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Chapter Seventeen
Treatment
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“Corey!!”
The heavy eyelids slowly dragged themselves upwards, having a difficult time bringing the rest of Corey’s head with them. “Hmm? OH-” He suddenly straightened himself, brushing the wrinkles out of his uniform and sliding about in his seat. “My presentation, right.”
“What I asked you was,” The teacher sternly reiterated, with her tiny glasses pushed towards the end of her nose. “I want to know who it was that made this for you. Well?” She scowled at him from across the classroom, the naive faces of his peers all turned to see his reply. “You dropped out of sculpting because you didn’t like it, and now you show up with an immaculate sculpture of a guarding lion expertly crafted out of fresh clay. Who made this for you, Corey?”
“Uh,” Corey gulped, shakily picking up his pencil and nervously drawing three lines next to each other. “Well, y’see, I uh- I followed a tutorial. Online. For how to do it.”
“I see,” His teacher crossed her arms and leaned onto one leg with an amused expression. “And what was the name of the person who made the tutorial?”
There was the noise of a bell from further down the hall, and the door suddenly opened, the wild-eyed face of the janitor peering around it. He rattled something off in Japanese to the teacher, and the entirety of the class scrambled out of their seats in response.
“Alright, orderly lines now, come along.” The teacher pushed and prodded her students out the door. “Corey, come along, you can pack up your stuff later.”
Scrambling out the front door, Corey’s class joined the growing crowd of children gathered directly outside the school, waiting until they were all evacuated before moving across the street. Weaving through the crowd of his schoolmates, he finally reached the line of grass aside the road, and slid his hands into his pockets.
I’ll call the school in a moment to get you out of there.
“I wasn’t expecting you to throw the fire alarm.” Corey murmured.
You gave me the signal. I wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t important.
“Yeah, they called my bluff about the art,” Corey sighed. “We’ll need to think of some way for you to-”
WHAT?!
Corey winced, covering his right ear. “A little quieter, please.”
YOU THREW THE EMERGENCY SIGN BECAUSE OF AN ART PROJECT???
“Corey!!” The teacher snapped, having finally spotted his blonde head hiding amongst the crowd. “Get back over with your group now! I don’t want to see you wandering off again, understand?”
Corey shrugged one shoulder at the buildings opposite the school and returned to the conglomerate of his classmates, listening intently for the sound of any approaching fire engines. The rest of the students were fairly panicked by the suddenness of it all, but Corey dove immediately into facts and statistics about fires that he mostly made up in the moment to put them at ease.
We are SO having a talk about this later.
—
“I hate every single thing about this.”
Race didn’t comment, silently holding the folded pile of Ren’s clothes. She also didn’t make any comment on how silly he looked in his wetsuit, or how they had to hurry up lest someone question why a random foreigner was about to dive into a garden pond. But the thoughts still slipped through despite her silence, and Ren pushed himself forward with a sigh.
“I’ve only ever done this once before.” He sat down at the edge of the pond, letting his legs dangle in and disrupt the peaceful staring at the wall the koi were involved in. “That was back when Wild was alive. I think I cried for maybe three hours afterwards; it was awful.”
“Welp,” Ren turned back towards the pond, not wanting to see what Race’s reaction was. “I would suggest not standing too close to the pond for a little bit. Might get clobbered if you’re not careful.”
Practically falling into the pond, Ren held his breath as he descended downwards, the depths of the water below him seeming to draw him further and further into the murky blackness. The pressure barely increased as he descended, but the urge to exhale grew significantly stronger, forcing him to mentally double his efforts to keep his breath in.
It was less than a minute before he had to triple them. The terror of drowning suddenly and violently set its fangs on him, and for a moment it seemed like he might give up. But clenching his jaw, he looked upwards at the light which barely penetrated the water around him, hoping that by its solace he might find the strength to go on.
Then the light faded. Darkness completely surrounded him, and utter desperation at the situation set in, but he refused to budge. This was the fate he had chosen. Even in what felt like his last moments he refused to surrender.
His eyes shut and opened again. A massive glassy eye was now inches from his face, reading every detail of his entire body, as it was almost as large as he was tall. The next moment there was a violent rushing, and Ren spilled out in front of the pond, gasping and choking violently.
“Ren!!” Race stumbled over and landed on her knees next to him. “Are… You’re okay, right? You’re gonna be okay, c’mon, look at me…”
“C-Can’t.” Ren turned his soaked head towards Race, his eyes now blank and lifeless, glazed over with a silvery fog. “Not until it is done. He’s on his course now, and there’s- ghkkkauh” A gagging cough interrupted his explanation. “There’s nothing in the world that can stop him.”
Race looked upwards with something akin to an accusatory glare at the sudden dark clouds which quickly began to gather. “We have to run,” Ren shuddered as he staggered upwards, feeling about for Race’s hand to guide him. “The rain is coming.”
—
Odgu slowly peeked out from the door of his apartment. The hall was empty, save for a cat which loitered at the door, hoping to escape into the wild outside world.
Climbing down the side of the stairwell, he landed softly on the aged carpet of the main below and adjusted the pillow atop his back. An attempt to pet the elderly feline resulted in several hisses and a scratch, which tore through the cuff of his sleeve and deflected off his immovable exterior. Sighing bitterly, he turned towards the door and propped it slightly open with his cane.
“Oh!” Pakka started, having raised his hand to turn the knob. “Are you heading out?”
“Yes.” Odgu whispered, slinking out the door and closing it softly behind him. “You need to keep your voice down in there. If the landlady hears me going out and about she’ll beat me with a poker, or call the police if those old cataracts manage to get a good enough look at me. And I shudder to think of what that poor poker would look like after it’s either beaten against me head or slammed through the hood of a police car.”
“Wait.” Odgu turned his bulbous eyes on Pakka with a sharp glare. “You’re not here for that, are you? In the middle of the day?”
“It’s been getting worse.” Pakka gripped one hand around its opposite arm. “I can feel it reaching down at night. I don’t know what to do.”
“Fight it!” Odgu snapped, curing an inhuman hand in irritation at the now quite startled lad. “Come on, man, what do you think it is I do? I don’t conjure up any sort of magical power that lets me reshape people into whatever I choose!”
“I… I know,” Pakka’s resistance to the dressing down crumpled. “It’s just… It’s so hard to fight back. It feels inevitable. Like it can’t be stopped or avoided, just… Postponed.”
“Yes, that is what inevitable means…” The leader of the Pangolins sighed, backing down. “Alright, but keep at it, kid. It’s not going to get better if you don’t actively fight it at all times.”
“Yeah…” Pakka sighed, then flinched. “Yeesh, what’s… Raindrop just hit me. When’d it get so dark and cloudy? It was clear walking over here.”
Odgu glanced up at the almost black clouds which seemed to blanket the sky. A sneaking suspicion that crossed his mind was almost immediately confirmed the moment he looked back down, with the massive eye that stared back at him threatening to engulf him whole.
There was more that unnerved him than the distended jaw of the creature, with its gaping holes that revealed how the jaws could lunge forwards out of the skull, or the wickedly curved teeth which seemed to glow with their transparency, or even the bristling and lightning-like hairs which traveled the length of the creature’s spine. The whole thing seemed to possess an ethereal quality which froze the air around it, and while the face and eyes seemed fully bestial, with no intelligence of any note present, there seemed a clear and unrelenting purpose behind its dead gaze and guttural breaths which rattled the trees in front of it.
Pakka didn’t seem to notice the terror in his boss’ eyes. The inhuman hand gripped tightly around the head of the cane. “Move.”
“What?” His wooden face looked about slightly. “Is there something-”
“MOVE!!” Odgu roared, suddenly gripping him by the collar and throwing him a great distance down the street. He had barely released Pakka from his grip before a torrent of water erupted from the beast’s mouth with blinding speed, smashing him back inside the apartment building he had just exited. The water rushed back out the open wall as quickly as it had entered, and as he gripped his cane with both hands to rise to his feet once more the sodden body of the cat caught his eye, crushed to death in an instant by the terrific force which had clobbered him.
“Stupid eel.” Odgu growled, slipping off his trenchcoat and pillow. “Leave it alone! You want me, you dish-eyed tapeworm? Well come and-”
It instantly agreed to the proposition, charging forward with speed almost impossible to track, smashing through the rest of the building with Odgu caught between its teeth. Pakka watched in horror as the massive creature wormed its way throughout multiple apartments until it was thoroughly tied into the whole complex, then suddenly rocketed upwards, bringing most of the structure along with it, and ripping the building apart in the air.
Move. Odgu’s words came back to him suddenly, vibrating through the air. Move.
Scrambling to his feet, he barely made it a block away before the creature rocketed down the street, tearing up the road as it went, Odgu holding the beast’s jaws open with his hooked hands. The rain was growing quite violent, massive droplets smashing into the sidewalk before him, and he stood motionlessly watching the terrible creature thrash about before suddenly breaking away, curling up into the sky and shaking its head around with some violence.
“I think I know who’s behind this.” Odgu panted, his voice suddenly quite gravely, as he gripped one of the translucent teeth in his hands. “Tomorrow you’re going to go back there and get my trenchcoat, but for now just take my cane and run to Oisim.”
“What?” Pakka stammered, catching the cane clumsily in his arms. “Are you gonna be okay?”
“Whatever it takes to keep you safe, kid.” Odgu glanced back at him, still panting heavily. “Now move. See if Oisim has anything on two-hundred-meter dragonfish that can fly and-”
A brilliant flash suddenly occurred, scaring Pakka backwards and bringing Odgu to his knees. Steam rose off his body as he staggered back to his feet.
“…And summon lightning.” His voice rattled. “I’m going to buy you as much time as I can, but you have to go.”
“I- I can’t-” Pakka protested, but the sharp stare of Odgu forced him to run, trying his best not to slip in the heavy rain. The former hunchback’s eyes turned towards the massive creature, blanketed in water, curled into a figure eight in the sky.
“Okay, ugly.” He gripped the monster’s broken fang with a growl. "If there’s no more interruptions, then come and get some!"
—
“Come on, come on… Pick up, you…”
“DANG IT!!” Kohaku hurled her phone at the bed in rage. “The ONE time I try to call him and he won’t pick up. Maybe… Maybe he’s…”
“Oh thank goodness.” She sighed as a large silhouette landed on her balcony. “Do you have any idea how badly it is raining out there?? Well I guess you do, since you were out in it, but like, I was sure it would start leaking in here any second now. Get in here and get yourself dried off.”
“Thank you,” The massive palm of Hawk smothered Kohaku’s entire face as he stepped through the curtain, grinning as he looked about the room. “I can never fault you for a lack of hospitality.”
Kohaku gasped heavily as the lumbering giant suddenly dropped her and walked to her closet. Sliding open the door, he lifted up a cardboard box and grinned at her. “Ren told you to keep this for him, and without even telling you what it was, I’ll bet.”
“What are you going to do to him?” She stared, unable to take her eyes off of him from her position on the floor. “What are you planning?”
“I’m not sure.” He shrugged in reply. “He’s not really that important, so it doesn’t matter. This matters.” He hefted the box under his arm. “Now I hope you have an excellent day, ma’am. It’s a little windy out so I suggest you stay inside.”
His free hand touched the curtain just before a massive blast of wind ripped through the room, the tail end of the unholy monster whipping around and scraping across the building, easily ripping the balcony clean off. “Ah. I think you should probably move in just a second.”
Before Kohaku could respond, Hawk suddenly lifted her off the floor and strode to the opposite side of the room. The sliding door abruptly shattered, a round black object smashing through it and into the wall on the opposite side. It unfolded itself, uncrinkling its crumpled wings and trading a translucent stub of bone in its inhuman hands for a standing lamp.
“IS THAT A GIANT CMMmmph!!”
“He’s very sensitive about it.” Hawk cautioned as he once again smothered her.
“Get her out of here.” Odgu’s voice trembled. “This thing is killing everyone. I think it won’t stop until it kills me. I have to take it somewhere else, somewhere it won’t be able to hurt anybody. That idiot Ren doesn’t realize-”
He suddenly braced as the leviathan tore through the apartment and smashed through the wall on the opposite side, leaving a massive hole all the way through the building. Kohaku barely had time to snatch her phone off of the bed before Hawk suddenly flew out of the open hole, lifting her by the arm as he soared upwards.
“Stop it!!” Kohaku cried as she pulled herself up on the motionless wrist, freezing in place as she got a good look at the city below her. The creature was in a frenzy, thrashing as it knocked the skyscraper she had previously lived in to the ground before tunneling through two more buildings and veering away violently.
“There’s a nice coffee shop a couple of kilos away from this noise.” Hawk grinned at her horrified expression, the water streaming down the hooked beak at the end of his mask. “No, it’s quite alright. What else would I spend the cash on? Parking?”
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