There is no roof over our head. There are no walls to keep them at bay. We are at the mercy of the creatures of the night.
Strangely enough, I feel mostly calm. After defeating King Slime and claiming the ninja armor he held, I had felt a rush of power. I feel like I can take on the world. This is good, because Seth apparently doesn't feel the same way.
I look over to see him rocking back and forth, mumbling things under his breath. I walk over and pull him to his feet with surprising ease. I feel... stronger. Something has changed.
"Come on," I say to him. "We need to get moving. Perhaps if we..." I trail off as it becomes clear he isn't listening. "NOW!" I shout. That seems to snap him out of it.
"How are we supposed to survive this?" he whispers.
"Oh, come on," I huff. "Did you not see that giant slime? We beat that easily enough."
"You did all the work."
"Okay, that might be true, but you tried."
"And didn't do anything. How am I supposed to kill hordes of zombies all night? I only have a half-filled quiver!"
"I have the shurikens -"
"And they won't last forever."
"I have my broadsword too." It is clear I am grasping at straws. How are we supposed to do this?
"We need to get to higher, more open ground," he says.
I nod, and without a word, we set off. Night falls, and the moon rises. Still, we walk. Then, the moans begin.
They know we are here, and they are coming. Still, we walk.
I think to myself that it could be worse. It could be a Blood Moon. But it is an empty reassurance. Something is off; I can feel it. As if... no. I can't dwell on it.
But I feel eyes on me everywhere I go. It isn't Seth; he's walking ahead of me. If it were a zombie, it would have attacked. So what is it?
"Um, Seth?" I ask.
"I feel it too," he says. "A presence... watching us."
"What do we do?"
"We keep moving. Nothing else
to do."
We walk in silence a bit longer.
"Seth, why haven't the zombies attacked us yet?"
"I am not sure, but it is good fortune. Keep moving."
"The last time zombies didn't attack me, it didn't end well." And then I am telling Seth all about the awful Blood Moon, and the Bride and the Groom, and everything. I pour out my past, in all of its awful detail. I tell him what happened to my parents, what happened to me. He listens in silence.
Finally, when I am done speaking, he replies. "I'm so sorry, Celestia." He turns around and kneels down in front of me. "Whatever happens, I am going to try my best to keep you safe. Just promise me one thing."
"What?"
"Don't use your shurikens on me. They look sharp."
We both laugh. Then, we stop - at exactly the same time.
The feeling of being watched intensifies. Seth and I look at each other, and break out into a sprint. We burst out of the trees into the clearing I woke up in, rushing down the hill. Not the most ideal position, but we had to get to open ground.
Seth looks up, his mouth forming a silent scream. I follow his gaze, and then I see it.
An enormous eye floats above us, staring down in absolute silence. Still, no zombies come, and I realize that this monstrosity has the power to keep them away. It wants us for itself. I start to shudder as it slowly descends towards us.
I snap out of it at the loud
TWANG of a bowstring next to me. Seth lets loose an arrow, the tip alight with flame. It is a direct hit, and flames spread across the eye before quickly winking out. It seems completely unfazed. I pull out my shurikens and begin launching them; my armor even seems to augment my throwing ability.
We keep shooting arrows and throwing shurikens until it gets closer to us. It seems to pay no heed to the sharp projectiles that have punctured its skin. It begins to move towards us, and I know we want to be nowhere near it when it arrives. We split onto either side of it, forcing it to choose.
It decides to follow me.
I start running, but it doesn't move fast. It just slowly advances, staring at me. Then, a voice rings out in my mind:
The Eye of Cthulhu, that which slumbers. It certainly isn't my voice. I look up at the eye staring expectantly. It got into my mind.
"Stay out of my brain, you oversized cornea!" I shout. And then it accelerates towards me.
The Light must be extinguished, the voice says.
"Shut up!" I shout. I throw more shurikens, and try to loop around to Seth. It still isn't fast enough to catch me when I run, but I am worried it will keep attaining speed.
Then, Seth shoots the fateful arrow. It hits the eye. Suddenly, the - what was it? Eye of Cthulhu, I think - begins spinning. I smile. A creepy encounter, to be sure, but not a dangerous one.
Then, it stops spinning. In the eye's place is a new...
thing. The entire front of the eye is now devoted to a giant mouth. Its glistening fangs drip saliva that makes the grass sizzle and die wherever it falls. Then it roars, and Seth falls unconscious.
The next few hours are a blur. I run around, dodging it as it charges. It leaves Seth alone. Something about that roar almost knocked me out too, but I suppose being the Light grants you some special privileges.
I keep throwing shurikens at it, and there are many close calls where its jaws close in, snapping hungrily. My ninja suit seems to help me both as I throw shurikens and move. I sprint around the clearing, even as it charges me with supernatural speed.
Finally, it hits its breaking point. I toss a shuriken into its open maw, and it sticks next to all the other ones. (The pouch that came with the ninja suit seems to have a limitless supply, which is fine by me.) The Eye of Cthulhu lets out a roar, but it is subdued, muted.
Then, it crashes to the ground, and on impact it splatters into a dozen pieces, which quickly begin dissolving into the ground. On the ground in front of me lie two small mounds of metal: one purple, and the other red. As I approach, they melt away with the rest of the corpse.
All that is left is a shield. On the front is emblazoned the visage of the second form of the Eye. I pick it up and slide it onto my arm. Then, I hear a groan. I spin, expecting a zombie, but then see Seth slowly getting up. He stares down at the shield on my arm and then smiles.
"You killed it!" he shouts. I smile back at him, and then run over to give him a hug.
"Whoa," he says as I slam into him. Then, he grabs me by the shoulders and holds me at arm's-length. "Wait a second... did you get taller?" I look up at him and realize that his head isn't so far away. I even feel different, like I am -
"I got older, didn't I?" I ask aloud.
"I think so," he replies. "You look about nine years old now."
"Well, that's... strange."
"Yeah." And then I see it, the zombie on the other side of him. Instinctively, I charge it. As I do, the shield I claimed from the Eye of Cthulhu's dissolved body tugs me forward, pulling me at a speed similar to the extraordinary one it used to chase me. I ram into it, knocking it back ten feet with a sickening splat. I know even before it keels over that I smashed its heart when I hit it in the chest.
Seth stares at me. "You do have a tendency for picking up cool stuff, don't you?" he asks.
Then, the dawn comes. I had almost forgotten the sun in the night of endless horrors. And with the sun comes another surprise.
"Hello!" shouts an unfamiliar voice. We look to see an older man with white hair and a well-trimmed beard coming down the hill. Seth and I grin at each other.
When he reaches the bottom of the hill, he walks towards us. "My name is Dan," he says.
"Seth," Seth responds.
"And am I to assume this is your daughter?"
"No; in fact, she's pretty special."
"How so?"
"This, my dear friend, is the Light."
The Merchant bursts out laughing. "A funny joke to be sure, but..." he seems to lose his train of thought as he sees our serious faces. "You can't be telling me that a runt like this is supposed to protect us from the Darkness."
"Excuse me," I say. "Do you see this?" I point at the shield.
"What would that be?"
"This is a shield I claimed from a horrible creature called the Eye of Cthulhu."
"You killed the Eye?"
"You know of it?"
"Know of it? It has stalked me for days. Every night, it found me, staring from above. It never came closer, and it kept the zombies away. After my village was destroyed, I was glad for the lack of those cursed creatures, but the Eye was too unnerving."
"Your village was destroyed?"
"Aye. The Face Monsters and Crimeras got us. But that is a tale for another time. You claim to be the Light?"
Seth interjects: "She is the Light. It is clear as the day around us. I am her Guide."
"I suppose anyone who could kill that freaky eyeball would have to be the prophesied hero. I just didn't expect her to be so... young."
"That's what I said," says Seth with a smile.
"Anyway," Dan continues, "I am a Merchant. Got a magic bag that holds stuff, but I can only get stuff from it if you drop coins in."
Seth refills his quiver with arrows from Dan's bag, and then we look around at the clearing.
"You know," says Seth slowly. "We don't have a home either. This could be it! We could build a new village here."
Dan grins at the idea, then clearly has an idea. "They cost a gold coin a person, but they're worth it," he says. He drops three golden coins into the bag, then pulls out three small rectangles of plastic and metal.
"These," he says, "are called
smartphones. We can use them to talk to each other over long distances, but they also have another feature, where we can set a home base and teleport back to it as long as we are not in a... a Dark Zone." He shudders as he says the last two words.
We gladly take the phones from him, and he shows us how to use them. Then, we head out to chop wood.
*****
By that night, we have built three small wooden houses, with makeshift cots for sleeping. As I drift off, I have a strange dream of another land.
This land is covered in strange, red grass, and the trees that grow are twisted and withered. I can feel blood, death, and flesh here. Who knows?
This might be the next place my journey takes me.
Wonderful. Bravo. Spectacular. Neat. Awesome.
