Signs Of Humanity Chapter 11 - Sign 4
In one motion Lilith felt herself drop and suddenly clapped in a vice-like grip, Olsen had released her arms and legs only to constrict her with the tentacle that was holding her legs. While the tip of the other split open and expanded like a gaping more.
Lilith let out an audible scream as she tried to wiggle out of Olsen's grasp, but the more she moved the tighter the grip became until she was gasping for air. "Now my dear, don’t thrash around so much, I wouldn't want to crush my new body" Olsen mused as she lowered the open tentacle on Lilith's head.
As Lilith wiggled and moved around in a vain attempt to avoid the monstrous orifice that was descending onto her, she felt something open in her mind. It was a strange feeling like something that had always been there but just out of reach. Something she had always known to be there but never needed it. The feeling of desperation and fear was bringing it closer, making it stronger, so in her haste, she reached for it.
Her body was becoming hotter, but she couldn't feel it, electricity was firing off of her zapping at Olsen.
"What... What are you doing?" Olsen yelled in a panic.
Bang, Bang, Bang.
Seconds earlier Jericho was straining to open the heavy metal door, he had bent it on impact but beyond that, he couldn't build up enough momentum to do the same damage to the door. He tried lifting the door, but it wouldn't budge it was either too heavy or the warping of the door had jammed it closed. His mind was racing with thoughts of what to do next, nothing that came to him seemed like a good idea and with the sounds of those bloated mountains of flesh now turned around and coming back down on him, time was running out.
He began to pace around in the front of the door trying to keep calm, for some reason, he felt as long as he kept moving, he could think of something, that and his chest felt like it would explode if he didn't use up the energy from the Heart Cutters.
Then he noticed a small puddle of water was forming at his feet "That wasn't here before" Jericho thought to himself. "When did it start? Where is it coming from?" He looked around for the source of the leak but couldn't see anything in the dim hallway and the domed light above him wasn't letting out nearly enough light.
He sighed "Why would Seon put such dim lights into..." he stopped as he looked closely at the light. It wasn't a light at all it was a domed window that protruded out of the underwater structure, with bright red lettering around the rim "Manual leak detection dome 53".
He jumped up grabbing a set of hand holds on either side of the dome and looked out. The entire hallway he was in was a long tube that went from one building to the garden. There were several of these around the facility they must have acted as shortcuts between the different sections of the Helix Towers.
Looking around Jericho noticed a small line of bubbles rising from above the door he just smashed. "I guess that explains the water" he said out loud to himself. The noise of the Gen X's was getting closer they would be on him any minute now.
Taking a deep breath Jericho thought to himself for a moment and then said out loud "This is the worst idea I have ever come up with". He formed his arm into a massive lance which he used to slam into the glass dome.
At first, all he did was make a small crack, but thanks to the pressure of the water outside that's all he needed. Before he could wind up for another attempt the small crack split the entire dome in half.
"Oh shit" Jericho spoke softly as he took in a deep breath. He didn't have time to make gills for himself this time, he needed to move as fast as possible so everything he was doing now needed to be completed on a breath hold.
Just as he took his breath the glass gave way to the ocean and water flooded into the space. Jericho gripped onto the hand holds with all he had. The unrelenting force of the rushing water felt like he was fighting against a tornado, but he couldn't wait for the hallway to fill with water so he could swim out, there was no telling how long it would take. The water was also ice cold and was freezing him to the bone sucking all the warmth from his body. If he didn't get out of the water soon, he could forget about saving Lilith as he would simply be a frozen block of ice that resembled a man.
With all the strength he could force his muscles to put out he pulled himself against the unrelenting current and made his way through the hole. Now in the open abyss of the ocean, he took in his surroundings, before him was a massive glass dome and inside was... a garden?
"I guess that's a better place than any for Olsen to call home," he thought to himself as he morphed his arms into massive wings and kicked off his shoes so he could transform his feet into flipper shapes. He was now flying through the water at a speed that outpaced that of any sea-born creature. As he swam by the glass trying to get as high up on the garden's sphere as he could he caught sight of a bright red dot that was Lilith's hair.
"Good there she is, and I guess that horrid-looking weed is Olsen's real... Oh no" Jericho's thoughts derailed as the grotesque tree began throwing Lilith around and catching her with what appeared to be a tentacle ready to consume her. If he was going to do something it had to be now.
With all the strength he could muster he pushed himself through the water and came crashing down on the Garden's glass dome. The glass here felt a lot thicker than the small dome he had smashed earlier but it didn't matter he would break through this one as well.
Bang, bang, bang.
His arms came smashing down, with the ends of which morphed into sharpened points he only needed to make one crack. But this was harder than before, in the water his movements were slow and because he had nothing to brace himself with each hit pushed him away from the dome.
Olsen and Lilith stared at the figure above for a moment, at first Lilith was filled with hope then a thought occurred and without thinking she said allowed. "Wait we are underwater if he breaks the glass this place will flood."
Olsen interjected still transfixed on the struggling man "No, he won't break the glass it's too...." Olsen trailed off, she too was thinking "What if the glass did break" it was thick and was designed to stand up to the pressure of the ocean. But the engineers didn't build it thinking someone would be outside trying to crack it.
Jericho shot out an array of small grasping vines from his waste, bright red and looking like veins they searched around for something to grab onto. Finding the metal frame holding the glass panels in place, they pulled tight forcing him down to the glass. Not a moment too soon his lungs felt like they were on fire he needed to take a breath soon, so this last swing would be now or never.
He let one arm snap back into its natural state while transferring new muscle mass to the other that swelled in size. With all his might he brought it down on the glass. At first, it seemed like he had failed, nothing happened, but a small stream of bubbles began to dance up from the place he had impacted the glass.
Below a small dripping of water began to ring out, causing the two women to hold their breaths. Did he just punch a hole in the membrane keeping them alive?
Suddenly a small crack appeared which in a fraction of a second doubled in size, then split the entire pane of glass in two. Jericho was grinning to himself before the sensation of falling engulfed him.
Below it looked like a waterfall had just opened in the roof, as alarms screamed out, the sound and the sight were too much for Olsen or Lilith to handle, Olson released Lilith letting her fall to the ground. For an instant, Lilith didn't notice she too was transfixed on the waterfall that Jericho had created.
Amongst the screams of the alarms came the grinding of metal on metal it was almost deafening. The noise snapped Lilith back to herself jumping to her feet she turned and ran from Olsen; she didn't have a destination in mind only that she must get away from the monstrous tree thing and the flood of water coming into the gardens.
"Maybe I'm still hallucinating, there isn't any way this is real" Lilith blurted out in between deep rapid breaths.
The grinding metal noise by some miracle was an old fail-safe built to protect the garden in case of an event of the glass dome breaking. They descended from the top of the dome like thick droplets of oil encasing the entire environment in a dark shell.
The sky was now a blinking sea of yellow lights dimly lighting the garden, bathing it in a sickly gold. While an automated notification repeated intermittently "Dome failure detected, all personnel please leave the arboretum as soon as possible."
The scene was then punctuated by a grotesque monster's roar and the noise of something massive moving through the trees. That tree thing was on the move and by the sounds of it very angry, "She's probably upset I got away" Lilith sighed, "I can't believe Jericho did that... how did he do that?"
"I'll tell you later if you like."
Lilith yelped as she spun around to see Jericho standing behind her soaked to the bone and shivering.
"How did you... what are you?"
"I'm a Brute, specifically a Shapeshifter, no I can't turn into other people I can just change the shape of my body, it's pretty obvious when I do it the shifted parts always turn jet black."
"I... what?"
"Sorry, that's just the short of it and the most important parts, plus the obvious questions. Unfortunately, we don't have time for your welcome to the world moment, we need to go, like now." Jericho seemed to be very agitated and fidgetive, in fact, it didn't seem like he was shivering because he was cold, more like he couldn't stand still without moving something.
"Are you ok? You seem, off."
"No, I'm not actually but the longer we stay here the worse I'll get, plus Olsen is still here so we need to move!"
"Olsen... the tree thing? What is that and what is this place, my head hurts and I think I..."
"Lilith, the world isn't what you think it is, I'm not going to lie, you have been living in a fantasy, I think all your life. But I'm here, right now and we are going to leave, ok?"
"... Ok" Lilith was apprehensive about trusting Jericho, but he was offering her a way out of this place filled with monsters and he did seem capable if not wildly reckless.
"Good now let's find a way out" Jericho said as he turned to look around for another doorway.
"Oh, I don't think you'll be going anywhere" Olsen's Voice thundered in their minds.