Read The Bridge
 
X’s face cringed under his helmet, blackened fangs glinting in the firelight as he dreamed.
 
He was no longer in Zenith. Or anywhere recognizable for that matter. Still, as he about through the city that now surrounded him, a eerie wave of familiarity he couldn’t shake off washed over him. Granted, the word ‘city’ was barely applicable; for the metropolis he saw around him for miles was morbidly deceased. It was almost like not all of the landscape was present. No moving vehicles, no illuminated lights, nothing one would expect to find here was present but the skeletons and corpses of skyscrapers. In life some of them might have towered over the kaiju, but anything of that greatness had been toppled and shattered. Smoke still billowed from some of the vast graveyard. He tried to look at the sky to garner a detail about where he was, but night or day, the space above was clogged with clouds which in turn were choked by the smog and smoke billowing from the ruins. He tried to look at the skyscraper’s husks, but the detail in his vision deserted him. It was almost like he was looking through a filter at a blurred photograph. He could see the shapes and basic features, but nothing specific. And yet, the vagueness all seemed so familiar.
 
Have I been here before?
 
Where his sight refused to relinquish any information, his sense of touch was acute. For instance, there was something warm and wet on his palm.
 
Perplexed, he lifted his arm and looked to his hand. Unfolding his claw tipped fingers, he could make out a small form laying in his palm. Like the buildings it was of a vague detail, appearing blurry and distorted in color and specifics across most of its surface. But just enough of the image became clear as he held up his palm to his face to gain a closer inspection.
 
It was a body, of a form similar to an Xilian or Terran. Two arms, two legs, one head. And the more he looked, the more some minute features became apparent in the dark blurs. A pair of blank, violet eyes looked upwards into space; shoulder length, black hair splayed across his palm as blood flowed from its side. A single, almost foreign thought flickered passively through the kaiju’s mind as he looked it over.
 
She’s dead.
 
It took a moment for the thought to fully register, causing his head to snap up a bit and tilt. He could barely make out any details about this body, much less its exact species. Yet somehow the knowledge was irrefutable, he just was clueless to the reason.
 
How did I know it was a she?…
 
He felt more warmth across both his hands now. Looking to them, X was shocked and somewhat horrified to see both of his limbs coated in spattered sanguine all the way to his elbows. The blood almost materializing out of nowhere, and despite his best efforts, refused to be wiped or flicked off. More disgusting, fat, liquid heat was invading his form. There was black and red blood everywhere. Pouring from the building windows, boiling up from the streets; and flooding out from the alleys. Within moments X was up to his knees in life’s currency.
 
Confused, repulsed, and disgusted; the kaiju lifted his legs to kick himself free. But the blood refused to leave, sticking to him like a vat of tar. And like a beast stuck in a tar pit, he was beginning to sink. The progress was slow at first, but the ocean of blood soon began gluttonously swallowing him up. X tried everything he could to free himself. Telekinesis, fighting for freedom, blasting the pool with graviton flares; but nothing worked. He was now up to his chest in blood, more of it creeping up his arms and shoulders like a virus. His dread and shock over took the usually calm kaiju’s senses he tried to keep his head above the drowning gore.
 
Then came the tidal wave of pain. Every submerged limb, every patch of skin and every muscle or bone below it was ignited. X roared and screamed in agony as the blood came to his mouth’s level and began to spill in, choking him. It was approaching his eyes when he could feel his bones breaking and being forced back together in a myriad of different ways, as if he was being torn apart from the inside and put back together differently. The blood over took his trembling eyes when he finally got some company in the darkness. A voice. More like a growl, it was dark, callous, deep; and threatening.
 
The source was invisible, seemingly swirling around and echoing to him in the dark void. It was remarkably similar and remarkably different from his own at the same time.
 
Terrible things X… We’ve done terrible things…
 
The voice cackled gleefully. The agonizing pains in his body grew only worse and worse, an especially wretched amount building up around his repeatedly broken shoulder blades. Then he saw the host of the voice. Three pairs of glowing red lights appeared in the darkness above him. By the time he realized they were a trio of glaring eyes that towered over him, they were already lunging at him. The eyes grew just close enough for X to see three sets of fanged jaws beneath them; when he felt something tear its way out of his back, the pain stiffed his yell.