"Oh shit, that was a masterpiece it looks epic, especially the last scene: you, blood‑drenched, standing like a heroine. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Stella, a badass, holy‑strong independent woman," I said, staring at her. Then I draped my jacket over her shoulders.
She slipped it on and smirked. "Yeah, you're alright. That was only twenty percent of my power."
"You can tell me what that thing was?" I asked, voice tight.
"That was a *Deroloc *, a creature with special abilities that eats people's hearts," she said, now standing right in front of me.
"Where do they come from? Why the hearts? Explain, please."
"No one knows the exact reason," she answered. "But I'm sure they're connected to the sun's disappearance."
"Wait, you're saying heart‑eating super‑creatures made the sun vanish? Sounds like internet conspiracy nonsense aliens invading to wipe us out," I muttered while heading for the car.
"Something like that," she said, following.
I stopped. "Hold on, you're also a Deroloc?"
"Type Two," she nodded, as I twisted the key. The engine wouldn't even cough, wrecked from her earlier collision.
With no car, I pricked my finger and let her taste a drop of blood so she could track my mom. A week of nightmares later, she pinpointed her in a fifty‑story tower once owned by my grandmother, fifteen minutes by car, maybe forty on foot. We set out. The streets were deserted.
Breaking the silence, I asked, "What does Type Two mean?"
"It's my rank," she said. "Three types: Type One is strongest. I'm tough, but 3 is weak like that, man."
"No way he punched you into the air. That's at least twenty man‑power," I said, a crooked grin sneaking in.
"For humans, sure. For us, he's weak, maybe fifty man‑power," she shrugged.
A sudden yell echoed from a side street shrouded in darkness. Two dying lamps flickered; trash spilled over the curb. We went to investigate.
A handful of masked figures loomed over someone on the pavement. Instinct flared inside me. "Problem? What's wrong with that person?" My tone came out cold and stone.
"Mind your business, man," one thug snapped.
"And if I don't?" I shifted my stance.
"We'll beat the shit out of you, rape your lady, kill her, and mail you the pieces every Thanksgiving," he sneered, the others laughing.
Stella stepped forward, laid a calm hand on my shoulder, and smiled. Her eyes began to glow. In the same instant, the gangsters screamed, clawing at their faces as if hell itself had swallowed them. They bolted, leaving their victim behind.
I turned to her. "What was that?"
"Delusion is one of my abilities," she said.
"Doesn't sound healthy."
"It's handy." She was still full of surprises.
We hurried to the fallen figure, a teenage girl, bruised and unconscious. We lifted her and carried her toward the tower. She looked almost as beautiful as Stella.
After twenty‑five long minutes picking our way through busted streets and broken storefronts, we reached the tower district, once a neat line of glass offices, now a row of cracked teeth. Wind whistled between the empty buildings, pushing the smell of smoke and dust into our faces. Two old maple trees lay on their sides like someone had axed them for sport; sap leaked across the flagstones, sticky and bright in our flashlight beam. Shattered windows looked down on us like blind eyes. We stepped over spilled planters and a food truck on its side, the stale odor of burnt coffee clinging in the air.
We headed down the ramp to the basement garage. Pipes dripped, lights flickered, and concrete sweat hung in the air. Five security guards, the same guys who used to fist‑bump me when I visited my grandmother, were sprawled across the floor. Someone had cut out their tongues and sliced every finger from hands and feet, then stuffed the pieces back into their own stomach wounds. Thick, dark blood puddled under their bodies and shivered in the bad light. A clang rang deeper in the garage, maybe a pipe, maybe a fallen body. I gripped the girl in my arms a little tighter, glad she was still out cold; one look at this and her mind could snap. Even Stella looked rattled, her calm eyes cracking for a second.
I wanted to charge in and find my mom, but hauling an unconscious girl made me slow and loud, perfect prey. I handed Stella my flashlight and told her to scout. She inhaled once, like a swimmer before a long dive, then slipped into the dark.
I crouched behind a dusty SUV. A broken sprinkler tapped out a jittery beat on the concrete. Thirty minutes crawled by; then forty‑five. At the one‑hour mark, my stomach twisted so hard I nearly gagged. Every creak sounded like approaching footsteps.
The girl jerked awake. She sucked air, slapped me across the cheek, and scrambled until her back hit a pillar. Pain burned, but I kept my voice calm.
"How do you feel?"
"Who are you?" she snapped, fear and anger tangled in her voice.
"We pulled you away from some guys who were beating you," I said. "You're safe, well, safer than before."
She eyed me, then the garage. "Thanks… I guess."
I slid my pack toward her. "Big question: the sun's gone. We're stuck in permanent night."
She scoffed. "End of the world?"
"Come on." I helped her up the ramp. Above us, the sky was pure black, no moon, no stars. A busted billboard flickered in the distance.
"It's one in the morning," I said, showing my watch.
Her sarcasm vanished. "You're serious?"
"Dead serious. Creatures that look human are ripping out hearts. Stella, one of them, went in to find my mom."
Metal groaned. The elevator doors down the hall slid open. We ducked behind a pillar. Two tall shapes stepped out: slick black hair, eyes like ink, coats soaked in blood. One dragged a claymore, sparks dancing along the floor. Without speaking, they hot‑wired a dusty Range Rover and peeled off.
When the engine noise faded, I faced the girl. "Stay here," I said. She shook her head. After a whispered fight, she agreed to wait inside the elevator and shut the doors if anything happened.
The lift rattled upward. At each stop, the doors opened onto scenes worse than horror movies: walls painted in wild slashes of blood, limbs hanging from busted light fixtures. By floor twenty‑two, I saw bodies of Derolocs, too misshapen things with plated skin and claws, limbs hacked clean. Maybe Stella had been fighting here.
On twenty‑seven, a silver locket Mom's lay snapped on the floor, the photo of us still inside. On thirty‑six, I found my own jacket, stained but intact. I rushed back to the elevator. The girl was gone.
My mind split: find her or keep going? Mom came first. I pressed on.
Thirty‑seven through forty‑four were the same: death, bullet casings, claw marks scorched into walls. At forty‑five, I heard shuffling behind a barricaded door. Inside, bowls of water held flickering candles, and thirty or so people crouched in silence, using frantic sign language. Two familiar faces, Mom and Grandma, made my chest burst. I sprinted over, tears coming fast.
"Why did you come here?" Mom whispered, hugging me like she'd never let go.
"I was worried about you," I said.
Grandma explained in a trembling voice: people with glowing eyes had stormed in, driven residents mad, and started cutting out hearts. That's when she and Mom fled here with others.
I promised to get them home, but I needed to find Stella and the girl first. They begged me to stay; I couldn't. I headed up.
Floors forty‑six to forty‑nine held small groups hiding in closets and utility rooms. Finally, on the fifty penthouse level, everything looked untouched, floor gleaming, walls unscarred. A man appeared: tall, perfect black coat, long dark hair, eyes bright silver. Behind him, Stella and the girl knelt, wrists bound by thorny chains pulsing like veins.
I charged. In one blur, he moved. White pain exploded; four fingers flew, my right eye went dark. I crashed to my knees. He leaned close.
"Another flawed heart," he said, voice too smooth.
Darkness swallowed me.
I woke days later in my own bed, hand bandaged, an eyepatch blocking half my view. Mom, Grandma, and my buddy Steve sat nearby. They said I'd nearly bled out, drifting in fever dreams for two weeks. Steve told me he'd met a crimson‑eyed man on the road who stopped his car with a gesture and dragged off a scared kid Steve had tried to save.
Steam from Steve's "best‑guess stew" drifted in. My hand throbbed. I had half a hand, one eye, but Stella and that young girl were somewhere in the dark, maybe waiting on me. Courage isn't measured in spare parts. If I don't try, who will? I can't sleep easily while they're out there.
I just know them, I do not own them, nothing, so why would I care?