Iatre had been full of questions, asking everything from “how big is Kinigi?” to “what’s the average girth of a Veth?” As they walked, Continuity had politely answered as many questions as he could, although there were a lot of things he couldn’t answer. Syklos had simply lead the way, remaining silent and just walking along, pausing only to growl at the weird shadows that would flicker by.
They hadn’t seen any life yet. Just the weird shadows. The shadows would fade in and out of existence, as if made by something on another plane of existence. Continuity suggested that maybe they were the shadows of beings killed in the Othic. None of the other Veth liked that idea. Well, Syklos and Iatre didn’t.
Arkay had been trailing behind the entire time. It was pretty clear that there was something wrong with the Veth Prime. Continuity would shout back at him to see if he was alright occasionally, and Arkay would cheerfully wave, but he’d never say anything. As he walked, he would bounce around, randomly pouncing on things that only he could see. Small things, clearly.
Continuity noticed though that occasionally, he would actually catch something and smash it in his claws, before dropping something invisible on the ground. Maybe Arkay was just really good at miming, but whatever he was doing, he was worrying continuity.
“Okay, I have another question!” Iatre perked up, interrupting Continuity’s trail of thought.
“What is it?” Continuity did his best to continue to seem nice and polite, but he was beginning to get tired. There was no concept of time where they were, so he had no idea how long they had been walking for. Or whether they were even walking north, like Syklos originally suggested.
“How comes Arkay is Veth Prime? He really… This sounds really rude, but he really doesn’t seem like the sort of person you’d make into the boss of all the Veth…” Iatre glanced back to see if Arkay had heard him. Instead he saw Arkay trying to stab the ground for some reason.
Continuity sighed. He didn’t really have an answer. “I don’t know, Iatre. I think the plan was that Arkay was going to be a V6 Veth like the majority of Veth, just with a handful of tweaks, but then Death decided to make a new version and it just hasn’t worked.”
“Is it because Arkay just seems to adapt to everything?” Iatre asked. “Because when he was teaching me the basics, I noticed he did that. He’d change to match whatever he needed.”
Continuity shrugged. “Istoria had a theory. That the combination of Death breaking her promise to him, something she’d only done a few times in the past, and the whole adaptation thing, that’s gone and messed with Arkay so that he faster than Death can control him. Because deep down, she controls all of us.”
Iatre scratched his head. “So she can’t really control him. I bet that conflict must be driving him insane. Part of his brain screaming that he was betrayed and should be free, the other half crying that he should be serving Death.”
“I assume so…”
“Not to mention the pain and torture!” Iatre added. “And probably a lot of anger and anguish about his failures during his mortal life. A lot of us don’t seem to remember being actually alive, but Arkay has vivid memories of it all. Well, all the shitty stuff, I assume. That’s really got to fuck with him.”
“I… I guess?” Continuity looked back at Arkay. He’d stopped doing whatever it was he was doing and was clearly looking at something large and scary. Syklos had also stopped, having heard something and turned around.
A gigantic creature was standing behind them, having clawed its way out of the pink, sticky ground. A combination of all sorts of different creatures, with a long, snake-like body and lots and lots of claws and spiky parts.
“Question,” Iatre hesitated. “Can Veth be killed?”
“That’s a hard question to answer,” Continuity whispered as the creature started moving towards them.
“Maybe we should run, just in case the answer is yes…” Arkay suggested as the four Veth spun around and legged it.