Advocates for Chaos (pt. 7)
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Peevils has felt the effects of fading before as a previous character. She can’t remember what her name had been or even what type of person she was, but she can remember the horror of watching herself fade away, disappear, like a sweater with a loose thread will unravel until it’s nothing but a mess of string. She can feel it again now.
Her arms and legs are already unraveled, not even really there anymore. There is only the faintest outline of where her hand should be, and her fingers are completely transparent. When Natemare reaches to grab her hand, his own passes right through the space.
She can see it in his eyes, the moment that he wonders if she’s already too far gone.
MadPat moves quickly. Too quickly, Wilford thinks just before a smattering of blood dots his cheeks. It’s a familiar sensation, the little pinpricks of warm blood that light his senses on fire with an insatiable need for more, and never before has he tried to hold back like he’s trying now.
Host drops to one knee, the gun clattering to the floor, as the blow knocks him off balance. A hand covers his face as Mad swings around for the next blow with the serrated knife in his hand, but the Host whispers a few words, just a simplest narration of, “MadPat’s heart stops,” and the other figment crumbles, dead by the time he hits the floor.
Host turns his face up to Wilford, but the pink Ego already knows that he can’t see him. The one blow that Mad managed to deal slashed across the Host’s eyes, rendering them useless. Mare makes a guttural noise deep in his throat at the sight of his friend’s dead body lying there on the floor, and the room instantly fills with purple vapor so thick that Anti can’t see his hand in front of his face as he glitches over to Other Bim and Other Wilford and glitches them both out of the room.
It’s probably the most heroic thing he’s ever done, and then he feels the stab to his back.
Host twists the knife as he holds Anti in place with an arm around the glitch’s throat. “It’s a shame you didn’t think to save yourself,” he whispers in Anti’s ear before pulling out the knife with a swift jerk and disappearing into the mist.
Anti feels a dribble of blood drip down the corner of his mouth as his vision starts to fade quickly.
Bim finds Mare and Peevils in the mist, feeling around for them on the floor until he gets to them. Mare sees the other Ego through the smoke and parts it so that Bim can reach them. Bim glances at Peevils with a silent question on his lips, but Mare pulls a shard of the table out of his pocket.
Peevils takes a breath and transports Mare inside the piece of glass.
Wilford hears the slightest whistle of air bending around a blade before he slips out of the way just in time to miss being stabbed by the Host. The serrated knife, stolen from Mad’s dead fingers, drips with blood, green and putrid-looking. Wilford realizes instantly who it belongs to and feels anger rise like bile in his throat.
The Host is narrating to himself, all of their positions throughout the room, but he’s still smiling, savage and brutal as a bullet tearing through flesh. “Your little glitch friend is dying, Wilford, and the mad scientist is already gone. I wonder how long it will take me to pick the rest of them off, especially since the lovely lady is already evaporating like morning dew. Such a shame.” His head tilts to the side, and the blood running down his cheeks changes direction slightly. “Do I remind you of someone? Is that why you haven’t shot me yet?”
Wilford doesn’t remember drawing his gun exactly. It’s so instinctual now that it comes as naturally as breathing, but even though he has a clear shot, Wilford’s trigger finger won’t budge. The Host takes a step forward. “Come on, Wilford. Go ahead.”
Warfstache feels his blood pounding in his ears, a racing drumbeat that presses him on. Fire, fire, fire. It says, but all the memories in his head and the memories of his muscles fight against each other. Until one of them wins out.
And there’s an explosion like the sound of a million shattering mirrors
