Chapter 13: The Rave'N Night - Part 2
The cave stank of copper and decay, older death layered beneath fresh violence. My phone's flashlight carved through absolute darkness, revealing limestone walls that wept moisture and something worse—scratches too deep and too deliberate to come from any natural animal.
Hyde territory. Den. Feeding ground.
Eugene lay crumpled against the far wall like a broken doll, chest torn open in three parallel gashes that exposed white ribs beneath shredded flesh. Blood pooled beneath him in quantities that meant dying or dead, spreading across stone that had absorbed too much violence to ever be clean again.
No. No no no.
The Hyde crouched over Eugene's body with predatory patience, deciding whether this prey was worth eating or just killing. Eight feet of muscular wrongness, claws that dripped crimson, milk-white eyes that held intelligence far older and hungrier than anything should possess.
Tyler. Tyler Galpin wearing a monster's skin.
Time fractured into crystalline moments:
Eugene's first day enthusiasm, bouncing into our room with bee facts and unconditional friendship.
His patient lectures about hive dynamics while I pretended not to care.
The way he'd adopted me as his personal project, refusing to let me retreat into complete isolation.
"Thank you for not being background furniture for once in your life."
The joke he hadn't made yet. The gratitude he'd never get to express if I failed here.
Rage and terror combined into something transcendent, something that tasted like copper and felt like dying. My shadow manipulation exploded outward with fury I didn't know I possessed—twenty-five-meter extension achieved through pure desperation, tendrils wrapping the Hyde's limbs like living restraints.
Hold him. Hold him long enough to—
The creature tested my shadows with casual strength and found them wanting. My darkness strained, tore, began dissolving under pressure that could crush stone. But it got the Hyde's attention.
Those milk-white eyes focused on me with predatory interest, and I realized I was about to die unless I used the power I'd been terrified to unleash.
Cursed Speech. One chance. Make it count.
The Hyde lunged with speed that made physics cry. Explosive power that covered twenty feet in perhaps half a second, claws extended to open my throat the same way it had opened Eugene's.
No time for strategy. No time for anything but desperation.
"STOP."
The Cursed Speech tore from my throat like broken glass swallowed backwards, carrying the weight of every protective instinct I'd ever suppressed. Every promise I'd made to keep Eugene safe. Every ounce of transmigrator will focused into a single word of absolute command.
STOP. Stop moving, stop hunting, stop existing for just long enough—
The Hyde froze mid-lunge, supernatural paralysis overriding predatory momentum. Three seconds of perfect stillness while my command wrestled with its nature.
Enough time.
I dragged myself forward, throat already bleeding, using shadows to pull Eugene's broken body toward the cave entrance. His weight was dead mass, limbs that moved wrong, but he was warm and that meant alive and that was all that mattered.
Ten meters. Fifteen. Twenty.
My vision grayed but I held on, shadows wrapping around Eugene's worst wounds to apply pressure, to buy time, to keep the blood inside where it belonged instead of painting limestone with another death.
Move. Keep moving. Get him to safety.
The Cursed Speech command broke with an almost audible snap. The Hyde shook off compulsion with visible rage, milk-white eyes focusing on me with the kind of hunger that precedes violence.
Cave entrance. More shadows. Better position.
I got Eugene to the threshold where ambient light gave me more darkness to work with. My shadows formed a crude barrier—not solid enough to stop the Hyde but maybe enough to slow it down.
Won't hold. Maybe five seconds before it tears through.
The Hyde tested my shadow wall with one claw, found it yielding, prepared to finish what it had started with both of us.
Then headlights swept across the cave entrance.
Someone's car. Rescue. Help.
The Hyde retreated deeper into darkness with predator pragmatism—intelligent enough to avoid witnesses, patient enough to hunt again later. It disappeared between the limestone formations like smoke, leaving only the stench of violence and the echo of milk-white eyes.
Safe. For now.
I collapsed next to Eugene, throat destroyed and tasting copper, but used my last conscious moment to wrap shadows around his worst wounds. Applying pressure. Buying time. Keeping my promise to protect him even as everything went dark.
Hold on. Just hold on until help arrives.
Please don't die. Please don't make this sacrifice meaningless.
Darkness claimed me, but my shadows continued their work—autonomous protection that functioned even after conscious thought surrendered.
Part of me died but refused to stop fighting.
Light. White light that felt like violence against my retinas.
Beeping. Medical equipment. Antiseptic smell.
Alive.
The first coherent thought in three days came with the realization that I was lying in Nevermore's infirmary, throat bandaged so heavily it felt like wearing a neck brace made of gauze.
Eugene.
The next bed over. Unconscious but breathing—chest rising and falling with steady rhythm that meant alive, alive, alive. Bandaged like a mummy but intact enough to heal.
We survived.
Wednesday sat in the chair between our beds, reading something thick and academic-looking. She didn't look up when she spoke:
"Your shadows held his wounds closed for forty minutes after you lost consciousness. Explain."
Can't speak. Throat destroyed.
I tried anyway and managed only a wheeze that tasted like blood. Wednesday's expression suggested she'd expected this outcome.
"Right. Vocal damage. The medical staff provided notebooks for communication." She gestured to a tablet and stylus on my bedside table. "When you're ready."
Later. Process first.
I closed my eyes and let unconsciousness reclaim me. Wednesday made a small approving sound.
"Later, then."
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