i see everything;
that is my curse
that is my curse
Boom-boom-boom goes the heartbeat of the island, and Apolonia’s step falters—
Boom-boom-boom and the earth is moving around her like it knows how to fight, like it’s going to start talking with a mouth made of bones; the soft limbs of the trees knit together and the sand rises up to meet the lattice and by the time the leaves start to gather into scales O has stopped walking completely.
Her eyes grow wide. Shock blossoms in her chest. Her body goes bright-numb for a second, frozen in place as the saltwater eyes flow down the thing’s cheeks in a torrent, as its seaweed tongue lashes out like a whip. Its head comes down too fast, too fast—
O lunges to the side. A new torrent of sand comes flooding up, and through its golden current she can still see the Relic of Tempus standing there like so many biblical temptations. Adrenaline courses like fire through her nerves; it’s almost painful to stand still. But she has to think, she has to plan. This is no time to falter on excitement.
One shot, one kill, one chance. If she loses it now it’ll never come back to her.
A stranger surges forward, then another one. She can see (blurrily) that their blows connect with the snake-thing, but there is no sound of contact, no blood nor breaking bones; it’s as if their hooves pass right through the sand, scattering the grains without breaking the form. A unique foe, then. Formidable because she is not tied down, like they are, to the laws of the living.
With a movement like dancing O tosses her axe, twirling, twirling, twirling in so many easy spirals toward the belly of the snake-god as its head comes down in divine intervention.
O is choosing option two!
