Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) (44 page)

YOUR NON-SENSORY PERCEPTION HAS INCREASED

The window hung in front of my face, prompted by the sensors of the now local-access-only VR chip still embedded in my skull.
 

I stared at my hand in a mixture of curiosity and horror.
 

Then the seizure started, and all curiosity slipped away. Pain ruptured my consciousness, and my eyes rolled back in my head as my body flailed on the couch.
 

There was only pain and flashing lights behind my eyelids for a while, and then I started to see things in the lights. Most of them passed too fast or were too strange for me to understand. Blood, yellowing teeth, mold growing over a sick child's cheek, and a dizzying rush of sensations and images that I didn't catch but which filled me with fear and the sick feeling of decay and ruination all the same.
 

Then, it settled down, and I saw a huge mountain towering above a beautiful land filled with dark-rippling fire. I stood on the mountainside, and knew that at the top sat power unimaginable. Then the ground trembled beneath my feet and my perception changed like a child that looks up at the sky and realizes they are about to fall off the bottom of the world. I understood the power dwelt not at the top, but beneath me, and I stood on a gargantuan body only pretending to be a mountain.
 

I woke up then, but still my physical eyes did not open.
 

Instead, I lingered in a body not my own. A man's body, and his thoughts, and his world. A vague part of me realized that I was dreaming of being someone else, but the other part of me was too caught up in the sensation of the moment to care.
 

I looked up at the moons, showing through the still brightening morning sky. I stood at the top of a small grassy knoll looking out over a lake. This place, at least, still lay untainted. I smiled, and lifted something over my shoulder with a strength I'd never experienced in my real body. I wanted to protect this land, my land, and my people. I turned then, and saw a face peeking out at me from behind a tree. A beautiful girl grinned at me and my heart filled with happiness.
 

Then I woke up, gasping and looking up at the peeling-plaster ceiling of our rented room. I rolled off the couch onto my hands and knees, choking and gulping back sobs. Tears dropped rapidly onto the wooden boards between my hands, and I shook my head in confusion. I felt a deep-seated sense of loss, heartbreak almost, as if something precious had been ripped away from me.
 

I sobbed as quietly as possible, but someone placed a cool hand on my back in comfort. I jerked away from it, and looked up to see Adam.
 

He knelt beside me on the floor and just rubbed my back silently.

After a while, the sobs calmed down, and I wiped my face. "J—just a dream," I hiccupped. I doubted the truth of that. The ring puzzle had given me a vision, but the second part had been different. It had a kind of mental scent to it, which I’d felt before. It smelt the same as the time I’d been expanding my senses under China’s tutelage and had felt like I was somewhere else, and the same as when I’d been in the woods at our base, breaking under the pressure. “The crazy thing is, it was k—kind of a nice dream."
 

"Sometimes those are the hardest. When you wish they were real, and then have to wake up to reality," he said quietly, the soothing hand still on my back.
 

That wasn't quite it, but I didn't have the desire or the energy right then to try and explain what had happened, so I just nodded. "Sorry I woke you," I sniffled.
 

He shook his head. "I was already awake. It's one of the side effects of the Seeds augmenting my body. I just can't sleep as much as I used to."
 

"Oh."

"You should go back to sleep, though. Come on," he waved me back up onto the pallet and pulled a light blanket over me. "I'll stay with you until you fall asleep."
 

"Adam..."I said hesitantly.
 

He smirked. "I'm not going to tell anyone you were crying like a little girl, Eve. Just turn over and go to sleep."
 

I wrinkled my nose and turned my back to him.
 

He rubbed my back soothingly, over and over till I fell asleep, but all I could think of was that feeling in my dream, that happiness.
 

* * *

On the ninth day since the last Trial, Blaine drove us all into what remained of the real countryside. We thought the Trials would be nine days apart from the last one on, but the exact time the Boneshaker would start was a tension-causing mystery.
 

I sat next to Zed, berating myself that he was seated in this van, facing this fear along with us, because of me. "I should have never let this happen to you," I murmured.
 

He turned to me in surprise. "Let this happen to me? You didn't have anything to do with it. Well, except..."

"That you did this for me. Right? You did this for me, and if I'd been more careful, hadn't left that Seed, hadn't let you know anything was wrong..."

"You mean if you'd lied and kept secrets from me better." He clenched his jaw.
 

"Yes. Exactly! No matter what, I should have kept you safe and separate from all this."

"And then I'd go about my life blissfully unaware and happy? Is that what you think? That’s not how it works. If I didn't figure it out now, it would have happened eventually. Or maybe I'd never understand, and just go about my life wondering what happened to you and why you disappeared. That's not what I want. You didn't cause this. I chose this."

"You didn't know what you were choosing!" I hissed. "Not knowing is better. It's better than knowing because you’re forced to live it!"

"If you'd told me, I'd have known! And I would still—” he cut off as the Boneshaker started to play, reverberating through us all. "What is that?"

"The Boneshaker," Jacky said grimly. "It will get loud."

Adam grunted. "At least it's better than listening to you two bicker," he said to Zed and me.
 

"Better step on it," I said to Blaine.
 

He nodded, and started to accelerate past the point where the pod beeped an incessant speed limit warning and started to shudder lightly.
 

Sam gripped the seat beneath him and took a deep breath. "Are you sure this is safe?"

Blaine frowned. "It should be safe?"

"
Should
be?" Sam's grip tightened more, and he looked out the window at the blurring scenery as the pod shot down a straightaway.
 

"Yes. Whatever teleportation device is being used for the Seeds and to take you to the Trials, from what I can tell it takes into account the movement of your body and neutralizes excess kinetic energy. So, you should be fine."
 

"But you don't know."

"Well," Blaine cleared his throat, "I do not have access to the technology, so it is technically just speculation. But I am rarely wrong, and the speed should help to mask your signal from NIX when you go. They will still find you, but it might take a minute or so longer."
 

"That's not much time, guys," I said. "So we need to finish this quickly so Adam and Zed can return and get away before NIX comes for them. We've got the upper hand this time, because they don't know we know how they're going to track us."
 

As the song grew louder, I swung the large pack on my lap around to my back, and wrapped my arms around Zed.
 

Across from us, Adam did the same, so Zed was as covered by our bodies as possible.
 

Because Zed wasn't officially a Player, Bunny couldn't add him to my team, and thus we needed to forcefully take him with us to the Trial, so I could make sure he was safe.
 

A few seconds later, the pulse slammed through the pod, and all of its passengers popped into the Trial.
 

Zed's eyes were closed, and I stepped back from him in case he threw up, keeping a hand on his arm to stabilize him against the dizziness. He opened his eyes warily, but they grew wide as he took in the world around us.
 

We were on a white-sand beach under a tree with drooping leaves that looked like cocoons. We'd been deposited about a mile from the base of a colossal mountain that seemed like a lot of flat-topped buttes and mesas gathered together and stacked into a tiered tower. Huge waterfalls came from openings in the rock faces and spilled down from the top, which was obscured from view by the thick clouds of mist that rose like a veil of waves all around the mountain and coalesced into a sight-blocking layer higher up.
 

Multiple vast lakes cut through by what seemed to be randomly shifting sandbars reached out from the base of the mountain in all directions and spilled out into rivers that cut through the lush land we stood on. The sun shone bright even through the clouds, the colors were deep and richer than any I'd seen except in the Trials. For the first time, I thought this place had something which I, living on Earth, might be envious of.
 

But that thought was quickly replaced by a mix of tension and watchfulness, because I remembered this view. In fact, I'd seen it the night before, in the painful dream I'd gotten after the Oracle's first gift had been solved and injected itself into me.
 

"It's beautiful," Zed said, taking a deep breath of the invigorating air. "And it smells like it comes out of a scent bottle. An expensive one. I've never seen water so beautiful."
 

I grimaced. "Yeah. Wait till the water turns out to be acid. Or better yet, a paralytic, so you drown peacefully if you try to take a swim in it." I wiggled my bare toes in the sand, suddenly rethinking my decision to forgo shoes on my “mutated” feet. Yeah, they’d be in the way when my claws slipped out, but my boots offered great protection.
 

He took a step back from the water's edge. "Really?"
 

Jacky walked over and poked a finger in. When nothing happened, she took the finger out, sniffed it, and then put the tip in her mouth. "Just water," she said. Then she started to convulse.

Sam lunged forward, grabbing onto her face with his hands, ready to heal.
 

Zed sucked in a breath, eyes wide, and both Adam and I tensed in horror.
 

Jacky stopped twitching, and pulled back with a grin on her face.
 

Sam frowned in confusion. "I can't feel anything, I don't—” he cut off, and his eyes widened, then narrowed at her mischievous look. "You were faking."
 

She snorted a loud laugh. "Sorry. The idea popped in my mind, and I couldn’t resist."
 

I let out a loud breath, along with the rest of the team. "God, Jacky! Get away from the water. You scared me half to death."
 

She pursed her lips and walked back to us, then turned to look up at Zed, her mirth sliding away. "That was a joke, but it was in bad taste, no? Because here, it would more likely be real. And maybe I did just eat poison, and it’s only waiting, like a cat in the bushes, to strike me."
 

Adam spun in a circle, his eyes taking everything in as he scanned for danger. "It's beautiful here. And it's just as dangerous as it is amazing. Don't do anything without testing it out first, or watching someone else do it without dying."

We'd been deposited close to the cube this time, so we waved the other Players over as they arrived. As always, I checked for children. When one appeared I stiffened for a moment, until a group of older Players gathered around her, obviously protective.
 

I nodded to them in acknowledgement and allowed myself to feel relief. Zed would be enough to protect today.
 

Jacky gathered up her spit and loudly shot it into the sand.

The ground started to tremble underneath our feet, causing gentle ripples in the otherwise glassy water.
 

We all took a collective step back into the cover of the trees.

"What did you do, Jacky?" Sam said, looking a tiny bit sick.
 

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head mutely.

Zed imitated Adam's scan of his surroundings as the shuddering grew more pronounced.
 

"Guys, you remember that Intelligence Trial? The one with the puzzles?" I said.

Sam stepped closer to the rest of the group, starting to scan the surroundings as well. "Who could forget? Do you think this is another one?"

"I don't know. But that's not the point. Do you remember when I got caught in that string-room-thing with the Oracle?"

"Yeah? We never saw this Oracle, but I remember the cube said you got some sort of reward for that."

"Puzzles. Last night, I solved one of them." I held up my left hand to show the ring. "It turned out to be some sort of Seed. It increased my Perception, and made me pass out. I had a...dream. Maybe you'd call it a vision. Because I saw this place. Except I saw fire falling from the sky. I mean, it looked kinda like fire. But also like water. And it was dark. And the mountain was alive."
 

Adam stared at me, nonplussed. "Why didn't you say something?"

I bit the inside of my lip. "What would I have said? I had a weird, freaky dream and saw all this stuff I can't explain, most of which I can barely remember?"

He nodded slowly, "Yeah. If you said, 'Hey guys, I just got injected by this strange Seed I got from an intelligent Trial monster, and then I passed out and had a weird dream-slash-vision. Just thought you should know,' that might have been nice."
 

I scowled. "Well, if I'd known this was going to happen, I would have."

"Umm, guys," Sam said, "is this really the time?"
 

We fell silent, waiting for something to happen and throw us into action.
 

Shortly after that, one of the tree's cocoon leaves started to wiggle.