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IF - Chapter 17
🕑 Added 2024-12-22 21:43:26 +0000 UTC------------------
Heart steadier than it should be, Isla’s gaze locked on the slugs as they began to writhe out of the aliens’ eyes, mouths, and ears, their belched organs rolling down their front. The sight should have been horrifying—disgusting—but something inside her clicked into place.
Like the firm press of a hand against her back, bracing her against the storm. She stood straighter, breath slow and even, fingers curling into fists at her sides.
“Kael, Brigid, get to the boat!” she barked, her voice sharp as a whip crack.
Neither moved.
“Get James!” she bellowed, shoving them toward the boat as the aliens began their slow shuffle. Kael’s eyes darted wildly between her and the encroaching aliens, his breath coming in short, uneven bursts. Brigid’s lips quivered as her eyes locked on the wriggling gray mass sliding down one alien’s neck and coating its body in wet, sticky strands. “And Move!”
The shout snapped them both out of their trance. Kael’s hand shot out, grabbing Brigid’s arm as he dragged her toward the groggy soldier. Isla stayed fixed on the approaching figures. Her breathing slowed. Her world sharpened. Time didn’t slow, but her mind moved faster, faster than it ever had. Her muscles felt loose, spring-loaded, ready to act—something resonated within her.
“If you’re looking for a meal,” she snarled, raising her hand as She embraced her, palm open like she was offering them something, “I’ve got just what you want.”
A flash of white light burst from her palm. Not like lightning—it was brighter, purer—like a fragment of the sun had slipped through a crack in the sky. The lingering fog that blanketed the shore shuddered and peeled away in ribbons, exposing the encroaching aliens as the shadow in the boat retreated; it wouldn’t attack. They weren’t their target.
The aliens’ twitching, uncoordinated movements faltered. Their slug-like eyes locked on her, tentacles stilling as if smelling blood, their heads tilting in an eerily synchronized motion. They saw her now, saw the meal she carried within her.
“That’s right,” she hissed, feeling heat bloom in her chest, power rising with each word that illuminated her skin. “I’m right here, freaks. Come get me.”
Her legs moved before her mind caught up. She darted toward the jungle, feet pounding against the sand. The cold, damp grit flew up behind her in soft bursts. The aliens followed, their bodies lurching forward with a grotesque hunger. Their shrieks clawed at her ears, something otherworldly, but she didn’t flinch. Each scream only drove her faster.
Branches slapped at her face and arms as she ducked into the thick of the jungle. Eyes darting left and right, scanning for a path—she found it. A rainbow trail, faint as a wisp of fog but bright as a sunbeam, snaking through the dense foliage, visions of her dream bleeding through—fractured instructions.
Her heart leaped at the sight. Her feet shifted to follow it, weaving through roots and low-hanging vines. Her muscles burned, but her stride didn’t falter. After a full minute on the run, weaving through thickets, she heard a voice echo inside her mind—not Hers… His.
“Left. I am waiting.”
The voice was familiar, steady as stone and warm as a hearth’s glow.
Turning on instinct, Isla vaulted over a fallen log. Her breath came in sharp, controlled bursts. Her senses stretched out beyond her body, catching flickers of motion from the corners of her eyes. The aliens were close. Closer than she’d thought. Her jaw clenched as she pushed harder.
“Come on, then,” she muttered, her fingers brushing against the rough bark of a tree as she pivoted around it, keeping the rainbow trail in sight. “You’re not fast enough.”
The jungle’s humid air clung to her skin, but it wasn’t suffocating—it was grounding. She could feel every shift in the air, every snap of a twig underfoot, every tremble of a distant branch. The ominous evil should have pressed in on her the second she entered this lethal jungle, yet every fern, every carnivorous flower, all threats shrank away from her.
Isla’s vision felt sharper, penetrating the foliage, her focus honed to a needle’s point. A clearing opened ahead—a wide, sunlit space with a small, crystalline pool at its center. The rainbow trail ended, and she skidded to a stop, chest heaving, but she didn’t need to look for why she was guided here.
In the center of a crystal-like pool of glistening blue waters stood the First Light, the air charged, rippling like the heat haze above a desert road.
Yet, confusion gripped her for the first time since her flight as she noticed one oddity she did not expect—the fish tank—the immortal fish spinning in its figure eight.
It didn’t catch her attention for long as First Light’s gaze locked on it, time slowed, the clawing and snapping of the aliens growing distant. Her breath caught in her throat. No, something didn’t feel right. A new threat raised the hair on the back of her neck.
His coat gleamed like polished pearl, rippling with every non-existent color of the spectrum. Its horn, a perfect spiral of purest silver, glowed faintly with red lightning sparking from its tip, coiled by pink streaks.
Isla’s heart stopped.
Her eyes locked with His, and everything else faded—the jungle’s chorus, the distant shrieks of the aliens, even her own heartbeat. All that remained was Him. The army of orange aliens that had pursued her faded into oblivion because she knew they soon would be—yet, the most frightening thing coursing through her was that she’d be joining them.
No, wait… The unicorn’s horn lowered, pointing at her. Why are you standing against Us? Run… Run!
The clearing flashed white—no, every color—then pink, and finally, an all-consuming red.
Lightning didn’t strike—it exploded.
A lance of red energy shot from the unicorn’s horn, a beam of searing, destructive force unknown to any physics that carved a path straight through the jungle—through her.
The world ignited. Trees vaporized, their trunks reduced to nihility in an instant. Boulders wisped away like brittle glass. The very ground melted into unique molten glass in the mythical beam’s wake. And Isla…Isla couldn’t move, teary eyes squeezing shut as the fire surged over her, around her…through her as if plunged into an eternal furnace. She pulled tighter, wings enclosing her like a vice.
“Have faith.”
When it ended, silence reigned.
A deep hum filled her mind—a resonance that shook her bones, her soul. Her breath hitched as her vision blurred, the world swimming around her like she was underwater. She blinked hard, fighting it, but her limbs felt heavy, her breath slow and shallow.
Isla’s chest heaved as she pulled herself upright, feeling weightless. Her eyes blinked open—did they? She saw the aftermath nonetheless. The gleaming rainbow scar burned into the island, a path of blinding devastation carved from the clearing to the distant beach, where their camp was. The sand at the beach’s edge had been turned to multi-hued glass of every spectrum.
Her gaze shifted to the unicorn—brighter than before, majestic, terrible, serene. His gaze met hers. She didn’t know what He saw in her eyes, what He saw in general, but in Him, she saw it all. Saw Her reflected in them. Thanking the First Light for accommodating Them.
Her fingers reached toward Him as a brilliant rift splitting open behind the otherworldly horse. He turned to leave.
She shouted, “Wait…”
Yet, at that moment, her senses began to open up—she saw everything—not with eyes, but with something more. Her sight was vast, stretching in all directions.
The world pulsed around her in hues she couldn’t name, like prisms bending into colors that had never been seen by mortal eyes. Her perspective felt endless, wrapping around existence in every direction at once. It wasn’t just sight—it was knowing.
Isla’s awareness sank past the leaves and vines like a ripple through water, her perception unbound by the constraints of flesh or gravity. She was a whisper in the ocean, and every particle of that ocean was whispering back. She knew this awareness would shrink—she couldn’t handle it yet—but right now, everything felt open to her.
“No…” she breathed, and the words rippled in the water of the tank.
Her gaze twisted, and she saw herself—no, she saw her reflection. A fish. An immortal fish. Isla’s mind reeled as the world unfolded in effulgence. Her body, lying beside the tank atop the gleaming glass, eyes wide and unseeing before the island’s scar. Her own dull eyes. Then, her human body flopped, like a fish.
You…swapped my body with the immortal fish… No. No, no, no—this isn’t real. I’m not a fish. I’m not—
She felt the threads of energy crisscrossing the island—dark forces bound by many lighter ones, a cage wrapped in a seal of compassion and pain. But all of that faded away as her aching chest focused on one, pain-stricken individual. A figure, unconscious, just outside the blast radius, but glowing faintly, hidden beneath a canopy of vines.
Maeva.
Isla floated toward her, as if a ghost, her gaze piercing through the dense canopy of broken branches and twisted vines. For a moment, all she saw was Maeva’s prone form lying cradled in the shadows. Her bound hair like sunken coral, her chest rising and falling in slow, shallow breaths.
Isla reached deeper—not physically, but spiritually, mentally—following the unseen threads. Not the immortal fish’s senses, but Hers, unlocking something that would soon be restricted for her safety. Her sight shifted. Maeva wasn’t just a girl lying in the jungle anymore.
Maeva’s aura flickered with hues of blue and indigo, like a storm-tossed sea after a wreck. Cracks ran through it, fractures lined with faint golden light—old wounds hastily mended. Her very soul burned, not with passion, but with the quiet agony of survival.
Maeva, she internally whispered, fighting tears that refused to leave her eyes. You’ve gone through so much pain… Yet, you smiled and had fun with us. You were afraid to come, but afraid if you refused, you’d be found out… If Eve already knew. So much self-loathing.
It wasn’t something Isla saw—it was something she felt. A familiar ache, like her own muddled past memories, buried and forgotten, being stirred up without her permission.
Maeva was caught between what she had been and what she had become, two sides clawing for control. Isla recognized it too well—an echo of her own “other self” that had shadowed her since childhood.
Her attention sharpened, digging through the foggy glow of Maeva’s aura to the girl beneath it. Isla peeled back the layers of spiritual noise until she glimpsed the truth. The medic’s true form shimmered like water catching firelight.
Maeva’s opalescent skin shimmered like a pearl under starlight. Faint scales ran down her sides, her nails sharp enough to rend flesh. James’ oversized olive-green shirt hung off her like a loose dress, sleeves draped like fallen banners. His workout bands circled her wrists like makeshift cuffs.
Her coral-like locks hung loosely in a low, frayed ponytail, tied with a simple red ribbon—the one Brigid had in her bag, taken when they’d slept as the siren cried. Never expecting to see them again.
Isla’s focus shifted lower, to the crumpled mess of bags littering the ground near Maeva’s fish-like tail, forcing her to crawl on her elbows through the jungle to them. The bags were Isla’s favorite snacks—the ones she’d left for her—ripped open, crumbs scattered like sand around her.
It wasn’t hunger she felt from Maeva—just familiarity. The siren had eaten them. Every bag was shredded. The bright blue wrapper of a protein bar lay in tatters by Maeva’s hand. A pang of sadness hit Isla harder than she expected.
You were stress-eating.
It was so painfully human. Isla could see it now, the image playing in her mind like a scene from a film. Maeva, her body aching from transformation, nerves shot, alone in the jungle with no one to help her. She’d stumbled across the stash Isla had hidden in the supply bag.
You thought we abandoned you…and that hurt.
Desperately. Frantically. She’d run into the jungle so they wouldn’t see this part of her, like a child hiding in the kitchen at midnight, hiding her face.
A pang of protectiveness shot through Isla’s core, like a thread being pulled too tight.
No one should have to feel that alone.
Her gaze shifted to Maeva’s hands. Her fingers trembled as they clutched something close to her chest—a letter. Isla’s whole body coiled, choking up at the feelings radiating from it, which had been infused by the siren’s tears upon reading it.
It was folded, crinkled, the edges worn soft from how tightly Maeva had been holding it. Her letter. Her words of returning for her held close to her heart, Maeva’s fingers gripping it like a lifeline.
Isla felt Maeva’s heartbeat through the glow of her aura. It beat unevenly—faster than it should, like she’d been running for far too long—her voice spent protecting them. Isla traced that pulse back into Maeva’s being, peering deeper into her.
She saw Maeva, the girl who had been abandoned by fate and made to cling to the pieces of herself that remained. Isolation, far worse than anything Isla had experienced, clung to the woman like barnacles on a sunken ship. It had eaten away at her over time. It wasn’t until a witch cursed her to protect herself from Maeva—ironically—that the siren had been able to live as a human. To live freely in human society.
“Don’t give up,” Isla thought, though no one could hear her. Her voice felt small, like a droplet in an endless sea. “They’re coming back for you. You’re not alone.”
Isla’s perception was drawn back, a swirl of new sensations carrying her away from the siren. Every thread of reality was untangled and exposed in hues she’d never known existed. The world didn’t just have colors—it had essences.
She could see the tension lines stretching from the ground beneath the glassy scar left by the unicorn’s wrath all the way into the jungle’s heart. Her awareness floated freely, her sense of self oddly light and disjointed, like a whisper traveling on the air.
The air vibrated with residual energy, every shift of the current visible as gentle pulses of golden light. It would help heal Maeva as she slept. She was close enough.
Her mind caught glimpses of them—the threats that stirred in the wake of the First Light’s might. The things in the island’s depths, hidden forces bound by something ancient and unseen. Tendrils of corruption seeped upward like fog curling through cracks. Isla felt them watching. Observing. But they weren’t The Fog. No, The Fog was a symptom, like a white blood cell of something deeper…far deeper than the island’s depths. Too far for Her vision to pierce.
Isla’s gaze—or what she thought was her gaze—returned to her body below, lying sprawled near the overturned fish tank, her limbs twitching in uneven jerks, her eyes wide but unseeing. The immortal fish’s ability to see was far beyond that of a human, yet what she saw currently wasn’t due to her new body… It was Her doing.
That’s me… If the fish could see even a small portion of what I can now, no wonder the others scattered the moment Hollow’s shadow attacked one of their own.
Her human body flopped like a fish out of water, because that’s who now occupied it. Her mouth gasped for air as though drowning. Her face was locked in a stunned, frozen expression, eyes wild with primal panic.
I’m the fish.
The realization now left her stunned as the surrealness of everything closed in. Her awareness retreated as She sagged against her soul, wings going limp while falling into a restorative slumber. Still, the fish’s nervous system was far more than she had imagined.
She felt the currents of the air, the pressure everything exerted on reality, as if a part of her. Isla’s senses stretched far beyond sight, brushing against threads of something deeper—forces she’d never noticed before. Not nearly as far as it had been with Her support, but more than enough to realize they were not welcomed on this island as guests…but food.
The island itself was alive, and its breath was heavy with the weight of containment. Hollow was just now entering his cave, diving deeper to meet his new mistress in the depths of the prison, where she slept. Who or what that was? Isla didn’t know. But she knew he would regret finding this Truth in the end.
This place isn’t just a trap for us… It’s a cage for something else. Something bound by other Eldritch forces, weaker ones, united to tether something greater.
Her attention shifted as she felt him moving. James. His pounding footfalls echoed through the vibrations of the glassed ground, every step like a tremor she could feel in her soul. His aura blazed as he entered the clearing, every movement carrying the weight of determination.
“ISLA!” he shouted, voice hoarse but commanding.
His boots skidded across the slick, molten glass as he staggered to a halt, his wide eyes scanning the devastation, a large gun held in his hands. The soldier’s gaze caught on her human body first, then flicked to the small, twitching fish beside it. Isla saw it happen in slow motion—the shift in his stance, the moment he saw her.
“Kael! Brigid! I found her!” His voice was a roar that echoed across the scarred clearing. “I think… Something’s wrong!”
He dropped to his knees next to her body, his hands moving with a soldier’s precision. Isla saw inside him, the broken ribs mostly mended—Maeva’s caring song, or the best she could do, given her current state, combatting the insect’s poison.
His two fingers pressed against her neck, then his palm to her chest. “Come on, Isla, come on,” he muttered under his breath, teeth grit so tight it seemed his jaw might break. “Respond!”
Her vision twisted as she turned her senses toward him. He’s glowing…a faint turquoise?
Looking closer, she saw a weak thread tied around his throat that wove toward the edge of the jungle—toward Maeva. A faint, pulsing glow emanated from his chest and hands, soft but undeniable. Not good, not bad. A predatory mark of territory that told other predators to stay clear—she was protecting him. Isla felt it tug at her awareness like a gentle ripple against a line of possessive silk.
Her gaze shifted beyond him to the jungle’s edge. Maeva had awoken and had forced herself to the scar to peer through the foliage. Crouched there, hidden in the underbrush, the shape of a lean, elegant woman. Her fish-tailed had the faint glow of bioluminescence, lowered half in a river at her back that flowed uphill toward the mountains—an escape route if she needed it.
Maeva’s emerald eyes peered through the vines, her gaze locked on James. Her lips moved, but no sound reached Isla’s senses. She could imagine what the woman was saying, though.
Please, leave me. Go. Save yourself. Don’t look for me.
“Kael, Brigid! Get over here!” James bellowed, his hand cupped over his mouth. His eyes darted to the jungle, catching movement—just a flicker of motion. His fingers gripped his gun tighter as he glanced toward Maeva, the siren stilling, a lump forming in her throat.
“James!” Isla shouted, only a small bubble floating out of her mouth in response. “Don’t you do it! I know it’s scary shit right now, but focus on me! Focus on… Wait, am I going to be left behind?! Don’t you dare leave me!”
His gaze lingered for a heartbeat, confusion and calculation warring on his hard face before he focused back on Isla’s flopping form.
Brigid and Kael’s heavy steps echoed through Isla’s enhanced perception, each step a drumbeat against the air. They stumbled over the rainbow glass, Brigid panting, her eyes scanning everything with frantic speed.
“Oh my god. Oh no. No, no!” Her voice hitched when she saw Isla. “She led them away—she had a plan… Isla’s supposed to have a plan…”
“Stretcher. Now,” James snapped, his voice low and sharp while keeping a watchful eye on the ominous jungle edges. Yet, everything that would attack them had long retreated when realizing the First Light was going to attack.
Kael obeyed without a word, his expression grim. He raced back to the camp, grabbed the stretcher that had been meant for James, and ran back, snapping it into position with practiced precision as James secured the area. Brigid hovered, her eyes flitting between Isla’s body and the writhing fish on the ground—actually her.
Seeing the tears and calming trembles of the technician, Isla’s breath caught. Yes! Yes, bring me, Brigid! I can count on you to think of what I’d want, right? I apparently wanted this fish if I had it with me when I became a flopping vegetable!
“We…we can’t just leave Isla like this,” Brigid said, her voice cracking. “She’s flopping like she’s a fish!”
Yes!
Her hands hovered near Isla’s face but soon recoiled, her lips pressed into a thin line before looking at her wiggling human body. “She’s—she’s going to be okay, isn’t she?”
“Not for us to decide…” James shot her a hard look, his jaw tight. Then, he exhaled slowly through his nose, head bowing for a moment. When he raised it, his voice was steel. “Kael, grab a cooler and scoop the fish into it—don’t touch it!”
“What? We’re taking the fish?” Kael blinked, wiping sweat from his brow. “A cooler?”
James’ gaze didn’t waver as he kept his vision mobile, his eyes narrowing. “Brigid’s right. Isla wanted it, if anything, so they can name it after her. The hell if I know. Just grab it,” he demanded, like it was the most obvious truth in the world…or if prompted. “Do it.”
Brigid let out a soft, broken sob, her hands pressing against her face as Kael ran back and collected the item. Tears streaked the technician’s cheeks, her body trembling.
“How can she be so brave?” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “Sacrificing herself for us… She barely even knew us. Is she…is she brain dead, James? Did those slug things…”
“Don’t talk like that,” Kael grunted as he returned. His hands moved with speed and care as he pulled out the internal trays and placed them aside. His gaze stayed focused, locked on his task. “She’s not gone, Brigid. She’s still here. If there’s a problem, AEGIS will have a way to fix it. They’re practically the damn world shadow government, right?”
Isla felt a warmth she couldn’t describe bloom in her chest. She watched them work—watched them scoop her fish body into the cooler with the care of handling something fragile and irreplaceable. The way Brigid cradled her human body like a child while strapping it down for her protection, her tears falling onto her face, made Isla feel a heat far deeper than she’d ever known.
Even though we’ve barely known each other for twenty-four hours, they care this much for me? I suppose…when you go through shit like this, it tends to bring people closer.
The moment they placed her fish body into the cooler and sealed it shut, Isla felt an odd shift—like her whole being had settled into place. The clarity of the world sharpened. Her awareness stretched toward the sea, sensing the waves crashing against the distant shore, and she felt them all, bound by something unspoken but unbreakable.
James stood, one hand on the cooler, his other gripping Isla’s limp arm as Kael finished securing her body to the stretcher. He glanced toward the jungle one last time, his eyes narrowed like he was trying to burn the image of the distant, unconscious figure into his memory.
Is he going to leave Maeva?
There was a short pause before he whispered, “…Let’s go,” his voice rough with restraint. “We’re taking Isla back to base for medical attention. Then, I’m coming back.”
The world blurred as they carried her body and the cooler toward the waiting rowboat, the island once again silent. Isla’s awareness flickered in and out, her gaze catching on James’ form as he moved with precision and command.
Maybe you should have been the leader of this party, James… But maybe Eve knew Maeva could have compromised you. If there’s one thing I know… Eve will probably figure out I’m still me. I just…have a feeling she will.
The sound of the engine hummed in her senses as they boarded, but Isla’s whole body cramped when she felt the shadow below with alarm.
Wait! It’s still here?! In the engine room… Her senses sharpened, peering past the walls and box that contained her while they used the crane to lift her strapped body onto the deck. She felt it expand, chilling, a rift in space that drew in stars, countless eyes scanning and teeth awaiting to feast. It’s just…waiting. It wants us to take it back! No, guys! Guys! It’s powerful… Immensely powerful. We can’t bring this back to Earth!
The soft lurch of the boat pulling away from the island sent a ripple through the water—through her—and for the first time, Isla felt it, but not from her…but from The Fog entity below… A cancer cell that split off from the whole.
“Freedom.”
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