The end of the tentacle formed into a large round polyp, glistening, and dripping with slime. It bobbed in front of my face and then split open to reveal a single eye.
My blood ran cold and I was paralyzed as I stared into this alien eye with three pupils.
Then the eye moved closer and closer, regarding me with an eerie intelligence, until it was centimeters from my face.
I managed to push through my fear and flicked on my judder knife. Acting purely on instinct, I whipped it around to slice at the tentacle.
But the moment the sonic blade made contact with the tentacle, a jolt ran through my arm as if I had electrocuted myself. The knife went spinning from my grip.
I glanced up, expecting to see a severed tentacle, perhaps spouting alien bodily fluids, but the appendage was intact. And moving ever closer to my head.
Fuck me.
Now there were more tentacles—a dozen or so—snaking out of the mound. They shot forward, almost in unison, and slapped against the stone cliff on either side of me with a wet-sounding thwap.
I was pinned down, but I wouldn’t go without a fight.
My hand found the radiant blaster on my belt and slowly I drew it from its holster. I eased it up so I could get a shot at the tentacle.
But I never got the chance.
Against my will, my fingers relaxed and the RB fell from my grip.
Then it was like all my muscles failed at once and I was unable to stand. I slumped down on my ass, back against the cliff wall.
The eye tentacle followed me down. Getting closer.
And closer.
This was it. This was how I was going to die. Devoured by some alien mound creature far below an ancient temple. My bones would join the thousands of others, cemented together in its grotesque cocoon.
I want to say that I was brave in those last moments—that I spit in the eye of the alien tentacle.
But I wasn’t.
I was shared shitless.
And so when the tentacle brushed my cheek, gently, more tenderly than Lir had ever touched me, I welcomed it.
I welcomed the release into nothingness.
11
In the milliseconds after your body dies, does your brain have one last hurrah?
That’s what I wondered as the dream enveloped me.
I found myself on the blasted black volcanic cliff that was both familiar and so very strange.
This was the dreamscape where I had encountered the scorpion creature. I knew it was a dream, but it felt incredibly real.
Superheated air tinged with sulfur burned my throat. I stood upon broken stone, cut by rivulets of lava. In the distance, the dark castle loomed, shrouded in tendrils of toxic-looking black mist.
The ground rumbled and jumped, fracturing even further. Geyser sprays of lava escaped from the earth in plumes all across the landscape.
And then that ear-splitting cry and a cascade of boulders heralded the appearance of the gigantic horror that was the scorpion creature. It rose up, blotting out the sun, a clacking, chittering mass of razor-sharp claws, stingers, and bladed armored limbs.
You have returned. The voice was low and menacing. But there was a hint of something else that I couldn’t quite identify.
I didn’t dare turn my back on the creature, but I tried to get away. The problem was that I was trapped on the edge of the rocky ridge. Below me was a hundred-meter drop into a lava lake.
Not good.
This time there is no escape.
I rushed along the edge of the ridge, trying not to lose my balance on the loose rocks.
The creature’s tail smashed down in front of me, cutting off my route, and causing the ground to jump. The impact sent up a cloud of burning dust which seared my lungs, and the force knocked me to my knees. I coughed in pain and tried to scramble away.
Then a gigantic clawed foot slammed me down deeper into the ground. The pressure was unbearable. My vision darkened and I thought how ironic it was that I was dying twice—once in real life and once in a dream.
But another voice sounded in my mind. Lighter. Almost like music.
Use the gift I have given you.
It didn’t make any sense. What gift?
I tried to reach for a weapon at my belt, but the pressure was too great. I felt the air being squeezed from my lungs.
Use your mind, Jannigan Beck.
My mind? How?
I felt my ribs crack and my muscles tear. Pain sliced through me.
Make it stop, I cried silently. Let me d—
And then the weight was flung away from my body. I registered the sensation of pushing. Not with my hands. Not with my body.
With my mind.
Through half-closed eyes I saw the scorpion creature fly backwards through the air.
But it didn’t make sense. Nothing could cause a twenty-meter-long behemoth to be tossed like that.
The creature screamed in anguish, its cry echoing over the ridge.
All of a sudden my lungs worked again. Maybe it was the adrenalin coursing through my system, but I shrugged off the cracked ribs and torn muscles.
I struggled to my feet at the same time the creature scrambled to right itself. On the blasted stone hill in front of me, the monster glowered, each of its six eyes burning with primal hatred.
You shall—
Before it could finish, I pushed it again—using my mind.
Even knowing this was impossible, I watched as the scorpion creature flew backwards even further, smashing against the rocks.
My head began to spin and I struggled to keep my balance. Then I vomited and blacked out.
When I awoke I was no longer in the volcanic nightmare. I wasn’t dead either. At least I didn’t think I was.
I was in my suit, lying on a hard cobblestone surface, somewhere under an open sky.
Tentatively moving every limb, I didn’t seem to be injured.
Slowly I sat up and looked around.
I was back in the Coliseum; I could see the stone block buildings in the distance all around me. But between them and me stretched vast tracts of
