"It's now or never," he muttered to no one in particular.
He tossed some cash into the band's tip jar -because damn, they were good- and strode out the door, the cool night air slapping against his skin like an uninvited reality check. His van was parked down the street in a back lot. It was a familiar comfort in his increasingly chaotic world. It smelled faintly of old coffee, burnt wires, and the stubborn remnants of the last burrito he regretted eating. He climbed in, gripping the wheel like it might anchor him to something solid.
His mind buzzed like an overclocked processor, memories colliding like badly written subroutines. Ash had consumed his focus -his every thought, his every damn breath- and it had been easy to let her pull him into her gravity well. But the mission hadn't changed. His parents' murderer was still out there, weaving his grotesque artistry in blood and bone.
And Nile? Nile was no closer to stopping him than he was to figuring out why the hell Ash made his heart feel like a frag grenade with a pulled pin.
The necromancer, Buru'Enmeli. The name hissed through his mind like static, an unwelcome virus in his neural pathways. Nile had tracked his movements for days, finding only the aftermath -a parade of victims left to rot in grotesque poses, their souls siphoned away like cheap fuel. The bastard was always a step ahead, an elusive phantom painting the town red in the worst possible way.
His hands clenched. He should have been there. He should have stopped it.
Instead, he had been playing house, stealing moments with Ash, letting himself pretend he could have something normal.
Not anymore.
He floored the gas, the van lurching onto the empty road. He had a lead -the last known coordinates where Buru'Enmeli had been sighted. He'd been hunting him for weeks, but it always ended the same. Too late. Too weak. Too damn slow.
That had to change.
The foothills of Altadena loomed ahead, a jagged silhouette against the cloudless sky. The air smelled of pine and distant rain, the stars above indifferent to the war waging inside him. His fingers drummed against the steering wheel, a nervous habit he barely noticed anymore.
Dom's face flickered in his mind. A gut-punch of unresolved baggage. After the memory adjustment at the boys and girls club, he had shoved it all into a mental lockbox labeled Do Not Open Unless You Want a Full-Blown Crisis.
He wasn't avoiding her.
Okay, maybe he was.
He slapped the wheel, frustration spilling over. "Damnit, I'm not!"
The universe remained unconvinced.
He took a steadying breath and pulled off the road. A pair of motorcycles were parked nearby, their owners setting up camp a few yards away, blissfully unaware that they were one brutal reality shift away from being corpses.
Because Buru'Enmeli was here.
Nile felt it before he saw it -a slithering wrongness in the air, like a corrupted line of code distorting reality. The shadows lengthened unnaturally, the temperature dropping in a way that had nothing to do with altitude. He stepped out, boots crunching against dry leaves, every sense on high alert.
The campers -a couple in their early twenties with matching North Face jackets and the particular brand of optimism unique to people who hadn't yet encountered things that go bump in the existential night- were laughing as they struggled with tent poles. Oblivious to the cold fingers of fate reaching for their jugulars.
Nile's hand went to the small of his back, where a modified tactical blade hummed with dormant energy -as he activated Recall Override. A new and -very- dangerous combat ability he had accidentally unlocked during his hunt for the necromancer. It wasn't his first choice -he preferred digital warfare, clean and distant- but he'd learned the hard way that some monsters needed to bleed the old-fashioned way.
System Notification: Recall Override
? Rift Sync Activated ?
? Syncing with Future Self… ?
? Combat Mastery Boost: +Temporary Tactical Awareness, +Advanced Reflexes ?
? Neural Instability Detected: Short-Term Memory Loss Inevitable ?
? Warning: Excessive Use May Cause Permanent Cognitive Erosion ?
The message flickered in Nile’s vision before fading, leaving only the cold certainty that when this fight ended, a piece of him wouldn’t make it back.
His whole demeanor changed as the ability took effect. From one breath to the next, the uncertainty -and fear- was replaced by a grim determination. Followed quickly by a flood of skills. His whole nervous system flexed and relaxed as it cycled through the muscle memories of a future self who might never exist. Not if he failed here.
There were drawbacks, of course. There often were. But the chance at success was worth the possible loss of short term memories. Inevitable, he amended silently.
He’d already used the ability several times before, and he hadn’t noticed much of a difference.
He kept telling himself that it was worth it. And yet there was a nagging doubt that refused to be silenced. What if he was wrong?
Suddenly, the air pressure changed, a subtle drop that made his ears pop. Like the universe holding its breath before someone pulled the trigger.
He scanned the treeline, activating his enhanced perception -a mental upgrade he'd woven into his pattern after their last encounter left him with three cracked ribs and a newfound appreciation for internal hemorrhaging. The shadows between the trees shifted, not with wind but with purpose. With hunger.
"Buru'Enmeli!" Nile called out, his voice steady despite the adrenaline flooding his system. "Let's skip the horror movie foreplay. I know you're there." He could feel the sudden tension of the campers as they heard what could only be a madman shouting into the night.
Silence answered him. Then, a soft chuckle -the kind that makes skin crawl and primal instincts scream run.
"The campers," Nile continued, edging closer to the unsuspecting couple. "They're innocents. Your beef is with me."
Another laugh, closer now. "Innocence is a luxury, little hacker. One none of us can afford."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere -a nauseating acoustic trick that sent Nile's head swiveling. The campers paused, finally sensing something amiss in the air.
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"Hey man, you okay?" the male camper called, concern etching his bearded face. "You look like you've seen a-"
The darkness exploded.
It wasn't just shadow -it was anti-light, a negation of reality that poured from between trees like sentient oil. The campers screamed, scrambling backward as tendrils of void lashed toward them with unnatural velocity.
Nile moved without thinking, his body operating on combat routines burned into his muscle memory through countless future encounters and simulations. He lunged forward, fingers dancing through the air, executing a complex digital sigil. A wall of hexagonal light materialized between the campers and the encroaching darkness -Firewall Protocol: active.
"RUN!" Nile shouted, not looking back to see if they obeyed.
They did. Smart kids.
The darkness coalesced, solidifying into a form that had haunted Nile's nightmares for what felt like months. Buru'Enmeli stood seven feet tall, his insectoid form a tapestry of shifting shadows and half-glimpsed horrors. His face -what passed for a face- was a mask of aristocratic disdain sculpted from primordial void. It was a nightmare layered over a chitinous exoskeleton, his fractal eyes like twin singularities that devoured light.
"Your enhancements are... interesting," the necromancer mused, idly examining Nile as if he were an unusual specimen pinned to a board. "Clumsy integration, though. Whoever taught you weaving should be executed. For mercy's sake, if nothing else."
Nile unclenched his jaw, forcing a smirk. "What can I say? I'm self-taught. But I'm a quick study."
Buru'Enmeli's laughter was a slow, deliberate thing -his mandibles grinding against each other in a sickening display of hunger. "Ah. Defiance. They all start that way."
The necromancer struck first, darkness lashing out in jagged tendrils. Nile barely dodged, rolling to the side, his body moving before his mind caught up. He countered, sending a surge of mental disruption through the air -Logic Bomb detonating in an unseen pulse.
The effect was instant. The necromancer staggered, his form almost glitching like a corrupted file, fracturing at the edges where reality attempted to reassert itself. But then he straightened, features recalibrating into that inhuman smirk. "Amusing. You think yourself clever. A mere boy wielding borrowed power."
"And you're what? Some undead has-been who peaked centuries ago?" Nile tightened his stance, swallowing the creeping edge of doubt. His hand reached for the knife at his back, its hilt warm against his palm.
Buru'Enmeli's next attack came without warning -no telegraphing, no dramatic wind-up, just pure malevolent intent translated into action. The ground beneath Nile liquefied into seething shadow, spectral hands grabbing at his ankles, his calves, his thighs. Cold, impossibly strong spectral fingers trying to drag him down into a darkness that promised oblivion.
When they first clashed, Nile would have panicked. Fought wildly. Lost badly.
But his earlier encounter had taught him a lot -including to be prepared.
Nile activated his Counter-Intrusion Protocol, skin lighting up with circuit-like patterns of blue energy. The shadow-hands sizzled and recoiled, smoke rising from where they'd touched him. He leapt backward, buying himself space, and in the same fluid motion, flung three disks of light -glowing blades of concentrated code that sliced through the air with hypersonic precision.
Buru'Enmeli sneered, batting two away with casual contempt. The third, however, caught him across the chest, carving a glitching wound that spurted not blood but shimmering digital fragments -corrupted data made manifest.
Nile grinned. Wow, this is new, a part of him whispered.
"First blood to you, little one," the necromancer acknowledged, genuine surprise flickering across his void-crafted features. "Perhaps I've underestimated your growth."
"Wouldn't be the first time someone made that mistake." Nile circled cautiously, the blade in his hand beginning to pulse with energy as it caused a distortion in the space around it. "Won't be the last."
"Submit," Buru'Enmeli whispered, voice threading into the marrow of Nile's bones, a psychic assault disguised as conversation. "You could have power beyond your imagining. I could teach you, elevate you. You would never be weak again."
For a split second -one terrible, treacherous second- Nile considered it.
Power. Enough to take back control. Enough to ensure no one he cared about was ever left bleeding on the floor again.
The offer slithered through his defenses like it had GPS coordinates to his deepest insecurities. It knew exactly where to strike -that small, frightened part of him that had watched his parents in the hospital, that had felt Dom's disappointed gaze, that had lied to Ash again and again.
Then Buru'Enmeli struck, not with shadow this time but with something worse -memory. Nile's mind exploded with images of his father's broken body, his mother's vacant eyes. The necromancer wasn't just attacking; he was feeding, drawing strength from Nile's trauma like a vampire gorging on arterial spray.
"Enough!" Nile roared, the sound tearing from his throat with such force that digital static rippled through the air. His desperation catalyzed something new -something he'd been developing in secret, code written in the darkest hours when sleep eluded him.
Execution Override: Initiated.
The world around them stuttered, reality buffering like a video stream on bad WiFi. Trees, rocks, sky -all froze for precisely 2.7 seconds as Nile's consciousness expanded outward, interfacing directly with the fabric of local spacetime.
For that brief, beautiful moment, Nile wasn't just in the world; he was the world.
When reality resumed, he was different -upgraded. Lines of golden code shimmered beneath his skin, his eyes projecting holographic targeting interfaces. He moved with impossible speed, covering the distance between them before Buru'Enmeli could adjust his tactics.
The necromancer's eyes widened. "What have you-"
Nile's blade -now blazing with energy that didn't belong in this dimension- sliced upward in a perfect arc. It connected with the necromancer's torso, and for the first time in his long, bloody history, Buru'Enmeli screamed.
It wasn't a human sound. It wasn't even a sound that should be able to exist within the narrow band of frequencies human eardrums could process. It was the auditory equivalent of watching space-time fold in on itself -a cosmic wrongness translated into vibration.
The wound didn't bleed. Instead, it leaked -fragments of corrupted reality dripping from the gash like digital viscera. Buru'Enmeli staggered back, clutching at himself, disbelief warring with rage on his fractured features.
"What... what manner of weapon is this?" he demanded, his voice glitching between octaves.
Nile twirled the knife, letting its unearthly glow illuminate his face. "Something old. Something new. Something borrowed." His smile was all teeth. "Something that's going to make you very, very blue."
The necromancer lunged, abandoning elegance for raw ferocity. Shadows erupted from him like artillery fire, each blast aimed to maim, to disable, to end. Nile danced between them, his movements guided by predictive algorithms analyzing attack patterns in real-time.
He wasn't just fighting; he was computing -processing Buru'Enmeli's combat style, identifying weaknesses, exploiting inefficiencies. It wasn't enough to match the necromancer's power; Nile had to outsmart it.
A system timer tried to distract him from the battle, informing him that he had less than a minute left before Recall Override deactivated, leaving him vulnerable.
As if sensing this, Buru’Enmeli hissed, "You cannot sustain this," frustration bleeding into his attacks. "Whatever you've done to yourself, it's killing you. I can see it."
He wasn't wrong. Nile's vision was already fragmenting at the edges, blood trickling from his nose as his organic system struggled to handle the processing load. The Execution Override was a last resort for a reason -like overclocking a CPU until the components melted. And that coupled with the strain of Recall Override was too much.
But he only needed a few more seconds.
Nile feinted left, then drove forward with killing intent. The necromancer countered with a wall of writhing shadows, expecting Nile to retreat. Instead, Nile did the unthinkable -he plunged directly into the darkness, blade first.
Pain exploded across every nerve ending as the shadows attempted to unmake him on a molecular level. It was like being decompiled, his very essence parsed into component parts by hostile code. But he pushed through, guided by nothing but grim determination and the tracer path his combat algorithm had calculated.
And then he was through, emerging on the other side, directly behind the stunned necromancer.
"Impossible," Buru'Enmeli breathed.
"Improbable," Nile corrected, and drove the blade into the exact spot where the entity's corrupted heart would be -if it had one.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Then:
Catastrophic System Failure.
Buru'Enmeli convulsed, his shadowy form destabilizing like a graphics card on the brink of meltdown. Lines of eldritch runes scrolled across his body, his face contorting into expressions that had no business existing in three-dimensional space.
"This... is not... the end," the necromancer managed, voice skipping like a scratched vinyl record.
"No," Nile agreed, twisting the blade deeper. "But it's one hell of a checkpoint."
The necromancer's form imploded, collapsing into a singularity of corrupted reality. A shockwave of displaced energy knocked Nile backward, sending him tumbling across the forest floor. When he finally stopped rolling, the clearing was empty -no sign of Buru'Enmeli except for a patch of ground where nothing would ever grow again.
Nile struggled to his feet, his enhanced state already fading. Blood trickled from his ears and eyes, internal systems shutting down in an orchestrated sequence to prevent permanent damage. He had breaths, maybe, before unconsciousness claimed him.
He saw the campers peering from behind a distant boulder, wide-eyed and irrevocably changed. Their world would never be the same -they'd glimpsed behind the curtain, seen the gears of a reality more complex than human minds were designed to process.
"Sorry about the show," Nile called weakly. "You might want to... rethink camping."
Then Nile’s world collapsed into unconsciousness.
His last coherent thought before darkness took him was of Dom, and Ash.
They’re going to kill me if they find out, he thought.
∞
Somewhere in the shadowy void, what remained of Buru'Enmeli screamed.
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