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A harsh, high pitched noise in the distance brought Hellen back to consciousness. Her eyes rolled under the surface of her bare face in turn, each blinking and squinting as they rotated. A dull ache pounded in her skull.
She sat up, glancing over herself. There was a large gash on her arm, and the coils of her chest twinged with pain with every move she made. Her cleaver was on the ground. Her mask - it must have been torn off her face in the fray - was nowhere to be found.
The small body of Joel lay beside her, unmoving but breathing with his usual quiet rasp. Even more still lay the battered and shredded remains of the astronomers, their golden blood shimmering in the sun. Something in the streets below them screeched and squabbled.
The air wasn’t fresh. It was tinged with the scent of smoke, dust, and who knows what else, but it beat the stale air inside the apartment building.
For the first time in two very long weeks, the sky was a brilliant blue.
Hellen exhaled. With a hand brought up to cover the worse half of her face she gently shook Joel’s unconscious form.
“Hey.”
The boy startled awake with a gasp and a cough, scattering a few teeth on the ground around them. Hellen angled her face away from him, watching him through parted fingers.
“Are you okay?”
Joel nodded, teeth clenched tight. Dried blood surrounded the edge of his mouth. Hellen could see a large bruise blooming on the side of his jaw.
“Yeah, I’m - hhh - I’m okay.”
The kid had looked better, but she was just glad to see him alive and talking.
“Is it over? Where’s - hhh - Mister Sam?”
Hellen somehow hadn’t realised the man she’d followed up here was missing. The details of the battle they’d just won were growing increasingly hazy.
They’d been on the roof, fighting back against the maddened amalgam. Then they were nowhere at all, talking, and then fighting once more.
Sam was alive and with them when the killing blow was dealt.
Where had he gone?
On the streets directly below there wasn’t so much a sea of monsters anymore as there were a few stragglers chewing on astronomer or some unfortunate creature that got caught in the path of its gaze. If one of them had eaten Sam, they would have been none the wiser. If one of them was Sam, they’d have no way of knowing either. Wasn’t there something about being ‘chosen’ by the Visitor? Could it have stolen him away?
She extended a hand to Joel, still facing more to the side than towards him, and helped him to his feet.
“I haven’t seen him yet.”
Another shrill whistle rang out over the city, this time louder than the last. Joel flinched, bringing his hands up to his ears. Hellen’s body coiled tight under her shirt. The noise sounded as if it was coming from everywhere at once and it lasted for what seemed to be an eternity. Then, as abruptly as it had started, it was over.
“What - hhh - was that?” Joel whimpered, lowering his hands.
The horizon was alive with all sorts of creatures - many of them seemed to also be recovering from the noise, and if a culprit was there she couldn’t make it out. What she could see, however, was a maze of angular shadows scattered over the city, as if it were underneath the branches of some giant tree.
Hellen looked up.
She wasn’t entirely sure how she hadn’t seen it earlier. In the sky, far, far above them sprawled an enormous tangled mass.
Hellen knew what it was.
“Get back to the apartment.”
It looked nothing like she had imagined it to. It was coming down to earth, and fast.
“But what about Sam?”
“I’ll look for him,” she half-lied. She only had a vague hope her hunch was correct. “ Run. ”
“But-“
Hellen brought her hand down from her face and glared at the boy.
“Go.”
Joel startled at the sight before nodding and bolting away.
She looked back up at the sky. Joel was a smart kid. He’d make it back safe. He didn’t need to be in the path of what was about to happen.
Her cleaver was a familiar weight in her hand, replaced and repaired many, many times over the week. This was her moment. Ever since she saw the sky that day, she hadn’t slept a wink… but she’d dreamed of this, even if the Visitor was in a different form than what she’d expected. She was ready. One of them was going to die.
Mutants below them screeched and howled, scrambling out of the way as the Visitor’s falling form neared. With a thunderous crash and another immense whistle it collided with the earth. Clouds of dust and debris billowed up from the impact. Windows shattered. No doubt the windows of Sam's apartment were in pieces. Hellen struggled to keep her balance as the building rocked under her feet. By some miracle, the Visitor had barely missed them. Hellen ran towards the edge of the roof to peer over the side. The Visitor’s tendrils curled and writhed like some beached sea creature in the streets, stretching far beyond what she could see from her vantage point.
The beast was a vivid blue.
A tendril arched high over Hellen, the tip of it roughly colliding with the building top. Others reached over from the other side, as if they were blindly feeling for something.
She’d give it something to feel.
She prowled the rooftop, watching it. The tendrils moved upwards in turns, red feelers flicking out like snake tongues.
Logic told her that a creature this big must have a body. The smart thing to do would have been to stop and analyse the situation. Find the head so she’d have something to cut from whatever counts as its shoulders. Locate the body to tear out its heart.
But Hellen had waited enough. She'd already had plenty of time to think about how she was going to do this.
Rend the flesh from its body. Unrecognizable.
One tendril stopped in front of her, feelers spread out. Could it sense her? Hellen stared it down, eyes leisurely rolling inside her face. Something about her must have alerted it, and several other tendrils surrounded her one by one. Inspecting her. The cleaver was heavy in her hand.
“I am going to kill you.” Hellen stated.
The feelers retracted roughly into the ridged surface of the tendril. The limbs around her recoiled.
Like a wild predator, Hellen lunged forward.
Her cleaver sliced into its flesh like butter and she pulled back for another swing. Blood sprayed from the wound, over her face, over her sweater, as red as any human’s. Hellen curled a smile as the creature jolted back in pain, tensing to strike back at her. Let it.
No. A fakeout. Another tendril creeped in the corner of her vision.
She whirled around to strike at it.
a swing -
and a miss.
The damn thing simply swayed out of her reach, rising above her head. A third tendril rammed into her side, bowling her over before she could bring the cleaver down on another target.
She leapt back to her feet and whirled around, ready to stab, kick, and even bite if she had to, only to find the rooftops empty once more.
A flash of blue vanished over the edge of the building. Did it think it could simply get away? It should know better.
She bolted towards the fire escape ladder, startling some flying creature into the air as she approached. She swung down, landing on the catwalk below with a thud that rattled the whole structure. The Visitor’s limbs hadn’t gone far, and more leaned against the walls of the building and the frame of the fire escape. One of them lay directly in front of Hellen.
The cleaver flashed in an arc over her head, the metal sinking deep into the Visitor’s tendril. It howled and Hellen’s entire body was yanked forward as it jerked back, taking the cleaver with it.
She snarled. She wasn’t about to let it have it.
Hooking her feet onto the flimsy metal handrail she pulled the cleaver back, and when her hands slipped on the blood-slicked handle she held on tighter. Pain jolted through her as the creature thrashed from side to side, but like a dog holding onto its prey, she refused to let go.
The limbs around her twisted and curled haphazardly, shaking the catwalk. A smaller tendril snaked between her and her prize, pushing against her shoulder to pry her off. Snapping her head to the side, Hellen sank her teeth into it. Her mouth filled with the taste of metal and she laughed, spitting out a chunk of skin. The tendril jolted away with another howl, hitting the catwalk.
The staircase groaned like a wounded beast, and Hellen’s boot slipped from where it was anchored. Within seconds, she was lifted far from the roof, even further from the ground, still gripping onto the cleaver embedded in the Visitor’s limb. She could still heft herself up and cling onto the beast. If only she could swing up and bring a leg around-
The cleaver came loose.
The ground, blue and writhing, was very, very far away.
Her weapon, still tightly clutched in her fist, was red with its blood. She still had more to spill.
She had to make it regret coming here.
She had to make it regret being born .
…
Something slammed into her and her vision burst into stars.
A tendril swiftly coiled around her midsection and yanked her to the side like a ragdoll. The windows around her blurred together and Hellen found herself being brought over the city once more. She struggled in the Visitor’s grasp, but it only tightened its grip on her. It was toying with her.
The rooftop below was close. She could land there.
With a grunt of effort, she freed her arm. Readjusting her grip on the handle, she raised the cleaver and swung down viciously.
The world careened sideways as the Visitor flinched.
Again and again she brought the cleaver down upon it, and with each cut the creature writhed and whipped its arm back and forth, firmly keeping her in its hold despite the increasing damage done to it.
Her arm was mid-swing when she heard the scream.
It echoed over the other end of the rooftops, making Hellen’s blood run cold. Joel. She thought he’d already gotten to safety.
She could make out him scramble to his feet on the other end of the building, pursued by a pale-skinned prowling thing with many claws and many teeth. The creature must have climbed over the edge of the roof while she was distracted. It would have barely been an obstacle for her, but the boy was perfect prey for it.
Hellen forcefully pulled herself out of the Visitor’s coils, landing square on her back. She coughed as she rolled over and pulled herself back to her feet. The bleeding tendril above her unravelled. She couldn’t afford to let it catch her again.
She could hear Joel cry for help once more. Hellen sprinted towards the sound, trying to catch a glimpse of the kid.
There.
He had barely evaded a swipe from a sharp appendage before the creature pinned him to the ground by the sleeve. The thing cackled in an almost human voice and slowly dragged him closer to its waiting maw.
The Visitor whistled once more.
There was no way she would make it in time.
In seconds, the rooftops around Joel swarmed with blue. The previously apathetic Visitor lunged with blinding speed, hitting the monster in the jaw like a freight train. Bricks went flying over the edge as it took part of the building with it.
Hellen ran as fast as she could, her heavy footsteps echoing over the rooftop.
One of the creatures gurgled and spat, half of its head pulverised by the impact- the other screamed like the wind as it pinned its opponent down. Over the sea of tendrils she couldn’t see Joel at all, and the closer she got the harder it was to get past them.
“Don’t touch him!” she howled, hacking at the nearest tendril. “Fight me! Me! ”
The Visitor’s limb shivered and flinched every time she swung her weapon. It pushed her aside and blocked her path, but it wasn’t attacking her, not really.
Every other thing she's encountered since the Visitor arrived hadn't been shy about wanting a hunk of her flesh- and she’d taken her share of flesh in return. The Visitor wasn’t ignoring her. It was intentionally staying just out of her reach. She wasn’t an adversary to it, nor a threat. She was simply a harmless nuisance to be swatted away, like the roaches she’d brush off her sweater.
Hellen was no roach.
With a hoarse scream, she swung the cleaver with all of her might. It snapped at the handle on impact, sending the blade flying into the wall of limbs around her and leaving her holding the remains of the handle. She rammed it into the Visitor’s open wound. Abandoning the remains of her old weapon, she pulled a knife from her boot and pushed forward, past the injured limb of the Visitor. Joel was still alive, still nearby. She could hear him.
The coils of tendrils buffeted her from all sides, and she could hardly make out what was happening around her. It was too late to run when Hellen noticed the pale creature rear back, aiming directly for her.
All she could do was brace for the attack.
An attack that never came.
The claw halted in front of Hellen’s face, stained red with the blood of the Visitor. It had gone clean through the limb, which had now curled and tightly constricted around the creature’s entire body like a python. The creature struggled and writhed, gnawing at its binds with the half of a jaw it had left. The visitor only tightened its grip.
The snapping of bones filled the air as the Visitor slowly unlatched the beast off of the roof. The beast, now weakly wheezing and immobile, was discarded over the side of the building. The Visitor shook its tendrils once as if to shake its “hands” clean… and became idle once more.
Hellen bristled at the creature, brandishing the thin little kitchen knife she was left with. It was laughable, really. If it wanted to, it could have crushed her several times over by now.
It barely moved, only shuffling slightly when she moved towards it with the weapon.
It really had no interest in fighting mere humans.
“Joel!” Hellen called, looking over the tangled mass.
It was quiet again, with only the distant noise of beasts and car alarms to break the silence.
…
There.
A muffled voice.
She muscled her way past blue limbs - and they gave way to her.
Before her a knot of arms shakily unfurled, revealing Joel. His mouth was smeared with blood- but so was the tendril surrounding him. He stumbled out of the makeshift cocoon and hurried back to hide behind Hellen.
The tendrils… stayed there. The inner feelers flicked in and out, and the creature made some hollow whistling sound. A few of them inched towards them, stopping a short distance away and making no further move to get any closer.
Joel wiped the blood off of his face with a sleeve. “Miss Hellen… I think it -hhh- saved me.” He whispered shakily. Hellen stared at the creature.
The forest of limbs awkwardly parted, and a single wobbly tendril extended over the edge of the building towards her. Gripped tightly in a myriad of red feelers was a crumpled, scribbled-on piece of paper. a string hung loose from one side, the other side torn.
She grabbed the offered mask. The creature let go clumsily, only a few feelers at a time, and she pressed it to her face.
How could it have possibly known it was hers?
"Who are you." she demanded flatly.
It stilled, feelers spreading. It made a noise, like a high pitched whistle - loud but not the deafening shriek they’d heard before. Almost in confusion, the feelers retracted before extending once more and making a slow hiss like sand pouring from a bucket. Finally, it curled in on itself, quietly entangling its tendrils together.
Hellen squinted. They’d have to go about this differently. The way Sam spoke to the mutants that couldn’t speak came to mind.
"Are you the Visitor?"
It shook its tendrils all at once hurriedly. Definitely not.
"Do I know you?"
It nodded, and she could see many of the limbs around them repeat the motion jerkily.
Joel perked up, bouncing on the heels of his feet. "Are you-" Hellen cut him off by putting her arm in front of him.
"I'm asking questions, Joel," she stated firmly.
Around them, the creature stilled. Joel ground his teeth and tugged on her sleeve. "But -Hhhh -!"
She crouched down to his level to face him, mask firmly held in place with one hand.
"Let me handle this." she says, gentler this time. “I’ll let you talk in a bit.”
She stood back up to face the not-Visitor.
"Did Joel draw this mask for me?"
She could hear Joel wheeze indignantly behind her. A no from the creature.
"Was it Sophie?"
Also no.
"Was it Ratty?"
Without hesitation, it nodded furiously. Behind the mask, Hellen’s eyes thoughtfully rolled in turn. Unless the Visitor was trickier than she had thought, that only left one option.
"Joel, you can ask it now."
The boy stepped out from behind Hellen, wringing his hands together. He tilted his head upwards to face the creature.
"A-are you - hhh - Mister Sam?"
In an instant the air around them exploded with a shrill whistle. Whatever glass hadn't broken before shattered now and Sam, infinitely spanning, many-limbed Sam, rocked several of his tendrils up and down in desperate confirmation.
The noise stopped as Sam seemed to notice Joel hunched over with his ears covered and Hellen’s stiff posture. He brought an arm closer to the two, feelers flicking out to sense them.
Joel carefully lowered his hands and looked back up. “I’m - hhh - really glad you’re okay, Mister. Even if you are really, really… hhh … loud now. Even louder than Xaria!” The boy flung himself to hug Sam’s limb. “I’m sorry I bit you,” he mumbled, face buried in the hug. It didn’t seem like the boy was bothered by the change at all.
The tendril curled around him slowly, cautiously, as if Sam was afraid to break him, and carefully pet the top of his head with his feelers.
Hellen put down her weapon and firmly planted a bloodied hand on top of the limb. “Glad you’re not dead.”
The tendril briefly exhaled with a quiet whistle.
“Is the Visitor gone?” Hellen asked.
A few of the tendrils around them nodded. Hellen hummed in response. She’d think about how she felt on the matter later.
“Is it over?”
Sam didn’t immediately respond, as if mulling it over.
He nodded again.
Hellen sighed.
“What a relief.”