Page 37 of Light Leech

Before I could ask what he meant, I saw Boyband already running to break another leg.

Naoma did the same.

The spider lady couldn’t stand, so I ran for her head.

“The neck!” the pig man told me. I didn’t want him to boss me around again, but I thought it was a smart idea. Black light claws grew from my hands. I climbed up her broken body then slashed the spider lady’s neck until her giant head.

Rainbows exploded, but I couldn’t watch for long. Sanna jumped on me and slammed me to the ground. She started to tickle me and rainbow drool fell out of my mouth.

My eyes started to go black. My head felt funny. I laughed. She was tickling me too hard.

I wanted to sleep. Maybe that would be good. I was a hard worker and my mom liked it when I napped.

My body shook. The tickling stopped. Sanna wasn’t on me anymore. I looked up to see her shaking on the floor as Kuni continued to shock her.

Zeg. Tickling? What was I thinking? The warrior queen was Sanna. That was it. The playful spider lady was a chromatic demon, one that had once called herself a PTA member. Veren’s mechanical corpse had been torn into pieces and thrown around the room. She no longer looked like a giant toy, but her shape held true with broken legs scattered and sparing with blue light.

“Holy zegginn’ balls.” Boyband was catching his breath. He no longer looked like a child. The rainbow and confetti I had seen now showed itself as blood splatters around the room and on his body.

Kuni stood with a foot on Sanna. “I shocked her good, but she’s still alive.”

“Kill that–”

“No!” Naoma shouted.

My attention shot to her, relieved to see that she was well and standing, despite the rainbow that had revealed itself as blood. Thinking back on that illusion, I wondered if that was how she looked as a child.

Illusion. My mind felt peeled anew, just as it had been after the therapist encounter. Too similar to be coincidental.

“Why not?” Boyband asked. “She just made me experience a childish fever dream.”

“Where you shot confetti out of your mouth while they ticked you?” Naoma asked.

He nodded.

“Me too, which is why we’re taking her back for interrogation. This is the second assassination attempt in too little a time.”

“That fever dream is almost like the hell your therapist put me through,” I said.

Boyband no longer looked bothered by Kuni sparing Sanna. Trepidation filled his face. Repressed fear that was creeping through the seams of determination.

We walked over to Kuni, each of us staring at our assailant with puzzlement over hatred.

“You said she put you in a dream?” Kuni asked.

Boyband was the first to answer. I was surprised with how controlled and calm he was. “Yeah, she made me–us—feel like we were kids getting tickled and played with by some giant spider toy. That’s what you all felt, right?”

Naoma and I nodded.

“So that’s why you were all acting weird. You sounded like kids.” Kuni kicked the woman and grunted something coarse in Arabasian.

“Hey, be careful!” Naoma pulled him back.

He reached for her hand. She took it with a concerned smile.

Seeing him so confident and quick to harm, I felt sorrow for another child robbed of their childhood. Even Boyband, who had been a teenager for his first feeding, struggled with the moral dilemma of it all. Was it his fault that Kuni was already used to violence? Was it mine for pointing Boyband in the wrong direction? Violence from a child was abhorrent, but I couldn’t call this the wrong direction when it was the one I chose.

Was it wrong if this was the only path we could take? Was it the only one we could take? I didn’t want to burden myself with guilt, so I chose to cower behind justification. It was the same twisted excuse for using fixes.