Dimension shuffler

Chapter 19: Tormented Souls

Stephen's corruption had hit the group hard. It really hammered home how insignificant they really were against someone as powerful as Cosmos.

All the news stories were talking about it. A mysterious being cropping up and committing genocide. No reporter dared get near it but instead followed the trail of corpses that it left. The television had remained off as none of the three could bear the thought of their friend's fate.

Paz began training without break. All her dummies were broken into hundreds of pieces and the walls were coated in slashes. Whether in fury or fear, none knew of her true purpose in her tireless efforts.

Drez shut himself in his lab and began working. He stayed silent for the next couple of days, tirelessly working on some strange device. The lab was a mess of spare parts and failed blueprints but he seemed invested in finishing his project.

Chico was the only way of interactions between the three. She tried to get the others to take breaks or at least speak to her. After days of futile efforts, even she began to lose hope of ever banding together again as a four.

She sat on a stool in the kitchen and sighed over a picture of the four together, taken before they met Melody. She was down at the bottom, waving at the camera. Paz was off at the side attempting to smile. Stephen was on the right trying his best to sneak out of the photograph while Drez, behind him, was pulling him back like a big brother. Happier times.

Something wasn't right.

Someone was here.

Chico glanced around. No-one.

Her abilities couldn't pinpoint anybody either. It was eerie.

She heard a draw open. Out of it, came a knife, floating. Suddenly, the knife flew in her direction.

A quick thought was all it took to stop it but all the same...

What just attacked her?

Whatever it was, there was safety in numbers so she fled, frightened.

"Come back here! I WILL have my vengeance!" A creepy voice called after her.

She ran into Drez's lab and slammed the door behind her, breathing heavily.

"Chico, would you please be a bit quieter? I need to work."

"But there's some kind of malevolent force out to get me! It attacked me in the kitchen."

"Were you hurt?" He didn't look away.

"No..."

"Then no harm, no foul."

"Why won't you...?"

She stopped as various parts and utensils were tossed around the room, none thrown by any visible force. Drez seemed almost unaware anything was transpiring. Chico was confused. Did this thing do anything to Drez? Why else wouldn't he listen to her? And why else wouldn't he notice the tempest behind him? 

If Drez wouldn't notice, then Paz was the next best thing.

Chico fled to Paz's training room but nearly fell deaf upon entering as the clanging of metal and loud yelling reminded her why the room was soundproof. Paz was desperately flailing at the metal walls, screaming at the top of her lungs, as she made clean cuts into the surface like a woman gone mad.

"Paz! Paz!" Chico yelled.

She seemed to drop everything to see to her younger friend's issue. "What is it? You seem worried."

"Worried is understating it." Chico replied, imitating Stephen's sarcastic humour (a trait beginning to rub off on her), "Something attacked me in the kitchen and I think it's done something to Drez."