Tales of a Knight's Reunion [excerpt]
By Olaoluwa Adewoye
“Seian, wait!” Kumni said. He and Dami had been running after her, both near the end of their breath while she had just begun to draw hers. Occasionally, she would leap up into the sky, going for a temporary bird’s eye view before landing back down and jolting the ground under her.
“What is it, young children?” she said, jogging back and picking them up. “Oh, you two are so red in the face, what happened?”
“We can…take the bus…” Kumni said through labored breaths. He pointed to a blue sign with the bus icon as Seian turned and looked it over. “That metal stick can summon transport for us? But we will lose her tail!”
“There’s…nowhere else she would go…” Dami added. Seian was in a rush, but she knew she couldn’t fly too long without drawing eyes, and the brothers were way too tired to keep up with her. They sat down and waited for a bus to come and pick them up, Dami paying for the fares while Kumni swiped a map from one of the seats.
By the time they got to the stop at the pool, it was already late in the afternoon. Long shadows covered the pool site, and all entrances were locked. As soon as Seian was pointed to one, she slashed the locks off, leaving the chain fence wide open for them to go through. “Alright children, do you remember the plan?” she asked, seeing them both take their phones out. “Creatures like her are sensitive to light, so once we lure her out of the water, we will keep her blinded with flashes while I restrain her.”
“And then what?” Dami asked.
“Well, isn’t it simple? We save the day!” Seian said, puffing out her chest. “Trust me, with our combined skills, we can overcome any mountain! We would be the new trio, and Lao-sama may even….” She shuddered in excitement, clenching her fists at what was to come. “Eeeeee! But first … let us catch Issia. Alright, spread out!”
With that, they all went their separate ways. Kumni had thought ahead and brought radios for each of them. After a quick crash course on comms, Seian was on board.
“Do you two see anything yet?” Seian asked, using her nose to try to sniff out the Bunyip.
“Nothing at the deep end,” Dami radioed in, looking intensely inside. “I may have to go inside, take a closer look, over.” [radio static]
“Stop trying to swim!” Kumni yelled into the mic. “And there’s nothing by the kiddie pool.” [radio static]
Seian was perusing the slides, smelling around while she listened to them argue over the radio. While it was fun, her nose finally picked up something. She sniffed twice more and turned. By now, the sun was hiding behind the building's infrastructure, leaving much of the pool as dark as a dingy closet. It was also eerily silent, with the only sounds being the distant cars that were back on the road. In the near seclusion, she saw glowing yellow eyes staring at her from inside the end of the tube slide. “Clever girl,” she said, grinning ear to ear. “Children! Stop arguing…we found our monster—” [radio static]
As quickly as the eyes appeared they left, and Seian heard a massive length shuffle back up the slide. Seian jumped onto the slide and started climbing up it, using the bolted ends as footholds to catapult her way up. As soon as it emerged, she jumped into it, flying and tackling it to the ground. Kunmi was the first over there with lights, shining them on the massive amount of fur and scales Seian was wrestling. She managed to shuffle her way onto the monster’s back, putting it in a chokehold. Issia’s massive paws reached back for her but were not flexible enough to yank the human off her. She squirmed some more and hissed at Kunmi, but flashing lights stopped her from making a lunge.
“Not so tough now, are ya!” Seian said, yanking on her hold as Dami came in with the strobe setting. He was also wet, having just gotten out of the water.
“Sorry I’m late, I had to do some more searching…”
“Mom’s going to be mad when she sees you lost your clothes,” Kumni said.
“Don’t worry! Once we bring back Issia, I’m sure all will be forgiven!” Seian grabbed the tip of Issia’s tail and yanked it for good measure, hearing it scream. “See? Subdued!”
“Now we’ve just got to fix the hole in the wall, and no one will suspect a thing!” Dami said, giving Kunmi a high five. Seian chuckled, relaxing while she watched them celebrate. She was getting pretty good at this babysitting thing…
Issia, on the other hand, had other plans. Feeling the grip on her body diminish, she snaked her tail slowly up herself. Seian didn’t feel the fur graze up her leg until it was too late, but by then, she had yanked around like a lasso before being flung across the pool.
It was quick, but each time she skipped across the pool water and ground like a stone, it was more gruesome than the last. She rag-dolled until being sent to the deep end, where she skidded over one last section of water, her neck slamming into the corner of the pool’s rim like a hockey stick. Something had definitely snapped, but she couldn’t hear any snapping noises.
She couldn’t even feel the broken insides of her tumbling body.
In a moment, everything was snatched from her like a gift box.
She was paralyzed on the cusp of death, with limp limbs and deep gashes all over her body from sliding across the pavement.
Dami and Kunmi went silent, watching her body hug the edge of the pool for a bit before sliding off and sinking lifelessly into a pool that slowly started to tint red where she landed. The sun was completely gone by this point, and the two phones that had their light were all of a sudden running the battery too fast for them.
Issia’s pupils expanded, smelling blood. With the annoying woman dispatched, she turned her attention to the two prepubescents that were backing away from her. The drool that dripped from her mouth told the whole story. She was hungry, and the two in front of her looked excellent digesting in her gullet.
“Run!” Dami said. Breaking the one rule of pool going, they started sprinting in the other direction. The Bunyip quickly gave chase, knocking pool equipment and chairs out of the way as they desperately tried to lose her tail. They wanted Seian to come back up and bounce from such a hit like it was nothing, but even from across the pool, they could see how destroyed she was. All they had were their legs to carry them as far as they could from certain death.
They turned until a path between pools and the monster lunged at them, hearing her crash through the fence and into the forestry with a BANG. They decided the best way would be to go inside, quickly dashing into a door and pulling it.
“IT’S LOCKED!” Kumni said. Dami hurried and got his bus card out, trying desperately to wedge open the door while Kumni looked behind them. His heart was pounding hard, seeing the Bunyip squeeze its body against the chain fence to get back through. “She’s coming she’s coming she’s coming she’s coming she’s coming she’s coming she’s coming—”
“I KNOW, I KNOW!” Dami yelled, tears starting to fall down his face as he was forcing the card in. Soon, she was midway back through the fence, thrashing like a wild boar as she tried to force the fence from being caught off her midsection.
“DAMI! DAMI, HURRY, COME ON!”
“I GOT IT!” he proclaimed, the door finally giving. They yanked it open, screaming as she had finally roared free with one last tug, barreling over to them with open fangs. They dove through and turned into a hallway, dashing for stairs to go up as she shot past them and busted through the building, boring a new hole and ruining the door like papier mâché. The entire foundation shook from the impact, the two falling on the ground and scrambling to get as far away as possible. Bunyip's screeches echoed through the halls while they escaped. They hustled up the stairs, finally stopping once they reached the top floor. Dami motioned to Kumni to remain quiet, the two of them tucking into the corner of the staircase landing and listening to her slither by on the first floor of the building. They held their breath, hearing its growls vibrate the floor under them. They didn’t relax until their shuffling was no longer heard, fading to other parts of the facility.
“S-seian” Kumni said, slumping against the wall. “She—”
“She’s fine,” Dami said quickly. “Right? It’s like cartoons, she’ll come right back…” He couldn’t be convinced, seeing Kunmi break down, putting his hands on his knees as he started to sob. He slid down with him, struggling to keep his dread at bay. The sight of her body being manhandled like a stuffed doll kept replaying in his head. It made his chest hurt, butterflies transforming into wild bats that banged around inside him.
“Seian’s freaking dead….” Kumni said again. “What are we…what do we…what do we do?” he cried, his clothes muffling his voice. He could barely talk; most of his speech was either aimless or interrupted by coughs and crying.
“Maybe we can call Fola…” Dami said. “Yeah, yeah! W-we’ll be fine, we just need to call him and his friends and they can save us right?” Not entirely convinced himself, he looked towards Kunmi. He pulled his head out and looked back at Dami, nodding and wiping his face.
“Right…” Dami said, taking out his phone. He tapped the power button, waiting for it to come on. Seeing his cousin struggle, Kunmi took out his phone too.
“N-no power…” Dami weaseled out, dropping his phone weakly to the ground. Kunmi held it one last time, seeing the phone’s logo finally appear on the screen. “Yes!” they both said, crowding around it and waiting. They could still hear the monster messing around in the distance, fading in and out. It was all up to the boot now, watching the logo disappear to load the phone.
When the next icon came back up, it was a near-empty battery that flashed red.
“Charge your battery,” Kunmi said as he read out the error message before it faded to black one last time. Time seemed to freeze, their death sentence looming over them like a dark cloud. Dami, dumbfounded, could only stare off into the staircase, unable to process any of it. “We really should have just gone to the party…”
Just then a tail burst out right in front of them. They screamed in terror and watched as the tail felt around, latching onto Dami’s tail and pulling hard. “GET OFF!” he screamed, kicking the tail as it slowly reeled him back into the hole like a fishing line.
“DAMI, HOLD ON!” Kunmi said, grabbing onto his cousin’s arms and pulling. Dami could feel something tasting his foot, a tail that licked it up and down like a lollipop. He kept kicking, putting his full force into it until he felt something hard give. The Bunyip shrieked and let go, Dami and Kunmi falling back into their corner as the entire building started to shake. The monster could feel its bone breaking, running itself into the foundation and thrashing around. Seeing dust and random pieces of ceiling fall around them, they could do nothing but scream.
Seian woke up, her face covered in dirt. She groaned as she peered around. Beyond a few feet, everything was hidden behind thick maroon clouds. All she had was herself, and the little dome around her that kept the smoke from engulfing her. “Where…am I?” she asked herself. She started walking around, the dome moving with her to move smoke out of the way. She was still walking completely blind and even started running along the flat ground. “Hello?” she said, coming to a stop, out of breath. “Is anyone there?”
“I can’t believe you forgot,” someone said behind her. She looked back, seeing another dragonic standing back-to-back with her. It was a Wyvern—and an eerily familiar one at that.
“Wait a second…you’re me,” Seian said calmly. “But, how?”
“Because, me, this is the last place we have left,” she said. “And I thought we could have a second chance with our beloved….”
“Second chance…wait, I’m—”
“Unfortunately,” she said. She sat down, resting her head against Seian’s thighs as she started to fume. “That damn Issia, that god, fucking Issia, she just had to ruin everything again!”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Seian said, turning around to hug herself. “It’s not like that—”
“Then who threw us into the pool!?”
Seian winced, the memory floating around like a bad hangover. “Oh yeah, that did happen… Wait, little ones! We need to save Lao-sama’s siblings.”
“Why?” the inner Seian pouted. “Just to toil away as the second fiddle again?”
“It’s not like I’m second fiddle!” Seian exploded. She clenched her hands, puffing steam through her nose. Her wyvern self looked up at her, watching her tense her body over and over. “I’m not second fiddle….” Seian said, counting in her head to calm herself down. “I’m not…second fiddle…look…Seian…” She sat down in her old form, sighing as she struggled to say what she wanted to say.
“He doesn’t love us at all…doesn’t he…” the wyvern said, looking defeated.
“Arrrgh, he does, that’s the thing. I mean, he wouldn’t let me live with him if he didn't, right?” Seian argued. “It is disheartening, but maybe it’s just a different type of love… Something that’s still there, but maybe it’s not love love, but it's still there.”
“Like… maybe a friend?”
“I hope it’s not just a friend…” The thought of being friend-zoned was an awful reality. But… “If that is where we are, then maybe we just have to acknowledge that as well.” Both versions of Seian shuddered.
“Funny, I always thought that I couldn’t live without him… but I’m making it sound so easy. Shame we wouldn’t be able to exactly live to find out.”
“Right, the whole dying thing…” Seian said. “Wait! I still need to save them!”
“Forget them, what about us? We haven’t been this close since we took the potion for hands!”
“Maybe, but back then, we also weren’t undead,” Seian said. She closed her eyes, the ground around them starting to wilt. Her body started to decay, her bony armor growing sharply out of her limbs.
“But we’ll go on a rampage! I don’t want to hurt anyone! I… I don’t want to hurt him either…” The Wyvern said, hugging the transforming Seian. “Please, there has to be another way….”
“Maybe….” Seian admitted, her eyes transforming into a more menacing set of silts. “But let's kick some sense into that Bunyip before we do.”
“Come on, we’re almost there,” Kunmi said, holding a limping Dami as they went through the door onto the rooftop. The squeeze on his leg had left him with a severe sprain, and just standing on his feet made his head flash white and red. Behind them, the entire doorway leading to the roof shook, until Issia knocked it clean off its hinges to get through. The shaking knocked both of them down, the two lying on the roof as they looked up at the predator stalking closer to them.
“If we’re going to die, I need to tell you something,” Dami said. “I was the one that broke the garage door at your aunt's house, but she would have killed me!”
“I was the one who did that prank on you last year with the letter asking you to be someone’s boyfriend!” Kunmi responded, hugging the living hell out of him. “I’m sorryyyyyy!”
“I broke your bike and replaced it with another one!” they both said, looking into each other’s eyes. The moment of confusion didn’t last long though, as an ear-snapping hiss made them look up at the Bunyip before them. Its claws pinned them both together against the ground, leaving their mouths up to yell one last time as her jaws came down on their heads.
At the last moment though, an object could be heard whizzing through the air. The Bunyip looked up just in time to see a blurred figure kick it right in the face, the force of its foot lifting the entire creature off the two. “Step off!” it said, using its newly sprung leg to kick her again, sending her falling off the building and crashing down into the ground. Dami and Kunmi looked up, bewildered as they were picked up by the mysterious heroine and taken off the roof.
“Thank you so much,” they said, hugging her as she set them down in two of the pool chairs near the deep end. It was as far from the destroyed building as possible, but even still, they couldn’t help but wander near it to see what was left of their friend.
“She’s gone,” Dami said. They looked back at her, noticing the bones all over her body and the faceplate. Having memories of the near past, they started to back up, the humanoid advancing closer.
“Seian?” Kunmi asked, helping Dami stand. They felt their backs hit the fencing around the pool, seeing the humanoid still approaching until it kneeled in front of them.
“Can you say anything?” Kunmi asked again.
She looked up and slowly shook her head. All her movements seemed very deliberate, her hands having a constant jitter to them.
“Are you going to hurt us?”
Another slow head shake.
“At least we know she’s on the outside,” Dami said, sighing with relief. They heard Issia roar and turned back to the building, seeing her come out the other side and laser in on the three of them. “H-hey! Seian,” he called, seeing her head turn instantly toward him. He started to sweat, not knowing if he had said something wrong. “U-uhh…go…fight?”
She remained still as a statue, moving her hand up towards Dami. The sweating only got worse, until she finally patted him on the head and stood up.