Page 178 of Alchemised
The blood drained from her head.
“Don’t worry, they’re all mine,” she dimly heard Ferron say. “Now then, let’s see you fight with vivimancy.”
He said something else but she couldn’t hear him anymore. Her eyes were trapped on the necrothralls that were all shuffling into the room towards her. Their faces blank.
There were so many.
They crowded towards her. She was trapped. Trapped with them. She couldn’t escape.
They’d all close in.
“You call yourself a vivimancer. Show me.”
She barely heard his words.
It’s not the hospital. You’re not in the hospital, she told herself, but every time she tried to breathe, her chest clenched tighter. She managed to step back.
She held one hand out, to ward them off, but it shook violently.
“Marino.” Kaine’s voice was annoyed. “Are you more afraid of thralls than you are of me? I’m actually offended.”
“F-Ferron, call them off,” she said, a tremor in her voice. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the necrothralls.
“No. I want to see you fight.”
“I don’t want to fight,” she said, backing away farther. “Stop it. You said I could say no to things. I’m saying no.”
Her voice was rising.
“They’re corpses. You said you can protect yourself. Show me!”
Her stomach clenched, her legs threatening to give out.
“Let them go.” Her voice shook.
“You take any out, and I’ll burn them.” His tone was sardonic, as if the whole thing were funny. “Come on now. Show me what you’ve got.”
The necrothralls fanned out, backing her into the corner. Her shoulders hit a wall.
“Ferron!” Her voice was sharp, a note of hysteria in it. “Call them off. I don’t want to do this!”
“This is war.” His voice came from somewhere beyond the bodies crowding around her. “You don’t get to want; you get to live or die.”
She shrank back, making herself as small as she could. Her throat was closing, as if fingers were already wrapped around it. They’d slit her wide open.
She screamed and shoved her hands out.
Everything turned red.
Everything.
She blinked and couldn’t see anything but the dark coagulating blood dripping down her face. It covered her skin, sticking to her lashes. There were no necrothralls now, just bits and pieces of bodies.
Her knees gave out, and she slid down the wall to the floor, gripping the strap of her satchel.
She could taste the blood in her mouth. The scent of decomposition was thick in the air. She was still suffocating, choking on blood and viscera as she tried to breathe.
Two hard hands gripped her shoulders.
