Beneath The Surface

Act 4 - Creature from below

Normal text
Thinking
Onomatopoeia

Kai'Sa's POV
"AHHH!"

My eyes flew open and I sat up on the bed, panting profusely. Beads of sweat trickled down my temples, my clothes damp and sticky. A sharp burning itch plagued my back as the little bugger inside me squirmed in alarm at the spike in my heart rate. My cheeks were warm and wet with tears. At this point, I don't even know whether I'm crying from the pain of this second skin digging into my flesh or from the pain of having the same nightmare repeat itself over and over again. My heart hurts... It hurts so much, having to relive the same sequence of bloody events where everyone died one at a time. The last few moments I shared with Mom before the cave collapsed, burying her alive. And the regret. The guilt of not listening to Mom and causing everything to end so tragically. I wasn't smarter than Kai. I'm a complete fool.

It's been 13 years, 5 months and 7 days since that tragedy occurred. And in every single one of those days, I hadn't been able to sleep peacefully. It was as torturous as during my time under the desert. The regret continuously haunted my consciousness non-stop. If only I hadn't been stubbornly doing things my way, none of this would have happened. We would all still be alive today...

I could vaguely hear my symbiote chirping away anxiously as my mind raced from the near-death experience in the nightmare. It had always been doing this whenever it felt threatened. I mean, it had its uses during combat since it served as an early warning whenever there's danger nearby. There's also the added benefit of having monstrous speed, strength and armour surrounding my body, which definitely helped me to survive in a chasm infested with voidspawns and voidlings. But now... Now it's just plain irritating, painful and confusing. It's never entirely clear on what it wanted me to do. Did it want me to destroy something or run? Who knows? This creature only knew to stab me repeatedly. Like a baby that didn't know how to use words to convey itself. A dangerous baby who loved to mindlessly claw at my insides until it got its way.

I tiredly laid back down on my bed, wincing from the familiar pins and needles running across my skin.

I gently caressed my armoured forearm, murmuring, "Calm down, you little... I'm not dying."

But even after hanging out with me for so many years, it still refused to trust me. The paranoid little thing continued to scratch at me like a feral kitten. I patiently waited for it to calm down and stop attacking my insides. After a while, the stinging sensation finally disappeared.

"Happy now, bugger?"

It chirped indignantly as it withdrew the dark-coloured carapace from my body. The shell sunk into my skin, turning it black for an instance before my peachy skin colour returned. When I was 6, every time it did this little transformation, my whole body would practically shut down from the overwhelming pain. But as I repeatedly used this voidling's powers, my body more or less grew numb to it. My pain tolerance exponentially increased. I could now hold a straight face while having my insides stabbed. Which was useful if I didn't want to weird out other people whenever they got a little too close for this voidling's comfort.

During my time in the rift, I learnt to wield its powers. I had to if I wanted to survive and get my revenge. As my daily struggles drew out into years, this second skin grew along with me. And so did my resolve to exterminate every one of its kind. I stopped running and hiding like a useless coward. I was no longer the prey but the predator instead. For almost a decade, I had lived between the two worlds in an attempt to keep them apart. In an attempt to kill every inhabitant of the Void. Because the ever-expanding Void wasn't content with just consuming my village and the other scattered settlements of Shurima. It wanted the whole of Runeterra. I knew the feeling of losing everyone beside me. I don't want others to feel this same crippling sorrow... And I also didn't want to let my mother's killers run amok. I had to see the end of its kind within my lifetime. As well as the bastards who wanted to summon all these creatures. It's the only way for me to atone for my sins.