The Stone Giant by Luke Smitherd

Author:Luke Smitherd [Smitherd, Luke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flying Body Press
Published: 2022-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

Then Paul—

—Ihaveyou—

Sophie’s tension eased a little, but now Paul’s thread was taut as a drumskin. The Caeterus’s threads had slowed greatly, but now they were still moving inwards, and already so close. He didn’t wait for further checks on his team. They’d agreed, and he’d promised them both. He dived deep, and fast, and that was when the pain began.

—Hggggggg—

He kept going but it felt like swimming through concrete, the pressure on his mind’s eye like a spike being jammed into it. He tried to think-scream but then it was there, the outer corner of the cage, and he groped for it but couldn’t focus because of the pain, the fucking pain—

Sophie and Paul reached down, salving his mind, but the distraction from their concealment task meant the Caeterus’s threads were coming in quickly again, their dim awareness becoming sharper, hungrier, and as Sophie and Paul shared Andy’s agony, taking on the burden, their distant screams travelled so faintly along the threads that Andy understood he was very deep indeed. The edge of the cage was there, buried in darkness . . . Andy’s grasping hands found it.

He pulled.

The pain lanced into him and he let go, and even as he bellowed, Sophie and Paul’s threads told him what was happening; the Caeterus had come roaring towards them. Andy’s team were screaming from the effort of keeping the Caeterus out.

—(ANDYANDY QUICKLY PLEASE)—

He was trying but oh God it hurt, it hurt so much, so many blades on him, in him, slicing, but his hands found the box once more and tugged, hard, and it gave a little—

BANG.

The pain stopped.

The box was now out of his grasp, far below him once more.

. . . what?

How had—

He’d been pushed back up.

—Sophie, Paul—

—( . . .)—

— . . .—

They couldn’t speak, but he could hear them holding on, stopping the Caeterus from fully—

The Caeterus were all around him.

The ends of their threads felt dark, cold, sharp, and unspeakably powerful. Could they see him? Not fully; Paul and Sophie were keeping them from touching him, but the Caeterus’s threads were a hair’s breadth away. The sensation of their proximity turned Andy’s consciousness to ice. The threads were impassive, utterly clinical. They regarded the shadow of his shape, wondering what he was, what he would do next. Andy couldn’t think.

He dived downwards again, towards the box—

Something immense came sideways out of the darkness to meet him— whatever had pushed him back up—and now it shoved all three of them together—

Pop.

Andy fell sideways against Sophie. She let out a whuff sound as his weight fell onto her. She was strong enough to almost catch him though, and as he pushed himself upright and looked into her stunned, blinking eyes he had time to think it threw us out before Sophie’s answer was already in his mind—

—(Get back in there)—

And then he was diving back into the darkness, even though he’d felt the sheer force which had removed him . . . but this time, it was ready.

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