Chapter 10 — The Night the Street Broke
714 Words
The impact sounded like a car crash.
Concrete cracked under their feet. The streetlamp above them flickered violently as the spirit slammed into him with the weight of something far larger than its body should have allowed.
She stumbled backward, nearly falling as dust and broken pavement sprayed across the ground.
For the first time since she met him…
He didn’t stop it instantly.
The spirit’s claws dug into his coat and drove him several feet across the street before he finally planted his feet.
The asphalt groaned under the pressure.
“You’ve grown heavier,” he said through clenched teeth.
The creature’s mouth stretched wide enough to show rows of jagged shadow-teeth.
“And you’ve grown slower.”
It pushed harder.
More darkness poured from the watching spirits on the rooftops, feeding into the creature’s back like rivers flowing downhill.
The thing was getting bigger by the second.
She felt panic claw its way into her chest.
“Hey!” she shouted.
Neither of them looked at her.
Great.
The spirit roared and swung one massive arm.
The blow caught the man in the side and sent him crashing into the hood of a parked car. Metal screamed as the hood crumpled beneath him.
The windshield shattered.
Glass scattered across the street.
The watching spirits hissed in approval.
Her heart pounded.
“You said you destroy these things!” she yelled.
The man slowly pushed himself up from the crushed car.
His coat hung torn at the shoulder now.
But his face…
His face looked different.
Colder.
The kind of cold you see in someone who has done something too many times.
“I do,” he said.
The spirit lunged again.
This time faster.
Its claws sliced through the air toward his throat.
But now he moved.
Not like before.
Before he had been calm.
Measured.
Now he moved like something that had decided the conversation was over.
He caught the creature’s arm mid-swing.
The moment his hand closed around it—
The spirit screamed.
A real scream.
Sharp. Panicked.
Cracks spread across its arm like fractures in black glass.
The creature thrashed violently, trying to pull away.
But his grip tightened.
“You forgot something,” he said quietly.
The spirit’s hollow eyes widened.
“You’re made from human emotions.”
The cracks spread further up its arm.
The creature’s body began to shake.
“And humans are fragile things.”
With a sudden twist—
He ripped the spirit’s arm clean off.
The sound it made was horrible.
Not flesh tearing.
Something worse.
Like a scream made of broken echoes.
The severed limb dissolved into smoke before it even hit the ground.
The watching spirits recoiled.
Fear spread through them like fire.
The large creature staggered back, clutching its shattered shoulder.
“You cannot destroy hunger!” it shrieked.
“No,” he said calmly.
“But I can destroy you.”
The spirit lunged one last time.
Desperate.
Wild.
He stepped forward to meet it.
One hand pressed flat against the creature’s chest.
For a brief moment… nothing happened.
Then the cracks began.
They spread from his hand across the entire spirit’s body.
Thin lines of glowing fractures tearing through its shadow-form.
The creature froze.
Its mouth opened.
A silent scream.
Then—
It shattered.
The explosion of darkness rippled outward across the street like a shockwave.
The smaller spirits on the rooftops shrieked and scattered into the night.
Gone.
All of them.
The silence that followed felt enormous.
She stared at the empty street.
Her pulse still racing.
“Well,” she said slowly.
“That escalated quickly.”
The man exhaled.
For a moment he looked steady again.
Then his knees buckled.
He caught himself against the crushed car before he could fall.
Her eyes widened.
“Wait—”
She rushed toward him.
“You said you do this all the time.”
His breathing had grown heavier now.
“Yes.”
“Then why do you look like that almost killed you?”
He gave a faint, tired smile.
“Because tonight…”
His gaze lifted toward the rooftops where the spirits had vanished.
“…they weren’t trying to feed.”
A pause.
Then he finished quietly.
“They were trying to kill me.”
- Writer
