Chapter 3
I tried to calm myself down, to take a few deep breaths and think rationally, but my heart kept beating so hard it was almost painful. Around me, the classroom was in chaos. Desks were knocked over and papers spilled everywhere as roughly half the students started running for their lives, even though they must have known it was pointless. I couldn't fault them, however. I could feel the animal part of my brain screaming at me to run, to hide, to fight, to do something. We were being hunted by a Beast, and that meant nowhere was safe. Our only hope was for a Vessel to arrive and slay it before it was too late.
I grasped onto that thought. There were several magical girls active in our part of the city, so we had a very good chance of being rescued. I'd heard time could get strange between the inside of a Nightmare and the outside, but with a place as busy as a school, someone must have noticed things were wrong right away, which meant help had to be on the way. I needed to focus and consider the outcomes, and figure out how to make the best of this situation. Scenario one: nobody got here in time, in which case we were all already dead. Nothing I could do would affect that outcome, so it wasn't worth considering any further. That left scenario two: a magical girl did arrive and slay the Beast, in which case everything would be restored and we would all be fine no matter what. Therefore, there was no point in me being cautious; I had nothing to lose. If the only two possibilities were a binary between alive or dead, then the smartest choice would be to take any risk for the most gain. And that, I realized, meant going for the grand prize: the Beast.
It sounded insane, to deliberately run towards the horror coming to eat me, but I wasn't gonna escape it anyways, and it represented a golden opportunity. There were some magical girls like Roseflash who displayed their magic to the public, even made a performance out of it, to inspire wonder in people and take some of the fear out of it. But I held no illusions that an actual fight between a Vessel and a Beast would be anything like that. So I had to see it. There had to be something I could learn from observing their clash, seeing their impossible abilities on full display, something that could lead me to another breakthrough. I didn't plan on getting involved, of course. I knew my pitiful curse was unlikely to even tickle a Beast. But I wasn't a normal bystander anymore, I could do magic, and that had to mean something.
I took stock of my surroundings one more time. By now, all of the runners had disappeared, which left only a handful of people standing or seated, either sobbing or just in shock. I could still hear screaming and rushing footsteps, but they sounded fainter than they should have, like it was coming from a television several rooms away. I stepped out into the hallway and saw a few students and a teacher leaning over the railing to see the courtyard below; Theresa was there among them. I hurried over.
From the third floor balcony, the square stones of the courtyard looked like a massive chessboard. I could see several tiny figures wandering around aimlessly, their movements strange and erratic. I spotted one group of people rushing towards one the gate, and another huddling together among the flowerbeds near the library entrance. The school had let out about an hour ago, but it looked like there had still been a fair number of students attending club activities or studying at the library, as well as teachers, when the Nightmare started. I got on the tip of my toes and leaned forward as far as I dared, trying to see into the balconies below. I found a couple of other students looking around as well, but they didn't seem especially panicked. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I couldn't find any signs of the Beast.
Suddenly, one of the boys next to me shouted and pointed. I followed his finger to one of the buildings across from ours and closer to the gymnasium. In the sudden gloom brought about by the Nightmare, the windows of the still-lit classrooms stood out like stark squares of light, except for two of them on the ground floor. As we watched, another of the windows next to them went dark. Then a few seconds later, the next one winked out as well. Then the next one.
I hurried towards the closest stairwell, forcing myself not to sprint in case I needed the energy later. I heard some footsteps start behind me; maybe I had jolted some of them out of their stupor. I quickly reached the ground floor and stepped out onto the courtyard. Looking up, the sun was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the sky had turned pure white, shedding a milky, hom*ogeneous radiance that bleached out color and made edges fuzzy. I heard a scratching noise and looked to my right to see someone just a few meters away coming towards me. He was a groundskeeper; he had a large watering can held in a death-grip, shaking and spilling water as he came. His movements were jerky and stiff, his arms and torso swaying forward and his feet dragging behind in a way that shouldn't be possible without toppling over. His mouth was open as if cut mid scream, but only a ragged whimper came out. I met his eyes and they were bouncing wildly in every direction, his pupils narrowed into pinpricks.
He shambled towards me with unexpected speed and swung the metal can at my head. I tried to shield myself on instinct, but before the blow could connect, someone tackled me to the ground. As I fell with a yelp, I saw his arm hit the corner on the stairwell hard enough to crack the plaster. The arm bent with a nauseating crack, but he kept going, rounding on us with unnatural speed and showering me and my savior with water in the process.
"Get up!" she yelled, and I belatedly recognized Theresa's voice as she yanked me to my feet and pulled me away at a run. She led me in a zig-zag pattern around the flowerbeds, putting a few of the large concrete planters between us and our pursuer. Thankfully, his uncoordinated movements meant he couldn't turn very well, and we were quickly able to get some distance. I planted my feet hard and pulled Theresa behind one of the hedges lining the courtyard.
"Wait!" I gasped, and I pointed while trying to catch my breath. Ahead, I had spotted two more shambling figures, a teacher and an older student, but their attention was on one of the narrow alleyways leading between the buildings. Their movements were just as strange, but now that I had a second to think, I noticed there was something else unusual. Their clothes were pulled or bunched up in weird places, and I realized there were strings, so thin as to almost be invisible, wrapped tightly around their arms and legs and dragging them around like puppets. Now that I was looking for them, I saw several more strings hanging in the air at random angles, seemingly not tied to anything. In fact, we'd come dangerously close to stumbling into some of them as we ran. I suppressed a shudder and pointed them out to Theresa, keeping my voice low.
As we were considering our next move, I heard rushing footsteps and saw two students run out of the alleyway. The boy in front was blindsided by the strung-up teacher and crumpled to the ground, clutching his stomach. The girl behind him managed to swerve out of the way and dodge the other puppet, only to run headfirst into one of the floating strings.
It caught her at head height and wrapped tightly around her neck, cutting off her scream and hoisting her up into the air. I saw her hands scratch desperately for purchase as the thin wire bit deeply into her skin and blood began to bubble out, dribbling down the front of her uniform. All the colors had been washed out into black and white by the alien sky, but the blood remained a bright, vivid red, almost luminescent against the washed out background. I managed to avert my eye just before I heard a wet, ripping sound and something heavy hitting the floor. I felt bile rise in my throat. Behind me, Theresa screamed.
We fled, running past the alleyway entrance and following the edge of the courtyard. As we passed, I saw the two puppets descend on the fallen boy, and his screams followed us as we rushed to the next alley. It's gonna be fine, I thought to myself, not daring to look behind me. None of this actually matters. Everything will be okay, just focus on your goal. You can't help them. Gotta keep moving. Find the Beast.
We couldn't move as fast as we wanted; the strings were hard to see, and now they seemed to be everywhere. We picked our way across the courtyard, slowly, anxiously. We spotted some other puppets along the path, but thankfully none close enough to get to us. We ducked into the first clear alleyway we found, around halfway down the row, and emerged behind the building where some old storehouses were.
Theresa stopped me with a gesture, catching her breath before speaking. She was pale, and her eyes had a faraway, haunted look. I probably didn't look much better. The sounds of distant screams were getting more frequent now, but they were distorted, making it impossible to distinguish their source. Looking around, I tried not to flinch when I spotted a trail of blood smeared around a corner, about a dozen meters away from us. There was a handprint on the adjacent wall, bright red and impossible to miss. My left eye kept itching.
"There's a–" Theresa started, still somewhat breathless, "there's an access entrance around this side that they use to bring in supplies. We can get out that way, and maybe find some more people and, and…"
"And what?" I cut her off, my voice still shaky. "What are we gonna do then? It's not going to be any better out there, and more people will only make us a bigger target." My tone came out sharper than I meant; she had just saved me earlier and she was obviously just as scared as me, but my nerves were starting to fray and I couldn't help it.
"But we can't just do nothing!" she said, almost pleading. She floundered, gesturing with frustration back the way we came. "Those people, the strings, we could– there has to be something, some way to help them."
I wanted to shout at her for being so naive, but held myself back. She didn't deserve it, and getting dragged into an argument would only help us get killed. Instead, I looked more closely to our right. We had crossed the courtyard, and moved towards the back, meaning we were close to where I'd seen the lights go out earlier. The pool of blood made me feel queasy, but if I could skip past it, find a back entrance into the building and make my way back to the front…
There! On the next building over, I could see strings covering the windows. Unlike the lines hanging in ambush in midair, these were woven into intricate nets, creating a sort of barrier. Looking up a few floors, it seemed like the entire building had been sealed from the inside. That could mean a few different things, but it was the best lead I had. A hunting ground. With any luck, the thing that made it will still be inside.
I made my way closer to where I saw one of the ground floor windows had been left ajar. The net still blocked the way, but the holes were large and irregular, and I had a pretty small build. Careful not to touch any of the strings, I stuck and arm through, then my head. I had just enough room. Almost as if it was left on purpose, I thought with a shudder, but I wasn't about to lose my nerve. Before I could get further however, a hand yanked me out by the back of my blazer.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Theresa asked, barely keeping her voice in check. I struggled, trying to shove the bigger girl away without much luck.
"Let go of me!" I protested, but she just looked at me like I was crazy. I was used to it. I couldn't blame her for thinking that way, and I couldn't explain myself in a manner she would understand. She probably thought she was "saving" me, but right now I needed her to leave me the hell alone.
I focused on that feeling of annoyance and frustration. She was obviously way more fit than me, so trying to use my stick-thin arms to fight her off was pointless. Instead, I craned my neck as much as I could to look over my shoulder and made eye contact with her. Then, I reached up and pulled off my eyepatch.
Theresa froze on the spot, her eyes widened, and I could see a full-body shiver course through her. I took the opportunity to shrug off my blazer and squeeze through the hole in the net, leaving her holding my discarded uniform. She recovered quickly once I broke eye contact, but it was too late: the hole was barely large enough for me, there was no way for her to fit. She stared at me as I straightened up in the gloomy classroom and quickly fixed my eyepatch back into place. The look on her face was bewildered and a little hurt, but there was something else there I couldn't name.
"Don't" she said, her tone deadly serious. "Please, just get back out here. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but it's not worth it."
I just stared at her, feeling a twinge of hesitation despite myself. What was with this girl? We barely knew each other, so why was she suddenly so concerned about me? No matter, she had no way to follow me, so she should have no more reason to stick around. A part of me wanted to say something, to reassure her in some way, but I couldn't find the words. So I just turned away and left the classroom, ignoring her calls after me.
The back of this building held the laboratories and a couple of study rooms. The inside was far darker, forcing me to advance at a snail's pace using my phone as a flashlight to avoid the string traps. Down the hallway, I found the chemistry lab's windows were all broken. They looked as if they had exploded outward, scattering shards of glass all over the wooden floor. The door had been ripped off its hinges, and lay in pieces against the opposite wall. Examining it more closely, I found thin, deep gouges had been carved into it, evenly spaced in sets of four. I found similar markings on the nearby wall as well. Shining my phone's light towards the end of the hallway, I saw it reflect off a pool of liquid coating the floor. Even without the color, the pungent smell of iron would have made its nature obvious. I covered my mouth and nose and tried not to gag as I stepped carefully over the lump laid on the floor, so badly mangled it was barely recognizable as a person. The next hallway hosted two more corpses in similar states. More disturbing, however, were the spots smeared in blood but where no body could be found. I did my best to avoid them, but I still stepped in some of the blood, which made my steps feel sticky and squelch disturbingly in the silence.
The signs of more victims must have meant I was getting closer, but I couldn't find it in myself to celebrate. I managed to reach the end of the building and eased open the door of the auditorium. It was a fairly large room with tiered seating on one side and a raised stage on the other. It was used for guest lectures and other miscellaneous events, and also doubled as the practice room for the school band, which was why it currently had various instruments scattered about. I knew there was a wide double door on the opposite end that would let me reach the front of the building. However, as soon as I entered I immediately spotted several puppets shuffling around the room. I hastily covered my light and went still, waiting for a few seconds, but thankfully none seemed to have spotted me. The auditorium was almost completely dark, save for a few meager rays of light coming through the web-covered windows. The puppets, visible only as fuzzy silhouettes, were hunched over, and from the sounds of it were busy dragging something towards the center of the room.
I was tempted to turn back, but I didn't know if I was going to be able to find another path to the front of the building, and whatever had caused so many of the puppets to gather in one place must have been significant. I couldn't see well from the door, so I started to move along the edge of the room, holding my breath and using the stacks of plastic chairs and instrument cases as cover. I reached the bottom row of seats and peeked over the edge.
I watched as two of the puppets dragged what must've been a corpse, leaving behind a smeared trail of red, and dumped it in a grotesque pile at the edge of the stage. And there, sitting on the floor in front of it like it was a makeshift table, I saw the Beast.
I couldn't discern its features in the dark, but its outline looked vaguely feminine. Its face was covered by a veil, and atop its head was a delicate crown of curving horns. Around it, what looked like the tattered folds of an outrageously long dress spilled like a fountain to cover the auditorium floor. From its sides sprouted four slender, elegant limbs, long and many-jointed, each tipped by four needle-like fingers. I watched it reach towards the pile, carefully taking an arm off a corpse like it was plucking a flower and raising it to eye level. And then, with an indescribable noise, it began to pull and pinch and cut, unwinding the flesh and the bones and the sinews into thin, almost invisible string, and gathering it into a spool.
I managed not to scream, but in my shock I stumbled back a step and felt my heel brush against a thread I had failed to spot. Faster than I could react, it wound itself tightly around my shoe, holding me in place. I could hear the Beast pause its grisly work. It didn't move, but the puppets around the room all froze at once, before starting to move towards me.
No, no no no I f*cked up, oh god, I can't– I clamped down on my panicking thoughts, even as I felt myself start to hyperventilate. I knelt down to free my foot, but I didn't dare touch the string with my hands in case they might get wrapped up too. Instead, I tried to untie my laces to see if I could pull my foot out and leave the shoe, but my hands were trembling too much and I kept fumbling. I could hear the puppets getting closer. Would they wrap me up in the string, forcing me to join them in hunting down the survivors? Or were they going to drag me kicking and screaming towards the pile to be turned into raw materials for some insane project? Finally I managed to slip the shoe off and scramble to my feet, only to find two puppets standing between me and the door. I could turn around and make a break for the front entrance, but that would mean climbing onto the stage and passing right in front of the sitting Beast. I had no time to think, but before I could make a decision, there was a bright flash of light that cast the whole room into sharp relief and briefly blinded me.
There, on the smoldering remains of the podium, stood a young woman clad in fire. She wore a light-blue dress adorned with white laces and frills, and around her neck was wrapped a navy-blue scarf that waved gently in the still air of the auditorium and transformed gradually along its length from cloth to azure flame. She was quite tall, and her long hair reached down to her waist, the same color as her bright, piercing blue eyes. Around her, the light she shed returned color to the Nightmare. Her hands, covered in dark blue fingerless gloves, held an impressively large sword, still aglow with the remnants of the fire she had just unleashed.
She swung the blade again as she advanced, and in an instant the pile of corpses was scattered into ashes. The Beast backed away as the fire spread and consumed the entire spool it had gathered. At once, all the puppets in the room were yanked into the air by their strings and swarmed towards the magical girl. Meanwhile, the Beast began to clamber to its feet. Its massive, corpse-woven dress inflated and rippled with the sudden motion of countless unseen limbs, lifting it higher and higher until it stood over three meters tall. It lashed out with an arm, and four strings whipped out, carving deep furrows in the stage as they flew at the swordswoman.
She made a quick slash, incinerating the strings just before they reached her, but the puppets had already surrounded her and started to close in. I saw all of this happen from my hiding spot behind the bottom row of seats. It was clear both the puppets and the Beast had forgotten all about me the moment an actual Vessel had entered the scene, and yet I couldn't even think about fleeing. I watched with my heart in my throat as the magical girl dodged attacks from all the puppets with elegant, dance-like steps. None of them touched her, yet she was being slowly corralled back towards the entrance she'd emerged from. Suddenly, another puppet leapt from the side of the stage and caught her from behind, wrapping both arms around her waist. In the circle of her light, I recognized him as one of the music teachers, an older gentleman with blonde hair and a nasal voice who I remembered for being very strict.
The magical girl let out a startled cry and, in a flash of movement I could barely follow, whirled around and cut him clean in half.
The strings holding him burned away and he let out a blood-curdling scream, but he was quickly silenced as the blue flames consumed his body. She immediately dropped the sword as if it had stung her. It fell off the stage and shattered into pieces, and she covered her mouth to stifle a keening, painful wail. The remaining puppets lunged for her, but she leapt back with another burst of impossible speed. For a moment, I saw her standing there on the threshold of the auditorium, trembling and looking like she was struggling to not throw up.
And then, she turned around and ran.
