Giygas's Spawn
Awakening
Part 7
Ness opened his eyes. There was a doctor standing above him with a stethoscope. He felt the cold steel of the instrument on his chest and heard the doctor say ‘He’s awake’. Ness rolled his head to the side groggily and saw two sets of feet. One of them belonged to a monkey, judging by the fur on them, and another belonged to Paula. Ness realized he was on the ground and tried to sit up, but felt a horrible pain in his head. He fell back to the ground, but the pain persisted.
"Ughh...What happened? My head..."
Ness could remember little, except seeing the ground bulge and alerting everyone. He couldn’t tell how long he had been asleep or unconscious, whatever condition it was that caused him to end up here. All he could see was that he wasn’t in a room, but lying on the ground in some foggy, somewhat smelly place. All of his friends, a doctor, and a monkey were standing around him.
"Ness, you tried to bash the spawn’s head in. Apparently, it’s stronger than we thought." said Paula. She kneeled down beside Ness and squeezed his hand.
"When your bat came down upon the head of this ‘spawn’, you absorbed all the shock. The vertebrae in your neck were moved out of place, and the spinal nerve leading to your brain was damaged. That caused you to black out, and that is what is causing your headache right now, " said the doctor. "You probably have little memory of what happened. That is another effect of the impact."
"I may be able to help," said Poo suddenly. Ness rolled his head to the other side and saw Poo standing above him. Ness suddenly realized that he must have been in Deep Darkness. The air was very humid, and the smell was enough to make Ness remember when they had first come here, looking for truffles.
Poo told Ness to roll onto his stomach. He put his hands on Ness’s back and made a quick, somewhat painful move. Ness felt sick for a passing moment, and then realized that his headache had gone away. He pushed himself up with his arms and stood. He was a little lightheaded, but soon felt much better.
"Amazing! Where did you learn that, young man?" asked the doctor.
"My father, before he became king, was the village doctor. Many people were brought in who had fallen off of one of the terraces in Dalaam. Although most terraces are only 20 feet tall, many people landed upon their backs, nearly breaking them. My father learned how to heal people with conditions like Ness’s," said Poo. His accent, once again, was fading.
"I would very much like to visit your country some day!" said the doctor, still amazed.
The monkey began chattering in a high-pitched tone.
"Kiykaa yaa Kaa. Yiiii Ka Ma Sika!"
Ness realized that the monkey was hungry, saying that he wanted a banana. The doctor turned and angrily told him to go find one on his own. The monkey muttered something, and in an instant had disappeared, using teleportation. Ness remembered teaching that same monkey to use teleportation a long time ago.
The monkey appeared a few seconds later, its eyes wide. It began chattering wildly.
"KYAAA KAH HI KIYA! Kuku sik KIKI!!!!"
Ness was perplexed at first. The monkey language was hard enough to understand without them flying off the handle and talking way too fast. Ness tried to make out what the monkey was saying, and only understood ‘Fourside’ and ‘big’.
The doctor paled, and turned to Ness. "This monster you’re chasing - Aykaya says he saw it, near Fourside."
Ness led everyone over to what was nearly the only place in Deep Darkness where they could teleport, a grassy opening. Ness was reminded of home by the green grass and wished that this was all a dream. Everyone got in a circle and teleported to Fourside.
This was trouble. Jeff had told Poo to teleport them to Deep Darkness because it was too far away for the spawn to reach them. The monster would have to travel hundreds of miles, and it seemed that the only way it traveled was by tunneling underground. But since Deep Darkness was across the ocean, the monster would have to be able to swim. Jeff doubted that was possible. Its massive size would keep it from surfacing for air, and without skin, water would leak inside the being.
But now, their plan had backfired. The spawn realized that they were gone, and decided that the only way to lure them back would be to make an attack on a highly populated city. A city like Fourside.
****
Ness and his friends appeared in Fourside. What they saw was staggering. Water mains were spraying water hundreds of feet into the air. The once beautiful, paved avenues of Fourside were now large chunks of asphalt, broken into millions of pieces. Some buildings were missing top stories, some buildings were no longer standing. Sounds of terror filled the air. People lie upon the streets, some with very serious wounds. An explosion rocked the city, and Ness saw a huge fireball erupt somewhere near the north side.
"No...This can’t be happening! This city has over 300,000 people in it! We’ve got to find that spawn before anything else happens!" said Paula frantically.
A familiar shriek sounded almost directly above them. They didn’t need to find the monster; it had already found them.