We kept falling, trapped in what felt like an endless free fall. The farther we dropped, the stronger the feeling grew that sohow we weren’t getting any closer to anywhere at all, as if the void stretched on forever beneath us.
To make matters worse, having an unhinged psychopath wielding a knife right behind you during a fall that promised certain death was definitely nowhere near what anyone would call pleasant. And judging by the tense looks and ragged breathing around , it was clear I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
“You’ve got to be kidding !” Rupert shouted as we plunged into the abyss, the wind howling around us and plastering his hair to his face, stripping away any trace of composure: “I’ve dated my share of crazy girlfriends, but this is way past ssed up! How long is this lunatic planning to keep chasing us?!”
Rupert’s yelling was quickly drowned out by the screams of the rest of the response team. Voices blended together, echoing endlessly as we fell deeper and deeper into the darkness, as if the abyss itself were answering their desperation.
Amid the chaos of screams and distorted voices, Arthur’s voice cut through, loud, steady, and clear enough to be heard, at least by Victor and Rupert, who were close enough to make out his words.
“I don’t think he’s going to stop!” Arthur bellowed at the top of his lungs, his hoarse voice tearing through the air as his eyes lifted, wide, toward the psychopath watching us from above: “At least... not until he gets what he ca for”
Even though Arthur hadn’t said any nas, everyone knew he ant . It was obvious in the exchanged looks and in the awkward silence that followed. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Sure, the idea of a psychotic maniac chasing you with a knife is terrifying... but still, if it were at least a beautiful woman instead of a guy, maybe the situation would feel less absurd, or at least easier to deal with.
The thought crossed my mind in a single second, and in the next, I felt a strange tingling sensation crawl up my spine... which, in itself, was absurd, considering I don’t even have one.
Even so, it felt almost as if soone were watching from afar, not just far away, but impossibly distant. There was sothing about that sensation that deeply unsettled , because it felt eerily familiar... dangerously similar to the chill I sotis felt when Althea watched .
In any case, I pushed those thoughts aside. This wasn’t the ti to philosophize. I still needed to figure out an effective way to get rid of the persistent lunatic trying to kill with a knife.
“Does anyone have any idea how to deal with this guy?!” Rupert shouted again, his voice shredded by the wind swallowing us whole. His eyes stayed locked upward as we plumted into the bottomless abyss: “Victor? Arthur?!”
I didn’t think either of us had a plan, not while we were hurtling toward death at several miles per second. Definitely not with the wind roaring in our ears, our stomachs threatening to flip inside out, and a lunatic just a few yards away, clutching a bloodstained knife whose blade reflected the light in a deeply unsettling way. His crooked smile was just as terrifying as the certainty that, right then and there, we were screwed.
As we continued our free fall, the wind ripping through the air around us, Arthur shouted again, his hoarse voice nearly swallowed by the roar of the descent. His words were clearly aid at Rupert.
“It doesn’t matter what we do!” he yelled: “That thing is going to keep regenerating because of the healing power of the [Angel of Death]!”
“I already know that, damn it!” Rupert shouted back, his voice thick with irritation: “So what, you’re telling we should just sit tight, wait, and pray this guy decides to stop chasing us on his own?” He made an impatient gesture, pointing upward: “I don’t know if you noticed, but he jumped after us into a creepy-as-hell canyon without a second thought. If he had any intention of giving up, he would’ve done it by now!”
Arthur lifted his gaze again, fixing it on the man above us. His monocle looked strangely out of place against the rest of the scene. For a brief mont, the silence seed to stretch, then, the next instant, his lips moved again, his voice low and precise: “We’ll have to do it faster. Fast enough that his body doesn’t have ti to regenerate”
As he said that, he turned his gaze toward . I followed the movent almost without realizing it, shifting my attention between Arthur and the man falling just behind .
It wasn’t hard to understand what he was trying to say. The logic was there, far too clear to ignore, but that didn’t make like the idea any more.
Still, as insane as it sounded, there was solid reasoning behind it. If I pushed my healing power to its limit while tearing him apart to the point where he couldn’t regenerate, my own body would fully restore itself in the process. His, on the other hand... well, nothing would remain but fragnts.
And without an intact body, there would be nothing left to regenerate. No regeneration, no return. Of course, I hardly need to say that this plan was completely insane.
But if I’m being honest with myself, our current situation was already far from normal, so maybe insanity was just one more detail among many.
Besides: (I’m definitely going to regret this later) I thought as I closed my eyes for a brief mont.
When I opened them again, I felt calr. Even so, this was going to be a... strange experience. Still, there was no longer any reason to hesitate this much. Would it be unpleasant? Definitely. But the worst part wouldn’t be there, it wasn’t like I’d feel pain or anything like that.
In that very mont, a ntal command cut through my mind, simple, direct, and undeniably firm: (Get out!)
The instant the thought ford, my body began to exude a dark, steaming mist, dense like living shadow. It slowly peeled away from and, right in front of , started to take shape.
First ca the arms, stretching as if molded by the air itself. Then the legs ford, solid and steady. The torso followed, proportionally identical to mine, like a warped reflection. Finally, the head erged, sealing the creation.
Another stood before , made entirely of the black mist pouring from my body. Its vibrant red eyes burned with a threatening intensity, standing in absolute contrast to my own vivid gold, as if we belonged to opposing affinities.
My Alter Ego’s crimson gaze locked onto with suffocating intensity, waiting for orders that never truly needed to be spoken. We were a single entity, every thought, every emotion transmitted in real ti. It knew exactly what to do, and more importantly, how it needed to be done.
I turned my eyes toward the psychopath chasing us at full speed. Without hesitation, I let my will crystallize into a single command, cold, direct, and absolute: (Tear him apart completely)
My Alter Ego didn’t need any further words or explanation. It simply turned toward the man ahead, and its body began to emit the sa dense mist leaking from mine. For a mont, it looked as if we were connected by sothing invisible, and that wasn’t entirely false.
Its form rippled unnaturally for a few seconds, as if struggling against its own shape, until dozens, hundreds, thousands of tiny microfilants suddenly burst outward in every direction, slicing through the air in ominous silence.
I swallowed hard. I knew exactly what my Alter Ego was about to do. There was no way not to know, the idea had been mine from the start. This was, without a doubt, the mont to test how far my regeneration speed could go, and whether it would be fast enough.
The anomaly response team, Victor, Arthur, and Rupert, stared at the scene with mixed expressions. Most of them carried a cautious tension, a blend of anxiety, surprise, and emotions difficult to define. Victor remained rigid, while Rupert silently assessed the risks unfolding before him.
Arthur, on the other hand, showed clear curiosity about what would co next. Even so, I can say with absolute certainty: nothing that was about to happen would be even remotely pleasant. Then it began.
Without warning, without any sign at all, thousands of microfilants stretched at once, ripping through the air in total silence as they shot toward the knife-wielding madman. They reached him before any of us could even blink, in an almost unreal instant where ti itself seed to hesitate, but the filants did not.
There was no impact. No collision. Just contact. And at the exact mont the filants touched the man’s body, I felt it. It wasn’t pain. It was sothing subtler, like touching your tongue to a drained battery: a dry, tallic taste, almost imaginary. It doesn’t hurt, but it warns you. A silent alert running across the skin and nerves, telling you sothing was deeply wrong.
My chest split along invisible lines, like paper carefully creased before the inevitable tear. I felt every division, every microscopic separation. There was no pain, only a cold, absolute clarity. And still, I perceived everything.
It was like watching my own body being dismantled piece by piece in a room that was too white, too silent, under rciless light, while soone beyond my reach calmly docunted every detail on a clipboard, unhurried, unemotional.
The microfilants passed through the man, flesh, bone, tendons, as if nothing there were truly solid. They didn’t cut. They chose. With cruel precision, they decided where the body stopped being a body.
The knife-man tried to move. The impulse was born, then died before reaching his muscles. He tried to scream; the air trembled uselessly in his throat. He tried to exist. Every attempt was instantly denied.
When his arm unraveled into hundreds of fragnts, my own arm exploded with sensation, not pain, but a sudden, disorienting emptiness. Like the exact mont you realize a tooth has fallen out: no imdiate suffering, just an undeniable absence. Your tongue keeps searching, touching the gap again and again, and the more it searches, the more real the loss becos.
At that sa instant, sothing hot and dense surged beneath my skin, regeneration. A deep, silent current rebuilding what had been destroyed. Skin remaking skin. Fibers reconnecting, every part returning to the state it had before annihilation.
A strange, almost intimate sensation, like my body consulting an old mory and murmuring: “Oh... so that’s how I used to be. Right” anwhile, my pursuer’s body had no such luxury.
The filants never had ti to exist. With every attempt at reformation, every fragnt that dared to realign, my Alter Ego responded by increasing density, speed, and fragntation. The process repeated with cruel, almost mathematical precision: destroying faster than any concept of healing could ever keep up. And I felt all of it.
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