Chapter 9: Invisible

“What the h...?”

Kai couldn’t take his eyes off of the thing. The first ‘presence’ he saw was similar to a spiked mammal. The second resembled a bear. But that one was unlike everything he had ever seen. It didn’t have feet, it dragged its body on some sort of tail which was the only part that contacted the grass. The whole body was scaly like a snake, but it wasn’t just a long-coiled trunk, instead, the thing had several limbs, each of which with some spikes resembling feathers on the tips.

The face wasn’t very friendly, either. It was like the face of a large bird without the beak. It came making a hissing noise while trailing, approaching Kai.

Kai wasn’t very keen of the idea of letting that thing reach nearby.

‘Thank goodness I’m somewhat familiar with this whole ghost idea as of now, if I had seen this instead of that dog in the school I would be scared for life and death...’ he thought.

Kai extended the palm and tried firing a wave, but nothing came out.

‘Sh*t! That’s right! I didn’t train that one enough!’

Not willing to let the thing reach him, he began running away to gain space, so that he could concentrate better on his wave.

The presence chased after him, hissing louder and at enhanced speed. Kai had to put his unnatural effort in his escape, otherwise, he’d get caught.

‘We’re off to a bad start, heh? What do I do now?’ He thought to himself.

Kai thought of leading the thing to a place where he got an advantage but he couldn’t think of any. It didn’t help he didn’t even know the area.

After a couple of seconds on the run, the trailing sound stopped. The monster ceased carrying its body through the grass.

“Huh…?”

Instinctively Kai also stopped.

And as he did, he realized it was a mistake.

‘It could have done that just to make me stop by instinct and then catch me…’

But nothing was happening. Noticing it, Kai dared to turn back slowly.

He saw nothing. The monster had disappeared.

“What…?”

Kai looked around on all the directions and didn’t see a trace of it.

“Did it run awa… Agh!”

Kai felt a very strong slap in his face, which caused his body to get knocked on the floor. He managed to partially save the fall leaning with the hands on the floor, but the pain was still miserable.

Kai looked at the direction where the slap seemed to have come. He saw the silhouette of the monster for a brief moment, but then it disappeared again, right in front of his eyes.

“It can do that!?”

Kai spent half a second in shock.

What woke him up was the blood gasping from his throat. He had suffered another hit, this time on the back of the neck.

With his head falling to the side, carrying the rest of the body within, he realized he shouldn’t be lying on the grass like that.

‘Damn it! I need to get up somehow.’ He thought.

Kai desperately waved his arms over the grass, trying to get up as quickly as he could. His body shook and his legs slipped out of nervousness. It took him longer than he’d like to obtain an almost-getting up position. But he suffered another attack from the back, which caused him to fall on his front again, hitting the chin on the grass.

“Damn it… Stupid thing… What is this… Feeling?”

Kai realized he was still enduring hard hits even though he was but a teenager facing a snakebird-ish ghost of his size. At first, he thought it was adrenaline, but when he stopped to consider, he felt some strange sensation in the interior of his body, in the areas where he had been hit. The sensation was similar to the one whenever he forced the body to follow his mental reflex. It was like the body was protecting itself using a variant of that power.

“I… Can still fight… Don’t need to be scared of its size.”

Kai waited with his body flat on the floor, the face facing the ground until the thing hit him again. The feeling was like he was being lashed by one of its limbs.

“Argh! G*ddamit!”

The hits made Kai’s body squirm over the grass.

‘At least now I know what you are up to… If I can endure just one more…’

Another lash opened a bloody wound on Kai’s low back If he wasn’t wearing any clothes the blood would have dripped off splashing everything.

But because Kai knew where he was hit, he could tell approximately where the monster was. He repeated the same motion he dreamed of when he died the first time: ignoring the pain with the help of his power, he turned 180 degrees and fired the wave in a single motion.

As it was shot, the monster appeared again, blessing Kai’s eyes with its horrid appearance once again.

“There you are, you little sh*t!”

He could tell the monster felt the pain of the wave, unlike the bear in his dream. The whole torso and the limps squirmed frenetically to the sides like a centipede acts when under attack.

Kai used the moment to push himself and get up, even if his back was bleeding and his whole body was feeling like it was compressed by a rolling pin.

The thing didn’t lose the opportunity to crawl back, trying to leave Kai’s vicinity. Knowing he’d never catch it again if he lost it at that time, he had to push himself even more. He used the power to make his legs run faster and approached the thing so that he could see the body closer.

‘In my dream, the weakpoint was some kind of hole where some metal things came off from. Maybe this thing also has those…’ He thought.

Just like the bear, in the joint of the torso and the limbs, he could see little glowing things. Glowing like the metal of Aimee’s strange object, or like the bear’s strange body.

Kai used all his strength left to shoot the thing right at the joints.

The whole body of the thing came down and some of the limbs were separated from the body. It shrieked in a high-pitched tone and squirmed the body over, releasing a strange fluid. The scene repeated itself for a short while, and then the body ceased moving.

Kai’s mind started feeling blank and the view began feeling endarkened, just like after he defeated the bear-shaped monster in his dream. But this time he could contain himself. He crouched down and waited for the sensation to pass, forcing himself to remain awake.

“Easy, Kai... Easy...” He tried to calm himself.

The body was panting and sweating. The view would get more and more blurry, but after a while, he felt it coming back to the original state.

“That’s just… Exhaustion… I just need to rest.”

Kai stood there staring at the thing’s body with the limbs cut off. It didn’t seem to have any additional tricks.

“Woah. I’m surprised no one came here after all this time. For how long have I been sitting here? Over ten minutes?”

Kai gathered the strength to lift up and walk to the presence’s body. He was pretty sure it was very visible now. He didn’t feel any strange sensation anymore when his eyes met the scene.

“This is going to be hard for the authorities to explain. Well… Not my job. Uh? What is this…?”

Kai bent down, reaching a little metal piece. It was a little square with some cables attached to it.

“Technology…?”

Kai tried pressing or shaking it, but nothing happened. Then he applied his unnatural strength. The thing reacted, releasing a jet of pressure, which startled Kai, causing him to drop the thing off.

“Woah!”

Kai crouched and caught the thing again.

“Is this similar to that object Aimee forgot under the desk the other day…?”