Amunet’s pupils constricted. She couldn’t feel anything coming from this creature, it was as though it was beyond her realms of understanding. Whatever scanning methods she had bounced off its reflective skin almost like a buzzing fly. The creature didn’t even react to it, scanning them one by one as though the strength differences between them didn’t mean a single thing to it.
"No answers?" the creature asked with a blink. "Well, I could start to simply kill you all one by one until someone gives me the answers I want."
The creature had hardly spoken when it raised a finger and pressed it down.
Pa.
A head exploded, a line of blackness cutting across the skies. It didn’t even feel like a real, tangible attack. It was almost like everything in its path was erased instead. Rather than taking physical form, it was erasing.
A place fit for a bowl was carved into the poor individual’s collarbone. The attack took so much of his head that it ate into his torso.
"Whoops." The creature said. "So fragile. I really only meant to leave a little hole. I’ve heard that you humans dissociate too easily, so it’s better to keep you grounded in reality."
The creature chuckled. "So I promise not to use any mind-boggling techniques, okay? I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible so that your feeble minds can understand.
"Now, I’ll ask my question one more time."
The creature raised its finger.
"Where—" PA. "—is—" PA. "—this—" PA. "—Joaquin?"
An eerie smile split the creature’s face, one dead body falling after another.
No one knew how to answer. They could only watch in horror as one body collapsed after another.
Joaquin hadn’t even appeared here in the first place. The only time he stepped out of the city was to hunt down Grey, but when that failed, he immediately retreated back to the city, then finding an opportunity to become a priest.
The hub wasn’t even a thing when he would have had the opportunity to come across it, and now they were dying for him?
"Ah, still no answers?" the creature blinked, its eyes reflecting like the stars in the night sky. It didn’t seem to have a single pupil, but dozens of them, each one shining bright instead of falling into a deep black hole. "Maybe I’m killing too fast, I’m sorry. Should I kill more slowly?"
Zuri and Hao looked toward one another from across the distance. They had been separated by the initial commotion, each one gathering near their teams. Their look only meant one thing.
Do you have an answer for this thing?
And almost the instant their gazes met, their hearts sank. The fact the other was forcing this look on the other only meant that neither of them knew what was happening.
The only time they had seen Joaquin was during the recap. This was terrible. Were they really all going to die like this?
"I KNOW—I KNOW!" a gasping, wheezing voice called out, the pleading clear in her tone.
She didn’t want to die, she really didn’t want to die.
Stella’s body was impaled on a tree branch. It had luckily missed anything vital, but the sharp protrusion sticking out just above her hip wasn’t going anywhere.
The moment she felt the creature’s eyes land on her, it was like a million ants were crawling beneath her skin. She was compelled to speak before she could even take a breath.
But now, the creature was even more focused on her.
Her skin felt slimy with sweat, her tongue running dry with horror. Her heart beat so fast the blood kept pooling out of her wound faster and faster, squeezing out through the cracks and crevices.
"Oh? We finally have a dissenter? How beautiful, how tragic." The creature cackled, its long, bony legs extending forward. One could practically see its hip bone rotating, its pelvis jutting out in an exaggerated strut as it seemed to cross the distance between them so very fast.
Its tail snapped out when it appeared before Stella so fast she only realized how close it was by a slight pin prick beneath her chin. She raised her head to try to get away from it, but she couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried.
The sickly dense scent of honey filled the air around her. The alien creature didn’t smell bad, but it was almost too sweet, almost like sticking your nose in a jar of syrup and taking too deep a breath.
"Now, why don’t you tell me what you know, little thing?"
"Dead—dead—dead—dead," Stella said the words so fast and in such a stutter she said it four times over, her body and tongue reacting outside of her control. It was like she just wanted to get the words out as quickly as she could so that this thing would leave her alone.
"Dead?" the creature frowned and Stella gagged. The thin bladed tail impaled the bottom of her chin, through the soft flesh, and up through the roof of her tongue.
The blade was so thin that the pain hit Stella moments too late, but blood was spilling out of her mouth.
She tried to spit it out, but it would have only made her wound worse. Worst of all, her head was tilting up and away, trying to make space between her and the creature. All the blood that oozed out rolled to the back of her throat, giving her the option of drinking her own blood or choking on it.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
"Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry," the creature said in an apologetic tone, pulling its tail back. "Did another get here before me? Where are they? When?"
Stella sputtered and spat, hacking and wheezing, but she didn’t dare to take too long to answer.
"No—no—noo—he was killed by Grey Temolt, he’s been dead for days, your target is not here, neither is Grey, he went that way. Please leave us alone!"