Page 45 of Remnants: Disruption
My vision darkens as I fall, head rebounding off the concrete floor.
Omen’s heavy footsteps land beside me, their coughing and grunting makes what had just been imminent victory into a deranged defeat.
“Nice to see you again, De Luca,” their voice is sadistic as they step past me. The sound of a gun strikes the concrete as Percy’s scream turns feral.
I roll over to my side, gripping at my useless arm to see Percy on her back.
I send out another tendril, and it latches around Omen’s neck. They gag for a moment, their attention reaffixing on me.
The parking structure rumbles and a fragment of the concrete ceiling lands beside me, nearly crushing my skull.
“Damn,” Omen grunts out, tearing themselves free from the tendril. “You’re a hard fucker to kill.”
“I try,” I spit, rolling to my knees. Shadows darken around the structure, and they all lash out at Omen.
Except they don’t go the right way. They should have gone through Omen. Through their heart. The shadows should have found their mark.
They find Percy instead.
But it didn’t matter.
It never mattered.
The spears pinion Percy to the concrete floor, and Omen simply barks out a laugh.
Her bionic arm is clutched between both of Omen’s. The Remnant’s foot pressed squarely to her chest. And then they pull.
Hard.
Percy’s bionic arm tears free from her torso and, with it, the rush of blood and viscera. Rather than just taking the bionic piece, they took the entire shoulder and part of her collarbone.
She doesn’t even scream.
“Humans are so frail,” Omen coos, waving the warm like a trophy.
I dive forward, but only one of the tendrils sinks into Omen’s shoulder. They howl in pain while clawing at the manifested dagger.
“Fate,” Omen huffs, tugging at the fragment of shadow still embedded in their shoulder, “is a fickle mistress, Dark One.”
Then I see her. The way her eyes have glassed over. The way blood has drenched the concrete and her side. The way my shadow-spikes pocked holes along her chest.
The way she’s dead.
A keening sense of frosty numbness strikes at my chest. I crawl forward, cradling my arm that feels like it’s being torn from my body.
I reach her side, unable to see anything but the shocked look of pain permanently etched on her face. My hand finds her remaining one and Omen’s hideous laughter disappears.
As does everything else.
Darkness pools around me—like an ocean of nothingness that ripples and rolls. A glowing light sits somewhere, but I can’t see it in the darkened sky above. It’s like a lake of void, detached and dismantled.
And there, sitting crossed legged in the rippling nothingness, is Percy.
“Hey,” she greets. “Come sit.”
She gestures to the space beside her and I dutifully sit. The fluid darkness neither cold nor wet on my skin.
It justis.
