The Lamplighters Omnibus

You move.

You don't understand how. You don't understand why. You weren't supposed to have any energy left. You were supposed to be a wheezing mess, clinging to anything just to stay upright. But you feel your legs move all the same.

You're running, sprinting, stumbling and lurching but you don't fall. You push through the ragged chain-link fence, heedless of the frayed wire raking across your numb skin. You run down the slope, down into the muck and mud and rising water, through the covered work area, past abandoned tools and lunch boxes. You're reaching down, grabbing something, hefting its weight - a sledgehammer, still stained with concrete dust.

She asked all the kids that put their hands up why they wanted to be heroes. Beat up people that were mean to them. End world hunger. Go to other Spheres and get aliens for pets. Just because they were cool. All sorts of dumb stuff. You can't remember what you said. Every time you look back and try to remember why it's just covered with more and more white noise.

It's distracted. It's going for the kill. You're getting closer, step by step through the sucking mud. Raising the sledgehammer high, high over your head like some kind of holy weapon. Gravity'll have to do most of the work bringing it down. You don't know if you'll even have the strength to get away once you splatter the spawn. But maybe it'll work. Maybe you'll save him. Maybe you'll feel what it's like to matter.

Splurtch.

The world ripples in front of your eyes. Everything goes grey.


It's so dark. The sun is gone, suffocated completely by the roiling black stormclouds above. The rain falls in sheets like icy needles

You're cold. You're so cold you don't feel anything at all. You don't feel the hammer slipping through your fingers. You don't feel your feet leave the ground.

Maybe you just wanted to be something you're not.

You look down at your slack-jawed reflection in the mercury. You watch your grey blood fall, drop by drop, sinking beneath the surface and out of sight. Feel it pulse out of you, heartbeat by heartbeat, into the pulsing quicksilver tentacle thrust through your chest. Sucking out the last scrap of colour in the world.


A golden meteor soars down from the sky, flooding your world with light. It's so bright it hurts, so bright you close your eyes and cry out as it collides with the mercury squid, scattering it in all directions in a silver spray. You only realise you've fallen when you hit the ground, when the world jolts and swims. The angel straightens up, radiates the heat and light like a sun. The golden hero beneath the spotlight, standing over the colourless ragdoll in the mud.

"Are you alright?" the voice comes from so far away. You want to laugh. Of course you aren't alright.

"I-I think so, but that guy, he tried to save me..." Oh.

Your would-be saviour stands over you. A tall man in perfect proportion, the kind of build that screams 'superhero' to all watchers. Handsome features, not too hard yet not too soft. Blonde hair, slicked down by the rain and tossed by the wind. Green eyes that scan you quickly, bore straight through you. A Spheretech suit, form-fitting and mobile like a futuristic knight, glowing all over with a golden electromagnetic field. Extending up from his shoulder blades like crackling, flickering wings. Paragon. The Paragon tried to save you.

His face falls at the sight of your wounds.

"Sorry, kid," he says softly. And he turns away.

Save me too, you silently beg him. Please don't leave me. You lift your trembling hand, croak out the words. You make him turn. You make him notice you. You make him scoop you up and carry you back into the warm, safe world you knew. You make him share that warmth and that light with you, just for a moment, just so you know what it feels like.

He's gone. You're alone. Your hand didn't even make it an inch.

It's still raining. It's still raining so hard maybe you'll drown. Who're you kidding? You're already drowning. No matter how hard to gasp for air, nothing comes. Whatever blood you have left is thickening, drooling out through your back, mingling with the mud. Your thoughts are slowing. Your vision's dimming. You don't have long, but every second stretches into eternity. You can feel your phantom heart pumping. Your mind playing one last trick on you.

You're sinking. Sinking into the mud. Sinking into the water. Sinking into the darkness. You aren't in pain. You aren't afraid.

You aren't anything.

It's nice.

Another tear opens. One just for you. It's so close you can see it, see it right above you from the moment it starts to be born. The air ripples and twists and splits, bright sparks popping from nothing that slowly grow into visible arcs. Blue so bright it seems white to your dying eyes. The accretion disc forms. You glimpse colour, every colour you left behind, through the rip. The portal opens wide. Just wide enough to admit the tar that drools through the hole between worlds, cascading down onto your ruined chest like a waterfall of pitch. It feels warm. The only warm thing in your entire, shrinking, crumbling world.

It rises out of the bloodied crater in your chest. Squirming, swirling, coalescing into something semisolid. Like the mercury squid but unlike it. Something more... mammalian in its movement. In the form it chooses. It's thin, almost emaciated, the last light shining dully on its exoskeletal spurs and ridges. Its long tendril-tail sways back and forth, low and wary. Its eyeless head stares at you, cocked slightly. Kneading your chest with gooey black claws, pawing at your chin. It reminds you of your old cat. Trying to make you notice it. Trying to make you acknowledge it.

Your last breath escapes you. Half-sob, half-laugh. Out of all the infinite Spheres, this thing found you to keep it company.

Your vision shrinks down, the light at the end of the tunnel drawing further and further away. The thing crawls further up your body, looming directly over you. It's so easy to imagine it whining for you to get up and play with it.

You miss the dogs so much. You wish you'd spent more time with them last time you visited.

Your jaw goes slack, lips parting. You're sinking into the mud, sinking into darkness. Sinking into a sleep you'll never wake from.

The tar-creature's head opens like a flower, glistening petals of oil curling back in squirming tendrils. The stamen extends like a tongue, questing blindly. Slipping between your parted lips. It leans down to meet you in a grotesque 'kiss', the petals closing around your head, sealing you in. Blind and deaf, submerged in darkness. You feel it pour itself down your throat. You feel the hot tar in your lungs, in your stomach, in your veins. So hot after the freezing cold it hurts. It hurts so much you want to scream but you can't.

At least something gets a meal out of you in the end. At least you got to be useful for something.

You taste air.

***

You wake up. You're still on your back. An unfamiliar ceiling greets you. It's pure white, lit by a single buzzing light strip, dim and flickering, making the world alternate between two slightly different shades of grey metal.

You're alive.

All those years stewing in misery and bitter, directionless anger. Struggling and failing, struggling and failing and then, right when you've made your peace, welcomed the end of it all... that's snatched away from you too. Leaving you here, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

"John? Can you hear me?"

A voice. Female. Soft and concerned, brimming with Irish lilt. You slowly roll your head to the side. There's a woman sitting by the side of your bed, crowding out the saline drip and diagnostic machinery. She seems about forty, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, grey eyes. Simple grey cardigan and jeans. Her hands sit loosely folded in her lap, on top of a tablet computer balanced across her thighs.

"Mhm," you mumble.

"I'm afraid you've suffered some very serious injuries. But you're stable now, and safe as houses. You're in a SERAPH medical facility." She tilts her head slightly. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Mhm."

Her brow furrows. Whatever reply she expected, clearly that was not it. The crease smooths out quickly. "I have some things I need to tell you before we proceed. Would you like a drink first?"

"Mm-mm."

She exhales through her nose, looking down at the tablet computer. Scrolling and tapping through whatever's on it, probably notes to refresh her memory. You watch the subtle movements in her cheeks as she works her tongue around in her mouth, considering how to phrase it.


"The entity that saved your life is what we call an 'endosymbiote'. It's a kind of biomechanical construct created by one of the old alien civilisations we've found traces of. Think of it like a particularly intelligent and well-trained companion dog, similarly empathic. It sensed you thanks to the disruption field, and crossed over to bond with you."

She pauses, waiting for you to question it. Waiting for you to bombard her with all the normal things to ask, the denial, the confusion, the fear, the anger. You just stare straight ahead, straight up at that light directly overhead.

"The good news is that your situation isn't as unique as you might think. All over the world there are people with their own symbiotes of one stripe or another that live perfectly normal lives. In some cases, even where surgical intervention is possible, they choose to continue living with their new 'partners'. However..."

She pauses. Probably glancing down at her notes one more time. The light's starting to hurt your eyes. You screw them shut tight, laboriously lifting one hand up from under the covers to meet them. Kneading the sockets with the heel of your palm, like you're trying to grind the ache away.

"Your wounds were extensive and invariably fatal. Your heart was destroyed and you were completely exsanguinated by the time you were brought here. The symbiote was forced to use itself to reconstruct your cardiovascular system and replace your blood."

You bring your hand away from your face. You look up at it, really look at it. The proof is right there. The veins are black, black as if someone had injected them with ink. You were already pale but now you look like you've never seen the sun in your life. You're the colour of dirty milk, your fake blood lending you a deathly grey pallor. The thin, indifferent skin rips and reality comes gushing through all at once.

You grab the collar of your gown and rip it down in one brisk tug. The material tears like paper, coming away in your fist. You look down and you see your chest. You see the vast, flower-shaped bloom of obsidian-coloured flesh where you were impaled. Where your heart used to be. What replaced it beats faster and faster. You jerk your head up to look at Dr. Kelly, eyes wide, lips working soundlessly as you look for words and find none.

She meets your gaze, unafraid. "You're safe, John. Nothing bad's going to happen to you. I promise." Her voice is low, even and soothing. "If you'd like something to calm you down and time to rest, just nod."

You don't nod. You clutch at your chest, pale fingers digging painfully into the flesh, like you're trying to squeeze your fake heart back into line. You can feel it racing, feel it pumping the alien darkness through your body. You're light-headed, your thoughts are whirling and smashing into each other inside your head. You hiss in pain, snatch your hand away from your chest. Five pinprick wounds in your chest sluggishly bleed oil, closing over before your eyes. You hold your hand out at arms length, watching wide-eyed as ink bleeds from your pores and coats your fingers. The nails lengthening into wetly-glistening ebony claws.

"John? John, listen to me." She still hasn't raised her voice. She isn't backing away. She even reaches over the side of the bed and presses her hand against your chest, a warm pressure over your fake heart. Not even hard enough to be trying to push you back into bed. "It can sense you're frightened so it thinks you have to defend yourself. But you're not in danger, are you? You're safe in bed and nothing's going to happen until you're well enough to consent to it. Okay?"

You shut your eyes tight. If your eyes are shut you don't have to look at it. You can pretend it's not real. You can focus on your warm sheets, the soft pillow, and breathe. Breathe. Breathe. In for a five-count. Hold for a five-count. Out for a five-count. It hurts your lungs but you have to breathe slow, you have to trick your body into thinking it's fine. In for five. Hold for five. Out for five.

In for five.

Hold for five.

Out for five.

Your pulse ebbs by degrees. Your forcibly slow breaths become less and less ragged. You hesitantly make a weak fist - no wet feeling, no sharp claws. Kelly takes her hand away. You drop yours to your side with a soft 'thump'. For a moment you just lay there. Breathing. Existing. Pretending everything's fine. At last you laboriously crack your eyes open again. She's waiting for you as patiently as ever.

"You did very well," she says with a smile. "You've had practice with anxiety strategies before, haven't you?"

You could say something like that, yeah. You swallow drily - your tongue's finally starting to feel like it belongs in your mouth.

"You'll be happy to know that I've got nothing but time right now, John. Feel free to ask me as much or as little as you'd like."

[ ] Ask who brought you to safety. Someone had to have found you before another random spawn wandered by and finished you off.
[ ] Ask after the person you tried to save. You don't have a lot of details to go on, but it can't hurt to try.
[ ] Ask what happened with the kaiju attack. Two attacks of that magnitude one after the other isn't supposed to happen, especially with so little warning.
[ ] Ask about the 'endosymbiote'. Everything she knows about it, everything she knows about things like it, down to the last detail. Of course she'll tell you some of it eventually, but you want to know it all, right now.