Chapter 2 Portal

I STOPPED MYSELF BEFORE I could think about it too much, especially since the only way I'm going to get down there is my free-fall tactic. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. My battery power has run out in places without sunlight, so I developed a tactic. I would just turn off my boots and freefall to the ground. Since my boots can reach half charge in 3 minutes and a full charge in five, there's really no risk. Once they're charged, I just turn my boots back on, catching myself before I hit the ground. Auth doesn't like it when I do it. She's worried I'll get hurt, which I guess is valid since I can actually get hurt when I'm in one of her books.

I will not get hurt though I've always caught myself before hitting the ground, so why would this time be different? I tell myself despite everything that has never happened that now happened today. Sure, it is a lot higher than I've ever done before, but I'm sure it will be fine. I leaned back as far as my boots would let me before tapping the off button with my right heel. Instantly my body fell the way I was leaning, and in a matter of seconds I was falling headfirst to the ground. Wait, what was I supposed to say? Oh yeah, please don't do this at home.

As I fell, wind rushed all around me and into my eyes. Thankfully, the contacts I wore are built-in goggles. I blinked twice and instantly my eyes zoomed in on the building I was falling towards. I might still have been thousands of miles away in the air, but thanks to my contacts, I could see the building as if it were just fifty feet away. I winked my left eye, locking my vision onto it, then just let myself freefall. After 5 minutes, I considered reactivating my boots since they had fully recharged, but Auth was not responding to my messages, so I needed to get down there somehow.

So I kept falling until my vision zoomed out, indicating I was getting close to the building. I let myself fall for a second or two longer before I finally tapped the button to turn my boots on again, but unfortunately for me, I kept falling. I tapped it again, but still nothing. I just kept falling, and if I didn’t stop soon, I would end up planted face-first in the top of the building. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see whether I'd failed. Besides, I would feel it anyway, and then I'd kick the button one last time. I probably checked it hard enough to break it, but in this situation I really didn't care.

My body jolted to a stop, and I opened my eyes to see that I was hovering just inches above the building. Almost instantly my boots once again stopped working, and I fell the last couple of inches, landing in a heap. Thankfully, I could stand up, though I didn't doubt that I probably had a couple of bruises somewhere. Now that I was finally down here, I decided to take a look around, but before I could even do anything, a creature climbed onto the roof about 10 ft from where I was standing. Though calling it a creature would be kind.

It was more of a monstrous creation that crawled straight from the dark depths of a nightmare. Its body was a patchwork of sinew, steel, and an unholy amalgamation of countless creatures that someone had stitched and bolted together with little regard for symmetry or sense. The central mass of its… body is a pulsing thing covered in patches of mismatched fur, reptilian scales, and exposed muscle. Wires slithered through flesh like parasites burrowing into a host, and tubes of dark liquid pulsed like veins feeding the mechanical limbs that skittered unnaturally beneath it. Eight jagged legs extended from its deformed body. Some resembled the limbs of a spider, while others had grotesque prosthetics made of rusted metal and cracked bone.

Each leg ended in razor-sharp claws twitching as though controlled by some unseen force, gears grinding and clicking with every movement. This sound merged with the wet squelching of organic matter shifting against its mechanical frame. Where its head should be was a cluster of nightmarish features fighting for dominance. Those features were a wolf's snarling jaw, a goat's twisted horn, and a human eye staring wildly from a place it didn't belong. I'm Metallic mask bolted on the flesh conceals the rest of its face, and I knew for a fact I didn't really want to see underneath it.

In its mouth, needle-like mandibles clicked together, dripping with black sludge that sizzled when it touched the ground. More mechanical limbs lined its back, each twitching and jerking as if malfunctioning, tipped with tools that once had a purpose but had since become instruments of torment. All of them had pieces of their last victims, and I had a feeling it was thinking I was going to be its next victim. The creature stared at me for a second with that one human eye before a distorted voice came out of it, one that matched its appearance nicely.

“You are disobeying curfew.”

“And you cause horrendous nightmares, so what?”

Probably not liking what I just said, the creature lunged at me, moving surprisingly fast despite all of it. If I weren't so scared for my life at the sight of this creature, I might have appreciated the craftsmanship. That being said, it was hard to appreciate something this horrifying. Still, I avoided it easily, having learned to be quick when wrangling in the chaos from Auth’s books, though even I have to admit I've never seen a creature like this before.

“Do we really have to fight? You're already guaranteed to give me nightmares without trying to eat me,” I stated.

I knew it was a long shot with everything that had been happening, but I decided once more that I was going to try to open one of my portals. I really didn't want to fight this creature because there was nothing about this book in the database, so there would be nothing about the creature either. I know I wouldn't know its strengths and weaknesses along with all the other things I usually knew when fighting a creature, so finding this creature could sign my death warrant. I'm pretty sure Auth can bring me back if I die in a book, but I really don't want to test that. So I snapped my fingers one last time and thankfully some of my luck must have come back to me because a portal appeared about a foot or two behind the creature.

It was over the ledge of the building, but only by a little. The real problem was that it was also three feet above the creature, which means I was going to need something to jump off of.