Starving Creature Fights an Angel

July 4 1998
265 Days Since The End

The Thing

It took you all of your willpower, every soul in your body working in perfect unison, you even lost those who couldn't be replaced along the way, but... You finally did it. You survived their guns and their bombs, their biological weapons and the hellfire they pulled from the inner workings of the universe. They couldn't kill you. They couldn't stop you. You've saved them all from themselves. And now, you've come upon their last hidey-hole. Pulling the double reinforced steel door off it's hinges is child's play, and already you can smell the adrenaline building deep within. THIS WILL BE FUN, you think, ONE LAST BATTLE. "INDEED." comes a voice from above, from all around, from within. Every eye on your body swivels to the source of the sound, a blinding being of light and power. It lowers from the heavens gripping a flaming sword in both perfectly sculpted hands.

"ONE OF FATHER'S SIDE PROJECTS I SEE. HE HAS BEEN CURIOUSLY SILENT SINCE YOU BEGAN YOUR... RECLAMATION. BUT EVERY DAY HE SHEDS A TEAR FOR EACH SOUL YOU CONSUME, FOR EACH ONE YOU ENGULF IN WICKED "COMMUNION". I AM HERE TO END HIS SADNESS, AND YOUR GHASTLY EVIL!" The luminous figure hefts a burning sword in your direction, and you are surprised to find that you don't feel any trace of fear, but instead... Excitement. Joy for the hunt. It has been so long since you've felt the need to communicate verbally with another living Thing, that you can just barely force out the words "C-cooome ooonnn theen, beeeeiing ooof liiiiiiggght, prrroooovvve yooouurrr pooooweeer." As you finish you think you detect the slightest hint of a smirk on it's lips, before it disappears in a flash of light, and suddenly you feel burning, rending pain! You sense the creature behind you, both swords deep in your body, before they split from each other lengthwise, and you release an agonized scream as your body is split into two! You go very still, and you can just hear the strange being murmur "THIS WAS TOO EASY. SURELY OMIDIAH COULD HAVE DONE THIS HERSELF..." And so caught up in it's victory is it, that it doesn't notice as dozens of tiny tendrils snake under the grass towards it's glowing legs... Then, you strike, each tendril first wrapping around and then piercing the steel hard flesh, injecting your blood and cells directly into it's body! A second later hundreds of tendrils shoot out from your twin halves, and you pull yourself back together!

Already you can sense it growing weaker, your cells doing their calamitous work with practiced ease, even within the body of one as strange as this. "HRRGGHH, NOT BAD DEMONSPAWN, NOT BAD AT ALL. BUT CAN YOU KEEP UP?" And once again it disappears from view in a flash of light, and before long you feel yourself get cut on the side, and then a tendril gets lopped off, and then one eye gets stabbed. It intends subject you to a death of a thousand cuts! But... You think you can keep up after all. Even though you can't see it, you can sense it's mind, and every cut is precipitated by a thought, you just have to get the pattern down... Your leg gets removed, and then another, and then... There! Densely muscled tendrils snaps out and catches two arms about to strike with it's celestial blades! "W-WHAT!" It cries, but it is too late, as you activate your insectoid strength and pull it in close, your maw widening in tandem with it's widening eyes! "N-NO! WAIT!" Is all it has time to get out before your jaws close around it's head, denting the flesh, and then snapping and crushing it completely, a flood of delicious juices filling your mouth. You wrap more tendrils around it's form, while silently thanking the cells you injected for slowing it down just enough for you to deliver the killing blow, and then you force it down your throat, wings, clothing and all. Just as you are about to turn to the bunker and finish your work on this planet, you feel something bubbling deep within. Is that... laughter?

"H-HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" As suddenly your body is filled with both light and blinding pain! Your flesh bubbles, and then balloons, before finally you burst asunder in a brilliant flash of light, spraying blood and viscera in all directions! Then... All is darkness.

It takes days for your cells to reconnect, for your body to pull itself together, and in that vast and all consuming darkness, you dream. You dream of golden streets and silver buildings, of winged creatures and Things wandering around. You dream of something unimaginable, watching from every corner. Just as you are about to reach that great and giant Thing, you wake up. Opening your eyes and looking around, you are none the worse for wear and that Thing that almost killed you is nowhere to be seen. And you feel... Different, somehow. Lighter. Harder. Better. It takes but a thought for two luminous wings to sprout painlessly from your back, and then two more and two more until you have 6 wings on each side of your body. You test them and find yourself floating above the ground effortlessly. And in the sky, far in the distance, you feel a... Longing. To return. To feast. To desecrate. Sparing one final glance at the bunker's entrance, you turn to the skies, and in a flash of light and the flutter of wings, you are gone.

Only a handful of feathers remain.