Page 1968

((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 1 of 2))
And abruptly, the tremors stopped. Complete quiet arrived, save only for the panicked and terrified breaths of the woman in Damian's care.

Parson waited. A part of him wanted to just attack the ruined building with every blade of wind that he could create, but the thought of hitting the civilians inside stopped him.

But then those same civilians began to appear from the rubble, crawling out from under the collapsed roof or climbing atop it or emerging from behind a half-destroyed wall.

And they were not as they should be.

Even if he didn't pay attention to their abnormal movements or their too-still faces, Parson could sense something inherently wrong with their souls.

They were missing.

Whatever these creatures were, they were not the people who had been in that building a few minutes ago.

The reapers could tell something was wrong with them, too, and tried to warn their servants, but Parson was too focused on what these soulless husks were doing to listen.

The husks all lunged toward them in unison.

Parson and Damian smacked them all down without much difficulty, but they refrained from using deadly force. Whatever was happening here, these were still, seemingly, innocent people. Even if their souls were missing, perhaps they could be recovered in some way.

That was what Parson's Vanguardian instincts were telling him, and he was glad to see that Damian was apparently thinking something similar.

When the tremors returned, however, so did the rainbow ooze from beneath the cracks in the ground. And when it began to slather itself all over the soulless husks, everything that Parson had just been thinking went out the window.

The husks changed. Their bodies contorted impossibly. Grotesquely. And they grew. As big as gorillas. New limbs sprouted from their backs or even their necks. Their heads twisted and twitched, some splitting a part and becoming two or even three.

The rainbow's swirling colors seemed to melt away into nothingness, but in their wake, their work was apparent. New faces were there on the husks, but not on their heads. On their bulging stomachs. On their extra-jointed legs. Or their torn-open arms.