Chapter Eight – Throes Of Perdition
25th April 7:46 PM
I felt so empty; incapable of comprehending more than a few things at once as all of the voices shouted frantically around me.
“He’s in shock,” a firm voice said, cutting the others, “Elena, pass me the needle. Serena, try to calm him down. Nathaniel, hold him still.”
Strong hands gripped my forearms, pinning me to the ground as the chest section of my armour was lifted away. My eyes stared straight up, not taking anything in but a few vague colours as my mouth gaped open and closed drawing shallow breaths.
In my mind things weren’t faring much better, the massive eyes glared down at me from high above, burning with a red more intense than any fire.
‘Feed us!’ they howled in a more broken and distant voice than before; a shadow of their real voices, but enough to make my body shake violently.
‘David, calm down’ a voice filtered through the constant assault of white noise, ‘You’re safe.’
‘Not safe’ I thought back frantically, spasming as I tried to escape the eyes, ‘Never safe.’
“Hold him down!” Cassius yelled, “I can’t go too deep with this or I’ll stab his heart!”
‘You’re ok’ Serena’s mental reassured soothingly, ‘Just stop, we can only help you if you let us.’
Her conscience washed over mine like cool water, soothing the rampant thoughts that stole my sense. ‘It’s ok.’ She soothed me like a child, crooning as I slowly stopped panicking. ‘This might hurt a little bit.’ She warned just before I felt a small pain in my chest, though I barely noticed.
Almost instantly my brain started to process information more clearly, the horrifying visions of the Stygians faded and I was gradually able to make out my surroundings. A group of faces looked down at me, clearly worried, as I took deeper and slower breaths.
I groaned, staring down at the large needle protruding out of my chest. “What the hell did you inject me with?”
Elena answered, pulling the needle out, “Pure adrenaline, it’ll keep you going for a while but only time will tell if you’ll make a full recovery.”
I could feel my heart build up speed, pounding in my chest as the drug took effect. Usually this much adrenaline would make me go into a full-blown power spree, but now it just made me nervous and jittery.
“Thanks. What did they do to me?” I asked shakily, standing up and trying to forget the glowing eyes. The Argos pitched to the side, throwing us all against the walls painfully.
“Sorry!” one of the twins yelled from the front, a monstrous roar from somewhere below made my skin crawl.
“We think they consumed the energy you were producing,” Elena groaned, holding onto a seat as the plane lurched again, “it shouldn’t have any permanent side effects though.”
“Hey!” the other twin yelled, “We have more prominent troubles at the moment!”
“Right” Cassius stood up, staggering against the movement of the plane to get back to the cockpit. “What have we got?”
“Seven very pissed off Stygians,” once again the jet barrel rolled, tossing us all around the back.
The captain leapt smoothly into her chair, straightening us out as more roars echoed across the sky. These roars did not originate from the Stygians though; but from a pair of Archaean jets that rocketed onto the scene. Our backup.
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