Chapter 7: Chapter 7: The First Glitch

Some time ago...

Nikola and her father had just enjoyed a leisurely weekend together, packed with a whole lot of family time. He'd taught her how to sift the dirt out of wheat, how to mill it extra fine, and how to make his most pillowy soft bread. He'd reminded her how to sharpen his work knives, something she reminded him she was extremely familiar with - but he insisted anyway - and he had read almost an entire book to her over the course of three nights.

When the three loud, assertive knocks pounded at the door, she and her father were just finishing off the story; a tale of a boy who had made friends with a dragon instead of slaying it. He trailed off right at the part where the dragon and the boy had decided to move in together, and were mulling over whether they would live in a cave or a castle.

"I'll get it!" Nikola blurted out before bolting over to the door and opening it just as the men were about to rap against it a second time.
"Hello, this is the Brightdark residence. How may I help you?"
"We're here to speak to your father," they responded gruffly, their faces pointing straight ahead.

"Dad! There are some men here to speak with you." Nikola recognized their outfits as the garb of the local guards; the last time they had shown up, they were checking up on some sort of license to sell merchandise and their faces were much brighter than they were now. She scratched at her wrist, noticing how very grave their expressions were.

"Why don't you head on upstairs for a bit, girlie?" One of them started to reach behind their back, but another one of the guards beside them nudged them before they could reveal whatever it was they were pawing for.

Her father moved through the kitchen and into the front hallway behind her, placing a firm hand upon her shoulder. "You heard them, Nikola. Head upstairs and don't come back down unless you need something."

She wrinkled her nose visibly and slipped out from beneath her dad's grip, her gaze flitting between their guests and her father, who looked the same way he did whenever she caught him in a lie. He was trying not to betray his emotions by keeping his brows still and solid, but a person learned a lot about another person after living with them for most of their life. He was worried about something.

"But--"

"No buts, Nikola. Come here, give yer old man a hug, and then listen to me."

Awkwardly, she shuffled over to her father and wrapped her arms around him. His trunk-like arms followed suit, and she could hear his elevated heartbeat, feel the dampness forming an outer coating on his skin.

"Why are they here?" She uttered the words hurriedly into his ear, hopefully quietly enough that only he could hear them.

"If I wanted you to know, I would have told you before they showed up."

He put an end to their hug by taking her by the tops of her arms and spinning her around, towards the hallway that led to the bottom of the stairs. "Now be good, and listen to yer father."

'He would have told her before they showed up?' Nikola's glassy blue eyes wiggled in her skull in disbelief. His words pointed to a truth that was hard for her to swallow. Was her father the one who had summoned these men into their lives? They had just been having such a quaint little time reading, wrapped in the warmth of the world and the crackling fireplace. Why would he interrupt their time together with something like this? Why would he turn himself in?

She had known of his misdeeds for a while now, of his tendency to skulk out of the house while she wasn't watching and return when he thought she was tucked away in bed. She had seen the wrinkles in his brow grow deeper by the day.

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But if he went with the men at the door, she was almost certain this would be the last time she would see him. They would do the same thing to him that he did to warrant calling them. She could see the justice in it, killing a man who had killed other men, but beyond simply not wanting her daddy to die, she had a deeply ingrained belief that it was the right people who had to die, and so he should not die.

This man, the one who gave his excess meals at the end of the night to the needy; the one who sung her to sleep at night in his deep, manly voice; the one who had worn dresses for teatime for his little girl... he was not one of the right people.

Still, she wanted to be obedient. She wanted to listen to her father, and she could feel her feet beginning to move towards the staircase as he had half-requested-half-demanded. But she knew that if she let him go, the meal he had prepared for her that night would be the last bite of his cooking she would ever taste. Their final words together would be 'now be good, and listen to yer father'. Not the worst last words, but a far cry from what such a good man deserved.

Nikola tried to stop in her tracks, but her feet continued on. Attempting to disobey her body's set path was like hitting a wall she couldn't cross, a wall she had never encountered before but had never dared destroy. But this day, this was a wall-destroying day.

She knew that she was supposed to make herself scarce - but more than that, it was like it had been predetermined that she would. The only recommended action that she could have taken in that moment was to listen to her father, but that was unacceptable.

Nikola tried to turn around, but she felt an invisible force pulling her backward. It was like a set of ropes she couldn't see were tied around every part of her. She growled against the bonds, struggling to free herself, fighting to go back down the stairs.
They fought back.
But she fought harder.

Something broke, then - 1000 unseeable and unknowable rubber bands snapped around her, leaving her free to move.

The first thing she did with the freedom was to turn back down the stairs and roar as she rushed toward the guards.

She had no weapon until she smacked into one of their fleshy chests with the mass of her body, at which point she took one of theirs; a knife, simple and with a bandage-wrapped hilt.

She plunged it into their backs, and after the third guard had a knife sticking out of his spine, it was only then that she noticed none of them were fighting back. Blood was pouring from their wounds, drenching the little carpet that greeted her guests, but they continued to stand around in their stiff, business-like line as if they hadn't just been stabbed.

Nikola looked over her shoulder to check on her dad, and a terrible resignation was on his face, but as she stood there and waited for him to react, he didn't. None of them did.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed some kind of motion. Upon investigation, some kind of fuzziness was forming on her blood-slick hands. Little squares of black and white flickered around them, and neon colours joined in, performing a frantic, buzzing dance.

This must be some kind of trick. Am I sick? Hallucinating?

The mesh of colours began to spread, infecting the trail of gore spilling from the guards and then the floor, engulfing each one of the men in her house until they were simply covered in them. She turned around to warn her father, but as she opened her mouth to do so the fuzz contaminated her as well. It felt like chilly wrongness as it crawled across her skin and ate her up, just like it had done to the guards.

The last thing she could see before it feasted upon her eyes was it beginning to crawl up her dad's boots.

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