Chronicle of Nautilus

Chapter 47: The Last Stand

The monster in front of Tim began changing, losing its humanoid contours. The Outsider became leaner, his hands thinner. The new shape resembled human shadows cast in the farthest places of the city. The blur of the shape increased, its limits became difficult to define. Thick blue smoke streamed out of the creature, making it even harder to distinguish it from the background. It began to blend with the blue horizon and soon, the monster became invisible.

The instant the creature disappeared, Tim felt a powerful grip crushing his wrist, pulling him through the endless space at great speed. Tim's image began vibrating, the redness it had, disappeared. He got the feeling of deja vu. It was almost the same experience he had during the first trip to this dimension - he began to lose memories, forget who he was and what he came here to do.

He closed his eyes and envisioned a rope wrapped around his hand, attached to a pole stretching downwards and upwards infinitely in the infinite space. It materialized. The rope stopped the forceful motion Tim had. Once again, a slight shade of red began illuminating his skin. Floating in the middle of nowhere, he extended one hand and a hole to the world of his own opened in front of him, the castle was there and only one step separated him from the safe-house. Deep inside he knew that there was no way he could make it, not before the presence of the Outsider was looming around, even if he did there was no way he could hide there from the entity. So he projected a small part, a thought of himself through the hole before closing it.

Thin, barely visible lines pierced Tim, keeping him in his place. He could not move, nor could he say a word. "This ends now!" The voice roared, more and more needles pierced Tim. He felt as if he was being torn apart, the pain became unbearable, his consciousness slowly drifted away. He felt the empty blackness, far in the distance, waiting for him to give up. After understanding that resistance is futile, he did the same as always, improvised.

As a three dimensional puzzle, his image started to shatter into pieces. Tim added his essence into each part that was torn away. And soon, before he realized, the image of his body was here no more. As falling leaves, his shredded pieces swung from side to side, drifting towards a single direction. The image of the Outsider reappeared in front of Tim's pieces, moved one of the blurry tentacles and they scattered, twisting and turning into random directions as they went.

"Not so tough now." The Outsider said, touching Tim's remains, each peace disappearing after a single touch. Amused, he eliminated the pieces slowly, one by one, enjoying the sweet taste of victory.

To his slight surprise the hole to Tim's world reappeared, Tim's figure standing and watching from another side. The pieces instantly reassembled into identical shape to that of the figure. Tim's image jumped through the window into the Outsider's world. Then, both images touched hands and became one. Warmth blew from Tim into the Outsider, pushing his coldness away.

 Tim looked to the Outsiders right, then glanced to his left and in these places, two new holes appeared, chains leashed from them onto the Outsider, wrapping round his long arms, pulling them to another world, constraining the creature.

The Outsider turned his head to the side and  drowned in his thoughts. Moment passed, amused and cooled down by the actions of his opponent the Outsider calmly said, "So much fun isn't it? To search for limits in a limitless world." Then he continued in even calmer tone, "but I must go now, I have a world to save. And you, little man would be a fool to try and stop me for the third time."

Invisible fore pushed Tim to one of the windows. Once again he stood in front of the castle. The windows to enemy's world closed behind him. For a second he rushed to the castle and then he stopped.

The Outsider floated alone in the empty blue void, a cocoon wrapping around him, his tentacles extending from the cocoon, piercing boundaries of his world. He searched the red points, looking for Glen, but the man was nowhere to be found.

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"Glen, is that you?" Tom asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.

Glen's body unfroze, he said. "Yes."

"Step away from the console, Glen." T0m asked reasonably.

But Glen did not step away. Slightly surprised, he watched into Tom's eyes, talking slowly. "Why do I remember visiting this place, Tom? I have never been here once in my life, but I know this room, this console by heart. "

"Don't know." Tom replied.

But Glen caught the lie in his eyes. He had been a specialist of manipulation and interrogation for more than half of his life, as perfect as Tom was, his body language still betrayed him.

Tom continued. "I'm not omniscient, but I can tell you one thing. If you press that button you will bring doom to us all."

"Doom you say. Do we deserve anything better?"

"Why shouldn't we?" Tom paused. "You have seen the visions, of the world far away didn't you?"

Glen nodded and watched deadly intent appearing in Tom's eyes. He understood, the talk was only a disguise for the action the man had decided to take long before entering this room. He knew what would come next, there was no hesitation it the actions of the first citizen when it came to protection of the ship. Glen pushed the 'Activate' button and closed his eyes.

Red sprinkles twinkled in the darkness, followed by a loud blast. He felt his back jerking against the console, his legs giving up, knees bending. He fell to the ground and opened his eyes. Feeling a stone crushing his chest, he bent the head forward and observed fountains of blood coming through a hole in the place of which, his heart had once been. The last image he had before fading into black was Tom standing by the console, pushing buttons, saying "No, no, no! Why, Glen, why?"

  ------

  After firing the gun and taking down Glen, Tom rushed to the console. Words on the transparent glass window now said. 'Missiles launched'. Four small rockets could be seen through the glass, flying out into separate directions, gaining acceleration with each second.

 "Abort! Abort! Initiate the override menu!" Tom shouted, desperately pushing different buttons on the console. Nothing helped. Taking a deep sight he understood his loss. He turned off the projected screen and walked towards the glass to watch the spectacle of the beginning of an end.

Four Engines were visible through the window, two of them almost straight in front of him. Attached to what looked octopus's legs they emitted bright blue light. Hydrogen, Tom perceived, forty years passed since he had seen it burning. That heavenly looking light was always relaxing yet it always carried a bitter taste of madness.

Burning hydrogen in space always reminded Tom of humanity’s sins against their life-giver, the sun. This ship was the last one to steal its precious material, suck its remaining life out. The Sun for a long time was drained and then destroyed by humanity's stupidity; this ship was destroyed by Tom's. He was a true human after all, he figured ironically. 

The missiles hit the engines and shattered them to pieces, breaking away small pieces of supporting legs as they went. Nautilus continued moving forward at incredible speed it had achieved - least four fifths of light. The scrap disappeared in the distance the instant it separated from the ship.

For a moment it seemed that nothing had changed. But the longer Tom stared at the stars the more he became aware that the ship was turning. In a clockwise direction, no more than a thousandth of degree a second perhaps, but it did.