Inferno

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But that was said by lesser beings who can't sense the universe's flow around them. They exist in a blissful world unconnected to the Astral universe, to her lifeblood.

They didn't hear my scream as I was forcefully cut from my mother's lifeblood, they couldn't feel my sister's hand reaching through the cosmos to me as I fell, nor taste her tears that landed on my cheeks.

They have no idea; but when they saw me they knew... that I was completely unlike them.

Chapter One

I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who I am. Everything is so dark. It’s… fuzzy.

But the voices I hear afar, they are clear as crystal.

“Miss, wake up please.”

Hands touch me; my body is like a live wire, twitching, ready to strike.

But I can’t move. Not one muscle.

“Miss… Miss?” He shakes me. His arms coil around me like serpents, they squeeze too tight. He tries to lift me but fails; I fall back to the cushions below. With a loud grunt, he tries again. Those serpents, they squeeze even tighter, they’re crushing me, they’re suffocating.

“Who is she?” Someone asks.

“I don’t know, I found her like this. She’s not responding.”

My muscles, they tighten. My heart rages within me, thump! Thump! Thump! It’ll burst if I don’t do something. I need to do something.

“Is she on the passenger list?”

“No. No ticket, either.”

“What a headache. Here, I’ll take her.”

“That’s not a good idea. She’s really heavy.”

“A tiny little thing like her? Heavy? Give her here.”

And the arms around me, they loosen. A new set of arms wraps around me, and my body becomes weightless, gravity tugs against me like the pull of some great beast.

“Woah, woah!”

“I warned you, didn’t I? She’s heavier than she looks.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s just get her to the medics.”

Their fingers on my skin, like ice, like fire, like death. Let me go.

I’m lain on something firm. They discuss over me; they fret over me. I ignore them, I have a bigger focus: wake up. Get up. Get up.

“Okay. I’ll keep an eye on her, don’t you worry.”

A blanket is draped over my body. No, God don’t, my body is already on fire. It burns, it burns like acid is raging through my veins.

Get up. Get. Up.

And screams start from far away.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure.”

They grow louder, they grow closer. Get me up. Someone, wake me up.

“I’ll check it out, stay here.”

Skk! A door opens and closes again. The roar of some great beast fills the area, it brings the fire within me to a blazing inferno. Another scream, this one… it was a child.

Skk! That was the door again.

“What happened?! Why are you covered in blood?!”

“There’s a monster out there.”

“How’d the corruption get aboard the train?”

“I don’t know! We did a safety check before we left, the train was clean!”

“Who checked the train?”

“I don’t remember!”

“How can you not remember?! Are you not the security guard?!”

I can’t contain the flames within me, they threaten to consume me, they threaten to explode from within me.

“Go, stop the train! If we keep going like this, everyone aboard will die!”

“But we’ll be stopping in the dark lands…”

“It doesn’t matter! If we stay in a contained space with those monsters, we’ll all die anyway! Go, stop this train!”

Let. Me. Up.

A hand is pressed to my forehead, their touch, its anathema to me, it’s poison. Their hand jerks back sharply, a gasp comes from them. “Damn! That burns! What’s going on here?!”

Let me up!

Bang! Screck!

“Ah, not now!”

Those hands come around my body, and he screams. “Ah! It burns, it burns!”

A roar fills the room; he screams beside me. Claws scratch and scrape at the metal, icy wind whistles around me, it brushes at my arms, it pulls through my hair, it whips beneath my clothes.

“No, please! Get away from me! Help!”

My eyes snap open. Above me, I see sky racing past, around me, I see metal shards. I’m lain on a bench with a blanket over me, and at my feet a great lurking black beast towers. A strange amalgamation of creatures, it has the jaws of a great gator, the dripping fangs of a large cat, tentacles swarm behind its massive head like hair, the buff chest of an ape with two massive needle-like legs beneath and the whole thing covered in jet black scales. I take a breath, and…

The fire within me explodes outwards. A pillar of fire rises from my chest, blue and white in appearance. It wraps around me like a massive hand, squeezing me tight. I put my hands on the bench beside my head, and I feel my muscles flex. I roll hard on my hands and throw myself to my feet. All around me, the blue-white fire blazes; the beast fixates its great pink eyes on me, leering unafraid down upon my blazing flames.

Like I’ve done it a thousand times, I reach my hand into the sky, and the flames around me condense into an elegant blue-white blade, no guard to protect my hand should it slip, no pommel to keep the blade from sliding away from me. It curves like a scimitar but is shaped like a Dao sword. Flames race from the blade down my wrist, they surround my arm like massive veins, and crawl up my face.

I stare deep into the beast’s eyes, and it’s like staring into the void of space: empty, expansive, cold.

It rages at me, the tentacles coil back like fingers clawing at the air, and then…

They snap towards me.

My body moves on instinct alone. I twist the sword in my hands like a baton, its long pommel-less handle gives me the freedom to do so. The first tentacle meets the blade, still far from my face. The next, closer, and the next closer still. The fourth, it nearly touches me, and the fifth, it is cut by my blade a centimeter away from my cheek.

The pieces wriggle and fall at my feet. They bounce off the ground and race behind me like the released needles of a porcupine. In my panic, I remember the man from before. I spin on my heels and see him, cowering at the back of the train, the points I cut rushing to meet his face.

React. NOW.

I plant my foot on the bench beside me and leap through the air, diving in the way of the spikes. What am I doing? What CAN I do?

I bring my blade down between the man and the spikes. For a moment, the only thing I can think is…

I swung too early. I missed.

But through the air where I cut comes a trail of fire; my arm, my face, they burn. I scream as the scorching blue-white fire blinds me. One by one, the spikes pass through the flames, and are incinerated. I turn to look at him, the man I just saved. His face is pure horror, skin reddened from the heat of the inferno.

I give him one word of comfort. “Run.”

He falls over himself and opens the train car door behind him. I square myself up, feet scraping against the scorched rug below me, and I again face the creature. Each of its tentacles that I cut, two new ones have splintered from the wound.

Like a hydra, I think.

It screams, and the noise pierces my ears. Windows shatter as it stomps its massive feet, and those tentacles, they again race towards me, ten in total.

I bite my lip and prepare for the worst. After all, if I could barely cut five while avoiding being struck by them, ten will be too many.

Throw the sword. I think. It doesn’t have a pommel… why doesn’t it have a pommel?!

And so I do. I raise it high over my head and throw it, countering the blade’s rotation. It slips from my hand easily and it flies true, like it was made to do this.

Tentacles, they’re coming after me still and I have no weapon.

My body is fast, I know that, but is it fast enough?

I fold my spine back into a bridge, three tentacles go over my head. I throw myself onto my hands in a handstand, and shift my weight to balance precariously on only one hand, my body twisting in midair. Two more tentacles race past my side, missing me by an inch. With another twist, I slam my other hand back on the ground and push myself away from the polished wood. I send myself in a great leap towards the beast. Four tentacles race below my body.

The last one is moving directly towards me.

I reach my hand out and snatch the thickest part of it, swinging myself to the right, away from the other appendages.

A scream comes from ahead. I raise my head and see my sword has found its mark true, piercing into the beast’s chest. The tentacles, they move again to strike me. I’m about to dodge them, but the train lurches sharply. It throws my balance off, and I fall against the wall; my only chance at regaining my balance is to grab the broken window. Pieces of glass dig deeply into my arms, it cuts the flame-like veins of my right arm. A blue ooze falls over the window, and it melts the glass.

Interesting.

I raise my arm in defense, and I block the incoming tentacles with my own flesh. They pierce through my skin but also through the flamelike veins, the ooze flows and ignites the moment it meets the black tentacles. Red blood drips from my arm to the ground.

Ouch.

My arm falls limp at my side, the tentacles retreat back and the beast, it screams.

It screams, and screams. Within its chest, my sword is ablaze, nothing more than the fire it once was before it became my weapon.

I raise my hand to the sky forcefully, feeling burning liquids move down my arm. The flames rush to me, they again twirl around me like a miniature tornado, and reform into the blade from before. Flames race from the blade down my arm; the holes formed when the tentacles pierced me spit fire from within. The bleeding stops as the wounds are cauterized. With a steadying breath, I hold my sword blade-out to the beast, and I charge.

Here come the ten-tentacles again. Cutting them will do nothing, and so I use my blade as a vault, and twist my body to avoid them. Closer now, I’m closer.

From behind, here come the tentacles again. I deflect two with the flat side of my blade, they rebound but don’t get sliced like before. Two more, they come for my feet, three more, they come for my face. I slam the point of my sword into the ground and turn my body sideways. Kicking off the ground, I use the momentum to swing around the blade's long handle like a pole dancer; I kick the sides of the tentacles coming after me, the ones that weren't going to miss my body.

But I miscounted. That was only seven tentacles.

Three more, here they come, and my body is parallel to the ground. I'm in no good position to dodge.

I feel fear for the first time in this fight.

No choice left. I let go of the sword and curl into a ball; my momentum carries me to the side, but not fast enough. One tentacle pierces my leg, the next moves an inch behind my neck. The final one slips in the small gap just between my chin and my chest. Momentum carries me toward the beast, its single tentacle that connected pins me to the train's floor. I try to rise but my leg is steadfast within its grasp... and its other tentacles are poising to strike.

Closer, I need to get closer!

I bite down on the flames around my arm; they puncture, boiling hot ooze enters my mouth, but it doesn't burn me.

The pain, however, remains. Within my mind, the only place I'm truly safe, I scream.

Like a venomous serpent, I spit the ooze on the tentacle holding me fierce. It ignites and retracts, releasing me from its grip; the other nine have paused.

This is my chance.

I snatch my sword, I slide across the ground on my back, feeling my shirt lift, feeling the rug rub against my back until it burns me.

Close, I’m right at its feet! It stomps down, but I’m already rising up, up, up. My blade swings with me, it cuts up the belly of the beast, and as my height begins to fail me, the blade slips from my grasp. Its momentum carries it up, and it slits the beast’s throat, lodging itself there. I slip as the momentum pulls me back, as the lurching train steals my balance from me again.

But the beast has stopped moving. I land on my elbows, barely managing to keep my head from crashing into the floor of the train. With a sputtering noise, the flames from my blade overtake and consume the beast. A hollow cry echoes on the wind as black ash drifts from the creature, and my blazing sword falls to the floor. I pant on the ground, my head hurts, my arm burns. With each breath, blue flames rise from my lungs and disintegrate in embers on the breeze.

My respite lasts for only one moment. The door behind is thrown wide, and a screaming voice draws my attention:

“The brakes! They’ve corrupted the breaks of the train!”

Corruption. The very thing that created the beast I just killed, a blight on this world. I remember; ever so slightly, I remember.

“My blade! Here!” I shout. It dissolves into flames that race to my hand.

I sprint past him into the next train car where gawking men, women and children watch me. The people, they scream upon seeing me, they cry, they cling helplessly to one another.

But it’s not me they should fear.

To the next car and through the next, there’s the engine room. A woman, the conductor, sits panting against the side wall of the engine room; her eyes are pink and her body is blackening. The controls crawl with black roots that sprout from the conductor’s body, wires are ripped and torn from the console.

The train lurches as it again speeds up.

I frown as I stare into the woman’s corrupted eyes. “I’m sorry.” I tell her. As I approach, she screams, she cries.

She knows what’s about to happen.

I expect her to fight me, but she is brave. She fights furiously against the corruption, keeping it from harming me.

I raise my blade and swing down on her. It slices cleanly through her, flames sprouting from the cut. She is consumed by them and reverted to ash. One by one, the roots coming from her body burn with her, and the broken train console is freed from the corruption.

But the train still hasn’t stopped.

“Damn!” Flames flare from my mouth like venom. I may not have my memories, but I do know I’ve never tried to stop a moving train before. With my wild eyes, I turn and shout over my shoulder: “we need to stop this train, now!”

The two men standing at the door, they jump in fright. “Th… the breaks, the breaks!”

“The breaks are broken!”

And screams come from the train car behind them.

“How do I stop the train?!”

“Pistons!” The second man shouted. “Compressed air, it pushes on a piston in the train’s cylinder! That’ll stop the train!”

Compressed air, he says? That’s something I can work with. I take my blade and stab it into the control console.

“What are you doing?!”

“You’ve killed us, you idiot!”

I step back and watch the blade as it dissolves into blue-white flames. I feel these flames move throughout the console, throughout the train. The air gets superheated, expanding, expanding.

The train lurches sharply. Everyone is thrown forwards, slams into walls and seats. I fall over the console sharply. With a fump! Fump! Fump! The train rolls to a halt.

“There. I compressed the air.” I say quietly.

“You didn’t compress the air, you melted the bloody tires off!” He shouts behind me.

And the man standing beside him, he says: “Who… Who are you?”

Me? I’m… “Tired.” I answer. “I’m tired.”

**********************************************************************

The two men before me, they are Ivo and Nowak. Ivo found me while doing a routine ticket check, laying motionless in one of the passenger booths. He brought me to Nowak, the medic onboard when he couldn’t wake me. We sit in the engine room of the train, stranded in the dark lands between cities. They have many questions for me.

I can’t answer a single one of them with confidence.

“But surely,” Nowak says. “You must remember something, the way you fought back there, you clearly had an understanding of your power, your abilities, whatever they may be.”

“Most of it was instinct. I figured things out as I went.” I look at my right arm, the blue flames vanished shortly after the train stopped. For the first time in recent memory, I feel cold. To the best of his limited medical capacity, Nowak bandaged up my injured arm, applied salves to it.

Nowak and Ivo share a look.

“What can you tell me?” I ask them. “About me, about this world, this train, anything?”

“What you did,” Ivo shakes his head. “You’re not human. You can’t be.”

“I’m inclined to agree.” Nowak, who I thought was the rational one, nods. “When I touched you, just before you woke up, you were burning. Not like a fever, touching you gave me burns on my hand.” He holds up his hand to me, where the skin is raw and scorched. “No human could survive the kinds of temperatures that you were exuding.”

I look down at my hands, my legs, my hips. “But I look human, don’t I?”

“Appearance isn’t everything. You also look like you should weigh no more than a child, but you weigh more than a grown man.” Ivo glares at me.

A sigh escapes me. “What about this planet? Where are we?"

"You don't even know that much? Tsk." Ivo's face scrunches like a cat whose smelled something disgusting.

Nowak frowns at him. "This isn't a planet, it's a moon. The planet we circle is visible from the moonlit lands. Our home, this moon, is Ishmiel. The moon that circles us is Ishmiel's daughter, Isantil."

"And the corruption? What is it, when did it start?”

They share a look again.

“You've heard of the corruption, but you claim to have no memories?” Nowak says skeptically.

“It came to me when Ivo mentioned the controls had become corrupted.” I look at each of them in turn. “Please, explain the corruption to me like you would to someone whose never heard of it. And these dark lands, too.”

“Should we?” Ivo asks Nowak.

“Do we really have a choice?” Nowak watches me from the corner of his eye. “This creature, she could kill us without a second thought.”

I look down at my arms again; the fire that burned within me before, I can’t feel a single ounce of it. I feel utterly powerless; could I really do that?

“Fine.” Ivo nods. “The corruption. It’s a disease that overtook Ishmiel a decade ago; Ishmiel's dark lands were the first to fall, before we discovered the corruption's existence. It infects anything living and causes mass mutations deep within the creature’s ancestral DNA. That creature we saw before was likely once human, before being overtaken by the corruption within. Like cancer, like a tumor, it mass mutated using ancient information buried within the DNA to protect itself."

“The train’s conductor… she was corrupted." Nowak looks beyond me, where she once sat. "It activated dormant plant-like or root-like cells within her, which overtook the train’s controls… and her.”

I look at the wall where she once sat, desperately fighting off the corruption. There is a mark on that wall where my blade sliced through, a single streak that cuts deeply into the insulated metal. “How does it spread, the corruption?”

They speak at the same time.

“We don’t know.” Nowak says.

“It’s the ash.” Ivo says.

Silence expands around us.

“Ivo, we shouldn’t-”

“She asked.”

“The ash...” I quietly say. “You mean the ash that came off the corrupted creatures when I killed them.”

“Yes.” Ivo says. “Once destroyed, the corrupted creature turns to ash, and those grains spread until another living thing consumes them. Usually by breathing, sometimes through the dirt or through the water.”

I look to the train cars behind us, where passengers huddle in terror.

“Any one of them could now be infected.”

“We don’t know that for sure, Ivo.”

“Of course, we do. You and I are probably infected too, given our proximity to the creatures when they died.” Then, Ivo turned his gaze on me. “She’s definitely infected. If the corruption does to normal humans what it did to Marie… what do you suppose it’ll do to her?”

They both look at me, fear glinting in their eyes.

I look between them, my face a mask of stone. After the silence has become oppressive, I ask them: “What are the dark lands? Why are you traveling through them?”

“The moon only shines on one side of the planet.” Nowak says. “That’s where the cities are located. This side of the planet is moonless, it’s cast in perpetual darkness.”

“All trains that travel between cities go through the dark lands.”

“And why is that? Wouldn’t it be a shorter route to connect the cities on the moon side?”

“Yes, it would.” Ivo says. “But if we did that, the corruption would spread at a rate so rapidly, humanity would be wiped out in a matter of days.”

“It’s a safety measure.” Nowak folds his arms, as if trying to comfort himself. “Each of the cities is built tall, but isolated. Should an outbreak of corruption occur, each city is prepared to lock down its walls, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. The trains take so long to move between cities that, by the time the corruption has run its course within a living body, anyone corrupted will have turned long before we arrive at the next city.”

“They’ll become infectious long before we reach our destination.” Ivo agrees.

They pause and I think. “If corruption does occur, the ashes spread only on the dark side.”

“Yes.” Nowak closes his eyes. “For the safety of everyone, the ashes of anyone corrupted on the train will spread solely here, where there are no cities to be infected.”

“But the people on the train, they all become victims of the corruption.” I look at them, huddling for warmth in the cars beyond.

“Yes.” Nowak says. “We are all victims of that corruption.”

“Where were you headed- ah!” I shout.

My chest. It burns.

“What’s wrong?” Nowak lurches, moving closer to me.

Ivo stops him. “It’s the corruption. It’s taken hold of her.”

Nowak shakes his head. “It’s far too soon, the disease can’t multiply that fast.”

“Ouch…” I squeeze my shirt in my fist. “My chest, it’s burning.”

A hand touches my forehead. It’s poison, it’s acid.

“S… stop… don’t touch me.”

Mercifully, the hand retreats. “You’re warm, but not burning.”

“No, I’m burning… I'm burning! Ah!”

A scream.

Someone screamed.

Nowak and Ivo rise, they stand on opposite sides of the train’s door like worried mothers.

And the roar of a great beast follows soon, bringing with it a chorus of cries and shouts, screams and shrieks.

The inferno within me, it blazes fiercer. I fold my body up, flames creep from my mouth, they fill my veins like acid.

“I knew it. They’re all corrupt.” Ivo says.

“Impossible, the corruption can’t spread that fast. It must’ve come from the dark lands!”

It matters not where it came from, who it was, what it was. All that matters is another corrupted beast has appeared.

From within, the inferno blazes from my body, bringing a neon white-blue light to lands that have never seen such a thing before. Beneath my hand the rug burns, and the flames condense into a white-blue blade, curved like a scimitar but shaped like a Dao. It has no pommel, no guard.

And it only comes when summoned, but never because of my summons.

I cringe as the flames expel from the end of the handle; they crawl up me like a parasite. The beast rages afar; I rise to meet it.