Gravity

The moment had passed. Cindre lay on his side, a sneaker driven into the creatures gut, over and over, with the impact of a car against a brick wall, the sickening crunch of bones, deeply pitched grunts of agony. One wing lay limp on the soaked grass, a dozen feet away, covered in red blood and brown mud, rain dousing down on a pile of gray feathers in another direction.

Becca stared, slowly shaking as the gory scene played out in front of her, tears running down her face to rival the heavy rain. She didn't know what the hulking, black thing was that the school bully was tearing apart. She didn't know how Michael, the angry, hateful boy, was capable of such superhuman violence. All she knew was this moment was terror, and despair, and sorrow. She was watching something die. Something important. Doubling over, eyes glued instinctively on the carnage, she wept.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Ben felt an emptiness. Where buzzing thought and hopeful planning had filled him, surged him full of action, now he was cold, and hollow. This wasn't supposed to happen. Michael was ripping Cindre apart. Literally. Ben stared at the lifeless wing, the limb moving gently with the wind. The black creature retched, blood hitting the wet ground with a sickening splatter. Ben felt the reality of his death sink in, deep, siezing him. The eternal buzzing in his brain was silenced. Peace, quiet. Serene as a funeral. Ben looked away. Becca was there. Right there. Becca was watching everything. Ben moved. He didn't think, or make a sound, or worry, or feel. They were embraced before either of them knew what was happening. Clinging tightly to human contact before the end both sensed in their bones, the dread of an oncoming force of nature, untamable and unreasonable. They were going to die. Not a single concept or dream could stop it.

Pain. Pain was something that it had thought it had grown used to. Such an ugly thing to become, dark and gnarled and clawed and sharply jawed. Now put down, into the mud and earth, blood spilled, form torn and broken. Ended, slowly, but with a confidence understood by this vile twisted walking shell of a sapien-solson, and acceptance by the creature itself. This would be the moment of True Darkness. The end of its Light Within. Cindre closed blood caked eyes and did what was custom. Thought of home, and family, and said goodbye. Something spoke back.

Ben had never been so close to Becca. He felt a wash of shame, the usual rush of hormones filling his mind with only her. He pulled back from the fright-fueled hug, looking her in the eyes, so large and black and panicked. It lasted for a century, that kiss, time bent and halted to make way for the moment, gravity dying all around them, space opening up above to let them drift. It finally did end, marked delicately with the lightest of wet clicks, lips parting from lips. Squeezing each other with the might only young and forsaken love could muster, Ben felt his mind stir, a gentle and brief cascade of alien poetry washing down with the rain, and then gone.

Loved and cursed with lack of faith. Brontide's too often fought. For Rain decides her waters fate. Regardless of our thought.

Becca jolted, suddenly holding Ben at arms length. "I saw.. did you just see.." Again, time froze. Ben felt something. An immense tear dragged through that part of his mind that was no longer his. Weight, and power, and rushing, from that source of energy and knowledge lodged and forever buried inside of him. Ben knew what was happening long before he turned to look, brought his gaze to the blinding light and rushing wind, the literal drag, of something etched out of power itself.

Michael was thrown across the field, and slid, slamming into an embankment. The creature pulsed. Ripples of heat and wind, each stronger than the last, the sound deafening as air and water rushed to and away from the broken and black body in the mud. Reaching, slowly, it grasped the earth, turning with anguished pain, shuddering and quaking, laying face down, pushing at the ground, up, slowly up. It stood, arms and legs bowed with pain, stance wide and unsteady. And roared the roar of a million fiery, passionate hatreds. Stumbling, it strode, bleeding and earth mucked. It stood, and faced the sape-thing, as it rapidly jumped to do the same, standing wide, between Michael and the embraced pair. "No."

The motions, colours and sounds that followed were a blur. Ben followed them, barely, understanding and reacting with utter disbelief only once it was done, and the air fell still, an entire battle of immense strength and dizzying energy, playing out in one single moment. The creature was no longer a creature. It resembled an angel, transformed. Bright, tall, upright, with enormous crystal wings, black void replaced with brimming light, eyes a deep and terrifying red. It was up and at Michael in a single frame, no movement, simply relocated, the pair instantly tearing and slashing, punching. Michael was fast, powerful, ruthless. Cindre was the same, but simply moreso, mouth open in an endless, raging, volcanic roar.

When the moment had played out, and two more slivers of time inched by for Ben's eyes and mind to catch up, the field was changed, covered in black marks, upended chunks of earth, and fire, flames everywhere. The goal posts were both destroyed, metal lengths strewn all over, and three trees littered the grass, smouldering.

Cindre looked into Ben's eyes, a metal length taller than it was in its blazing hand, the long spearing shape glowing red hot, the tip at a dazed and bleeding Michael's throat. Ben felt himself nod before he knew why. The alien brought it down. Hard. And Ben cried.