Fangs of Fate (Untish #1)

Chapter 32

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

TATE

Green was a funny color. The color of sickness, mold, and death. It figured that the green gas would be toxic and incredibly painful.

“Tate!” Fletch? Was that his voice? What’d he want?

Screaming filled my ears, it was so loud it hurt. Who was screaming?

My throat hurt, it was sore and felt strained.It burned, my skin burned, my lungs burned—everything burned. And that incessant female wouldn’t stop screaming. Where was she anyway? My eyes, they’re shut. Why can’t I open them?

Realization dawned on me. I was the female screaming. It was my voice echoing back to me. Pain, I was in such great pain. Delirious pain. The gas must have a hallucination effect.

“Stop! Please, she’s just a kid! She has so much life ahead of her! She is NOT involved!” Fletch’s voice sounded wet, like he was screaming through tears or blood. Which one, I didn’t know. Perhaps it was both. An interesting combination to say the least. Why was he screaming?

“Tell us what the Untish want,” a female voice spoke, cold and uninterested. I could hear her voice. It was quiet for a moment. Where was the female who had been screaming?

“They, they…” Fletch’s voice was cut off by loud screams of female agony. Where was that female? And why couldn’t I see?

“They are seeking information on a top-class weapon they believe the Glenn is forming. I don’t know where they are, but I know they mentioned the Southern Outpost. They don’t give me the specifics, I’m just an intel source for them!” Fletch’s voice faded out. What nonsense was he was speaking? Who were the ‘they’ he spoke of?

“What intel?” that cool voice screeched.

Pain seared through me again; I opened my eyes and instantly regretted it. Female screams became my everything, overwhelming every sense.

I was nothing and everything. I was at home and not; I was here but unaware. I shook my head, focus. Something important was happening, but what?

“Nothing important! Schedules, recent enlistments, access to the library records digitally—” Fletch’s voice ended in a grunt of pain. Why was Fletch here?

I dug my hands into the ground, cold tile, wet and sharp, met my fingers. I raked my fingers over my body as I rolled, trying to rip my skin off—to end this pain.

“Stop! I swear that’s all I know!”

“What intel from the library?”

“Genealogy records. I don’t know why they wanted it.”

Female whimpers and shrieks engulfed me. Someone needed to shut her up. I clawed at the thing crawling over me, my skin was not my own. No, it was a foreign body, an alien attacking me, trying to eat me from the outside. I just needed to break its grip. I sliced at myself, over and over, trying to get the creature off of me.

“What date range for the records?” that calculated voice asked. What were they speaking of?

“The last hundred years, since the great war. Please, END IT!” a familiar voice cried out, his words were sluggish and hard to hear.

My body twisted and jerked, the thing encasing me refused to let me go.

“Very well.”

Snap! The spraying hum surrounding me shut off. Then a fan turned on, a sucking sound, and the air around me began to twirl. My nerves were firing rapidly—pain, I was in acute pain. How had I gotten here?

I opened my eyes, I needed to free myself of the thing attacking me, slicing me open. But everything was blurry. After several painful blinks, the puss at my eyes cleared enough for me to see my body. It was cut and torn, blood oozing from several cuts with greenish puss surrounding it. My skin was shredded.

If this was hell, then it was a hellish place. Funny, I was funny. That female laughed. Where was she?

“Fletcher Backshy, I hereby sentence you to death by fire,” a shrill voice proclaimed. I knew that voice, who was it?

Everything was still blurry. My right eyelid wouldn’t open all the way, it was stuck, and it was gooey. I tried again, this time both eyes opened most of the way. Bright orange air danced with a hint of blue. It reflected off of glass. Fire. I saw fire.

“Tate, no matter what, know that my love for you was true. You…you always were my firecracker in life. Shine bright from your heart, only it knows the truth!” Fletch’s voice broke.

He was here. He was speaking to me.

I tried to focus, but the light was too bright. I could make out a silhouette in the flames. A male from the looks of it. Screams filled the room. Male screams. They were familiar?

He was in pain. He was the male in the fire.

My brain was trying desperately to compute what was happening. Random facts. What was the correlation and where had Fletch gone?

The sucky noise in the room stopped and this time mist fell. Little drops all over my skin. Each drop was like needles digging in my skin. That female was screaming again. I looked around but I could not spot her.

The male’s screams harmonized with hers.

Fletch? Flames, I saw flames on the other side of the glass. A figure was in them.

Horror, pure and undiluted, overtook me. Someone was being burned alive. I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. More fluid fell and began to coat my skin.

“Tate, you’re going to start to feel some relief soon. The fluid will help, it’s the antidote for the gas. Just be patient. You should lose consciousness soon.” That horrible voice was croaking again. I knew I knew the voice, but I couldn’t put it together.

Frustrated. I was angry.

A peaceful sensation began to fall over my skin, the pinpricks stopped, and the fluid became a welcome blanket to my core. The room fell silent. The female screams stopped, and the male ones apparently ended as well.

I heard only mist, drops of water, and the distant crackle of flame. My eyelids were heavy—ever so slowly my eyes began to close. Numb, I was blissfully numb. I felt a nagging at the back of my mind. Something important was happening. Or was it? It didn’t matter, nothing did as the welcome embrace of oblivion claimed me.