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chapter 32. a circular steel rod
🕑 Added 2023-04-16 06:53:08 +0000 UTCA circular steel rod, roughly an inch in diameter and corrugated so that her blood glistened down its spiraling ridges, jutted out from her stomach. Jenny felt a sharp sensation in her lower right side. It reminded her of the random stabbing pains she used to get, wondering if it was finally appendicitis, but then it would turn out to be trapped gas in her intestines. It was seriously odd, sensing pain without feeling pain.
She coughed up blood then rested her head back on the concrete slab she'd fallen on. Her feet hung off the edge, touching the tiles of the first-floor physics lab room. She was caked in dust, stuck to the slab, but at least it didn't hurt.
The sensation of her flesh around the rod was weirding her out. She knew if it weren't for Severed Soul, she'd be dead. She might've passed out from the blood loss or pain, and she wondered now if that would've been better than this.
"Fuck," she whispered. Dust rose and spun all around her. She jostled slightly, felt her insides squish grossly, then gave up. About two feet of rod stuck out of her. She had to rip through her side to escape or climb up the entire thing and slide off. Her shield clanged uselessly against the slab.
She thought she’d dropped somewhere near the back of the room, but it was difficult to tell with all the rubble piled around. The physics lab was buried. The windows had shattered, and the swirling mistiness of the veil floated inside. Its ghostly light shone through the clouds of dust.
Flashes of what happened kept popping up. The cocoon had exploded. She'd seen the floor give away. Saw the sacs tumbling around like enormous pieces of fleshy hail. The ceiling above had caved in.
Exposed pipes and rods and cement. The bodies that the angels had piled up fell like clumps of mud, their limbs and heads knocking into things. She'd glimpsed the girl and the black Imperfect Angel, her hatchet still stuck to its head. But she hadn't seen what emerged from the cocoon, or if anything emerged at all. All she'd done was fall, trying to shield herself from chaos.
When she landed, there'd been a strange pressure in her back, and she'd seen the rod emerge from her insides, almost in slow motion. Her blood sprayed all over, and the thing kept extending until she slammed against the slab with an unceremonious clang.
She struggled again, grasping the rod with her right hand, trying to drag herself up its length. But no matter how hard she squeezed or how much she strained, she couldn't move more than a few inches off the slab before her arm gave out, and she slid back down, frustrated. But without clear messages of pain, she was terrified of ripping her arm out of its socket. She didn’t want her only arm with fingers still attached to be useless.
This was stupid. What bugged her the most was that she hadn't seen Oliver. Did he get dropped down too? Was he crushed under the rubble? Or was he still up there? She wasn't sure what the radius of the cocoon's blast had been. But there'd been other kids with him too. Jenny hoped they'd woken up and were working on getting themselves and Oliver out, even if they didn't manage to get to her.
She laughed. Fucking hell. No, it would be stupid to give up now. Her body literally could not die until she disabled the skill. All she had to do was get out of this, kill a bunch of angels, and then.... and then... She remembered how she'd poured the potion onto Susan's injured leg. Okay, so she wouldn't have to feel any pain. She could get someone to heal her body, and disable the skill, then she'd be just fine.
She grabbed the rod again and pulled, sliding a bit upward, wishing she could use both hands.
She got a bit further up, heard a pop in her arm, and stopped. There was still so much of the rod left to go. Her boots kicked at loose rubble, trying to find some footing to prop herself up, but something fleshy and soft gave away beneath her heel and she stopped.
Exasperated, she slid back down the rod to rest and slammed her shield into the concrete slab. Then she did it again and again, not caring that the sound was ringing out all over the ruined lab room.
Either she'd break the slab and free herself with the rod still inside her or someone would hear her and come help. Or something else might find her... she used as much force as she could, picturing an angel devouring her while she was stuck here. Picturing the metallic and creepy Desecrated Angel she'd seen in the cocoon, its blue eyes... its teeth chewing through her face while it smiled at her.
She didn't have her hatchet; she couldn't summon it. But she figured she could smash any angel's face in with the shield. Or grab onto them somehow and use their bodies to pull herself out. Or worst-case scenario, force them onto the rod as well, skewering them so she could take a few more of these assholes down to hell with her.
If it meant a bunch of angels would be distracted, then she would happily be a diversion while the others got out of the rubble. If they were alive...
She heard a crack beneath her, but the slab wouldn't give. She couldn't get the right angle. She didn't stop until she heard something wet. Something squishy. As though a bowl of pudding had hit the floor.
Then she heard a giggle.
She turned her head. The sound had come from her right where a pile of rubble formed a mountain over one of the physics lab room tables. Crushed bodies lay between them. An arm stuck out, almost as though it were reaching for her.
Then she saw what was making the sound. It was a pudgy baby crawling on all fours, its big head bobbing as its eyes wandered, an almost curious innocence shining in them. It wasn't like the angels' eyes. These weren't white and vacant; they had irises. Pupils. Large dark circles that moved until they spotted Jenny and paused.
The baby's face lit up. Gooey liquid trailed from its skin as it crawled over the debris. Dust clung to it. It tumbled and rolled, and Jenny almost wanted to shout for it to be careful. To not move. That she'd somehow get to it and help. But it paused to sniff one of the crushed bodies, and she saw several more babies wriggling around.
The first baby came up to her. Its palms struck the rubble, making fleshy sounds that Jenny thought would hurt, but the baby didn't seem to mind. Wet-looking black hair was stuck to its head. It must've just emerged from a sac. It was newly born, but it wasn't tiny like human infants. And it was already crawling, something human babies didn’t do for like a year after birth.
She couldn't tell if it had emerged like this or if it was growing at an accelerated rate. And without the Guidance System, she couldn't be certain of what it was. The eyes threw her off; they seemed too much like human babies. She remembered what Eve had said about the sacs having to be blooded and wondered if that led to accelerated growth. Was that a way to ensure the infant would survive?
The baby crawled up to her, its chubby cheeks jiggling, its brows furrowed in concentration. It stopped by her boots and looked up with those large curious eyes. They were brown like Jenny's and full of life. A gurgle of laughter bubbled through its lips with spittle.
She almost thought it was cute. Almost. Cause right after clapping its hands, it slapped both palms down on the floor and lowered its button nose to where her blood had dribbled down her legs and pooled. It slurped.
"What the fuck?" whispered Jenny, her tongue moving awkwardly over her gums. She couldn't look away from the little creature; it almost seemed like it was nursing. Then she noticed the others wriggling toward them. They weren't as focused, and they paused to wiggle loose rocks and chew on loose limbs.
But they didn't have teeth. They couldn't rip into any of the flesh. The babies gurgled and giggled. One of them screeched. It was trying to bite into that arm sticking out from the rubble, the fingers unharmed between the baby's gums. It tried to grab the arm, reposition, and when it still couldn't bite through the fingers, the baby screeched again.
Following its lead, others started to cry too, wailing at the top of their lungs. It was like being in some demented nursery, except she was trapped, bleeding out, and one of them was drinking her blood off the floor.
Guilt panged inside her. A twisting knot in her stomach that she thought she shouldn't have been able to feel, but it was still there. She thought about the sacs she set aflame in the stairwell on her way to the second floor. Thought about burning the female Imperfect Angel to ashes and bone and remembered the little skeleton she'd found in the larger angel’s embrace.
She'd consoled herself thinking that whatever was in those sacs were probably just as twisted and horrifying as the angels. But these babies, despite their cannibalistic instincts, seemed so... innocent. On top of that, they had eyes. Eyes that searched the rubble, spotted her, and lit up as though they'd found their mother in a crowd of people.
She wanted to throw up again. She'd never wanted any children, and now she swore if she got out of this, she'd have her uterus ripped from her body. Some part of her would always be terrified of pushing out a horror baby.
Swearing under her breath as the babies crawled over to her, Jenny grabbed the furthest part of the rod she could reach. She had an idea. She inhaled deeply, positioning her boots beneath her, raising her hips slightly and arching her back. She was distorting her body quite a bit, and she tried not to think about how much this should hurt. Her right ankle was twisted and useless, but if she could just generate enough force, this could work.
Squeezing the rod, she pushed her feet against the slab, a cry of frustration escaping her. She paused after sliding up more than she'd managed before, exhilaration fluttering through her head. She glanced at the baby. It had stopped drinking blood and now sat back on its little butt, sitting and watching. It clapped its hands together, a wide smile on its face as Jenny struggled. The other babies drew closer, some on all fours, some sitting, all of them watching her with great interest.
She adjusted her feet and slid her hand up the rod. It was slick already with blood, and now her fingers and palm were bleeding too as the corrugated ridges cut her skin. Her insides squeaked and squished as she pushed off again with her feet, the angle of her body changing as now she was almost upright.
At one point, she almost let go and fell back. But she smashed her shield into the slab and used that as a crutch to hold on. Her body was out of breath, and even though she couldn't feel the pain or the struggle, she relaxed her shoulder for a second, squeezing the rod as hard as she could with her hand while she inhaled a lungful of dust.
"Stupid baby," she whispered, but without teeth, her voice sounded so stupid to her. She laughed, realizing she was missing teeth just like the angel babies. It was a gross, ugly laugh of desperation, exhaustion, and frustration. Her body was nearly all the way up the rod, her shield arm stuck behind her. It was such an absurd situation.
Gathering her strength once again, she kept going. Pulling with her hand, pushing with her legs and shield. Her insides shifted the further she climbed. At the tip, she quickly adjusted her right hand, letting go to grab the rod from behind. Her shoulders cracked, but this way, it was impossible for her to slide back.
She screamed for the last bit. Her insides struggled to let go, but as soon as she pushed herself off, she stumbled forward and fell right next to the first baby. Her helmet clanged against a piece of rubble. The breeze and dust teased her insides. That couldn't be good... but what was she supposed to do now?
She wished she could use Ignite at least. Use fire to close the wound. At least nothing really hurt, and she pulled herself back up. She turned to face the slab. It was covered in her blood and the rod stuck out like it was beckoning.
The babies watched as she hobbled back. Her right foot bent uselessly, and she stumbled again but caught her herself by grabbing the rod. The first baby's lips opened, and it made a soft cooing sound, drooling.
Jenny licked her lips. She was a mess. But that wasn't new at this point. She'd managed to free herself from impalement, and that was an immense win as far as she was concerned. The babies hadn't tried to eat her; nothing had come sniffing her out. But there had to be other things out there. That Desecrated Angel for starters... Where was it? What was it doing?
She pushed the rod forward, bending it near the base. Groaning, she adjusted her grip and pulled it back. Then she repeated the motion several times, the rod squeaking and stretching at the bend, and she relished her increased power as it snapped off cleanly. She had secured a makeshift weapon until she found her hatchet.
She held the rod, using it like a cane, hunched over and drooling as she bled profusely. What happens when I run out?
The other babies wandered around her. Some of them sniffled, sucking their thumbs, or inspecting the blood on the floor. Her shield arm dangled loosely as she wondered what to do about the little creatures.
I could kill them and take their Energy.
