It was another restless night staring straight into the figurative eye of Sauron. Once more my head pounded relentlessly as the old wind up clock hammered on brass bells. As painful as the sound was every morning it was the only alarm that lasted longer than a week. I took my time rising as I did every morning at this ungodly hour. I could already smell food in the kitchenette so I let my nose guide me as I walked blindly into the dining area. My hand landed on someone. They didn’t hesitate to lead me to a stool presumably with their eyes still as firmly shut as mine. The familiar sound of a glass landing on the counter in front of me had me take a quick peek. Stabbing pain met me with the light as I took note of the positions of everything in front of me. Juice as well as grits and sausage had been placed in front of me.

I began to dig in when I heard Tara clear her throat. “Any luck on finding a new job yet?”

I chewed on her question as much as the food before I answered, “I’ve called all the places we looked up as well as sending all my credentials but I haven’t heard anything back yet.”

“Good.” She sighed. “Driving a forklift for a little bit of nothing is beneath you.”

“Yeah, it’s tough trying to find a job with a degree in physics without connections, but we gotta eat till then.” I tried to give my roommates a reassuring smile but I’m certain it came out a wince with my slowly subsiding headache.

I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder. I cracked my eyes open to see Tibs. “We got you buddy, we’re all in this together.”

I felt myself smile at that before I returned the gesture. “Once we get me someplace more appropriate maybe we can get you out of that call center.”

He let out a little snort before retorting, “Sure we can provided you get there before I’m running the place. I let myself laugh at his easy confidence before we all fell into companionable silence.

—————————-

Thunder rumbled overhead as I stepped off the bus. I was only a few blocks from the warehouse I where I worked. The storm clouds made it dark enough to seem like dusk as opposed to early morning. I held my umbrella close incase I didn’t make it inside before the rain came. I would almost swear I could feel the power roiling above me.

I made it to work with time to spare so I spent a few minutes catching up with my coworkers on our weekend outings. It was pleasant but nothing special. I generally liked the people that I worked, so my low pay was my only point of contention.

Shaking off the visions of people at the top laughing at me for how little could get away with paying me, I turned back to the manucia of his tasks. I pulled on my steel toe work boots and clipped on my various tools and badges. It depressed me a bit how mind numbingly boring it could be to operate heavy machinery like the forklift I climbed onto, but i had to eat so I focused and cranked the old beast up.

Hours seemed to pass steadily as I moved crates to the trucks to be shipped out all over the city and surrounding towns. The rain beat down heavily on the metal roof as thunder shook the building. I was not looking forward to standing in the pouring rain after work.

A crash echoed through the building and I couldn’t help but crane my neck to look at the sudden disturbance. One of the side doors were swinging open. Wind pushed rain through the open portal. Lightning flashed and I saw someone standing there in the rain. I sat transfixed on the scene as he deliberately stepped inside. Even from this distance it was easy to track him through the shelves by the bright yellow rain poncho he was wearing. I couldn’t see his hands or face from where I was sitting but he seemed to have a slight build and be of average height. Finally he cleared the shelves and looked at me from deep inside that neon hood. His face seemed twisted maybe even burned and dull eyes locked on to me. Slowly his arms appeared from the yellow shroud. They were gnarled and twisted things that hung low to his sides as he stared daggers at me.

He stood there for a long moment, hostility rolling off him in waves. He was still a dozen feet away but he still shot an arm forward like he meant to strike me. Time seemed to slow as I watched the malformed arm elongate as it sped across the distance between us. I dove from the seat. I could feel the wind behind the blow pass by me. I rolled as i landed. The shrieking of metal assaulted my ears. I barely slowed my roll to see that part of the forklift i had just been sitting on had been sheared away.

I continued the roll until I was in the next isle. I got my feet under me and moved with the urgency only terror can really bring. A throaty screech told me all I needed to urge me faster. I turned a corner as I heard a crash. The impact of something slamming. into the ground behind me threatened to send me sprawling. In my stumble I caught sight of a crate that would have crushed me flat even if it hadn’t just been hurdled at least dozens of feet or more.

It didn’t matter what happened behind me I just had to be gone. Panic kept me moving until I saw one of the floor to ceiling shelving crash down ahead of me. I tried to stop but I slammed into heavy industrial steel. I turned to run back the other way but another unit came down from the other wall boxing me in. It was either try to climb over either of shelves or deal with that thing that had ripped them right out of the concrete they had been set into. The solid outer wall was to my back as I saw one of the largest crates on the bottom shelf be torn away.

The thing stepped through the hole, its body was larger than before. When he first appeared he seemed almost fail now he had almost three times the bulk. His clothes strained against his flesh. His right arm nearly reached the floor as it writhed bonelessly. As he came forward its body seemed to shrink back down. His arm came back to the approximation of a human limb. His hood had been blown back in the chase. His face looked like someone had molded a person out of wax and left it out in the afternoon sun. Patches of dirty brown hair clung to his head in random patches, as if he were prone to occasionally tearing it out. Those dead, doll-like eyes never moved from me.

I might only have one chance to escape so I would have to time things perfectly. He was robotic as he made his way to me, never wavering never blinking. I would need him in far enough he so couldn’t trap me again. Pushing off from the wall I ran at him, I expected a reaction of some kind but he pushed ever closer. I tried to slide past like a baseball player but the arm just shot out and grabbed me by the neck. It coiled around my neck like a snake and slowly lifted me into the air. I reached into my pocket and found my knife. I flipped out the blade with a practiced motion and put my strength and fear into the thrust. A sickening ping greeted my ears as I watched my knife blade spiral off into the distance. The handle fell useless from my fingers. It was all I could do to hold on to the slick, rope-like flesh to take some of the weight off my neck.

I had no time to prepare for when he smashed me into the wall. Stars and pain filled my world for a moment until my eyes refocused on the man-like thing in front of me. His lips had spread to show needle like teeth and his lower jaw had split into 2 halves. It spoke at me and its voice grated on my everything. “This was all you had? I expected more from some pathetic wretch that would make an enemy of MY LORD!’ He roared the last part with is alien voice that didn’t fit anything I knew.

He was going to kill me. It was the only rational explanation, not that rationality hadn’t checked out a few minutes ago. This would be where my life flashed before my eyes before it splattered me against the wall, assuming I was lucky. It wasn’t a memory that met me but a feeling, like a being hyped up on far too much coffee but so much more. I could feel it in my blood, an action practiced to the point of thoughtlessness. I could feel intent, cultivated over long hours guide my hand forward. I tried to speak but i only managed to open my mouth wordlessly like a fish. It cocked its head to the side before loosening its hold. I told a deep breath before I spoke, “If you're going to kill someone don't monologue like an asshole!”

He had begun to squeeze when I let that old feeling run wild. Light and sound exploded from my fingertips. I landed hard on the concrete floor coughing. I resisted the urge to close my eyes but kept it in my sight. He, it, landed a few feet back smoke rising from his chest. I got to my feet before I could see what I had done. I had managed to blow a basketball sized hole in his chest. I couldn’t see any bones or organs I recognized so he was probably not human, at least not anymore. As I breathed my world seemed to expand. I had been blind. No that wasn’t right. I had blinded myself, I had chosen to do this to myself. The storm still rumbled overheard and I could feel it with such clarity.

The creature before me jerked. It sat up suddenly fixing me with fury clear on its face. It shrieked and leaped for me. I went up, over it until I felt my toes connect with something metal. I spared a glance to see my boots holding me to one of the ceiling struts. I had just pushed enough electricity into the plates in my boots to magnetize them, huh. That's neat, I had forgotten I could do that.  Focusing on that feeling I spread that power wider. I could feel all that metal I was hanging above. I spread my arms wide before I brought them back together, the movement wasn’t strictly necessary but it helped to shape my intent. The two fallen shelving units scraped over the concrete as they came together. They picked up speed as they approached crushing the creature between them. It squirmed between them trying to come at me again.

Since I had felt the storm before I might as well use it, focus it. I gathered my will, commanding the power to gather. I forced that power to condense struggling to keep it contained. I let it fly with a wordless shout and thunder swallowed my voice as it rained lightning.