Unity by Carl Stubblefield (epub read online books TXT) 📕

Still, it was strong enough that she couldn’t wiggle free, and her arms were tightly pressed to her sides. The lemurs had positioned themselves so that most of her thorns were hitting their hard claws and could not poke their soft, furry bodies. Occasionally, one would get poked and fall away but another would quickly take its place.

It brought her towards its gaping maw; the coordination of the flexing claws and tiny teeth deeper inside the creature’s mouth was almost hypnotic in its pattern. She was going to be in the wood-chipper soon if she didn’t think of something.

Always able to think on her feet, Yuki prepared her last gambit. She would probably need to be close for maximum effect but timing was everything. She hyperventilated, taking multiple small breaths, accelerating her breath. The creature mistook this for panic and was excited by her apparent fear, its anticipation escalating.

When she was as close as she dared, she activated Spore and breathed out a noxious orange cloud. She had put everything she could muster into it; pollen, spores, toxins and poisons. It belched out in a plume, directly hitting the mass of creatures full in the mouth, and enveloped its entire head. And it just kept coming, like her Uncle Tommy’s post-Thanksgiving burps or a high-note held by an opera star, the ochre colored particles shot out with projectile-vomit force. The closest lemurs were most affected, trembling and losing cohesion with their brothers, falling down to the forest floor below.

The plume guttered out and ended, and Yuki could tell that the effort had cost her some of her mass; she had shrunk as the large claw compressed her now more-hollow insides to a smaller diameter. The head was entirely gone, a large section eroded away like a melted snow-cone. More lemurs began rebuilding the head from below.

While they did so, she was held still, as if without its faux head, it couldn’t plan its attack. The chin and mouth formed again and the creature began to gain some of its thought capacity because it pushed Yuki away from itself, placing her in the center of the clearing where she couldn’t gas it again. And if she attacked the arm holding her, there would be a long fall if she couldn’t catch herself.

Angry eyebrows formed at last, and an eerie rictus spread across the gorillemur’s face as the last of its head began to form, completing the monstrosity.

Chapter Seventy-Seven

I Want to Break Free

Yuki began to panic as options seemed to be dwindling away. The claustrophobic grip of the large hand wasn’t helping her anxiety either. In desperation, she pushed out thorns and poisons, but the ones gripping her had dug in their claws and shriveled in on themselves into the fetal position. Other lemurs gripped tightly to them and her spines and oozing poison did not affect them.

She even tried forcing a couple large, two-foot spikes. That speared a couple but she found that she could only force out the longer spikes from eight areas, and the animals quickly learned to stay out of the path of the spikes. It had learned its lesson, and kept her at arm’s length in the center of the clearing, which for this creature was a good hundred and fifty feet at this point.

More lemurs began crawling down the extended arm, forming a large ball around her, just far enough to be out of reach. Their musky, wet scent was unpleasant but she didn’t feel the typical nausea in her current form.

As they built up around her, more and more light was blocked from her and, as it grew darker, the effect was soporific. Like the nappy feeling after a carb crash, she just wanted to rest. Part of her mind screamed for her to do something. She had to fight her nature that just wanted to hibernate in the darkness. She could feel herself pulling inward despite her efforts to struggle.

No! She couldn’t let this happen. The fear of the certain backlash feedback made her panic even more, but her avatar was acting on instinct. Curling up into a ball, her essence pulled inward against her wishes. Ever hardening layers as she retreated to a small condensed core. A tiny green core in a woody jawbreaker.

As she shrunk, her awareness also blurred at the edges. She could perceive less and less of the world around her, and after a dozen layers, the dead woody bark gave no feedback to the sharp claws of the lemurs. Her anxiety skyrocketed as she was encased with more and more layers. The helplessness of being buried alive was worse than she had ever imagined. Trapped. She wiggled as she tried to resist. She had felt this feeling too many times in her real life. Confined and bound. No!

She couldn’t log off either, the option grayed out on her display due to being in active combat. Right when the feelings of panic had reached a crescendo, she was kicked from the system. There was the briefest moment of relief as she was finally free as everything burst into a blinding light. Then a grenade of molten pain exploded in her brain.

Darik covered his head as dirt began to fall. Darkness engulfed him as the exit collapsed inward. The only option was to go down. He made as small of a portal as he dared and blindly dove to the bottom of the tunnel. Searing pain burned his foot as he got the angle wrong. He rolled out onto the ground and clutched his leg. A thin wisp of smoke emanated from the severed boot. A quick peek showed the bones of his smallest two toes visible through the neat slice.

He lifted his head just in time to see Razor’s interlaced fists catch him under the jaw. He was crouched low, like he was bumping a volleyball. Darik flew atop the small mound of dirt he had expelled,