Bart

  I’m not gonna lie, I was exhausted and a little p’d off. Dad was an uncooperative, annoying, fanatical, obstinate, and grumpy jerk. I wanted to put him on a leash and drag him around, but that wasn’t happening.

  Somehow, after a million arguments, I finally convinced him to follow me to the houseboat bus I had found a few days ago. It wasn’t much, but at least we could get out of the weather if it started raining on us.

  We were running out of potable water, supplies, and just plain willpower. I wanted to get back to civilization, to relax a bit, hang out with friends, boil some crawfish, watch some TV, find out what’s going on in the world. But no. I was stuck with crab’s ass.

  Thinking about food made my stomach growl. We had been walking for a couple of hours. Well, walking, crawling, swimming, and wading through sludge.

  Several new creatures had been following us, but for some odd reason, they hadn’t attacked. There was something called a mudpie, then there was this weird little water nymph, and a couple of what looked like rain clouds. Those things never got close enough for me to identify, though.

  I felt magic all around me as we walked, like the pressure you feel when you dive into deep water. My ears kept popping, and my eyes would sometimes feel like they were bulging out. Dad kept rubbing his ears like he was hearing a dog whistle or something. I couldn’t see it, hear it, or smell it, but I knew it was there, nonetheless.

  You probably could hear a dog whistle, couldn’t you? I kept that to myself. Didn’t want to stir up the ole grinch.

  We reached the bus just before dusk. Mosquitoes were buzzing in my ears, but thankfully the spider-butt twine was still working. I had a feeling it was wearing off though, which wasn’t good at all. I didn’t want to get eaten up by mosquitoes and other bugs, but I didn’t want to fight another spider pig to get the web material to ward off the bugs. I’d rather just use a bug repellent from the store.

  The door to the bus was still open from my previous visit. I didn’t mind that, but I would definitely be careful going in. One time when I was a kid, I didn’t notice the door to the barn at our farmhouse in New Iberia had been left open. I went up there to fetch something with my dad, and when I opened the door the rest of the way, a rattlesnake curled up and started ringin’ it’s warning bells. Just before it struck, Dad reached out, grabbed me, and threw me against the wall. It knocked the breath out of me, but the snake missed me by a few inches and barely missed my dad as well. Dad took out his machete—the same one I have now if I’m not mistaken—and chopped that ole’ viper to bits. I learned that day to always be careful when entering a room in the wild and the door is open.

  Thankfully, nothing happened when I peered through the bus door. Nothing was waiting for me up those old stairs where I almost died not too long ago.

  “Dad, can you hang out here for a little while? I’m gonna rustle up some grub for dinner. Please don’t run off.”

  “Aight, but I cain’t make no promises. I’m tired anyhow, so I’m just gonna take a nap.”

  He looked tired, so I nodded and left him there.

  Walking around the area brought back haunting memories of the past few days. The only good thing to come out of this calamity was Starla and her getting stronger. So many people were hurt or died here. And for what? Why? The more I thought about it, the more I was pissed. I get God has a plan, but this just seemed like a total cluster bomb with no direction or goal.

  I had to keep my faith. Letting doubts seep in wouldn’t help my situation and might get me on the naughty list.

  The water creatures had followed us all the way to the bus. Why were they following me? What did they want?

  Part of me didn’t really care as long as they kept to themselves, but the other side was highly suspicious of the oddities.

  A banner popped into view finally. It was an AK-Pine off in the distance about 30 or 40 yards ahead of me. I stopped for a minute to see which direction it was going. It walked in the direction heading away from me. I didn’t really want to eat porcupine. They tend to carry diseases that you couldn’t even cook out. I saw a survivor show one time where a woman killed a porcupine and found spots on the liver. She ate it, but I’m not too sure that was a good idea.

  What I needed was a rat, possum, rabbit, or even a boar. Not a boarachnid, but a good healthy pig would roast up real nice.

  Another banner popped into view, and I was not happy with what I was reading.

  “HHHWWWhaaat the?!”

  Never in my life could I have ever imagined a creature like this, even in a nightmare. Its body stretched at least 12 feet, at least as long as the bus, segmented like a cursed fishbone necklace. Each link was a grotesque fusion of red chitin and some other beast of the swamp.

  The head was that of an enlarged Texas redheaded centipede, pincers and all. The next segment fused with the head of a giant red ant, mandibles dripping with toxins. Below it, a swamp rat face glinted from behind the red carapace, its red eyes gleaming with cunning. Next came the head of a gator, its jaw snapping wildly.

  The next segments twisted into a snapping turtle’s visage; a bloated frog, and then, impossibly, a human face emerged from the carapace: pale red, hollow-eyed, lips stitched shut with sinew. It did not scream. It watched in horror.

  Each head integrated seamlessly into the centipede’s red-and-black tergite like a fresco painting, combined by some cruel witchcraft. The dozens of legs jutted from beneath each piece, armored and barbed.

  This was a fight I couldn’t win on my own.

  ?

  Steve

  Steve shook himself like a wet dog and rubbed off any lingering mud and leaves from his clothes. After watching the magical force absorb Deputy Vicari and the paramedic, Emily Weels, into itself, he knew he had to find them and help them orient to their new lives. That is if they were still alive.

  Steve looked up at the sky, speaking to God, and said, “I need a quest to find Emily and Vic.”

  “Perfect-o!” Steve exclaimed. “You see the quest too?” He asked Pow standing next to him.

  “Yessir. Let’s integrate some hoes.”

  “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Steve cocked his pump shotgun like they would in the movies using the weight of the gun while holding the pump.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “I got an arrow over dat-a-way.” Steve said, pointing.

  “I got it too. You take lead; I’ll follow,” Pow said, then with a look back at Susan’s body, he said. “May God bless thee and keep thee and all that last rites stuff. You deserved heaven, girl.”

  “Yeah, you did. Say a lil prayer for us with the saints upstairs. We need all da help we can get out heah.”

  It took over an hour for Steve and Pow to trudge to the location shown by Steve’s tracker ability. Pow had it too now, but he let Steve lead the way.

  Various smaller critters and varmints interrupted their leisurely stroll, but they didn’t come across anything they couldn’t handle.

  Steve needed about 400 experience points to level up to six, and Pow was only 100 away from level four.

  “Who are we about to find, Steve?” Pow asked.

  “I think this one is Vic. We should see him any minute now. The indicator says we are right dere.”

  They slowed down, spread out, and looked more diligently. After only a few minutes, Steve hollered., “Pow! I got somethin’ over here!”

  A body lay half in a large puddle, half out, wearing a shredded and filthy blue uniform. Steve and Pow ran over to the body.

  “Vic! Vic, you ochhhh—” Steve said, but his voice cut off when he got a good look.

  It wasn’t Vic, or at least it wasn’t the Vic they knew. This creature wearing the deputy’s uniform was grotesque in ever since of the word.

  “What the hell, man!” Pow grimaced. “Is…is this Vic?”

  “It cayn’t be!” Steve said. “But the system says…”

  “It’s gotta be wrong! You messed up somehow. God dang it, Steve!”

  “I didn’t do it! This is where the arrow took me,” Steve was yelling now. The two men were absolutely perplexed by what lay in front of them. They argued for several seconds about what they had found and the implications involved.

  Unconscious, wearing a deputy sheriff waterway uniform, right in front of them, lay a large rat-like creature.

  “Oh my God,” Steve said, turning the form over to get a better look. The name tag on the shirt clearly said Vicari. Either a massive rat knocked out the huge deputy and stole his uniform and then passed out, or they were looking at the new form of their companion.

  “Uuuuuuuggghhhh…” Vic moaned loudly, then projectile vomited the contents of his stomach, almost hitting both onlookers.

  “He’s gonna be pissed!” Pow said, eyes wide as they could go.

  ?

  Emily

  Emily didn’t wake up suddenly. She didn’t have body aches or an upset stomach. She simply was. One minute she was standing with a group, and the next she opened her eyes, floating several meters above the earth’s surface, staring down at the bayou.

  She was Emily, but not human anymore. Somehow, she resolved quickly to who she had become. Looking at her hands and body, or what made them up, she actually liked them — the fluidity and harmony of her new liquid limbs and form.

  The total lack of surprise at transforming into a water creature didn’t even seem to faze her. It was like she had been in this form her entire life and just didn’t know it until right at that moment; like her human form imprisoned the liquid magic she now exhibited, and she was now free.

  All around her, swirling magic moved, reaching, stretching, expanding as far as possible. She hadn’t seen it before the transformation, but now the beauty of the awakening existed in plain view. Like an oil slick floating on top of the water, magic spread ever so slowly but also deliberately.

  From her elevation, she could see that the magical awakening had spread only a few miles from civilization. She didn’t quite understand how she knew what she was observing, but she knew. At her core, she understood. Magic had existed since the beginning. She didn’t understand why it was only now deciding to awaken, but she knew it had been inevitable. It was almost as if she had been reborn with the knowledge of a previous supreme being while maintaining her own knowledge.

  This supreme knowledge started only with an understanding of how and what, but didn’t know the answer to the questions: who and why. Of course, the when was now.

  Her mission?

  Did she have a mission? Did she need a mission?

  Something inside her told her she did, but it rudely wouldn’t define that mission.

  Thanks a lot. Emily thought. Well, at least she could still think, and they were indeed her thoughts. It wasn’t like something possessed her; more like she reincarnated. A deity of some sort was now a part of her, and although she didn’t know who or what that deity was, she understood it somehow.

  Emily never believed in reincarnation. She was a lifelong Catholic and believed in eternal life after death. She also believed in God and the spiritual world of demons and angels.

  Maybe the deity was some type of angel? She questioned internally.

  It really didn’t matter. This was who she now was. Maybe she could choose her own path until the deity made its mission understood.

  Floating effortlessly, she looked for Vic, Steve, Susan, and Pow. She looked for Bart and his dad and any other survivors of the catastrophic events of the last few days.

  She now understood, although with limitations, Chaos erupted with the magic and had enacted havoc on the vicinity. Several animals below her were fighting and killing each other with reckless abandon. Survival of the fittest had taken an awkward turn in her neck of the woods. It was an all-out war at this point. Her concern wasn’t with the wildlife; rather, the process would affect civilized life . Her intuition told her Chaos would wreak destruction on humans, and Death would follow, absorbing the souls of the innocent.

  Protecting the innocent. Was that my mission?

  She had always had a desire to help those in need. From her earliest memories, she recalled wanting to put bandaids on boo-boos and care for the sick. Her favorite show was about a young doctor who had a shop in her backyard and helped “heal” various toys.

  Growing up, her career choices were doctor, nurse, and paramedic. Ultimately, the decision to become a paramedic came down to time and money. Her poor family couldn’t afford to send her to a four-year college, but with grants and scholarships, she could finish paramedic school and receive her certification in 18 weeks.

  She. Loved. It.

  She didn’t know how she would do her job with her new liquid body, but she’d figure it out.

  Floating from treetop to treetop, she listened for disturbances. Finally, after several minutes, she heard what sounded like yelling a couple hundred meters away from her position.

  As she drew closer, she knew someone was definitely yelling at someone else. Whoever it was, was pissed off.

  Emily smiled at the visual her mind created of a ranting Karen somewhere below her.

  “How?” the mysterious angry person yelled. The voice was deep and raspy with a slight Cajun accent. “If you didn’t do it? Who? What happened to me???”

  “It’s magic, Vic!” another voice said. This one sounded familiar to her. I guess the raspy voice is Vic. Huh.

  The voice continued, “I’m telling you!”

  “The same thing happened to Bart’s dad and Dorien!” a third voice she also recognized said.

  “What do you mean?” the raspy voice asked. “What happened to William and Dorien? What happened to me? Why am I covered in freakin’ hair!?”

  “Oh. My. Vic?” she said as she floated down to the group. “What happened to you?”

  All three men screamed at the sight of the apparition before them. Emily hovered slightly above the swamp surface, completely naked, completely made of pure, transparent liquid.

  Steve didn’t even care about the notification. He focused solely on the vision in front of him, not only as a man enjoying the view but also on her physique, which was perfect. Fit. She was…stunning. It was weird that she was now made of liquid, but that didn’t detract from her beauty.

  She was a solid eight before her change, but now…she’s an 11! he thought.

  Her liquid form was only really evident because of the rippling and the translucence. Other than that, the color of her skin tone was still there, her hair was still blonde, and-ahem-other unmentionables had their own color.

  “Close your mouth, bra,” Pow said with a smirk. Then to Emily he said, “What are you? Did you choose this lineage?”

  She looked at herself without any shame, examining her body and hands. Finally, after a moment she said, “I really don’t know what you mean, lineage. I opened my eyes a little while ago, and I was…like this.”

  She didn’t sound like herself. Her voice was calmer, almost monotone. Steve asked, “Do you see, uh, like banners and words floating around?”

  Emily looked at him and cocked her head to the side. “Words? No, I see two drooling morons and an enormous rat that used to be Vic.” Steve and Pow both wiped their mouths. Vic stood there staring intensely. Calmly, Emily continued, “Vic, why do you look like that? And don’t ask me about the way I look. I don’t know what happened to me, but I like it. A lot. You?”

  “I don’t know. I thought these two were playing some sort of prank on me, but I’m really…I’m really a rat or whatever. I’m…I’m a rat.”

  “Did you choose a…what did you call it Pow said? A lineage?” she asked him.

  “No. I don’t know what that is. I woke up feeling like I got dropped from a plane, threw up, and then saw I…I’m…what happened to us?”

  Vic was on the verge of crying again. His mind reeled with confusing and conflicting thoughts from all directions like an onslaught of dodgeballs being thrown at him.

  “Okay,” Steve said. “What I know is that it is basically the same thing that happened to the rest of us. The biggest difference? We got to choose a lineage, and we can see words that describe things to us.”

  “Yeah,” Pow added. “Like I just earned 100 experience points for finding you, and I can level up to level four.”

  “Like a game?” Vic said angrily. “This,” he gestured at himself with a bit of frustration and then croaked, “is not a game! I’m a frikin’ rat! Like with claws and everything! Oh God, do I have a snout?”

  Pow snickered, “Yeah…you do.”

  Vic charged him, surprised at his own quickness, and grabbed Pow by the shirt. “This is NOT funny!”

  “Calm down,” Emily said. “They obviously didn’t do this to you. They couldn’t have. I believe magic is awakening in this region and is changing everything in its path. I feel different.”

  “Yeah, you could say that,” Steve interrupted, smirking.

  “Better. Stronger.”

  “Prettier,” Pow interrupted.

  “Naked,” Vic said with mirth.

  “Oh, this?” Emily said, looking down at herself teasingly. “I think I can fix…” she hesitated for a moment while her body transformed, adding what looked like a form-fitting blue dress. “There. Is that better, boys?”

  “I mean, no, but yeah...less distracting.” Steve stammered with a devilish grin.

  “Well, we came out here for a reason. I suggest we get to it.”

  Her tone was all business. Matter of fact. Men had flirted with her all her life, but she knew what she liked, and if someone caught her eye, she made sure they knew it. Steve was not one of those men. He was attractive, but he gave off cheater vibes. Plus, she really liked someone else and had for a long time.

  “Vic, we’ll try to figure out what happened to us as we look for Bart and his dad. Did you guys find Susan?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Steve said. “Unfortunately, she didn’t make it.”

  “Oh, no!” Vic exclaimed, voice cracking. “What happened?”

  “Whenever you guys got…um…taken,” Pow said, “that same force threw her into a tree. I’m pretty sure she died quickly.”

  “God! Why?”

  Vic stomped off in a fit of rage, screaming obscenities into the air for a good minute, obviously upset. He had been through a lot. Waking up not only changed into a hideous rat, but he also lost one of his best friends. He fell to his knees sobbing, his thin rat shoulders bouncing uncontrollably.

  Emily floated over to him and rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. Despite her liquid form, no amount of wetness was transferred. Without really thinking about why or how, she channeled magic into her hands, eliciting a calming effect. “I’m sorry. I know this is difficult for you. Vic. We can’t leave you here. We can mourn her passing, but we must pull ourselves together, find Bart and his father, and then get back to town.”

  He sniffed and sputtered, but he stopped crying and stood up, resolved to continue their quest. “O…okay. Thank you…for whatever…thanks.”

  “I understand. It’s okay. I’m here for you if you need to talk.”

  Steve and Pow just watched in amazement; a broken man comforted so easily.

  “I’m okay. Thanks. Steve. Did y’all get all those supplies we brought?”

  “No. We can head back that way and collect though. Do you think you can…” Steve mimed a trigger pull.

  “Shut up. I’m sure I can shoot. Might just try shooting you first.”