NOVEL NEXT Chapter 8: When Sky Breaks
AN: Ready your cup of depressos cause this chapter deals with some heavy stuff. And we get to see a glimpse into the true might of Kukulkan.
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Once everyone was situated inside the interconnected basement of three townhouses, I checked the time through my Smart Device and found out that little less than an hour had passed ever since Day Break.
With everyone safe and away from the sun, I went out and searched for more survivors. I used Quetzalcoatl's Authority over the wind and scanned a single building for exactly one second before moving on to the next. I went through a lot of houses this way before that personal skill of mine returned to cool down.
Every time I completed scanning I would mentally gloss over the data. It'll take about half a second for me to register 100 snapshots of the position of every single air molecule within the building. quadrillion of quadrillions of them.
I tried looking for any human-shaped holes in the air. I tried to find any voids that looked like tiny trees with thousands of branches that represented the lungs of anyone still left.
What I found was... depressing. Since it was two hours before noon that Day Broke on a Monday, a majority of the people were at work or in school. Thus, the homes are mostly empty. Many of those who are home are often tricked by the voices of their mutated neighbors if they aren't touched by the rays of the corrupted sun coming through their windows.
A depressing number of doors were open. Signs of struggle were all around the open door.
All of these struggles came from people who opened the door to the voice of their neighbors, only to be greeted by the nightmarish sight of a bundle of waxy, melted flesh.
These things banked on the trust between neighbors and humans. The trust that normality still existed since the sky was still a shade of bright blue. Coaxing people to come out into the full embrace of that hateful sun.
... I think a large majority of that '6.8 billion death toll' disproportionally affected the Americas, Europe, and Africa. Since it's day here, people will be out and about, while it's night in places like Japan and China where most people would be asleep.
As I scanned the latest residential structure, I groaned as the three-minute mark passed. Releasing the Quetzalcoatl's Authority in its entirety as cramps started to form all over my body.
Scanning multiple buildings in search of survivors forced me to push We Are The Winged Serpent to its limit. I discovered just how long I can possess Quetzalcoatl's Authority before it goes away and We Are The Winged Serpent returns to 'cool down' so to speak.
Three minutes.
If I try to use Quetzalcoatl's Authorities again during the cool down I'd get cramps all over my body from the legs to the lungs, to the neck, down to the arms. It felt as though my every muscle was cramping. Not only that, these cramps are very painful and will only progressively grow worse the longer I use it.
When I tried to use Pan-Human History Kukulkan's Authorities the same pain blossomed all over my body like deadly roses, prickling my sense of touch.
The cooldown lasted for six minutes before I could again use other Feathered Serpent's Authorities without the painful cramps.
I searched for over two dozen buildings before finding the appropriate one.
There was a survivor!
I entered through the half-open window. However, I was forced to rip out the mosquito mesh along the way.
"Hello? I know there's a survivor in here. I sensed you."
There, I made a beeline straight to the survivor. Careful not to startle them, I chose simple walking speed. My steps were loud to alert them of my position.
"I'm not one of them. I'm trying to rescue as many survivors as I can."
The survivor was inside the bedroom. They were sitting down beside a wall, leaning on it. Beside them was a knife for self-defense.
As I neared the closed bedroom door, only now did I realize I never heard their heart beating.
I paused in my step.
Their heart isn't beating...?
"—!"
There was really only one conclusion my mind could come up with.
So I blitzed forward in a burst of speed and pushed the door hard enough that it cracked against the wall as its hinges groaned.
There, right beside the bed, lies an elderly person wearing a simple pair of jeans and a polo shirt. His head was hung over, and around the figure was a pool of blood, all coming from the leak on the person's wrist. Beside the person in his other hand was a single bloody kitchen knife used for cutting chunks out of apples.
My jaws slacked.
I could only dumbly stare at the body. The fresh corpse of someone who had died. What's worse, the corpse wasn't even cold yet.
I couldn't move from my position. I continued to stand there in the doorway, my eyes trained on this person. This dead person. This person who committed suicide.
I felt dizzy. I felt the world collapsing around me. I felt myself dying as I couldn't breathe. Aren't I breathing rapidly? If that's not me who's breathing, then who is?
This scenery was a kinetic rod from god. Dropping from orbit at the speeds of Mach 10, the rod pierced through all of my defenses and cracked the bunker I made for myself, something I made to shelter myself from the stress of When Day Breaks.
Like water from a burst dam, tears began to leak uncontrollably, and I couldn't help but wonder why. I collapsed to my knees, and the ground cracked in turn with the force of my fall.
"Ah..."
I don't know this person.
"Ahh..."
Why am I crying?
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
I shouldn't be bothered so much.
Why am I crying over this person?
6.8 billion more people died and got turned to those things. Why am I crying because of this one person and not those?
Why did this specifically cause me to finally weep?
I wondered about these questions as my visions blurred by the presence of water. I found myself crying uncontrollably, unable to be stopped even as I will myself to stop.
My hands grabbed my head as I was now screaming.
Then, I slammed my head against the floor, denting it as though a metal basketball had dropped on it.
Raising my head out of the crater I made, I slammed my head back down against the floor, breaking it in whole and causing everything inside the bedroom to fall through into the floor below.
"AAHHHHHHHH!"
My fingers started digging at my neck. The sound of crystals scraping against crystals filled the room, serving as an orchestra to the sound of my cries.
There, my hands moved up and covered my eyes, and I could only see blackness.
I'm safe here. I can't see anything here. I can't see the hateful eye of the corrupted sun. I can't see the blood in the sky. I'm safe. I'm safe... I'm safe.
"Ha... ha... ha..."
Once I finally calmed down, my hands slid down my face and into my lap. I looked around me, and I saw how the whole residential structure was destroyed. Utterly pulverized with only rubbles collected underneath me remaining.
My lips thinned.
...Ah, it seems I'll also need to be careful the next time I have an outburst. I guess this is why superheroes shouldn't ever get drunk; my little outburst collapsed a whole seven-story tall cross-shaped building that filled up a street corner.
I felt dead inside. I hovered above the ruins of a building.
Fortunately, at least no one died. All those who were crushed under the debris were those monsters.
I don't know what I'd do to myself if I accidentally killed someone because of my outburst.
Using Quetzalcoatl's Authority over the wind, I conjured up a localized tornado strong enough to pick up all the debris from the fallen building. There, I sent all those things into the East River nearby.
I decided to stop for today and instead head to fortify the safe house. As I flew back, I thought about what to add to try and get my mind off what I saw.
That pool of the sky's color...
I shook my head and thought that a moat would do some good.
If not filled with water, then a simple trench would do. Really slow down the infected. Then, I'll need to worry about food, water, and toiletries before settling in for the long term.
In the original article, it was said that a majority of the SCP Foundation was destroyed because of the sun. However, that's close to four years after Day Break. Right now, it's only been less than two hours.
The Foundation should only be wounded instead of the corpse it was in the original article, shambling about and supported by lone researchers. I can offer the Foundation assistance, both in clearing out any solar infections and retaking overrun Sites. In terms of firepower, I outweigh every single Mobile Task Force combined. Yes, including Tau-5 with its immortal cyborgs.
I think my greatest leverage would be me being immune to the sun's effect.
If I remember, was it Site-13 or Site-19 that housed the off-world colonization project?
I was about to conclude it would be better if I made contact with the Foundation by literally knocking on their door in SCP-2000 before I saw it.
The townhouse with the red balcony in its backyard was overrun by numerous blobs of flesh. One of them already carried a person out and exposed him to the sun.
His flesh melted. His eyeballs slogged out of his like a cherry falling from a sundae of melting ice cream.
I raised a hand fast enough to cause shockwaves in the wind. There, a ball of plasma brimming with arcs of electricity formed in my palm.
Just as I was about to fire off the blast of plasma, it fizzled out.
I'll vaporize any survivors.
I... I... what do I do? Time almost seemed to crawl to a halt as my mind came up with nothing. It was that same feeling when you're called up to the principal's office and are asked to describe an event that just happened. Your mind couldn't come up with anything since it's in a panic.
I glanced at the sky above as I mentally sifted through the many Authorities possessed by the winged serpents of Mesoamerican myth—
Kukulkan's Authority over the storms.
(AN: Play: Raiden Shogun Battle Theme (Phase 2) 1 Hour Channel - Genshin Impact 2.1 OST)
I activated We Are The Winged Serpent without a second thought. Pan-Human History Kukulkan's Authority over the storms became mine and I commanded the appearance of a storm so grand and thick as to be able to cover this area in total darkness. I sought to make this whole neighborhood as pitch black as a moonless, starless night.
It was happening. The world below me darkened very quickly as clouds gathered overhead. In the span of five seconds, it already looked like dusk underneath those clouds.
"ARGH!"
Intense cramps formed all over my body to signal how my time limits were up. I found my limbs, my every joint twitching uncontrollably because of the cramps.
I ignore it and continue to summon up the storm.
I unleashed my might. Before, I was always worried. I was always worried about the potential bystanders that could be harmed if I became too careless. I almost boiled that little girl alive with a simple controlled burst of plasma. Superman was right; if you're too strong you live in a world of cardboard.
But, there isn't anyone in the sky. No innocent humans could get caught in the crossfire. No planes that could possibly be harmed by what I'm doing.
I stopped holding back, and the world trembled as the might of a Goddess was on display. My Authority spread itself across the surroundings.
The original white clouds turned red like the Martian sky as the ground underneath me was shaded to as black as twilight. It was as though the sun was angry at what I was doing.
The cramps were getting worse.
I pushed on nonetheless until finally, sunlight could no longer reach the ground. A blanket of storm clouds that reached up to the very edge of the atmosphere covered all of New York as I stretched Kukulkan's Authority as much as I could right this instance with cramps forming all over my body.
I grit my teeth and soldier on.
I knew for a fact I could extend it even further, but because of the advanced human development around me, it throttled the speed at which I could summon the storms. On a virgin Earth untouched by humans I'd be able to cover the entire planet in storms within the three-minute time window.
The pain wasn't helping with concentrating on growing this mighty once-in-a-lifetime storm either.
There, without the sunlight underneath me, I summoned forth a rain of such magnitude that News networks all over the world would have called it the 'storm of the century'.
Within only ten seconds of the first droplets hitting the ground, already, the ditch of now-cooled asphalt I blasted over an hour ago became filled with water.
By the fifteenth second, it was more comparable to keeping a running hose directly over your head with how much water was falling onto you. All the ditches and low-lying areas began to fill with water.
New York's storm drains weren't meant to deal with the level of rain I'm bringing.
*Crack*
A bolt of lightning from above temporarily illuminated everything. It illuminated the dozens upon dozens of flesh monsters I had somehow missed. It illuminated me in my entirety. It illuminated numerous naked humans who got dragged out, now out in the open intended to be offered to the corrupted sun.
These things... will find no sun here.
I am here.
And I will not allow a single human under my protection to be corrupted by When Day Break.
*Crack*
A bolt of lightning arced from one portion of the cloud above to the next.
My eyes glowed as I added a new Authority. The agony doubled. I grit my teeth even more.
With the cramps racking every muscle in my body, of such pain that it'll be like someone dosed with boiling oil, I used the other me's Authority over the sea and controlled this water.
Like ribbons of steel, I cut apart those corrupted humans with jets of sharp water and forced them to release the humans on their backs. Then, right before the uncorrupted humans fell into the water, I commanded the puddles nearby to wash away all my enemies.
The water weaved around individual humans when they fell as though they were supernaturally hydrophobic, and the waves smashed into the things that used to be humans with the force of a truck barreling down the highway at 100 miles an hour. Most pulverized instantly from the water pressure, dying the liquid a crimson invisible due to the lack of any light.
I collected the humans who would've been under the sun's rays without my Authority with a gentle wave of water like a hand and placed them back into the protective shade of the safe house.
*Cracka-boom*
Another lightning fell in the nearby. It crashed to the ground.
With all the humans now out of the way, I gathered all the water in my immediate surroundings. Moistures rose from the ground and puddles and condensed into droplets. Those droplets are combined with other droplets and amalgamated into globs, then balls of water that are as large as soccer balls.
There were now thousands of these all around me from above houses to down inside sewers.
With another barely conscious thought inside this ocean of pure agony caused by unbearable cramps all over my body, I increased the water pressure inside these floating balls of water, giving them a surface tension equal to that of concrete before having these things congregate every single of these flesh creatures within the local neighborhood.
With speeds rivaling that of a commercial jet, streams of water came out of these balls. They looked like sea urchins as they released hundreds of tiny tendrils composed of water. With these tendrils, they felt and touched every inch of every surface, searching for the right texture.
And when they do?
The cover of the nearby storm drains exploded high up into the air as a mixture of liquid human flesh and water erupted forth like a volcano, surging down into a centralized location a bit further away from the safe house.
In total, it took 40 seconds from when the first rain fell onto the ground until now. Every single bit of corrupted human flesh from around the neighborhood was now clumped below me.
I was discovering heights I never knew were possible. Kukulkan was truly living up to her being a Tier 10.
"Die, and meet your maker."
With that, I sentenced them to death.
*KRA-KA-THOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Dozens upon dozens of lightning struck the mass of human flesh-water mixture underneath me. Bolts of lightning crackled and arced around my body as they neared me in their attempt to get to the collection of human flesh below.
Every second dozens of bolts of lightning each possessing a voltage of 300 million and a temperature hot enough to instantly turn sand into glass pummeled the things underneath me.
Anyone looking at me would think of this being the wrath of a God.
Even though I can barely think with the haze of pain clouding my mind, I still let out a smile—
(AN: End OST)
I'm falling—
What—
—Every moment it seemed I was almost 'jumping' forward in time with the ground becoming closer and closer.
Ah, that's right, the cramps became too much and my instincts took over— ending my hold over Pan-Human History Kukulkan's two Authority.
I'm blacking out as I fall to the ground from the pain—
My final sight had me being less than a meter away from crashing into a white puddle.
"Mhmm."
My next conscious moment was me lying there in a pit of lava. My insides felt like they were on fire. Phantom sensations of pain still rocked every inch of my skin.
I smell ozone—Huh?
Lava?
I looked down and saw around me the rim of the crater where I executed those melted things. Lightning struck so many times in one area that a crater formed. In it filled halfway was a pond of yellow-hot lava.
Honestly, I only felt a tad bit of warmth from the lava. I had no problem bathing in them since I was ORT's Heart.
Onto more pressing issues, the cramps were gone as I no longer possessed the other me's Divine Authorities.
With that, I lay on my back, floating above this cooling soup of runny lava. Because of the difference in density, it felt just like I was above a waterbed.
I didn't want to move. I wanted to stay there. On the tiny lava pond. Never before did I know how comfortable laying on lava actually was. Closing my eyes, I could pretend that everything was alright.
"Goddess Kukulkan!"
I heard my name being called. Raising my upper body to face it, my head above the crater, I saw how those people whom I saved standing on the edge of the shade provided by the house. I saw Stuart try and come and get me.
"STOP!" I raised a hand and commanded.
Stuart instantly halted. The temperature around me was too hot for any human to be near.
More than that though, the sunlight was returning. Without the other me's Authority over the storms maintaining the clouds above, the sunlight was steadily piercing through and all my efforts would've been for naught if even a single one turned into those things of molten meat.
Steadily, I got up. My foot only sunk a bit into the dense liquid as the surface decreased. Because of the uneven terrain caused by the runny lava, I almost fell before catching myself with flight.
By now, the clouds had almost completely disappeared and the crimson sky returned. The storm was like a dream. Even the water that fell from the torrential downpour was seeping away.
It was as though that storm I summoned had been a dream, a phantasm that never existed... if it weren't for the destruction visible around me.
The collection of ex-humans was large enough to fill the living room of a large suburban house. Now nothing remains of it, other than the crater that formed from what must've been at minimum 100 lightning strikes.
I didn't count, but I'm pretty sure it's in that ballpark.
Surprisingly, I felt fine. I didn't feel drained at all. Maybe some sensations of phantom pain tingling across my skin coming from those godawful cramps but otherwise, I didn't feel winded at all.
The cramps seriously hurt though.
I massaged my arms and shoulders. Hovering towards those inside the shade of the house, I asked, "What happened? How did those things get into the safe house? Did we lose anyone?"
Bethany was the first to step forward, talking before anyone else, "Angel, these corrupted demons were hiding inside the sewers, just waiting for you to leave before striking."
They were what?
"They were inside the walls as well. I saw one pop out, bursting out of the drywall like they were paper," One of the men said. Josh, his name was, a lighting technician. A blanket was wrapped around him as those things had ripped away his clothing so the sunlight could wash upon his form without obstruction, "A few minutes after you left, they came out from inside the drywall and from the toilet and sink. There were so many of them, just waiting for you to leave."
"..."