Page 107 of Heart of Dawn
Stomping steps restored the tremors on the approach to Lab 8. The sound came from around the corner up ahead, pink light painted across the floor, growing brighter by the inch.
“You will not win,” Dawn said calmly with its trademark crackle. “I win. You come to die. I will feed on you. I will grow from you. This is my domain.”
A creature rounded the corner, made of pink smoke but properly solid.
“What the fuck?” I said, instinctively shielding Orion.
“Ammit,” Paige responded.
The big fucker had the head of acrocodile, front legs like alion, its back legs… What the hell were those? Hippo?
“Or a representation of her,” my medic added.
Dawn reared, the ground cracking when it came back down. “I can be anything and everything. I am my own god, not the sum of my parts. And I will be free from this shell. From this binding, stifling existence.”
Not so all powerful, then? An artificial god through and through…
I kept that thought locked away.
“What is it you mortals long to hold on to? I have seen your world, the rot within it. Let me give you peace. Let me undo everything.”
And then what? Rule over a bunch of zombies? It’d soon get bored.
“Where’s your heart?” I clapped back, uninterested in its bullshit.
“My heart is mine, chosen wolf. Not yours. Not to be touched. Not to end. Your blood will not unravel my glory.”
Just fuck off.
I saw the sign for Lab 8, its window still intact. If at least one of the replicas slipped past Dawn into it, then?—
Dawn reared again, the paws of its lion legs splitting open. Pink, wormy tendrils wriggled out of them, thrashing, growing in size.
“I will win.”
The pink monstrosities burst from the left paw, hitting a replica. The wormy thing snapped taut around its neck, expanding. Another replica tried to free him, the right paw unleashing on him next.
“Fuck!” I barked, charging forward.
Dawn’s head opened, a gun rising from its skull.
An actual machine gun.
I stood there dumbfounded, not quite believing my eyes. Back in the day, I’d pass this off as too much beer. One of those rare Saturday nights I got to unwind with my pack. Kick back and drink and stuff my face.
But this was real.
Deadly real.
The gun whirred.
“Christ!” James yelped, slamming the fob onto the panel of Lab 7, bellowing the demanded password.
The door opened, a biter tumbling out. He crashed into the dead woman, his wife right behind him.
Orion grabbed my hand, dragging me to the doorway, shoving some sense into me.
I took the hand of a replica, yanking him inside as the gun let rip.
