The Nextworld Invasion and the Death of Magic - 27. Chapter 27 - More Organs

Othri grabbed a second voider from the forest floor, slung it over his shoulder, and cautiously reentered the maintenance door that led into the building adjacent to the Temple.

No other soldiers were inside, and Othri crept to the hole that had been smashed through the wall by his magical wall-destroyer. On the other side was an empty hallway that he followed to a corner, and around it, he found the door that led out of the temple. There had been four guards positioned outside it, and he had no way of knowing if any of the Humans who now lay slain were the four who had been stationed there.

Across the hall from the door that led out, there was another that led deeper into the temple. Othri raised his new weapon and pulled open the inner door, but he staggered as he entered the chamber.

Row upon row of machines lined the cavernous room, and each device was holding something vaguely alive. Fleshy things twitched, held in place by metallic clamps, but none of the things Othri saw seemed complete. Like the decomposing remains in the forest of what appeared to be partial creatures, no entire animals were in the room. The grotesque semblances of life revulsed Othri. His head spun as his eyes focused on one twisted abomination after another.

An oversized rabbit’s leg with feathers… The furry limb of a hooved animal with small protrusions of bone growing in a row, like a saw’s teeth from the knee to the ankle… The back half of a fish with twitching fins… A bear’s head with snapping jaws but no eyeballs in the orbital sockets…

The machines that held each piece of animal flashed with lights that glowed red and ominous in the gloom of the chamber. Othri could not guess how many machines there were or how far back into the chamber they went. His brain told him there was movement coming from one side, but his eyes were locked on the monstrosities before him. Each machine held another terror.

A bloated rodent-like body with tentacles… Insect legs extending from a lump of pulsating pink flesh, like bugs trapped in a ball of ground meat… Some sort of flipper… There were also countless fusions that he did not recognize at all.

Almost too late, Othri realized a Human was charging at him. He ducked and braced himself as his assailant slammed into his muscular shoulder, and as swiftly as Othri hunched down, he rose and buried his elbow into the man’s back. The Human hit the floor, and Othri lashed out with a fierce knuckle-punch to the kidney.

He quickly scanned the room for other Humans and grabbed what turned out to be a scientist by the hair, yanking him to his feet. Othri glared at the man with his orange eyes. He was skinny, and if Humans aged at a similar rate to the Urcai people, he appeared to be about the same age as Othri.

The scientist coughed, and a little blood splattered across his lip. “What the hell is an orc doing here?” he managed.

“Why do you Humans keep calling us orcs?” Othri growled through his teeth.

The scientist was clearly confused by Othri’s words, but the injuries that had been inflicted upon him left the man weakened, and his knees buckled. Othri released his grip on the scientist’s hair, and the man collapsed to the floor at Othri’s feet.

“What is this room?” Othri asked. He looked around at the miscellaneous bizarre animal parts, held in their state of half-life by the many machines. “I thought a building called the temple was going to be some sort of science workshop, but this…”

The information Dorjin had given Othri about the cloning facility had not prepared him for what he encountered. Life was sacred to the free peoples of Earth. The Urcai, the Noktar, and the Rothians celebrated life and nature, but Humans seemed to corrupt everything they touched.

Othri brought the void stick to the scientist’s forehead, and a blue flash removed it from the man’s shoulders. After a quick sweep through the rest of the large room and finding no other Humans, Othri approached the front door that would lead out to where the four soldiers had been stationed. He hesitated and listened, but he heard nothing. Tigath was hidden in the forest on its other side. Othri steeled himself and yanked the door open.

“Oh, thank the universe!” Tigath cried, rushing out of the trees to his beloved.

The four soldiers were not there.

Tigath wrapped his arms around Othri’s strong neck. “I wanted to come in and help,” Tigath whispered, “when the guards rushed inside. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Othri pulled back from Tigath and stared into his purple eyes. “It’s worse in there than you can imagine. I don’t…” He hesitated. “You’ll see.”

“What do you mean, Othri? What’s inside?”

Othri shook his head. “I don’t know what I was expecting,” he replied, “but it wasn’t this.” He looked back at the entrance. “The Humans inside are dead. Let’s go.”

The two of them entered the facility, but as they reached the door to the inner chamber, Tigath staggered back.

“What are those things?” he asked in a quavering voice, staring down the rows of machines with the uncanny animal body parts. “Are they real?”

“The Humans are growing these pieces in order to perform their twisted magic,” Othri replied.

Tigath’s purple eyes were full of horror. “Can’t you feel the life in this room, Othri? It’s all wrong. These things aren’t real life.”

“No,” Othri agreed, “they’re not.” He took Tigath’s hand. “And I’m sorry you had to see this. Let’s get to the stairs that lead below. They’re back in the corner.”

A square staircase extended beneath the surface into the bedrock of Nextworld, and as the pair descended, lamps flickered to life. The bottom of the stairs was only a few stories down, and at their end was another door.

Tigath turned its handle and pulled it open.

The room was dark.

Othri held up a hand for Tigath to wait as he entered.

There was a muffled thump, and Othri dropped to the floor.

Tigath rushed in and saw a scientist holding a mechanical metal block with blood on it, and he roared, “If you’ve hurt Othri!”

The darkness of the room was replaced by an instantaneous flash of brilliant light. Tigath was shocked. It was as if the shadows became solid, and the light forced the darkness into the Human. Then the room was dark again.

The scientist collapsed beside Othri, and blood began to trickle out of his ears, nose, and the corners of his eyes. Tigath ignored the Human and dropped to his knees next to his love.

“Othri, are you okay?”

The back of Othri’s head was bleeding, but he groaned and pushed himself up off the floor. “Wha-what happened?”

Tigath looked very excited, and his expression confused Othri, whose head was ringing.

“I got to see it!” Tigath declared, and he pointed. “Nature just killed that Human, and I didn’t black out this time! I’m not sure what happened, but there was a bright light, and the scientist just died. But are you okay? He smashed you in the head with whatever that heavy device is.”

Othri brought his hand to the back of his head and pulled it away with blood on his fingertips.

“Let me take a closer look at your injury,” Tigath insisted. “Come out into the stairwell where there’s more light.” He helped Othri to his feet, and the two green men made their way out of the darkness. “It’s not too bad,” Tigath reassured as he examined Othri’s wound. He looked back at the room. “Now, where’s the control for the lights in this place?” He stepped into the doorframe and began to feel the walls on either side. “Ah-ha! Found it!” Tigath flipped it, and the lamps in the ceiling began to flicker to life. The first was above his head, and the men looked down at the corpse of the scientist who had been killed by shadow. “This Human deserved that,” Tigath said quietly. The next light came on, and then the next, and the next. “All these Humans deserve to die.”

Othri could not help but feel comfort again at Tigath’s harsh words. They were still staring at the corpse.

“These monsters have invaded our homeworld and slaughtered the free peoples, our people,” Tigath continued. He looked up and around the lab, and his righteous anger shifted to terror and disgust. “Are those Human body parts?!”

The lower chamber was filled with the same type of medical machinery as the room above, but instead of the devices holding semi-living animal pieces in a variety of unnatural combinations, these machines held twisted Human pieces.

Othri did not like the implications of what he was seeing. “Are they using their own body parts for their magic?”

The machine closest to them cradled a flabby leg, but its foot had more than the normal five toes; the foot was covered with toes in a variety of sizes. There were also four rows of glassy eyeballs growing in the leg’s meaty thigh. Each row had five unfocused eyes, and all of them looked in different directions.

That was just the beginning. Every Human-adjacent piece was wrong in so many ways.

A face with no nose or eyes, but teeth sprouting all over the cheeks like tiny pale seedlings… Two squirming hands covered with fingers but also tongues, too numerous to count while wriggling…

Tigath and Othri could hardly believe what they witnessed.

An oversized and bloated torso growing long body hair… A bulbous mound of grey flesh with multiple flaccid penises dangling from it…

“This is a lot to process,” Tigath whispered. He tied back his long, purple locks, but then he let them down again in a self-soothing way.

“Do you want to wait in the stairwell while I deal with everything else?” Othri offered.

“No, I’m staying with you. Let’s get it done. Where’s the access hatch Dorjin told us about?”

“She said it’s in one of the back corners. I’ll check this one. You take that one.”

Tigath was startled to find another Human scientist cowering under a desk near the corner.

The man cried aloud in fear and clambered out from his hiding place. “Heresy! Blasphemy! Keep away from me, you disgusting orcs! How did you monsters even get into Nextworld?!”

To Othri’s surprise, Tigath grabbed a surgical knife off an exam table and slashed it across the scientist’s throat.

“Tigath!” Othri yelled in alarm.

The man clutched at his neck and dropped to his knees as Tigath growled, “Every one of you deserves to die.”

Othri stepped up behind Tigath, gently took the back of his hand that held the knife, and slipped it from his grip.

Tigath crouched close to the dying Human, staring at the man as he bled out before him.

“Tigath, are you okay?” Othri asked.

“It may have taken me a while,” Tigath replied, turning his purple eyes up toward Othri, “but I’ve seen enough to have me fight back.”