7 days to die, p.22
7 Days to Die, page 22
The Harper-Kelly beast stood still, ready to receive the guard's thunderous attack. They all fired at once. The lightning SNAPPED and POPPED as it bounced off them, Harper made sure to protect the fusior by tucking his hands behind his back. There were sparks, smoke and even fire set ablaze on their clothes, but the mask prevented them from receiving so much as a scratch. The guards quickly gave up, realizing that whoever this giant was could not be stopped.
Staffs lowered in resignation, Harper simply walked through the crowd and deep into the bowels of the prison. Another flash came, and another memory. This time Kelly seemed to be standing on a slow-moving conveyor belt, moving down a hallway watching Harper's memories playing out in front of her through a window. She leaned in to peek through the oncoming pane.
Harper was in Marianne’s shop again, speaking with the voice of Noxwood.
“You’ll need the essence of a soul who can interact with the mortal world. I know that this soul is currently among the living, residing in Cementon, Wisconsin. Born December fifth.”
“What year? Gender?”
“Unclear. Take no chances, store them all.”
Before Kelly could see any more, she was on to the next window. Harper was packing up his house, he had placed all his daughter’s belongings into a few boxes labeled Elise. At the next window she saw him inside the cave beneath the church, carefully placing the Kanito Mask on its podium.
In the next window, Harper was in a library. He was combing through a daunting stack of local newspapers with a highlighter. Harper highlighted a headline on the paper he was reading, the quote that jumped out to him was I just knew, and then the name Lewis Schroetlin.
The one constant Kelly noticed was that Harper never seemed especially excited about what he was doing. Each step of the process looked to be grinding away his resolve.
In a flash, Kelly was back, stomping down a large hallway. She could feel Harper's emotions; he was angry, and incredibly nervous. All around them were rows of cells sprawling in all directions. Kelly tepidly looked around as Harper walked, curious to see how the prison works, but afraid of the horrors it might hold.
Each cell was more like a cage. The inmate’s wrists and ankles were chained to the top, dangling them just a few feet off the ground. Some inmates were writhing around in their bonds, but most had given up, succumbed to an eternity of dangling by their extremities.
I expected more fire and brimstone.
“They did that for a while, but eventually they figured out that being trapped in your mind is much worse. Torture just gave them something to hate, something to focus on.”
I think I'd prefer the fire too.
“Kelly, I need you to know something, when I placed the curse on you it was to help me locate you. When I did it, I didn't know that you were-”
-A kid?
You killed all those people looking for me, just to save one person. I’m sorry about your daughter, truly, but you’ll never convince me that fifteen people's lives, and mine, are less important.
Their legs stopped. They turned to face a cage that was slightly larger than the rest. The inmate inside dangled lifelessly, his long hair brushing the floor as he swayed ever-so-slightly. Unlike the other inmates, the bars to this cell were glowing hot and had green tubes weaving through the chains and into his wrists and ankles. Harper took the sword and shoved it into the keyhole, bolts of electricity erupted from the entry point, melting the lock. Feeling no pain as he did so, Harper grabbed the red-hot cell door and heaved it open. The inmate looked up at him and smiled with accomplishment.
His voice was familiar, but croaked from being underused, “pleasure to finally meet you in person.”
Harper, I’m begging you, please don’t set him free. This man has ended the lives of thousands of souls. He’s not going to help you; he can’t use the mask anyway. Only we can!
Swinging as hard as he could, Harper swung the sword as Noxwood. At first it seemed as if he was trying to cut the chains and set him free, but Kelly knew that wasn’t the goal; Harper was trying to kill him. It would have worked too, but the sword stopped, like an invisible pain of hands had grabbed the blade and held it in place. Harper pushed even harder, putting all his body weight into moving the sword. Eventually it moved, but the invisible force redirected the blade upward, slashing through the nearest set of chains, freeing Noxwood’s wrists.
What happened?!
Harper said nothing, but Kelly could feel his energy turning to fear.
Wrists now free, Noxwood grabbed the chains binding his ankles and held them tight. Within seconds they were glowing red, then fell apart. Noxwood was free, free to kill and conquer whatever he wished. And he had a few hundred years to plan it all out.
The severed green tubes spewed green sludge all over the floor. Despite Harper and Kelly’s impressive ten-foot frame, Noxwood’s natural seven-foot figure was intimidating. His face was pale with just a hint of green. He was war-torn and stiff as a statue, but somehow none of this made Kelly question his strength. He looked like he’d been hitting the gym in between recruiting evil weirdos.
Before Harper had a chance to react, Noxwood shoved him backwards out of the cell. Harper's head slammed against the bars as he fell back. Kelly could see Harper's vision blurring as they slid to the floor against the wall.
Fight back! Kelly thought. But Harper wasn’t there.
She wasn’t being ignored. Kelly could feel that Harper had been knocked unconscious. So why hadn’t she? In a flash, Kelly was no longer a prisoner in the body, she could feel all her senses returning; the touch of the cement floor, the throbbing pain in her head, the smell of burnt hair lingering around her nose. She was in control of the body. She summoned all her willpower to open her eyes and found herself face-to-face with Noxwood. He was trying to take the mask off her.
Kelly played dead, waiting for Noxwood to give up. His fingers never touched the mask, they just roughly needled at her face as he tried grabbing it. Sure enough, he gave up, but took the sword before leaving her there to fade away. She could hear the tip of it clanging against the floor as he strode away.
The moment he turned the corner, Kelly sat up. She didn’t know what to do at first, was it worth it to chase after him? Or should she find a way out of Katona? No, of course she should go after him. There’s no telling what will happen if Noxwood makes it out.
Kelly rose to her feet, struggling to find her balance at first. Just as she readied herself, a pair of guards rushed past at the end of the hall, and one of them spotted her.
“He’s back here!” She heard the guard shout around the corner. They must think she’s Noxwood.
The pair of guards returned and started firing at her without question. Luckily, she was still wearing the mask and the electricity simply bounced off her. But it was horribly bright, Kelly held up her hand to shield her eyes. She just so happened to use the hand with the fusior attached to it. Suddenly, the fusior started writhing around, twisting and contorting around her fingers like a dying animal.
With a resounding POP, the fusior’s legs curled back like a dead spider and it fell to the floor, charred. Then her eyelids grew heavy, not as if she were falling asleep, almost as if they were melting right off her face. She couldn’t help but drop to her knees, all at once the body became too heavy to support. Her skin grew sticky, it felt like she was drenched in glue. As she fell backwards, she watched the guards leaving, chasing a loud ruckus in another area of the prison. They probably assumed she was dying, and it certainly felt like she was.
Kelly tried to turn onto her stomach and crawl for help, but it felt like she was pulling herself out of a tar pit. She was able to get her hands on the concrete to center herself. Then using her remaining strength pulled forward. Next her head was free of the tar, she looked back to see what she was stuck in; she was pulling herself out of the soul-bonded body she shared with Harper.
Lifting her knee high as she could, Kelly managed to free her left leg. To free the right leg, she had to pull with both hands, the rubber-like tentacles pulling back on her. She couldn’t help but scream as she pulled, it felt like her ankle was about to snap. Eventually, the tentacles gave way and Kelly was free. What was left of the body twitched in a frenzy of skin and hair until it resembled Harper again.
Both their clothes were singed and torn. The mask lay on the ground between them, Kelly grabbed it and decided it was time to leave. She ran in the direction of the guards, listening closely for the sound of their footsteps. Each step was agony; all the fighting she’d been doing was rough, but the soul bond did something to her joints, muscles, skin, everything. Sore didn’t even begin to describe it.
The more she ran, the more she could hear the unmistakable sounds of a fight up ahead. She rounded the corner and saw a pile of guards on the ground, some were unconscious, others were just piles of armor, already faded from existence. The scrap here had been messy. Just past the entranceway Kelly could see Noxwood descending the steps towards the fountain, he was covered in scorch marks and gashes.
During the fight Noxwood lost the sword, it lay on the ground amidst the fallen guards. Just as Noxwood made it past the fountain outside, an ear-splitting alarm rang out. Kelly cautiously walked forward, watching as the streets outside flooded with guards. Ravenwood’s response to a prison break was laughable compared to this. Every guard held their carmia staff high, aiming them steadily at Noxwood.
Noxwood stopped in front of the fountain, arms raised when the fountain started to gurgle. He glimpsed back to see fire spitting out of the top, followed by an eruption of lava. It was as if the alarm was waking the city up.
All at once, the guards fired at Noxwood. There were so many guards firing that the electricity appeared to be blending together in streams of terrifying power. Then Kelly got to witness firsthand how Noxwood earned his reputation.
Noxwood swirled his hands around in the air, and the lightning from the guards' staff followed their movements. Harper couldn’t deflect so much as one bolt of lightning, yet here was Noxwood moving streams of it around like he was conducting a symphony. Noxwood brought his hands together in a thunderous clap, aiming the lightning at a group of guards, eviscerating them. The guards didn’t stand a chance, Noxwood was going to escape.
Kelly didn’t think, in that moment her mind ran clear, and she simply acted. Kelly put on the mask and ran forward. As she ran, she bent down and picked up the sword. She rushed down the steps of the prison and headed straight for the fountain knowing the lava wouldn’t hurt her. She charged up the layers of the fountain, lava cascading around her as she leapt into the air, sword held overhead. Gravity pulled her down, and before Noxwood knew what hit him Kelly drove the sword right through his greasy head.
Together they crashed against the ground. Noxwood’s essence wasn't blue, it was green like the sludge running through the tubes in his cell. His body melted into a soupy puddle on the ground as Kelly laid next to him. The guards stopped firing, and Kelly lay still in a state of shock.
“I’m sorry to put you through this Kelly.” It was Harper, she could still hear his voice in her head. “I had to stop him. If not me, he would have contacted somebody else. Then somebody else after, and somebody else until he was free. I knew he’d succeed if I didn’t kill him.”
There was nothing she could do to stop herself from passing out. The pain coupled with the relief made it inevitable. Even the warm lava splattering against her face didn’t bother her, in fact it was rather warm and comforting.
Never having had the pleasure of waking up in the hospital before, Kelly was put off by the assaulting bright lights screaming at her. She tried sitting up, but someone pushed her back down into her bed.
“Stop fussing, you need to rest!” A woman shouted.
Kelly would have fought it, but she was still weak.
Her head hit the pillow, it was either the softest pillow she’d ever felt, or she was really that tired. Kelly’s bed felt like she was lying in a mound of cotton balls that somehow maintained the firm shape of a bed. Without ‘fussing’ Kelly poked her head up and looked around. She was in a hospital for sure, everything was white, sterilized and impossibly clean. She was in a long hallway filled with other patients in identical beds. However, she had to squint to see, her vision was obscured by something.
She was still wearing the Kanito Mask. At first, she thought it was silly that the hospital workers kept it on her, then realized they wouldn’t have been able to remove it even if they wanted to. Kelly slipped it off and dropped it on the ground, only it didn’t touch the ground. The mask phased right through the hospital's tile floor and disappeared. She was confused at first then remembered; the mask is a mortal object. If she was in an immortal building, it wouldn’t be able to touch anything. Her first thought was to go looking for it, but she relaxed. It’s probably for the best.
The hospital's equipment was state of the art, clear screens buzzed about, there were hundreds of beeps and tones going off at once. Nurses bolted up and down the hallway servicing the patients lying in each bed, most of them unconscious. Kelly thought the hospital seemed too real, too modern to belong anywhere in the afterlife. That is, until she saw the tall woman from the church lying next to her. As she looked over at her, the woman squeezed Kelly’s hand.
“It’s you!” Kelly tried shouting. Her voice was raspy.
“My name is Beth.” The woman corrected, smiling at her.
“Here, drink this.” One of the nurses noticed Kelly had woken up and shoved a cup in front of her face.
It was a clear glass of fizzy orange liquid. Rather than argue Kelly gulped the drink down. The drink acted fast, she wasn’t healed by any stretch, but it suddenly felt like she’d drank an entire pot of coffee laced with cold medicine.
“I’m sorry dear I hate making people drink that, but you have your judgment this morning.”
“Sorry?” Kelly asked. “Why are you sorry? I want some more.”
Beth laughed, and Kelly laughed with her. It felt nice to laugh again, the past seven days were not exactly a chuckle fest.
Now that Kelly had a moment to gather her thoughts, she couldn’t shake this uncomfortable, persistent feeling that Harper was watching her somehow. She was certain that this wasn’t possible, and if it were she couldn’t imagine why he’d want to.
It was almost as if Beth could read her mind. Considering how many clairvoyants Kelly had run into, she wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.
“He’s gone, right? You guys got him?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know if he’s alive or not, but either way he won’t be hurting anyone anymore.” Beth squeezed Kellys hand once more before letting her go.
“Miss Flores-Hart?” A man now stood at the foot of her bed. He looked quite official in his dark blue military-ish uniform.
Before answering, Kelly couldn’t help but wonder why this official looked so modern when the workers in Ravenwood and Katona were relegated to medieval armor. It wasn’t an issue of fairness or anything like that, it just didn’t make sense.
“Never forget, Kelly-” It was Harper's voice again, he was watching her after all. “-The afterlife is run by the same people who once ran the mortal world. Don’t expect fairness, and don’t expect favors unless you give them.” Then he was gone. This time she could feel his presence leaving. For now.
“Miss?” The official could tell she wasn’t listening.
“Yes, Kelly Flores. That’s me.” The addition of “Hart” to her name was something she was going to have to get used to.
“It’s time for your judgment, please come with me.” The man held out a hand, and Kelly accepted.
He led her to a private room at the end of the hall, and before opening the door for her a nurse walked by and handed her a stack of clothes.
“Take a few minutes to clean up, I’m told these clothes are your size.”
Kelly didn’t say anything as the man closed the door behind her. It was a private hospital room. Someone occupied the bed, but they were hooked up to so many machines and tubes that Kelly didn’t imagine they were aware of her presence. She wanted to look a little closer but felt rude. Instead, Kelly went into the bathroom and got a good look at herself.
Her clothes were absolutely tattered. Between the immortal fire, soul bonding and lava, it was a miracle they were still together at all. She was covered in so much grime it looked like she’d gone rolling around in a burned-up house.
Kelly eagerly took a shower, taking an extra long time, letting the hot water therapeutically wash over her. The shower had everything she could ever need in little push nozzles sticking out of the wall, shampoo, body wash, conditioner, even body oil. If this is what Para is like, I could get used to this.
As the water washed away the evidence of the past week, she could help but cry. Big, ugly tears that shook her whole body followed by streams of snot. It was over, everything. No more waiting or wondering. And Rocco, that poor, brave little man. She’d give anything to feel one of his over-enthusiastic head taps.
Once she’d finished her shower, Kelly pulled on the clothes the nurse gave her. They were a bit baggy, but it didn’t matter. She left the room and let the blue-suited official lead her down the hallway and out of the hospital.
They stepped through a set of opaque sliding glass doors to reveal a dazzling sight. On the day of her death, when Kurt mentioned there was no ‘heaven’ he may have been telling the truth, but to leave out Para’s existence seemed like an oversimplification. Kelly saw rolling hills all covered in the ghostly white mist and genuine skyscrapers standing atop the hills catching the breeze. She looked up, the afternoon sky was clear as could be.
Unlike Ravenwood, the pedestrians bustled about the gold-plated streets not just on foot, but by sleek, white trains coasting along thin metal tracks about fifteen stories above them. Between each imposing skyscraper were bundles of palm trees and other delightful foliage. The city-goers drank small coffees from paper cups and moved slowly from place to place, enjoying themselves more with each step. Kelly wanted to gaze at the urban paradise for hours and uncover all it had to offer but the man nudged her onto the sidewalk and into the nearby train station.
