CHAPTER 44: ANNIHILATORS 2

Annihilators are the only part of the nightmare that is not from your past. It is the part of the nightmare designed to instil more fear into you. To make you resent both life and death. If you cannot defeat them, they overcome you, and turn you, into a demon slave.

I’m not mentally stable right now. I can’t even wrap a single thought around my finger.

It does not move to attack me. It just keeps growling and panting with exertions. I watch the heaving of its chest as it struggles to regulate its breathing.

When it blinks, all six eyes blink at once. It has three pairs of arms, each with formidable claws. The arms encircle a muscled chest and muscled legs with huge clawed feet.

I gulp.

It should be about eight feet tall. Its mouth is open, baring intimidating homodont dentition. A dark liquid pools at the corner of its mouth, hesitating to drip down to the ground. It scratches the ground with one of its clawed fingers, but seems content to watch me.

Blood is roaring in my ears. It’s waiting for me to make a move. To run. But, I can’t even move. My nervous system is on override.

I’m back to being the poor helpless girl who lost both her parents and was doomed to the worst slice of fate.

I can’t defeat it. I don’t even want to try. But, I have to. If I can defeat it, I may be able to increase my rank. I have to learn more about this rank stuff, though. Xian Xi wasn’t exactly very...expository.

I slowly take a step back.

It just remains a few feet away from me, watching me carefully. I take another measured step backward.

It only moves one paw forward, as if deciding not to chase me just yet.

I need to get as much space as possible between us. It can catch me with just one lunge.

I turn around and start running. The wind feels stiff and stale, instead of fresh and inspiring. I struggle to keep my vision clear. I jump over the rocks and keep moving without looking back. I kick hard on a rock and fall forward. At the speed I was moving at, the fall is rapid and excruciatingly painful. I wince, struggling not to make a sound as I clutch my feet. My skin is bruised. My leather shoe has been ripped off at the front and my toe is bleeding profusely.

I’m at a disadvantage.

I struggle to my feet and start limping forward. To my surprise and amazement, it isn’t behind me.

Then, I hear a faint growl.

I turn around very slowly. It is right in front of me!

I make to dash away, but it slashes through my abdomen with its claws.

I stagger back. Another slash and I’m done for.

I ramble for possible stalls or solutions. This monster must have a soul. How do I contact it? I need to reach into its mind, but there are too many barricades.

The easiest way to get through to a demon is to call them by their true names. What most people don’t know is that demons have names. Not exactly personal names, more like classification names.

Fang and her ilk are Peak demons. I’m under the classification of Berg demons, I think. Berg demons have minds and consciousnesses of their own and can take human forms, but are bound to their master forever. Rise demons are the warrior demons that are trained to kill and manipulate the mind. They can take human forms if granted by their master.

Then, there are Valley demons - savage beasts that only answer to blood and their master.

I don’t know where this one belongs.

I stagger back as I clutch my abdomen in searing agony. I can’t let it turn me into a mindless demon.

It is going to absorb me into itself, take my essence, and regurgitate me in the form of a demon.

All memories and previous consciousness will be replaced by two things - kill and serve.

I fall to the ground, still clutching my abdomen.

The timer shows up just then, and I fall into the portal.

Relief washes over me. Time is finally on my side.

I land on the floor of my white and empty room, bleeding profusely. I keep coughing blood.

I try to grip something tangible. My bloody hands close on the white sheets of the bed and I pull with all my depleting strength.

To my dismay, the sheets get ripped off the bed and my hand crashes to the floor. I’m back to square one.

I decide to just lay there and play the nightmare over in my head. My battle with Xian Xi, my encounter with Hikaru, Hikaru dying, the Annihilator scaring the shit out of me, everything feels so surreal, like a distant memory.

Did Xian Xi make it out alive? Did an Annihilator come for him? Is he still in the game?

Is Hikaru game dead or real-life dead?

I lie there quietly until everything goes blank.

I see myself as a little girl with beautiful white hair, walking along the stone paved streets with my mother’s hand in mine. Her grasp is warm, firm and reassuring.

We walk through her favourite garden path and talk about the flowers in bloom. She stops by her favourites, plucks them and puts them in both our hairs. Then she squeezes my cheeks affectionately and pats my nose with her index finger.

We continue walking quietly, neither of us talking, because there is no need to. Our words and emotions are already being spoken non-verbally.

I want to stay in this dream forever. I want to keep holding her hand - but then she is ripped away from me so cruelly. I start to cry out for her.

The flowers slowly begin to wilt till all life is drained from them. The vibrant colours are dulled to grey and black. The brilliant aromas are suffused by the acrid smell of smoke and the pungent scent of death.

The brilliant sunshine is slowly masked by encroaching darkness. With each passing second, less of the sun is visible.

Every living thing - the flowers, the plants, the butterflies, the grasshoppers, the singing birds, even the grass dies.

Then, only a sliver of the sun can be seen before it finally disappears.

I am left alone in the darkness. I keep crying out for my mother. My voice echoes loudly.

Then, amidst the darkness, a pair of red eyes open and stares right at me.

The wind stills.

"Wake up". The voice says.

I open my eyes slowly.