The Shooting Star

15. Amalgamation

      Averine stood with shuddered breaths, staring down two. . . unnatural abominations of people. The look of them was impossible to decipher, yet she was forced to do so. She rose her hand upwards to take a shot. . . with her. . . hand? Her hand was covered in a pink mist yet again as she struggled to maintain the intended form of it. Her pistol wasn't forming. . . why wasn't it in her hand? She couldn't. . . it was too much to even think of what she was trying to form with those creatures in front of her.

    They stared her down with their whispering growing louder. One of them crawled towards her, it's limbs effortlessly digging through the metal floor with a haunting screech.

"mel. . . . liSSa. . . meLisSa. . ."

Her body trembled in place as she watched it approach, her legs only being able to shuffle backwards. The air that seemed so free felt impossible to find in her system. It wasn't real. . . it wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't re─

Right in the middle of a deepening spiral, the distortion of a human wrapped a cold, jagged limb around the stars leg. A staggered breath was taken, as Averine glared down at the. . .the. . . thing making contact with her. It continued to whisper broken words and names, but her own mind was screaming too loud for any sound to hear. Through every jumbled thought a single word was repeated clearly at a deafening volume:

❝ M O V E . ❞

With the echoed word serving as a command, Averine slammed her foot onto the creatures limb. It let out a horrid screech as it released her leg, and she swiftly used the moment to escape through the door that she opened. The corridor was still almost impossible to see in with the only difference from before being very few flashing red lights. It gave her brief moments of vision, which she used to do nothing but move away from the nightmare imprinted in her head. The Shooting Star maneuvered through tables and slabs through the periodic lights, crouching against a wall that just rounded a corner.

She felt a surge of air rush into her body, greedily taking and releasing it as she attempted to straighten her own mind. ❝ Is that a person? Is it a beast? He said they can retain their senses right? What were they saying? How were they saying it? What parts are still human? Are they. . . alive? ❞

   Every question rushed at her simultaneously as she scrambled for the answers to satiate her own fear, yet only became more so when the answers only led to more questions. Once again, one question found itself to be bigger then any other, and it wasn't coy with it's reveal.

     ❝ Should I put them out of their misery. . . or are they content with being like this? ❞

   The conversation with Gyono suddenly looped in her head as if it was waiting for its queue. They volunteered to fuse themselves. . . did they know this could happen? No that's impossible, they were in bags in the equivalent of a bunker. . . they couldn't be happy. They couldn't be themselves like this. The professor used her as nothing more then a chore woman, surely that can't indicate humanity. . . right? He wouldn't stoop so low as to─

    Every nerve came to a screeching halt as the sound of scraping filled the vast room she hid in. Averine peeked her head from the corner in the path of the horrid sound. After a shortly timed flash of red, another amalgamation was spotted. It looked dazed as it stared into the empty rooms, as if it's lost its sense of direction. It was differently distorted then the first one to make contact with her, and that small revelation made her remember about the second creature that fell out of its bag. It's initial reveal was so appalling that she completely blanked on the second one.