Chapter 26: The Whsipering Statues

Elias did not think; he moved. He had seen so many people perish because thinking in moments of crisis may seem like a good idea, but it was not; the slight delay between thought and action was enough to freeze them in place for long enough that action became redundant.

He was resting his body against the now-moving statue, and when Elias began to move, he shoved his stump against the statue to push him backward faster. The white-hot flash of pain nearly made him black out; however, he could wake up nearly instantly from his daze when the wind from the hand that almost touched his face brushed by him, and just this backdraft from the moving hand was enough to shove him back several feet.

Elias collapsed to the ground, and several of his bones that were slowly knitting together were snapped once more with wet, sickening cracks, and he groaned in pain, vision swimming, his mind still in a daze. Struggling to open his eyes, Elias saw that the statue that had been reaching for him had already left its perch. It now loomed directly beside him, one colossal leg lifted high, the foot alone larger than half his body, and from its body he could hear whispers, like a thousand children crying in the dark… the sound was haunting.

With the size of the statue, it had only needed a single step to cross the pitiful distance that Elias had made, and its foot was stomping down to crush him into paste, and Elias pulled from every well of stamina that he had left to push himself to the side.

“Boom!”

The tunnel floor exploded inward, as if a bomb had detonated beneath it. Shockwaves of force ripped through the stone, hurling Elias sideways like a rag doll. He could barely hear the sound of the impact before his eardrums blew up, and he became deaf as he tumbled across the ground, leaving shreds of his skin behind. He was now nearly naked since his clothes were not as durable as his body.

Behind him, the crater left by the stomp was a jagged maw of shattered rock, easily fifteen feet across and several feet deep. Dust and pulverized stone hung in the air like a choking fog, hiding the statue that had just attacked him and covering the tunnel so he could not see anything past a few feet.

Elias scrambled upright, one arm useless, the stump oozing a few drops of blood despite his regeneration trying to close it. He had discovered that he could still bleed, if the damage were grievous enough, and at the moment, most of his skin had nearly been shredded, and he knew he had pieces of sharp stone stuck in his muscles that were grinding into them with every breath he took.

His legs trembled, half-healed fractures grinding with every movement, but he forced himself to scramble deeper into the tunnel, a fear building in his heart that he hoped was not the case.

As he half ran, he glanced back, a bit surprised that the statue had not immediately pursued him, but he was met with silence; it was almost as if it were toying with him. The words of the Commander flashed through his head,

“What you are going to be facing in there would be stronger and faster than you and possibly smarter than you, yet your greatest weapon would be your mind.”

’Smarter than me,’ he groaned inside, ’I should have paid more attention to this.’

Then something changed, and he could no longer hear the grinding stone, the heavy footfalls, or the whispers; he could only feel the vibration through the floor as more statues began to move.

He risked a glance back.

Like a phantom emerging from a nightmare, the statue that had attacked him emerged from the fog of dust, and then it slowly turned its cracking head toward him, black blood oozing from the fissures like tar. Behind it, others were stirring. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. The entire gallery was coming alive.

The noise was deafening as stone shoulders shifted, arms lifted, fingers, each as thick as Elias’s arm, flexed with the soundless screech of grinding rock. Cracks spiderwebbed across their chests and faces, black ichor seeping from every fracture.

The statues were bleeding, and the blood moved like it was alive, crawling across the stone in thick, sluggish rivulets, searching for something… searching for him.

“Come to us, my son… fly with me… I shall show you how to eat your wings. It is not too late, boy. IT IS NOT TOO LATE!”

Elias chose to run deeper, disregarding the whispers that were now screams of madness. He was not running deeper into the tunnel out of fear, but because he had noticed that the statues were transforming from the outside in, meaning the statues beside him were slowly developing cracks and were not fully awakened. He knew that after a few hundred feet, he would reach the spot where there were no more statues, and then he could run deeper.

The second reason he chose to run deeper was also due to the spot of coldness he could feel in his mind, the weakest of those spots had been at the center of the twin mountain range, and although he did not have the chance to investigate the other three, he could still feel the direction they were all pointing towards. Coincidentally, the strongest of the cold spots was located ahead, deeper into the earth.

It was becoming clear that, despite all his advantages, there was no way he could survive here at his present level, and his only hope for survival was to Seed his Lumina and leave this Fragment.

And so, Elias ran, but he was not in his best shape.

His body was faster than it had ever been, but it was also broken. Every stride sent fresh agony through his ribs and spine. The stump of his left arm swung uselessly, throwing off his balance. He staggered, caught himself against the wall, and kept moving deeper into the darkness.

Behind him, the whispers grew into screams.

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