The ghost system

5: Death

Rhys froze as the red eyes stared him down. His fate was dawning on him and Rhys realised that this might be the end for him.

The creatures slowly stepped towards him, into the starlight where he could see them properly, revealing their horrifying figures. They were like monstrous skeletons covered in a thin layer of tawny pale white skin. They had four Limbs that ended in sharp spear-like appendages that he could soon see impaling him. Their small red eyes sat high up on their long faces and their thin slitted mouths opened up to reveal rows of needle-like teeth.

Rhys shivered as he looked at them, the sight of them was so disturbing that he wanted to just cower in a ball. His attention shifted to a slushy pile of what looked like bloody ground meat on the forest floor. His face paled as he realised what it was. Mug's axe and some familiar clothes were sticking out from the puddle of bloody mush. And when Rhys looked at the creatures surrounding the puddle, he could see that their boney appendages were covered in blood and bone fragments, their ghastly mouths dripping with blood with bits of flesh stuck between their teeth. The man he had seen alive minutes ago had been reduced to that in such a short amount of time.

Rhys shivered in horror.

As if the creatures could smell his fear and realised that he was helpless, they suddenly charged at him, raising their spear arms and baring their atrocious teeth.

Rhys had no other option left. He had no fighting skills to fend them off with, and of course no powers to use against them. No gadgets or weapons or anything at all to save his life. All that was left was the core.

In that moment time slowed down for Rhys. The beasts were frozen mid-air and the sounds around him dissipated.

Before he could think, his hand had reached inside his pocket and retrieved his only hope, and the thing that would also probably kill him.

When a person infused with a core, a dangerous shockwave is released that could seriously injure or even kill anyone or anything in close proximity. That's why infusions were done in hospitals with absorption technology to stop the body and the surrounding people from being harmed. Not to mention the risk of failure when an infusion was done in uncontrolled conditions, Rhys knew that the chances of him dying here was probably over ninety percent, but still, if he was going to die, he wanted to die knowing what it was like to have a core. Ever since he was a kid he dreamed about having a core, and going through school without one had been pretty brutal. If this was the last moment of his life, he wanted to finally have what everyone else had.

Rhys brought the core up to his face and crushed the stone in his fist. As soon as he applied some force the core crumbled and transformed into serene silvery dust and smoke. Rhys took a deep breath in, inhaling the core until there was nothing left.

The creatures' teeth were millimetres away from Rhys's throat when an enormous shockwave exploded from within Rhys sending the monsters flying back into the forest.

Rhys felt in an intense burn blaze from within his lungs. It was as if his insides had been set on fire. He was paralysed from the pain and fell to the first floor writhing in agony. Not being able to handle the pain he lost consciousness, not knowing if he would ever open his eyes again.

——————————

A few beads of sweat rolled down the general's forehead as he saw the boney white monsters he had just killed get back off the forest floor and charge at him again.

They were a disturbing type of humanoid creature that had thin boney bodies with sickly pale white skin. All of the creatures had elongated necks and stretched limbs, glowing red eyes high on their foreheads and thin crescent mouths that occasionally opened to reveal rows of needle teeth. They were the creatures of horrible nightmares, so much so that the general felt he needed to wash his eyes after seeing them. But the problem with them was much more serious than their hideous appearance, the creatures were actually frighteningly strong.