Turmoil Chapter 7: The Creature And The Room

Setuh slowly woke up alone in the eternal darkness that shrouded her body, her eyes fluttering from a long nap. Cold chills in the air raised up the hairs of her skin. The place she’s in couldn’t be seen, only heard and felt.

The ground wasn’t familiar in terms of texture, but there was something else she could sense in front of her - a wall of some kind. She reached for its surface, and felt a sort of oddly frozen metallic material shaped tubularly and stained with spots. She tried shaking it, but to no avail. She shook again just to make sure it wasn’t actually strong enough, but to her disappointment, nothing happened.

She looked around and reached for the rest of her surroundings. It was the same metal tubes that blocked her. Just as she was about to stand up, the top vertex of her head suddenly bumped into a ceiling that was just six inches above her. Surprised by the ceiling, she went back down, grunted, and rubbed an ache on her head. She knelt down on both knees and looked down. Her mouth frowned and her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“W-Where the hell am I?”, she asked herself in thought, trying to understand, “A cage? What is this place?!”.

…

“God, it’s m-mad cold in here…”, she thought as she hugged herself, “Wonder if this place has got itself a thermostat…”

She closed her eyes as she took a deep, chill breath. She then asked herself another question:

“How did I bloomin’ end up here?”.

Meanwhile and elsewhere in Turmoil City, Dynamo was searching for Setuh, who somehow disappeared after being violently paralysed by the figure. With Rico’s core in his hand, he marched on. Despite not having to cry, he had already mourned his poor nephew’s death before even encountering the figure.

“How could this happen?”, he thought.

He didn’t understand what had occurred before their seeming deaths. He didn’t understand how a singular robot had beaten the oil and blood out of his sister and nephew.

He suddenly sensed a frightening presence towering over him from a building, staring his back down. Its shadow appeared over him, with two bright yellow eyes burning like two stars in space. He slowly swerved around to see the monster, who used to be his sister, standing on the building’s roof with both of its fists still clenching.

While holding the heart of his fallen nephew, Dynamo stood his ground, as he looked back at the creature.

“It has been a long time since I was put into this situation in 2501.”, he sighed as one of his hands lit up on fire, “Let’s see how different you are from Byrd.”

The two kept standing there, looking as if they’re waiting for an attack from one’s self. The creature’s fists kept clenching to a point that there were knuckles cracking, while Dynamo’s flames slowly changed colour to a whooshing blue. This was one of those times when a family fights amongst themselves…

Or not…

Much to the red man’s surprise, the creature, unresponsive at all towards his defensive behaviour, turned around and walked off.

“What?”, muttered Dynamo, who was dumbfounded and concerned, “Wh… Wha… What?”.

The creature wasn’t interested in fighting him after all.

“D-Did you just…”, stuttered Dynamo in disbelief as he paused for half a minute just to figure out what the creature’s motive was, “No… No, you did NOT!”.

The man squatted down. His hands pointed down. Suddenly, giant gusts of wind rushed around him, helping him to levitate in the air. And with a zoom, he thrusted himself past the top of the building. Little tornadoes and small hurricanes formed and surrounded his seemingly feeble legs, as he reached for the skies. Then, he looked down as he stuck his burning hands together, targeting the walking creature.

“Don’t worry, sister…”, he bravely thought, “I don’t know what you’re thinking as of now… But I will save you, just you wait…”.

Back at the room, while shaking the tubes even more, Setuh called out for help to get her out of the cage, but no answer arrived to her plea. Exhausted, she stopped and closed her eyes for a short break. Her grip on the tubes loosened as her arms tired out and let go.

“This really was all my fault…”, she sighed to herself, “Why did I bring Rico along? ‘To help him gain experience out of an adventure’ Yeah, well… Turns out that ‘experience’ got both of us bumped off…”

…

“And thanks to that, I ended up here in this shit place of an afterlife”, she sighed again, “Can’t get out in any way. And, for some reason, I can't even make use of my powers…”.

…

“I’m so sorry… I failed you… My parents, my brothers, and myself… Again…”

…

…

“I really am a terrible mum…”

Depressed, Setuh dropped to the floor on her side. She hugged herself again, and stared blankly at nothing but darkness, which its presence circled around her. The air thickened with breezes in low temperatures. She’s right. It’s only been half a year for her child, and she’s already let him down twice in a row. The first time she did this, she nearly killed him while she trained him, but luckily he was only knocked unconscious. The second time… Well, you’ve seen what happened, haven’t you?

Before all of that, at first, she was living her life in lower class household, adopted by a loving dad and a loving mum, who had never even judged her appearance, with two brothers who treated her right. People outside of them didn’t take them kindly. The children were often ridiculed for their “monstrous” and outlandish looks, more specifically at their heads. Some would even throw little piles of wood and muddy stones at them as if they were in a circus. It didn’t matter who it was; adults and children alike weren’t pleased with the trio’s appearance. But despite this, their parents didn’t care how they looked, for their love was unconditional. They spent months, even years, staying at their side, protecting them, giving them proper care. To them, dad and mum were two in a million…

Fast-forward to now, Setuh wanted to follow her parent’s footsteps, but she butchered up one thing they did for her: protection. The make-up she applied on her face was getting ruined as tears flowed out of her eyes. Again, he knew she already let everyone down. She closed her eyes, ducked her head down, and silently cried in a place she knew she belonged to…

Until all of a sudden, a bright area of light shone behind her, flashing up a part of the room. While that happened, Setuh felt a flicker of heat simmering up on her back. The tears on her face were wiped, the moment of failure was interrupted. She turned around only to be blinded by the light. Shrieking in a second, she raised her arms to block herself from seeing more of the light. However, the light overwhelmed the girl, even when she shut her eyes tightly. A ringing sound came with the light and entered her nonexistent ears, harming her mind even more. This caused her to groan, moving her arms to her head. She tried to massage the pain out of her, but the sound and light pushed her to a point she couldn’t think rationally. She screamed again, this time it was longer. She couldn’t bear what was going on anymore.

Eventually, it all went away, as she ended up somewhere else, out of the cage that she belonged in. Like the earlier room, the place was a sort of dark abyss, only it was more open and less imprisoning in a way. The ground she stood on was a little rougher than the one back then. The temperature went back to feeling cold again. Setuh hugged herself again, and dropped to her knees. She didn’t move, never wanted to. She didn’t care less about where she was now.

A voice in a far off distance whispered, and snapped Setuh out of her short-longing depression. Its texture was smooth as slick, slightly mind-tickling as a sparrow’s feather. It wasn’t speaking English, or any language that Setuh could understand. What was it saying?

But before a possible answer could be thought up, a couple more whispering voices appeared in different spots and directions. Setuh turned around at times as she listened to more quiet voices surrounding her.

“Okay… This is getting weirder by the minute…”, she confirmed in thought, “What the hell is going on? Why are there voices now?”.

The whispers turned into murmurs and mumbles. With each unknown word spoken, the audience began asking questions, expressing opinions, and saying their statements. The voices continued their murmurs for a long while. As the volume remained, the voices grew to have a large variety of textures from sounding high and thin like a whistle to having a gruff voice like an adult bear. Feeling uncomfortable, Setuh felt the voices were talking about her, not in appraisal but in hatred, like that time in her younger days.

After a few minutes, the voices stopped.

…

It’s quiet again.

…

An orange dot of light, which appeared miniature like an ant, was directed to the floor, glowing in front of Setuh. Its clear colour easily attracted her. A low humming noise accompanied the dot, as it began to move towards the tip of Setuh’s head. She looked up to see where the dot came from. An enormous, orange eye gazed back from above, lidless, suspended, like a full moon seen at midnight. The orange dot that focused on Setuh widened into the area. It was revealed that the light was projected by the black, circular iris of the eye.

As Setuh kept looking, hypnotised by the eye, the sound of the low humming resonated in vibrations that were inserted into the girl’s muscles and bones, rattling them. It was at this moment she felt as if the eye wasn’t merely staring, she felt as if it knew her from the very beginning.

A heavily distorted baritone voice echoed and muttered her brain:

“[REDACTED] Lawrence. Also known to self as… Setuh.”

Setuh gasped as the voice vibrated inside her head, causing a sufferable ache in the brain’s receptors.

“Welcome to our humble abode… Our home…”

“H…Home?”, grunted Setuh in confusion, still receiving the headache, “W-What do y-you mean, home? W-Who are-”.

Her head hurt even more as she spoke. She quickly shut her eyes as she groaned in pain.

“Now, now, my little child…”, calmly said the voice, “The more you speak, the worse the pain inside your head will become. Nonetheless, you shall open your eyes now, and see your people.”

She paused when she heard those three words: “See your people”. Initially, she was confused by what the voice was saying. “See your people?”

Intrigued despite some disbelief in her mind, she opened her eyes only to see an eye that is much smaller in size which popped out in the same place the first voice was spoken. It was green, with its iris being thinner, more serpent-like. It stared at her the same way the bigger eye did, like it knew her. Another eye with a square iris appeared. It was pink. There goes another! And another! And another!

Eventually, an overwhelmingly gigantic platoon of eyes erupted out in the abyss. Shimmering in all colours and shapes, each eye stared at the girl. Silence stayed in the room, as Setuh became uncomfortable. While her mouth was wide open, her teeth wobbled without even touching.

“We understand you have multiple questions for us…”, spoke the voice, “But first, let me tell you a story…”

"... A story?", Setuh thought.

Back in the ruins of Turmoil City, Dynamo was already having trouble reaching for the creature. Puffs of smoke and grasses of flames were left behind, destroying the buildings that were caught in the advance of the fight.

Whoosh!

Flames were shot into the sky. The creature had its back against a building that was twice the size of the other common apartments, whilst having a forcefield to protect itself. Gradually getting exhausted, Dynamo, who was covered in two or three bruises, rushed towards the creature with both of his fists tightly clenched and on fire. As he ran, he felt as if his heart was beating faster than before, he knew it had been long since he had to put twice the effort in his own battles.

Next, he threw a few solid punches at the forcefield.

POW!

WHAM!

WHACK!

As he continued, a few of his knuckles popped, cracked, and bled. He then pressed with a burning finger onto the forcefield, and blasted out an extended beam of fire.

KABOOM!

The creature was already feeling the immense heat and pressure of the beam entering inside the damaged forcefield. Flickers of flames followed and shattered the forcefield. The creature was then engulfed in the beam, being slowly pushed away by its heavy force. However, it seemed like it wasn’t taking a hit.

Slowly, the creature raised an arm up, its hand being lazily headed towards the dusty, blazing floor. It flicked its wrist. The red man involuntarily deactivated his beam as he was flung upwards in a rapid instant like a gigantic boulder being propelled from its catapult.

The creature then looked up to see where the enemy was headed, until it was surprised by an elongated slab of tough concrete shaped irregularly but able to cover the appropriate length of a normal bus stop. Unable to respond in time, it was crushed. Crumbling was the concrete slab as it began squashing skin and bones.

Afterwards, a giant statue of Dynamo emerged down from the sky and landed on the concrete slab, destroying it in the process, and, of course, squeezing more the hell out of the creature. On the head of the statue was a sweating Dynamo, sitting cross-legged and patiently. And with a deep breath, he raised a fist and pummeled the statue in one punch. Nothing occurred until a couple of large cracks spread throughout the vertical half of the statue, causing it to then break into large sacks of concrete debris, which then fell onto the creature, crushing it furthermore.

When this happened, the man quickly jumped and safely landed on the ground away from the collapsing rubble. He then stared at it, waiting for the creature to emerge.

Sweat continuously trickled off of the top corners of his head. He had been fighting her for more than thirty minutes, yet he hadn’t been able to get close to her without burying her in bricks and soil. His fingers attempted to spark another flare. One came out, but it was so little it couldn’t fill the whole tip of his index finger.

Staring at the flame, he shut his eyes and let out a shaky sigh. He didn’t know if he could hold on for longer. His breathing grew loud, as if he’s running out of it, his eyelids steadily narrowing in his vision, his teeth chattering just slightly, and his heart beating as quick as a cheetah.

Suddenly, a sense of shock shuddered onto Dynamo’s thick skull, as he felt a gallon of telekinetic power coming from beneath the rubble. The ground rumbled much to his dread. Soon, a few of the city’s buildings gradually lifted themselves up into the air.

An otherworldly screech shook the rubble, as rocks slowly began to split apart and break down. Against his will, panicking, the red man felt something drag him up to the air.

BANG!

The creature finally exploded into the area, with the rubble now out of its way. It glanced at its brother, with aggressive breathing and aggressive growling. Yellow tears fell down quicker than usual.

Both hands were cracked open from fists and fingers further extended and thin as pins and needles.

He sighed, “Right… This may hurt more than I ought to think…”.

He closed his eyes and relaxed, as the creature catapulted towards him.

To Be Continued...