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

Which became clear when a huge hammer crashed into Darik’s chest, slamming him down into the pile of loose dirt. A sickening tearing sound, accompanied with a pop and sharp pain when he gasped. Breathing became a struggle, and he saw lumps along his chest where his ribs had separated.

Gasping there like a fish out of water, Razor came and stood at his feet, hands on his hips. A wide grin spread on his face as he watched Darik suffer. As time seemed to slow, he noticed how bad his teeth were. His gums had receded and the teeth were already moving into a grotesque arrangement.

He cracked his knuckles and rubbed his hands in front of him, eager as a child eating his Halloween loot. Darik had always had a high pain tolerance, but the inability to breathe normally was making it hard to concentrate. He had to fight the urge to hyperventilate and pull in slow pained breaths. The others stood around his prone form, some with arms folded smugly in front of them others leaning forward, hands on their knees. Razor raised one leg up high, ready to stomp Darik right in the chest.

This is going to hurt…

Gus was floating above his naked body lying on the metal table. The pain was gone. At long last, he felt… nothing. He had heard of stories like this before people passed on.

Am I dead?

He moved around but felt a tension as he tried to move too far from his body. A series of seven tethers attached to his spine at various levels connected to his body, invisible until he began to pull on them. The harder he tried to pull away, the tighter and thicker they became. Relaxing, he observed himself lying there and focused on the anchor points.

As he relaxed more, he began to see tiny channels extending away from each of the crossroads. Occasionally, there was a slight movement, but nothing was moving. It reminded Gus of a traffic jam. The biggest congestion was around the top three centers, especially the top node. No movement was visible here, where the tiny conduits were completely clogged.

There was an intermittent surge as whatever was inside the conduits tried to bypass the blockage. Gus recognized the flare was perfectly synced with the familiar pulse rhythm of his headaches. While he could not feel them, their echoes were still all too clear, like a canyon carved into being by a persistent river over a millennium.

Gus looked at the lowest node, for lack of a better term. It was the least clogged in comparison and even though he was ‘detached,’ he could still create a pressure by flexing. It squished like Jell-O in a balloon. As the material in the lower channel started to move, Gus began to see individual particles, like small globules of oil, begin to roll through the pathways. There was sluggish movement as his pressure caused the gelatinous mass to move.

Four pathways that extended from the node, two per leg, and they fanned out like petals from a flower. It became a struggle to move the thick, sludge-like material. Gus squeezed like he was trying to eke out the last bit of toothpaste in a tube. He coaxed it along the path, finding that it only moved in one direction. Attempts to squish in the opposite direction caused it to bulge and ball up. Fearing the tube would burst, he massaged the material along the path. It appeared a dark black, but began to lighten as it quivered and started to move.

He could only exert the pressure for a little while before he exhausted himself and had to rest. The sensation reminded Gus of taking a large gasp after holding your breath for a long time, except that he was incorporeal and didn’t have to breathe at all. When he felt relaxed again, he exerted more tension and the sludge began to flow again.

He went through multiple cycles of this. Push, rest. Push again. With time, he began to gain a little momentum and as the material began to move, it transitioned from a thick, doughy consistency to something closer to syrup. The color faded as it began to separate, making it more apparent that the channels themselves were a red color and the contents must be blue since they gave a deep purple color as the little blobs rolled through the channels like tiny bits of wax in a lava lamp.

Once the obstructions were removed, the material clarified further, and each loop became lighter and lighter until it glowed a radiant red color. It began to burn with the radiant hue of an illuminated ruby and it was hard to pull his eyes away. Faster and faster the liquid moved along the pathway, flowing like a river.

As it picked up momentum, the tiny blobs within the channel began to melt and disappear. As it became totally liquid, it moved even quicker, occasionally sparking crimson pops as it flowed through the channels. It reminded Gus of a Van de Graaff generator he had seen in school, the motion generating some kind of a charge.

The carmine color was captivating, and it was hard to pull his attention off of it. The mesmerizing motion through the channels and the pattern it moved in tickled at the back of his memory. Something he had seen before, like a rune or magic symbol of some sort. But where? A video game, or piece of art from a tabletop RPG campaign?

He was unsure how long he stared there. Time in this ghostly existence seemed fuzzy. Suddenly, Mengele was there, standing over him. He couldn’t make out the words, they sounded warbled like he was speaking underwater. He was obviously flustered as he scanned Gus from top to bottom. Was he frustrated that he had lost his prey, letting Gus die?

Mengele placed an ebony hand over Gus’ chest and, with a snap, he was yanked back into