Aftermath of the Reckoning

Chapter 13

Wendell nearly drowned in euphoria as he ripped the Bloodflower from the girl’s possession. He’d nearly fulfilled his master’s wishes and merely needed to return home.

Seeing that no danger remained in the area, he tactically decided to finish consuming the arm, thereby allowing him to regain his full strength. Allowing his body to repair itself completely would enable him to travel faster and regain lost time on the way back.

Within seconds, on his knees, he devoured the remaining flesh, swallowing large chunks of skin and muscle whole without taking time to masticate. A wake of a hundred vultures feeding on a small carcass could eat no faster.

His passenger, Wheeler, watched the terrible procession through his balcony seat in the mind of Wendell. Though Wheeler had witnessed such atrocities over the years, the revulsion of it all never waned with each experience.

When mostly the bone and ligaments remained, Wendell looked straight up and detached his jaw, extending it like a snake preparing to devour its prey. He lowered the humerus into his throat first, followed by the bones of the forearm and phalanges, all at a speed that would have evoked envy in a sword swallower had circumstances been different.

From the corner of his eye, Wendell could see the girl returning to her feet. But it didn’t matter now. She couldn’t hurt him, and he had no desire to kill her or waste more time.

After the arm disappeared into some hidden cavern of space in his body, he closed his gaping maw and reveled in a familiar itching sensation — this time located at his left shoulder. Between the feeling of his body rapidly repairing itself and the near completion of his master’s assignment, he groaned in a moment of pure bliss.

Wendell didn’t feel physical pain. Instead he felt bewilderment as a force of nearly eight thousand pounds per square inch instantly enveloped him. His entire body crumpled in on itself, like the hull of a submarine which, by some magic, suddenly materialized at the bottom of the Marianas trench, six miles under the surface of the ocean.

However, his fleshless skeleton persisted, curled up in a fetal position. And his eyes still hovered in their sockets, affixed to the Bloodflower as it rolled away on the ground.

And then the pain began. Not from his body crushing like tissue paper, but from the realization that his mission was in danger.

The girl, Wendell must kill the girl. Then get Bl —

Suddenly, his frame flew thousands of feet into the air at an angle, away from the Bloodflower. Hovering there for a second, his skull faced upward, eyes coerced to view the canopy of stars that shown in the clear night. Wendell had no concept of beauty. But Wheeler looked upon the array of stars and the full moon with awe and sadness. It represented a freedom that he would never enjoy.

Then Wendell’s form rotated and he saw the forest below, almost in its entirety. He saw the faint glow of the Bloodflower, though not with his eyes, he was too far high in elevation. The orb no longer rested directly below him, but off to the side.

A sonic boom cleaved the tranquility of the evening like a stick of dynamite detonating in his skull. Within a second, he accelerated and flew a mile to the ground, burying several feet into the soft dirt at least a hundred yards from the Bloodflower’s location.

It didn’t end. The pressure around him intensified to where even his bones began to bend. He sank further into the ground and could feel the gravity around him increasing at an exponential rate. He descended, slamming through thick layers of sandstone and granite.

After traveling what felt like a mile into the earth’s crust, his momentum eventually ceased. With a mountain of earth weighing down on him and utter blackness in every direction, Wendell experienced something he’d never known before. Sleep.

***

Beads of perspiration decorated Zoey’s forehead as she concentrated on applying even pressure to Patch’s gushing shoulder wound while at the same time exerting a tremendous force to the man-thing she could no longer see. She pictured the gravity of a thousand suns in her mind and willed the being to bury itself forever, deep within the planet. A thin trickle of blood leaked from her nose.

Upon feeling Patch’s heart stop, she relinquished all control over the man-thing. One hundred percent of her attention redirected at the man before her.

Anger evaporated, replaced by a mix of anxiety and concern so intense that she collapsed to her knees and reclined against the oak beside her.

How long was it that people could survive without oxygen? She knew CPR but lacked the strength to move by his side. Feeling helpless and utterly exhausted, she closed her eyes.

In her mind, she saw Patch, felt him from the inside out. Every vessel, artery, ligament and bone crystallized in her mind as her telekinetic aspect blueprinted his anatomy. She felt the thoracic arteries in his shoulder, clotting with the help of the pressure she still applied. She felt past the ribs and intercostal muscles, visualizing his lungs and heart.

Simultaneously she pictured her own organs, feeling the way her own body functioned automatically, feeling the blood as rushed through the pathways of her circulatory system.

She willed his body to do the same, forcing his lungs to inhale and exhale, causing his heart to beat in rhythm with her own. Never in her life had she felt so merged with another human being, if this man were to die, so too would she.

She witnessed the oxygenated blood as it rushed to his brain and hoped it would be sufficient. Weariness beckoned and her mental image dimmed. No longer able to exert her full power, she felt like trying to operate on a patient at the bottom of a muddy lake.

Just as Zoey’s grasp on reality begin to fade, she felt his heart spasm twice and resume beating without her assistance. His autonomic nervous system reawakened as his lungs drew in air, like a drowning man saved from the brink of suffocation.

The dam burst and tears of relief flooded down her eyes; she thanked God that they had been given another chance at life.

Patch...LIVE!

It was her last thought before she passed out into a dreamless oblivion.