Chapter 3: Chapter 2: LSD (Pt. 2)

Enormous writhing tentacles of deep black and purple, each several hundred feet long and of proportional thickness, penetrated the sphere from every direction, reaching in from the holes where they’d broken through.

 

The now jagged edges of the walls cut gouges in their oily flesh and black blood seeped out, rolling down the length of the tentacles and dripping off to float around them. Bright stars shone through the breaches in the veil where the tentacles had broken in.

 

They hurtled towards the dais from all directions, Mikey could sense them inside his domain; above him, below the dais, and from every side, tentacles of preposterous proportions invaded.

 

In a few seconds they’d be upon the pair. Mikey hadn’t been trained for this. He didn’t even know that his pocket could be breached. Luckily, sparring with each other was one of the favorite past-times of Guide Academy students and he'd devised many ways to use powers for the purposes of combat.

 

The tentacles, appendages several tens of feet thick, the insides lined with two rows of huge satellite-dish sized suckers, had reached them. Mikey waved a hand above his head and yelled for Logan to come to him. From his outstretched hand a white bubble of light appeared and quickly expanded, enveloping them in a dome of protective energy.

 

A tentacle that had appeared from the sphere’s ceiling crashed straight downwards into the dome of translucent light. It connected with a thunderous roar that shook the dais, sending Mikey and Logan tumbling. The tentacle smashed into the dome but was immediately repelled; its momentum arrested by the power of the field, and the tentacle was flung backwards, rebounding off the sphere’s surface.

 

The tip of the tentacle burned with a dazzling white flame that raced up its length, encircling it completely as it spread. The tentacle whipped wildly back and forth, thrashing, and flailing as it burned. The white flame burned with vicious intensity, bathing the chamber in light and heat.

 

The tentacle retreated back through the hole where it’d emerged as it disintegrated from the tip, the fire consuming the limb. Though satisfied with the success, Mikey grimaced as several more tentacles approached.

 

What were they after? He was a celestial; try as they might, he couldn’t die. He’d just reappear elsewhere if he became compromised here.

 

Logan, then? But what would this thing want with a human soul?

 

His thoughts were interrupted as nine tentacles, each over ten feet in diameter, began wrapping around the outside of the dome a few feet away, careful not to touch its surface. They smashed through the dais, wrapping underneath the sphere, enveloping it completely and blocking any route of escape.

 

Logan stared out in horror at the sea of sucker cups that blocked all vision and light. Mikey braced himself as the tentacles all contracted at the same time, squeezing, and constricting the dome, attempting to shatter it.

 

When they touched, they caught fire, turning the world outside into an inferno of blinding white flame. Logan squeezed his eyes shut and hid his head between his arms, stricken by the brightness that surrounded him.

 

This time however, the tentacles didn’t retreat; they squeezed harder, ignoring the flames. Cracks appeared on the surface of the dome, spiderwebbing until they covered its surface. Mikey, realizing that they’d soon be pulverized, clapped his hands together and rapidly chanted a few short words. He dashed backwards, grabbing Logan by the arm, and yanking him back with him.

 

A pillar of white fire erupted from the spot in which Mikey had stood a moment before. It smashed through the barrier and the tentacles atop it, cleaving a perfectly circular hole through the grotesque appendages.

 

Thick gobbets of burning black blood fell into the newly created hole, spattering onto the floor of the dais. Mikey wrapped an arm around Logan’s torso and leapt upwards, his childlike body belying his immense strength as he launched himself powerfully out of the aperture. They flew high above the writhing mass of tentacles and watched as the sphere of light was crushed below.

 

Their relief was cut short by the impact of a tentacle sweeping through the air, swinging at them like a baseball bat as it crashed into them. The pair was sent rocketing towards the far wall where another tentacle was moving towards them, eager to intercept.

 

Mikey and Logan were separated by the blow, distance growing between them as they hurtled through the air on different trajectories. Logan’s now unconscious body was nearing the oncoming tentacle, which reached out towards him. Mikey watched in horror as the tentacle wrapped around Logan, engulfing him in its grasp.

 

This was a smaller tentacle; Mikey realized the largest of them had been sacrificed to destroy his barrier, and he could see Logan’s head and legs at the tip of the arm where it held him as it retracted out of the pocket dimension, racing for the open space beyond.

 

Desperate to save Logan, the first soul entrusted to his care, he made a brazen, split-second decision. Mikey flew towards Logan, chanting rapidly as he did so. His human form dissolved, leaving only a bright sphere of light that hurtled towards the tentacle and the body in its grasp.

 

Just as Logan’s body exited the boundary of his pocket dimension, Mikey’s ethereal form slammed into him. Logan’s body spasmed violently in the tentacle’s grasp as light shone from inside him, emanating from his eyes and open mouth. A cloak of white light exploded from his skin, expanding outwards with a loud, supersonic crack.

 

The tentacle was blown away, incinerated in the blast. Logan’s body drifted through the emptiness of space, bathed in the light of the stars.

 

As he drifted away, Mikey’s fractured pocket dimension began to deteriorate. The jagged edges where the tentacles had broken through began to sag inward; the pocket, a grand sphere of darkness, was melting behind him like thin plastic left out in the sun.

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All sides converged on the central dais where Mikey and Logan had sat; the beanbags somehow lying peacefully unperturbed by the cacophony of violence around them.

 

Its edges were sucked into a singularity, the orb imploding on itself. Suddenly, as if it were never there, the space finished its convergence and winked inconspicuously out of existence.

 

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Mikey couldn’t see or feel anything. Had it worked? He extended his senses and found that he was, in fact, inside a human body. It was unlike the other vessels he’d inhabited. Those, he’d created for himself. Without the necessity of actual anatomy, he’d created shells that looked and moved like a human body but in reality, were little more than false visages encasing his essence.

 

This was different.

 

He discovered circuitry that he identified as the brain, and as he explored, he was amazed by its complexity. Study of humans, the primary source of intelligent souls from Earth, had been a large part of his training, but though thoroughly fascinated by their culture and the idiosyncrasies that they exhibited, he’d never thought he would have much use for their anatomy. As he followed the intricate pathways and connections that seemingly continued on forever, he began to realize that he would never fully understand the system he now inhabited. He sensed, however, something that he did recognize.

 

Mikey carefully probed at the dormant soul. It felt tender, vulnerable, and scared. He could sense its memories, its knowledge. They reached out to him, responding to his touch. As they poured into him, he could feel Logan’s dormant soul reflexively defending itself, holding on to precious memories and hidden secrets, guarding them instinctively.

 

Mikey didn’t fight it. He allowed himself to be filled by what knowledge and history Logan’s soul allowed and didn’t try reaching for that which it didn’t. He felt at home in the flesh, warm and comfortable. He now understood how the body worked, but found himself unable to control it, the reigns still firmly in Logan’s grasp.

 

He tried to flex the body’s fingers. He knew how, he knew what signals to send, what synapses needed to fire. He tried pouring his energy into them but found that he had none to give. He was completely bereft of power, robbed bone dry by his fusion with the human.

 

That’s right, I guess that took more out of me than I realized. What was that? It was clearly attacking Logan, but why? How? I’ve never heard of anything like this happening, ever. At least I could stop it from taking him. And the powers I gave him, they should be useful no matter where he ends up.

 

Cold realization washed over him like an icy wave.

 

Wherever we end up, he thought.

 

Looking through Logan’s open eyes, Mikey saw what the human, unconscious as he was, could not.

 

Stars seemed to swim lazily by as he rotated slowly in space. He’d taken them a few lightyears outside of the boy’s solar system; he liked to make his pocket where it wouldn’t interfere with anybody. Still rotating, he was now oriented such that he could see the space that his pocket once occupied.

 

In its place was something he’d never expected; something he didn’t know could even exist. The sphere of his pocket was gone. Where it had once been, there was now a blindingly radiant light in the shape of a jagged line, tearing through space.

 

The start of the tear was indiscernibly thin, getting thicker towards the center, then fading out again at the other end. It looked as if a knife had been stabbed through the canvas of space, then torn viciously and irregularly downwards, leaving a bright, glowing scar in its wake.

 

This is trippy. It reminds me of that time Johno and I experimented with human drugs; we took LSD and ran around the compound at the Company’s Foundation Day party in human avatars. Even those hallucinations were more believable than this, he thought as he stared on, perplexed.

 

That could’ve been because, as he now realized, there was no way he’d replicated the brain correctly.

 

He could detect traces of his own celestial power emanating from the anomaly, as if elements of his pocket still remained. The thing pulled at him, physically drawing his body closer. The power was trying to reintegrate with him, but it was stuck somehow in the fabric of space where it’d collapsed.

 

Helpless, Mikey watched as the streak of light grew larger and larger. It loomed before him, easily a hundred times the length of Logan’s body. As they neared, they accelerated, until they were rocketing towards the tear uncontrollably.

 

A voice emanated from everywhere and nowhere, filling his mind and shaking his soul. It felt cold and impassive, but terrible; imbued with a power beyond imagining. The language it spoke was one he’d never heard; indistinct sounds that rose and fell like a rumbling heard from a distance, but he could just barely grasp its meaning.

 

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