Lloyd could feel his head ringing from the pain. He had no hands to grasp objects, so he held the broken, sharp bone with his teeth.
He could barely stand, and blood stained his eyes, causing him to see the world in red.
But even though he was just a knock away from death's door, his eyes still burned with intense hatred for the owl monster.
Ignoring the pain, Lloyd moved forward, slowly making his way to the monster. With every step he took, blood fell off his body to the ground, making tiny puddles of red in the snow.
Lloyd may not have noticed it much till now, but the cold was finally getting to him. The chilly breeze flowed into his nostrils, and his bare feet walked atop the snow.
At this moment, Lloyd somewhat understood that he was being moved by pure will alone. His body should have given out long ago.
Summoning the strength to move once again, Lloyd ran at the owl monster like a madman, aiming to stab it with the bone in his mouth.
The strange amalgamation of flesh stared at him. It enjoyed seeing humans make their final strides as they are being crushed like ants.
"Very good… Excellent even." The owl said pompously, "Show me more!"
The owl's smile was now so grotesque that it became hard to look at. But Lloyd didn't care in the slightest and continued his charge, unfazed by fear.
Soon, Lloyd had closed the distance between him and the owl monster to just seven meters. Getting this close, he stilled his mind and prepared for death. He never once assumed the owl could be killed by his hands, let alone a random bone, but he would be satisfied as long as he got the chance to harm it once again.
As Lloyd took another step forward with his right leg, he stumbled and fell to the floor, the soft snow acting as a cushion beneath him.
Before he fell, when he tried to take the next step with his left leg, he felt like his leg was no longer there, like it was taken from him. He tried moving his left leg, but try as he may, he couldn't budge it.
Fearing what had happened to him, Lloyd looked down at his legs and instantly became shocked by what he saw. Although his right leg was relatively fine, his left leg, up to his ankles, was completely gone.
He didn't notice the pain at first due to adrenaline in his system, but now, a sharp pain radiated from the stump that was his leg. Just like before, this pain was not enough to stop him.
Lloyd drove his bone-tipped arms into the snow as he raised himself off the ground. He had only one foot, but that didn't stop him. He still walked forward, using his stump of a leg to walk in a limp that the owl found much amusing.
As he moved, several cuts appeared around his body. He wasn't sure how this was happening to him, but he knew it was the owl monsters doing. With each step Lloyd took, he limped as he was getting cut as he got closer to the owl.
The closer he got, the more cuts appeared on his body. Soon, Lloyd was covered in bruises from head to toe, slowly bleeding out from more wounds than he could count.
By the time he stood face to face with the owl, the military uniform he had on had been completely torn off, revealing his bruised and battered, scientifically augmented body.
Lloyd felt strange, like his conscience was slowly dissipating. With one final drive forward, he stabbed at the owl man with the splintered bone he held in his mouth, but to his dismay, the moment it made contact with the owl monster's skin, it met a resistance so strong that the bone ripped multiple of Lloyd's teeth out instantly.
Lloyds' body jerked backwards, and he fell to the ground. He had already expected this to happen. He knew how durable the owl was. Even after he ingested the golden mercury, the owl monster's body was still not so easy to damage. His rage was nothing more than the driving force, his body, the substance it inhabited.
Motivation alone cannot make a weakling suddenly obtain the strength to smite the powerful.
Lloyd knew this. He knew it very well, even. Perhaps more than he knew himself. He had always understood this law, but he never let it hold him back. No matter the consequences that came from his actions, he always drew strength from his impetus.
As strong as his will was, he now kneeled before a creature that deprived him of it. As he stared at the beast. A strange thought came to his mind.
'Is this the end… is this my end?"
Although he had just thrown the largest temper tantrum of his life, now nestled on the cold ground, he no longer felt rage or anger.
As strong-willed as he was, he felt that his life was coming to an end. He couldn't help but look at the owl monster as the demon it was. Soon, fear slowly seeped into his mind, replacing his rage.
But at the same time, even while fear welled up in his soul. He also felt a sense of pride. He wasn't able to damage the monster, but at least he didn't disgrace his fallen comrades by begging for his life.
Unlike before, the owl man's face had no form of joy being expressed on it, but rather, that joy was replaced with disgust. He realized that Lloyd was no longer a toy he could enjoy.
Without hesitation, it sent out a fury of talons, ripping of Lloyds head and sending it flying in one attack.
The moment this happened, time seemed to slow down for Lloyd as his head flew through the air. Lloyd thought to himself as this happened.
'So, it's true what they say… the human mind can survive a few seconds after decapitation. But unlike what the conspiracy theorists say, my life didn't flash before my eyes. Perhaps it didn't because I didn't see the attack coming.'
Lloyd paused for a bit in his thoughts. For some reason, as a flying head, Lloyd achieved a form of clarity he had never experienced before. This state was so elating, he assumed that if he had always thought like this, he would be one of, if not the best scientist in the world by now.
Almost as quickly as that calm clarity came, it vanished like it had been chased away by something. In that same instant, Lloyd could hear something. He could hear a scream, but not just one, multiple screams emanating from all around him.
Following the scream, he could feel his conscience being stretched all around him, like some foreign force was forcing him to observe those who were screaming.
In an instant, Lloyd could see everything. From the devilish spires to the backlines of the war, all things were revealed to him. This sensation was unlike anything he had experienced. He felt like he couldn't breathe, yet he couldn't suffocate either.
The world unfolded around him without mercy.
The battle of Unalaska stretched endlessly before his eye, the grotesque tapestry of fire and ruin, painted in blood, marinating in screaming pain. Soldiers he lived, ate, and laughed with died one by one like fragile glass before his eyes.
Shells flew from the sky like divine judgment, indiscriminately purging the frontlines, middle ring, and backlines. Erasing the lives of both innocent soldiers and monsters alike. Their screams, like paint on the bloody canvas.
What's worse, the monsters pushed back the humans without a single shred of remorse. These flaming chimeric demons slaughtered like they were machines made for that purpose alone. Ripping the flesh of their tired bones, laying tens of soldiers down to rest every minute.
The screams echoed in Lloyd's ears. He could see them, all of them. Some begged for their lives as they were being eaten alive. Others fought back with their last strides. Many cried as they found their bodies dismembered, and some waited for the cold embrace of death.
Two people caught Lloyd's attention the most.
The first being Captain Raas of the forward watch. Captain Raas was pinned to a tree, his body grotesquely contorted, a jiggered, massive piece of bone driven clean through his chest. His lungs were torn open, spilling blood through makeshift openings.
And yet, even in that state, he screamed. Air was forced through a body that no longer had the ability to produce words. But Captain Raas still clung to life with maddening zeal.
The second person was Colonel Ivan. The man holding back the spires of the frontlines. Just like before, seven colossal spires pierced through the scorched earth, and from their gates, more and more chimeras spilled from them like an endless flood of flame and rotten flesh.
Colonel Ivan stood before these monsters, or rather, multiple Colonel Ivans stood against these beasts, each Ivan standing before a spire, fighting against the chimeras and attempting to close the gates. Lloyd never knew what the Colonel's complex was, but now he knew it had something to do with cloning.
One by one, the gates began to close as they were faced with hands of energy that came from each clone. This didn't seem to be an extension of the Colonel's complex, but rather some other ability Lloyd could not comprehend.
As Ivan and his clones closed the gates, chimeras rushed out of them, ripping and burning the clones' flesh with swift strikes. One by one, the gates were sealed shut. The only spire that remained open was the spire in the middle. But soon, even that spire fell to the Colonel's strange power.
He succeeded in closing the gates, but his body was no longer whole. His flesh was charred, bruised, and sliced under the relentless assaults of heat and violence from the chimeras. He could no longer move, and the remaining chimeras surrounded him, about to finish him off.
Lloyd could see everything, hear everything, and in some cases, he could feel the emotions of despair that held everyone by their necks. If something wasn't done, not a single person would make it out of this hell.
As if answering his complaint, space seemed to be distorted as an impossible structure formed. A shape that could not exist and yet did, folding into itself, expanding and contracting, its geometry defied comprehension. It was a tesseract, its form, at least two meters in breadth, glitching in and out of reality as though undecided on whether it should exist or not.
As it pulsed, a surface unfolded from it. On that surface, simple words were written in a font Lloyd knew was not of Earth realm.
{Do You Wish To Live?}