it.”
“Maybe this isn’t really Wild?” Ado touched the figure on the shoulder. “Maybe it’s a clone of him from after a certain point. Maybe that’s what the other thing was, too. A discarded clone.”
There was a sudden click from the hall, the sound of mechanical components moving inside a metal door. Swiftly Kauri flipped off the light switch and ducked behind the solitary chair in the room, with Ado scooping up Uchū and escorting him to the other side of the bed. After a minute of silence she let him out of her arms at his gesture, and he began slowly creeping towards the barely-opened door.
His progress was temporarily interrupted by Kauri using one foot to push him closer to the opening. Uchū smacked the extended shoe away with a frown and turned back towards the door, slowly peeking through and cautiously observing the entire hall.
“There’s nobody here.” He looked back inside. “Maybe it came from somewhere else?”
“We’re not gonna stay and find out.” Kauri clambered upwards, striding to the bed and scooping the figure up in his arms. “Watch our back, tofu. We’ve got more back to watch than you do.”
Uchū flopped his arms with a huff, impatiently waiting as Kauri pushed the door open with his knee and cautiously exited into the hall. Ado followed at his heels, doing a far better job at covering the rear than Uchū, whose smooth head turned towards every perceived noise in terror while completely disregarding everything else. As the elevator ascended with the party safely inside, Uchū’s eyes remained locked on the empty sleeve of the lifeless figure, reaching out hesitantly to grasp it but retreating when Kauri’s menacing gaze turned to meet the motion.
“Uh oh.” Kauri’s eyes flashed as the elevator descended the moment they exited it. “Move, people. Now.”
Kauri centered himself at the base of the stairs, and with a nod to Ado, he leapt upwards, decreasing his own density while Ado increased his acceleration to send him floating upwards. After hooking his foot around the stairway guardrail and pulling himself to the ground floor, Ado picked up Uchū and jumped, repeating the motion without the density control, Kauri catching the collar of her high-cropped coat and pulling her in as she neared.
“I have made a tremendous discovery,” Relic rumbled, picking himself up through the demolished hospital entrance and brushing away the ruins of the welcome desk. “This is most certainly not Wild. But it looks as though you found him? Red Scare will be most pleased.”
“I’m sure.” Kauri huffed, racing over and peering out the open hole. “You got him, then? Where is he now?”
As the figure greatly resembling the one in Kauri’s arms stepped through the open hole, Relic snapped forwards at blinding speed, his fist sending the character rocketing backwards and spinning off the rocks. “He was just here. You may have missed him.”
“Take this one.” Kauri handed off the motionless figure as he stalked through the shattered entrance, spotting the silhouette rising to his feet in the distance. “I’m staining the air with his guts.”
“A pity.” Relic glanced back towards Ado as the faceless figure raced to meet Kauri beneath the entrance of the dilapidated hospital. “Someone was probably planning on breathing it.”
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The rough plating of the creature buckled, shifting itself to accommodate the harsh strikes of its foe. Effortlessly lifting a large slab of shattered concrete, it tossed the substance forward, recoiling as it exploded into dust in front of its target.
Thick, black smoke billowed endlessly out of the scarf surrounding the figure’s visage, his brows obscured by the golden circlet stretched across them, its detailed exterior that of a Chinese dragon. The rest of his body was wrapped in dark cloths, which he tightened across his forearms as he stepped forward.
Howling, the creature’s oddly human face flashed its white teeth, the train pass still clutched in its grip. Wordlessly the cloth-draped figure stepped forward, raising his hand and striking savagely at the creature’s face. He backpedaled dramatically as the creature, entirely unfazed from the attack, attempted to grab at his extended hand.
“Hit it again.”
The figure braced, striking forward with an open palm with tremendous force, the air around the creature blasting away and ripping dead grass from the ground around it. Yet the creature did not move, its lifeless red eyes locking onto the extended palm with an offended air.
“Interesting.” There was a creaking from behind the figure, a flash of light preceding a creeping golden shine across the ground. It split to pass the figure, crawling to meet the creature and slowly working its way up its legs.
The creature panicked, turning and immediately collapsing as its lower legs, now solid gold, weighed it down. It pressed on, rising to its feet and hobbling along until its hips had transformed. Pulling itself away by its hands, the lifeless red eyes now shone with fear as it looked back at its pursuers.
“I knew you had fear in you.” The voice smiled, the smoking head of its subordinate eclipsing all of the creature’s view while the gold enveloped its form. “You can defy the Demon’s power, but you cannot resist the gold.”
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