Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 136
136 Danado felt isolated, cut off, separate from everything happening around him, trapped inside his own bubble of space just outside the medical tent, unable to move, unable to get up, unable to do anything but sit here, watching Hell itself...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 168
168 Everything was black. There was no ache in his lungs and no stabbing, throbbing pain in his eye or his ankle. There were no freezing gusts of wind blowing across his body or sickly warm tendrils of blood snaking through his fur. Everything was...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 167
167 Ander screamed. He screamed until it felt like his throat would tear itself apart. "You like that, huh? Not so nice is it!?" The pain was all-encompassing. For those first few moments, nothing else existed. There was no light, no sound, no...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 166
166 The door to the mill stood wide open, and as the wind rushed by, it flowed over the darkness inside and produced a low and constant moan, a hollow mouth with no need to stop for breath - a deep, black maw that reeked of his brother's...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 164
164 There was something wrong, she knew that right away. Why did she feel so cold? Was the window open? She tried to paw it shut from the comfort of her bed like she had done on countless nippy mornings before, but something was holding her back. The...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 163
163 She was waiting for him in the snow. The red, red snow... pulsating, throbbing like a heartbeat, dark and light... "Banno, I'm cold..." she said, holding out her arms. The sun was shining through the trees and playing across her face in shifting...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 161
161 Banno felt... wrong. He did not understand why he felt this way. The 'why' of it was too much for him to grasp. Even the wrongness of it, the reason for all these feelings, was something he was barely aware of. It was a deep thing. A low thing....
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 160
160 In a grim twist of fate, Banno had become the very thing he had accused James of being. A walking corpse. A pile of meat without enough sense to know it was already dead. James shifted his weight from foot to foot, trying to time his attack...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 159
159 Banno stopped, his jaw still open wide, his single eye fixed on the serrated blade. It was only a fraction of a moment, but in it, James saw something that would stay with him for the rest of his life. The flat of the blade caught the fireplace...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 158
158 Banno didn't merely step through the door. He _unfolded_ himself through the door until his head was nearly brushing the ceiling. The fireplace cast his shadow along the wall; a misshapen abomination. "You should be dead..." James whispered, but...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 157
157 James jerked awake to the sound of someone hammering on the door. For a moment he had no idea where he was, and no way to look around, either, because there was something warm and fluffy pressed right up against his face. _Valery?_ She had one...
Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 156
156 It was dark. Too dark. He could barely see where he was going, but he couldn't stop. He had to keep going. His kids needed him to keep going, no matter what. They were all so tired, but there wasn't any time to rest. It was gaining. _Come on!_...