Chương 130: 129: Hunger

They did not stop until they reached their dormitories. Doors slammed shut behind them, locks clicked into place, and several of them immediately shoved furniture against the entrances despite knowing that none of it would matter against whatever they had just encountered. Sera laid Kasina's body gently on the floor. Her eyes were still open, her face frozen in that same mask of shock. There was no blood. No visible wound. Just emptiness.

"She's gone," Milo said quietly.

"What happened to her?" Nina asked, her voice trembling.

"She touched her," Liora said.

"The blue-haired girl. She just... drained her."

"Dreams," Gideon said.

"That's what she does. She steals dreams. Apis harvests them. The pods. She was in one of them." Nina frowned.

"What do you mean, dreams?" Gideon hesitated.

"This might be a really bad time to tell you guys this, but Apis is made from dreams. They harvest them from people in those pods."

"Jesus Christ. Really?"

"No wonder it can do all sorts of bullshit."

"That's actually horrific," another trainee muttered.

"Do they harvest them from innocents or criminals? Because that girl didn't exactly look innocent to me."

"Dreams?" Milo muttered.

"More like nightmares." Liora stared down at Kasina.

"Kasina was a trainee. She didn't have any Apis. She wasn't enhanced. She was just... human. I don't understand how that girl could absorb her dreams."

"It didn't matter," Rhett said flatly.

"She reached out, and the girl took everything." Noel crouched beside Kasina's body, staring at her with an expression that had lost all traces of his earlier admiration. He carefully pulled several strands of her hair free.

"Don't worry, guys. We can revive her once we become Steppers. I've taken samples. We can use the False-Twin chambers." Gideon looked at him.

"I don't think they'll allow that if she didn't complete her training."

"Anything can be allowed if you know the right people." A pause.

"Or threaten them." Rhett gave a small shrug.

"That's true." Nobody laughed. One of the trainees looked toward the door.

"That girl... she looked so strange. Like a dream you didn't want to wake up from."

"Now you know what happens when you get too close." Liora's gaze remained fixed on Kasina.

"She warned us. She told us she'd kill us if she ever saw us again. And Kasina touched her anyway." Gideon slowly shook his head.

"She didn't kill her. She took her dreams." His eyes lowered.

"But there's nothing there anymore."

"Same thing," Milo said. Gideon said nothing.

"Same thing." The room fell silent. Nobody spoke. They simply sat in the darkness, weapons clutched tightly in their hands, listening to the unnatural silence beyond the doors. Their breathing was uneven at first. One by one, they began to steady it. In through the nose. Hold. Out slowly. Again. It was basic training, something every trainee learned long before they were trusted with a weapon. Control the heartbeat. Control the breathing. Control the mind. They were not afraid of death.

Death was inevitable for a Stepper. Sooner or later, every trainee would be sent into something they could not survive. Some would be torn apart by Apis. Some would simply fail to return from a mission. They had accepted that. What frightened them was not dying. It was the girl outside. There was something about her that felt fundamentally different from death. Death was an ending. It was something they could understand, something they had been trained to face. She was something else.

She could take what made a person themselves and leave the body breathing. She could absorb dreams. She had extra arms, living tentacles, and an eye opening from her stomach. And worst of all, she had looked half-dead when they attacked her. If that had been her weakened state, none of them wanted to imagine what she would become once she recovered. Milo slowly lowered his rifle against his knee.

"She's worse than death," he whispered. Nobody contradicted him. A few of them resumed their breathing exercises, forcing their trembling hands to steady. Outside, the frozen corridors remained silent. They waited for time to resume. They waited for the enforcers to handle it. — The dorms were silent. It was not the comfortable silence of sleep or the peaceful stillness of night. This was the silence of prey, the kind that settled into the bones and made every breath feel like a risk.

The trainees sat in the darkness, weapons clutched against their chests, their eyes fixed upon the door as though it might burst open at any moment. Kasina's body lay where they had left her, her eyes still open, her face frozen in that same mask of shock. The others had draped a blanket over her, but it did little to conceal the hollow emptiness beneath. Nobody spoke. Minutes stretched into what felt like hours.

The frozen world remained suspended beyond their walls, and somewhere in the corridors, the girl was regenerating. Katherine. The thought alone made several of them tighten their grips. A sound came from the corridor. A wet squelch. Something heavy was being dragged across the floor. Sera's hand tightened around her rifle. Squelch. Pause. Squelch. Pause. The sound approached at an unhurried pace, each wet movement drawing closer through the corridor. Nobody breathed. The sound stopped. Right outside their door.

For one long, terrible moment, nothing happened. The trainees stared at the entrance. Nobody moved. Nobody dared. A faint bubbling sound came from the wall. Blub... blub... The metal began to melt. It warped inward, softened, and dissolved as though it had never possessed the strength to remain solid. A section of the wall sagged away, revealing the corridor beyond. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Something slid through the opening. A tentacle.

Thick and cobalt blue, its vivid pink underside glistening wetly beneath the dim emergency lights. It moved with unsettling independence, curling through the gap like a curious serpent as it slowly searched the room. Sssssslip. The trainees opened fire. BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! Gunfire erupted through the dormitory. Bullets slammed into the tentacle with deafening cracks. Several rounds flattened against its surface before dropping uselessly to the floor. Clink. Clink. Clink. The tentacle did not flinch.

Liora seized the Zappy Stick and jammed it against the creature. KZZZT! Electricity crackled violently through the room. Nothing. Milo raised the Wobbler and activated it. BRRRRRRRRRR! The device vibrated so violently that he nearly dropped it.

"Come on!" Nothing. Rhett stepped forward and swung his blade. SHNK! The edge carved a deep trench through the tentacle. For a moment, dark fluid spilled from the wound. Plip. The flesh immediately sealed itself. Rhett stared.

"Oh, hell." More tentacles erupted through the melting wall. SSSSHHHRRKKK! They poured into the dormitory like a tide of living cobalt, thick bodies sliding over one another as their pink undersides glistened beneath the flickering lights. The wall dissolved completely, leaving the corridor exposed. And through the destruction, she came. Katherine. She floated through the opening, her bare feet never touching the floor. Squelch. One tentacle curled beneath her. Squelch.

Another dragged itself through the ruined doorway. Her body moved as though invisible strings were attached to every limb, guiding her through the room with unnatural precision. Her movements were too fluid, each motion possessing the eerie grace of something being puppeteered by a hand no one could see. Her head hung at an impossible angle. She drifted forward like a corpse being pulled through dark water. She was beautiful. She was also profoundly wrong.

Her blue hair had become long, living tentacles, each strand thickening into a writhing appendage that extended far beyond her body. They drifted around her like a nest of sleeping serpents, moving independently as they reached into the room and tasted the air. Six arms extended from her sides. Each palm held an eye. The eyes were closed, yet each one tracked a different trainee. Her lower back had changed as well.

Delicate fins fluttered from her lower back, shifting rhythmically and keeping her suspended in the air with an almost hypnotic grace. Every eye remained closed. Her face. Her palms. Her navel. All of them were sealed shut, as though she were deliberately suppressing whatever waited behind them, holding back a flood of power that could consume the entire room. The pressure was immense. It pressed against their chests. Against their lungs. Against their minds.

Nobody understood what would happen if those eyes opened. Nobody wanted to find out. Katherine's head tilted slightly. Several trainees flinched. Her blindfold shifted. The faintest smile touched her lips. Then she spoke.

"Good morning." Nobody answered. Her voice was beautiful. It was the voice of a girl who had once laughed at cat videos, stolen kisses, complained about insignificant things, and believed there would always be another tomorrow. Yet something about it was terribly wrong. Every syllable arrived with immaculate precision, as though she had painted each word upon the air long before she ever entered the room. Katherine slowly turned her head toward the trainees.

"I believe I owe you an apology." Milo's rifle trembled in his hands. Liora swallowed. Katherine's eyes remained closed.

"I seem to recall that our previous encounter was rather... unpleasant." One of the tentacles behind her curled upward. Ssssss. Katherine's smile widened faintly.

"You were frightened." Her voice softened.

"I understand."

"But I remember something else." Her head tilted.

"You touched me." The tentacles behind her slowly unfurled, their movements resembling ribbons drifting through deep water.

"You reached for what remained of me when I was already standing upon the edge of dissolution." Her voice carried no anger. If anything, there was a strange tenderness within it.

"Most of the painting had already been scraped from the canvas. My edges were fading. My name had become a smudge. Even my thoughts were beginning to lose their colour." She lifted one hand. The eye embedded within its palm remained closed.

"And yet you touched me." Her fingers curled slowly.

"You gave me something to hold." The room remained utterly silent. Katherine's smile faded into something more contemplative.

"I am still weak." The admission seemed to disturb them more than a threat would have.

"I am still partially erased. There are pieces of me scattered somewhere beyond the reach of memory, little fragments of a picture whose corners have been torn away." Her head lowered slightly.

"I can feel the empty spaces. And emptiness cannot sustain a body such as mine." One of the tentacles shifted behind her, curling lazily through the air.

"I must feed." Milo's breathing quickened. Katherine continued as though discussing the most ordinary necessity. Her head turned toward Kasina's slumped form.

"She gave me enough to begin again." The words were almost reverent.

"The dreamscape was barren. A field after winter, beautiful only because something might someday grow there." Her gaze remained upon Kasina.

"She gave me the first seed." A silence followed. Katherine slowly looked back toward the trainees. Her voice softened.

"And now I remember you." One of the trainees swallowed audibly. Katherine's smile became strangely gentle.

"Do not mistake that memory for forgiveness." Her head tilted.

"I simply wish to acknowledge the hand that helped pull me back from the edge." The eye within her palm opened. Blink. Every trainee froze. The eye stared directly at Sera. Katherine tilted her head.

"Although I must confess..." Her voice became almost apologetic.

"I am having difficulty remembering which of you I have already met." Another palm twitched. The eye within it opened. Blink. It turned toward Liora.

"Perhaps you could help me." The eye upon her navel remained closed. The trainees stared at her. Katherine's smile became strangely gentle.

"Tell me your names." No one answered.... Only then did they realize that her lips had never moved. The voice had come from somewhere else, emerging from the impossible anatomy of her transformed body, from a place where no voice should have been. The voice was coming from between her legs, where her vagina had become a mouth. The realization struck them all at once. Several trainees staggered. Milo turned and vomited into a corner. Liora's face went pale. Rhett looked as though he might follow.

Katherine regarded them with an almost painterly curiosity.

"By the one who bore the lamb." A soft smile touched her face.

"There it is." Her voice remained calm.

"Fear." She seemed to savour the word, as an artist appreciating a colour that had finally appeared upon the canvas.

"Do not be ashamed of it." The tentacles behind her slowly swayed.

"Fear is only the shadow cast by something precious." She glanced toward Kasina once more.

"Your companion gave me enough to stand." Her voice lowered.

"I will need more before I can walk." A pause.

"More before I can remember." Another.

"More before I can become whole." Her head tilted.

"But you need not fear for your lives." A faint smile.

"Not yet." The words were gentle. They were also a sentence.

"You have already given me something precious." Her blindfold shifted.

"I would rather paint carefully than waste the canvas. I will take my time absorbing your dreams." Nobody moved. Katherine slowly drifted closer.

"Besides..." Her voice became almost wistful.

"I have only just begun to find my colours again." The tentacles curled behind her like enormous brushstrokes suspended in the air.

"And I would hate to ruin the first picture." The chains came. KRAK-KRAK-KRAK! From nowhere, Ouro's chains erupted through the walls, punching through stone and metal in a storm of snapping links. They lashed around Katherine with surgical precision, CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!, coiling around her torso, her arms, her throat, and locking themselves into place. The bindings tightened. KRRRNNNGG! Their surfaces shimmered with energy-absorbing power.

They had been designed to devour, to drain, to render anything they touched utterly powerless. The chains began to drink. Energy poured from Katherine's body and into the bindings. Her form convulsed violently, her shoulders jerking as the chains wrapped tighter. Her tentacles thrashed through the air. For one brief moment, the trainees dared to hope. The chains held. Katherine strained against them. The floor beneath her feet cracked. One chain trembled. Another split. A fissure raced along its surface.

Then another. CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! The trainees stared. The energy-absorbing alloy was fracturing. Ouro's chains were supposed to be indestructible. Something was pushing back against them. Something that could not be drained. Searing orange light erupted from the corridor. A ball of condensed Lamentation tore through the air with a shrill FWHOOOM!, crossing the room before clipping Katherine's arm. The effect was instantaneous. SHHHK. Where the Lamentation touched, the arm simply ceased to exist.

It was not merely an energy blast. The orange sphere was venom compressed into energy, a concentrated expression of the poison that flowed through Ouro's serpentine body. Once it entered a target, it spread through the matter it struck, flooding it with venom so potent that the substance itself began dissolving from within. HSSSSSSSS... The arm blackened at the point of impact before breaking apart into glowing fragments. The limb had been removed from reality through sheer dissolution.

Katherine's severed arm dropped. Before it could reach the floor, her fingers crumbled into pale fragments of light. This was only a weaker expression of the Lamentation Ouro could wield in her giant serpent form. Her true beams were capable of far more than destroying matter. They could erase concepts themselves, reducing things that existed beyond flesh and bone into nothingness. This was not that. This was merely venom given enough force to become a weapon.

Yet against Katherine's already-fractured existence, it was more than enough. Katherine's head suddenly perked up. vHer posture changed. Something had caught her attention. Her closed eyes turned toward the corridor. The tentacles surrounding her stiffened. Twitch. Twitch. One by one, they oriented themselves toward the source of the attack. Katherine seemed to sense something beyond herself. Something familiar. Something dangerous. The chains tightened again. KLANG! Katherine's body strained against them.

For the briefest instant, the entire room seemed to hold its breath. And then Katherine flickered. Her silhouette broke apart. CLICK. The chains snapped shut around empty air. Katherine was gone. Only the dissolving remnants of her arm remained, scattered across the floor like fragments of a painting that had been erased before it was finished. A faint cobalt glow lingered where she had been. Hummmm... Ouro appeared in the same instant.

She stumbled into the room, her eyes wide, her expression carrying a fear none of the trainees had ever seen upon the face of an Abomination. Her chains recoiled behind her with a violent CLATTER-CLATTER-CLATTER! Large snakes burst from her back. Their bodies coiled around her shoulders and spine, orange eyes sweeping across the room. They moved independently, turning in different directions to cover every possible blind spot. Their tongues flickered. They tasted the air.

Every head turned toward a different corridor. Ouro stood perfectly still. The snakes continued to search. Nothing escaped their notice. Nothing moved without being seen. And yet Ouro's expression remained fixed upon the empty space where Katherine had been. She looked terrified. Ouro's voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Why are you still moving?" Her silver eyes shifted toward the trainees.

"And her as well." Clock and Korhess arrived a second later. Clock's violet eyes swept across the room, analyzing everything in an instant. His gaze moved from the broken chains to the dissolving traces of Lamentation, then toward the empty space where Katherine had been. Korhess's spear was already raised. Its blade hummed softly. Her mismatched eyes remained fixed upon the same empty space, while her antlers blazed with emerald fire, casting an eerie glow across the corridor. Neither of them spoke.

They did not need to. The trainees remained frozen, their weapons still raised, their bodies trembling with the aftermath of terror. The thing that had been Katherine was gone. Yet the weight of her presence still hung in the air. It pressed against their skin. It lingered in their lungs. It seemed to whisper from somewhere beyond the walls. The broken chains lay scattered across the floor. Clink... One link rolled several inches before coming to rest.

Their surfaces were fractured and lifeless, the energy that had once coursed through them completely extinguished. Clock's expression hardened. Korhess's grip tightened around her spear. Ouro's snakes hissed softly behind her. Something was wrong. Katherine had disappeared. But whatever had driven her into that state had not disappeared with her. Somewhere deep within the facility, something was waiting. Something buried beneath layers of suppression. Something that had been restrained for far too long.

And whatever was holding it back was beginning to fail. A distant tremor travelled through the walls. Everyone felt it. Clock slowly lifted his gaze. Korhess's emerald flames intensified. Ouro's expression tightened. Another tremor followed. BOOM. Dust drifted from the ceiling. The trainees stared at one another. Something was about to burst.