Eva and Maya stood frozen, staring at the creature.
It hadn't moved since their eyes met—that terrible mass of crimson strands, those floating orange-gold eyes with their vivid red pupils. The rotting smell filled the air, thick and cloying, making every breath a fight.
Then it moved.
One moment it was thirty feet away. The next, it was behind Omega Maya, one of those strand-arms reaching for her with impossible speed.
Maya moved—but not fast enough. Eva's hand closed around her wrist and yanked, hurling them both backward through the air. They landed in a roll, coming up twenty yards away, putting distance between themselves and the horror.
"We're going to have to fight," Eva said, her voice steady despite the adrenaline screaming through her veins.
"We can't." Omega Maya's eyes—those white-dot depths—were fixed on the creature with something that looked almost like fear. "I can't even sense it. It's like it doesn't exist until it moves."
"Doesn't matter." Eva's hands ignited with purple flame. "We're killing it. No matter what. It's too dangerous—it could kill survivors."
The creature flowed toward them.
Not running. Not walking. Just... moving, its strand-body rearranging itself with each step, closing the distance in seconds.
Eva threw up her hands. "Dominance Sphere."
Purple fire erupted around them, a bubble of absolute control. Inside it, Eva was god. Inside it, nothing moved without her permission.
The creature stopped.
It stood inside her sphere, surrounded by her flames, her will pressing down on it from all sides. The orange-gold eyes blinked—once, twice—watching her with what might have been curiosity.
Then it took a step forward.
The sphere shattered.
Not broke—shattered, like glass hitting concrete. Eva screamed as the feedback hit her, purple fire scattering in all directions, her control ripped away by something that simply refused to be controlled.
The creature was on them.
A strand-arm lashed out, catching Eva across the ribs. She felt bones crack, felt herself flying through the air, felt the ground hit her back. Another strike—this one aimed at Maya.
Maya dodged, the Omega's speed carrying her aside, but the creature's other arm was already there. It caught her mid-dodge, those fibers wrapping around her torso, and squeezed.
Maya screamed.
The fibers tightened, crushing, penetrating—one strand pierced through her chest, emerging from her back in a spray of blood. Near her heart. A hole. A wound that should have killed her instantly.
The creature released her. She fell.
Eva watched her fall.
Maya lay on the ground, her face turned toward Eva, blood pooling beneath her. Her eyes—those eyes that had just made Eva laugh, truly laugh, for the first time in months—were wide with pain. Her lips moved, forming words that didn't come.
The face that made her smile.
Her friend was on the ground. Dying.
Something broke inside Eva.
One of her eyes changed. The purple faded, replaced by something darker—something that split and multiplied, a dozen black pinpricks spreading across the iris like cracks in glass. Her teeth sharpened, lengthened, becoming something that belonged in a predator's mouth.
The creature felt it.
A pressure, immense and absolute, descended on it. Not physical—something deeper. Something that reached into the core of what it was and demanded it feel fear.
For the first time, the Fibramorph Abyssalis hesitated.
Something hit it from the side.
Derek.
He came out of nowhere, his body thrumming with the impossible power of Blood Rush—faster, stronger, harder than anything had a right to be. His fist connected with the creature's midsection, and the thing flew, tumbling across the clearing, strands scattering and reforming.
Lightning followed.
Leo stood at the tree line, both hands extended, arcs of blue-white electricity slamming into the creature before it could recover. The strands conducted—some of them, at least—and the thing convulsed, its distributed eyes blinking in confusion.
Leo's gaze dropped to the ground. To Eva. To Maya.
Both were down. Both were unconscious. Their clothes were torn, ripped by the creature's strands and the violence of the fight. Blood covered them both.
"Maya..." Leo breathed.
He looked back at the creature.
It was gone.
The clearing was empty. The pressure had lifted. The rotting smell lingered, but the thing itself had vanished—fled, or waiting, or simply choosing another moment.
Leo ran to the girls.
Derek was already there, his Blood Rush fading, leaving him exhausted and shaking. He dropped to his knees beside Maya, his hands hovering over the wound in her chest. It was closing—slowly, too slowly, but closing. Pulse was working. She'd live.
Eva was stirring, her eye returning to normal, her teeth shrinking back. She looked at Maya, then at Leo, then at Derek.
"Did we...?"
"It's gone," Leo said quietly. "For now."
Eva closed her eyes.
The forest was silent. But it was screaming.