Panultima (Scene Two), by Schuyler Cyr

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For every second Ikkabod spent face down on the beach a memory from the night before returned to him. A violent storm, a distant booming, a sudden collision; with each recollection Ikkabod pressed his face harder and harder into the salty, shifting, silt. He heard the rhythmic rolling of the waves, and the ground became as tranquil and reassuring a place as any mass of damp sediment could ever possibly be. There was calm, and comfort, and everything would be just fine so long as he kept his head firmly pressed into this dark, mercifully moist, abyss.
Then salt water filled Ikkabod’s flat narrow nostrils as the tides sent a particularly ambitious wave climbing up the shore. He rose spluttering and shuffling backwards and away from the receding waves. Coughing, he turned and opened his eyes. Finally he looked, he saw, and he panicked.
Wreckage surrounded him. Flotsam and beached debris littered the coastline in all directions. The sight of which didn’t really seem all that bad next to the innumerable cadavers scattered almost as densely along the shore. Their lives had all been consumed by the ravenous glowing fog so suddenly; Ikkabod still barely understood what little he remembered.
The young islander extended his gaze down the shore, and just when he thought death couldn’t possibly become a greater exhibitionist, he realized that the dark hill sized mound in the distance was the corpse of the largest creature Ikkabod had ever seen. Splinters of woodwork jutted out at unsettling angles along the glistening smooth pinkish gray hide of its back. What looked like four of the most gratuitously sized tusks on the planet reached out from the gaping void that was the beast’s mouth. Staring deeper into the seemingly bottomless maw, Ikkabod became distinctly aware of the smell of soaked and rotting meat surrounding him. And strangely, in the midst of this vast, haunting, all-natural massacre, he was reminded of the time his sister Virago had popped off almost a dozen stink pods in the fish market years ago, just to get back at his friend Shiro for tripping her into a mud puddle. The market had stunk exactly like this beach did now, except for the sour burning undertones he was picking up now. Though the odor had hung for weeks and everyone had ended up throwing out the clothes they wore that day, the look on Shiro’s face had been worth it. His face had shriveled up in shock and disgust like a baby tasting citrus for the first time.
And just like that Ikkabod was laughing. He began chuckling as he spotted the tortured expression of a dripping corpse that could now only remind him of how silly his friend had looked. He had been right next to Shiro and stood just as deeply in the putrid cloud when it hit but, as long as he kept laughing, the smell just didn’t seem as painful for Ikkabod as it was for his friend. Now he was cackling even louder than before. Obliterating the sheer and grotesque mood of the scene festering around him, he pointed at the dead Nanbu’s face. He held his sides. He threw up his head, stepping back. And then He tripped on something sticky.
“AAAWCK!” He squawked, plopping backwards and landing flat against the wet silt just as he had been moments ago. Only this time, instead of his vision being obscured by moist sediment, he saw a moist silhouette. The Nanbu boy quickly scrambled away from the crash of an uncaring wave for the second time that morning, and he stared at the stone still, bright red, cross legged figure seated directly before him. A wet and vibrant layer of a rough red and porous something covered the person’s entire body from their bald head, down to their wholly indistinguishable toes. The little body was stone still and Ikkabod wouldn’t have thought it could move at all if the little shit’s arm wasn’t extended straight out over the place he had just stood.
“What the? Did you trip me?” He accused, looming over the seated figure who remained silent and unmoving as ever, there was a pause. “WHYYY MAN!? What’d I do to you, huh?”
Nothing. His body did nothing, and his face revealed nothing. Not even a face. The ugly red surface covered the vague outlines of a pair of eyes and nostrils framed above a faint lop-sided groove running along about where you’d expect a mouth to sit. Ikkabod was perturbed to say the least.
“I wasn’t laughing at you.” He explained after a moment of rude and unsettled staring.
Then after another moment, the outstretched arm creaked. And he watched for about thirty seconds as the elbow slowly began to bend in, edging the mitten of a hand down to rest on the figure’s crossed legs. Watching the arm’s careful creeping movement was quite disturbing, and not in the least because it proved that somebody was in fact alive beneath that crusted carapace.
“So you can hear me.” He concluded, choosing not to explain exactly why he had been laughing. “What happened here?”
The figure said nothing.
“Where are we?”
The figure did nothing.
“What the fuck is that big thing over there?”
Nothing.
“Listen,” Ikkabod explained impatiently. “we need to help each other. Can’t you see that everyone else is dead?”
He couldn’t be sure, but for a moment Ikkabod thought he saw a twitch of movement on the figure’s face. Leaning in closer he noticed that the prominent bulges of their monochrome countenance’s brow had risen up and come together. The faintest impression of incredulity drifted through his mind as he looked into the plain valleys of red crust covering the place eyes might be expected to peer out from, under those conspicuously still-raised brows.
“Oh.” Ikkabod said, his brows plunging down into a furrow of their own. “I suppose you can’t see anything.”
Realizing he’d have to start thinking of much simpler questions, Ikkabod watched as the figure’s face resumed it’s blank and resolutely uninformative impression of an expression. Then he was struck by how entirely ambiguous the figure’s form was. It sat there, two arms, two legs. It was too small to be Kifaru, but beyond that he wasn’t sure if the thing even had a race, Nanbu or otherwise.
Remembering to keep things as simple as possible, he asked “Are you a boy or a girl?”
Ikkabod sounded a little more patronizing than he had meant to, and the question initiated another long silence. During which every drawn out creak and odd squeak was excruciatingly audible as the figure bent both arms at the elbow slowly raising its hands up, pointed and flat. Then, just as slowly, swung them down past its waist, parenthesizing the vague bulge around his lower crotch. To top it off, his knotted brows had made a frustrated comeback.
“Okaaay brother, I get you.” Ikkabod sighed. “You can stop, um, emphasizing your hehood now.”
“IKKAAA!!!” A tiny powerful voice stirred the coast with its dismay as Ikkabod turned to see his little sister barreling towards him down a dune in the distance. Virago was the only Nanbu girl he knew who had hair that short, and thin legs which moved that fast.
“Vira!” Ikkabod responded, recognizing the seven-year-old figure as she raced closer. Her already large eyes were bulged even wider with anxiety and fear. “You’re alive!” He reached out to hug her as she crashed into his torso but before he could complete the embrace she had already rebounded off him, grabbed his arm, and started to pull him back the way she had come.
“We’ve got to go.” Virago declared.
“Vira, all these bodies-” Ikkabod began.
“Just don’t think about it!” She commanded.
“But what happened?” He continued.
“That’s not important right now!” She insisted.
“Well what about that guy?” He insisted, pointing back towards the seated figure with his free arm. Virago stopped pulling and considered the silent observer as though she had only just realized they weren’t truely alone.
“So what? All they do is listen. Badly.” She concluded shortly. “Ikka, forget the crusty stranger, Harmony needs our help!”
“Harmony!? You found Harm!?” Suddenly remembering his younger sister, all other thoughts were wiped clear from Ikkabod’s mind. “Why didn’t you say so!? Where is she??”
“Back this way!” Virago said, already turning towards the dunes. The tatters of her tiny dress trailed behind her as Ikkabod pushed to keep up even though his legs alone were more than half the length of her entire body.
As they came over what must have been the highest dune on the beach he saw Harmony. Ikkabod’s youngest sister was sitting upright against a small rock close to the thick blueish-green brush that grew along the other side of the long, narrow, reddish-gray silt of the beach. Ikka breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her, and the panic began to ebb as he came closer. They were alive. They were together. And they were going to be okay. Just as he came close enough to make out the curtain of straight black hair obscuring Harmony’s pale white face, her large head swung out of her tiny hands and she began to scream. It was the most violently alarming sound Ikkabod had ever heard. To hear such a powerful wail, broadcasting an overwhelming fear and helplessness, through his own baby sister’s high-pitched prepubescent voice, was more than Ikkabod could bare. He was sprinting now. She fell to her back, convulsing violently. He closed the distance between them faster than he ever would have thought possible. The all consuming cry projected right into his face as he slid to his knees at her side. He almost choked on his own gasp as he saw his sister’s eyes shimmering with a horribly familiar cyan glow.
“Harmony No!! I’m here!” he cried, reaching out to hold her. As soon as his hand touched her face the screaming and shaking stopped as suddenly as they had begun. The eerie luminescence faded from behind her eyes and she looked up at her older brother.
Harmony stared at Ikkabod for a long moment. Her eyes, which already seemed bigger than her sister’s in that round trembling head of hers, were now widened to an unnatural size. Suddenly her hands shot out, gripping his cheek and chin, and only then did recognition dare to flicker across her face.
“Ikka” She whimpered.
“Yeah I’m here Harmony, it’s gonna be okay.” He cooed, setting her back gently against the rock. “What happened to you?”
Some of the fear seeped back onto her face.
“It’s too much Ikka! I don’t want all the sounds and voices! I can’t remember me! The hurt, it’s not mine!” She was becoming hysterical as tears welled up in the corners of those bulbous gray eyes. “Please Ikka don’t let the screaming come back! It’s too much!! Too much!!!” A glint of cyan was growing behind Harmony’s eyes as she began to lose control. She opened her mouth wide as if to begin screaming again.
“Harm please” Virago pleaded from Ikkabod’s side.
Harmony’s eyes flashed brightly as she let out a faint squeak and collapsed. Ikkabod flinched at the sudden bright light and by the time he had lowered his arms Virago was also kneeling at her little sister’s side.
“She’s still breathing”
Ikkabod and Virago were alone together again, with another silent companion. All the two siblings could do for one of the most painfully long moments of their lives, was hold each other while they watched their unconscious sister lie slumped against a rock. As long as he lived, Ikkabod could never accurately say how long they sat there. He would always take his time remembering that moment, thinking about all he could have done with it, and whether or not anything he did could have changed what happened next.
As he held Virago’s stiff hyperventilating frame, Ikkabod had lowered his gaze down to her for a matter of seconds before he heard a strange and increasingly loud rustling coming from the inland brush farther up in front of them.
“Hwoah SHIT!”
He looked up just in time to see a tendrilous teal gray mass descend upon Harmony, instantly reverse direction, and slither rapidly back towards the shrubbery as his youngest sister’s tiny limp body disappeared beneath the sudden wriggling mass.
“NO!”
By the time Ikkabod entirely registered what was happening, the creature had already vanished back into the foliage. Before he had thrown Virago from his chest and bounded to his feet in pursuit, Ikkabod had already begun to lose track of the patch of rustling leaves and petals the creature had become as it continued to shrink from sight through the underbrush. Ikkabod was sprinting now, struggling to close the distance.
“Wait! Harmony!”
He recognized Vira’s voice and heard the accelerated patter of her webbed feet come dashing up behind him. As they both raced after Harmony, Virago quickly pulled ahead of Ikkabod and started wading through the thicket. Ikkabod pushed himself to keep Virago in sight as she continued to gain ground. Just when it looked like she was about to catch up with the creature, the vague patch of shifting petals and branches reached the tall stipe line that marked the end of the beach and was gone into the dense agaric jungle of the mainland.
“No No NO!” Ikkabod began to panic when Virago also disappeared into the jungle’s shade.
“AAAaaaeeeek!” Virago’s screams rang out from the darkness almost as quickly as she had gone in.
Now breaking out into what had to be the fastest sprint of his life, Ikkabod was through the brush as quickly as his bony legs could carry him. His ears were filled with the sounds of rushing wind, rustling leaves, and snapping branches until he finally plunged past the first thick stipes of the jungle’s edge and saw his sister hunched over on her knees clawing at a thick glistening black something smeared across her eyes.
“Aaaah, SHIT!”
“Vira! Are you okay?”
“Get after her Ikka!”
“What’s that on your eye-”
“GO AFTER HARMONY, YOU STUPID FUCKING-”
Ikkabod was gone. As soon as Virago had raised her arm and pointed out behind her, he had seen the distinctive winding trail in the dark bare dirt of the jungle floor. As he dashed along the impromptu pathway, marveling at how easily discernible the creature’s continuous curving tracks appeared in the jungle floor, Ikkabod noticed his surroundings growing darker. He was progressing deeper into the jungle now. In a matter of moments the sun had been blocked out completely by the thick stalk’s ever widening caps which now towered into a distant impenetrable canopy. Wherever he looked the sky was entirely obscured by an overlapping mosaic of dark gilled ellipses.
“Creepy mushrooms..” He muttered to himself as he looked back down, relocated the trail, and continued on at a more careful pace. The fungi never grew like this back home. You would see netted groves of clathrus here and there, but even those never grew above waist height. But here these fruiting bodies seemed to have dashed all propriety to the winds along with their innumerable spores, as these fleshy monoliths extended their reach higher than any Nanbu-made building Ikaabod had ever seen. The stalks grew denser now too, until there was no straight path visible between them in any direction. They were everywhere. The columns surrounded him now until Ikkabod was struck with the universal bareness of it all. The stipes’ broad surfaces were as smooth and uniform as the dark earth he treaded, and no embellishment presented itself to disrupt the uniformity of each long expanse. There, in that moment, the world was simply too large. Ikkabod had slipped into the inconsiderable gaps of its most unfelt pores where detail could not find him. The silence echoed in his ears in tandem with his footsteps, until he could not help but to break it.
“Stupid agarics with their shitty pileus, and their.. their cursed giant stipes!” His profanities were weak, and they did little to deter the small lonesome sensation that had begun reaching through him. Even all the most precise botanical terms his father had taught him did little to instill any sense of control. Ikkabod’s dad probably would have enjoyed himself here, he could never have grown anything so big in his garden back home. There the plants had only ever grown tall enough to perfectly hide Harmony in every game of hide and seek they ever played. Harmony had always been good at hiding.
“WOW! How do I do that?!” Ikkabod’s pace had slowed, and his path had veered. His sister could be getting torn limb from limb at this very moment and again his mind was adrift!
“Shit. Shit! SHIT!” And he was back to a sprint. Again, all sense of time had been derailed. He had no idea how long he had been running, but it certainly felt too long. Surely he should have found something by now. Harmony was almost half that thing’s size, how fast could it possibly move with her in tow? It was no use. He had lost all sense of bearing and all he could do now was run faster than ever before, reasserting his course tracing that awful wriggling wake.
“Really Ikka? Again?! Now?” He berated himself aloud as he ran. “How man?? HOW???” He picked up still more speed. His mind had drifted just as swiftly as it had that time with Virago and her damned stink pods. If he had hurried, he probably could have gotten home quick enough to save his clothes. Or even worse was the time when that note had arrived from his cousin saying his boat had sprung a leak and he needed someone to sail out and help him immediately. Kanjee almost didn’t survive that day. Ikkabod still remembered his cousin’s expression when he finally did bring the canoe alongside his half-submerged boat, his relief seemed buried beneath despair, frustration, and disappointment.
A high pitched and tremulous scream instantaneously shattered the silence along with Ikkabod’s current train of thought. He couldn’t be sure what horrified him more, that the noise was unmistakably made by his youngest sister, or that it came from off to his right side, in nowhere near the same direction as the trail he was currently following.
Another shriek sounded, more drawn out and ragged. Then a distant, heavy, rumbling crash accompanied the sound of Ikkabod’s desperate panting as he flew off in a new direction, now led only by the echoes of his sister’s terror.
“HANG IN THERE HARMONY!” He called. “I’M COMING!” After focusing in his newfound direction, and looking forward instead of down, a faint aqua glow became visible in the distance along a break in the virtually endless ranks of pinkish-yellow stalks. He drew closer, eager to break the monotony he had just lost himself in. In seconds he could discern the source of light as he followed the source of Harmony’s ongoing wails, it was a clearing. Centered around a cave mouth nestled into a sheer rocky foothill was a small field of blue-green mushrooms no bigger than Ikkabod’s palm. they all grew in close pairs and each cap emitted it’s own aura of similarly colored light. The grove’s collective luminosity brought Ikkabod’s hand over his eyes for a moment. All was silent again. The screams that had led him this far had cut off suddenly, but as his eyes adjusted to the light he knew where he needed to go. What was once a cavernous opening in the rock face seemed now to be almost entirely caved in. The conspicuous pile of boulders seemed to have rolled out from deeper within the tunnel and had left a small gap near the cave top. The gap seemed wide enough, so Ikkabod took in a preparatory breath, pursed his thin lips in anxious determination, and struck out towards the cave. As he approached he was careful to step between the pairs of shimmering fungi. He wasn’t quite sure what they were but he could’ve sworn he’d seen them before, and at any rate if he had learned anything from his father it was to watch yourself around any plant you could not name, even if it seemed sedentary.
“Especially if it fucking glows..” He muttered to himself as he reached the base of the rubble and began his precarious ascent.

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