Kill the Numbers [Dark Data]

[Kuzuru]

Kuzuru groaned. Heat assaulted his bare flesh and sent beads of sweat flowing across his body. He opened his eyes and was surprised to find himself face-to-face with a pool of molten rock. The demon shifted and rolled away from the pool and onto his back. Above him there were no clouds, instead a looming darkness that not even the brightest star dared to pierce hung in the sky. Again he groaned. Damage accumulated throughout his previous battle, coupled with the food pill withdrawal sent tremors through his body. Sitting up sent waves of nausea washing over him and revealed just how sore his body was. He rubbed his stomach and scanned his surroundings.

“Ah fuck,” he stated.

Wendy garrison was nowhere to be found. Instead he found himself surrounded by lakes of fire. Behind him a mountain, scraping at the roof of this molten world. The earth beneath him percolated with the pyroclastic rumblings of an apocalyptic eruption. Fissures spewed toxic fumes and jets of steam soared high into the sky. Everything stank of rotten eggs and heat, the telltale signs of sulfur. Atop the mountain red bolts of lightning arced and thundered down the cliff face. Every strike sprayed the base of the mountain with a hailstorm of obsidian and glass.

Kuzuru rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms. It was not the inhospitable terrain that gave him conniptions, he rather admired the destructive countenance splayed before him. No, it was not the mountain that forced him to grind his teeth, but rather it was the ceaseless chattering that assaulted the inside of his skull. Hundreds of thousands of voices raged inside the very core of his being, each of them screaming for freedom. Nebula space played havoc with the prison he kept buried in his gut. Hairline cracks covered the walls that he had meticulously crafted to keep his prizes contained. A bulwark that had taken eons to craft sundered in a single solitary moment. Chittering thoughts ricocheted off the interior walls of his cranium and washed away any coherent thought of his own.

“Hey,” Miranda’s voice called out, “you okay?”

Her voice cut through the tempest and Kuzuru groggily turned his head in her direction.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, crawling to his feet, “yeah, I’m fine Miranda, just a bit shaken up is all.”

Miranda turned her attention towards the top of the mountain and said, “I think our way out is up there, we should get going.”

A blast of obsidian shards pelted Kuzuru, tearing into his bare flesh.

He cussed and said, “this place sucks, give me a minute, I need a jacket or something.”

The demon held out his hand and tried to call upon that miraculous substance known as omnilium. He envisioned a slick black leather jacket and a solid red undershirt to match. A frown stretched across his face as the rainbow material did not show itself. What had once been merely an extension of his being was now strangely absent. Beads of sweat trickled down his brow and he clenched his teeth in frustration. The deeper he dug the worse his headache became, eventually culminating in a stream of blood pouring from his nose. He cursed under his breath and wiped away the fresh red on his upper lip.

“Damnit Frosty,” he said.

He tried to tack on something witty, but for the first time in perhaps a long time he found himself at a loss for words.