— Ylva —

There are things that aren’t done. A single ant doesn’t run towards an elephant screaming blooding murder with the hope of toppling it over. That ant is going to get squashed, bad. This is a truth that no one would dispute.

But for some reason, anything that has at least a little bit of human in them, seems to forget this fact quickly. It’s like we can’t accept our own position in the world, and keep wanting for more.

It’s greed, and ambition, and hubris.

We are a bunch of Icarus, but whenever we see one crashing down, we tell ourselves, ‘maybe if I modify the wings a little bit, it’ll work’.

I knew what awaited me.

It knew me, it had seen me.

I’d opened a door I wasn’t able to close.

I was probably doomed anyways.

I don’t know what I could have achieved in this, but I knew one thing, I’ll die fighting.

So bring it on, fucker!

I bounded in five long strides towards the Other, my sword above my head.

Kaden’s eyes widened and he grabbed Elaeya by her midriff and pulled her off the bed to him. He struggled more than he should have, has the thing had a hand on her, holding her down, making her feel that much heavier. But he still got her out in a second, his muscles straining in confusion at the unexpected resistance.

The Other, let him, and kept looking at me, absolutely undisturbed. It smiled even wider, in pure amusement at my defiance.

It took me less than two seconds to reach it, my sword falling in a long arc.

Its arms were longer than my arms and sword combined, and it smacked me in the chest with a casual backhand slap.

The wind in my lungs—or whatever was left as I was still screaming—got pushed out in a ‘wooph’ and I went flying backwards, my feet not touching the ground, my limps clipping on random objects numbing them and knocking my sword off. I hit the wall with enough force for the whole room to shake, the first level of drywall crumbled and the other one behind got dented, as metal pipes blocked me from going right through. The metal bent and I hit my head hard on one of the pipes.

My vision blurred for an instant, my skull painful. The world started spinning sideways and I whizzed, unable to take a full breath in.

It had swatted me as easily as I would’ve swatted a fly.

The nurse had cowered in a corner, looking at the scene in confusion.

Kaden couldn’t see the thing and was looking around wildly, knowing something was there, but powerless to act. He’s not a man that deals very well with feeling powerless.

Sam rushed to me and tried to help me up, but my legs were big useless noodles.

“What the hell is in here?” asked Kaden in a panic.

I tried to talk but could only cough feebly in between wheeze.

Sam dragged a chair to me—that I’d knocked over in my failed attack—and picked me up in his arms, to sit me on it.

I would have normally smacked the bejesus out of him for trying something like this, but I didn’t find the strength in me to do so. The Other looked at me like a deranged child enjoying ripping wings off flies.

I thought for a moment it would come after me. It turned its body to me, lowered its head, and raised its claws. But it put one across its mouth and ‘shushed’ at me with its maniacal grin, the rubbery skin crackling like a dried-up corpse in the corners, its eyes deranged. Then it turned it chitinous body swiftly, grabbed Elaeya with one hand and dragged her back to the mattress like a ragged doll. Kaden unable to stop it—completely in shock.

When Kaden had shaken her out of the way of my attack, I’d seen her eyes flutter open, her mind in shambles.

Now, she tried clumsily to push at the things with her hands. No matter how hard she pushed or hit, nothing moved and it laughed.

This time I knew everyone heard it.

No one can be made aware of an Other without being aware first. It cannot manifest itself without being noticed. But that’s not what had just happened. This meant that it was stronger. Stronger than anything I ever heard of. Something was wrong. And in a flash of insight I thought of the blood, the essence of life—there are a lot of things that use blood. I know it can also be used to cross portals and connect to the spirit world. Maybe this one had used it to gain a stronger footing in this world, as it was not from our realm of existence to begin with. It couldn’t make itself known at will, and most of all, it could not touch physically someone that couldn’t perceive it.

So when Kaden tried to help Elaeya and the thing smacked him on the chest, I knew it was over. Kaden got pushed back a meter at least, but he lowered his body and let out one of is bigger growls.

The entire room shook, things clanked, and seeing at the expression on Kaden, Sam, and the nurse—for an instant there, the sonic vibration allowed them to see it, if only vaguely.

Kaden started to shift, is eyes yellowing, his teeth lengthening. Elaeya’s claws were out, and she tried desperately to claw the thing’s flesh out to no avail.

There were a few other strange attacks that she did that made me think of magic, one blew out a ‘bang’ and the other let out odd stinking smokes sizzling from the thing’s skin, but nothing worked, and it just kept laughing at her, the voice sounded like maggots and rot, and it rose in pitch and madness.

“What is this?” Sam asked me, his wolf on the surface, ready to burst out and attack in turn.

I put my hands on the armrests and pulled myself up clumsily as the spinning subsided. “An Other,” I said.

Elaeya’s eyes snapped to mine for an instant in pure understanding.

Kaden moved for his attack but she stopped him.

“No,” she said.

Sam had been ready to jump and shift, but he stopped in his tracks too.

“Stand back,” she ordered the men.

I carried my carcass to where my sword was, and bent to grab it, holding myself on a table so that I would not lose my balance as the dizziness was not completely gone.

Kaden looked about to argue.

Sam was looking at his Alpha, waiting to know what to do.

Elaeya eyes changed colour to a sort of reflective whitish shimmer, the contours a dark shade of magenta. She pulled on one of the thing’s arms to drag it closer. It clearly had the strength to fight her, but it complied in amusement. When it got close enough, its mouth opened in a chasm nearly as big as her whole head, rasping in horrifying gurgling. It’s triple tongues slithering in thick saliva in all directions in anticipation.

She put both her hands on it chest and a light built up from the touch, bright and powerful.

The thing snapped its mouth shut in displeasure, grabbed her by the throat, the other hand on her belly, and pulled her up, slamming her against the wall, her head hitting the ceiling as it pushed her up further, using its massive height to its advantage.

Kaden attacked and he hit what he could only perceive as solid empty air between her and him.

“Back,” she rasped at him.

I rose to my full height with my sword in hand.

“How can it be fought?” Kaden asked in a growl.

“We can’t,” I said

The light from her hand was still growing, there was a sound that reminded me of the buzzing in your hear after you hear a sound that is too loud for too long, like tinnitus—only the sound was constantly rising in pitch, like a teakettle, only higher. The light kept growing still, painting the whole room in white. Such a light should have blinded us, but it didn’t, and in a flash of insight I realised that neither the light, nor the sound were perceived with our actual senses. Our eyes didn’t see white, our brain did.

I don’t know what kind of attack had the power to bypass all natural sensory perception, but I knew it bothered the Other to no end.

It kept pushing her up, her neck bent as her head was pressed on the ceiling, but she didn’t let go. It gurgled a sneered scream that sounding like back up sewage and dismemberment in the form of angry vocalisations. The claws on its right hand dug into the flesh on her belly, the blood gliding all the way to its hand and dripping on the floor, but she ignored this completely. Her focus solely on the Other, her mouth moving in what seemed like low chanting, the sound obstructed by the hand crushing her throat.

She was about to hit with all that she could.

Kaden came to rush the thing again, seeing her crushed like this, and bleeding—he could probably not see it holding her, just that she was floating and hurting. He was in a blood frenzy and wanted nothing more than to kill it, but he couldn’t get to her.

“Back off,” I told him, my hand on Sam’s chest, stopping him from pitching in.

I could feel an energy build and build. It had been maybe seven or eight seconds since the things started to attack her in earnest, but what she was aiming at it, felt like the complete opposite of what it was. As much as this thing screamed of death, this light felt like pure life. Whatever it was, scared the shit out of me.

The Other’s blackened eyes widened. The sclera as black as the iris, in big insectile globes.

And Elaeya released her attack with a cry.

The Other toppled over and fell on the ground, she on top.

Kaden flew forward to catch her but she shook her head at him.

He let her fall with difficulty as she landed on the thing. She barged her fists on its chest with tiny motes of light, remnants of what she had just released. I could see its silhouette shift with every punch, the men reacting, seeing it for a fraction of a second every time she connected with its ribcage.

It gurgled a skin crawling scream that made my ear literally bleed. All or our ears.

During that time, she began screaming herself, in pure rage and defiance, snapping her hands to its chest and pushing for all she had.

It spun its claws aiming at the flesh on her waist to rip her apart in a last ditch effort to protect itself from her.

Kaden couldn’t stand by any longer. Evidently seeing enough of the thing to know what it was about to do.

She pushed further, the light building up again.

And everything exploded.