The Tentacle crashed into the corner of the building, about halfway up. it crumpled the side of the it, tearing out a gash above Anna. The metal frame shuddered beneath her hands as the sound of shattering glass and tearing steel echoed out over the street.
The sound brought with it fresh wave of dust and even more rubble. One fell right next to her, nearly hitting the side of her head. She tried to stumble away but her back hit the door behind her.
Fear clenched in her abdomen as she realized what had to happen. The nightmare outside replayed over and over again in her mind, each time twisting into something worse.
The steel behind her let out a huge groan, another big chunk of rubble threw up debris right in front of her, flying stone marking a crimson streak on her cheek.
She stood frozen between the crumbling building and what awaited her in the street. An unwanted memory crept into her mind, from long before, where she came across pictures of what someone crushed under tons of rock looked like. Bile rose in her throat once again.
One breath, maybe two, and something shifted behind her. The groaning steel had reached a crescendo and she knew what came next. She was moving before she even made the decision. Her tired legs giving their all, pumping as fast as they could.
Rending steel and crashing concrete echoed across the street as the building came down behind her. Each step taking her further and further away, but not far enough.
She could see the gliders taking to the sky in her peripheral vision before they were engulfed by a wave of smoke and dust pushed out from the collapse.
For one, exhilarating second she thought she was free, before the shockwave threw her off her feet. She barely registered a dull pain before the darkness took her.
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Everything ached. Her legs, arms, torso, head, even her teeth. She opened her eyes slowly, they took a few seconds to refocus.
She didn't know how long she had been knocked out, but the cloud of smoke still obscured everything. A layer of dust had collected on her skin and got in the stinging scrapes that littered her arms. Her head rung from hitting the ground hard.
She rolled onto her stomach and groaned. She slowly pushed herself to her knees, her bruised legs dug into the uneven street below her, but compared to everything else it didn't matter much. She had lost her other shoe in the blast.
From there she struggled to her feet, clinging to a tall bit of rubble to make it up. She took a second to breathe in and out, and nearly jumped when she felt something ooze onto her hand.
She pulled back, staining it was some of the black goo from before. It dripped down the side of the boulder, carving grooves as it went. A burning scent reached her as she realized what just happened.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck"
She shook her hand desperately, trying to shake off the acidic slime on it. A few globules were flung off but an inky residue still remained on it.
She braced herself for a new wave of pain but, besides from some more light stinging, the acid didn't seem to be eating into her hand at all.
She stared for a full few seconds at it, trying to figure out what was going on, before wiping it off on her blouse.
Must not be that acidic after all, she thought to herself, how odd
She tried to look around at where she was, but nothing showed through the dense haze. That is besides a dull flash that periodically shone through the grey. The angel was still fighting too, it seemed.
She stumbled in that direction, it was the only way she knew out.
Step after step she walked, the light growing slightly brighter with every step. A rumble shook through the ground and her stomach plummeted. What she was about to walk into finally registered with her.
Perhaps I should just stay here and wait for everything to die down...
She turned around, then a flash of something blue caught her eye. Reminding her she also wasn't alone in the smoke. The memories of what the gliders had done earlier rose in her mind.
She picked up the pace, something screeched behind her.
A walk turned into a jog, then a run, and finally a full on sprint. She didn't spare a glace behind her but it felt as if a whole flock was right behind her. She could just picture their teeth biting and ripping and tearing pieces from her. Pushing more and more of herself into just getting away.
Finally she reached the edge of the cloud, bursting through to less dusty sunlight. Running headfirst into a hard, heavy, and completely invisible pole.
Of course it was the behemoth.
A shimmer wrapped around what she now realized was a leg, it was nearly as wide as she was. The shimmering distortion moved up from where she had hit it, higher and higher and higher , tracing out more and more of the leg until she had to crane her head just to follow it.
It reached the main body where finally, its true size was revealed to her. More and more of her vision covered with the pure monumentality of its bulk. She was transfixed as more and more of that dark, slimy body she had seen earlier was shown in its true entirety.
It dwarfed her. It dwarfed everything besides the buildings around it. Its gargantuan scale drew something from her so much deeper, and more primal then fear. A pure, unfiltered need to be away from the monster that could crush her like she crushed ants beneath her heel. Whatever she thought she knew about behemoths fled her mind as quickly as her hope did.
She knew she would never forget this feeling for as short as she lived.
Her legs wouldn't, no couldn't, listen to anything anymore. She had hesitated before but now she was well and truly frozen. Transfixed by the horror above her. The thing that had singlehandedly caused the death that surrounded her.
Everything in her sang to stay still and not be noticed by it.
But then, something changed.
In her gut, an ember of hatred grew bigger and bigger. Was this how she was going to die? Under the heel of some monstrous beast, forgotten in the lists and lists of names of the dead across the UAS.
Dying at the whim of some overgrown cephalopod for naught more then being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. dying because the whole damn seas have turned against her.
And it couldn't even give her the dignity to see it coming.
Feeling a rush of energy greater than she had ever felt before, she brought back a foot. Filled with all the anger, the frustration, the disappointment, the self-loathing and even a hint of self-righteousness she brought it forward, kicking right were the leg had been moments before.
"AT LEAST HAVE THE DECENCY TO SHOW YOURSELF," She screamed at the behemoth in one last desperate chance to show it to the world.
It connected with a resounding smack.
The leg didn't budge an inch.
But the monster, the monster listened.