Kozilek Brood - Wail

It screamed. Or she thought it did. A shrill chorus of tones, barely audible to her brain, vibrated through her skull. She felt something warm in her right ear.

Blood.

Pain bloomed along her body, matching the waves of vibrations that racked her frame.

Blind panic seized her, and she scrambled backward on all fours like a hunted animal. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Denn reaching out to her and whirled toward him.

The monster turned toward them, abdomen distended with air, and wailed.

The colors on the edge of Mina's vision blurred. In front of her, Denn's form collapsed and reformed in waves, the red of his hair and eyes draining from his body and bleeding into the edges of her vision. His outstretched arm was deflected in the opposite direction, bending at an impossible angle. His mouth opened and the words drifted helplessly from his mouth, his tongue unable to form their sounds, the air passing uselessly through his lungs. They hung in the air, meaningless and small, and dissipated.

Mina thrust her arm forward toward his and felt her muscles sag uselessly, her bones flowing like viscous smoke through the air, impossibly slowly. Her fingers drifted apart, their tendons unwinding from the bone, veins distending and tangling.

Even the ground beneath her turned to viscous liquid, sagging and flowing beneath her weight. Her legs were impossibly heavy, pulling her down and away from her outstretched arm. Her other arm found the hilt of her knife, and struggled to hold it as she unwound.

***

Some words were angry, tender, sullen, a secret language shared with a sibling whose voice she felt as her own. Some tumbled out in rumbling reprimand, stern warnings she had heard long ago. Others were a language and a tone that she felt but did not know, the warm gusts of wind in summer, the dull ache of regret. It was the sound of memories congealed in time and space. A calm settled over Mina, and she wove her words around Denn's wounded flesh and hands.

His eyes widened, surprise washing away any attempts at feigned callousness. "Are these the Ancestors' voices? Where did you learn to speak in their voices? What do they tell you?"

Mina only nodded, and said nothing.

Another wail shattered the vine wall, the packed earth and thick curling stems falling into brittle, coruscating pieces.

RECLAIMATION