Chapter Four: Touched by the Darkness (I1B0C4)

             Chapter Four: Touched by the Darkness

 

            “Caught between two realities, all I hear is screaming.”

            Hatasuko ran through the streets of the island city, racing toward the Interfectus. A swirling cloud of fog and smoke swallowed every street; the flames and stars barely pierced it enough to illuminate the city. Except for the nearest homes and wagons, he could only see a single thing: the massive silhouette of the Interfectus levitating over the rooftops. He heard nothing but the running and screaming of people in the distance. He could not think of anything except the anguish of the lost souls locked inside his head.

            “As soon as the shadows swallowed the starlight, the symphony of screams grew restless. Their lifeless eyes watch me from the darkness.”

            Hatasuko detected the scent of ocean air beneath the smoke and fog. The fragrance of the ocean once summoned a sense of freedom and peace, but a thick smoke had poisoned that peace. It was an inevitable reminder of the world that had fallen at his feet.

            “Aranetta! You have to break the window! Please, just break it,” a mother yelled up ahead with a voice that pierced the pandemonium.

            “Tell her to stand away from the window!” Hatasuko yelled as he pulled a rock from the bag at his side. While the mother yelled to her daughter inside the burning building, he watched the Interfectus unleash its arm of bladed shadows. The deadly weapon shot into the smoldering city, and though he could not see it, he knew that someone somewhere had just been ripped to pieces.

            “Alright, stand back!” Hatasuko shouted as he ran up to the burning home.

            With a quick glance, he saw that the girl was trapped in the second story of a burning house. He then twisted his hips and threw the rock with all his strength; it destroyed the window with a burst of glass and gravel.

            “Jump! Jump right now! I will catch you,” Hatasuko screamed as the Interfectus glared on with golden glowing eyes.

            The crying girl jumped backward through the broken window a moment before the flames would have reached her. The mother watched with horror as her daughter fell through the air, but Hatasuko outstretched his big arms and caught her before she hit the ground. The impact nearly knocked him down, but he merely stumbled and set her on the street.

            “Aranetta, run! It’s coming,” the mother screamed as she dropped to her knees in the smoky street.

            Hatasuko spun and saw a scattershot of shadow spheres in the northern sky. The Interfectus then launched the cluster at the people in the street, but he came prepared for this. He quickly pulled a second rock from his bag and threw it upward at a high-speed shadow ball. The rock struck the sphere just a few feet above a nearby rooftop; the shadow sphere detonated with a blast of blue fire. The shockwave struck and exploded the next shadow sphere, which then burst and struck the next. The deafening explosion unleashed a powerful shockwave, but they all survived the attack.

            “Come with me! I’ll bring you to the southern shore!” Hatasuko yelled to the mother.

            The woman nodded and quickly grabbed his hand. Without waiting, Hatasuko ran southward while dragging her along; she stumbled for several steps until she finally stabilized. As they ran down the street and away from the Interfectus, the woman grabbed her daughter’s hand so that he essentially led a human chain of three links.

            “I’ll go with you, but I don’t have a boat! We’ll be stranded,” the woman said in between frightened sobs.

            “That’s okay! I heard most people on this island don’t have boats! I’ll figure something out, but we can’t stay here,” Hatasuko yelled back through the smoky air.

            Hatasuko heard the clamor of the massive Interfectus moving in the background. He threw his head over his shoulder, and he glared through his flowing hair at the shadow demon behind him. He saw its eyes glowing from the reflection of fire and starlight. He knew that it was watching them. He forced himself to run faster as he approached the end of this block; it was the same place where he had split off from Vaida and Lazaro, just minutes ago.

            “HATASUKO, GRAB ON!” Lazaro screamed as a whip cracked in front of his face.

            Without hesitation, Hatasuko grabbed onto the whip with his left hand and held on tight. Lazaro stood over ten feet away with his hands on the whip and his foot on a wagon. Vaida also had her hands on the whip; she and Lazaro both pulled at the same time with all their strength. The sudden jerk of the whip pulled Hatasuko toward them very suddenly; he channeled the force and threw the mother and daughter closer to his friends. In the very next moment, the blade-arm of the Interfectus blasted through the street with a burst of ash and dirt. It struck in the spot where the women had been standing.

            “Everyone get down!” Hatasuko yelled as he threw himself into the street.

            Vaida, Lazaro, the woman, and her daughter all fell flat in the street. The blade of the shadow demon slashed through the air over their heads with so much speed that the wind threw their hair into a mess; a cloud of ash and smoke flew up in its wake. When the shadow demon retracted its weapon, Hatasuko jumped to his feet and pulled the family up with him. He saw Lazaro and Vaida stand up as well, but then he realized that they were not empty-handed; a family of four crouched behind the wagon in the street.

            “Vaida, are you okay?” Hatasuko asked as the others struggled to stand.

            As a building blazed behind him, Lazaro interjected, “Hatasuko, I need you to run west! Someone is trapped. I’ll keep your people safe with my shield.”

            “Yes, sir! I’ll meet you back at shore.”

            Hatasuko let go of the woman’s hand and then ran westward through the smoky street. Before her face became hidden by the smoke, he looked over his shoulder at Vaida and saw her smile faintly. He hoped that this was her way of saying she was fine, so he turned his head toward the screams. He charged through the smoky street between empty homes and buildings, watching the Interfectus as it loomed over the hopeless city. While the writhing souls screamed in the back of his head, Hatasuko scanned the street for the person who was trapped. He noticed a fallen building at the corner of the very next block, so he charged in this direction, guessing that the victim was trapped in the rubble.

As he ran, he heard the loud swish of the Interfectus launching its blade-arm through the air. He threw his head over his shoulder and saw that the monster aimed for Vaida and the others around her, but Lazaro blocked the attack with his incredible shield. Hatasuko heard the deafening crash of the blade striking the shield from a distance.

            “Where are you?! I’m here to help!” Hatasuko shouted at full volume as he ran to the fallen building.

            An adolescent boy yelled, “Please help me! I’m trapped under here!”

            After confirming that they were safe from the monster, Hatasuko unsheathed his sword and slammed it against a wall of broken stone. It looked like the second story had partially collapsed onto the first, but he blew the wreckage away as quickly as he could. His body was tired from running, and his lungs ached from inhaling smoke, but he ruthlessly attacked the wall again and again; he used the terrified screams in the tempest to catalyze this effort. Every slash of his sword crumbled a chunk of the wall.

But about two-thirds of the way through the dig, Hatasuko saw the crushed body of a small person beneath the wreckage. This person was certainly dead—another soul lost to the darkness. He felt a surge of pain and anger, but he directed this surge into his arms and destroyed the last of the wall with a single slash. When the rubble came crashing down, he saw the adolescent boy crouching with his arms over his head. Hatasuko grabbed his hand and yanked him into the empty street.

            “We have to get to shore right now!” Hatasuko explained as he sheathed his sword in the holster on his back.

            The adolescent nodded, and they both ran toward the next block. When they reached an exposed intersection, Hatasuko swerved to glance at the silhouette of the Interfectus. He saw its two glowing eyes and a cluster of shadow spheres shooting through the air. The shadow balls already flew with incredible speed; there was no way to stop them. Hatasuko looked down and saw a father and a daughter running down the same street, but a shadow sphere rapidly approached them. He knew that he had to help, so he let go of the kid and charged to the north. The girl was faster than her father, so when the bomb struck the street, Hatasuko knew that her father could not be saved.

The shadow sphere erupted with a blast of blue fire, engulfing everything in the blink of an eye. The flames devoured the girl’s father. But just before the shockwave swallowed her, Hatasuko’s whip cracked beside her little arms. The scared girl grabbed the whip; he pulled so powerfully that he yanked her off her feet and into the air. He caught her in his arms, swerved instantly, and used his back to shield her from the fiery shockwave. They were far enough away from the blast that the flames failed to set him ablaze, though the shockwave felt like a heavy punch against the backside of his body.

            “Keep running to the water!” Hatasuko yelled as he set her down on the ground.

The terrified, wide-eyed girl nodded and ran, but Hatasuko sensed her despair from a distance. Nevertheless, he ran forward and quickly caught up to her and the adolescent boy. He yelled to them, “I’m sorry I had to be a little rough! Can you two spread out? If the Interfectus tries to stab me, I don’t want it to hit you.”

As they all ran southward through the street with an adrenaline-enhanced speed, the girl glanced at Hatasuko with a look of horror in her big green eyes. She asked, “How can we save ourselves from that?”

Though smoke and fog poisoned the air, Hatasuko swerved and saw shadow spheres barreling toward them. The children ran on because they were defenseless; they did not know that he had a countermeasure for this.

Hatasuko lunged toward the high-speed scattershot, ripped a rock from the sack at his side, jumped onto a tall wagon, and then jumped a second time onto the rooftop of a low building. When he landed on the stone roof, he jumped again and threw his rock with all his strength. The rock pierced the closest shadow sphere, so it instantly exploded in a huge burst of blue fire. The shockwave was so fast that it struck him in midair; the fiery impact threw him onto the street. He had saved the children from the scattershot, but the other shadow spheres had not stopped; he heard them blow the city apart while the searing pain paralyzed him.

“Are you alright?” yelled the voice of the girl from far down the street.

“Yes! Just keep running! Don’t let it see you,” Hatasuko answered.

As he struggled to roll his body, Hatasuko noticed a sharp pain in his right arm and upper back. The pain was lightly dulled by adrenaline; his injury could not stop him from moving. He quickly scrambled to his feet and retrieved the whip that had been blown off his body. Though he could not see anything through the thick smoke, he ran toward the children. He could not see the Interfectus, but he trusted that it could also not see him. But as he ran toward shore, he heard the Interfectus devastate the city behind him. He heard several homes crumble from a single slash of its shadow sword. Screams pierced the smoky air and echoed through the smoldering streets.

            By the time Hatasuko caught up to the young girl and adolescent boy, they were close enough to see the island’s southern shore. Its sand shone brightly from the light of the stars in the sky. Though his eyes were still overwhelmed by the brightness of the scattershot, he saw countless frightened people standing near the water. He knew that there were many more families than boats, so he rushed onto the sand as the Interfectus slammed its foot down in the distance. As he ran across the beach, he saw that many people had jumped into the ocean and started swimming.

“There’s nothing to discuss! You’ve gotta take more people with you!” Lazaro shouted from the edge of the water with his booming voice.

“This boat is only for my family!” yelled back another voice.

Hatasuko realized that the voice came from a large ship that slowly drifted from shore. Lazaro looked furious, though he would not personally intervene; his shield was the only thing that could protect the people on the beach. When Hatasuko noticed that the large ship only had three other people, he sprinted and jumped through a crashing wave. His powerful arms pulled his long body through the steaming water with impressive speed; the swimmers quickly diverged so that they would not be in his way. As a breaking wave barreled toward him, he took a deep breath and yelled, “Come on, everyone! This boat will carry as many as it can.”

When the ocean crashed over his head and threw him underwater, Hatasuko continued swimming as the tempest of lost souls screamed inside him. He could not hear anything other than the ocean, so the voices screamed louder than before. He heard the faint cry of a father screaming out for his daughter, but when he opened his eyes, there was no one there. He swam to the surface of the steaming sea and continued to swim toward the back of the boat.

The man on the large ship yelled to his wife, “Get me my spear! We can’t afford to take any of these packrats!”

When Hatasuko reached the back of the ship, he pulled his right hand over his shoulder and unsheathed the sword from the holster on his back. At the same time that a warm wave crashed behind him, he grabbed onto the low rail and pulled himself out of the water. He did a front-flip over the rail and landed on the deck of the large ship with his sword in his right hand. A middle-aged man stood nearby with a spear in his hands.

            “In case you haven’t realized, the Interfectus is going to kill everyone! Your neighbors have nowhere to run! You could easily carry another fifty people!” Hatasuko yelled.

“This boat is only for me and my family!” the man yelled back, and then he jumped forward with a swift spear lunge.

Hatasuko hopped back, twisted his hips, and blocked the lunge of the spear with a swing of his sword; the strike was so strong that he knocked the spear from his enemy’s hand. Hatasuko then jumped forward, twisted again, and unleashed a swift spinning kick to the man’s chest. He flew backward and slammed his back into the rail; Hatasuko ran up and grabbed him with his left hand.

“You tell your family to stop rowing right now. And you better let those swimmers climb aboard!” Hatasuko demanded as he held his sword at an angle.

The middle-aged man nodded quickly. Everyone else on the boat stopped rowing, so Hatasuko jumped back and slashed his sword upon the fallen spear. With a single strike, he snapped the spear beneath its head. He then holstered his sword and looked out over the ocean. It was hard to see through the steam and smoke, but he saw the shape of several heads bobbing in the water. People were doing everything they could to escape the Interfectus.

“You are all free to use this boat! Just keep swimming south!” Hatasuko yelled over the water, and then he jumped into the ocean.

But on the shoreline, Lazaro shouted, “Everyone, get down!”

The islanders on shore threw themselves into the sand. A flash of blue light illuminated the sky as the Interfectus conjured its shadow spheres. At the same time, Lazaro and Vaida pulled a rock from their bags. Unlike many of the other clusters, this scattershot stayed closer together as it barreled toward the beach; this proved that the Interfectus could control the launch pattern.

            With all eyes watching, Lazaro and Vaida both threw their rocks with all their strength. Lazaro was much stronger than Vaida, but his fast rock flew harmlessly between two spheres. Vaida’s rock struck a shadow sphere closer to shore, and then every shadow sphere simultaneously exploded with a wall of blue fire. The explosion was just high enough that the fiery shockwave did not strike the shore, but then the Interfectus attacked again with its high-speed blade-arm. It instantly pierced the body of a man on the east end of the horrified crowd; his body fell to pieces on impact.

“EVERYONE, JUMP UP,” Lazaro screamed as he threw himself onto his knees.

The shadow sword of the Interfectus swung across the beach at a very low altitude with very high speed. Those who listened to Lazaro managed to jump over the slashing blade, but seven other people were killed or maimed in a matter of milliseconds. The shadow blade tore through every victim until it struck Lazaro’s shield with a deafening crash. Lazaro then dropped his black shield, grabbed his warhammer, and smashed its cone-shaped point through the shadow blade with all his strength.

A shout came up from the crowd as Lazaro snapped the blade of the Interfectus with his warhammer. The shadow demon in the smoky distance retracted its broken blade-arm; the broken part shattered into shards. A strong wind quickly carried off the pieces.

“The Interfectus can heal its wounds. We are not safe! Everyone, get out of here right now. I don’t care if you have to swim or jump on someone’s boat. You cannot stay on shore if you want to survive!” Lazaro yelled out to the crowd with a booming voice.

“That was incredible,” Vaida said to Lazaro as people threw themselves into the water.

Though aches covered his exhausted body, Hatasuko emerged from the ocean and stumbled onto the sand. Lazaro ignored Vaida and glanced around the beach. He saw through the smoke that a small group hurriedly pushed a large boat toward the water. Many of the frightened civilians ran toward the ship.

“Vaida, go onto the boat and protect them from the scattershot. Hatasuko and I will find any stragglers still in the city,” Lazaro yelled to her over the sound of screaming civilians.

“I want to stay with you! Hatasuko still needs my help,” Vaida replied, though Hatasuko saw that she cowered as she spoke.

Without any warning, Lazaro slammed his fist into her stomach and threw her onto the ground. Vaida let out a high-pitched whelp as she fell into the sand. The scarred girl tried to climb to her feet; Hatasuko saw the wetness of tears in her eyes.

“I never asked for your goddamn opinion. Go to the boat right now,” Lazaro spoke, and as he said this, he kicked his heavy foot against her back.

“What the fuck is your problem?!” Hatasuko yelled as he charged Lazaro with his arms out, but he was too weak to tackle his mentor. Lazaro barely stumbled at all from the impact. With furious golden eyes, Hatasuko glared at Lazaro and searched for an emotional reaction, but he saw none. Lazaro did not appear surprised at all.

“We don’t have time for anything to slow us down. Let’s go,” Lazaro said.

Hatasuko sighed and let go of his mentor. Lazaro picked up his shield, holstered his warhammer, and then ran toward the other side of the beach. Knowing it was pointless to argue, he ran after Lazaro. With a symphony of anguished voices screaming in his head, Hatasuko looked back at Vaida before the fog concealed her face. She looked like she was enduring a pain much deeper than abuse, but she ran toward the boat anyway.

“I’m proud of how you handled the man on the boat. There are too many lives at stake for us to let something like decency get in our way,” Lazaro said as they ran through the smoky street.

            “Anything to fight against the force of misery.”

“So I guess this means that you weren’t lying, right? It’s too much of a coincidence. An Interfectus attacked in the same place you said, at the same time you said. I need you to know that that in itself is more powerful than any weapon I carry,” Lazaro explained between heavy breaths.

“It is my curse. It is my consequence. If it weren’t such a valuable tool for fighting the monsters, I would take my own life just to escape their endless agony. It’s a punishment far worse than death because I cannot waste this power. This is my destiny,” Hatasuko muttered.

“You’re still insane. I’ve said it before—anyone who does what we do has something really wrong with their head. But it doesn’t matter. No reason to waste time worrying about it when we’ll be dead soon anyway. Come on, Hatasuko. I saw a bunch of people hiding in a building.”

Hatasuko nodded and kept pace with his mentor. It was clear that the onslaught had exhausted them both, but they also knew that they could not surrender. Exhaustion meant nothing compared to the lives hanging in the balance. Lazaro took the lead and turned left at the next intersection, so when Hatasuko turned to follow, he watched the Interfectus in the northern sky. The demon was partially hidden by the smoke and fog, but the glow of flames illuminated its silhouette. It had finished regenerating the wound on its arm, and then its eyes opened with a golden glow that pierced the darkness. Immediately after its eyes opened, it unleashed its first weapon.

“Push me as hard as you can!” Lazaro shouted.

While running down the street, Hatasuko and Lazaro pushed off each other at the same time with all their strength. They flew apart from each other, and then the Interfectus’ shadow sword struck the dirt between them; it would have certainly impaled them if they had not moved. Lazaro then kicked off the wall of a fallen house behind him, and he ran to Hatasuko’s side before the shadow blade could slash. However, the Interfectus did not even try; it retracted its arm and summoned a cluster of spheres.

“It’s not coming for us,” Hatasuko muttered.

“They’re too far away. There’s nothing we can do. Let’s keep running.”

Hatasuko sighed, but he knew his mentor was right. As the scattershot fell elsewhere in the city and destroyed an entire row of homes, he felt the tempest grow louder in volume. It felt like the whole world trembled from something more powerful than shockwaves, but he ran on anyway. As he advanced, a new pain appeared that felt deeper than his physical injuries.

“It should be at the end of the block. They’ll get crushed if they stay there,” Lazaro said.

The smoke was especially thick in this section of the city. They could not see a single pulsing star in the darkness of the sky. Hatasuko felt a small spurt of adrenaline drive him forward, but when he approached the building at the end of the block, his heart sank and his blood turned cold. The wooden door was cut to pieces and strewn across the ashy street. A puddle of blood drenched the threshold of the smoky building. Hatasuko and Lazaro arrived at the door at the same time, but when they peered inside, they were stunned by what they saw.

Four bloody bodies were strewn across the ground. Every victim had been stabbed several times; blood and ash stained every inch of the floor. On the other side of the room, a young man sat in silence with a knife in his right hand. His left shoulder had a deep gash caused by the shadow sword. His eyes were golden, and though they did not pierce through the smoke like the Interfectus, they shimmered in the candlelight.

            “They were meant to die. We are all meant to die. There’s no way to stop the Interfectus. At least this way, they died without ever knowing the true face of the shadows. They were brought to silence instead of suffering,” said the young man with an emotionless stare.

“You were hit by the monster, right?” Lazaro asked as he stepped in front of Hatasuko.

“The Interfectus took my blood just as it will take us all. But don’t worry; I can save you. I can save you from the misery,” the young man answered as he stumbled forward.

“What’s going on?” Hatasuko asked.

As Lazaro drew his warhammer back, he said, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen something like this. The boy’s been touched by the darkness.”

“I will save you from the suffering. I won’t let your souls get trapped! I won’t-”

Lazaro swung his arms and slammed his warhammer through the young man’s chest. His ribcage blew apart on impact; the warhammer slammed through his body and into the brick wall with a mighty crash. Lazaro let out a sharp exhale as he pulled his weapon out of the man’s body. Blood stained his hammerhead. The young man fell limp and dropped onto the floor with his shoulders pressed against the wall. Even in death, he had a deranged smile on his face and a weak glint in his golden eyes.

“What happened to him?” Hatasuko asked with a quiet voice and his eyes open wide.

“I don’t know every detail. It’s a rare situation. Sometimes when a person touches an Interfectus and survives, they become touched by the darkness. They become a monster trapped inside a human body—a living avatar of the abyss. I don’t know exactly how it affects them, but the result is always the same. They become twisted murderers for reasons that just don’t make sense. Come on, Hatasuko. Let’s get out of here. It’s time for us to save ourselves,” Lazaro explained.

“Alright… let’s go.”

As Hatasuko and Lazaro stepped out into the smoky street, Hatasuko could not help but think about what Lazaro had told him. The orchestra of agony interrupted his thoughts, but he was so terrified that he could still think clearly even through the chaos.

Hatasuko whispered to himself, “He said he didn’t want our souls to get trapped. Did he also hear the screaming tempest? Is that why this happened to me? But that does not make sense; I am not a murderer. Is this really the reason for my curse? Have I been touched by the darkness all along?”