//------------------------------// // . // Story: 80 Days: Under the Waves // by Sharp Spark //------------------------------// The rest of the night was a blur of violence and chaos, as Sawtooth and I fought from one street to the next, waging war against a seemingly endless wave of unearthly creatures. Most were the pale, eyeless equines that we had first seen. They fought with an astonishing lack of self-preservation that made every encounter dangerous. The beasts would accept any wound, no matter how mortal, if it allowed them the opportunity to draw blood in their headlong attacks. Even stranger monsters roamed the streets, with tentacles and claws and bulbous malformed bodies. I could not stop to analyze or comprehend our enemies. I simply fought on, and on, even as exhaustion set into my very bones. At times Sawtooth would be at my side, and then he would vanish, pulled away into the darkness to pursue a foe or rescue a friend. And yet, just as I found myself outmatched and on the verge of despair, he would reappear again to jump into the fray and together we would overcome the most dire of odds. An eternity of hours later, I heard a piercing, otherworldly scream, and all of the invaders halted, freezing in place. In pure shock, I found myself doing the same for a fraction of a second, but then the creatures retreated, fleeing headlong with the same singularity of purpose that they had previously put to murder. I slumped back against Sawtooth, my hide slick with ichor and blood. “We… we did it,” I gasped out, as black spots spun in my vision. My exertions had caught up to me in full, and I felt consciousness quickly slipping from my grasp. I looked over, searching out Sawtooth’s uneven grin, but I could sense something else lurking in his eyes. My vision trailed down, to see a horrendous jagged wound stretching down his right foreleg. And then I fell headlong into unconsciousness. I awoke in yet another unfamiliar place...