Pixie Dust: Part Four

The hiss of decompression was followed by a wet, sucking sound.

I snapped the Remington into my shoulder, light jerking toward the noise.

Something was crawling out.

Its limbs were long, too long, joints moving the wrong direction. It dragged itself free from the pod, skin glistening like oil, breathing wetly through a slitted hole where its mouth should’ve been.

It turned its eyeless face toward me.

Then it spoke.

Not out loud—but in my head. A voice like rusted metal and broken glass, rattling through my skull.

“You came too soon, Chase.”

My finger tightened on the trigger.

“She’s not ready to lose you yet.”

My vision blurred. Blood rushed behind my eyes. My knees buckled.

“But the womb is open. And the seed has been planted.”

And then it lunged.

It moved like broken glass dragging itself through a puddle.

Each joint popped as it stretched, too long and too thin. The thing’s skin shimmered with a wet black sheen, its limbs twitching like they couldn’t agree on which direction was forward. There were no eyes. Just a twitching face-slash that quivered like an open wound.

I froze.

Then it latched.

With a snarl like tearing cloth, it launched itself across the floor and clamped down on my leg. Its limbs wrapped around my thigh, and I felt teeth—not in its mouth, but lining its fucking arms—sawing into me.

I screamed and dropped to one knee, the Remington aimed low.

BOOM.

The blast tore into its side. It shrieked—an ungodly, static-ridden wail that nearly blew out my eardrums—and flailed backward, dragging something red and important out of my leg with it as it scrambled across the floor and skittered behind one of the pods.

I collapsed against the wall, panting. Blood poured down into my boot.

And then the voice started again.

Inside my skull like an icepick.

“You should’ve let her keep you safe, Chase.”

I gritted my teeth, dragging myself into a sitting position, shotgun reloaded with shaking fingers.

“She was the only thing standing between you and death's abyss.”

The light flickered.

The thing whispered from inside me, slithering between my thoughts.

“You know what Ayanna saw. You saw it in her eyes the day before she hung herself. You were the rot in that apartment, Chase. You were the curse.”

“No,” I whispered. But my voice cracked.

“She begged for help. And you—you blamed her. You put your hands on her. And the next day she swung.”

My pulse surged. Rage and guilt spilled together like gasoline and fire.

“Collateral damage. Just like so many others. Failed vessels. Dead ends.”

I swung my body around, looking for the source of my madness.

“But Raven? Oh… she was perfect. Her pain refined her. Molded her. And she chose you. You were her charity, Chase. A pet project. She loved you despite what you are.”

I screamed and fired blindly toward the sound.

BOOM.

The light flared. Something hissed.

I got to one foot, dragging my shredded leg, chasing the bastard across the room.

“You think this matters? You think killing one of us makes a dent?”

I caught a flicker of movement to my right.

Swung.

BOOM.

The slug hit square—ripping through the creature’s midsection. It spasmed, let out one last metallic screech, and slumped to the ground in a writhing heap of twitching limbs and fluid.

I limped toward it, leveling the barrel at its head. Breathing heavy. Fucked-up and furious.

It didn’t move again.

Blood oozed from where its chest used to be, pooling beneath its body.

I stood over it for a long time, the voice finally quiet.

“Well… at least now I know the fuckers can die.”

The corpse twitched once more, a final nerve misfiring, before it went limp.

I didn’t wait around to see if it had friends.

I turned, blood hot and sticky down my calf, and half-hobbled, half-lurched back toward the hallway. My breath came in ragged bursts, head spinning from the blood loss. I needed to stop it. Fast.

I remembered passing an infirmary sign earlier. A faded plaque bolted to a rusted frame that said EXAMINATION & SUPPLY – STAFF ONLY.

I slammed the door open.

The place was a wreck. Cabinet doors torn open, glass scattered everywhere, empty syringes crunching underfoot. It smelled like bleach and something worse—like bleach had lost the fight.

I tore open drawers, tossing aside expired bottles and rusted scissors, until I hit gold:

A field suture kit, still sealed.

A roll of gauze that hadn’t turned yellow.

A bottle of saline and alcohol pads.

A grimy pair of surgical scissors and a small tube of lidocaine—blessed be.

I dropped onto a metal stool and pulled my shredded pant leg up. The wound was worse than I thought—jagged, red, deep. A chunk was gone, chewed off by that fucking thing like brisket.

My hands trembled as I dumped saline on it. I nearly passed out.

The lidocaine helped, but not much. I bit down on my own hoodie sleeve as I cleaned the wound and stitched it shut with shaking fingers and the grace of God.

Every pass of the needle was a punch of white-hot lightning.

But I got it done.

I wrapped it tight with gauze, cinched it with medical tape, and whispered a prayer Phil once told me—something about stubborn bastards and borrowed time.

I could feel the seconds slipping.

I limped back to the file room—my pack slung over my shoulder like a sack of bones—and stuffed it full:

Priscilla Mayhew’s file.

The manifesto labeled Project: Partheno-9.

Any document that mentioned the New Earth, the Dealer, or Patient 044-A.

A photo. Of Raven. As a child. Staring up at the camera with ink-black eyes.

I didn’t even try the steel door again. I’d seen enough.

I limped toward the exit, Remington clutched in one hand, every hallway stretch a new kind of agony.

Then I heard it.

Something waking up behind the veil. A low rumble, like something big had rolled over in its sleep.

The clinic was no longer asleep.

I ran.

Or as close to running as I could get—stumbling, dragging my half-mangled leg, every breath a curse.

I burst out into the daylight like I’d been underwater for hours. The air outside was cold and sharp and so fucking alive it made me want to cry.

I could barely see through the pain. But I saw my car.

I threw the door open, dumped the files in the passenger seat, and peeled out of that gravel lot like I was being chased by hell itself.

The wheel jerked left, or maybe my hand did.

Didn’t matter.

The Camry skidded, tires shrieking against gravel. I caught a flash of trees, then sky, then water—

CRACK.

The front end slammed into something cold and unforgiving. Glass shattered. My head hit the steering wheel. The world blinked out like a TV turned off mid-sentence.

Once again, I was snatched from my own body and dropped into Raven's consciousness.

Raven stood barefoot in the center of a crumbling cathedral.

Moonlight cut through the collapsed ceiling in thin, surgical beams, catching on the silver scars along her collarbone—like constellations someone had carved into her skin.

Around her, the others waited.

Seven women in total. Each seated in a circle, naked to the waist, their eyes glazed and mouths parted in soft ecstasy. Their bodies trembled in unison, pierced by tendrils of smoke that danced from floor to throat like living incense.

“We need to call upon our Nurai consorts, sisters. Is the offering prepared?”

The air thrummed.

At the center of the room, a girl lay on a rust-stained slab of marble—arms outstretched, body covered in carved sigils. Some were inked in red. Others were open wounds, still weeping. She didn’t scream. She didn’t move.

She was already gone.

Above her loomed the Nurai.

It had no face—only a glistening mass of black vapor and fleshy cords, undulating with slow hunger. Its tendrils fed deep into the girl’s body—one in her mouth, another sliding down her throat, others into her sex, her navel, her eyes. The creature fed, not just on flesh, but on something deeper.

She lay motionless, splayed naked across the slab like an offering—no, like a key. Her skin, pale as wet parchment, shimmered under the moonlight seeping through the broken cathedral dome. The glow accentuated every carved sigil on her body—runes etched into her flesh with ritualistic precision.

Her mouth was stretched impossibly wide by a thick, smoky tendril that slithered between her lips, sliding deep down her throat and pulsing with rhythmic intention. Another tendril coiled around one of her breasts, tightening until the skin blushed purple, the nipple distended and leaking something that wasn’t milk but shimmered like it was meant to be.

Two more cords probed lower—one worming into her navel, the other curling between her thighs. It spread her open, almost reverently, and then sank inside her, disappearing into her depths like wet silk being pulled through a clenched fist.

Her hips jerked once. Then again.

Not in resistance—in surrender.

Her body began to twitch with unnatural rhythm as the entity fed. Not on her blood. Not her breath. But on something deeper—memory, identity, lineage. The sigils glowed faintly as the Nurai absorbed her piece by piece.

And from her, it spread.

The women seated around her groaned as the communion began. One by one, tendrils snaked from the main body of the Nurai, thin and searching, stretching across the air until they found their targets.

Each woman tilted her head back as a tendril found her eye.

The sharp tip merged, slipping beneath the lid, twining around optic nerves, latching onto the soul behind the gaze.

Their mouths opened in collective moans—soft, broken.

Raven trembled as her own connection took root. Her thighs clenched, breath hitching as the smoky invader licked at her mind, flooding her body with visions: planets splitting open, wombs blooming like galaxies, Chase writhing beneath her, moaning her name before dissolving into ash.

The Nurai throbbed.

The girl on the slab arched upward, spine cracking audibly as every orifice became a conduit. Her flesh bloomed with more sigils, some carving themselves. Blood welled in intricate shapes across her stomach and inner thighs, flowing upward rather than down.

And then—she stopped moving.

Her body locked in a final, trembling spasm before falling still.

Raven’s body tensed, then released as the communion deepened.

She gasped, trembling as the entity swirled through her mind like hot silk. Visions unfolded—maps, timelines, the seed’s activation schedule, planetary alignments. The location of every remaining incubator across the world.

And Chase.

“He’s slipping from you,” one of the women whispered, her voice distorted as if underwater.

“He’s broken the cycle,” said another, convulsing slightly.

Raven opened her eyes, breath shallow. “Then we find him. We sever the thread before he unravels the whole.”

A figure across from her—older, statuesque, with breasts like temple urns and hips carved from black marble—moaned in pleasure as the Nurai shifted within her.

“He has the files.”

“The memories are awakening.”

“He bleeds... but not enough.”

At the center, the girl on the slab let out a long, shuddering exhale. Her chest stopped moving.

The Nurai slithered out of her slowly, its tendrils retracting with wet schlkkk sounds, trailing viscera. The women’s eye-conduits slipped free, leaving behind trickles of dark tears.

Their communion ended.

Raven stepped forward and pressed her palm to the girl’s ruined chest. Her fingers sank into the sigils carved there.

“He’s still mine,” she whispered.

The room vibrated in response—stone sweating, tendrils twitching with arousal, as if the cathedral itself was listening.

“He carries the imprint. He saw the chamber. He touched the seed. He bled.”

Raven looked up at the others, now rising from their places like priestesses called to war.

“Prepare the rites,” she commanded. “We end this before he finds the next gate.”

PART FOUR

The Starview Motel looked like it had given up decades ago but hadn’t gotten around to dying. The sign wasn’t neon—just warped plastic letters bolted to a rusted frame. The “O” in MOTEL was hanging sideways, one screw away from dropping off entirely.

The office was lit by a single yellowed ceiling bulb that buzzed like it was trying to speak in Morse code. A dusty oscillating fan pushed stale air in a lazy arc. The front desk counter was cracked laminate, stained with old coffee and the ghosts of better days.

Behind it sat a man who looked like he hadn’t moved since the Nixon years.

He reeked of tobacco and something more fermented. His lower lip drooped into a permanent frown, a brown dribble stain marking his chin like a brand. He had a plastic cup in front of him, full of spit and misery.

He didn’t smile when I limped in.

Didn’t flinch when he saw the blood-stained gauze wrapped around my thigh, or the way I clutched the Remington in my right hand like it was the only thing keeping me vertical.

He just blinked once. Slow.

“You get in a wreck or somethin’?” he asked, voice dry as sandpaper.

“Something like that.”

“Leg looks bad.”

“It is.”

“You want a doctor—?”

“No thanks,” I snapped, slapping my debit card on the counter. “I just need a room. The key please.”

The man’s rheumy eyes lingered on me for a beat longer than I liked. Then he reached under the desk and came up with a brass key attached to a weather-worn tag: Room 7.

“You sure you’re alright, son?”

“I said I’m fine,” I growled, snatching the key from his hand before he could say anything else. The sudden movement nearly dropped me. My thigh screamed. My jaw clenched.

He didn't respond. Just leaned back in his chair with a phlegmy sigh and took another spit.

Room 7 smelled like mildew, cigarette ash, and old sweat. The kind of scent that gets into your clothes and rides home with you like guilt.

The light flickered once, then steadied to a sickly yellow glow. Peeling wallpaper—blue-and-tan floral—curled in the corners. A loud mini fridge thrummed against the far wall, vibrating like it was holding back a scream. The bed creaked under its own weight.

I shut the door behind me. Locked it. Deadbolt, chain, and a chair jammed under the knob for good measure.

Then I dropped everything—pack, gun, body—onto the faded comforter.

The mattress dipped like it was trying to swallow me whole.

My thigh throbbed in pulses. The bandage was soaked through again. I didn’t care.

I stared at the ceiling. It stared back.

My mind wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

That vision… or memory… or whatever the hell it was—it lingered. Like it had left something wet and alive inside my head. I could still feel the slick pull of those tendrils, still hear the gurgled moans of the women, the way the girl’s body spasmed before going still.

And Raven. Christ.

Not watching. Leading.

She’d commanded them. Controlled them. Owned them.

> “Find him before the seed rots in his chest.”

Seed.

I pulled the files out of my pack and dumped them onto the bed. Pages slid across the stained sheets, full of phrases that read like schizophrenic scripture:

> “Viable Male Hosts: Rarity and Instability.”

“Cognitive Strain Indicators—Post-Exposure Memory Bleed.”

“Nurai Fusion Rate: 83% Female, 12% Male, 5% Rejection.”

And then this:

> “Subject 044-A offspring displays high compatibility with cross-dimensional receptor strain. Emotional anchor tethered: Chase M., known associate. Recommended for observation, containment, and eventual integration.”

I recoiled.

I’d been in the fucking files.

Not just a name. A variable. A tether.

My heart pounded like it wanted to crack my ribs from the inside. I stumbled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. It smelled like sulfur. The mirror was cracked.

“Fuck,” I whispered, gripping the edges of the sink so hard my knuckles went white. “Fuck.”

She wasn’t just part of this.

She was born for it.

And I was part of the plan.

The bed creaked under me like it was protesting my existence. The mattress felt like it was stuffed with rocks and bad decisions. Still, my body gave in. I couldn’t stop it. I let my head fall back, the ceiling blurring above me as my heartbeat slowed and my leg throbbed like it had a second pulse. The motel room stank of mildew and stale smoke. My hand brushed the cold steel of the Remington on the nightstand before everything just... gave out.

Darkness took me. Heavy. Wet. It pulled like gravity.

Then she was there.

Raven. Or some twisted version of her. She stood in front of me, naked and luminous, like a statue carved from moonlight and shadow. Her eyes weren’t just eyes—they were pits, black and bottomless, swirling like smoke that had lost its fire. Her lips parted like she had a secret she was dying to shove into my mouth.

“You always loved to be inside me,” she whispered, stepping forward. Her voice was syrup and static. “Now its your turn to let me in.”

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. But I was hard, throbbing like a curse. My limbs moved of their own accord, stripping me down, pulling me to her. Our skin touched and it was like falling into a furnace. She wrapped herself around me—arms, legs, teeth, tendrils. I didn’t know where she ended and I began.

We fell backward, into something pulsing and organic. The floor breathed beneath us. The walls around us were slick with moisture, veined like inside of a throat. I could feel every inch of her—hot, wet, alive—but every thrust felt like I was being drained. Like I was feeding something that lived just beneath her skin.

“You feel that?” she said, riding me now, nails raking down my chest. “That’s communion.”

She leaned down, tongue flicking over my lips, whispering in a voice that didn’t belong to her, “You are the vessel, Chase. The consort. You always were.”

My back arched. My eyes rolled. The orgasm hit like a seizure. Every nerve in my body lit up—and then exploded. I saw stars. Galaxies. Blood. I saw Ayanna’s dead eyes. Dustin’s screaming face. Raven on the ritual table, her body open like scripture.

And then I woke up.

My sheets were soaked. My fingers were raw, nails broken. I was breathing like I’d just outrun the apocalypse.

Something was wet on the floor.

I reached over the edge of the bed and touched it.

Blood. Not mine.

I didn’t scream. Screaming would’ve made it real. I just sat there, shaking, hard and half-dead, wondering if I’d just fucked the end of the world.

I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up, my throat burned like I’d gargled glass and my chest felt like it had been caved in from the inside. The motel room still stank like mildew and old smoke, but underneath that, something fresher curled up my nose. Copper. Iron. Blood.

I sat up too fast and nearly blacked out. My leg throbbed in time with my heartbeat, and every breath rattled like broken machinery. I blinked hard against the morning light—or what passed for morning through the nicotine-yellowed blinds—and tried to ground myself in reality. No good. I still tasted her on my tongue. Still felt her breath on my neck. Still smelled whatever she was becoming.