Snippet #1979488

The turmoil that festered within the girl was more obvious than she knew. The sensation of her own psyche battling itself between her own mind and that of the zenith was something that I'd experienced before, but the companionship between my zenith and I seemed to be completely different than how they were doing. We were more cohesive and a stronger bond early on, but different personalities and different people might find that transformation harder.

Being a slave all my life, maybe I was more malleable? Agreeable to the core, perhaps, but the things that it told me now were beyond anything anyone had ever invested in me. The potential to do anything. The growth of my powers could be exponential, if only I acted upon them. I felt the surge as I slipped beneath the tent's heavy exterior and vanished into the dark green underbrush. Evening had been setting in to the cove as this progression came about and I took a glance to the skies, noticing the erratic cloud configurations and yet they stopped when my eyes fell upon them. I was connected to these in by some unknown soul-based force that I couldn't explain, yet I commanded and they performed like vast puppets. I tilted my head with a bit of intrigue and curiosity while commanding and they reacted.

A heavy fog fell upon the cove. It was so dense that one couldn't see beyond two arms lengths in front of them and the alarm that this caused in the forest was rather amusing to me. I watched them through my Mind's Eye, witnessing their flailing arms, trying to find trees and each other as I approached from the south under the cover of the clouds and the silence of their own cries. Before you strike, Nis -- feel them out. Focus on their anxiety and tell me what you feel? The voice echoed inside of my head and like a good little puppet I paused, nearly ten feet from the first man who hadn't a clue I was there.

I feel ... his pulse. His heart is racing.

Very good. Feel out his vein-network due to the motion and flow of blood and you can determine his movements from this. His thoughts betray him openly. You can read his mind to discover more, if you wish. These are all things you must master as though you were breathing. Putting on clothes. Blinking. It should come naturally -- instinctively.

A surge crossed over my body with the zenith's words and without hesitation I stooped to snatch up a stick and with a powerful speed and strike, I buried the fractured stick into the man's juggular, pinpointing the pulsing artery, filled with blood pumping to his brain. After stabbing it in, I'd rode him to the ground and with a gentle thump of silence, he struggled for only a moment. I had jerked out the stick and the hot, sticky blood spurted all over my hand with one blubbering gush of his pumping heart. I hung over him like an animal in the shadowed fog, looming in a squat over his lifeless form and stared at his surprised face and puncture would with a malicious gaze. The zenith was hungry within -- and I fed him necessity.

I had dropped the stick and took a few steps back to kneel over the man's legs, searching his pockets. I found a small shiv in his hand that couldn't have been more than four inches long, but that was plenty long enough for what I would do to these men. I'd paid the gold cost and took the my reward from his corpse, crawling over a log toward the west where the fanned out line was drawing across the forest rather noisily. They called out from one end of the chain to the other. It passed from person to person, and when it came to the end guy, I grinned and made a guttural bellow which they bought without question.

The zenith within me had created a monster. I was faster. Stronger. I felt the rage within my veins and dared to use it without question. The next man in the line broke the silent streak I was half-assedly trying to maintain, when I dashed at him like a jaguar, thrusting the shiv with swift strikes in my bloody, right hand. The first caught him square in the middle of the calf muscle, which buckled his right knee to the ground and he cried out in pain. Latching onto his head with my left hand, I grabbed onto his nose with grubby fingers and dirty fingernails, clawing and wrenching his skull back as I thrust again. A kidney puncture. Again, a lung puncture. And then with a spin, I put it into his esophagus and jerked it to the right, shredding the flesh into ribbons with a dull blade.

I held his body to mine, feeling the warmth of his life spilling across my chest and legs. I grinned and whispered in his ear, feeling the his soul leaving his body with convulsions and throaty gurgles, "You're all going to die..." I could hear them hollering for the man who cried out. They were bunching, my mind told me and moving toward me. It was all I could do to keep my composure and excitement. The kinetic energy swamped my frame like a squall, the atmosphere around me was so thick that it felt like sweat -- tangible and energetic.