Touch: A survival story. - 23. Bonus Chapter One: Bex.

December first, seven years ago:

There is a creaking. Far from earth. Far from any realm humans have traversed, there is a creaking. A gate, built in ages long past by beings long since gone reverberates with the sound. Buried somewhere deep, the doorway flung into a void beyond the bounds of creation, it rattles. The thing on the other side is slow. Unused to dwelling in a realm where time has but one direction. It is angry, and the gate rattles again, ancient barriers quaking under the force of its blows. It is hungry, but that is alright. If it can hold on, it will soon have a chance to feast. It was their smell that awoke it. A populace grown beyond any conceivable measure. Each one small and weak on their own, not enough to sate it, but in these numbers? They could sustain it for an age. The gate rattles again, and a lock snaps. Good. Only four more to go.

The sound of the break is loud and violent, carrying up through the emptiness, and reaching the ears of a lone sentry. The noise awakens a fear in her, but she is strong. She carries out her duty, and sends warning along lines established millennia ago, readying her people. She is a watcher, assigned to guard the gates since time immemorial, a task performed so long that she no longer remembers what she was before. None of them do, really. Her people spread out, giving their signs, spreading the news to anyone and everyone they meet.

'A beast awakens.'

It is primordial, powerful, one of the first things that lived upon the many worlds, when magic was young, but it has not moved in an age. Its muscles ache. Its body is slow to respond. It spent too long asleep. The gate shatters, and the barriers break with such force that it echoes through the minds of every magician in the adjacent worlds. Any whom the watchers did not inform, the societies that were born and grew in the time since their watch began, are soon alerted. Among them, the humans.

It takes time to break the gate. Longer still to squeeze its lumbering body through the gap. In the time required, an army is formed. Elves, for the most part, acting more on obligation than by altruism. Their mages are strong and numerous. The foe is strong, but together, they are stronger. The gate will be rebuilt, the key crushed and its shards thrown to the winds.

They mass themselves at the entrance to its cavern, over a hundred strong of the mightiest mages from the mightiest magical race, they watch as it slowly forces its way into their realm. They prepare their spells. It feels them there, feels its hunger, takes a breath. They smell strong, the power wafting off of them enough to make it ravenous; but it knows they are too many. It will not win. It will only be able to devour a few before it is forced back behind the gate. That is not enough to sate it. It opts for a different approach.

The gathered mages watch, stoic, as the creature finishes its journey, the end of its tail too wide to fit through the opening, smashing it wider. It glances up at them, and slips sideways from their view. It does not move sideways in a manner that those watching are built to comprehend, however. It slips not through a dimension, but out of it. The creature emerges into the void between the world spheres, and begins to swim. There is no air here, no magic to sustain itself on. It will be weakened when it reaches its destination. That is acceptable. There is much food awaiting it.

The mages are helpless to intervene as the creature passes them by, able, with effort, to sense the thing, but it is beyond their reach. They cannot stop it there. The elves decide they have done their part. They retreat to their home, almost all of their kin from across the many worlds following suit. It cannot breach their home when all of their power rests within it. Together, they are too strong.

Across the many realms, the sundry mages watch as the thing advances, its edges nudging gently at the world spheres as it slips between them. In the worlds it passes by too closely, things are born, springing forth from earth and rock, feral. Soon enough, its destination is determined. The creature heads for earth.

The humans are aware, and many panic. They are saved from chaos only by their secrecy. It is kept quiet. Most of them are not aware of magic. Even among those who are, it is kept quiet. Their communities converse, desperately at first, in fear of the thing. They seek aid from allies in other worlds, but there is little forthcoming.

The dwarves are of no real help against the beast. Their inclinations lie towards the technical, and they offer what help they can, but it is little. The gnomes are of little aid as well. They are spread too thin, their own mages divided between defence of their own homes, and the great cities of the dwarves, with whom they have been allies for far longer. The elves care for their own, and while they would mourn the loss of the human world, they reason that they can easily find different cattle to farm.

The only true aid comes in the form of the goblins, the humans’ newest, greatest ally. They go forth en masse, and their soldiers are there to stand with the race of man when the time comes. They share that world, after all, and it makes sense that they defend it as one.

Slowly, the governments of the human world come to calm. Efforts begin to mount, a cooperation is achieved. The hope is slim; the humans do not have power like the elves or the gnomes, and what few mages they possess are often of a poor calibre, their power largely drawn from interbreeding with other, stronger species. In spite of this, they gather together.

A plan is formed. The humans know their magic is weak, so they devise other means. Unlike the elves, they are learned in the ways that must be used to traverse the spaces between worlds. They, like the dwarves, have learned to craft miracles of metal and stone. The work is undergone with dwarvish aid, a vessel crafted to traverse the emptiness between stars, enchanted to slip outside of reality and face the creature. It is built to carry a weapon, an adaptation of a device used by the humans in decades past to tear whole cities asunder. It will be packed heavy with loose sand and metal, brought up close to the beast, and then the pilot will set the void aflame. The task bears no chance of survival, and of the scarce few with the skills to carry it out, none are forced to take the role. There is more than one volunteer.

November ninth, six years ago:

The vessel is complete. Only hours ago was it finally finished. When debate began over what it should be called, the chosen pilot made a request that no one present had the words to refuse. The ship is named Samantha, in memory of a daughter lost.

The beast approaches, and the ship is launched. The pilot speaks no words as she guides the craft towards it, but for a small gasp as she catches sight of her foe for the first time. Across a dozen worlds, seers watch the strange confrontation. The odd magic of dwarves and men is not well understood in the realms where true magic flows, and they wonder amongst themselves at what strange trickery the humans have in mind. Most agree that it bears no chance of working.

The beast smells a life within the craft, and alters its course. It has swum for a long time, and it is famished. It edges towards the craft, claws ready to tear open the casing and devour its occupant whole. It clamps its talons into the metal as worlds watch.

The pilot utters a last goodbye and presses a photograph of a loved one to her lips, before flicking a single switch. The many worlds gasp as one as the beast is engulfed in a storm of fire and rock. Several seers are rendered blind by a light that, for a single moment, outshines the stars themselves.

When the light clears, the beast is hurting. Its flesh is torn, scales ripped away, its fins ragged and ripped. It is angry, but the flame renewed its strength. It moves faster now.

They have months, at most.

December eighteenth, six years ago.

As the beast draws nearer, the human world falls slowly to chaos. The beast is a wellspring of primordial life, and on its approach, new horrors come to plague the world within its sight. Five of them. Across the earth, hunters gather to fight them, aided by the force of goblin armies, killing these new abominations as and when they are born. Every fight draws a toll. One charge is made against a serpent that tangles an island between its tails. The final blow is dealt by an odd pair: A man who brings forth flame from his hands, and a woman wielding a staff of carven wood.

The many nations scramble to hide the truth from their people, their agencies desperate to find a new, workable plan of attack. The effort is led by a man who speaks in many tongues, traveling the world and calling forth all he can find with a very specific gift. It is a plan inspired by the workings of the gnomes, who fight monsters by giving their champions power from among their people. In every country, those bearing the ability to empower others, regardless of the form, are gathered together, almost a thousand strong, but this is not the challenging part. The world scours itself for an individual with the capacity to bear their aid without both body and mind being torn asunder. It is in the few days prior to the beast’s arrival that one finally comes forth. Not the strongest among them, to be sure, but the strongest of those willing to try.

They wait until the last possible moment, unsure of how long, if at all, their champion will last under the weight of his enchantments. It is only when the beast flickers through into the realm of man that the task is begun. Many hundreds of hands lay themselves upon the champion, layering him with enchantments so numerous and esoteric as to defy rational reason. As the beast begins to breach the upper atmosphere, the man begins to scream.

It is unknown, in the aftermath, how the champion held on. It is known from the accounts of those around him that he ascended into the sky in a bolt of light. The last words the recording device placed on him was able to pick up, beyond the growls and the screaming, were him begging for his mother.

The creature is found in a crater on the Isle of Skye, most of its body burned away, unconscious. It is contained within a mound of molten steel that is then allowed to cool around it, before being layered with runes to seal it.

The champion is found four kilometres to the south, three days later. He is still screaming. His skin cannot be located. He is transferred to a medical facility in Norway, where he is visited once a day by a small girl with the power to induce a peaceful sleep.

The man who speaks in many tongues leads a mission to ferry the beast's container back to the elves, where they may return it to the watchers for safekeeping. There, he barters concessions from them, and strikes their high lord in the face. One of the oldest among the elves watches this, amused, and, unknown to the human, places a small spell upon him. Then, he and his retinue return home. He returns to his family, holds his son close, and reaffirms his love to his wife, happy simply to be alive. Nine months later, a girl is born.

The present day.

Bex lay asleep in her bed, a small smile on her face as she explored the myriad wonderful and exciting adventures that her dreamscape held in store for her. She reoriented slightly against her pillows, and clutched her teddy a little tighter to her chest.