DwindlingAway
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Unobtainable 2 - Chapter 4
🕑 Added 2018-01-25 20:53:13 +0000 UTC Chance ran.He made it as far as the door before Heather’s hand closed over his shoulder. Immediately he began to shrink. He struggled futilely to escape her grasp until he was left dangling from her outstretched hand. “What is happening?” his voice quavered in fear.
A slow smirk stretched Heather’s lips. “Heather…” Crystal warned softly. Chance continued to dwindle, shrinking smaller and smaller- passing my diminutive height and continuing to shrivel inch by inch. The crystal shone like captured starlight. “Heather!” Crystal exclaimed, more urgently. I watched in stunned silence. A part of me had expected Heather to tease and torment Chance, but the hunger in her eyes had a chilling urgency. Chance withered away, his body collapsing in on itself as magic devoured muscle, hair, and vitality. He shriveled to a husk of a person; pale, feeble, with wisps of hair that clung loosely to his skull. He looked like death.
“HEATHER!” Crystal shouted. Abruptly the transfer stopped. Chance dangled between Heather’s fingers, his body still… Chance twitched and suddenly his legs kicked feebly, not dead, but close. “Heather,” Crystal pleaded. “Don’t do this, you’ve done enough. More than enough.”
Heather looked down at Crystal and I knew before she spoke what she was going to say. I could see it in her eyes. “I need it all,” she said. And the life left in Chance was snuffed out. What remained of his body blew away in a puff of dust, leaving nothing but the memory of an emaciated doll twitching in fear. A second later an earthquake drove everyone in the room to the ground.
The walls cracked, the ceiling split, someone was screaming. Dust rained above, chips of painted wood fell around me, splinters the size of daggers that missed by inches. Where light should have poured into the room from cracks in the walls there was only darkness. Not an earthquake. Something much worse. Lilian Prentice. Bony hands snatched me up and I screamed, but it was only Crystal. Her face was, incredibly, even paler than usual. She moved towards the door but stumbled as another tremor rocked the room. Crystal twisted as she fell, shielding me with her body, she hit the ground hard. The cracks stretched further, widening and drinking light until the room was plunged into a hazy twilight.
Crystal struggled to stand, but gasped in pain when her ankle failed to support her weight. A huge chunk of ceiling fell, smashing into the ground beside us and spraying dust and splinters over us in a cloud. Another chunk of ceiling directly above us began to peel free. I watched it fall, and knew it was over.
Then Heather was there.
She took the chunk of ceiling on her broad back, shielding Crystal and I before scooping us up into her strong arms. A fallen beam blocked the door. Heather ignored it, and charged through the wall. The weakened beams splintered and cracked before exploding outward. Heather stumbled out into the wild. Above dark clouds roiled and black lightning, flickered leaving an afterimage of cracks in the sky. All around us on the ground, on trees, bushes, and fallen logs cracks spidered through everything as though reality itself were breaking apart.
Dana came outside, screaming incoherently. “WHAT DID YOU DO?” Crystal shouted. Heather looked down and opened her mouth to reply but nothing came out. She was afraid. Heather, the nine foot tall all-powerful goddess of my existence, was terrified. “What did you do?” Crystal repeated, numbly. Lightning cracked the sky again only this time the bolt did not fade. It remained frozen in place, a branch of darkness that grew rather than faded.
An enormous hand slipped through the crack.
This was a dream, it had to be dream. “It’s a dream,” I pleaded. Crystal looked down at me and shook her head. But what did she know? She was just part of the nightmare. The hand tore open a piece of sky, reaching blindly as though to grip something. Trying to pull the rest of her through. “We need to run,” Crystal said. Heather didn’t move. She knew- we all knew, there was no running from that. How massive was Lilian? A thousand feet? Two thousand? More? The distance of her hand and the lack of reference points in the sky made it impossible to tell, but the crack was growing wider by the second. Her forearm pushed through the breach: she was breaking through. But it was just a nightmare, it would all be over soon.
The blare of a car horn snapped everyone’s attention to the road. Even Dana stopped screaming to look at the SUV that came barreling up the dirt path. It skidded to a stop in front of the cabin and a guy my age jumped out of the driver’s seat. He looked scared, but somehow kept his shit together. A moment later a blond haired amazon stepped out of the passenger side, her head rising well above the top of the vehicle. She was not as tall as Heather, but she was not far off.
The blond glared at the crack in sky with hatred so thick it was as though she intended to turn Lilian back with the sheer magnitude of her spite. Even glaring as she was, the blond was heart-stoppingly beautiful. I had thought Heather was in a league of her own but this girl was every bit her equal. Her long blond hair swished away from her shoulders as she turned away from Lilian’s hand to fix her glare on Heather. She stalked towards us.
Her copious bust bounced enticingly over a washboard stomach- her physique was similar to Heather’s; incredibly voluptuous- pornographic even. Lilian’s elbow thrust through the widening crack in the sky and even the sight of a supernaturally buxom blond stalking toward me wasn’t enough to hold my attention. Lilian must have been close to a mile tall, I realized with dread. Good thing this was all a dream.
“Give me the crystal,” the blond demanded, extending her hand expectantly.
Heather gave a start, finally shocked from her stupor by being ordered around. New ground for her, clearly. “No,” Heather said defensively, clutching the faceted stone to her chest just above where she held Crystal and I. “It’s mine.”
“Isn’t that precious?” the blond sneered. “Either give it to me or I’ll take it by force.” She glanced at the boy who had trotted up alongside her, and her scowl softened for a moment before she returned her attention to Heather. “I don’t have any reservations about tearing you to shreds,” the blond said with a shrug. “But Andy does not want that so I’ll give you one more chance. Hand over the rock, now.”
“Give her what she wants Heather,” Crystal urged.
“No,” Heather said stubbornly. “I... need it.”
The blond looked down at the boy, Andy- the top of his head was even with her bust. Andy shook his head. “Please,” he said to Heather. “There isn’t time to argue.”
“Who are you people?” Heather demanded, finally overcoming her surprise. She squared off against the blond, attempting to reassert her dominance. A ridiculous notion given the titanic arm reaching through the sky overhead. How they were even able to have this conversation while the world was literally coming apart at the seams around us was beyond me. Dana sobbed out another cry, she had the right idea.
The blond watched the arm stretch across the muted light of the sun, throwing the land into deeper darkness. “We’re out of time, Andy. It’s now or never.” Andy looked at us sadly, then nodded.
Permission granted, the blond attacked.
Pain exploded in my chest. I did not recall hitting the ground but suddenly I was sprawled out in a heap among the leaves. I tried to sit up and groaned as my body resisted, every muscle in my body was violin-string taut. I’m paralyzed, I thought numbly, except... My head could turn ever so slightly. Beside me Crystal lay in similar condition. Heather was further back, pinned against a tree by some sort of dark energy that wrapped around her like webbing. The crystal fell from Heather’s fingers and into the blond’s outstretched hand. This dream was much crazier than previous ones. Whoever this person was they had the ability to throw a nine foot tall behemoth around like a ragdoll.
“Caley,” Andy warned, “She is coming.”
I followed his gaze up to the sky where the crown of Lilian’s dark haired head was beginning to push through the gap. One arm was through completely and her other hand seemed to grip the edge of the darkness as though she could widen the tear in reality through brute force. Since this was a dream, maybe she could. “I know,” Caley replied. She knelt in the leaves, grabbed a stick and quickly drew a circle in the dirt. She was preparing a spell. Of course, she was a witch, that explained Heather. Poor Heather was struggling against her bonds hurling curses at Caley who ignored her, focused entirely on her spellcraft.
From my angle I could barely make out the complex interlocking of shapes she scrawled with the end of her stick. In moments she was done, and placing the Heather’s crystal in the center of the circle, she called to Andy. He walked over and stood in the circle with her and they locked arms. “This is going to hurt,” Caley said tenderly. Andy nodded. A second later his back arched, lips flung wide in a silent scream. Blue light spilled from his eyes and open mouth.
A pillar of blue light bloomed around them, stretching into the sky, and piercing the clouds.
I AM
A voice like a hundred peals of thunder shook the sky, pounded thought from my skull.
COMING
Another explosion of sound blurred my vision. This was too much, this nightmare needed to end.
FOR YOU
The sky spun. The arm reaching across the sky faded, becoming ephemeral. The cracks in the ground, the trees, the bushes- all of it began to knit back together. A bestial cry of rage thundered from above, but muted as though originating from a great distance. The cracks faded, the arm vanished, Andy slumped to the ground, and I could move again. I sat up just in time to watch Heather tackle Caley.
They barreled to the ground together, Heather came out on top. “GIVE IT BACK!” She screamed. “I NEED IT!” Heather’s eyes were wild, half-crazed, like a junkie denied a fix. Caley glared at her from the ground, but didn’t fight back. She looked tired.
“I can help your friend,” Caley said calmly.
“What?” Heather said, confused. “What are you talking about? What does that have to do with my rock?”
Caley shrugged. “Take it,” she said, gesturing to her side where the the crystal lay, emitting a pale shadow of its previously brilliant light. Heather snarled and climbed off of Caley to snatch up the stone.
“There is hardly anything left,” Heather spat.
“That’s true, but with what’s left I can help your friend.” Caley pointed at Crystal who was watching them with wide eyes. “Or you can take it for yourself.” The crazed look in Heather’s eyes faded, she looked uncertainly between the stone in her hands and Crystal.
Capricious, self-centered, egomaniacal- I knew there was no way Heather was going to relinquish her prize. “Help her how?” Heather said.
Caley shrugged. “Return what was taken from her, obviously,” Caley explained. “It’s simple if you know how.”
Heather looked at Crystal, lost and uncertain. Crystal nodded, “I think… I think we can trust her.”
I did not really understand the desire that drove Heater but I knew overcoming it was basically impossible. Her head hung, and the fight seemed to drain out of her. She rolled the stone across the ground towards Caley. Now I was absolutely certain I was dreaming.
“Wise choice,” Caley said, and stood slowly to her feet, dusting leaves and dirt off her clothes before reaching down to pick up the dimly glowing rock. She waved Crystal over, and the frail girl moved to stand in front of her. Caley pressed the glowing stone against Crystal’s forehead and whispered words I was too far away to make out. The light emanating from the stone winked out and Crystal began to change. The differences were almost imperceptible at first, her hair grew subtly fuller, color returned to her cheeks, the sunken gauntness of her face faded away. The next wave of changes pushed Crystal up a few inches in height and filled out her build. When the transformation was over she had gone from a frail stick of a girl to, well, normal. Maybe she was still a bit on the short side, and her curves were nothing to write home about but the difference was dramatic.
Crystal sobbed and leaned in to hug Caley who, for her part, patted Crystal’s head awkwardly. They stood holding each other for a long moment before Crystal stepped back and sniffled loudly. “Thank you,” she said and turned to Heather. “And you too.” Heather nodded, fighting tears of her own.
Caley sighed. “This isn’t over. The entire area has been weakened and you can be certain my sister is looking for a way to wiggle her fat ass through the gap.” She scanned the treeline, lips pursed in irritation before looking down at Andy. When no one was looking he had shrunk down to little more than two feet tall. “Can I trust you to look after him while I take care of things?” Caley asked sternly.
Crystal nodded emphatically. “Of course, right Heather?”
“Yeah, alright, I guess we... Owe you one,” Heather said begrudgingly.
Caley stared hard at Heather for a long moment as though deciding whether or not to trust her before nodding to herself. She stalked off into the woods leading the rest of us to collect ourselves. Andy was out cold. Dana, similarly, must have passed out from the shock.
When the hell was this dream going to end? “Crystal, how do you force yourself out of a dream?” I asked. Crystal walked over and slapped my face with two fingers. “Ow,” I yelped. “Hey, what the hell?”
“Did that wake you up?” Crystal asked. She was putting on a brave face but it was obvious that everything that had happened had shook her to the core.
I scanned the forest, and saw miniscule cracks running through nearly everything. This should have been a dream except… My stomach heaved. “The… Fuck...”
“Yeah,” Crystal said solemnly. “I’m right there with you.”
I did the only thing that made sense to do. I threw up.
