Wires

As they moved through the complex, James noticed that the path the carvings where taking them was heading in as straight a path as possible. They would only turn when forced to and the turns would be the opposite of the previous turn. They travelled through the corridors as quickly as they could with James' leg still heavily hindered his movements, and Henry's hand was seemingly hurting more than he let on earlier.

They took frequent rests where they could recover a bit before moving on. Every few minutes, they could here inhuman screams echoing around them, which would give them an extra boost in their stamina. After the fifth or so stop, James noticed that Henry was growing much paler. He was cradling his left elbow in an attempt to stop the obvious shaking throughout the limb.

"Dude, you alright?" James asked, reaching over to grip Henry's forearm. Strangely, he could feel a coldness through the cloth of his long sleeved shirt. With a concerned look on his face, James pulled back the sleeve, revealing a horror underneath. Metallic looking silver lines coming from the bandages on his wrist, were snaking up Henry's arm like veins. A few had breached the skin, poking onto the surface before dropping back in.

"What the fuck is that!" James cursed. He looked up at Henry's face, which was scrunched up in pain, his other hand gripping his elbow increasingly tightly. James pulled away the bandages on Henry's hand to get a better look at what was happening. The makeshift bandages fell away, revealing another grisly image. The metal wires were even more pronounced here, over flowing from the wound from the creature and wrapping tightly around Henry's hand. As James watched, he thought he could see the wires melting into one another, forming plates both above and below the skin.

Henry suddenly let out a shrill scream that sounded eerily similar to the creature that had attacked. He started convulsing on the ground and frantically scraping at his upper arm. James looked up at where henry was scratching, seeing the wires pushing through his arm at a visible speed. Thinking fast, James grabbed the discarded bandages and started to tie them tightly around Henry's upper arm. He hoped to cut of the the movement of the wires like a tourniquet did for blood. Even as he finished tying the arm off, he could tell it wasn't working.

The wires kept creeping their way up the arm, working their way up to the shoulder. James started panicking slightly before he thought of something. If the wires were metal, then he might be able to control it and stop the spread. He placed his hand on the shoulder of Henry and closed his eyes, concentrating on the sensations at the back of his mind.

Immediately he became aware of the metal on his own body, the gun and bullets emitting their exact size and location. He focused his senses towards Henry. Henry seemed at first glance to be the same as he had been previously when James was blinded. A thin sheen of energy covered his whole body, emitting a similar sensation as the other magic users he had come across. When he looked closer at the arm though, he could immediately see that something was incredibly wrong. A foreign sensation was digging under the thin membrane of Henry's, magic?

James tried to latch on to this foreign mass in a similar way to how he had fire the gun. He could feel a string of power leave his own body and mix with the atmosphere around him, trying to some how grip the wires. He felt the energy come within centimetres of the clump of wires, but it suddenly stopped. James initially thought that it was the wires somehow defending itself from his influence, but a second inspection dispelled that theory. The energy was getting stopped by Henry's energy.

James was stumped, he hadn't expected Henry would be able to stop energy from entering his system with how weak he was. A brief feeling of defeat flashed through James' mind, but he pushed it to the side. He wasn't going to let this, virus, do what it wanted with his friend. He refocused his attention to lower down the arm, and sensed something different on Henry's hand. In the same spot that the creatures tooth had punctured, the membrane around Henry had also been punctured.

James could feel the wire virus reaching through the breach in the membrane, drawing in energy from outside. If the wire virus was able to bring in energy from outside via the breach, then maybe James could as well.

James tried to manipulate the energy to grip the wires again. This time it managed to go through the membrane and reach the wire virus. As soon as the energy reached the wire virus, James felt a similar resistance to Henry's membrane, but this one was much weaker. Instead of completely stopping the energy, it only partially resisted. The energy wrapped around and partially sank into the wires, abruptly stopping the advancement.

The wires pulled against his control like a rabid dog to its leash. James gradually increased the pressure on the wires until he felt that he had a concrete grasp upon the wires. James opened his eyes and found he was able to keep the wires at bay as long as he kept the majority of his attention on it.

With the remainder of his attention, he looked to Henry to see his condition. Henry had stopped screaming and thrashing around. He was laying down now, his chest rising and lowering rapidly as he took in rasping breaths. His eyes were closed, tears still pouring out of them.

"Henry, how you doing man?" James asked in a worried tone.

"The pain's stopped," Henry rasped after a couple seconds. He steadied his breathing before sitting up with his other arm. He looked at his other arm grasped tightly in James hand. "It's like the whole arm has gone numb, I can't even feel your grip on it."

James could see the worried look on Henry's face, he wasn't sure if Henry would be able to keep the arm.

"Do you think you could take it out?" Henry asked hopefully.

"Not without shredding your arm," James responded sombrely. "Maybe someone in the group we're following can?" James tried to reassure, but he wasn't very confident.

Henry took in a deep breath before attempting to stand up. As James went to join him, he felt his control slip slightly as he moved causing the wires to shift. Henry jerked his arm at the movement, but James quickly regained his control.

"I have to concentrate on keeping control more when moving," James said as he stood as still as possible. "You'll have to be my guide."

James only saw Henry nod before turning all his attention on Henry's arm. They started moving through the corridors again, moving quicker than before. James' concentration on Henry caused him to ignore the pain in his leg, which had picked up again due to the increased speed.

After maybe five minutes of moving, James started feeling a slight strain all through his body. The strain picked up with every minute, escalating to a painful pulling sensation. He knew that the cause was his control over the wire virus as the pulling sensation was coming from it. Even knowing the cause, James didn't let up for a second. He wasn't going to let the wires take more territory in Henry's body.

James lost track of time as they moved through the corridor. The painful strain had caused him to focus fully on the wires, only leaving a small part of himself for movement. Even with his determination, he could feel his control slipping at times. The wires had stopped in their constant pressure to spread, instead trying to push through in bursts. A few of the bursts had pushed his control back slightly, causing shudders to run though Henry every time.

Just as he felt he was about to give in to the constant pressure of the wire virus, something changed. Henry paused briefly as he took a left turn. James could hear knew sounds at the edge of his senses, though he didn't dare lose his concentration. He felt hard hands suddenly grip onto his shoulder and pull him. He let himself be pulled along, great full that the burden of movement wasn't on him anymore.

He started to hear different voices around him, shouting different words that James didn't use any effort to understand. He suddenly felt the presence of another person attempting to help him with supressing the wire virus. They attempted to do the same thing he did and go straight through Henry's aura and was rebuffed just like he was. James gritted his teeth and prepared for Henry to briefly go through a bit of pain. He relaxed his control just enough to get out a few gasping words.

"Go.. through.. the.. wound." James tried to regain his control after the words, but letting go for a couple of seconds had allowed the wires to gain momentum. He tried his best to halt the progression until he felt a new energy reach in to take over. It got stuck on his energy, so he finally let go of his grasp. He briefly felt the new energy get a grip on the wire virus before he crumpled to the ground. The strain he felt before suddenly multiplied, like a taut rope had snapped and whipped into him. His vision quickly went dark as he fell into unconsciousness.