Chapter 37: the leech matriarch
Elías's funeral had culminated with the pair of friends breaking down in tears at the grave. It was not the most manly sight Richard had seen throughout his life, but he respected the feeling they were experiencing.
"Guys, it's time to go…"
The sun was beginning to set on the horizon, tinting the sky a dull orange that would soon give way to darkness. They had taken longer than expected at the funeral, and the last thing Richard wanted was to walk through the shadows knowing they could be attacked from any hidden corner of the path.
"Guys?"
[Problem solved]
[Distributing rewards: I wish you always sleep well, eat well and grow healthy, although I'm a bad sister]
As soon as the message appeared before Richard's eyes, a sepulchral silence seized John and Damián. For some reason, neither of them opened their mouths. They were rigid, still as statues.
The atmosphere froze suddenly. A night breeze swept the place, grazing Richard's skin with a chill that climbed from his back up into the nape of his neck.
"Guys, are you okay?"
Richard approached with slow steps, concern growing in his chest."Do you feel sick?"
Damián was the first to react. He turned his head clumsily and brought his hands to his stomach."I feel sick, Richard…"
He gagged. And, as if it were a disease that transmitted instantly, John imitated him, doubling over while clutching his abdomen. Both seemed victims of a brutal food poisoning, as if they had devoured something rotten and now had no bathroom in which to atone for their sins.
"That happens to you for eating whatever you found lying around."
Richard shook his head, dismissing the situation. He had almost been alarmed, thinking something worse had occurred.
"It's serious, man… I feel sick. Do something…"
John complained again.
"If you don't do something, I'll kill you, little human!"
Suddenly, he appeared at high speed in Richard's blind spot, his fist ready to crash into him. The blow would have been lethal for anyone, but Richard dodged it easily.
Calmly, he raised his hand and stopped his comrade's fist in midair.
"This is not funny; if this is some kind of joke I won't take it lightly and I'll beat you both."
He kicked John in the stomach, sending him flying. His bones seemed to resonate for a few brief moments, possibly breaking another rib.
[I hope you are happy, brother. Forgive me for everything; I always messed up, but I never blamed you.]
Richard shook his head, whispering.
"That girl sure has bad timing for her last words."
As he had imagined, graves formed when a strong feeling marked a person's death, corrupting their soul. A case like this had not occurred before, as far as he remembered, but he understood: the reward was also linked to the last wish that the person who generated the grave wanted to give to the one they loved most.
"At least you should have told your brother when he was still alive."
The bitter part was that those sweet words did not reach the intended recipient. Instead of consoling the true addressee, they fell on foreign ears, on a trio of young men who had known about his existence for less than twenty-four hours.
When the message faded, both collapsed unconscious to the ground. Whatever the process had been, it had healed their bodies completely, although it had also unleashed something strange inside them, something that had put them on alert.
The two began to convulse violently, writhing with faces contorted by pain. Their muscles tensed until, finally, they curled into balls, motionless on the ground.
Richard stood watching, a hint of helplessness in his gaze.
"And now what do I do with both of them?"
* * * *
The sun had set long ago and the red color had reappeared in the sky. Some things never changed.
Richard added more wood to the fire. The bonfire was the only thing that accompanied him in that heavy silence.
Since both were still unconscious on the ground, he thought that that little place, abandoned by the hand of God, could serve as refuge for one more night.
Richard cast one last glance at the moon."nothing like the smell of home"
He proceeded to stoke the flames with his fire-control talent. The barrier that had kept him within the human threshold was already cracking, and the reward, surprisingly, had helped him with it. He had to find a safe place in the next two days; otherwise he would be vulnerable when his body began the natural process of adaptation and forging of the flesh.
Richard still remembered the pain the first time he reached that level in his past life. It did not compare to previous levels: it was like tearing your skin layer by layer, with the pain receptors at their maximum.
He continued scanning his body. His blood had turned golden like gold and his organs displayed a thin golden layer, courtesy of the blood pumping; now, with blood control, he could use it to reinforce each organ. With that he felt somewhat more secure about surviving the process.
"Why does the path to evolution have to be so painful?" he complained, before turning his gaze toward the bodies of his comrades. He still wondered what had happened to them; he hoped to solve that doubt when they woke, something that would not take too long.
John opened his eyes, terrified."What just happened?"
His entrails contracted; he began to vomit everything he had eaten and what he had not, scattering bile across the ground in an odorous mess. Richard complained: he was too close and John had nearly triggered a nauseating festival. He didn't even want to imagine what was about to be unleashed.
"Be more careful, you almost stained me!"
He moved toward his pale friend's body, but stopped at the last moment when he glimpsed on the ground something that ripped a handful of memories from him.
"No, no, no… that shouldn't exist yet!"
"It must be another creature… yes, it has to be that. Besides, for a leech controlled by the hive mind to be a Class 1 infected, the matriarch would have to be Class 2 or higher… it doesn't make sense for it to happen so fast."
Richard tried to calm his mind on the verge of panic. He feared that, if it was what he imagined, something very bad had happened to his family.
The leech began to retract, trying to escape his grip once captured. Richard had long since lost the disgust caused by the place from which the creature had come.
The beast let out its last scream before being crushed, spraying green blood everywhere.
[Talent: link] [Rank: F][link: allows you to connect to a channel of thoughts as long as you have a catalyst; the talent is too weak to create its own consciousness group]
The next one to pull a leech out was Damián. Richard rushed to his location and without thinking twice grabbed it. The creature seemed to endure endless suffering, but that mattered little.
The talent did its work. Richard saw a long channel, a network of streams converging into a larger river; each branch transmitted information to a single point.
"This can only belong to one creature… to that matriarch."
"Shit!"
His hands clenched tightly as he followed the route at full speed toward the source. Along the way he could see the consciousness of several people, but those he wanted to hear were nowhere to be found.
"What are you doing here!""What are you doing here!""What are you doing here!"…
The voices began to resonate, shaking the whole hive-mind channel. Thousands of eyes turned toward Richard; at last he could distinguish familiar faces.
"Emma…""Ethan…""Rebecca…"
The people he cared about most looked at him with hatred, as if they wanted to tear his face apart. That creature had no right to use his family's faces to torture him; their voices rang louder in his head, drowning out any other thought.
"Guys, wake up!"
He tried to shout, but it was useless. He had let himself be carried away by the impulsiveness of a new life… would he lose everything again?
From among the tumult of people the figure of that creature appeared. Its form as disgusting as he remembered from his past life, although for some reason it still bore the cut he had inflicted across its chest.
Its form, resembling a woman with protuberances, exposed its entire chest as if it wanted him to see that war mark. The hatred in its eyes could not be confused with anyone other than that plague that had destroyed cities.
"I see you're happy… you've got me in check"
The matriarch's smile stretched from ear to ear as she looked at Richard with amusement.
"This is only beginning… this is only beginning, walking corpse, Richard"
The channel lit up, turning the whole place white as it tried to expel him from the matriarch's domains. Richard tried to cling to the faces of his family, but in the end he was still weak.
"I'll rip your head off, bitch!"