Reborn Before The Apocalypse

CHAPTER 6: BLACKOUT

Kyle screamed.

It wasn't a word; it was just a raw, sudden sound as the red light in his palm began to crawl up his fingers like something living.

"Kyle!" Lilly’s chair clattered to the floor behind her. "Let go of it! Let go!"

"I can't…" His voice cracked. "I can't let go…"

The apartment went pitch black, leaving nothing but the dim, gray glow of the streetlights through the window. In that sliver of light, I watched the red glow climb past Kyle’s wrist and up his elbow. Veins began to light up beneath his skin, looking less like light and more like something was moving through his blood.

[WARNING: Hostile signature spreading.]

[Recommendation: Do not touch host.]

Great. Thanks. Real helpful.

I grabbed the first thing I could find on the table my wine glass, which was useless and tossed it aside, grabbing the bread knife instead. It was the only sharp thing within reach, though I had no clue what I was actually supposed to do with it. You can’t exactly stab light out of a person.

"Jayden, do something!" Lilly’s voice broke, thick with pure, unadulterated panic.

Kyle collapsed to his knees, still clutching the object. The red light was already past his shoulder, casting a sickening glow across the left side of his face. His eyes locked onto mine across the table, and for one single, terrifying second, I saw something in them that wasn't fear.

It was recognition.

"You knew," he wheezed, his teeth gritted against whatever was tearing him apart from the inside. "You knew something was wrong with it. Your face the second I picked it up; you already knew."

I didn't have time to defend myself. The light hit his throat, and his back arched violently. A sound tore out of him that didn't even sound human anymore.

[Host destabilizing.]

[Anomaly conversion: IN PROGRESS.]

Conversion. My stomach dropped through the floor.

"Get back!" I grabbed Lilly by the arm and hauled her toward the hallway, pulling her away from the table and away from Kyle. He was still on his knees, but he wasn't Kyle anymore not really, not with that light now pouring out of his eyes instead of just his skin.

"We can't just leave him!" She struggled against me, tears streaming down her face. "Jayden, that's Kyle…"

"That isn't Kyle anymore." My own voice sounded foreign to me flat, cold, and unrecognizable. "Look at him, Lilly. Just look at his eyes."

She looked. Whatever she saw made her stop fighting me instantly.

Kyle’s head snapped up. The light had swallowed his eyes completely, leaving nothing but two crimson points where a human gaze should have been. When he spoke, his voice was layered and distorted, like two different throats were speaking at once.

"He knew," it said, using Kyle’s mouth to stare directly at me. "He's had one this whole time."

My blood turned to ice.

Had one this whole time. It wasn't talking about the object. It was talking about something else. Something the thing wearing Kyle’s face could sense, just like my system could.

"What are you talking about?" I tightened my grip on Lilly, pulling her another step back.

The thing that used to be Kyle smiled a slow, wrong expression, with red light pulsing behind its teeth. "First of the Reborn," it said. The words hit me like a physical blow to the chest because I had never uttered that phrase out loud to another living soul. "Marcus is going to be very interested in you."

The name meant nothing to me, but it meant everything to whatever was watching from the void this thing had come from.

Kyle’s body lurched forward with a speed that was impossibly faster than the man I'd known for three years had ever moved in his life. I shoved Lilly hard toward the bedroom door.

"Go! Lock yourself in, now!"

She didn't argue this time. She ran.

The thing wearing my best friend's face turned those glowing eyes on me. The last thing I heard before the violence started was a voice that was barely Kyle’s at all low, almost gentle.

"Don't worry, Jayden," it said. "This part's going to hurt him a lot more than it hurts you."