End of Chapter 2
Sparks
cut the space in front of her, dancing in a lacy ice and sapphire ring. If I
can close the portal with him inside, it won’t matter what we leave behind or
where I land. Trapping Nur-gahl was nearly impossible because Sy’kai needed
her wits about her to close a portal. If she closed it too quickly, Nur-gahl
would be left behind, free to devour an entire world, unchallenged by beings
not capable of understanding what he was let alone the depths of his hunger,
his fury. With every new passage her brain grew increasingly muddled by the
energy expenditure and the instant intake of information—the new world and all
its life being taken in at once. Her only chance to weaken and then destroy
Nur-gahl was to find a world at the moment of its death, with nothing left for
him to mimic. Sy’kai focused every molecule of her consciousness on finding
this elusive destination. Her electricity stretched into a clumsy oval as a
window to the unknown tore open. Energy exploded outward. Fresh, sweet air
rushed at her, filling her lungs with relief.
But
this new world was far from barren.
“I
smell a feast on the other side! Go ahead, jump in. I am right behind you,
ssssister!”
Rage
flared in Sy’kai’s core. She risked a glance back and saw the dark silhouette
of a gargantuan, monstrous creature racing toward her. She faced the portal
again and plunged through.
Heat
and light devoured Sy’kai’s flesh as the fissure enveloped her. What will I
be on the other side? Please, please, let this be the final shift, she
thought as the vacuum of the portal crushed her entire being.
Nothingness.
And
then she was spat out from the portal, into the dark of night. Atoms pulled
other atoms into minute clusters as millions of electric implosions sucked
matter off the ground and out of the surrounding terrain. Pure instinct flowing
from a primal mind scanned the landscape for a blueprint of sentient life. A
mental tentacle scraped and slurped, hungry for material until it finally
latched onto something in the distance and made its decision. Another explosion
crackled behind her elemental brain, but the sound hardly registered in the
morphling’s still-forming body.
Gray
matter coalesced, bone materialized, and muscles knit themselves around the
skeleton as it built itself from nothing. White light and raw energy found
purchase through four glowing hooves. Delicious soft gas kissed her forehead, a
body part that felt somehow heavy. Light hovered overhead, illuminating the way
forward through dark leaves and moist dirt.
Brightness
flooded the field ahead of her. Moments later, as her eyes adjusted, she sensed
another life form somewhere inside the light. Instinctively, she walked toward
a face she couldn’t see. A slight figure, a willowy bipedal creature with
orange-red hair slowly came into focus. And the morphling brain, still crude
with instinct and ability, reached out telepathically to evaluate this opposing
alien heartbeat.
She turned back to the trees then as she felt the heat of another uncontrollable transformation taking hold.
The cover is great
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting about The Electric Girl. Much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome! :)
DeleteThe book sounds very interesting. Love the eye-catching cover!
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