101 Ways to Skin a Hoodie

Chapter 8

IT BURNS IT BURNS IT BURNS IT BURNS IT BURNS IT BURNS IT BURNS. My entire being is burning, engulfed in flame. My skin glows blue in 1500 degree temperatures, and I feel all the moisture in my body evaporating. It burns it burns it burns it burns it burns it burns. My synapses spark and fizzle out, overloaded by such intense pain that they shut down entirely. My brain literally starts to fry as the overstimulus of information burns out its processing power. My blood boils. It burns it burns, it burns so much. My eyes dry into useless husks, and when I inhale to scream all that enters my lungs is more flame. It burns it burns it burns it bur

I'm rustled awake by Ben who seems to be fairly excited by something. It's hot. My brain takes a minute to start processing outside information, and when I'm fully awake Ben seems to have calmed down.

"You just missed it." He says, "it was raining."

"That's weird. Were there any clouds that you could see?'

"No, it's as if the rain was coming out of thin air. Although I suppose it could be that there are clouds far above what we can see, but I doubt that's it as the rain would have likely evaporated before we got a chance to see it."

"Hmm," I murmur. My clothes are certainly wet, but as I touch them I feel them drying already. It really is hot. I scoot over to the edge of the sheet of metal and look down. Hot air buffets my face, but I can't see anything that would be indicative of an approaching ground.

Ugh.

I'm starting to get the feeling that this wasn't such a good idea after all. I take my phone out of my pocket to check the time, but it's scalding to the touch. The battery overheat message is blinking dimly on the screen.

"You're always looking at that device, what's it used for anyway?" Ben pipes up.

"Whew, what can't it do? Well it can relay the entire collective of human knowledge to you with a quick search, as well as perform advanced calculations and run complex systems inside it."

"That's impressive, could you use it in some way to search for help?"

"Well, most of it only works when it's connected to this mystical energy source called wifi, but there aren't any routers for it to connect to around here. And even if there were I can't use it right now since it's too hot."

"So it's useless."

"Yeah."

I feel like I have this same conversation with myself whenever a youtube video buffers for half a second.

"Do you not have any sort of circuit-based technology in your world?" Is what I start to ask Ben, however I'm cut off when he leaps across the sheet of metal, dragging us both off. I gasp as scalding hot air hits my exposed skin, and since I'm facing up I get a glimpse of what Ben protected us from. A massive winged creature soars across the sheet of metal where our bodies were seconds before. It's on fire, but it doesn't seem to be particularly bothered by it. Under the flames I can see that it has two limbs and a tail, with the wings protruding from where the head meets the limbs.

As I process this I let go of Ben and draw my sword. Ben draws his as well, and we spread out our limbs to ascend towards the sheet of metal. I peek over it, and see the winged creature circling back around for another attack. My hoodie is on fire and I quickly lift myself back onto the deck and stamp it out. The food source is protected, however the creature seems to have locked on to me, and makes a beeline through the air towards its target.

I raise my sword, steadied in front of me as practiced. The creature bears down on me at breakneck speeds. It's almost reached me when Ben roars from underneath the sheet of metal, shooting a stream of water up onto the creature. It lets out a heart stopping cry and falters for a second midair, before reigniting itself and flapping upwards to get away.

I let out a yell myself and leap upwards and off of the platform in pursuit. The beast is just out of reach, but I extend my sword anyway, willing the creature down with every fiber of my being.

It shoots downward, or I shoot upward, but either way my sword glides through it's head.

I blink and fall back down onto the sheet of metal. The creature lets out a final croak, and it slides of my sword down into the chasm below, disintegrating as it goes. I crouch down on the platform, panting slightly. I move my hoodie away from the edge as Ben swings himself on top of the platform.

"I saw that."

"Yeah, thanks for the assist," I respond, a little unnerved by his brevity.

"How did you do that?"

"What?" My brow furrows. It's really hot. Why isn't Ben sweating that much?

"That demon or whatever it was. It was a good five meter away from you when you leapt at it. Then it shot down onto your sword. Really fast. Like, in a way that even if it had wanted to it wouldn't have physically been able to."

"I don't know what to tell you. I-"

A pause, I see a ramshackle hut behind Ben, and them we smash into the ground. My senses go dark immediately.