Chapter 14

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Olga woke up instantly, with no transitions and no period of drowsy semi-drowsiness. It was surprising, considering how exhausted the girl had been in the past few days. She was awakened by a sensation. Something strange, as if a draught had blown across her heated face. Or a feather brushed across her cheek. A feeling on the verge of the tangible, even the slightest bit over the edge. So weightless that it was as if it did not exist. But still, Olga woke up, opened her eyes, groaned softly, seeing the hateful red light behind the thick bars.

"Again," the girl whispered. "It's about time for someone to save us... Machine, help me out, you're our only hope."

She was thirsty, even more so, she was hungry. Her body howled pitifully from the pain in her joints and demanded at least a mattress, but all this was already a familiar background of hardship, to which Olga had become accustomed. And yet ... Something was wrong. A vague feeling settled on the edge of consciousness, not allowing her mind to dive back into oblivion. Olga tried to concentrate and understand what had awakened her. Nothing, however, was going on around her. The lamps still buzzed faintly, casting a blood-red glow. Pipes hissed behind the concrete walls. Distant machinery hummed, keeping life in this depopulated station. Rather than humming, they sent a humming vibration through ...

Stop.

Not sent.

Exactly - silence. Or ... Olga could not focus and realize what she felt by instinct, inherited from thousands of generations of wild forefathers. The feeling was too deep, hitting right into the subconscious and the most ancient parts of the brain. It was perceived as an unnatural silence as if something had changed in the world. So the ancient monkey did not see the jaguar creeping up but heard the birds around him fall silent. Something natural was missing.

Something had changed. Something was happening.

Or it could have happened.

Her vision refused to focus after her slumber, and everything in front of her eyes blurred. Kryp sniffled noisily beside her, his torso piled up, his back against Olga's palm. He seemed to be asleep, dreaming about something very bad. Or maybe the pain was back and running its claws into the tortured mind even through the heavy sleep. Or both. Trying to move as quietly as possible, Olga released her hand. Her stiff fingers tingled with the renewed flow of blood. The girl blinked, and for a moment it seemed to her that the low ceiling moved. The red light blinked, darkened as if a rheostat had been turned on somewhere.

She felt her fingers begin to tremble. A drop of saliva crawled to the corner of her mouth, trickling thinly down her cheek. She wanted to scream in horror and throw a fit of hysteria. Kryp, still awake, twitched and groaned. His sleeping demons only seemed to be getting stronger. Olga stared upward, clenching her teeth and clenching her fists. Everything seemed normal, the illusion was gone, like a mere accidental illusion, a trick of vision.

Seconds went by one after another. Olga trembled, frantically hoping that it was just a trick of her tired mind. And then, without any blinking or contemplation from the corners of her eyes, the low gray ceiling went convulsively distorted, like a wave of interference on an old TV screen. A red light flashed. Thin strands of pig-like stubble slid from the rough surface. They did not grow but appeared in the surrounding universe. It was as if they had always been there, just a fraction of a second behind time, or maybe the opposite, ahead by the same fraction. And now they were aligned with the universe, penetrating reality. And the stronger the penetration was, the thicker and thicker the "bristles" grew.

"Kryp..." the girl whispered, feeling her lower abdomen twist in a spasm of raw terror. "Kryp. We have to go."

Fidus woke up instantly as if he hadn't slept at all. Olga covered his mouth with a narrow, icy palm, not even thinking that he might repeat his earlier reaction with the attempt of murder. However, the medication created a miracle, or maybe she was just lucky. Kryp understood everything instantly. He understood and took her palm firmly with his healthy hand. He squeezed it, silently, as a sign of understanding. Olga didn't understand what Kryp did next, but judging by the characteristic gesture and the quiet hissing, he injected something into her neck, probably another syringe from Machine's medicine kit. Almost immediately a cramp jerked Fidus' head back, and a long, long breath hissed through his clenched jaws. Olga thought she heard the creaking of the wounded man's teeth. Whatever Kryp had charged himself, the thing was strong and worked instantly.

The girl packed her bag, trying to act quietly and quickly. At the same time, she was surprised at how quickly and naturally the transition from "all rest" to "run as fast as you can" happened. And it is absolutely unclear - from whom, but faster. Her hands continued to shake, things were haphazardly shoved into the bag. She still wanted to fall on the rough floor and throw a fit of hysteria. Olga bit her lip. And then something touched her hair, piled up in dense felt, touched it with a soft, almost caressing motion. Olga tilted her head and looked up, biting her fist to keep from screaming out loud.

The ceiling of the tunnel disappeared for good. In its place - still blinking in an alternation of real and ghostly - came down the familiar mass of leather cords. It looked like blood- and grease-soaked loofah. Or a spider's web. How could it be? Olga had no idea, and there was no time for logical analysis.

"Run," she whispered, and no translation was necessary. Judging by the pupils, if Fidus didn't see what his companion saw, he felt the nearness of the otherworldliness anyway.

Let's run.

Yes, indeed, the injection was strong. Creep's body was still twitching in convulsions, but Fidus could even move his injured limbs in a limited way. Olga tried not to think about what was happening to his already broken arm and leg. Crip, judging by the expression on his haggard face, neither. This time he almost didn't have to be dragged. Fidus crawled quite briskly, stretching and pushing like a long crab. But it was Olga who had to twist the hatch lock again.

Falling outward, Fidus fell, hitting the stone floor hard and unable to hold back a long, agonizing moan that lingered at the very edge of a howl. The wounded man turned even paler. Olga grabbed him under her healthy arm and helped him up. Again she was surprised at how tall Kryp was when he wasn't lying down and hooking in pain. Blood trickled down Fidus's chin. He bit his lip and broke his nose. Apparently, Machine's medication thinned the blood, because the red fluid poured profusely, like from a good wound.

"We must go, we must go," Olga whispered, trying not to look up. She already knew that the entire dome of the atrium was already overgrown with leather cobwebs.

"We must go..."

Run.

The thought that she could just leave Kryp here was once again a red-hot needle in her mind. It screwed in, threw the sprouts of desire in all directions, opened up with the overwhelming realization that it was so easy. Just unclench the fingers, take a step to the side. And Kryp would die. And she - perhaps - will live. Who needs her, after all? What was coming was probably coming for Kryp, who had shit all over the villains' plans, as the Machine had bluntly written.

The leather loofah above trembled, moved like a living thing, and came in a heavy wave. On the stone floor, something either jumped or collapsed. It slammed, more like a loud, hard slap, splashing bright yellow-orange slime on the stone floor. Olga and Kryp froze like statues. What Fidus was thinking only he knew. The girl was left with only one thought, surprisingly senseless and at the same time sensible, given the circumstances. It was a good thing there was not much water and not much food, and so she drank just a sip at a time. Because now is a good time to piss herself, that's the minimum.

The creature looked like an enormous hulk, about the size of a minivan, wrapped in several layers of webbing. The sack pulsed incessantly, going through some kind of peristaltic spasms. And in general, it was living an unhealthy, intense life. It was as if several rhythms of life were superimposed on one another at once, rasping the shapeless carcass. Throughout the pus-yellow, red-veined surface, there were scattered in disarray ... limbs. At any rate, it looked more like limbs than anything else. It looked like tentacles, but with a non-tentacular angularity. It was as if the joints in the long limbs were appearing chaotically, without any order or rule of anatomy, only to vanish instantly. There were no eyes or anything even remotely resembling sensory organs or any organs at all in the creature. But at the same time, the most cursory glance produced an unpleasant, disgusting impression of a certain orderliness, an uncanny, otherworldly purposefulness in the actions of the blind and deaf creature. It was a completely irrational feeling that appeared to Olga as complete knowledge along with a clear understanding-whatever the bag of no bones was, it had appeared on her and Kryp's soul.

The monster trembled again, shaking in a fit of convulsions. Like a comet, Olga reached a whole new level of fear, realizing that inside the creature were not organs and other stuff, but hands. An incredible multitude of hands is in constant motion inside the gourd. Quite human palms, fingers, whole hands were moving under the thick skin, pushing, groping blindly, trying to scratch their way out. It was as if hundreds, perhaps thousands of souls were trapped in the pus bucket, obsessed with the blind desire to escape. It was the same with the limbs, a hideous parody of the statue at the entrance to the Machine Hall, countless hands packed tightly in slime, and a yellowish-slimy covering.

"Demon," whispered Fidus, and Olga understood without translation, so clear and recognizable it sounded. She guesses some of the words hadn't changed in a shitload of centuries.

The creature moved and, with unexpected speed, crawled and rolled toward the hatch from which the fugitives had escaped moments before. It was unclear whether the demon was driven by reason, instinct, or something else, but it was something that controlled the convulsive movements of the absorbed arms in the carcass, turning its blind impulses into a quite deliberate movement. Reaching the wall, the gourd stretched out in length, like a scrap of gut sewn up at both ends. It lifted one end to almost human height. Many "hands" gripped the wheel with "fingers" that grew straight out of the covering - quite human palms that moved like suction cups, encased in the same slippery skin. The creature "tensed," went in waves, like a gullet through which a large lump is pushed. A moment and the metal shrieked like a living creature. With a deafening crunch and clang, the thick hatch flew out of the frame along with its hinges. Whatever the creature was, it seemed to have terrifying strength. A moment more, and the "gut" stretched even harder, wriggling and nudging itself, climbed inside.

Without talking, Olga and Crip staggered away, as far and as fast as they could. Both would have loved to run as fast as they could, but even the Machine's first aid kit had a limit to what it could do. The medication had taken the edge off the pain, but the fractures and shattered muscles were still there. Fidus was as weak as a baby and just as slow. The creature, meanwhile, squelched and tossed invisibly, muttering like a repeatedly amplified burp.

We won't make it, the girl realized clearly when the demon gurgled particularly loudly. A loud slap behind her announced that the beast had fallen back out of the tunnel. The creature was definitely blind, but how did it follow its prey?! Olga clenched her teeth, stubbornly looking beneath her feet, taking Crip's weight on her shoulder. The wounded man was shuffling on unsteady legs, she didn't even want to imagine the pain he was in now, despite the injection.

"Curre," Kryp whispered, exhaling heavily. "Salvum fac temetipsum."

He tried to push his companion away.

"Fuck you," Olga exhaled, pushing him forward and dropping the bag. It was impossible to drag Fidus and the bag at the same time.

"Move your hooves, asshole ..."

Her heart was beating hard and fast against her ribs, and sweat washed down her face like in a steam bath. All the clothes she was wearing seemed to get soaked through in a minute. The girl looked down, and from the exorbitant effort, she began to glitch. It seemed that with every step, translucent waves of lilac flame scattered from her feet. And the glowing footprints lasted a few moments before fading silently to the cold floor with the half-erased emblems.

"Salvum!" Fidus shouted out loud, flailing and pushing her away with his big hand. Or rather, he slapped her hard - that was all he was strong enough to do. Blood poured down his whole lower jaw, making him look like a vampire. His pupils dilated, almost to the iris, like those of a madman. It was beyond biology, but Crip had managed to turn even paler so that he looked like he'd come from the underworld.

Olga let go of him and took a few unsteady steps, trying not to look in Kryp's direction. He, on the contrary, did not take his eyes off her. If the girl had looked now, she would have seen a bitter smile, or rather only the pale shadow of a bitter smile touched the bloodied lips of the inquisitor. But Olga did not look, retreating step by step, clasping her hands in a lock with such force that even her fingers seemed to crunch.

"Salvum," Fidus repeated for the third time, and the girl finally ran away.

The yellow star was just preparing to roll out from behind the edge of the huge panorama. So the atrium drowned in the pre-dawn twilight. The gray shadows seemed to drink all the color from the world around them, and the greasy washcloth above shook with tangled cords of human skin. It was very quiet, with only the squelching and sniffling of the slimy sack, flattened by the relentless movement of thousands of hands, countless souls imprisoned within it. The bloodied inquisitor straightened even more, though the pain in his fractured leg clouded his eyes.

"Imperatoris custodit animam meam," whispered Fidus Kryptman, because he had no strength left to scream.

The sack moved straight at Fidus, rolling over and slapping his hands haphazardly. Behind the creature was a wide, wet streak, and even the stone seemed to be smoking from the goo. Kryp was scared to death after all, at the last moment, when the webbed sack came close, Fidus closed his eyes. And the atrium exploded with a piercing scream.

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