The pain was immediate and absolute.
It wasn't a clean bite.
It was pressure and teeth and a sudden, wet crunch that sent white lightning up through his pelvis and into his spine. Lester's back arched off the floor.
A raw, broken sound tore out of his throat. His vision tunneled. Every muscle locked.
Something hot and foreign pulsed into the torn flesh—thick, deliberate, like a syringe emptying. The injection burned colder than the bite itself.
An eerie coolness began spreading outward from the wound, crawling up into his gut, down his legs, settling behind his eyes. He could feel it moving.
Claiming space.
If this continues, he thought, I'm gone. Not just dead. Gone in more ways than one.
He tried to fight. His arms strained against the hands holding them. His legs kicked uselessly. Nothing moved.
The reflections held him like living restraints. He was utterly powerless.
Then something massive swung through the air.
A heavy floor lamp—base and all—crashed into the side of Mira's head with a sickening crack. She reeled sideways, jaws releasing. Lester's body jerked as the teeth left him. He curled instantly, both hands clutching between his legs, a long, wounded groan dragging out of him.
Sky stood over them, breathing hard, blood running from a dozen scratches across her arms and face.
The reflections that had been holding her were scattered on the floor, some still twitching. She had fought her way free with pure stubborn violence.
She looked down at Mira, eyes flat and burning.
"Did you really think those were going to stop me," she said, voice low and steady. "If you really wanted me dead, come kill me yourself."
Mira rose slowly.
Blood—or whatever passed for it—trickled from her temple. The layered voice came out quieter, colder.
"Guess I have to agree with you on that."
She came at Sky like a storm.
Sky dodged the first swipe. The second clipped her shoulder and opened a long cut.
She rolled under a lashing tail, grabbed a fallen bottle, and smashed it across Mira's face. Glass and liquid sprayed.
Mira barely slowed. Sky used everything—chairs, the edge of a table, her own elbows and knees. She was fast for a normal human, trained, vicious.
But she was still only human.
Every block cost her. Every dodge left a new bruise or slice. Blood ran down her side. Her breathing turned ragged. Lester, still curled on the floor with both hands pressed between his legs, watched through a haze of pain and something like awe.
She's going to die, he thought. She's bleeding everywhere and she still won't stop. She's looking death in the face and choosing to spit at it.
Sky's body started to fail. Her footwork slowed. One knee buckled. Mira's claws finally found their mark—driving deep into Sky's side. Sky coughed hard. Blood painted her lips and chin. She staggered, almost went down.
Mira caught her by the throat and held her upright, studying her with something almost like respect.
"Maybe if you weren't human," she said softly, "you could have had a chance. Do you have any more surprises left?"
Sky's mouth worked. She gathered the blood in her mouth and tried to spit it into Mira's eyes.
Mira turned her head just enough. The bloody spray missed. A single tooth—knocked loose in the fighting—clattered to the floor.
Sky's lips kept moving. No sound came out. Mira leaned in, thinking the words were for her.
They weren't.
Sky's eyes found Lester across the room. Her mouth shaped one clear word.
Run.
Lester's body obeyed before his mind caught up.
He started crawling. His legs wouldn't take his weight. The coolness from the bite still pulsed in his gut.
Every movement sent fresh spikes of pain through his groin, but fear pushed him forward.
He stopped only when his hand brushed something familiar.
Robert.
The camera lay on its side in front of him, lens reflecting the chaos behind him. Lester stared into the glass.
The cold, venomous substance pulsing through his lower body flared, sending a fresh wave of blinding agony straight to his spine.
He could feel it creeping closer, stealing his warmth, turning his veins to ice. He had to move. He had to reach the stairs.
Lester shoved himself forward, teeth gritted so hard his jaw ached, dragging his deadened lower half across the floor. But the strange, freezing poison in his gut finally took its toll. His arms buckled. His vision went completely white at the edges.
With a choked gasp, his strength gave out entirely.
He pitched forward, collapsing flat on his face right in front of Robert.
The camera lay tilted upward on the hardwood, its glass lens catching the harsh overhead light. Lester sprawled directly across it, his chest heaving, his face coming to rest inches from the polished frame.
Through the haze of pain, he stared straight into the lens.
"I'm sorry," Lester choked out, his voice cracking, thick with a bitter, agonizing self-loathing. "She was the one with the more severe injuries... and here I am, failing to even walk. She was literally dying for me, and I'm just crawling away."
Across the room, the brutal sounds of the slaughter echoed—a wet, sickening crunch that made his stomach heave.
"I hate that I couldn't do anything," he whispered, tears mixing with the sweat and dirt on his cheeks. "She's dying for me, and I'm just a coward. I hate myself. God... I just hate myself."
He closed his eyes, sinking entirely into the crushing, suffocating depths of despair.
Then he heard a voice crackle faintly from the casing—or perhaps just a trick of his own fracturing mind. He opened his eyes, looking straight back into Robert's lens.
Across the room, Mira tightened her grip on Sky, lifting her higher off the floor.
"I believe you would look good as a statue," Mira murmured coldly.
With a flick of her fingers, razor-sharp crystals of glass began sprouting from Sky's neck, creeping downward like a freezing, jagged shroud. But before the process could finish, Mira froze, her head snapping toward the sound of a fractured, wet gasp that tore out of the dust.
A breathless, dry rattle stuttered in Lester's throat before it cracked wide open into a jagged, barking shriek.
Hee-hee-hee-ha-ha-ha-HEE-HEE-HEE!
It wasn't human. It was a manic, breathless yelp that looped over itself, high-pitched and frantic, bouncing off the walls with terrifying velocity.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-HEE-HEE-HEE-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAH!
He choked on his own saliva, his shoulders violently heaving, but the horrific cackle only grew louder, bubbling up into a high, hysterical wail.
Ah-ha-ha-ha-hee-hee-hee-ha-ha-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE!
It scraped against the eardrums like jagged glass. He was clutching Robert to his chest with white-knuckled fury, shoving the strap over his neck with trembling, blood-slicked fingers while his jaw hung unhinged in a silent, screaming grin of absolute, shattered psychosis.
Mira sighed, her expression flat. "Looks like the boy finally lost it."
Sky's eyes shifted weakly toward him. A wave of profound, crushing sorrow washed over her. It's my fault this happened, she thought, a tear slipping past her bloody lashes. Gods, am I such an idiot.
"Let me put him away before he breaks too much," Mira muttered.
With a careless gesture of her hand, the wooden floor beneath Lester's body began to fracture and give way.
Yet, as if the collapsing world around him meant nothing at all, Lester kept shrieking out those broken, hysterical barks, his voice echoing over the tearing of wood:
HEE-HEE-HA-HA-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAH-HA-HA-HEE-HEE!
Laughing harder, his eyes bulging wide and bloodshot, completely detached from reality, he let the laughter swallow him whole.
The floorboards sheared completely, and Lester was slowly swallowed into the gaping fissure, slipping down into the dark while his manic, ringing cackle bounced endlessly up from the depths.
Mira turned her attention back to Sky, expecting the usual frantic struggle. Instead, Sky simply looked up at her and offered a quiet, peaceful smile.
Then, something went entirely wrong.
A sharp, violent crack appeared on the opposite side of the room. It splintered outward, growing wider at an impossible velocity as the entire foundation of the space began to shake and shudder.
What is happening? Mira thought, a flicker of genuine panic cutting through her calm demeanor.
Tossing Sky carelessly aside, Mira leaped backward just as the ground completely cratered, tearing open a massive, jagged ravine straight down the middle of the floor.
She landed hard on the edge of the chasm, staring down into the blackness.
A hand shot out from the depths.
One hand grabbed the solid ledge. It had a striking, cool bluish pigment.
Then, the rest of the figure flew up from the abyss, hovering effortlessly in the air.
He stood suspended, completely transformed. His skin carried a cool bluish tone with subtle violet undertones, possessing the matte finish of old photographic emulsion. Long, flexible strips of 35mm camera film formed his hair, their perforated edges and glossy emulsion sides catching the erratic light, some strands hanging like bangs while others spiked upward.
Intricate aperture and f-stop markings were burned across his arms, chest, neck, and shoulders concentric rings resembling lens aperture blades, paired with classic f-number scales (f/1.4, f/2.8, f/5.6, f/8, f/11) that pulsed with a faint, agitated glow.
His face featured pointed imp ears, sharper canines, and vintage brass-and-leather goggles strapped across his eyes instead of glasses. Extending from behind him was a long, flexible mechanical shutter release cable acting as his tail, ending in a threaded metal plunger tip that twitched and flexed with a life of its own.
As he hung in the air, the ground beneath the room groaned, rapidly knitting itself back together.
Within seconds, the floor had sealed itself up, returning completely to normal as he touched down softly on the wood.
Sky, coughing up blood from where she had landed, and Mira, staring with wide, disbelieving eyes, watched the strange, film-woven individual in stunned silence.